Nicholas Searle - The Good Liar

detailing her life until her marriage.

‘What are you looking for, then?’ asked Gerald gruffly.

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‘I’m not really sure, if that’s not too unsatisfactory an answer.’

‘Of course it is. It’s completely unsatisfactory.’

‘Well then. Answers.’

‘Come on, Elisabeth. That’s no good. Too vague. You’ll have to

do better than that. You’ve run enough research projects. You

know the adage. They’re only as good as the specification at the

beginning.’

‘I do believe that’s your adage, Gerald. Not especially memorable

or inspiring, is it?’

‘All right,’ he said, shaking his head in frustration. ‘But it’s perfectly true. You don’t want me thinking you’ve turned into a batty

old woman. What are these questions you want answers to?’

‘Isn’t that obvious, from the account of my life you’ve just heard?’

He waited a couple of beats as if summoning his patience. ‘It

may be, it may not. What’s the single question to which you’re

seeking the answer?’

‘Well, I suppose how my father and mother ended up being pros-

ecuted, and how we came to be sent to the camps.’

He fidgeted. ‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning who told those lies. And why.’

‘Progress at last. Hallelujah. The who will be difficult enough.

The why may turn out to be impossible. You do realize, don’t you,

that the authorities may simply have taken against your father? By

your account, he didn’t exactly go out of his way to curry favour

with them. It’s entirely possible they may simply have lighted on a malicious comment from a business rival.’

‘Possible, Gerald, but unlikely, I’d say. You know as well as I do

that at that stage the authorities were maintaining at least the

appearance of due process. There will have been a report some-

where or other.’

‘Quite possibly in the Russians’ hands. Or destroyed. I don’t fancy our chances.’

‘Ever the optimist. That’s what I love about you, Gerald.’ She

beamed at him and could see that despite himself he was won over.

‘There’ll be a trace somewhere, Gerald. You know there will.’

Indeed there was. It had taken a good eight years, but there was a

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trace. Then Gerald and his assistants pulled at the end of the string, and it all began to unravel.

One winter’s evening Gerald and Stephen had sat with her in

the drawing room in front of a log fire. Gerald asked Stephen to

present their findings. For Christ’s sake, no PowerPoint, she knew

he’d have said to the bashful, rather pretty young man with long

eyelashes behind his spectacles. No bloody visuals at all. Just talk.

And don’t make it too obviously scripted. She likes the sense of a

conversation.

Numerous names were discussed. A disgruntled middle- manager

in Albert Schröder’s main factory who had been overlooked for pro-

motion. A servant whom Magda had dismissed for pilfering. The

owner of a competitor business who knew Hermann Goering per-

sonally. A writer who had been ridiculed at one of Magda’s salons

for views that verged on the fascist. In the end they succeeded in

narrowing it down to one compelling candidate.

Hans Taub.

10

They have gathered in the empty lounge of the mews cottage. It

looks even smaller to Elisabeth with the furniture removed. Elisa-

beth sits on one of the two kitchen chairs that remain. Gerald takes the other, while Stephen stands.

‘He’s gone, then,’ says Gerald.

‘I rather think so. Don’t you?’

Gerald looks at her, that mixture of astonishment and distaste on

his face so familiar from when she was his supervisor. She has never been able to work out whether he is so bad at hiding his feelings or whether this is an artifice, deliberately constructed to conceal what is really going on in that rather egg- shaped bald head.

‘Um, I took him to the station two hours ago,’ says Stephen. ‘Saw

him on to his train. It left on time.’

‘Well, that’s the last we’ll see of him, I suppose,’ says Gerald.

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‘Hmm,’ says Elisabeth non- committally. ‘I suppose we’d better

get a move- on. My own train is . . . When is it, Stephen?’

‘About fifty minutes. We have plenty of time.’

‘The practical arrangements. Please may we run through them

again?’

‘The let runs out on the house at the end of the month,’ says

Gerald. ‘But we’ll deliver the keys back this afternoon, once you’re safely on the train. As you can see, the men have taken the furniture to the charity shop. Cleaners will be in on Monday. And that’s an

end to it.’

‘What if, you know, what if he comes back?’ asks Stephen.

‘I shall leave him a note. I’ve already written it.’

‘What does it say?’ says Gerald.

‘None of your beeswax, young man,’ she replies. ‘It more or less

covers everything.’

‘My guess is he won’t come back. He’ll cut his losses.’

‘I’m not so sure,’ says Elisabeth thoughtfully. ‘If not, I’ll post him a copy. If he’s still traceable.’

‘Either way he’s going to be a very disappointed little boy. All the transactions have taken place, haven’t they, Stephen?’

‘Yes. The account was drained down this morning. Vincent was

kind enough to do the necessary. And yes, we have checked. It’s all safely back in Elisabeth’s account, including Roy’s stake. Or rather Hans’s. Where only she can access it. I’ve got all the documentation.

And his keypad to log on. Do you . . .’ He looks at her questioningly.

‘Yes. I’ll take them,’ she says. ‘His things?’

‘I bundled them up and threw them in that old suitcase he left

here,’ says Stephen. ‘I was going to take them to the charity shop.

Or failing that to the council tip.’

‘All right.’

‘Stroke of luck, Vincent coming onside like that,’ says Gerald.

‘Well, given his background . . .’ says Stephen. ‘It would have

been manageable otherwise. But tricky.’

‘Not luck at all. Stephen accomplished that part of it extremely

cleverly,’ says Elisabeth. ‘Hidden talents.’

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She smiles at him. He glances at her shyly and smiles back.

‘Makes a change from the day job,’ says Gerald. ‘I’d never seen a

career for myself in confidence tricks.’

‘No,’ she says. ‘It’s not something I’d care to repeat myself.’

‘Still. All over now, eh?’

‘Hmm,’ she says. ‘Time to go, I think.’

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1

At last her journey is over and she is back home. It feels peaceful on the platform, beneath a grey- blue sky, the air fresher than she recalls, with the tang of the countryside. Her things have been sent on; all she carries is her handbag. Andrew had suggested a car to take her

the whole way, but it was not the extravagance that deterred her. It would have tired her unduly, cramped in the same space, prising

herself out at motorway service stations with the customary charm

of cut- throat British plastic commercialism. Besides, she likes the train. Though the old civilities have faded, even on the railway, it is a way to travel, rather than simply to go. She has negotiated the