Believing the Lie by Elizabeth George Read Free Book Online

two-year-old. He’s gone to the shops, that’s all. There’re lights onin the house and the other car’s here. I expect you can work out what that means.”
    She wouldn’t say the name, naturally. She might have added, “Your father’s
lodger
is at home,” with that nasty emphasis that communicated volumes. But that would be to acknowledge Kaveh Mehran’s existence, which she had no intention of doing. She did say, “Timothy,” meaningfully, and inclined her head towards the house. This meant he was to drag Gracie from the car and march her through the garden gate to the door because Niamh didn’t intend to do it.
    He shoved his door open. He tossed his rucksack over the low stone wall and then jerked open his sister’s door. He said, “Out,” and grabbed her arm.
    She shrieked, “No!” and “I won’t!” and began to kick.
    Niamh unfastened Gracie’s safety belt and said, “Stop making a scene. The whole village will think I’m killing you.”
    “I don’t care! I don’t care!” Gracie sobbed. “I want to go with you, Mummy!”
    “Oh, for the love of God.” Then Niamh was out of the car as well, but not to help Tim manage his sister. Instead, she grabbed up Gracie’s rucksack, opened it, and threw it over the wall. It landed—this was a mercy at least—on Gracie’s trampoline, where its contents spilled out into the rain. Among those contents was Gracie’s favourite doll, not one of those hideously misshapen fantasy women with feet in the wear-high-heels position and nippleless tits at attention but a baby doll so scarily realistic that to toss it out to land on its head in the middle of a trampoline should have been considered child abuse.
    At this Gracie screamed. Tim shot his mother a look. Niamh said, “What did you expect me to do?” And then to Gracie, “If you don’t want it ruined, I suggest you fetch it.”
    Gracie was out of the car in a flash. She was into the garden and up onto the trampoline and cradling her doll, still weeping, only now her tears mixed with the falling rain. Tim said to his mother, “Nice one, that.”
    She said, “Talk to your father about it.”
    That was, of course, her answer to everything. Talk to your father, as if he, who he was, and what he’d done comprised the excuse for every rotten thing Niamh Cresswell did.
    Tim slammed the door and turned away. He went into the garden while behind him he heard the Volvo take off, bearing his mother to wherever because he didn’t much care. She could fuck whatever loser she wanted to fuck, as far as he was concerned.
    In front of him, Gracie sat howling on her trampoline. Had it not been raining, she would have jumped upon it, wearing herself out, because that’s what she did and she did it every day, just as what he did was what he did and he did it every day as well.
    He scooped up his rucksack and watched her for a moment. Pain in the arse, she was, but she didn’t deserve what she’d been handed. He went over to the trampoline and reached for her rucksack. “Gracie,” he said, “let’s go inside.”
    “I’m not,” she said. “I’m not, I’m not.” She clutched her doll to her bosom, which caused a little tear in Tim’s own chest.
    He couldn’t remember the doll’s name. He said, “Look, I’ll check for spiders, Gracie, and I’ll get rid of cobwebs. You can put…whatsername…in her cot—”
    “Bella. She’s called Bella,” Gracie sniffed.
    “All right. Bella-she’s-called-Bella. You can put Bella-she’s-called-Bella in her cot and I’ll…I’ll brush your hair. Okay? The way you like it. I’ll do it up the way you like it.”
    Gracie looked at him. She rubbed her arm over her eyes. Her hair, which was a source of unending pride for her, was getting wet and soon enough it would be frizzy and unbrushable. She fingered a long and luxurious lock of it. She said, “French braids?” so hopefully that he couldn’t deny her.
    He sighed. “All right. French braids. But you got to