The Truth-Teller's Lie by Sophie Hannah Read Free Book Online Page A

If you were able to go out drinking, you’d be able to contact me. Yvon squeezes my arm, noticing my desolate expression.
    At least I know I’m in the right place. As soon as I walked across the threshold, all my doubts vanished. This is where you mean when you talk about the Star. It doesn’t surprise me that you chose an out-of-the-way place, tucked into the valley, right on the river. It is in the centre of town, but you can’t see it from Spilling Main Street. You have to take the road between the picture-framer’s and the Centre for Alternative Medicine, and follow it all the way down past Blantyre Park.
    The pub is one long room, with the bar at one end. There is a damp, yeasty smell and a haze of smoke in the air, trapped since last night.
    The barman is still grinning. ‘Morning, ladies. Afternoon, rather. What can I get you?’ From this I guess that he is the sort of young man who is in the habit of speaking as an old man might. In a way, I am glad not to have a choice about who to talk to. Now I can concentrate on what I ought to say.
    The walls are covered with framed pages of old newspapers: the Rawndesley Telegraph , the Rawndesley Evening Post . I glance at the one nearest to me. In one column is the story of an execution that took place in Spilling in 1903. There is a picture of a noose and, beside it, another of the unfortunate criminal. The second column has the headline ‘Silsford farmer wins prize for best pig’, and a sketch of the animal and its owner, both looking proud. The pig is called Snorter.
    I blink away tears. Finally, I am seeing all the things you have seen, your world. Yesterday it was your house, today this pub. I feel as if I’m taking a guided tour of your life. I hoped it might bring me closer to you, but it has the opposite effect. It’s horrible. I feel as if I’m looking at your past, not your present, and certainly not anything I could ever share. It’s as if I’m trapped behind a glass screen or a cordon of red rope and I can’t reach you. I want to scream out your name.
    ‘I’ll have a double gin and tonic,’ says Yvon loudly. She is trying to sound jolly for my sake, as if we’re here for a fun day out. ‘Naomi?’
    ‘Half a lager shandy,’ I hear myself say. I haven’t had this drink for years. When I’m with you, I only ever drink the Pinot Grigio you bring, or the tea that’s in our Traveltel room.
    The barman nods. ‘Coming right up,’ he says. He has a broad Rawndesley accent.
    ‘Do you know Robert Haworth?’ I blurt out, too frantic to waste time thinking about the best way to approach the subject. Yvon looks worried: I told her I’d be subtle.
    ‘Nope. Should I?’
    ‘He’s a regular. He comes here all the time.’
    ‘Well, we think he does,’ Yvon corrects me. She is my more moderate shadow, here to dilute whatever effect I might have. With me, in private, she’s sarcastic and opinionated, but in public she is keen to obey social norms. Perhaps you’d understand this better than I do. I often think, when you look troubled and remote, that there’s a struggle going on inside you, forces pulling in opposite directions. I’ve never been like that, not even before I met you. I’ve always been an all-one-way sort of person. And ever since the first time I saw you, I’ve been pulled entirely towards you. Nothing else stands a chance.
    ‘He does,’ I say firmly. When Yvon looked in the Yellow Pages this morning, she found what she called ‘three contenders’: the Star Inn in Spilling, the Star and Garter in Combingham and Star Bar in Silsford. I ruled out the last two immediately. Combingham is miles away and grim, and I know Star Bar. I sometimes pop in, if I’m visiting a customer nearby, and have a pot of organic mint tea. The idea of you sitting on those low leather banquettes reading the infusions menu nearly made me laugh out loud.
    ‘I’ve got a photo of him on my phone,’ I tell the barman. ‘You’ll know him when you see