“How can you say that?”
“Because that’s the only way to survive this job. To unsee what we have to see. A body is brilliant but weak. A miracle but also a failure in waiting. A body is a walking, talking, life support machine that will inevitably fail you, and when it stops working you will stop living. Eventually, dictated by your popularity, you will be forgotten. In most cases, so devastatingly forgotten it will be as though younever were. A body is the prison that gives you a life sentence and determines your death. That’s all a body is.”
“Were you always this cheerful?”
“I’m going to head back to the village, talk to the husband again before someone else tells him about this. Do you think you can manage to stay with the body and keep the seagulls away? And can you call HQ and get a team out here?”
I should tell her that I think I saw Harrison on the beach just before the body was found. But I don’t. Instead, all I say is, “Yes, boss.”
“Thanks. As first days go, I’ll be honest, it’s not been great,” she replies, already walking away.
She keeps behaving as though all of this is my fault.
But I can’t really complain about that because it is.
Eden Fox came to the police station a few days ago to tell me she was scared, that she thought someone had been watching her. She was trembling when she told me. I feel so guilty because, looking back now, I think it was a cry for help. But I had other things on my mind. There was a bottle of whiskey at the station, a gift I’d never opened, but I opened it then and poured some into a mug—just a little something to calm her nerves—then poured myself some too. I tried to reassure her that Hope Falls was a safe place, where people could be trusted, but I guess that was a lie.
Because before I even knew what I was doing, I kissed her.
Now she’s dead.
40HARRISON
My wife is dead and there is only one person to blame.
I crawl through the tunnel. It is centuries old and has collapsed in places, so sometimes the only way through is on my hands and knees, with the headlamp in my black beanie barely lighting the way. Sergeant Carter saw me on the beach, I know he did, but I don’t know for sure if he knew it was me. I was on the other side of the bay when he spotted me, and the only reason I recognized him from that distance was his uniform. It was stupid of me to let myself be seen—the beach is normally empty—and the only reason I was there was because ofher. If anyone asks why I was on the beach I will say I was looking for my wife.
The truer the lie the easier it is to believe.
There was a tracker inside the phone I left in Eden’s car, and it led me right to her—or at least what was left of her—on the beach. Everything I have researched about tides suggested she would be dragged miles away after plummeting off that cliff, or so far out to sea she’d never be seen again. Trust Eden to wash up like a bad penny on the nearest beach. I would have expected the phone to die underwater in the sea, but when I found it wrapped in a plastic bag inside her pocket I understood how it survived. I’m glad it did,otherwise I would have had no way of knowing if the body on the beach was really Eden. The clothes she wore did not look familiar to me, and the woman was unrecognizable. Her face was so badly smashed in even I wouldn’t have been able to identify her. I didn’t linger, I barely looked at her at all to be honest, it wasn’t pretty. I just had to get the phone back—worried it could be traced to me—but I left her where she was.
With the seagulls.
Even if Tweedle Dumb did see me it doesn’t prove anything other than I left the house. No law against that, and it isn’t as though there’s a rulebook for what to do if your wife disappears. The only rule that matters now is “don’t get caught.” When I finally crawl out of the tunnel at Spyglass, I close the secret door behind me, push the bookcases back into position, and collapse onto the library floor.
I feel ill with guilt and regret and shame.
And dirty.
I pull off all my clothes and burn them. They are soiled with mud and sand and sweat and seawater. And blood. The sooner I get back to looking like myself, the sooner I’ll start to feel like me too. Harrison Woolf, CEO, doesn’t wear joggers and crawl through dark, damp tunnels. I watch everything I was wearing burn, and remind myself why I am doing all of this: forher. What I really need now is time, but time takes pity on no one. You get what you’re given, end of story.
I feel exhausted when I finally head upstairs. The bathroom that Eden recently decorated is modern and classy, all granite and marble, with a powerful rain shower to wash away my guilt. She had good taste, I’ll give her that. I’m shocked by the sight of myself in the bathroom mirror. I have aged since we bought this house, I barely recognize myself and I do not like what I see. I remember something my wife used to say and for the first time it makes sense to me.
Your biggest enemy is always the person you see in the mirror.
She was right. I am my own worst enemy but I am also my best friend.
If anyone calls again today I won’t answer the phone.
If anyone comes to the house I won’t open the door.
I just need to keep a low profile for the next day or so.
And try not to say or do anything stupid.
I step into the shower and turn up the temperature of the water until it is so hot it scalds my skin. It feels good to feel something. My body and mind have felt numb since it happened and I need to stay focused. The police are going to start getting suspicious if I keep making mistakes. I stay in the shower for so long that a thick fog of steam has filled the bathroom by the time I step out. I grab a towel and wrap it around myself, then stop when I look at the mirror again. Not because of my reflection—the glass has misted up too much to see one. Instead I stare at the word that has appeared in the steam:
LIAR
