The Dead Lie Down Read Online Free PDF

inside me. ‘She makes no money from it.’
    ‘Does she have a day job?’
    ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘Don’t you?’ Charlie Zailer says smoothly, as if passing comment on the weather. ‘Do you think I don’t know when I’m being lied to, Ruth? Do you think I don’t meet liars every day? I do—liars of the highest grade. Shall I tell you about some of them?’
    ‘I’m not a liar. I don’t know Mary, and I hadn’t heard of her when Aidan told me . . . when he told me . . .’
    ‘When he told you that he’d killed her, years ago.’
    ‘That’s right.’ My words sound like someone else’s, as if they’re not coming from inside me but from somewhere far away.
    ‘You’re panicking, Ruth, and you’re spewing up lies faster than the magic porridge pot spewed up porridge. Remember that story from when you were a kid?’ Sergeant Zailer yawns, leans back in her chair. ‘Is it possible Aidan killed another woman with the same name?’ she says, as casually as if she were suggesting the answer to a crossword clue. ‘I know Trelease isn’t a common surname, but . . .’
    ‘No,’ I say, my voice cracking. ‘I could see the details were familiar to him when I told him. That she lives on Megson Crescent, that she’s an artist, forty-ish, with long black curly hair, silver streaks in it where she’s starting to go grey.’ His face: the absolute recognition, the fear, in his eyes. ‘It’s the same woman, the one he’s sure he killed. I’m not making this up! Why would I?’
    ‘Silver-grey hair and she’s only forty? Still, they say people with very dark hair go grey youngest.’ Charlie Zailer drums her fingers on the table, raises an eyebrow at me. ‘So, you’ve seen her, then? If you know what kind of hair she’s got, you must have seen her, even if you don’t know her personally.’
    I say nothing.
    ‘Or perhaps you’ve seen a picture of her? No, I think you’ve seen her in the flesh. A picture wouldn’t have put your mind at rest. Aidan told you he’d killed her, and you needed to see her in person, see for yourself that she was still alive. Undeterred by the sheer unlikeliness of anyone pretending they’ve killed someone when they haven’t, you set out to find this dead woman and, lo and behold, she wasn’t dead at all. Is that how it happened?’
    The silence between us is unbearable. I try to pretend she isn’t here, that I’m alone in the room.
    ‘Curiouser and curiouser,’ she mutters. ‘Okay, here’s a question you might be happier about answering: what are you doing here, apart from wasting my time?’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Why are you here? Aidan hasn’t killed anyone—fine. Mary Trelease is alive—hooray. What do you want from me, exactly?’
    Now I can talk freely. ‘I want you to check that what I’m saying is true. If it is, you could . . . convince Aidan. I’ve tried and failed. You’re the police—he’d listen to you.’
    ‘ If it’s true? So you’re not a hundred per cent sure Aidan didn’t kill this woman who’s alive. Make up your mind.’
    ‘I’m as sure as I can be, but . . . what if the woman I think is Mary Trelease isn’t? What if . . . I know it sounds insane, but what if she’s some other woman who fits Mary’s description, a relative or . . . or . . .’ Or someone pretending. I don’t say it; it would make me sound paranoid. ‘There are things the police can find out that I can’t.’
    Charlie Zailer sighs. ‘The police find things out in the process of investigating crimes. Nothing’s happened here, according to you. There’s no crime to investigate. Correct?’ She opens and closes her lips several times, making a popping noise. She appears to be thinking. Perhaps she’s bored, daydreaming. After a few seconds, she says, ‘From my point of view, there are three questions. One: did Aidan kill the woman you’re talking about, the person you know as Mary Trelease?’
    ‘He didn’t. He can’t have. She’s alive.’
    ‘All right. Then