Too Good to Be True

TOO GOOD
TO BE TRUE

Ann Cleeves

PAN BOOKS

To the library staff who made me
an enthusiastic reader and continue
to share their passion for books

Contents

1. The Call for Help

2. The Landlady

3. The Neighbour

4. The House

5. The Village

6. The Farm

7. The School

8. The Colleague

9. The Hotel

10. The Parents

11. The Watcher

12. The Doctor

13. The Stranger

14. The Confession

15. The Conclusion

16. The Letter

1

The Call for Help

Jimmy Perez stood at the gate. There was a solid house at the end of the path, with a big garden and trees behind it. This would be a good place for kids to grow up, he thought. It was just getting dark and there was a light on in the kitchen. He could see the table was laid for supper with a pretty cloth and matching napkins. It all looked very perfect. His ex-wife Sarah had always liked things to be perfect. He felt a stab of envy. His ex-wife had a lovely house, money and a family. The love of his life had recently died, and the child he was raising wasn’t his.

But he had travelled all the way from Shetland to the Scottish Borders because Sarah had said that she needed his help. It was too late to turn back now. Perez opened the gate and walked up the path. Sarah must have been looking out for him because the door opened before he knocked. She looked older than he’d expected. Stressed. Not so perfect after all.

‘Come in. We can talk. Tom’s still at work.’ Tom was her husband now, a doctor.

Perez had only met him once and found him nice enough. A bit boring. Tom had a famous brother who was an MP, so perhaps the brother was the exciting one in the family. Then Perez remembered that he’d always found Sarah a bit boring too, so maybe his ex-wife and Tom were well matched.

‘What is this about?’ he said. ‘Why all the drama?’ They were standing in the hall. Close enough for him to smell Sarah’s hair; the shampoo was the same she had always used.

‘A woman in the village died. They’re blaming Tom.’

‘The police are blaming him? Or the medical authorities?’

‘No!’ She seemed cross that he hadn’t understood. ‘People in the village. There’s gossip. Everywhere we go people are talking about it. Even people we thought were our friends.’

Perez wasn’t sure what to say. It seemed he had been dragged away from his home just because Sarah’s friends were talking behind her back. He wanted to leave this perfect house and drive straight back to Aberdeen and the ferry to the Shetland Islands. To his job as a police inspector, to his stepdaughter Cassie and their untidy house by the water.

‘I don’t see how I can help,’ he said.

‘If you can find out what really happened we might be left in peace,’ Sarah said. He could see she was almost crying. ‘It’s not just me and Tom. It’s getting to the children too. One of the kids in their school asked if their dad was a killer.’