Deep Wate - Sarah Epstein Page 0,23

ten minutes before Sabeen shows, and I find myself feeling moody when she breezes in, even though she’s right on time. I watch from across the café as she greets Rina with a hug and they lean close for a moment, talking solemnly. Sabeen raises a comforting hand to Rina’s shoulder and squeezes. It seems like Rina might be about to crumple, but she manages to hold it together long enough to point me out.

‘Everything okay?’ I say to Sabeen as she approaches the table.

‘Poor Rina,’ she replies. We both watch her hurry towards the kitchen with her head down. ‘I hope she and Mason work things out.’

‘Maybe it’s for the best.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Sabeen says, laughing off my comment.

Another waitress comes to take our drinks order, and Sabeen uses it as a chance to change the subject. I listen politely while she tells me about helping out Tom and Uncle Bernie in the second-hand shop, how she’s offered to declutter the basement while they concentrate on the shop floor. I’m dying to ask her about what I overheard last night, but then she’ll know I eavesdropped on her conversation. I don’t want that getting back to Raf.

Rina appears with a tray of hot drinks and places two on our table before moving across the room. I wait until she’s out of earshot before I lean forwards.

‘Mason smashed a window at the motel the night before last.’

Sabeen’s mouth drops open. ‘Whaaat?’

‘A big one too.’

‘Oh my god. Is he okay?’

I scoff. ‘He was fine. The window wasn’t.’

‘How did it happen?’ she says. ‘Did he fall through it?’

There’s a whole unspoken conversation here we don’t need to have. We both know Mason has been binge-drinking far too much in the last year. Dad told me Stu Macleod almost sacked him for regularly turning up to work still drunk from the night before.

‘He threw something at the glass, I think. I seriously have no idea why. His hands were all messed up, and when I asked about them he lied to my face.’

Sabeen frowns. ‘How do you know he was lying?’

‘He said he slammed his hands under a car bonnet at the workshop, but Sergeant Doherty told me he’d been fighting at the Criterion.’

‘That could have been a bit of shouting. Maybe he really did injure his hands at work.’

‘I could tell he was lying, Sabeen.’

‘How?’ she says dryly. ‘Did his nose grow?’

She picks up her tea and sips it, shifting her gaze to the window. I’m momentarily speechless; I’m not used to this sort of reaction from Sabeen. I expected a little pushback about me criticising Mason, but not this sort of dismissive impatience.

‘Remember when we used to play that game as kids?’ I say. ‘Impostor? We had to figure out when someone was lying?’

‘Yeah, I remember. You always said I had shifty eyes.’

‘Everyone has something that gives them away when they’re not telling the truth,’ I say. ‘I saw it in this crime documentary about how to spot when criminals are faking their reactions and lying. Like this guy in England who went on national television to try to clear his name because he was the prime suspect in his stepdaughter’s disappearance. It wasn’t body language that gave him away, it was biology. When he was being questioned, his ears grew redder and redder.’

‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘A body language expert in the doco said it’s a sign of increasing blood pressure. Apparently we have these fine capillaries in our nostrils and ears, so when our blood pressure rises this can be the first place we feel it. Like when we experience fear.’

‘Fear of what?’

‘Getting caught in a lie.’

‘So Mason lied to you.’ Sabeen shrugs. ‘He was probably embarrassed.’

‘And so he should be. You think my dad can afford that new window?’

‘I’m sure he’ll pay your dad back.’

‘That’s not my point.’ I scan the café and lower my voice. ‘What I’m saying is, I figured out what Mason’s giveaway is when he’s lying.’

Sabeen smirks. ‘Red ears? I’m not sure it’ll hold up in court, counsellor.’

‘You’re not taking this seriously.’

She leans back in the chair and tucks her long hair behind her ears. ‘I don’t even know what we’re talking about.’

‘I’m talking about the night Henry went missing.’

‘Huh?’

‘When we all went over to the Weavers’ house the morning after the storm and Mason ran through the events of the previous evening. What time he and Ivy went to bed, how they didn’t hear Henry leave.’

Sabeen jerks upright, her