A Mother's Secret

by T J Stimson

  Maddie blanched with shock. She couldn’t imagine anyone doing something so heinous to a child, never mind the girl’s own mother. For a moment she wondered if the old man had got it wrong, but this wasn’t the kind of thing you made a mistake about. Her stomach roiled, and she felt a burning sense of outrage at what had happened to that poor child. Why had no one said anything, done something? How had Mae been allowed to get away with it?

  ‘How do you know this?’ she asked hoarsely.

  ‘Lydia’s brother Davy told me, at the trial. He was there every day, in the gallery. I knew Mae wasn’t the perfect mother by any means, but I had no idea what’d really gone on until he told me. He didn’t know himself until years later, when it was too late for him to do anything. If I’d known at the time—’ He broke off, collecting himself with a visible effort. ‘Lydia wasn’t responsible for what she’d done, not in any real sense. She should have been given help, not locked up!’

  ‘But if you and Davy had gone to the police and told them—’

  ‘You think we didn’t try?’ the old man said angrily. ‘Davy talked to solicitors, the police, journalists, but no one cared. With his criminal record? I tried to get them to listen, too, I begged till I was blue in the face, but it was like talking to a brick wall. Too many people were busy covering their own backs. The family was known to social services – Davy had reported Mae after Lydia took an overdose of sleeping tablets when she was four. He was convinced his mother had tried to kill her, but Mae managed to talk her way out of it. Davy ran away after that and went to the police, but no one wanted to know.’ Frank shook his head. ‘Bloody disgrace. That poor girl was let down by every damn adult in her life. They’re the ones who should have been on trial, not her.’

  Maddie felt sick to her soul. She’d been right to refuse to believe children were born wicked. Something had to have corrupted them, corroded their souls.

  Or someone.

  ‘Why didn’t Lydia tell you herself what her mother had done to her?’ she asked quietly. ‘She obviously trusted you.’

  ‘I’ve asked myself that for more than forty years,’ Frank said, his rheumy eyes filling with tears. ‘There isn’t a day goes by I don’t wonder if I could have saved them, Lydia and Julia, if I’d known. I’ll never forgive myself for letting that child down. I should have seen what Mae was really like, I should have known. But she could put on a good show. She was charming when she’d a mind.’ He shrugged helplessly. ‘My wife had left me a few months before I met Mae, and I suppose I was vulnerable. Lonely. Mae could be good company. Life and soul of the party, when she was in the mood. And she was a beautiful woman.’ He sighed. ‘Photographs don’t do her justice. She just had this way about her. Lydia was the same. She was a pretty little girl. Somehow that made it all worse. People looked at that lovely face and felt they’d been tricked.’ He blinked away tears. ‘It was only later I found out how vicious Mae could be, but by then, there was Lydia to consider.’

  His voice softened. He’d clearly loved Lydia, despite everything she’d done. Perhaps the only person who ever had.

  ‘So you stayed with Mae anyway, because of Lydia?’

  ‘I tried to do my best for her. Build a family. I even tried to track down Davy, but he was in Borstal by then.’ He shook his head. ‘I couldn’t bear to tell Lydia.’

  The guilt he’d been living with, all these years, blaming himself for what had happened. He’d been caught in Mae’s web of depravity, a good man doing his best to keep Lydia safe, unaware of the dark forces ranged against him. ‘Did you ever go to visit her, when she was in prison?’

  ‘They wouldn’t let me. Relatives only, they said. Wouldn’t even let me write. When Lydia was released, they gave her a new name, wouldn’t tell me what it was.’ His voice broke. ‘She must have thought I’d abandoned her, too. I never even got a chance to tell her I was sorry.’

  ‘It wasn’t your fault,’ she said gently.

  He rubbed his palms against the arms of his chair with increasing urgency. ‘I should have known. I should have protected her!’

  Maddie wanted to get up and hug him, but was wary of hurting the old soldier’s pride. ‘You said yourself, Mae put on a good show. And even if you’d known, you could never have predicted what Lydia would do.’

  He bowed his head. ‘I think about her every single day, you know. Wondering what happened to her. If she’s happy. If she’s even still alive. Davy was killed in a car crash just after she was released, so she’d have had no one waiting for her on the outside. Poor kid. She never had a chance.’

  Maddie couldn’t lie to the old man any longer, not even by omission. ‘I think she made a good life for herself, in the end,’ she said softly. She hesitated, trying to find the right words. ‘Frank, I’m not just researching the case. Well, I am, but not quite the way you think.’

  He looked up sharply. ‘Are you a journalist?’

  ‘No, I’m not a journalist. I’m on Lydia’s side, I promise you.’

  ‘Those reporters, with their sensational headlines!’ Frank cried, forcing himself to his feet. ‘They destroyed any chance Lydia had to get a fair hearing. We told them the truth, Davy and me, and they didn’t want to listen, didn’t want to know what’d really happened. They hung her out to dry, just to sell a few more of their damned papers!’

  His whole body was shaking. For a moment, Maddie was genuinely afraid he was going to have a heart attack. He was ninety-two years old, after all. ‘I’m not a journalist. I just want to know the truth, that’s all.’

  ‘Why? Who are you?’

  ‘Please, Frank. Sit down, and I’ll tell you.’

  He hesitated. She nodded encouragingly, and after a long moment, he finally sank back into his chair. ‘If you’re not a journalist, why are you here?’

  Maddie swallowed. It was the first time she’d said the words aloud, and she had to force them out.

  ‘Because Lydia Slaughter is my mother.’

  Chapter 39

  Sunday 1.30 p.m.

  The fuel light in the Land Rover came on just as Maddie was about to join the motorway. The indicator hadn’t worked properly for years: the needle jerked from full to running-on-fumes without warning. If past experience was anything to go by, she had less than a quarter of a mile before the car coughed to a shuddering halt.

  Abruptly swerving across two lanes of traffic, she sailed past the slip road and continued back around the roundabout the way she’d come. She’d passed a petrol station just a few minutes earlier. If the Land Rover conked out, at least she wouldn’t have far to walk to fill up her spare jerrycan with petrol. Better than being stuck on the hard shoulder of the M6.

  She was lucky. The engine stuttered and died just as she limped onto the garage forecourt. She coasted to a stop beside a vacant pump and got out, her legs still a little unsteady from her encounter with Frank. Her emotions were all over the place. Her hands shook as she unscrewed the petrol cap, the fuel nozzle clinking against the side of the car as she inserted it into the tank. Listening to the old man had been like scouring an open wound with steel wool and salt. The pain had been almost unbearable, and yet now that the layers of half-truths and rumour had been scraped away, the truth he’d exposed felt raw but clean. Her mother wasn’t evil. Lydia had been a lost, damaged little girl, not a monster. She’d committed the most terrible crime and strangled a child, and that could never be undone or excused, but Lydia herself had been a child, too, a little girl who’d been viciously abused and whose early life had been warped by a vindictive woman and wicked men. Nurture – or the lack of it – had created her, not nature. There was no murderous gene, no inherited wickedness. Maddie had been reprieved.

  She leaned against the side of the car, feeling suddenly light-headed. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten. Yesterday afternoon sometime, when she’d stopped for a sandwich at a motorway service station. She’d never make it safely back home if she didn’t have some coffee and something to eat.

&nb
sp; She finished filling the car with petrol and headed inside to pay. As she approached the till, a row of newspapers neatly stacked in perspex boxes caught her eye, and her stomach swooped. The Sunday tabloids all carried the same photograph: a petite blonde woman, her head ducked to avoid photographers, frozen mid-stride as she walked down the front steps of a Georgian house.

  Maddie snatched up the nearest paper, and almost crumpled with relief. It wasn’t her mother. Someone else’s dirty washing was being aired for the delight of the nation. The cheating wife of a Cabinet minister, caught as she left the ‘love nest’ she shared with a young rap musician half her age.

  She paid for her petrol and bought herself a cup of coffee that smelled burned, as if it’d been left sitting on the hotplate for too long, and a tuna wrap. Both remained untouched on the seat beside her as she sat in her car on the forecourt, thinking about what Frank had said when she’d told him Lydia was her mother. ‘Everyone deserves one chance,’ he’d sighed. ‘Not a second chance, maybe, but at least one.’

  He was right. Lydia had deserved a chance at life. A chance she’d never had, thanks to Mae. She’d been let down by every single person who should have saved her: the social workers, the police, her solicitors, even Frank and Davy, despite their best efforts. But Sarah had had that chance. She’d made something good out of her life. Perhaps she could never weight the scales in her favour; maybe nothing could truly atone for the death of a child. But she had saved scores more children with her charity work and fundraising and campaigning. Children who might otherwise have grown up in a world of violence and abuse, as Lydia had. Who might have gone on to hurt others in turn. Surely that counted for something?

  Maddie bit her lip in frustration. The world wouldn’t give a damn what Sarah had done when they found out who she was. Her mother hadn’t been on the front page today, but it was only a matter of time. The court injunctions might stop newspapers from running their stories, but nothing could prevent online journalists and bloggers and gossip outlets from writing whatever they wanted. As soon as the solicitors stopped one, another would pop up, like some kind of malevolent whack-a-mole. There was no way to keep anything secret anymore.

  And sooner or later, it would emerge that Maddie had been a suspect in her son’s death, if it hadn’t already. Even she could see the story was irresistible. Like mother, like daughter. To the world, she’d be guilty. It would become the truth.

  Her phone beeped as she finally started the car. She fished it out of her bag and glanced at the screen. The text was from Lucas. Candace needs to talk to you.

  She tossed the phone onto the front seat beside the untouched coffee and tuna wrap without replying. She knew what Candace was going to say. The circle of those close enough to have hurt Noah was small. She knew now it hadn’t been her mother, or Lucas, and in her heart she’d always known it wasn’t herself. There was only Candace left.

  Perhaps she’d panicked when she hadn’t been able to get Noah to stop crying and had shaken him harder than she’d intended. Maybe she’d simply dropped him. Candace wasn’t used to being around small babies. Maddie didn’t believe she’d hurt Noah on purpose. It’d been an accident. She’d made a mistake with devastating consequences – just as Lydia had done. Candace had tried to take her own life because of it. Punishing her now wouldn’t bring Noah back. Her son would still be dead.

  She headed back towards the motorway. She knew she should feel bitter, angry, but she simply didn’t have it in her anymore. She wanted her husband back, her children gathered safely around her. She wanted her biggest problem to be worrying about the damn mortgage again.

  It started to rain as she joined the slip road, and she flicked on the arthritic wipers, peering through the dirty streaks they left on the windscreen. She was so tired. Her eyes burned. Her head was throbbing, too, and she rested the side of her forehead briefly against the cool glass of the window. The metallic taste in her mouth was strong, even though her lip wasn’t bleeding. There was a strange smell in the car, too, like peat or damp wood. Must be from the horse blankets in the boot. Funny, that she hadn’t noticed it before.

  She passed another service station and slowed slightly as a large caravan pulled from the slip road into the lane ahead of her.

  Her phone beeped again. Come home safe.

  Her headache was blinding now. Spots danced before her eyes. That smell was growing stronger.

  And then suddenly everything turned black.

  Chapter 40

  Tuesday 7.30 a.m.

  She hurt everywhere.

  It hurt to move. It hurt to breathe. Every time she inhaled, skewers of pain pierced her chest. Maddie felt as if she’d been pounded by rocks, every muscle in her body bruised and aching. The pain in her neck was so intense, it hurt even to keep still.

  She tried to swallow, but her mouth was too dry. When she opened her eyes, a bright light burned her retinas and she was forced to close them again.

  With an effort, she tried to collect her thoughts. She had no idea what had happened to her, or where she was. Her head was pounding so much it was hard to concentrate. Jarring images flickered behind her eyes.

  Rain.

  Cars.

  Blood in her mouth.

  Black.

  She coughed, and the pain was so bad she saw stars.

  ‘Maddie?’

  Lucas’s voice. She swam towards it.

  ‘Don’t try to speak, darling. You’ve been in an accident. Just keep still, while I go and get the doctor.’

  An accident?

  Voices.

  ‘She tried to open her eyes, Dr Walsh. I think she’s coming round.’

  ‘It’s all right, Mr Drummond. Just give her a moment.’

  ‘Maddie? Can you open your eyes?’

  This time she braced herself for the brightness. She opened her lids a fraction, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the light. She licked her lips and coughed again, grimacing in pain.

  ‘Mrs Drummond, I’m Dr Walsh. Don’t try to move too much. You’ve been in a car accident, but you’re going to be fine. You have a concussion and four broken ribs. You have some severe bruising to your upper torso, but you’re a lucky woman. A very lucky woman.’

  ‘I’m here,’ Lucas said, leaning over the bed so that she could see him. ‘You’re going to be OK, Maddie. The doctor’s right. You were incredibly lucky. You could have been killed.’

  Her breath came in uneven gasps. ‘What … happened?’

  ‘You were in a car accident. Don’t you remember?’

  She closed her eyes again. Fragments of conversation floated through her mind. She needed help, not locking up! Everyone deserves one chance. More images, jumbled and discordant. She struggled to put them into a coherent order. The library. An old man. She couldn’t remember his name, she didn’t know him.

  ‘Where …?’

  ‘You’re in hospital, Maddie. Manchester Royal Infirmary. You’ve been here for two days.’

  Two days?

  She struggled to sit up.

  A grey-haired man in a white coat put his hand on her shoulder, gently restraining her. ‘Mrs Drummond, please.’

  The doctor pressed a button to the side of her head, and the top of the bed slowly rose. He adjusted the pillows behind her, and she settled against them with relief. It was easier to breathe now she was sitting up. ‘Tell … me.’

  ‘You were driving back from Manchester,’ Lucas said, sitting on the bed beside her and taking her hand, careful to avoid the IV line taped to it. ‘Do you remember that?’

  She could see an old man standing in his doorway, waving as she pulled out of his drive. Suddenly she remembered. Frank Brzezina. It all came back in a rush. Driving to Manchester, the hours in the library, her conversation with Frank. Everyone deserves one chance. He had been talking about Lydia. Her mother. She could remember getting back into her car, waving to him, but after that, there was only blank tape where her memories should be.

  ‘You crashed into th
e back of a caravan on the motorway,’ Lucas said. ‘You were incredibly lucky, Maddie. The caravan crumpled like cardboard and broke your impact. If you’d hit the back of another car or a lorry, we’d have lost you.’

  The doctor pulled up a chair on the other side of the bed and sat down. Behind his wire-rimmed glasses, his eyes were kind. ‘We believe you experienced a generalised tonic-clonic seizure, Mrs Drummond. Do you know if you’ve ever had one before?’

  She looked shocked. ‘A seizure? No, never.’

  ‘We performed a CAT scan and an MRI when you came in, and there’s no evidence of injury, other than mild concussion. We also ruled out any underlying organic cause, such as a brain tumour. Please don’t worry. You should make a full recovery.’

  ‘The accident … caused … a seizure?’

  ‘No. It was the seizure that caused the accident,’ Dr Walsh said. ‘When you have a convulsion of this kind, your body stiffens and becomes rigid. Your foot jammed on the accelerator. According to witnesses who spoke to our paramedic, you hit the caravan at almost one hundred miles an hour.’

  Lucas squeezed her hand. ‘We’ve been so lucky, Maddie.’

  ‘Why … seizure?’ Maddie managed. ‘Never had … before.’

  ‘Have you had any other head injuries recently? Your husband said you work with horses. Maybe a fall?’

  ‘No. Nothing … like that.’

  ‘Have you noticed anything else strange in the last few months? Memory loss, losing track of time, confusion, that kind of thing?’

  Maddie caught Lucas’s eye, and nodded, giving him permission to speak. ‘She’s had a few memory lapses, yes, but it’s been a very difficult time,’ he said defensively. ‘After everything that’s happened, it’s not surprising.’

  She coughed, clutching her side. ‘Started … before Noah.’

  Lucas looked surprised. ‘You never said anything.’

  ‘Didn’t want you … to worry. Thought … just tired.’