‘I heard what you said to him just now … I wanted to applaud. You’re strong and brave. I’m so proud of you, Jess. And you were right. He’s despicable.’
My legs weak, I sit on the bed, feeling my body start to shake. ‘He threatened me, Cath. He said that one day, when I’m least expecting it, he’ll find me. He means it.’ I look at her, filled with panic. ‘He’ll do it, in the same way he planned everything with my mother.’
‘Jess … He won’t get away with it. We’ll tell the police. They’ll add it to their list of charges against him. Come on. I’m taking you back to Zoe’s.’
*
An hour later, PC Page calls me, to confirm that my mother’s being released and all charges have been dropped. She may be called as a witness at some point, but she’s free. When I tell her about the way Matt threatened me, she takes down all the details, trying her best to reassure me.
Then she tells me about a call the police have just received. ‘It was from a woman who heard our press release this morning. She’d read about Matt’s disappearance in the papers and got in touch because on the night he allegedly disappeared, a man had paid her to book a taxi from Beachy Head to Steyning, offering her £500 if she’d wear some clothes he gave her and book it in the name of Amy. He’d even bought a cheap imitation of your mother’s engagement ring. After she got to Steyning, he picked her up and drove her home. He must have got rid of his car later that night. It had bothered the woman that he’d been up to something, but at the time she was desperate for money. But when she recognised Matt’s photo, she knew she had to call us.’
Dazed, I think of the irony of the timing. ‘It’s a pity she didn’t come forward sooner.’
‘I know. She’s a prostitute – apparently he’d found her a week earlier, wandering the streets. He gave her a lift home, to Kemp Town, when he offered her money just to take a cab ride, as long as she pretended to be your mother. If it’s any consolation, it gives us more against Matt. We’ll be calling her as a witness.’
There’s no mention of Kimberley’s murder, from which I take that it’s Fiona who’s being charged. Taking heart that after all these years, at last there is justice.
Amy
Chapter Thirty-Eight
When I’m taken from my cell to a small room I don’t ask, nor am I told, what’s happened. Sitting down, I wait for a few minutes, hopeless. Then the door opens and PC Page walks in.
‘Amy.’ She looks lighter than last time I saw her. ‘I have some news.’ She sits down opposite me. ‘You were right all along. You were set up.’
‘Allie?’ I breathe the word, incredulous.
‘Not by Ms Rose.’ Her voice is quiet. ‘We’ve arrested Matt.’
As she speaks, euphoria and confusion swirl around me. ‘What?’ I stare at her, unblinking. ‘You mean …’
‘He’s very definitely alive. He came back to …’
But before she can go on, I interrupt her. ‘Does Jess know?’
PC Page nods. ‘She does. She was there when he was arrested. He came back to your house to retrieve his painting. Apparently, it was done by his brother. Jess found the door open and while Cath called us, she went upstairs and confronted him. She’s very determined, your daughter. He isn’t going to be going anywhere very soon.’
‘I don’t understand.’ Dazed, I shake my head. It’s too much to take in. ‘Why?’
‘After your sister died, you weren’t the only one who changed their name,’ she says grimly. ‘Matthew Roche is Matthew Brooks, the younger brother of Charlie, your sister’s boyfriend. After Charlie died, their mother killed herself and their father became a recluse. He died a few years later, when Matthew was eighteen. After his childhood was wrecked overnight, he never got over it. This was about revenge. Did you know Charlie had a brother?’
Still dazed, I try to think back to that time. ‘I don’t think I did. I only saw Charlie when he came to see Kimberley. I didn’t go to his funeral. My parents had sent me away to school by then.’
She looks at me. ‘He went to a great deal of trouble to make sure both you and Fiona suffered. He certainly had us fooled, but he slipped up.’ She pauses. ‘The one thing he hadn’t counted on was us finding your grandmother’s old notebook. We now know it was Fiona who added the poison to Kimberley’s drink and we’ve charged her. But all charges against you have been dropped. We may well call you as a witness, but you’re free to leave here.’
As her words sink in, I can’t move. Then very slowly, I feel a weight start to lift.
But she goes on. ‘We’re looking into the possibility that he might have had something to do with your neighbour’s death. There are indications that the fireplace had been blocked off intentionally. Maybe she saw him leave the flowers – or maybe he wanted somewhere safe to hide for a while.’
I stare at her. How many more deaths? Will this ever end?
‘Oh – one more thing.’ PC Page gets up. ‘About that woman who stopped you in Brighton and told you that you were in danger … Most people write her off as mad, but one of my colleagues knows her. She’s done this to people before – stopped them and told them about their future – and now and then, she’s been right. I’ve no idea what you take from that, but I thought you’d want to know.’ Then she adds, ‘By the way, I’ve spoken to Jess. She’s on her way here.’
Jess
It’s Cath who drives me to Bronzefield. When we get there, I go to reception, but this time no-one goes in. Instead we wait a few minutes, before it’s my mother who walks out. She looks lighter, her eyes brighter. As I rush towards her, her arms wrap around me and in that moment, I never want to let go of her. Then as we walk arm in arm towards Cath’s car, she glances up at the sky just as the clouds part, the faintest trace of a smile crossing her face. But for the first time in as long as she can remember, she has no secrets to hide. At last, the nightmare is over.
2019
Eeny meeny miny mo, Amy or Fiona, who shall I choose? Does it matter? When whatever one of you did could incriminate both of you.
Then fate took a hand. After reading the magazine piece about Amy the herbalist, something snapped inside me. It took a while to trace where she was. To pick the right time, when Jess would be going away: to build up those social networks, so that when we met, it seemed the most natural thing in the world. Then came the next part, slowly homing in on you, the successful lawyer, knowing it was only a matter of time before that carefully constructed law career would come unpicked, so that when one thread was pulled, all of it would unravel; building you up enough, so that you’d know how it felt when you fell.
Only one of you killed Kimberley, but two of you kept the secret. I didn’t care if I hurt both of you. How do I know this? When Kimberley died, Charlie spent his time with her grandmother. United by grief, she told him what she knew. And Charlie told me. Why? We were so close, Charlie and I. He was my brother.
When you want something enough, you’ll do anything. Lie. Cheat. Cut a vein, letting enough blood leak out to fill a small cellophane bag. It isn’t difficult to make a bouquet. There’s a certain justice about the flowers being dropped, the splashes of blood on skin, over the floor. It will always be there. The tiniest, most invisible microdroplets of me.
The old lady needn’t have died. But Mrs Guthrie thought she saw me delivering the flowers in a van. Remained silent when I told her they were a surprise. But was too much of a risk, too easy to deceive about the smoke pouring from her chimney. It didn’t take much to block it off when she invited me in.
Trust made everything so easy. Amy’s unlocked phone, no password on her laptop. The notebook she left lying about. Stupid, naïve Amy was fair game. My turn for my actions to create ripples. It didn’t matter who I brought down first. I knew eventually, I’d get to both of you. It was that secret you kept. All it would take was for one of you to talk, then I knew the other would be unable to remain silent.
But just to be sure, I sent the anonymous letter. Mentioning you, Fiona,
just to make sure you didn’t escape. But I could just as easily have mentioned Amy. As I’ve said before, it didn’t matter. If there’s any justice, the police will convict both of you.
How could either of you think I ever loved you? Ridiculous Amy who let me walk all over her? Let me abuse, control, stonewall her; be vile to her precious daughter. And you, Fiona … However smart you think you are, however good at summing people up, you missed one important detail. People like me can’t love.
The knife in the workshop with Amy’s fingerprints on it, all that blood waiting to be found, even though they’ll never find a body, the burned-out car. All of that was me. But this was never about me. This was always for Kimberley and Charlie.
As I said in the message. Kill one man and you are a murderer. But you were guilty collectively of killing not just one person. You ended the lives of several. Back then, you didn’t know you had the power to change my life forever. Your actions creating waves, losses multiplying; touching more lives than you ever knew.
Justice remaining unserved. Until now.
Jess
I thought with my mother home, we could carry on with our lives. But when the case of Kimberley’s murder goes to court, I’m at her side as she’s forced to relive the day her sister died all over again. Only when Fiona is found guilty, then sentenced, is it possible to think about moving on.
Even though Matt’s threats towards me are added to the charges against him, fear still hangs over me. I can’t shake the unease that one day in the future, when I’m alone somewhere, just as he said, he will find me.
One morning, when I’m tidying the kitchen, under a pile of bills, I find a folded-up piece of paper. Opening it, I start to read.
I promise to hold your hand, to steer you through life’s sorrow and darkness, on a path towards justice and hope. I will endeavour to know what’s best for you, to protect you from your past, help you build the future you deserve. Then when I can no longer be with you, a part of me will always be with you, watching over you. In the shadows of your heart, on the soft curves of your skin, in the longest forgotten corners of your mind.
Feeling myself shiver, I read it again. ‘Mum?’ I wave the piece of paper at her. ‘I just found this.’
Coming over, she starts as she sees what it is. ‘Matt’s vows,’ she says quietly.
‘For your wedding?’ When she nods, I go on. ‘They’re gross. It’s like he’s pledging to control you.’
Her eyes are sad as she turns to me. ‘I suppose for a long time, he was.’
A piece of paper can be burned and that’s what we do with it, but it takes more time to rid the house of Matt’s reeking presence. To repair the garden to how it was before the police desecrated it. For the story to fade from the press. My mother and I can never go back to who we were, before. But we’re stronger. And we’ve survived, I remind her. If we survived this, can’t we survive anything?
After repainting the walls and replacing Matt’s horrible sofas with comfy second-hand ones, my mother thinks about renting out the house, until the alchemist’s curse weaves itself around her again. It’s the garden. The irony that the police destroyed it isn’t lost on me. We repair the flowerbeds, recover the salvageable plants, but we both know it’s never going to be the same.
Then I remember something she said once, about how you’re only ever the custodian of a garden. That in the end, it will be handed down to someone else. All the time she’s preserved her grandmother’s plants, she’s been punishing herself. But now that her innocence has been proved, that has to stop.
Kimberley is still here, remembered in the soft fragrance of the rosemary plants, the purity of the white rose. But alongside what remains of the memorial garden, my mother plants forget me nots and honeysuckle, crocus bulbs and yellow tulips, clumps of yarrow, white jasmine that will grow up the back of the house, cascading down around the sliding doors. In the new beds, we plant pink and red rose bushes. Then as a finishing touch, in memory of Charlie, we plant a climbing rose at the base of the apple tree.
By the time she’s finished, grief and remembrance are no longer centre stage here. The garden tells a different story now. My mother’s story. Already it’s on her face, in her eyes as she looks around. No longer a place of sadness, haunting her with guilt, it’s a garden that tells a story of love.
Even so, inexplicably, a trace of Matt’s presence remains in the house, until one day, as I’m cleaning the kitchen, I find my mother’s engagement ring. Picking it up, I study its dull gold and heavy green stone. I never liked it, but now, I imagine it tarnished by Matt’s intention, noxious energy radiating from it. Keeping it away from my mother, that night, when she isn’t looking, I pull on my trainers and creep outside.
Clutching the ring tightly, I make my way to the furthest part of the garden. For a moment, I stand in the shadows, breathing in the cool air. It’s a still night, over the hedge, the bleached stubble field lit by an almost full moon. Still clutching the ring, I step back, then hurl it over the hedge, high into the air, watching it arc into the dark sky, glittering one last time in the moonlight, before disappearing from sight, forever gone.
Acknowledgements
This is my first book to be published by Avon and I’d like to say a huge thank you to my editor, Phoebe Morgan, for her vision for this book, and for not only getting under the skin of it, but pushing me to make it the best I could. It’s wonderful both to be working with you and to know my books are in such safe hands.
A massive thank you as always, to my agent, Juliet Mushens, who is everything an author could wish for. I’m incredibly grateful to you for everything you do.
I’d like to thank everyone at Avon and HarperCollins involved in publishing The Vow, from the gorgeous cover, through the editing process, to sales, marketing and everything else. Huge gratitude also to Sabah Khan, for all things publicity-related. At the time of writing this, we’ve a few months to go before publication, but already the publicity wheels are spinning and it really is wonderful to be working with you.
To my family and friends. So much love to Georgie and Tom, and thank you for brainstorming when I get stuck, for being endlessly positive and supportive. You are my world. To Martin, for helping unravel the glitches when my brain gets tied in knots, and for your endless patience when the pressure is on! To my parents, who first instilled in me a love of books. To my sisters and unwavering supporters – Sarah, Anna and Freddie. To Clare, Lindsay, Katie, Heather and to all my friends, for being more stalwart supporters, coming to book launches, buying my books, spreading the word … Thank you to each and every one of you. Your support is awesome!
And lastly, thank you to reviewers, bloggers, booksellers, libraries and to you, my readers. I’m hugely grateful to all of you. Without you, I wouldn’t be doing this.
About the Author
Debbie Howells is the bestselling author of The Bones of You (Macmillan), a Richard & Judy Book Club pick. The Vow is her first book with HarperCollins.
You can follow @debbie__howells on Twitter.
About the Publisher
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The Vow: the gripping new thriller from a bestselling author - guaranteed to keep you up all night! Page 27