The Secrets You Hide

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The Secrets You Hide Page 14

by Kate Helm


  He steps close to me, so his features blur. I smell stale coffee on his breath.

  ‘What are those birds that feed off dead things? Vultures. That’s you.’

  His words are full of venom. For the first time, I see a fury in him.

  ‘Daniel—’

  ‘Tell my devoted dad I’ll do the job properly soon, and he won’t have to worry about me anymore.’

  ‘Your dad doesn’t know I’m here. I came because you never had a chance to tell anyone your side of things.’ My words sound tacky to me, the false promises of a gutter journalist. I try to remind myself that it’s about more than that. ‘And if you’re depressed, you can get treatment. You’ll be free soon. Don’t you want to start again?’

  ‘No. I’m poison. Everyone I get close to suffers, or dies.’

  I flinch. How often have I felt the same?

  ‘You’re not the only one who misses your mum. Your father still feels terrible about what happened. He told me.’

  Daniel spins around, his eyes black.

  ‘Told you what?’

  ‘How guilty he feels that he couldn’t save her – or you. He loved you, Daniel. I think he still does, despite what you did.’

  His jaw hangs as he stares.

  I keep talking. ‘And as for your mum, it wasn’t your fault. You were a child. There was nothing you could have done to stop her.’

  I know these words, because people said them to me about my father. I never believed them either.

  I look at Daniel. For a moment, I think he might be about to cry. But then he shakes his head.

  ‘You don’t have the first fucking idea, do you?’

  ‘Maybe not. But I want to. I want to understand.’

  He takes a step towards me, his hands balled into fists, and held rigid at his sides.

  ‘Do you really think you’re the first to try to nail him?’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘There was a woman copper saw through him too, she got bloody nowhere. And everyone who did know what my hero dad has done is dead. Except me. You know what kept me going inside? The thought that he might slip up. Get caught out. But he’s like the fucking Titanic. Unsinkable.’

  I try to make sense of what he’s saying.

  ‘Daniel, tell me what this is about.’

  ‘He was there,’ Daniel whispers, as though someone else might hear, ‘on the bridge with my mother – there were witnesses. He fucking pushed her off, I know he did. But he still got away with it. You’d think that would put women off, wouldn’t you? But no. First Tessa. Now this new girl he’s going to marry. They all think they’re the special one.’

  I glimpse something move over his shoulder.

  Charlie.

  Not now, not when I need to focus.

  ‘You think your father killed your mum?’

  ‘Not just her. His best mate, too. Not that anyone ever seemed to see anything weird about him just disappearing one night. But you’re just as blind as the rest of them. I bet you think he’s in love with you too.’

  He’s backing away now, towards the unit. As he does, his ankle twists and he stumbles. His face contorts in pain.

  ‘No, that’s not why I’m here. Daniel, come back. Please.’

  But he’s already hobbling into the building, and my escort, Gary, is tapping his watch.

  Charlie is heading towards me now, his thumb in his mouth, as though he’s tired.

  Then he walks right through me, and as I flinch, I realise. He wasn’t heading for me after all. He was following Daniel.

  35

  I stumble onto the train at Plymouth, and when I look up, Charlie is there, chubby fingers tracing patterns on the table. I try to blink him away, but each time I open my eyes, he has moved to another seat, as though he’s playing musical chairs.

  Forget him. Think about reality, instead. Daniel was lying. He has to be. He’s deflecting the blame for the unforgivable thing he did all those years ago. It worked so well that I never got to ask him why he started the fire.

  But it’s madness. Jim didn’t kill Sharon, or anyone else. Why would he?

  Except my father had no reason to kill my mother, and he still smothered her with a pillow.

  My phone rings.

  Neena Calling

  ‘So what’s the scoop, George?’

  ‘There is no scoop. He didn’t want to talk to me at all.’

  My voice sounds edgy – I’m irritated by her thirst for a story.

  ‘Oh shit. What – he refused completely?’

  ‘I cornered him and he said a couple of things. But the upshot is, he blames his dad for his mother’s suicide. According to Daniel, Jim pushed her off that bridge.’

  ‘Woah. Now that’d be a scoop and a half.’

  ‘Except he’s invented it. There would have been an inquest into her suicide, right? The only useful thing it tells us is that Daniel’s unhinged. It changes nothing.’

  Neena doesn’t reply and when I look at my phone, I realise the signal’s gone.

  As I wait for her to call back I replay what Daniel said in my head – could there be anything in it? Surely not. Jim is a hero. Haunted, yes, but by what he didn’t do, not what he did.

  My phone rings again.

  ‘You still think Danny boy started the fire because he was an angry teenager who blamed his dad?’ Neena asks.

  ‘Pretty much.’

  Charlie is on the other side of the aisle now, staring at me, his eyes dark and intense. I turn towards the window.

  Neena sighs. ‘That’s not going to get you headlines for your book. Or get me off the road and into a cushy number in current affairs.’

  ‘So that’s why you press-ganged me into this.’

  ‘Come on, George. You have to admit it was worth a go. I’ll have to find another cold case to make my name.’

  ‘Right now, your career is the last thing that’s bothering me.’

  ‘Sorry. I forgot you’re not a hardened hack like me. That you still care about people. It must have been hard.’

  I think again about the meeting. At the time, there was something so real about Daniel’s fear.

  ‘There was one other thing,’ I say. ‘Daniel claimed a policewoman had tried to investigate his dad for something. Said she got nowhere.’

  ‘No name? Details of what she was looking into?’

  ‘Sorry, Neena. I should have narrowed it down but . . .’

  ‘You don’t have the killer instinct, do you?’

  For a moment, I consider telling her about the other person Daniel thinks his father might have killed. His best mate whose ‘disappearance’ no one ever questioned. He must mean Robert, Charlie’s father.

  But I hesitate. I don’t want Neena to scent blood again.

  ‘Never mind. It was a long shot. You’re going to have to go to plan B.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Trip Maureen in the corridor so she breaks her wrist. And paint Jim Fielding so . . . has to be the cover boy or . . .’

  ‘You’re breaking up, Neena.’

  ‘Ah that’s . . . Listen, I . . . tomorrow for the closing speeches . . . Cruella . . .’

  The signal dies completely. I put the phone face down. Charlie has moved back to my table. He’s still staring, almost accusatory.

  The train picks up speed, the moorland blurring beyond the window. Suddenly, in the distance, without warning, I see the hills turning into flint walls, ancient, unbreachable.

  It feels as though I am racing towards them. I know it must be another hallucination, but still my body braces itself for impact.

  Nothing.

  I close my eyes. I can’t bear this. I have to tell the counsellor the truth next time. Face up to what is happening to me.

  When I dare to open my eyes again, the hills are simply hills. Charlie is still there, sketching invisible patterns on the window with his sooty index finger.

  36

  I have another six hours
of travelling ahead, so I try to put the Fieldings out of my mind and doze. The landscape changes as we leave Dartmoor behind.

  I find myself thinking again about that last family holiday.

  We always left Cornwall before dawn, in case of traffic. Like every year, Dad and I loaded the car while Pip and Mum – the night owls, bleary-eyed and barely functioning – shuffled out once the engine was running. I got to sit in the front, playing I spy with my father in conspiratorial whispers and competing to spot signposts for the strangest places.

  Mousehole, Plusha, Tregadillett.

  We giggled together as though we were the kids. I loved my father so much.

  The sun rose at half past five, and by six, we’d reached the edge of Dartmoor, and Dad was smiling, because we were making good time. It had been a bad-tempered holiday, with my parents barely talking. On telly, married couples had passionate rows and passionate kisses to make up for them, but before this, Mum and Dad had always had formal – but affectionate – conversations about the weather and chores.

  This new silence felt dangerous, as though they were both fighting off the urge to say things they knew they’d regret. There’d been that conversation with Mum, about living somewhere else, one that I’d punished her for by taking Dad’s side even more than usual.

  As we travelled east and north, I became hopeful home might mean normal again.

  ‘Time to wake the lazy twins,’ Dad said, cocking his thumb at Mum and Pip in the back, then turning the radio on.

  ‘This is BBC radio news from London. The death has been announced of Diana, Princess of Wales.’

  I looked at my father.

  ‘Dad?’

  He leaned over, turned the volume up.

  ‘. . . in hospital in the early hours of this morning, after a car crash in central Paris.’

  I twisted in my seat to see Mum coming to, stretching her arms, still unaware of this impossible news. Pip lay with his cheek against the upholstery, spittle marking the grey tartan fabric.

  ‘Deborah. Deborah, wake up. Something’s happened.’

  She mumbled a complaint, but he shushed her as the velvet-voiced announcer said the Queen and her sons had been informed. A crash of what sounded like static turned into the roll of drums, and doom-laden horns began playing the national anthem.

  ‘Who’s dead?’ Mum asked.

  Dad said nothing as the music played, and I felt the pressure of tears in my eyes. I looked out of the window at the people in the cars we were passing, and if they weren’t crying too, I envied them the few minutes before they heard.

  ‘It’s the Princess of Wales,’ Dad said eventually, turning off the radio as the music headed for the crash and thunder of its close. ‘They got her, Deb. Even she wasn’t safe, in the end.’

  *

  The world grew hysterical. My friend Abi and I would weep until our eyes were dry as paper, and bought eye drops in Boots so we could weep some more. We had nothing in common with Diana, this doe-eyed woman older than our mothers, richer than we could ever hope to be. But the drama and mass grieving was irresistible for two girls on the cusp of puberty.

  Meanwhile, my father shrank further into himself.

  The night after the funeral, I watched those two lost boys on TV, walking away from viewing their mother’s coffin. Dad was talking to Mum in the kitchen and his voice was getting louder.

  ‘Don’t bury your head in the sand. Of course it was murder.’

  ‘But who would want to kill her?’ Mum’s voice was taut.

  ‘Powerful people. Don’t you realise what goes on under the surface in this country, Deb? We’re pawns. If we do things the powers-that-be don’t like, they’ll get us.’

  ‘Colin. Please. You’ve never talked like this before. Has something happened?’

  He pushed open the kitchen door and strode from the house. I heard him drive off.

  ‘Where’s he gone?’ I asked Mum.

  She shook her head. ‘Work maybe? Though what he’s going to do there at this time I’ve no bloody idea . . .’ Then she smiled at me, as if she’d remembered I was her daughter, not someone she could confide in. ‘Christmas is coming, Suzie. I bet he’s just getting in some overtime.’

  *

  After he killed them, when I saw a newspaper picture of the sparse handful of bouquets people laid outside our house, I thought of the flower mountain left for Diana. Why did her death matter more than my mother’s and my brother’s? She’d had a rich, full life. Pip’s hadn’t even begun.

  But really, my anger was directed at myself.

  37

  Today it’s the closing speeches: Oli’s last chance to nail the footballer; Cruella’s to clear her client’s name. Neither will have slept last night.

  I got home from Devon so late I could barely keep my eyes open. Yet I couldn’t sleep, my head full of unanswered questions about Jim and Daniel.

  Oli goes first:

  ‘The man in the dock is, by his own admission, spoiled. But that’s not only about being able to buy whatever you want, go wherever you please, first class. Spoiled means you’ve started to believe that your needs and desires count for more than anyone else’s.

  ‘That everything – and everybody – is there for the taking.’

  I write notes on autopilot, knowing that I can draw all the characters from memory now. It’s just as well – the only person I seem to see clearly today is Charlie. He is everywhere. By the door, in the empty witness box, mimicking Oli’s movements.

  Is he looking for his lost father?

  No. It’s all in my head. I’ve made another appointment with the counsellor, though he can’t see me until Monday. This time I’ll tell the truth and ask him to do the same. An expert will surely know if I am going mad.

  Yet the question Daniel raised about Robert O’Neill’s disappearance is troubling me. Men leave their kids all the time, but Daniel seemed so sure it wasn’t that simple.

  ‘Bringing an accusation of rape is never the easy option for a victim. The defence have suggested many motivations for Miss Tranter’s allegation – money, attention-seeking, even morning-after regret over an uncharacteristic desire for violent sex.

  ‘Ask yourselves: does any of that ring true? Or is the most obvious motivation also the true one – Miss Tranter was raped by Sam Carr and she wanted her attacker to face justice?

  ‘This, members of the jury, is your role and your duty. To hear the victim’s plea and to make justice happen.’

  As he sits down, I scan the jurors’ faces again but I don’t glean anything. After a short break, it’s Cruella’s turn.

  ‘Rape is a terrible crime. One that always deserves a harsh sentence. But this is not about rape. It is about two people with different expectations. And it should never have ended up in court.’

  Cruella spends the afternoon painting her client as the victim, and casting more innuendo at the young woman who brought us all here.

  For my final sketch of the week, I draw her in full, bitter flow, with Oli in the background, and the footballer’s face full of either fear or contempt, depending on how you see him.

  I know how I see him.

  But again I see Charlie more clearly. It’s a relief to leave court, to stop pretending everything is OK. Once my sketch is done. I ask Neena what her weekend has in store.

  ‘Ferrying the twins between swimming, tree house adventures and meditation classes,’ she says. ‘Please tell me yours will be two days of unbridled hedonism.’

  I force a grin. ‘Don’t forget the compulsory orgy on the beach. Though with all the pebbles, al fresco sex is not what it’s cracked up to be.’

  ‘Have an extra shag for me.’

  She blows me a kiss goodbye so as not to smudge her make-up before her live broadcast.

  And I walk back towards my flat, Charlie skipping ahead, breathing in fresh air while I can. I won’t leave the house again until Monday, because I’m scared of what I might see.

  38

 
; On Saturday morning, I wake early. Today I need a clear head: I am going to look for Robert O’Neill.

  I’m alone in the flat, Charlie keeping out of sight.

  I have started to credit my hallucination with a mind of his own.

  It’s hard to know where to start, so I just type Robert’s name and Ashdean into my dodgy old laptop. Nothing comes up, though there are thousands of men with his name when you take the town out of the search. I try adding Jim’s, but that only gives me coverage of the fire and the court case, focusing on Charlie and Jodie, with no mention at all of their father, beyond describing Emma as a single mum.

  He’s been wiped from history.

  Though maybe that’s deliberate: if he’s deserted his family, he may have changed his name to avoid paying maintenance.

  Luckily for Emma, Jim was there to help.

  I make another coffee to give myself a break, then I read sites offering advice when someone goes missing. It seems that if a person really doesn’t want to be found, there’s little relatives can do.

  When I changed my name, I didn’t have to go the whole hog – there was no family left to search for me. And anyway, becoming Georgia was about escaping my father’s name – and trying to escape the guilt – rather than responsibilities. I had none.

  But why would a father leave his son and pregnant wife? Men do it all the time, I guess. Grow tired of the burden and the boredom. Jim hinted as much about Robert.

  If only Dad had left us. In my teens, I went through a phase of trying to understand what might have made him do it, reading everything I could get my hands on about family annihilation. How these men – and it’s almost always men – crave control. How they cannot conceive of the idea that their wife and kids could exist without them.

  None of it helped.

  I stop myself: don’t think of that now. This is not about me.

  I try to find more of a connection between Robert and Jim when they were younger, but the internet didn’t exist then, of course. There’s no trace of the joyriding or the boot full of dodgy cigarettes Jim took the blame for.

  Why would there be, anyway? It’s hardly the crime of the century.

 

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