by Jess Ryder
The woman who knocked at my door, bruised and bleeding and asking for help, who’s been living as a guest in my house for the last few months, is an impersonator. She isn’t Lori, victim of domestic violence, but her therapist, Dawn Watson.
My mouth goes dry. I feel suddenly dizzy. My heart is banging against my ribcage like a wild animal trying to escape. I’ve got to calm down, think … Lori – no, Dawn – is outside in the garden with Abi. And who the hell’s Abi? She must be in on it – whatever ‘it’ is. What the fuck are they doing here? What is it they want?
All I know is, something really bad is going on here. A sting, a scam, a crime – and stupid, gullible Stella is the target. Jack was right all along; he knew the situation didn’t smell right. That’s why ‘Lori’ was so adamant about not going to the police, because she wouldn’t have been able to prove her identity.
Turning back to my phone, I quickly type the name Lori Mattison into the search box. There are hundreds, thousands of results – links to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter mostly, none of them likely to be the Lori Mattison I’m looking for. But then, a few entries down, I see a headline, and my blood freezes in my veins.
Jury take just forty-two minutes to convict young mum’s murderer.
I click on the link and it takes me to a local online newspaper for the west Kent area.
A judge described the brutal murder of twenty-eight-year-old mother-of-two Lori Mattison as ‘one of the most extreme cases of domestic violence I’ve ever seen’ as he jailed husband Darren Mattison for at least twenty-four years. The court heard that Mrs Mattison suffered horrific injuries in the attack, with her whole face caved in by almost a centimetre, her jaw broken in two places, fractures to both eye sockets and evidence of strangulation. Mattison had denied her murder but it took a jury just forty-two minutes to find him guilty.
Mary Oyelowo, prosecuting, said that the victim had been receiving counselling for the past year. After years of violent abuse, she had been encouraged to press charges against her husband, although no prosecution took place. The couple’s two children had been previously removed from the home by Social Services and were in foster care at the time of the fatal attack. Darren Mattison had recently enrolled on a perpetrator rehabilitation scheme and the victim had been working ‘extremely hard’ to rebuild the relationship in order to be reunited with the children.
Judge Laurent Ritherden, jailing Mattison for life, told him: ‘You pretended to the authorities that you were genuinely committed to changing your ways, when in fact you were simply waiting for the moment to take revenge on a warm-hearted and gentle woman who was trying her best to keep her family together.’
The defendant, who wore a black T-shirt and had heavy tattoos on his neck and arms, showed no reaction.
I fling the phone onto the bed and march out of the room in the direction of the garden. Blood is rushing through my head, my fists are clenched, and I’ve never felt so angry in my entire life. It’s time my guests told me the truth.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Stella
Now
I crash through the archway, pushing aside the thorny rose branches, and march past the shed. Lori – Dawn – and Abi are still digging, their spades squelching into the heavy earth. ‘Okay, so what’s going on?’ I demand, hands on hips, my body shaking with anger.
Abi looks up. ‘We’re making you a pond, you already know that,’ she says patronisingly.
A scoffing sound bursts out of my mouth. ‘Yeah, right. Who the fuck are you anyway?’ The two women exchange the briefest shadow of a glance. Dawn opens her mouth to speak, then closes it again.
‘I know who you are,’ I say, turning to the woman I’ve been sheltering for the past couple of months. ‘You’re Dawn Watson. A therapist at the Pathways centre. Jesus, a therapist? You should be struck off!’
There’s a sharp intake of breath. Dawn and Abi freeze. It’s as if I’ve just tossed a hand grenade into the space between us. They stand there staring, waiting for it to explode.
‘You’re mistaken …’ Abi begins, but Dawn shakes her head. She drops her spade and it clangs on the hard earth.
‘How did you find out?’
‘I found your file under the floorboards.’
‘I see.’
‘What was it, a kind of crib sheet to help you get in character?’
‘No, it was—’
‘Don’t answer that,’ warns Abi.
Dawn bows her head. ‘They’re personal notes I made on a very difficult case I was involved in. It was a terrible tragedy.’
‘Lori Mattison, yes, I looked her up on the internet. I know she was murdered by her husband, Darren.’
‘I’m really sorry, Stella. I didn’t want to do it.’
‘Do what?’ I say. ‘Pretend to be a dead woman?’
Abi, who has been edging her way around and is now standing with her back to the archway, blocking my exit, intervenes again. ‘Don’t say another word, Dawn.’
Dawn starts to cry. ‘I’m so sorry, so sorry. I betrayed you, I betrayed my profession.’
Abi rolls her eyes to the skies. ‘Nobody wants to hear your bleating. Just shut up.’
I’m shaking my head in disbelief as the events of the past weeks rattle through my brain. ‘I don’t understand. You turned up on my doorstep covered in blood. You were genuinely hurt. Why did you do it?’
Dawn looks away from me. ‘It was an awful thing to do, I know. I didn’t want to do it. She forced me.’
‘What was the plan? To steal from me?’
‘No! Nothing like that.’
‘Then what? I need an explanation.’
‘Dawn, if you say another word, you’re really going to regret it,’ says Abi threateningly. ‘Shut up now. Go back to the house. I’ll deal with this.’
‘No, I’m staying here. We can’t treat Stella like this.’
I swing around to face Abi. ‘Did you help her with the injuries? She couldn’t have done them to herself …’ A flicker passes over Abi’s face. ‘Yes, you did. What’s the relationship here, are you a couple?’
‘It’s none of your business.’
‘We’re sisters,’ mumbles Dawn.
‘I told you not to say anything,’ Abi grunts.
‘Sisters?’ I look from one to the other. Two people could not look more unalike. And yet it makes sense. Abi the older, the bully, always in charge. Dawn the younger, the fall guy, the patsy, always getting the blame. ‘But why target me? What’s so important that you had to put on such a performance?’
‘We’re not going to tell you anything, so don’t waste your breath. There’s a way out of this. Just do what I say and you won’t get hurt.’ Abi steps forward and I instinctively move back, my feet sinking into the muddy earth at the edge of the hole.
‘I’m sorry, Stella,’ mumbles Dawn. ‘I messed up. I was supposed to get in and out quickly, only it didn’t work out—’
‘Jesus Christ,’ Abi roars. ‘Will you just shut it! Let me deal with this, like I always have to.’
‘But it’s over, Abi, can’t you see? There’s no way out now.’
There’s a long, cold pause as the three of us assess our position. Dawn’s frightened and unsure, but there’s a look of grim determination on Abi’s face. Her heavy eyebrows are knitted together, her dark eyes shining fiercely. She’s manoeuvred around me perfectly, cutting me off from my only means of escape. I glance at the high wall running along the bottom of the garden, the strong fences on either side. The excellent security of the house’s former life is working against me now. I’m trapped.
‘I’ve had enough of this. Let me pass, please,’ I say, trying to sound irritated rather than terrified. ‘It’s cold and I want to go back inside. I don’t understand what’s been going on, but let’s sit down and talk about this like civilised human beings.’ All I can think of is my mobile, lying on the bed. Why didn’t I bring it outside with me? Actually, why didn’t I just call the police and let them deal with it? W
hy did I ever open the door and let the two women into my life?
‘We can’t let you go,’ Abi replies. ‘Not now.’ She takes another step forward, brandishing the spade, and I lean away from her, almost losing my balance. The ground is slippery, the hole behind me about three feet deep. I sense it gaping beneath me, root tendrils reaching out, winding around my ankles, preparing to drag me in.
Is that the plan? To kill me and bury me in the garden? Maybe this isn’t a pond, was never meant to be a pond. It’s a grave. They’ve been digging it for me.
My stomach cramps. I feel sick … faint … I start to sway.
‘What are you going to do, Abi?’ Dawn whispers.
‘Be quiet, I’m thinking.’ Her eyes flicker over me as she calculates the options.
‘Please don’t … It wouldn’t be right, she doesn’t deserve it. Let’s just stop now, yeah? Call it a day.’
‘We can’t!’
My pulse is racing, my heart galloping in my chest. But I have to stay calm and use my brain. Abi’s raving mad, but Dawn is scared. The situation’s getting out of control and she doesn’t like it. She doesn’t want to hurt me. I’ve got to get her on my side … talk my way out of it somehow. But Abi’s the dominant one. If she makes an attack, Dawn will be too scared to stop her. I’ll just have to scream my head off and hope somebody hears.
‘Look, we’ve got a problem here,’ I say, trying to steady myself on the slippery ground. ‘Let’s not make it worse. We’ve become friends over the past few weeks. Just tell me what’s going on and we can sort it out. You know you can trust me. I’ve never let you down, have I? Dawn – when I thought you were Lori, when I believed you were really in need, I helped you. Took you in, gave you a home, did everything I could to support you. I even took your side against Jack.’ A sudden image of him flashes into my mind and I almost lose my balance. If only he were here now, we could deal with this together.
‘It’s true.’ Dawn, who is standing on the other side of the hole, looks pleadingly at Abi. ‘She’s a good person, she’s on our side. If we tell her, she’ll understand.’
‘Jesus Christ, you’re such a fool,’ snaps Abi. ‘It’s a trick, you idiot. If I let her go, she’ll call the police straight away. Think of the consequences! Is that what you want? For everything to come crashing down? After all these years?’
‘No, but … Oh shit, what are we going to do?’
‘There’s no choice, Dawn. You have to face up to it.’
Dawn crouches and puts her hands over her face. ‘We can’t … we can’t … it would be …’
Abi rolls her eyes. ‘Stop being such a baby. You’ve always been a wimp, ever since you were born.’
‘And you’ve always been a hard bitch!’ shouts Dawn. ‘I hate you, you know that. I hate you! You made me do this, you forced me, like you always do. I was trying to help you, I wanted you to get closure, but you’re a lost cause, you’re just an evil—’
‘Evil?’ Abi laughs. ‘Thanks for the in-depth professional analysis, sis. Always welcome, especially from a failed therapist.’
‘I didn’t fail.’
‘It was your fault Lori was murdered.’
‘That’s not true!’
‘Yes it is. You treated her for months and couldn’t make her see sense. She wouldn’t get rid of Darren.’
‘She was finally going to leave him; that’s why he attacked her.’
‘Then it was your fault both ways.’
‘I didn’t kill her, he did!’
For a split second neither of them is looking at me or even thinking about me. It’s my only chance. I move forward and lunge at Abi, head down, arms reaching to grab her by the legs and tackle her to the ground, but she sidesteps me and I fall flat on my face, smacking into the soggy earth.
There’s a moment’s silence. I slowly lift my head, spitting earth from my mouth. Then I hear a loud screech like an angry seagull, and something hard, sharp and horribly cold crashes into the back of my skull.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Kay
Then
She could honestly say it was the first time since she was fifteen that she’d been happy. Nobody would understand, Kay thought, as she put down the cleaning box and started hoovering. They’d think I was mad to love living in a squat with a load of strangers, although they weren’t strangers any more; they were her closest friends. If her parents could see her now – and she had no intention of that happening – they would have a fit. And yet she’d never felt more at home, more respected, more valued. She felt free.
It was her turn on the cleaning rota – communal room, downstairs bedroom, office, conservatory, hallway and stairs as far as the first floor. She was supposed to be working with Alesha, but Alesha had had to take her son to the doctor’s this morning. Kay didn’t mind. She quite liked working by herself; it gave her time to reflect.
She lifted the sofa cushions and put them on the floor, then vacuumed up all the peanuts, biscuit crumbs, shreds of tobacco, sweet wrappers and countless strands of hair. She patted the cushions into shape and put them back. Then she cleared the coffee table of dirty crockery and gave it a polish, emptied the stinking ashtrays, tidied the toys into the corner, wiped down the marble mantelpiece, hoovered the floor as best she could, then opened the windows and let in some sea air.
It didn’t matter that by the end of the day it would all be messy and dirty again.
She unplugged the hoover and trundled it into the hallway. Verity was in a meeting with fundraisers, so she couldn’t clean the office, and Franny was running a lesson in the conservatory for the kids. It was the summer holidays, but the learning continued. Abigail was there, sitting next to her beloved teacher – she behaved as if Ms Gardiner belonged to her and her alone. Kay had thought Franny’s presence a real bonus at first, but the situation was becoming awkward. Abigail was reluctant to share. She’d been quite mean towards the other children, and that wasn’t kind, especially when they were newcomers who were frightened and confused about the changes in their lives. Franny had had a quiet word with Kay about it last weekend.
‘You really must enrol her at the local primary in September. It’s a nice little school. Several of the long-term residents send their kids there.’
Kay rested the hoover pole against the side of the stairs. That was what she was now – a long-term resident. There was no escaping the fact. And she loved living in Westhill House. It was Abigail – or Abi, as everyone seemed to call her these days – who was unsettled.
It wasn’t just the schooling that was causing a problem. Abigail was playing up like she’d never done before, falling out with some of the other girls, cheeking Kay when she told her off. She was learning some choice swear words too, which wasn’t her fault – several of the women found it impossible to control their language in front of the kids. Sometimes Kay overheard her bossing the younger ones about, using phrases she’d learnt from her stepfather: ‘Why are you such an idiot? Why don’t you just do as you’re told?’
Then there’d been the drawing incident a few weeks ago. Abigail had ripped off the wallpaper in the space between the top and bottom bunks where they slept and drawn these horrific pictures in indelible felt pen. They showed a man holding up a stick and striking a woman, with a little girl standing to one side looking on. There were red scribbles and big drips of what Kay could only assume was supposed to be blood. It was extremely worrying to think that such images had come out of her daughter’s head.
Kay had been really upset, and angry with Abigail, who knew full well she wasn’t allowed to draw on the walls. But Verity had taken the opposite stance. ‘She’s getting it out of her system,’ she’d said. ‘That’s a healthy reaction; it means she’ll be able to heal.’ Kay wasn’t so sure. Maybe the damage had already been done and could never be repaired. The pictures had been immediately covered up with fresh wallpaper, but they were still there, just as the memories were still prickling beneath Abigail’s young skin.
Kay crouched down – tricky with this growing bump – and started tidying the pile of shoes and boots, putting them into pairs and placing the odd ones to one side. It pleased her to arrange the pairs in a row along the side of the hallway, but they never stayed like that for more than five minutes. Change was the norm here. There were warm hellos and fond farewells almost every day. You never knew who was going to be sleeping in your bedroom, or sitting next to you on the sofa. The only constant was the unconditional love and support shown to every single woman. You couldn’t put a price on that.
The baby wriggled and kicked out for space. Kay leant on the windowsill and heaved herself to her feet. Take it easy, she said under her breath. She didn’t want to overdo it. A small group of them were going out tonight – Alesha, Pat and a woman called Babs, who’d turned up a few days after Kay with a fractured collarbone. Another group were babysitting their kids, the idea being that they would return the favour next Saturday. Verity encouraged the women to go out and enjoy themselves, even gave them a bit of cash to spend, but not enough to get drunk on. Kay was really looking forward to it; she couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a girls’ night out.
She’d already picked some clothes from the jumble box to wear: a cream polyester top with sparkly shoulders and a patterned cotton skirt, elasticated at the waist. They were okay, not her usual style, but big enough to accommodate the bump. It wasn’t as if she was going out to attract a man …
* * *
Nine hours later, hair up, make-up on, dressed in her second-hand glad rags, Kay linked arms with the others and walked down the Esplanade towards the pier. Pat had a new perm – one of the women in the refuge had done it for her earlier in the day. Alesha was wearing a halter-neck top and jeans that showed off her figure. Babs had brushed her hair and changed her T-shirt, which for her was quite a lot of fuss. They were a motley crew, their ages ranging from twenty-four to over forty, with different backgrounds and different outlooks on life, but they had one thing in common. No man was controlling them any more. They could do what they bloody well liked.