The Accusation: An addictive psychological thriller with a jaw-dropping twist

by Victoria Jenkins

  ‘The police are on their way.’

  I nodded again, thanked the fireman and turned away from the burned-out wreck that had been my car. Thankfully, there had been nothing inside it of any value or importance, though that seemed to offer little compensation. My life had been sabotaged yet again, and this time the attack had moved uncomfortably close to home.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Damien asked once the fireman had left us alone. I shook my head, waiting for the reassuring touch of his hand on mine, or the welcoming gesture of an outstretched arm I could curl my body into. The promise of either disappeared with his next question. ‘Do you know more than you’re letting on?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘All this,’ he said, flinging his hands in the air. ‘It’s not a coincidence, is it?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I was trying to remain calm, attempting to voice my responses in a way that wouldn’t make me sound automatically defensive. It was difficult not to feel affronted, though, not when his tone was so accusatory.

  He threw his head back and inhaled a deep lungful of cold night air. When he looked back at me, I wanted to believe he didn’t resent everything I had brought upon us, but it was impossible to try to fool myself into thinking that way when I could see the hostility so clearly in his eyes.

  ‘I’m just wondering what’s going on here, Jenna. Things like this don’t happen out of the blue, do they? Why you?’

  I felt tears spark at the back of my eyes, and I hated myself for them. Whatever was going on – whatever the reason behind it – I didn’t want to be reduced to tears. I wanted to fight back, to prove my innocence, but the longer I waited for something that might help me do either of those things, the weaker I felt my resilience become.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said, feeling a solitary tear fall down my cheek. ‘If I did, don’t you think I’d be doing something about it?’

  ‘The police are going to ask questions. You need to answer them honestly.’

  I turned to look at the open door, mindful that at any moment Lily might make an appearance in the hallway. ‘And why wouldn’t I?’

  Damien looked at me sadly, the tiredness in his eyes fading into something deeper, more ingrained. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know anything any more.’

  By the time the police and the fire crew left, it was nearly 5 a.m. Amelia had fallen asleep in Lily’s arms while watching television, and Damien carried her up to her room and put her back to bed. When he came downstairs again, Lily was in the kitchen, a dressing gown pulled tightly around her and a cup of tea clutched in both hands. Our earlier argument hadn’t been mentioned, though she had barely spoken to me, and eye contact had been even more limited.

  ‘Your sister doesn’t need to know the police were here,’ I said.

  Lily rolled her eyes. ‘Of course not.’

  Amelia had fallen asleep before the police arrived, which I was grateful for. There would have been more questions, more answers I’d have failed to find; it was already hard enough trying to explain things to Lily.

  ‘Well… that was no accident, was it?’ Her tone was accusatory.

  I could feel Damien eyeing me expectantly. Despite my hopes that some sort of solidarity might be achieved between us, I was encased in a feeling of increasingly familiar isolation.

  ‘You should try to get a couple more hours’ sleep. We all should.’

  My suggestion was met with pursed lips, but Lily took the hint to leave, and flounced from the room with an overly dramatic swish of her dressing gown. My elder daughter was many things, but she wasn’t stupid. She knew as well as Damien and I did that the attack on the car was intentional, aimed at me personally, and that the repercussions would have an inevitable impact on us all.

  I set about clearing the mugs she had left on the table, busying myself with the mundane so that I didn’t have to concentrate on what I knew was coming.

  As though seeing what was going on inside my head, Damien announced, ‘We can’t keep the girls here. It isn’t safe.’

  I should have said something, but the words – all of them – were trapped on my tongue. I knew he was right, but I hated what he had said and everything it implied. I hated what this stranger was doing to my family.

  My silence seemed to infuriate him, and he passed me with a shake of his head and an audible sigh before heading up the stairs. By the time I reached the bedroom, he had already pulled down the suitcase from the top of the wardrobe and opened it out on the bed. I stood in the doorway and watched as he moved around the room, folding clothes haphazardly before placing them in the suitcase. He looked so different to when we’d first met, and not just because of the inevitable changes of time. He was still only young, just forty-one, yet he was lean in the way of a much older man, the strength that had once defined his muscles having faded since the accident and given way to a visible weakness.

  ‘Please don’t do this.’

  ‘I’m not doing it because I want to,’ he said without looking at me. ‘What choice do I have? It isn’t safe here.’

  As I watched him, I realised I was witnessing my family fall apart. I didn’t want him to take the girls away from me, yet I knew he was right: our home wasn’t safe. What if next time a burning rag was pushed through the letter box? The thought made me feel sick.

  ‘Where are you going?’ I asked, already knowing the answer.

  ‘My mother’s.’

  ‘Lily won’t go.’ Or Nancy won’t have her, I thought, though I kept the words to myself.

  ‘That’s up to her. She’s got the option.’

  ‘It won’t be for long, will it?’ I asked, hearing the desperation in my voice. ‘Sean is going to sort this out, I know he will.’

  Damien scoffed. ‘If he’s our best chance, then God help us.’

  I clung again to the ‘our’ and the ‘us’ – maybe all wasn’t yet lost.

  ‘I know his reputation, but this is different. I’m innocent. Innocent people don’t get sent to prison for things they didn’t do.’

  I sounded like a naive child. We both knew how untrue that was. I could think of too many well-documented examples of men and women sentenced for crimes they’d later been found innocent of.

  When Damien turned to me, I was taken aback by the tears in his eyes. In all the years we had been together, I had only ever seen him cry on two occasions: the tenth anniversary of his father’s death, and the day Amelia was born. Even when he was in recovery after his accident – after the multiple operations he’d had to try to repair the damage to his leg – I had never seen him shed a tear, despite the fact that he was going to lose his career and so many of the things that had come to shape his life.

  I wanted to say something, but I didn’t have the right words. I moved closer to him, tentatively reaching out a hand, convinced it would be pushed away. He didn’t reject me. Instead, his body crumpled onto the edge of the bed, and I sat beside him, holding his hand in mine and resting my head on his shoulder as he cried, my own tears following not far behind.

  ‘I love you, Damien, you know that, don’t you? I always have. And whatever happens next, none of it changes how I feel about you, I need you to know that.’

  Once they were given air, I heard my words as he heard them, almost as an admission. There was more to come, and I already knew it.

  Nineteen

  I must have slept for a couple of hours at least, yet it felt as though I had not long ago been downstairs, still poring through the results my searches had thrown up. My mobile phone on the bedside table woke me up; beside me, Damien’s side of the bed was empty. Ffion was calling me, and I realised with a panic that it was already nearly 8 a.m.

  ‘Ffion. Everything okay?’

  Avoiding work felt like hiding away, but I needed to take some time to figure out how I was going to get my life back in order. I was worried that it made me look guilty, but hoped Ffion knew me well enough to have faith in my innocence. Had she believed me capable of such violence, I doubted she would ha
ve continued to work for me. I needed my name to stay out of the press for as long as possible; if people were to learn of my suspected involvement, it would only attract negative attention. We needed the regular income the coffee shop provided, particularly when everything else in our lives seemed so fragile and unsteady.

  ‘Jenna, I’m sorry to call you, but something’s happened at the shop.’

  I felt my heart plummet at the words, wondering what else could possibly go wrong. I pictured the police there again, the place turned upside down; everything I had worked so hard for brought to ruins in a matter of minutes.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Someone’s graffitied the front window. I’ve tried to get it off, but if I keep going, I’m not going to be opened up in time.’

  ‘I’m on my way over,’ I said, getting out of bed and reaching for the clothes I’d left strewn around the evening before. ‘What does it say?’

  There was silence for a moment. ‘Don’t worry about that, it doesn’t matter. Have you got some cleaning stuff there? I don’t think what I’ve got is strong enough.’

  I told her I’d stop at a hardware shop on the way over and wouldn’t be long. If we were going to try to keep things as normal as possible, I needed to get the window cleaned up before too many customers saw it. I tried to imagine what was sprayed there, but I feared that whatever words or phrases I could conjure up, the truth of it might yet prove to be something I was unprepared for.

  Damien was at the kitchen sink, washing up the breakfast dishes.

  ‘Why didn’t you wake me?’ I asked.

  ‘I thought you could do with a lie-in. You must be shattered after last night.’

  Amelia was dressed in her school uniform, playing a game on Damien’s mobile phone. She looked surprisingly fresh for a child who’d been disturbed during the night, though in many ways she always seemed far more resilient than the rest of us. I noticed she didn’t look up when I entered the room, and I knew it was more than just her being engrossed in what she was doing. I doubted Damien had told her about his plans to take her to stay with Nancy. It would only have caused an argument, and there was no point in upsetting her before she went to school. Though I hated it, I knew he was right. While there was even the smallest possibility that it wasn’t safe here, taking Amelia away was the sensible thing to do.

  I moved in close beside him and lowered my voice to a whisper. ‘Have you asked Lily about going with you to your mother’s?’

  ‘She wants to stay here with you.’

  I suspected Lily’s reluctance to go to Nancy’s was more to do with keeping a distance from Damien than it was with staying close to me. Though I was grateful for her loyalty, I wanted her to be protected. I was glad she wanted to be at home – I had so much making up to do, and I needed to try to keep things as normal as possible – yet I was unsure whether it was the best thing for her.

  ‘It’s not safe,’ I mouthed.

  ‘You’ll have to talk to her. She made it clear she didn’t want to discuss it with me.’

  ‘What’s going on between you two?’ I asked the question before my brain had time to talk me out of it. I wondered how he might try to excuse the frostiness between them, or whether he was even aware of it. It occurred to me that he might have been too consumed with other things to have noticed.

  ‘Nothing that I’m aware of.’

  I looked across the room at Amelia, making sure she was still lost to our conversation. I had left my laptop on the kitchen table, and I wondered whether Damien had checked my search history. I doubted that it would have been a priority, though it didn’t matter if he had; I had nothing to hide. I wanted to know who Charlotte Copeland was and why she was trying to ruin my life; surely he wouldn’t find anything incriminating in that? Had he been in my situation, he would have done the same.

  ‘Did you talk to her about it this morning?’ I asked in a whisper.

  He shook his head. ‘Last night. I heard her get up this morning, but she’d left before I had a chance to see her. Have you spoken to her again about this boyfriend?’

  When I looked over at Amelia again, she was watching us, the phone still clutched in her hands.

  ‘Can we talk about this later? I’ve got to go over to the coffee shop… I’ll explain later.’

  The truth was, I had no intention of mentioning the graffiti. I had already given Damien enough to cope with; I didn’t want him to have to worry about the business too.

  He opened his mouth to say something, but glancing at Amelia, he changed his mind. ‘Whatever,’ he mumbled.

  I wanted to stay and talk to him, to sort things out, but I knew I had to get over to Ffion. If things became too difficult for her and she decided to look for employment at a place where the boss hadn’t been accused of attempted murder, we’d be screwed financially. Damien couldn’t help at the coffee shop – the injury to his leg meant that he couldn’t spend extended periods of time on his feet – and though he made some money doing laptop repairs, the work was sporadic, meaning the income was too. I needed to provide for my family, but I also needed to ensure Ffion was protected. If she went, everyone would suffer.

  I stopped at the kitchen table and crouched beside Amelia, wrapping my arms around her in an embrace from which she was keen to wriggle free. She gave me a questioning look, as though wondering what was going on, and I realised that the more fuss I made, the harder it was going to be for Damien to explain to her that evening that she wouldn’t be going home tonight.

  ‘I love you,’ I told her, trying to make the words sound as casual as possible. ‘Have a good day at school.’

  I thought about asking Damien if I could borrow his car – there was no reason why he and Amelia couldn’t walk to school – but he had made it obvious that he wanted to get over to his mother’s sooner rather than later, and I was too proud to beg him to stay and help me. If he wanted to go, I had to let him. It wouldn’t be forever – or so my remaining strands of optimism assured me.

  I called a taxi and asked the driver to stop and wait for me at B&Q, where I bought some extra-strength window cleaner, paint remover, a packet of sponges and a wire brush. By the time he dropped me near the coffee shop, town was busy, the main street flooded with teenagers in uniform making their way up to the comprehensive. I wished I had a hood to put up, though the lack of rain would have only made me look more conspicuous.

  My resolution to not look at the shopfront until I was right outside fell to pieces as soon as I was close enough to see the window; close enough to see the blood-red paint that dripped down the glass in horror-movie capitals.

  PSYCHO

  My fragile hope that I might stay anonymous was instantly dashed; people knew who I was, where I worked. And if last night’s incident was anything to go by, they knew where I – and my family – lived.

  When Ffion greeted me at the door, it was all I could do to stop myself from bursting into tears.

  ‘Where’s your car?’

  ‘Wouldn’t start,’ I lied.

  She rolled her eyes. ‘Typical, isn’t it? I’ve got everything prepped,’ she added, raising a hand as though she was going to reach out to me, but changing her mind mid gesture. ‘Come on… let’s get this sorted out.’

  We worked as quickly as possible to clean the window before too many people saw the evidence of my shame. ‘I didn’t do it,’ I said in hushed, urgent tones as I scrubbed at the paint, my arm working furiously as though it might be able to undo not just this but everything that had led to it.

  ‘Christ, Jenna, you don’t need to tell me that.’

  Her words were a comfort, and as I scrubbed, I wept. Ffion, tactful enough to know when words weren’t needed, allowed me to cry in silence, picking up her pace to match mine.

  It was ten minutes past our usual opening time of 9.30 by the time we finished, and thankfully there had only been a small number of passers-by. I was grateful none of them had felt it necessary to comment on the vandalism, though I knew it woul
dn’t be long before something was said. I had no idea how I would react. If I said nothing, I would look guilty; if I protested my innocence too loudly, I imagined it would achieve much the same effect.

  The first customer of the morning arrived while I was still there. He ordered an Americano and I waited in the kitchen while Ffion served him, feeling like a fugitive.

  ‘I think it’s probably best I go,’ I told her when she came to join me. ‘You sure you don’t mind?’

  ‘It’s probably a good idea,’ she agreed, glancing at my hands. They were pink from the paint, raw-looking. ‘Go and do what you need to do. If there’s anything I can help with, you know you only have to ask.’

  ‘Thanks, Ffion.’ Her kindness was appreciated, but I was finding it hard to handle. I couldn’t deal with the attention, as though I was undeserving of it.

  ‘Is there anything on that footage I sent you?’

  I shook my head. ‘Nothing,’ I lied. The truth was, I hadn’t yet looked at it. I knew I needed to, but I was too scared of what – or who – I might find.

  Twenty

  When I got back to the house, it was eerily quiet. Even before I unlocked the front door, things felt changed, as though some irreparable damage had been inflicted upon the place and it would never look the same, smell the same, feel as it once had. It would never truly be home again.

  What remained of my car was gone from the driveway. Damien had taken Amelia to school in his own car, which had been safely parked on the other side of the street, and I assumed that he had returned to the house to wait for the Peugeot to be taken away. I needed to arrange a rental car as soon as possible, though there was something far more pressing competing for my attention.

  ‘You okay, love?’

  I was snapped from the sight of the blackened concrete on the empty driveway by one of the neighbours, an elderly man who had lived in the street for as long as we had been there and who seemed to follow the same routine every day, walking his dog once during the morning and again in the early evening.