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

by Victoria Jenkins

  I took a deep breath. ‘When you went to the coffee shop with him that night, did you leave him alone at any point?’

  I asked the question quietly, bracing myself for the storm I believed would blow up beside me. It didn’t. Instead, Lily looked at me through her parted fingers, and when she pulled them away, I could see that her cheeks had already flared pink.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Mum.’

  ‘You don’t need to be sorry,’ I said, putting a hand on her knee. ‘You just need to tell me everything. No more lies, okay? No more secrets.’ I felt the irony of the words like a voice whispering in my ear, taunting me with my own hypocrisy.

  ‘How do you know we went there?’

  ‘CCTV. I was looking for something else.’

  The realisation of what I hadn’t yet suggested seemed to fall upon her with one swift blow, and she started crying again. ‘This is all my fault, isn’t it?’ When she looked at me, my heart cracked for her. She had been naive, too trusting for her own good, but she understood it now, and I could recall only too well the shame and regret that went hand in hand with the feeling. ‘Oh my God… That knife the police found at the shop… You think he might have put it there, don’t you?’

  I cringed beneath the weight of her words and all their implications. She had been exposed to more than I should ever have allowed, and yet how could I possibly have stopped it?

  I squeezed her knee. ‘Listen to me,’ I said, urging her to look me in the face. ‘This is not your fault. And I don’t think anything yet – I can’t think anything until I know the facts.’

  They had been at the coffee shop together for twenty-two minutes. I had no way of knowing what might have happened in that time. I had only seen them enter the place and then leave, my imagination left to fill in the details of the time between.

  ‘You took my spare keys, didn’t you?’

  She nodded. Her eyes were wet with tears and her face was still flushed with embarrassment.

  ‘Why did you go there?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said, still snivelling. ‘He suggested it – he said it would give us somewhere quiet to be alone.’

  A shiver snaked down my spine. All questions of how and why this man had planted that knife in the coffee shop had vanished, replaced with the sickening thought of what he might have done to my daughter. He had been there with her alone. He had taken a knife with him. I wanted to find him and make sure he never went anywhere near her again. I wanted to fold her into my body and keep her there, a baby bird sheltered from the world in the safety of her mother’s wing. I wanted to cry for her, for the possibility of an innocence that might so easily have been stolen from her, though I knew I couldn’t keep her protected forever.

  ‘I need to know exactly what happened, Lily. Did you leave him alone at any point?’

  She started sobbing again, her guilt making itself apparent in the force of her tears. ‘I went to the toilet. I wasn’t gone long, not even a couple of minutes. He couldn’t have put that knife there, Mum… Why would he do that?’

  I didn’t know the answer to that question, but I was certain he was the person who had framed me. Yet I had no idea why, and I had no evidence other than the fact that he had been there.

  ‘Tell me what else happened,’ I said.

  ‘We sat and chatted for a bit. We both took a drink from the fridge. He asked me a few questions about the shop, you know, just general stuff like how long you’d been running it. He asked if we got on.’

  ‘We? As in you and me?’

  She nodded. ‘I didn’t think anything of it at the time. It just seemed normal, like he was taking an interest in me. Now, though… I don’t know. I liked him, Mum. I thought he liked me. I knew he was too old for me, but he made me feel… important, I guess.’

  Inside my chest, my heart sank. Had we really made her feel so insignificant, so neglected, that she had felt the need to seek the attention of this man? I had been so much like her once, young and impressionable, easily swayed by the false promises and lies of a man who turned out not to be what he had claimed, and yet my situation was entirely different to Lily’s. My parents hadn’t loved me, not in the way I loved her. I had been a trophy daughter, appreciated when doing well and shunned when I failed them. I had done everything I could to give Lily the kind of upbringing I had craved, and yet for all my efforts, it hadn’t been enough.

  ‘He kissed me.’

  She spoke the words quietly, in little more than a whisper, yet the shame that accompanied them was loud. The worst of thoughts flitted through my head, accompanied by a series of images I didn’t want to have to be exposed to.

  ‘Did he force himself on you?’

  Though she’d told me they hadn’t had sex, and I’d believed her, there were plenty of other things she might have regretted.

  She shook her head vehemently. ‘No. I…’ She ran her hands down her face, drying her tears with her palms. ‘I can’t talk to you about this, Mum, it’s really weird.’

  ‘I know it is, but there’ve been a lot of weird things going on recently and I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important. Please, Lily. You have to tell me everything.’

  She covered her face with her hands again, not wanting me to see her as she spoke. It was the action of a child, a little girl playing hide-and-seek, believing that if she couldn’t see me, I couldn’t see her. ‘I wanted things to go further. I tried to… you know. But he wouldn’t. We’d never kissed before and he said he shouldn’t have done it – that it was a mistake. He actually apologised. It was really weird. That was when I went to the toilet. I didn’t really need to; I just felt so embarrassed, you know. We left not long after that.’

  Her hands slid from her face and she exhaled nosily.

  ‘When he turned me down, I thought… I thought he was being respectful, like trying to prove he wasn’t just out for one thing. But he wasn’t. I saw him with another woman, Mum. And she’s older than me – a lot older. Maybe even older than you.’ She tried to fight back tears, but the resistance was in vain. ‘I thought he liked me.’ She sobbed then, and I moved closer to her and put an arm around her again, squeezing her into me as she cried on my shoulder.

  ‘This woman, sweetheart,’ I said, my blood running cold at the thought that had taken hold of me and was refusing to let go. ‘Did you get a good look at her? What did she look like?’

  ‘Yeah, I got a good look at her. I couldn’t stop staring at them. You know when you think something can’t be real but it actually is? She was like, I don’t know, your height. She was dressed nicely, but a bit gothic – she had this dark dress on that was sort of long, past her knees, and boots that came right up her legs.’

  ‘Her face, Lily,’ I prompted. ‘Did you see her face?’

  ‘She had pale skin, I remember that. Dark make-up on her eyes. Dark hair too, you know, not quite black, but dark. Long. And she had this weird scarf thing tied around her neck. She was pretty, I suppose, for her age, but I don’t get what he sees in her, Mum. Why her and not me?’

  I couldn’t answer her. A chill had swept over me, racing along my arms and inching its way beneath my skin. Lily had just described Charlotte Copeland.

  Twenty-Eight

  I persuaded Lily to go back to Maisie’s house, making her promise she would text me hourly the following day to let me know everything was okay. I couldn’t leave her alone at home – the prospect that the place might face a further attack of some kind was too big a risk to take. I hadn’t told her my plans, only confiding in her that I needed to do something that night relating to my arrest. My suspicions had to be confirmed before I shared them with anyone else; Lily would be the last person I’d reveal the full picture to. My job was to protect her, as it had always been.

  By the time we had finished talking, it was late, already dark, and we walked to Maisie’s house together, where I spoke to her mum, giving a vague explanation about what had happened with the car. I offered her money to cover Lily’s food, making her ta
ke it when she tried to refuse. I think she felt sorry for Lily, having a mother who’d been arrested. God only knows what she must have thought of me, but by that point I was past caring. So long as the girls and Damien were safe; that was all that mattered.

  After leaving Lily, I headed to Nancy’s house. It was bathed in darkness, apart from the light that escaped from the edges of the curtains at the front window. Amelia would be in bed, and as I stood outside, I pictured myself sneaking in through the back door and creeping up the stairs so that I could lie beside her beneath the duvet and hold her as she slept. I wondered just how much irreparable damage was being done to our relationship by my absences, and I mourned the life I’d led just weeks earlier; a life I realised I’d taken for granted.

  I reached into my coat pocket and took out the spare set of car keys, pressing the lock and watching the lights of Damien’s Ford Focus light up on the other side of the road. It was an old car, probably due for an upgrade, but Damien had never been materialistic and regarded it as little more than a means to an end. I doubted, though, that he was going to be happy to wake up the following morning to find it gone.

  It took me over four hours to drive to Peterborough, with two stops along the way. During one of them, I ran an internet search for the contact details of Oakfield Manor Clinic before composing and sending an email. I hoped the fact that it would have been received at 1.30 in the morning would testify to my sense of desperation.

  When I got to Peterborough, I used the satnav on my phone to find the clinic and its grounds. Unless there were additional buildings that I was unable to see from the road, the place was small, far less grand than the impression offered by its website, though the gardens looked large and well tended. It was almost 3 a.m. by now, but the clinic was well lit, and I was able to recognise some of what was shown online.

  I sat at the roadside for a while, scanning through the website. Oakfield Manor offered rehabilitation for a range of addictions and conditions, ranging from eating disorders and depression to drug abuse and alcoholism. The facility looked as though it came with a hefty price tag. I had no clue about this woman’s life; her job, if she had one, or whether she was wealthy or poor.

  I realised I had got there far too early. I texted Damien so that he would see my message before he noticed the empty parking space outside, then drove to a quiet spot near a darkened industrial estate, where I locked the car doors, set the alarm on my phone to wake me in three hours’ time, and put the seat back to try to get some sleep.

  I woke before the alarm went off, my neck sore and my throat dry. Despite the two stops along the way, there were no drinks in the car, so to kill an extra hour I found the nearest McDonald’s and sat in the car park drinking an ice-cold Coke that woke me up and gave me a much-needed sugar rush.

  By 7 a.m., the supermarkets had opened. I bought myself some supplies for the way home, then killed more time until 9 a.m., which seemed a reasonable enough hour to call the clinic.

  My proficiency at telling lies is something I’m not proud of, not then and not now. But experience has taught me that lies are often necessary, and as I spoke with the receptionist who took my call, it felt to me as though these particular ones were justified.

  Two hours later, I was sitting in the sparse white waiting room, a glass table holding a vase of pink lilies and a small stack of magazines in front of me. I felt sick at the prospect of the trouble just being here could land me in if the police were to find out, but my fears for Lily’s safety were far stronger than any concerns I might have had for myself. If Charlotte Copeland knew the man Lily had been seeing, there was no doubt in my mind that my daughter was potentially in danger. I needed to find out why she had been targeted, and I couldn’t trust the police, not while they seemed so certain I was guilty. If keeping my daughter protected meant facing jail, it was a risk I was prepared to take.

  I had been offered tea or coffee by the receptionist, but I refused, needing to maintain the appearance of someone who was desperate and at their wits’ end. I was lucky that the manager was there, and had responded to my email by saying that if I was prepared to wait a while, she would be happy to talk to me. And so I waited, and at just past 11.30, she appeared in reception.

  ‘Philippa?

  I don’t know where the name had come from, only that when I’d written the email, I hadn’t wanted to use my own. I had sent it from an old account – one that had been registered in my maiden name but didn’t feature it in the handle. I hoped that if the name Jenna was noticed, whoever read the email would assume I was using a family member’s account.

  I stood and smiled tiredly, though this was one act at least that required no pretence. I was physically and mentally exhausted by the drive, the anxiety; the piecing together of things that were starting to take some sort of form, growing more insidious as their shape became clear.

  ‘I’m Annette. Nice to meet you. Come on through.’

  She shook my hand and I followed her through a door and into a hallway. We turned right into her office, which smelled of lavender, and she gestured to one of the chairs opposite hers at the desk.

  ‘Thanks for seeing me at such short notice,’ I said, putting my bag on the floor at my feet.

  ‘It’s no problem. So how can we help you? You said in your email that you’re looking for somewhere for your sister?’ Annette said.

  ‘That’s right,’ I said, fighting back a cough. ‘Sorry.’ I cleared my throat. ‘She’s struggled for a while now, and to be honest, I don’t think her GP has done enough. There’s been a lot of talk, but nothing concrete has ever been put in place to help her.’

  Annette placed her hands on the desk in front of her. ‘What sort of things has she struggled with? You mentioned anxiety in your email.’

  I nodded and cleared my throat again. ‘She’s had problems with her mental health for years, since we were teenagers. But recently, I don’t know, things just seem to have got worse for her. She uses cocaine a lot, I know that. We’ve tried to help her, but nothing’s worked so far. I think what you offer could be the best thing for her. She needs to be removed from any temptations.’

  Annette was nodding, as though she had heard countless similar speeches recited within these four walls. The place was cold and clinical, and yet its internet reviews were glowing, hailing the staff as miracle workers capable of turning around the lives of people in the most hopeless situations. But some people didn’t want to be saved from themselves, and I wondered to what extent Charlotte Copeland was one of those.

  I spluttered again, tapping a hand to my chest as I tried to cough up the invented content of my lungs.

  ‘Would you like some water?’ Annette asked, looking concerned as she stood from her seat. I had glanced around the room as we entered, wondering if the office might have a water dispenser, but thankfully it didn’t.

  I nodded. ‘If you don’t mind. Sorry to be a pain.’

  ‘I won’t be a moment.’

  As soon as she left the room, I got up from the chair and went behind the desk, where a large filing cabinet stood against the wall. I had no idea how long ago Charlotte Copeland had attended the clinic, or whether everything was already computerised by the time she’d stayed there, but the cabinet held something, and it felt to me as if the truth might be inches from my fingertips, if only I had time to reach it.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  I spun at the sound of a female voice, already knowing it wasn’t the manager’s. A middle-aged woman wearing a tabard and carrying a bucket was standing in the doorway, eyeing me with a mixture of shock and uncertainty, clearly unsure what she should do next.

  ‘How long have you worked here?’ I asked, unable to conceal the desperation in my voice.

  ‘Long enough,’ she said. She stepped into the office and put the bucket down beside the manager’s desk before folding her arms across her chest. ‘Now, are you going to tell me what you’re looking for?’

  ‘Please,’ I said, pushing cl
osed the top drawer of the filing cabinet. ‘I’m not here to cause trouble, I promise. I need help. I’m in trouble and I think the woman causing it… well, I know she used to be a patient here. Charlotte Copeland. I just need to find out why she’s doing this to me.’

  I could hear myself rambling, the words coming quickly and incoherently, but I couldn’t help myself. I had limited time before the manager returned to the office, and I’d already seen enough to know that she was a consummate professional; there was no chance of me getting any information about former patients from her. I stepped away from the filing cabinet just in time; as though aware that I was thinking of her, she appeared at the doorway, looking questioningly at first me and then her staff member.

  ‘Everything okay?’

  ‘Fine,’ the cleaner replied. ‘I’m sorry… the door was open. I didn’t realise you were in a meeting.’

  The manager gave her a tight smile as she left, and I could see her suspicion when she returned her focus to me. ‘Your water,’ she said, raising a plastic cup, her eyes still fixed on mine.

  ‘Thank you.’ I swallowed the drink down in one long mouthful before sitting back at the desk.

  ‘Does your sister know you’re here?’

  I shook my head. ‘I know she’ll agree to it, though. I just need her to see sense. I thought if I saw the place first, I might be able to convince her more easily.’

  ‘Then would you like to?’ she asked. ‘See the place?’

  She reached across the desk and took the cup I had left there, throwing it into the bin by the doorway as we made our way back into the corridor. She proceeded to give me a tour, though it was half-hearted, and I could tell by her tone that she knew she wouldn’t be seeing me again, nor the sister she may or may not have guessed I had invented. My anxiety was mounting by the minute. What if this woman was suspicious of me and contacted the police? I feared I had made a massive mistake in going there, acting on an impulse that had seemed like a final chance at finding the truth; risking my bail by exposing myself to something that had led me nowhere.