by Karen Clarke
‘Mum?’ Dom stared at Elizabeth, his tone a plea for denial. ‘Please tell me you didn’t try to hurt Sophy.’
‘Hurt her?’ She looked at him, provoked at last into responding, her face crowded with hurt. ‘Of course I didn’t want to hurt her. It’s absolute nonsense—’
‘Why didn’t you want us to have coffee, Mum?’ Natasha turned to face her mother. Her face was parchment pale in contrast to Elizabeth’s florid cheeks. ‘It actually doesn’t surprise me,’ she went on, before her mother could reply. ‘You were weird with me for ages when Toby was born, like you thought you knew better than I did, putting me down all the time. Not in front of anyone,’ she said to her dad when Robert tried to interject, his face ashen with shock. ‘She was subtle about it, but it was clear she wanted him to herself, would have done or said anything to look after him full-time. Why do you think we moved away?’
‘Tash, you never told me.’ Devastation crept over Dom’s features, blotting out the happiness from just moments ago. I hated Elizabeth even more for that. ‘I can’t … I just can’t believe this.’
‘You would never have seen it, Dom.’ Natasha’s eyes swam with tears. ‘You were too busy trying to fill Christopher’s shoes, we both were, but especially you. We wanted Mum to love us as much as she’d loved him. We never stopped trying to please her, but neither of us quite managed to fill the gap.’
‘You’re talking rubbish,’ Elizabeth snapped, taking a step towards Dom, one hand held out. ‘I love you both very much. Finn is my world.’
He moved away from her, his eyes not leaving her face, as though he was superimposing this new version of his mother over the old one. ‘But you don’t love Sophy.’
I reached for him as Finn shifted and sank back into sleep. ‘I was right all along,’ I said. ‘She told me I didn’t deserve to be a mother.’
He looked from me to Elizabeth. ‘How could you?’ His voice was almost a growl. ‘Sophy’s been unwell.’ He closed his eyes as if the full horror was too much. ‘Unwell, because of you.’ He turned to face me, a naked expression of torment on his face. ‘I should have believed you,’ he said. ‘I’m so, so sorry.’
I shook my head, tears filling my eyes. ‘Who would want to believe their mother was capable of … of that?’ I was still having trouble believing it myself. ‘She’s the one who should be sorry.’
‘Enough.’ Robert moved to put an arm around his wife and looked stricken when she stiffened and shifted away. ‘Finn is safe and that’s all that matters.’
‘Hang on.’ Liv held up a hand. ‘Do you think it’s okay for Elizabeth to have drugged her daughter-in-law to get her hands on Finn? To make out Sophy’s a terrible mother, all because she lost her own baby?’ She sounded furious. ‘Elizabeth could have killed her, for Christ’s sake, don’t you get that? It’s a criminal offence, what she’s done, and I bet that’s not all. Sophy told me about things going missing, then turning up again, the house being left in a mess when she thought she’d tidied up—’
‘The photo in the stables.’ My voice sounded faint. ‘She must have set that up. And the doctor said she’d tried to get hold of me. She left a message I didn’t receive, and Isaac emailed me a document that went missing …’ I trailed off as the awful truth sank in.
‘Must be easy to delete messages, or shift things about, tip wine in the bed when your daughter-in-law’s out cold, to make it look like she’s losing her mind,’ Liv stormed. ‘You do know that Sophy’s convinced she’s dying?’ She moved closer to Elizabeth, who seemed rooted to the spot, her mouth opening and closing like a fish. ‘I wonder what the blood tests will show? No wonder you don’t want Sophy speaking to the doctor.’ She cocked her head. ‘Anything to say?’ When Elizabeth didn’t reply, Liv looked at me. ‘We should call the police back. Have her arrested.’
‘No.’ Robert’s voice was firm, belied by the desperation on his face. ‘Please, just … just let us go, Sophy.’ He held out a hand to his wife and she took it, obedient as a child all of a sudden. ‘I promise she’ll leave you alone if you let it go.’
‘Mum …’ Dom was staring at her as if he’d never seen her before. ‘Aren’t you going to deny any of this?’
‘What’s the point?’ The look she flashed me was pure venom, her mask of civility stripped away. ‘She’s clearly made up her mind about me.’
‘We’ll have the coffee tested, shall we?’ Liv folded her arms, matching Elizabeth’s expression. ‘Wouldn’t be hard to prove what’s in it.’
‘I can’t … I cannot believe you’d do this to Sophy, to us,’ Dom said, tears standing in his eyes. Natasha took his arm and buried her face against his shoulder.
‘I’m so sorry I didn’t say anything sooner, when Toby was born, but I convinced myself that things would be better with me out of the way,’ she said. ‘I even thought I’d imagined the way she could be, that I was being oversensitive.’
‘Look, we’re leaving now.’ Robert was leading Elizabeth to the hallway. She didn’t try to resist and let him drape her jacket around her rigid shoulders. ‘I’m so, so sorry,’ he said, to no one in particular. I realised that, for all his niceness, Robert was weak. He would never stand up to Elizabeth, and while I understood they’d lived through the unbearable tragedy of losing a son, in that moment, I despised him too.
I moved closer to Dom and his arm wrapped around my waist.
‘Just go, Dad.’ His voice was barely recognisable. ‘Get her out of here.’
None of us moved until the front door was suddenly thrust open and somebody burst inside and dropped a brightly coloured holdall at the foot of the stairs.
‘I’m sorry it’s so late, the flight was delayed and I had to wait for a taxi. Please, please, somebody tell me my grandson is safe. I’ve been trying to call and no one’s picking up their phones. I’ve been going out of my mind.’
As a familiar figure came into view, I burst into tears. ‘He’s OK, Mum.’
‘Oh, sweetheart!’ Mum hurried over to take me in her arms, her familiar fragrance filling my senses ‘Thank heavens. What happened? I don’t understand. Who took him? Where was he? Oh, darling girl, please don’t cry. I’m here now, your baby’s safe and everything’s going to be fine.’
She pulled back and kissed Finn’s hair, stroking and murmuring before looking around at the stunned faces as the front door quietly closed behind Elizabeth and Robert.
‘I’ll put the kettle on, shall I?’ She was laughing and crying at the same time. ‘I could murder a coffee.’
Chapter 41
Liv
Three months later
Since Finn was found, I’d realised three things:
One – never slam your body against a moving car, because it bloody hurts.
Two – I cared about Sophy and her family more than I thought.
Three – It wasn’t my fault that Ben died.
I’d blamed myself for so long, believing that if I hadn’t gone out that night, he would still be alive. And I’d dealt with that guilt by blaming Sophy. But the truth was, Ben was suffering with severe depression, his mental health in tatters. I couldn’t have known how close he was to the edge.
‘Hey!’
I turned from filling the dishwasher to see Ryan framed in the kitchen doorway, his eyes no longer shadowed, his skin less pallid. He’d been chatting with Mum in the lounge for the past half hour, and I knew she was helping him come to terms with everything. It was the third time he’d visited. The first time he came he told Mum about his relationship with Ben, his voice slurred as he sat on the sofa. I’d heard him cry as Mum took him in her arms. ‘You can’t blame yourself, Ryan,’ she’d said. ‘I did that for years. Certain I should have spotted the signs – and maybe I should have. But I forgave myself. I’d thought he would be OK, you see. That a broken heart is a rite of passage.’ She’d taken hold of his hand and squeezed, insisted she didn’t blame him for Ben’s suicide. Made him promise to think of the happy times he’d shared with Ben.
&
nbsp; ‘Your mum sent me out on a custard cream hunt,’ he said now, no slur in his voice today, and I hoped he had given himself permission to live again. He smiled, and stepped into the kitchen. ‘Or bourbons.’
‘Well, she’s out of luck. We only have chocolate digestives.’ I reached into the cupboard for the biscuits, handed him the pack.
‘Is there any news about Kim?’ he asked.
I shook my head. Kim had been charged with child abduction, but there’d been no date for the trial yet.
We now knew it was when her sister returned from Spain and told Kim she wouldn’t be moving in with her with Dougie, that Kim decided if she couldn’t have Dougie, she would take Finn. She took him the day Mum went to hospital. I have moments where I regret leaving Sophy, knowing she wasn’t fully awake, and leaving the patio doors open. I’d been such an idiot.
I leant against the worktop. ‘I still keep thinking if Kim had got to the airport, got on that plane, Sophy may never have seen Finn again. It breaks my heart to think about it.’
‘But she didn’t get on that plane, because of what you and Sophy did. You did good, Liv.’
‘Ryan, where’s those biscuits?’ Mum called from the lounge.
‘You’ve been summoned.’ I laughed, and he raised the biscuits like a baton in a relay, and hurried away.
I turned back to the dishwasher, popped in a tablet, and set it going.
Freya hadn’t returned to Mum after our showdown in Suffolk, deciding to move there permanently. She’d called to tell Mum, and I had thought it would upset her, but Mum seemed to like Shari, and had wished Freya well.
I was now working in a nursery in Stevenage Old Town, and enjoying it. Sophy was managing well now her awful mother-in-law wasn’t drugging her. It turned out Elizabeth had swapped the vitamin tablets Dom’s sister sent for sleeping tablets, as well as tampering with Sophy’s coffee.
I still think Elizabeth should have been reported to the police, but it hadn’t been my call to make. I was surprised Sophy told me the details, but I’d called to see how she was and she’d blurted it out. Maybe she wanted to tell someone who’d been there, who knew what had been going on. Funny how I’d told her to watch Elizabeth. I like to think I’d had a sixth sense about her, but admit it was nothing of the kind.
Sophy and Dom were doing OK now. Dom had been a wreck following the revelations, struggling to comprehend what his mother had done. Punishing himself for not seeing what she was capable of, and not protecting his wife. In fact, the roles at number seven The Avenue had reversed for a while. Sophy transforming – strong without drugs being pumped into her – determined not to let Elizabeth destroy her family.
Elizabeth was not allowed anywhere near Finn. It was a condition of them not telling the police what she’d done.
My mobile vibrated across the worktop. Sophy.
‘Hi there,’ I said into the phone.
‘I’m on my way to London,’ she said, her voice bright. She couldn’t face leaving Finn with a stranger to return to work, but had been doing some stuff at home for a history show, and meeting Isaac regularly to discuss another project. ‘And you’ll never believe who I just saw?’
‘Go on.’
‘Clare.’
‘As in Clare and Gary, Clare?’ I hadn’t thought about them for ages – preferred not to.
‘Yep. And you’ll never guess what? She’s thrown him out.’
‘Gary?’
‘Apparently he harassed their babysitter, and she recorded the sleaze-ball on her phone.’
I laughed. It was so good to hear Sophy sounding happy – normal – gossiping even. ‘Everyone gets their comeuppance in the end,’ I said, though I wasn’t sure they did.
Once I’d ended the call, I put the phone on the worktop, and closed my eyes. The sound of Mum and Ryan laughing in the lounge was comforting. I would never get over losing my brother, but like my mum, I was learning to live with losing him, happy memories of him keeping me going. And by a strange twist of fate, Sophy and I were on the way to becoming friends.
For the first time in a long time, I looked forward to the future.
Epilogue
Elizabeth
Three years later
It’s quiet up here in the field, just me and the horses. They trot over as soon as they see me, nuzzle my pockets for the carrots they know I’ll be carrying. They don’t judge me.
I still miss my darling Finn. The way his face brightened when he saw me, and how his chubby fingers gripped his bottle as he fed in my arms, blue eyes fixed on mine. He loved my horses too. I’m sure, one day, he would have been a good little rider – just like my Christopher would have, if he hadn’t been cruelly taken from me.
After what happened, I was barred from seeing my grandsons, wasn’t permitted to be anywhere near either of them. I can’t forget the look in Dom’s eyes when he told me, as if he had a gun to his head. Of course, she was behind it. I knew when he met her that Sophy was a terrible choice of wife, just like Rory was the wrong man for my daughter, whisking her miles away, making excuses whenever I enquired about visiting. All because I wanted to be involved in the lives of my grandsons when I could see they weren’t being looked after properly. Sophy and Natasha weren’t natural mothers – not like me, who never got the chance to see her first-born child grow up.
Finn was the spitting image of my lost little boy. As soon as I held him, it was as if time had rolled back and I’d been given a second chance. This time, my baby would achieve everything he deserved. For a while, I even forgave Dom for marrying that drab little woman he met at work when he could have done so much better.
When Toby was born, Natasha was overprotective from the start, didn’t like me touching her baby – no doubt influenced by that Northern oaf she married – but it was clear from the second Sophy handed Finn to me in hospital, while she slumped about looking pasty and sweaty – as if she was the first mother to ever have a Caesarean – that she needed my help. Naturally, I was only too happy to give it. I was hooked. It was like falling in love. When Dom persuaded Sophy they should move out of London to be nearer me, I was ecstatic. Robert was happy too, because I was happy. My husband’s moods had always depended on mine, back then.
I was horrified when Sophy didn’t manage to pull herself together, but secretly pleased it meant I had Finn to myself. I knew then that I wanted more, that I’d never be able to let go. And that little boy adored me, I was the light of his life. He turned to me, not his mother. He was probably still missing me terribly. I wondered what they would tell him about me, whether they would mention me at all.
I hadn’t intended Sophy to die, at least not to begin with. Grinding pills down to mix with that revolting instant coffee she drank by the gallon had been absolutely perfect, and when I did it once and got away with it … well, let’s just say it got easier, almost addictive, and swapping those useless vitamin tablets my daughter sent her with sleeping pills was a bonus. They didn’t look like vitamin tablets, but she hadn’t even noticed. It had come to me gradually that Sophy might suffer an ‘accidental’ overdose. I had a separate bottle of pills all ready to spill over the bed, alongside a bottle of wine, and a story for Dom about how his wife had called me and begged me to look after her son and how worried I’d been that she was suicidal. Once she was gone, Dom would have seen the sense in me caring for Finn full-time. Who better, than his loving grandmother? But now it’s all too late.
The blood test results weren’t proof of anything. At the time, I’d thanked heaven for that. There was an anomaly, a trace of the strong sedative I’d persuaded my old doctor to keep prescribing for me to help me through a ‘rough patch’ that Sophy would deny taking voluntarily, but I would have argued with – said she’d asked me for something to help her sleep, which I’d reluctantly agreed to.
I’d prayed the doctor would give up once I deleted her messages from my daughter-in-law’s mobile phone – so easy to unlock with her fingerprint, once she was passed out – along with
an emailed document from some colleague at the television company she worked for, where she’d met my son. I didn’t read the email. It was fun making it disappear, just like it was to move things around the house to places they shouldn’t be, to fool her.
If only that awful woman Liv hadn’t come along, getting Sophy out of the house, making her think she could be like other mothers, poking her nose into things. I could still be there now with my grandson and my son, not living at the opposite end of the country with no close neighbours and only my horses for company. Robert decided he couldn’t live with me after all. He demanded a divorce and said he’d tell our friends and neighbours what a supposedly terrible person I was if I didn’t agree. Once I realised he was serious, he sold our beautiful house and moved up to Cumbria to be near Natasha, who hasn’t been in touch with me once since that night. I don’t miss Robert as much as I thought I would. He never really understood how I felt about losing Christopher, once he was past the grieving stage. After Natasha came along, and then Dom, he threw himself into spoiling them rotten, as if our first-born had never existed.
I bought this little farmhouse and tried to reinvent myself, giving riding lessons to local schoolchildren and growing vegetables in the garden and reading in the evenings. I got rid of the television after switching it on last year and seeing Sophy fronting a programme on the history channel about the wives of Henry VIII, very obviously pregnant. I tried calling Dom, willing to forgive his silence, but he must have changed his number. When I phoned their house, I was told by a stranger that the previous owners had moved to London, and when I rang the TV company, Dom refused to take my call.
Nights are the worst. If I think too hard about my life now compared with before, I feel a physical pain in my chest and wonder whether I’m going to have a heart attack. Only being with the horses calms me down.
All that’s about to change, though.