Naked Truths

by Jo Carnegie

  ‘Come on, let’s go,’ Catherine said through gritted teeth. There was no way she was going to stand here and let Isabella rub her nose in it in front of Drew. It would be all over the Daily Mercy’s gossip pages tomorrow. She turned away from the bar.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry!’ Isabella called out. ‘Aren’t I good enough for you, Catherine Connor? That’s a bit of a joke.’

  Several people turned round at her raised voice.

  ‘After all, darling, I’m the one who should be dubious about being in your company.’ Isabella raised her voice still louder, making sure every pair of eyes in the place were fixed on her.

  ‘What with you being a cold-blooded murderer!’

  Chapter 58

  CATHERINE FELT LIKE her world had suddenly ground to a halt.

  ‘What did you say?’ she gasped, spinning around. Isabella was almost beside herself with malevolent pleasure.

  ‘You heard, darling, or should I say, Cathy Fincham.’ She spat the two words out. ‘That’s your real name, isn’t it? Of course, your mother went down for the crime, but everyone knew you did it really.’ She exhaled gleefully. ‘Who would have thought it? Catherine Connor, darling of the industry and feted magazine editor, is really Cathy Fincham, disgraced daughter of the notorious Crimson Killer!’

  ‘Catherine, what’s going on?’ Fiona asked in confusion. ‘Who’s Cathy Fincham?’

  Beside them Drew Summers was muttering under his breath, trawling his encyclopaedic memory. ‘Cathy Fincham, Cathy Fincham . . .’ His head whipped up, eyes bulging in shock. ‘That’s you?’ His mouth dropped open as realization dawned. ‘Fuck me! I see it now! You’re the spitting image of her!’

  Through the crashing in her head, Catherine could almost hear the whirr of tape-recorders being switched on as the eavesdropping crowd, smelling blood, drew closer.

  Isabella was positively revelling in having such an appreciative audience. ‘Of course, you were quick to put the blame on your mother, weren’t you? And people were ready enough to believe it at first. After all, who would have thought such a mouse of a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl was capable of such a terrible thing?’

  ‘That’s not how it happened!’ Catherine could feel the hysteria building, out of control. She didn’t care who was looking.

  Isabella smiled evilly, in complete, calculated control. ‘I don’t know how you live with it, darling, I really don’t. Sending your own mother to prison for a murder you committed!’

  Loud gasps echoed round the room. Catherine was moments from being sick, and blindly pushed her way through the crowd. She needed to get out, away from those people.

  On the street Catherine bent over, great racking heaves sweeping her body.

  ‘I say, are you all right?’ asked a passer-by.

  ‘Leave me alone,’ she sobbed. She could see a crowd had followed her out, including a worried-looking Fiona. Oh Christ, someone had a camera . . .

  As if by a miracle, a cab pulled up. Without thinking Catherine pushed past the couple who’d flagged it down and threw herself into it. A flashbulb went off in her face, temporarily blinding her.

  ‘Oi! What do you think you’re doing?’ a woman cried angrily.

  The cabbie looked round. ‘You can’t push in like that luv . . .’

  He trailed off as he saw Catherine’s tear-streaked face and the advancing pack of people behind her, and then he put his foot down and sped away.

  Somehow Catherine made it home. As she fell into her flat, she couldn’t stop sobbing. It was almost too much to bear. John Milton had obviously told Isabella about her past. The sheer force of his betrayal made her legs buckle, and she slid down against the wall.

  ‘How could you?’ she wept. ‘I trusted you.’

  Somewhere in the background her mobile was ringing. She pulled it out of her bag. Fiona’s name flashed up. Catherine threw it away down the hall, and the phone fell silent. She couldn’t speak to Fiona now, she couldn’t speak to anyone. Isabella had picked her moment perfectly; it would be all over the papers again tomorrow, just as it had been twenty years ago. ‘I’m finished,’ Catherine sobbed to herself. ‘I’m finished.’

  Chapter 59

  ANGIE WAS WORRIED. It had been Ash’s day off today, but normally he came to the house for dinner in the evening. Tonight, however, he hadn’t turned up, despite telling Angie he would be there. And Liverpool were playing Arsenal; Ash would never miss out on that. Leaving Freddie with his feet up watching the soccer, she went to investigate.

  At the granny annexe the windows were dark, and there was no movement inside. She knocked at the door. No answer. After trying again Angie went round to peer through the kitchen window. A dirty plate and cup stood in the sink, and an empty milk carton had been left out on the draining board. She’d already tried ringing his mobile, but it was off. ‘This is Ash,’ his voicemail had recited back to her, the sound of loud techno music in the background. ‘Leave a message, yeah? And I’ll get back to you.’

  Angie frowned, where could he have got to? It wasn’t as if Ash had a car, and besides, he didn’t really know any other people in the village. Could he be in the Jolly Boot? Angie very much doubted it. An awful thought struck her: what if he’d fallen over and knocked himself out, and had been lying there unconscious for hours? His laces were always trailing out of his trainers; Freds had even said it was an accident waiting to happen.

  Angie stood on tiptoe, and looked through the window again. Thankfully she couldn’t see a body lying anywhere, but what about upstairs? He could have fallen over in the bedroom. She agonized for a moment. She was loath to disturb Ash’s privacy and just go barging in there, but she didn’t know what else to do. Feeling for the spare set of keys in her Barbour waistcoat pocket, she got them out and opened the door.

  ‘Ash? Are you there?’

  She was met by a resounding stillness. Something wasn’t right. Making her way through the little open-plan kitchen and living area, she paused at the foot of the stairs. ‘Hello?’

  Nothing. She reached for the light switch and flicked it on. Tentatively Angie put a hand on the rail and started making her way up the stairs. If he was asleep he really wasn’t going to appreciate her bursting in on him like this.

  Angie got to the top and peered round the corner into the bedroom. The large bed was made, but it looked as though it had been done in a hurry. To her relief, Ash wasn’t lying unconscious on the floor, blood streaming from a ghastly head wound.

  Angie stepped in, feeling slightly relieved. But where was he? The wardrobe doors were open and she couldn’t help but notice it was half-empty. Angie looked for Ash’s favourite baseball cap, a distinctive red and black colour, but she couldn’t see it. Nor his rucksack, mobile phone or wallet . . .

  Two minutes later she flew back into the main house, making Freddie spill his nightcap all over his chest.

  ‘Good Lord, what on earth’s the matter?’

  Angie looked at her husband, lower lip wobbling.

  ‘Oh, darling, I think Ash has gone!’

  Chapter 60

  AS SHE SANK to the floor in the hall, Catherine’s past washed over her like a waking nightmare.

  She had never known her father. He was a travelling salesman who’d been passing through the area, and once he’d met sweet, pretty twenty-two-year-old Annie Fincham, decided to stay a little bit longer. It was love at first sight for the impressionable Annie, but then she unexpectedly fell pregnant. Her lover, who had neglected to tell her that he already had a family in another part of the country, couldn’t get out of there quick enough.

  Annie’s mother, a hard-faced woman with a nature to match, declared her daughter had brought shame on the family and promptly threw her out. Devastated, Annie was forced to live in an unmarried mothers’ home, but from the moment Cathy entered the world, she fell head over heels with her smiling, chubby-cheeked bundle of joy.

  Eventually Annie found them a council flat, and she and her infant daughter had their first home.
It wasn’t easy for them, but Annie took a job as a low-paid secretary, leaving her daughter with her kindly next-door neighbour, who was like the grandmother Cathy never had. When Cathy was nine, old Mrs Ainsworth died, and when she wasn’t at school Cathy started to take care of the day-to-day running of their home. She didn’t mind: by then her mother had worked her way up in the firm she had started in and was earning good money.

  ‘I’m doing this for us, Cathy,’ she used to say. ‘I want to give you the life I never had.’

  But their happy existence quickly came to an end once Ray entered their lives. Annie met him in a bar on a rare night out, and fell in love all over again. Cathy was fourteen when he came to live with them, and it didn’t take long for his true colours to come out.

  Ray was a control freak, a lazy manipulative slob who lay around the house all day dictating how Annie’s money should be spent. Cathy grew to hate him and the way his eyes lingered on her legs when she came home from school. Often, she would walk into the kitchen to find her mother quietly crying after yet another one of their rows.

  ‘Kick him out, Mam!’ Cathy would urge. She hated to see her mum like this, but Annie, who had been alone since Cathy’s dad had left her, kept giving Ray more chances.

  ‘Ray’s just had a bad day, Cathy,’ she’d plead, taking her daughter’s hands in hers. ‘He’s a good man, really.’

  Then the beatings started. The first time Annie got a black eye she tried to tell Cathy she’d walked into something, but as the rows got louder and more physical, it was impossible to ignore. Cathy begged her mum to go to the police, but her mum wouldn’t hear of it. This was a tough estate in Newcastle where men still ruled, and domestic violence was a hidden, dirty secret. In some misguided way, Annie thought it was all her fault.

  ‘I need to try harder,’ she’d say. ‘Ray’s told me he’ll never marry someone like me unless I sort myself out. No wonder he gets so angry.’

  The house became a war zone, and night after night Cathy would lie awake in her narrow bed, pillow wrapped around her head, trying to drown out the rowing. She got used to blocking it out. Until one night.

  Cathy had just started to doze off to sleep when a fearsome row erupted downstairs in the kitchen, before spilling out into the hallway. Cathy sat up alert, for once it sounded like her mother was giving as good as she got.

  ‘I’ve had enough, Ray! All this fighting – it’s not fair on Cathy.’

  An angry bellow, then Annie shouted again. Her voice was shaking.

  ‘I mean it! I want you out of here tomorrow. This is no good for any of us.’

  Cathy heard her mother’s softer footsteps on the stairs, and breathed a sigh of relief. But suddenly they were followed by louder, heavier ones. There was a thump, as if someone had fallen to the floor, and Annie gave a loud scream. It was so terror-struck it sent a chill down the teenager’s spine.

  ‘No Ray! Get off me! I can’t breathe!’

  Cathy jumped out of bed and pulled open the door. Just a few feet away on the landing at the top of the stairs, Ray was lying on top of her mother. With a sickening jolt, Cathy saw his hands round her throat.

  ‘Don’t you fucking tell me you’re kicking me out, woman! I make the decisions round here. You got that?’ He was almost incoherent with anger.

  Annie couldn’t speak. Her face had gone violently red, eyes popping out from their sockets as Ray slowly squeezed the life out of her. Somehow her gaze fixed on to Cathy’s, struck dumb with terror in the doorway.

  Annie’s gaze was pleading. Help me, she was saying, I’m dying.

  Something went off in Cathy’s head. Leaping forward, she frantically tried to pull Ray off her mother. But he was a burly man, and his grip held.

  ‘Get off her, get off her!’ Cathy screamed hysterically, trying to claw at him, but Ray threw her against the wall, pain searing across her back.

  ‘Stay out of it, you little bitch! I’ll deal with you in a minute.’

  Annie’s face was turning purple and she had stopped thrashing about. Cathy knew she had to do something; she just needed Ray to stop. In a blind panic she scrabbled around, her fingers chancing across the ornamental vase that stood on the top of the landing. As if in a dream, she picked it up, and brought the vase down on Ray’s head, smashing it into pieces.

  He dropped her mother like a bag of rubbish, and tried to get up, rubbing his head. He looked at Cathy in disbelief, eyes black with fury.

  ‘Now you’re for it.’ He lunged towards her groggily.

  ‘Get away from me!’ Cathy screamed, and with all her strength, pushed him away. Ray stumbled back, losing his footing as he fell backwards. Eyes wide with shock, he looked at Cathy, grabbing out for the banister. But it was too late. As if in slow motion, he started to tumble backwards down the stairs, his head descending in a terrible arc. There was a loud crack as it hit a stair halfway down.

  Cathy’s hands flew over her eyes, but it still didn’t stop the sound of Ray’s body slithering heavily downwards. After what seemed an eternity an eerie silence settled on the house, punctuated only by Annie’s gasping breaths and crying.

  ‘Mam! Are you OK?’ Cathy knelt down beside her. Annie nodded and grabbed on to her, struggling to sit up.

  ‘Ray? What’s happened?’ she croaked.

  Cathy forced herself to look down the stairs at that dreadful lifeless heap. Ray’s eyes were open and staring, his neck bent at an impossible angle.

  ‘He’s dead, Mum,’ Cathy moaned again and again. ‘I pushed him and now he’s dead. It’s my fault, I killed him.’

  The police arrived quickly, alerted by the neighbours. Annie told her daughter not to say it was she that had pushed Ray, sending him to his death down the stairs.

  ‘I’ll say I did it in self-defence, Cathy,’ Annie said, her face a swollen mass of tears and bruises. ‘They’ll believe me, of course they will, with a face like this.’

  Unfortunately, they didn’t. Annie’s own mother, still bitter over her daughter’s ‘betrayal’, denounced her and publicly announced to anyone who would listen that she had always known Annie was a bad egg. Rumours started circulating wildly on the estate that Annie, who had always been thought of as ‘stuck up’ by others, just because she didn’t socialize at the pub or bingo, had murdered Ray in cold blood and sworn her daughter to secrecy.

  Weeks later in court, Annie told the packed room she’d never meant to kill him and had only hit him once in self-defence. But the victim’s lawyer had already painted her as a loose, morally corrupt woman who had snared a man once by falling pregnant, and would stop at nothing to get what she wanted again. Once it turned out that Ray had had substantial life savings, mainly due to the different women he’d lived off, Annie stood no chance. Certain parts of the press jumped on the story, crassly labelling her the ‘Crimson Killer’, a name that stuck after her pink lipstick was found on the dead man’s face.

  After a two-week trial, the jury of eight men and four women found Annie guilty of manslaughter. She was given an eight-year jail sentence and sent to a tough women’s prison far away in Norfolk.

  The day Cathy had gone to see her mother in prison had been the worst day of her life. Gone was the vivacious, warm woman she had known. All that was left was an empty shell.

  For Cathy, who had already been carrying round the unimaginable burden of their secret pact, it was too much.

  ‘I should be in here, Mam!’ she sobbed. ‘I can’t let you do this.’

  It was the one time Annie showed any of her former strength.

  ‘No, Cathy!’ Her voice was urgent. ‘You must never tell anyone.’ She reached across the table in the visiting room and took Cathy’s hands in hers.

  ‘You were only protecting me, the way I should have protected you. I let you down, Cathy. I jeopardized your happiness for my own. I should have listened to you from the start, seen Ray for what he really was.’

  Cathy looked down at the table, not knowing what to say. Annie laughed to herself bitte
rly. ‘What a mother I’ve turned out to be! I know what people are saying about me, maybe they’re right after all . . .’

  ‘No, Mam, don’t think like that!’ Cathy was close to tears.

  ‘Pet, you’re better off without me, now. As far as the world’s concerned, I’m the Crimson Killer.’ Her voice caught. ‘How can I carry on being any sort of mother to you?’

  Cathy didn’t like the way her mum was talking. ‘Don’t say that, you’re scaring me.’

  Annie gripped her daughter’s hand. ‘I may have ruined my life, but don’t let it ruin yours, Cathy.’ She smiled through her tears. ‘I’ve always known you’re going to make something of yourself.’

  ‘Time’s up.’ The prison warden was standing over them. Annie gave Cathy’s hand one final squeeze.

  ‘Promise me, Cathy!’ Her voice was insistent again. ‘You’ve got potential, don’t waste it!’

  Cathy couldn’t answer for a moment, then she squeezed her mum’s hands in return. ‘I promise. You’ll be out of here one day, and I’ll have a nice big house by then, you wait and see. Just you and me, away from everything.’ She gulped away the tears, trying so hard to stay strong. ‘I love you, Mam.’

  Annie Fincham smiled back sadly. ‘I love you too, sweetheart.’

  Cathy watched her mother being led off, like a butterfly that had been trapped and had its wings broken. It was the last time she ever saw her alive.

  Desolate with grief and shame, Annie Fincham lasted exactly two weeks and three days before she hung herself in her cell with a bed sheet, a tragedy that further convinced the public of her guilt.

  Aside from the prison chaplain and a prison officer, Cathy was the only one at her mother’s funeral. Annie Fincham’s ashes were buried in an unmarked grave at an unmarked location.

  Cathy, now sixteen, was taken in by her reluctant grandmother, and she never let Cathy forget the scandal her mother had brought upon them. Cathy, who was devastated, guilt-stricken and betrayed by her mother’s death, was left to deal with her grief alone.