by Katie Lowe
But I did it. I killed my husband. And it’s possible I killed my daughter, too. All I can do is wait for the memories of her murder to creep back, just as they’ve done with his.
What I did to my husband, though, I could justify. He turned me into the woman I became. He only got what he deserved.
But if I hurt Evie – if I did anything to her, at all – I will never be able to live with my guilt.
I look at the sign by the quarry’s edge. This water is known to contain: Car wrecks. Dead animals. Excrement. Rubbish. Swimming may result in death.
An idea bubbles up in my mind: a solution. It would be so easy to turn the key in the ignition. To put my foot on the pedal, and let go. To drive the car into the water, and let it swallow me whole.
I remember the pills Darcy gave me.
Darcy doesn’t exist, I correct myself. She’s someone you created in your mind.
I pop the glove compartment open. The silver packet seems to glow in the greyish light.
I could take them all, and wait for sleep to come. Then, the water. I wouldn’t feel a thing.
A tranquillity settles over me: a bright and peaceful clarity. For the first time in as long as I can remember, I know what to do. I reach for the pills.
My phone vibrates beside me, and I jolt. The pills fall from my fingers into the footwell.
I reach around, under the seat, my eyes closed. Whatever it is – a text from Dan, an email from a stranger, an alert from Conviction – I don’t want to know. I just want it all to be over.
My hand brushes against something smooth: something familiar. A piece of paper, maybe. I tug it out. It’s the photograph. Margot, looking just like me.
It can’t be real, I think. But I feel it: the smooth paper, cold under my thumb. I’d stolen it from Hawkwood House, without thinking. And then, I’d slipped it into my pocket.
Or so I’d thought. Apparently, I’d missed.
It’s here.
It can’t be.
I slide my fingers over the edge, and hear a soft nick. A tiny sliver of red opens up, a droplet of blood blooming over the cut.
I didn’t imagine this. It’s not a delusion. It’s real.
I remember Darcy’s hand on my thigh. The warm, soothing weight of it. Not cold, like Graham’s. Not a draught, or a trick of the light.
She was there. She was real.
She was at Hawkwood House. I know it.
I put the keys in the ignition.
And I drive.
56
‘Pairing,’ the car announces as I pull on to the road.
The voice that follows is one I know well. Too well.
‘I tried so hard,’ she says. ‘I don’t think I ever wanted to believe she’d done it, even when it seemed like she was trying to parade it in front of me.’ I see the expression on her face, in my mind. I know her well enough to see her shoulders slump, her hand run through her hair.
Sarah. My so-called best friend.
‘I honestly think sometimes she’d say things just to get a reaction – I guess because if I reacted, she’d at last have proof of what I did. And I should’ve told someone – I probably should’ve gone to the police, or something, but … I mean, they were never going to start investigating someone else, with Mike in prison. And I’m a mum. I have two kids. You do what you have to do to keep them safe. Even if that means a kind of … Faustian bargain.
‘But I’ve always wondered if it was my fault he …’ She dissolves into great, heaving sobs that seem endless, and overblown. ‘Graham and I … It was never meant to be a thing, between us. We slept together, one night, while we were at university, because I was … I was trying to console him. He and Hannah had had a fight, and he came to me to see how we could … fix it. But the attraction was just there.’
A car horn whines past, and I steer back into my lane, my heart in my throat.
‘It was only meant to be a one-time thing. Both of us … we cared about her. She always had a temper, and she was … sensitive. So we decided not to say anything. To just pretend it’d never happened.
‘But then … we bumped into each other at a thing – an alumni event. Hannah didn’t go. I didn’t know at the time, but she was pregnant. He told me they’d been having some problems, and … I don’t know. We just slipped into our old patterns. Talking about Hannah. Me consoling him; him needing someone to talk to. One thing leading to another.
‘And that was … Well, that was how it started up again. And it wasn’t long before we sort of … realized it. We were …’ Her voice wavers. ‘We were in love. It was almost as though it was the two of us that were supposed to be together, but Hannah had … I don’t know. It’s one of those sliding-doors things, I guess. If he and I had met first, you know?’
The old wound splits open, a break from which I thought I’d recovered. I see him, on the tube, leaning in to kiss a woman I’d seen only from behind. That day, he hadn’t seen his wife on the platform. And I hadn’t seen my best friend in his arms.
I fix my gaze straight ahead. Hawkwood House appears between the trees, still blanketed by the scaffold.
‘But he wouldn’t ever leave her. We talked about it, a couple of times – I hadn’t met my now-husband, so … The decision was his to make, really. But there was something that made him stay with her. Beyond Evie, obviously – I know he always had concerns about her, though I suspect custody would’ve gone to him, if he’d asked for it – but there was something else.
‘It was almost like … he was afraid.’
There’s a hiss of static. Fingers brushing against the mic. ‘I just … I need you to know you can always talk to me. About anything.’
It’s her voice, again. But this time, it’s different. Familiar.
It’s a memory. I know what’s coming, a split second before it plays.
My laugh. My voice, slurred, when I speak. ‘Even the fact I stabbed my husband in the throat with a kitchen knife?’ That laugh, again. It sounds cruel. Manic. Depraved.
Anna Byers’s voice cuts in, along with the swell of Conviction’s theme. ‘Every one of us can think of a time we’ve done something we didn’t want to do – whether out of a need to protect ourselves, or the ones around us. But imagine having to do it day in, day out, for ten years – to remain friends with the wife of the man you loved. The woman you have reason to believe murdered him in cold blood. And all the while, a series of threats – of little hints, suggestions that she knows what you did. That she’s just biding her time. That she knows she got away with murder, once. And it’s only the fact you’re keeping her happy that stops her from doing it again.’
My phone vibrates, and I reach for it. I look back up, at the road.
‘I know what I did was wrong. I know that,’ Sarah goes on. ‘It wasn’t fair on Hannah. Graham and I were both so, so aware of that. But … when she showed up at my door after the trial, and all but blackmailed me into giving her a job, when nobody else would take her on … I didn’t know what else to do. I was—’ Her voice breaks, now. A pin-drop silence fills the space. ‘I was scared of what she’d do, if I didn’t.’
I glance at my phone. It’s a text from Dan. Where are you?
Anna Byers goes on. ‘And what about these other women who’ve come forward? The ones in the tabloids, who claim they’ve had affairs with Graham?’
‘No,’ Sarah says, quickly. ‘He wasn’t like that. He’d never do that. That’s why I wanted to … sort of defend him, I guess. Because he was a good man. And it’s the worst thing I’ve ever done, but I loved him. And he loved me. And I’ll never forgive her for taking him away from me.’
I hit stop. ‘You stupid bitch.’ I slam my hands against the wheel, the car veering, faster, towards the house. ‘How fucking dare you?’
I don’t care who sees me screaming; I don’t care what they think.
Because she’s lying. I didn’t blackmail her. I wasn’t unemployable. And I had no idea she was sleeping with my husband. Not until now.
I feel Graham’s hand, cold, on my throat, and it cuts me dead.
The phone beside me starts to ring. No Caller ID.
I think of the man who called me yesterday – was it yesterday? Time shudders, and moves under my feet. I look straight ahead.
The phone stops ringing. A split-second pause. Then, it starts ringing again. I stop the car. I reach for the phone, and I answer.
‘Tell me you’re not thinking of doing something stupid.’
It’s Darcy. I close my eyes. Thump my head against the seat behind, just to feel something real.
‘Hannah – talk to me. I just heard that stupid cow Sarah was on Conviction, and – I’ve been so busy, I’m sorry, but I spoke to your other half, and he said you’d disappeared, so …’ She draws breath. ‘Hannah, for God’s sake. Answer me.’
I sit forward, pulled back to the moment. ‘You spoke to Dan?’
‘Briefly. He looked a bit shell-shocked, but we had a quick chat …’
He’s seen her. He’s met her. He has to believe she exists.
It’s only one thing, but it might be enough to make him second-guess Stevens, and the rest. To make him at least consider the possibility that I might be telling the truth. That I didn’t hurt my – our – daughter.
‘Look, it isn’t good for you to be alone right now. Why don’t you head home, and I could pop back there, maybe make some tea?’
The clouds shift overhead, changing the light. This woman, on the phone, calls herself Darcy Burke – wearing another woman’s name like a mask. I think of the papers, all signed in my name. The loans taken out, contractors booked. The forged deeds to Hawkwood House.
It was her, I realize. Whoever she is. It was her.
‘Hello – Hannah? Can you hear me?’
‘Sorry. Yeah. Can I … Can I meet you at the house?’
‘Oh, God –’ I think I hear her wince. ‘I mean, we could if you want, but it’s going to be mayhem over there at the moment. There are contractors everywhere. It’s like trying to relax inside an anthill.’
It’s a lie. There are no cars, anywhere, on the gravel drive. There’s no one at the house at all.
‘That’s fine. I’ll meet you there.’
I hang up the phone. I put it back on the seat beside me, and drive on. Back into the grounds of Hawkwood House.
57
London, 2008
The tiles stretch out beneath me like a chessboard. I stand, and I stare at the door.
I walk towards it. I wrap my fingers around the handle, and I peer through the glass.
I could run. I could go.
If only I could make myself open the door.
‘Mum?’
I turn. Evie’s there, at the foot of the stairs, watching me. She’s the picture of him, her eyes filled with a too-familiar thoughtfulness, a too-familiar concern.
‘Hi, baby.’ I crouch in front of her. ‘What’s up?’ She says nothing. She knows something’s wrong. ‘Come here.’ I pull her into me. She’s so small, and so soft. I’m amazed at her, every day. It’s impossible that she could have come from us; that she could be so loving, so sweet, when we’ve come to hate each other so much.
It’s impossible, too, that she doesn’t see it. He’s quiet, but she’s observant. I saw her staring at my hand, once, trying to work out why I now had a bruise more blue than hers. And I’ve seen her, since, lower lip silently trembling, crying at nothing, in the hours after he and I have had one of the fights we didn’t think she’d hear.
He loves her. No matter how much I hate him, I can’t say that isn’t the case. But he doesn’t realize: each time he hurts me, he hurts our little girl, too.
Still, I’m as much to blame as he is. Maybe more so. Because while he might not know it, I do. And I’m still too weak to leave.
She wriggles away, and smiles. It warms me. I smile back. ‘Are you hungry?’ She nods. ‘All right.’ I think of the picture books I read to her, Piglet and Pooh side by side. I stand and take her tiny hand in mine. ‘Come on, then. Let’s go back inside.’
The apple hisses as the knife breaks the skin: a firm, clean line through crisp flesh.
Evie stands on the stool beside me, transfixed. She watches the knife bob up and down. I see her mouthing the numbers, counting the taps.
The landline rings, tearing through me. I clip the edge of my nail with the knife, and bite down. The blood tastes coppery on my tongue. I leave the knife and the apple behind, both out of her reach. ‘I’ll be back in a sec,’ I say, with a kiss.
‘It’s me,’ he says, when I answer. As though it could be anyone else. I lean back against the wall. His tone, already, is a terror. ‘Hello? Are you there?’
‘Yeah, I’m – sorry.’ The apology is automatic. It’s what I always do. It rarely works. ‘Sorry,’ I say again.
He makes me wait before he speaks. ‘They’ve dismissed the case.’ The traffic roars behind him, the wind whipping through the receiver. ‘Darren seems to think it’s unlikely to go any further. If the tribunal can’t find evidence of wrongdoing, there’s not much chance a judge will. They can try, obviously, but … it’s done, for now, anyway.’
Good news, on the face of it, though I wouldn’t call it that – the Wexworth family’s grief is someone’s fault, even if the court has determined it wasn’t mine.
But I know that when he says they ‘can’t find’ the evidence, he sees it as a failing on their part, for not seeing me as flawed as he does. And when he says it’s ‘done, for now’, there’s a threat in it. You’ll do this again, he’s saying. It’s only a matter of time.
‘I’m coming home,’ he says, before I can reply. ‘You should put Evie to bed. I think we need to talk.’ The call ends with a click.
I know, again, what he’s saying. His meaning is perfectly clear.
I go back into the kitchen, and I smile. ‘Right. Let me finish up that snack.’ She looks at me. She knows. I can see it. The guilt threatens to eat me alive.
I clip the last few pieces from the apple, already browning at the edges. I make a smiley face on a plastic plate and place it in front of her, on the table. She looks at it, and then at me. She takes a slice, and sucks the juice from it, her eyes fixed on mine.
I reach for her hair, the soft and impossibly perfect curls that will some day hang limp, like mine, but for now are still ringlets, like a porcelain doll’s. ‘Daddy’s coming home soon,’ I tell her. ‘So Mummy needs you to get into bed and stay nice and quiet. Is that OK?’
She looks back at me and I know she understands not just the words that I’m saying, but what I really mean. I feel my ribs crack, my sternum split in two by the ache of it: how much I love her. What I would do to keep her safe.
As she settles, wide-eyed, into bed, I kiss her forehead. I tell her I love her. I wonder if she’ll ever understand how much.
And then, I step out into the kitchen. The light is blinding. The edges of my vision flicker, breath humming in my chest.
I slip the crayons back into the box, and sort the mess of toys that litter the floor. I pat the cushions on the couch, and make our lonely house feel like his home. I take the plate from the table, and slide the bitten apple slices into the bin. I drop the dishes into foamy water, one by one.
I hear his key turn in the lock as I reach for the last: the knife, its handle weighted, heavy in my palm.
No more, I think, the words crisp and perfectly clear.
And so my husband enters his home for the final time, and I turn to face him, the kitchen knife trembling in my hand.
58
Derbyshire, 2018
The echo of my footsteps ricochet across the chequered tiles.
The rain begins a steady patter overhead. The wind whips through the tarpaulins on the scaffold; they crackle like live wires through the bluish air. And, as always, that awful tapping sound. I hear the beat of it in my veins. I think I see some
thing move at the top of the stairs, and I freeze.
‘Hello?’ I call, a nervous flutter in my voice. ‘Is anybody here?’
A draught blows through, curling around my neck and wrists. It feels like him. But it isn’t. I know that now. He was never really there.
A bird bursts into flight through the doorway above. It’s a large, black bird, like the one I saw on the roof of the sun room, weeks earlier. It burrows through a crack in the wall, and disappears. The wind stills. A floorboard creaks, deeper inside the house.
The creatures carved into the wood seem to follow me with their eyes; I have the sense, somehow, of being watched. Of being hunted.
I search around for something I can cling to: a weapon, of sorts, something I can wield as a threat. I pick up fragments of broken wood, piled under the staircase, but they’re damp; they split apart in my hands. I tear through the filth, looking for something – anything – firm. My hand catches on a cold, narrow object: metal. I tug it out, my arm and shoulder thick with dust, moss, and dirt.
A screwdriver. From the toolbox I put here, that day, when the stairs caved in. I say a silent thank you to no one, and grip it, tight, in my palm.
I walk – faking a confidence and poise I don’t feel, for the benefit of the dead eyes still watching – towards the far end of the hall, where the corridors branch into the rest of the House.
I hear footsteps in the distance. Every cell in my body tells me to turn and run.
But I can’t.
Not this time. Not now.
I turn the door handle, my breath held in my throat. As it gives, I catch it: the same smell of mould I recall from those first days at Hawkwood, the black stink of death in the air.
My eyes adjust to the cold, dim light, and the room settles into view: the furniture still peeling, walls creeping with moss, all untouched. It’s wholly at odds with the entrance hall, the sun room, the corridor between.
I remember the last time I asked if I could look around. The slight flush in her cheeks I’d put down to the wine, the excuse: a hard-hat zone, not covered by her insurance.