‘I never should have left home,’ she whispers.
‘Are they…?’
I feel Martha gulp. ‘Don’t worry about them for now,’ she says.
‘I’m going to go to jail, aren’t I?’
My sister squeezes me. ‘No you’re not, honey. No you’re not.’
‘But I—’
‘No you didn’t. You didn’t do anything.’ She looks at her watch. ‘You got home from school, you did your homework, then you went to bed. It was a perfectly normal evening.’ A pause. ‘Nobody else has come round, have they?’
‘No.’
‘Good. People saw you getting off the bus from school, didn’t they?’
‘Yes.’
‘So that’s what happened.’
‘But—’
Shhhhh.
We sit together for a little while and I can feel Martha’s heart beating through her top. It’s really fast, like a train racing over a bumpy set of rails.
‘What are we going to say?’ I whisper.
‘I’m going to raid Mum’s jewellery box and then bury some things deep in the garden. It’s dark and the sun’s not coming up for hours. I’ll smash a window at the back of the house later on.’
‘Why?’
‘Because this was a break-in, Char. You heard noises and hid in your wardrobe. That’s it. You didn’t see anything, all you heard was voices down here.’ She pushes away from the cabinet and stands. ‘This wasn’t you. Okay?’
I don’t reply and she bends over, wrapping her arms underneath my pits and lifting me up.
‘Clothes,’ she says.
When I lean against the sink, Martha tuts.
‘You can’t do that,’ she says. ‘We’re going to have to scrub the kitchen clean later.’
I move myself away, standing freely. My legs feel wobbly because I’ve been curled up for so long. Martha holds my hand.
‘You remember when that reporter came over a couple of years ago?’ Martha asks.
‘Yes.’
‘You remember how you told me that Mum made you run through the questions over and over until you knew the answers?’
‘Yes.’
‘We’re going to have to do that. The police will want to talk to you, maybe other people, too – like social workers. We’re going to have a really simple story that’s easy to remember – but you have to get it right every time. Every time. You can’t slip, not ever.’
‘People won’t believe me.’
‘They will, Char. You’re thirteen. No one’s going to believe the alternative. You were scared, you were hiding. That’s it. It’s not complicated. If anyone keeps on at you, say you can’t remember.’ She bites her tongue, showing me the stud. ‘Wanna know another trick?’
‘What?’
‘Cry. Say you can’t remember and cry. Fake it if you need to. Nobody’s going to continue asking you things after that. It’s all you need to do.’
Martha peels off her cardigan and tosses it towards the counter on the far side. She rubs her arms.
‘You’re smart,’ she says, ‘and I know you’ll get it, but we don’t have long. We’ve got to get moving.’
‘Okay.’
‘Clothes off then.’
I start to peel off my top, but that’s all I manage when Martha stops me, kneeling so she’s at my height. We’re eye to eye just like I was with Mama — with Mum. We all have those same green eyes.
‘You know this isn’t your fault, don’t you?’ Martha repeats. ‘None of this is your fault. You didn’t ask to be born into this damned family.’ She wraps her arms through mine and, for the first time, I hug her properly.
‘She said I was the worst mistake she ever made,’ I say.
‘That’s not true, honey. You’re not a mistake.’
‘She said I was numbers on a bank statement.’
Martha squeezes me, hands pressed into the middle of my back. For a moment it feels as if everything is going to be all right.
‘You’ll always have me,’ she says. ‘Always.’
A Nation in Shock
By Samantha Bailey
(Archived 15 years ago)
Among the field of flowers and messages, there is a single teddy bear sitting atop a heart-shaped wreath of lilies. There is a small card on top, pristine felt-tip letters clear to read across the driveway.
‘Everyone’s mum and dad,’ it reads.
The police officer stationed at the front gate gives me the kind of smile officers do when they have orders to follow. I’m not allowed onto the Willis property, which isn’t a surprise. The surprise comes with the officer’s reaction when I tell him why I’m there.
He nods, gulps and then glances off into the distance. ‘I grew up watching them,’ he says. ‘My mum used to have Annie’s show on every morning and then my dad would watch Wheel Of Fortune in the evening. It was like you knew them even though you didn’t.’
It is thirteen years since I first sat in the reading room of this house with Annie Willis. She told me how much she was enjoying being a mother to a newborn, saying how her daughter Charlotte had started smiling at three weeks. For a couple who built a career on being parents to the nation, it is beyond shocking that everything should end in such gruesome fashion.
Details are sketchy for now, but the basics seem to be thus: at some point on Friday evening, a person unknown broke into the Willis home on the outskirts of Langton. What happened after that is a mystery – but the outcome was that both Annie and Paul Willis were left dead in their own living room. It might have been a robbery gone wrong, perhaps someone looking for money, or an obsessed fan. Theories abound, especially given the lack of information from the investigating team.
Central to the whole appalling incident is that Charlotte Willis, just 13, was hiding in her wardrobe upstairs.
The one question being asked by the locals, not to mention the nation, is why? Why would a couple so beloved come to such a grisly end? What robbery could possibly be worth this?
The chief inspector of the local force, Dean Dixon, tells me they’re examining all angles. ‘It’s senseless,’ he says. ‘Hard to get your head around.’
Mr Dixon adds that he can’t say a lot more than that, given this is an ongoing investigation.
Despite the scene being off limits, that hasn’t stopped well-wishers coming from all around the country to lay flowers and, indeed, that teddy bear. A part of the Willis garden close to the road was set aside for people to leave their tributes, though the patch was filled within four hours. Police later opened up another part of the garden. Mourners can come to the house and leave their tribute with an officer, who will place it with the others. This has a created a striking rainbow carpet of sorrow. It is beautiful and moving.
For many, Annie and Paul Willis, along with their children – Charlotte especially – were the perfect family. The Willis Way ran for almost seven years, a magazine show of parenting tips, recipes and general household help. Before that, there was breakfast yoga, prime-time quiz shows, science programmes, a Royal Variety Performance hosting gig. Even in recent years, there were fetes and fairs, gardening shows, festivals and conferences. As a couple, Paul and Annie Willis have created a legacy that will live long in the lives of British families.
While I’m waiting close to the gates that lead to the house, a small car pulls in and parks on the other side of the road. It’s a Mini, its exhaust rattling and sputtering against the silence. A woman clambers from the driver’s seat and then reaches back inside before emerging with a bouquet of roses. She looks both ways and then crosses the road before approaching one of the officers and asking him to lay the flowers for her. We both watch as the officer pads carefully around the homages already laid and then places the roses next to a small round tin.
‘Someone brought cookies,’ he says when he returns to the gates. ‘She said it was one of Annie’s recipes. We didn’t know what to do with them, so…’
The woman who brought the roses offers a tea
ry smile and then returns to her car. She never gave her name, didn’t feel the need to be identified.
The officer asks me if I knew either of the Willises and all I can do is reply that I’d met them a couple of times.
‘What were they like?’ he asks.
I suppose it is this question that lies at the very core of who Annie and Paul Willis were. They were whatever people wanted them to be.
A guiding hand in the kitchen? Unquestionably.
A soothing voice of prime-time television when that actually meant something? Definitely.
An advocate of women’s health and fitness? Of course.
An all-round entertainer who could joke and empathise in equal measure? For sure.
Or, as Charlotte Willis, then 11, told me two years ago: ‘They will always be Mum and Dad to me.’
Millions of fans will feel the same. After all, that card with the teddy bear says it best.
‘Everyone’s mum and dad’.
Forty-Six
Now
Seth
Liam’s wife, Helen, is lying face down on the sofa, one arm dangling onto the floor. I bash the window but she doesn’t stir. It’s hard to tell, but I think her eyes are closed.
Charley dashes across and plasters herself against the glass, whacking it hard with her fist.
‘How can we get inside?’ she asks.
The windows are double-glazed, the type that aren’t supposed to break.
Charley rushes back to the front door and tries it just in case. It’s locked.
‘They’re weaker in the corners,’ I say.
‘What are?’
‘Double-glazed windows. You can’t smash them by hitting them in the middle.’ This is where having a friend like Raj comes in handy. He’s worse at football than I am. It might be one of the reasons we bonded, I suppose, that wayward shot that cannoned into the corner of the school hall’s newly installed windows.
Charley seems to take this as a challenge. There’s a rockery a little off the driveway. She crouches and picks up a pair of stones, then moves back to the window.
Clang!
The first rock bounces off the glass, as does the second.
Helen is still out of it on the sofa.
I follow Charley’s lead, taking a rock and arching back.
Crash!
My rock connects with the corner of the window and sends a splintering, creaking trail arching up towards the opposite corner. It crinkles and ripples and then shatters onto the ground.
The second pane is a lot easier – and Charley dispatches one of her rocks through the middle. With that, I use one more stone to bash out the larger shards of glass and then reach through to open the window. There are glittering knife-like sprinkles everywhere, but Charley doesn’t seem to care. Her shoes crunch across the glass as she pushes herself up and jumps inside. I’m a lot more careful than her and somehow manage to get inside while avoiding the glass outside, inside and still attached to the frame. It’s more by luck than judgement.
Charley is kneeling next to her sister-in-law.
‘Find the kids,’ she says, flashing an arm towards the door that leads to the rest of the house. I must have frozen for a moment because she shouts ‘GO!’ and then I’m moving.
When I was here before, I was only in the hall and the living room. I have no idea where I’m going, dashing across the main entranceway and finding myself in the kitchen, which is empty. There’s a second downstairs lounge room, but there’s no one in there, nor in what I find out to be cupboards. Upstairs and the bathroom is clear, so are the bedrooms. There are a pair of cribs in a room that has been painted pink. The covers are ruffled but the beds are empty.
‘Hello?’ I call. ‘Skye? Jasmine?’
I realise too late that they’re far too young to call back. They’re babies, for crying out loud.
‘Liam?’
Nothing. The house is silent.
I race back downstairs into the living room. Charley is still on the floor and turns to face me. ‘Are they here?’
‘No.’
‘There’s a basement under the stairs. Try there.’
I wonder how she knows this. We’ve only visited once and I’m pretty sure she didn’t spend any time there then.
There’s no time for questions now though. As I shift my weight to race out of the room, there’s a grumble from the sofa and then Helen groans and rolls over. Charley quickly glances between us but doesn’t have to shout at me a second time.
I run across the tiled hallway, sliding to a stop by the stairs. I missed the door to the basement first time round – it’s one of those that looks like a wall, where the handle is embedded in the raised decorations.
The inside is dark and I’m only a centimetre or two from stumbling down a set of wooden steps before I catch myself on the frame. There’s a dangling cord, which I pull, sparking a bulb to life.
The basement is cold and damp. There are boxes in one corner, a fire extinguisher in another. Apart from a folded camp bed, that’s it. No children, no Liam.
Helen is swaying from side to side when I get back to the living room. She’s sitting up, but her eyes are almost closed.
Charley spins, but I hold my hands up. ‘They’re not here.’
Back to Helen: ‘Look at me,’ Charley says, part gentle, part urgent. ‘Helen, look at me. It’s Charley. You need to wake up.’
Helen flops backwards, head on the rest at the back of the sofa. Charley moves onto the seat herself, trying to support her sister-in-law’s head.
‘Come on,’ Charley says. ‘I need you to tell me what happened.’
Charley manages to manoeuvre Helen into a position where she’s more or less sitting by her own volition. Helen still looks like she could fall asleep at any moment.
‘We were going to watch TV,’ she mumbles.
Charley is rubbing the other woman’s arm. ‘You and Liam?’
‘Yeah.’
‘What then?’
‘He made us tea.’
‘Where were the girls, Helen? Where were Jasmine and Skye?’
‘Upstairs.’
‘And what happened?’
‘When?’ Helen slumps to the side but then rights herself, rubbing her eyes. She blinks and blinks and blinks, trying to clear her thoughts.
‘There’s no one here,’ Charley says. ‘What’s the last thing you remember?’
‘Tea,’ Helen says. ‘I remember tea. Liam made it.’
Forty-Seven
6 Weeks Ago
Charley Willis, 28 years old
Liam stops pacing, looks me dead in the eye, and then he says the words he can’t possibly say: ‘I know about Mum and Dad.’
I stare at him, mouth open. One of the twins starts crying from the living room, the high-pitched yet somehow gentle whine echoing through the rest of the house. The kitchen suddenly feels very small.
‘What do you mean?’ I reply.
He leans in. The anger has been replaced by a cocky, sneering amusement. The type of smug arrogance when a person knows something others don’t and wants to boast about it without actually saying what they know.
‘I know what you did,’ he says.
It feels as if I’ve been dropped in an ice bath. My whole body has chills. No way.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I reply.
‘You do. I know it was you who killed Mum and Dad.’
He’s so close to me that I can see the veins of his eyes. I can feel his words, the air brushing across me.
‘How…?’
‘Martha. She couldn’t live with it.’
I push myself away from him, but the eye contact is unwavering. ‘I don’t believe you. There’s no way she’d have told anyone. Especially not you.’
I shouldn’t have said that. His eye twitches with anger and volcanic fire. ‘So how do I know, little sister? How else would I know?’
‘No…’
‘Martha had to tell someone. She coul
dn’t believe what her little sister had done.’ A pause. ‘What our little sister had done. She was ashamed. Embarrassed.’
I’m shaking my head. ‘No…’
I don’t want to believe him. There’s no way Martha could have said that. It feels like Liam can read my mind as I’m trying to analyse it all. The problem is that he’s right. I’ve never told a soul what happened fifteen years ago. The only way he could know is if Martha told him.
‘You know I’m telling you the truth…’ he says.
He doesn’t seem to be gloating any more. He’s already won.
‘I don’t understand…’
‘There’s a lot I don’t understand either, sis – like why you’d do it.’ He holds up a hand before I can say anything. ‘I’m not asking. This isn’t some heart-to-heart.’
‘What do you want?’
‘I told you.’
‘I don’t have money, Liam. It doesn’t matter what you say – we don’t have anything like what you need.’
‘Then I’ll go to the police. Simple as that.’
We are interrupted by another cry from the other side of the house. I turn, thinking that someone might be there. Helen with one of the babies, or Seth wondering where I am.
There’s no one there, only us.
‘What do you get out of that?’ I say. ‘It’s not going to get you any money, is it?’
He steps backwards, further into the kitchen and finally giving me some space. Whatever he might be, Liam must know it’s true.
He clicks his fingers and then points at me.
‘What?’ I say.
‘I’ve got an idea.’
‘No.’
‘You can’t say no, Charlotte. I’ll tell the police what I know.’
As I glare back at him, I wonder how we’re related. Then I realise it is me who’s the odd one out. I can see how he’s an amalgam of Mum and Dad. He has their overwhelming desire but none of their talent. He’s also got our mother’s cruel streak.
The Wife’s Secret: A gripping psychological thriller with a heart-stopping twist Page 25