The Beauty of the End

by Debbie Howells

  “At the time”—Will grits his teeth—“I remember it suited her just fine. We both know she wasn’t reliable. Think about it. She was damaged goods, Noah, not the poor lost little angel you thought she was. Don’t look like that. The difference with me was that I saw through her. I knew exactly what she was. A beautiful woman who’d fuck anyone. For Christ’s sake, her mother was a whore, her stepfather raped her. Sex was like pissing—just another autonomous body function to her.”

  “She was vulnerable and you exploited her.” My heart at once ice cold and boiling.

  “Rubbish. She could have walked away, anytime she liked. She kept coming back.” He points at his chest. “To me. Open your eyes, Noah. Wake up to yourself.”

  “Bastard.” I mutter the word.

  He leers, an ugly, monstrous look, as he sits back, folding his arms. “Face it. You’re out of your depth.”

  As soon as he says that, it’s as though a light comes on. Suddenly it’s blindingly obvious. All along, he’s manipulated me, too.

  “That’s why you called me, isn’t it?” I say softly. “At the very beginning? The dropout lawyer who you thought was still in love with her. I wouldn’t have a hope of winning her case, if it came to that, but you knew I wouldn’t be able to resist.”

  I’m completely stunned as it sinks in, because I can’t believe that until now I haven’t seen through him. Will had never wanted to help April. He’d brought me here to fail.

  “I’m right, aren’t I?” I add, catching sight of Ryder outside, walking past the window. “And the only reason you’re still here, right now, listening to me, is because you want April’s precious files, because she was right. Well, most likely, by now they are in the hands of our good friend Ryder. . . .”

  Will opens his mouth to reply. Then seeing me glance past him, he turns as Ryder comes through the door. His face visibly pales.

  “Why did you kill Norton, Will? Were you trying to set her up?”

  He doesn’t speak. I sit back, my eyes not leaving his.

  “Why didn’t you just kill her?” I ask softly. “Or is that what you’re doing now? When backs are turned, quietly altering her meds, because no one would ever suspect you, would they?”

  His face is ashen. Then Ryder’s beside him, his hand on Will’s shoulder as the policeman with him reads him his rights.

  Picking up my keys, I stand. “Like I said, mate, right at the start. The truth usually comes out.”

  I don’t even know if Will hears me. Then nodding to Ryder, I walk away.

  Ella

  I’ve slept for an hour, Julia tells me when I open my eyes. Feel warm softness covering me. Hear Julia’s voice.

  “Ella? It’s okay. You don’t have to get up.”

  It comes back to me what’s happened. I pull myself up so I’m half sitting. Then I notice a second person, and as the mist clears, I see she’s the lady I saw behind the desk.

  “I don’t know you, do I?” I whisper.

  She shakes her head. “I knew your mother—your birth mother.” She looks uncertainly at Julia.

  I know then, we met when I was too young to remember. Closing my eyes again, because her voice feels like I’m going home.

  “Ella?” Julia’s voice through my darkness. “I tried to call your mother, honey. Only Gabriela told me she’s away.”

  I sigh then, but it doesn’t matter. Rebecca’s not really my mother. She never has been.

  “I know he’s lied, but I had to call your father.” Her voice is anxious.

  My eyes open wide; I pull myself upright. “No, please. I won’t go with him.”

  “Ella, I had to talk to him. You’re not well. He’s your next of kin. I didn’t have a choice. But we’ll talk to him together, I promise you.”

  But I don’t want to talk to him. I don’t even want to look at him. I try to get to my feet, because I have to get out of here before he arrives, but my legs wobble and I fall back on the sofa.

  “Ella? I want to introduce you to Beatrice.”

  The fair-haired lady smiles, sadly. “Your mother and I were at school together. We were friends for many years. When she was fifteen, she looked exactly like you. When I saw you come in, I knew.”

  I look at Julia, confused.

  “Your birth mother,” Julia says quietly. “April Moon.”

  At last, someone says her name. My mother’s name.

  “I’ve just started working here,” Beatrice says quietly. “A few days ago. It was April who suggested I apply for the job.”

  “Is she here?” It comes out high pitched, as my heart starts thumping. If my real mother’s here, I have to see her. “Can you get her?” As I try to stand, my legs go again. I slump back on the sofa.

  Bea shakes her head, glancing at Julia.

  “She’s not here, Ella,” Julia says quietly. “She isn’t well. She’s in hospital.”

  I’m confused again. It’s too much to take in. I turn to Bea, trying to understand.

  “I don’t usually come here,” I tell her, not making sense, but I’m thinking, do I know her eyes? Can you inherit memories like the color of your hair? Is this my mother’s memory?

  “What are the chances?” Bea says softly.

  I’m staring at her, so that I don’t hear the quiet knock, just Julia calling across the room. “Yes?”

  Suddenly I’m filled with anxiety. What if it’s my father?

  It’s a woman’s faceless voice. “Just to let you know Mr. Farrington called. He’s been held up.”

  And I feel relief, a huge weight of dread lifted from me.

  Then she adds, “And the police are here.”

  I gasp.

  “They’ve come to talk to me.” Beatrice gets up, then hesitates, looking at me. “Ella? If it’s okay with you, I’d really like to see you again.”

  She stands there, as if there’s more she wants to say, but then someone calls her away. After she’s closed the door behind her, Julia says, “You have to realize, you haven’t done anything wrong, Ella. Other people have.” As she says that, her voice hardens momentarily, in a way I haven’t heard before. “But not you.”

  Haven’t I? And then it comes to me—it’s not my own guilt I’ve been carrying, it’s my father’s. Thinking of my father, and having heard Julia say my mother’s name, I know I have to tell her something else.

  “I heard him on the phone. He was talking to her. To April.” Then my hand covers my mouth, because now his words make sense.

  I tell Julia about my father’s voice, the way it’s abrupt when he’s annoyed about something, which is most of the time. How he carelessly left the door of his study cracked open; how he spoke to her.

  “You’ll have to talk to him. He’s your bloody stepfather. And she’s your daughter.”

  Silence, then he’s louder. Not caring who hears.

  “I’d say all bets are off, wouldn’t you? Come off it, April. This is different. You’re telling me he’s threatened Ella, for Christ’s sake. Or don’t you care?”

  Feel myself shrink into the shadows. Why would anyone want to hurt me?

  “All right. I’ll meet you there.”

  The phone slammed down. Silence. Then his laugh. Someone threatens me and my father laughs.

  “Are you certain, Ella?”

  I nod, so freaking word for word certain I could recite it in my sleep. I’m still hearing his voice, how callously he spoke, his laugh after he tells her someone’s threatened me, as Julia hurries to her phone.

  Much later, when the sun has slipped behind the clouds, when Julia half pulls the curtains, I know that the world I inhabited has gone forever, but that while I’ve slept, time has somehow reassembled. That the secrets are out in the open. That huddled against Julia on her sofa, my head on her chest, her arms tight round me, her chin resting on my head, while the remnants of my old life are scattered in every direction, I’m safe.

  Later still, I remember. “Gabriela! Where is she?”

  “She’s just outsid
e, waiting for us. I want a quick word with Beatrice, and then, I don’t know about you, but I’m starving. Shall we treat Gabriela to a late lunch? There’s a little coffee shop just around the corner, if you think you can walk that far.”

  Getting to my feet, my legs feeling stronger. I nod. I’m shaky, but okay. There are still questions, about my father, and about April, but no longer are they crushing me. They can wait.

  Then I follow Julia through the door, step into the rest of my life.

  44

  Ryder’s pursuit of me, then Bea’s lack of faith, Will’s mocking contempt spark an awakening moment of agonizing clarity. One in which my eyes are forced open and the brightest torch is shone into the dusty corners of my life, illuminating my failed career and broken relationships, searing them into my mind. But also, there’s my lack of kindness to myself, so that in the most bizarre way, it’s a gift. A moment I know I have to cling to. Have to see for what it is and face head-on, so that I’m free. That same evening, one that because of my own sea change feels weeks, even months, later, I arrange to meet Bea a few miles out of Tonbridge at a village pub, a place with trees and empty space, where the cool air is soothing and the weight of the day starts to lift.

  “I’m so sorry.” Bea hugs me tight, then sits on the bench beside me.

  “Don’t be. You were great. Couldn’t have timed it better.” I pour her a glass of wine from the bottle I’ve already bought, which I won’t touch.

  “Thank you.” Bea takes it, then looks ashamed. “For a while, I’ll be honest, Noah, I didn’t believe you. God, Will is such a bastard. I checked out the Fairview Medical Centre.”

  “You did? I couldn’t get anywhere. I was going to drive over there, until Will did his level best to have me arrested. What did you find out?”

  “There wasn’t really anything online,” Bea says thoughtfully. “So I went there. You know how on the website there were photos of that big, white house? Well, the real number 78 is a redbrick semi, rented out to students, one of whom just happened to be coming out as I walked past. Owned by a rich surgeon bloke, was what he said. Described Will’s car to a tee.”

  ‘He used the house as a safe place for the questionnaires to be sent to. He couldn’t have used the hospital, could he? Or his home address? Someone might have linked them to him.’ I’m staggered at the lengths he’s gone to.

  ‘And the website was there, just in case anyone checked,’ Bea says slowly.

  “You did well,” I tell her. “That was quite brave. You might have run into anyone.” Meaning Will, of course.

  Bea shrugs. “When you’ve dealt with a bastard like my ex, it changes your perspective on a lot of things. Did he kill Norton, do you think? Will? And set April up?”

  “It looks like it. Then when I discovered what he was up to, he tried to pin it on me.” I’m thoughtful. “He’s done a lot of that. I think what happened was when April found out that Will was selecting his patients by unethical means, she challenged him. I don’t think it was ever about what Norton did all those years ago. Will just used him.”

  Pausing, because I’m guessing, because there’s still no proof—not yet. Contemplating how Will could have been so cruel as to stir up Norton when he knew what the man had done to April. “But what doesn’t make sense was if Will was somehow manipulating April out of the way and he was even prepared to kill someone, why not her? How come she’s still alive?”

  Bea looks just as puzzled.

  I’m trying to work it out as I speak. “He met up with April, the first time. Somehow managed to take her phone and a glove, then later, engineered the meeting between April and Norton in the North Star, all the while waiting for Norton to leave. Then after he’d killed him, he planted the phone and one of her gloves. He really is a bastard. But for reasons he’s not saying, he didn’t want April dead—just out of the way.” I pause, distracted, because the revelation is still so new. “I can’t believe she has a daughter.”

  Bea smiles sadly. “Just for a moment, I thought I was looking at April’s ghost. She’s so like her, Noah. Her eyes, that hair . . . It was Ella who came up with proof. He’d forced April to sign a document, years ago, giving him custody of her. It’s why April told me she’d had a miscarriage.”

  “She must have told anyone who asked the same thing.” I frown.

  “I didn’t see her so much around that time.” Bea’s voice is sober. “If only I had. Imagine her dealing with Will on her own. Then after, if April had ever tried to contact Ella, he’d have taken her to court.”

  What’s incredible, too, is that Will thought he could get away with this. But then he had, for all this time, using his own daughter to get at April, and then Norton to frame April.

  “He wanted her out of the way because she knew too much,” I say slowly, as it starts to fall into place. “I’m convinced he’s been altering her meds, Bea. He wasn’t her consultant, but he was often in her room.”

  “Surely not.” Bea looks horrified.

  “He probably thought he could pin it on someone else. That’s Will through and through.”

  Bea’s eyes are sad. “It must have tormented April, not being able to contact Ella. But when she found out what he was up to at the hospital, why didn’t she go to the police?”

  “I don’t know.” It’s another question I don’t have the answer for. Then I have to tell her, “You need to tell me about my baby, Bea.”

  She nods. “I’ve been thinking that, too. Several times, April did want to tell you, then just couldn’t. I suppose in the end, there didn’t seem any point.” Bea looks straight at me. “His name was Theo.”

  Theo. I think of the photo I took from April’s house.

  “He was beautiful, Noah.” Bea sighs. “When April found out she was pregnant, she was devastated at first. She’d just got settled with her flat, her job. It represented hope for a better kind of future, she said. Then, suddenly . . . Well, you can imagine how she felt. After all she’d already been through . . .

  “She changed her mind, though.” Bea goes on. “As the pregnancy went on, she decided she was going to give this baby everything she’d never had—love, a safe home. The future. When you saw her that time, in London, she almost told you; then at the last minute, she couldn’t do it. She thought you’d leave your course. It would ruin your life.”

  I lean forward, resting my chin in my hands. She was right. I would have left school without a backward glance. “It wasn’t her choice to make, was it?”

  “No.” Bea pauses. “Anyway, a few months later, Theo was born.”

  “My mother’s name was Theodora.” Bea nods. “I know. April told me. She didn’t really know your mother, but it was a small way of connecting the baby to you. April juggled work with looking after him; I babysat when I could. At one point, I lived there. It was hard, but for those months, it was as though we were in another, totally different world. A baby changes how you look at everything. . . .” Her eyes sparkle sadly as she remembers. “We would take him for walks, noticing the flowers or the birds. We’d laugh when he laughed. He had this great laugh, like bubbles of sunlight, April always said.”

  All the time she’s been talking, there’s been a light in her eyes, but then it dies away.

  “But then it changed. It was April who noticed. It was when he got more active. He got tired so easily. His skin was really pale and sometimes his lips were blue. There were other signs. She took him to her doctor—her useless doctor—who brushed her off and sent her away. He should have been fired, because of another thing. You wouldn’t believe it now, but twenty years ago, in some parts there was still a stigma attached to being an unmarried mother.”

  Her words strike a chord, filling me with guilt, as I imagine April with Theo, as if being alone wasn’t hard enough, having to field the blows of judgment and condemnation of people who didn’t know better, as if it were her choice.

  “Her doctor was old school. April said he used to treat her with contempt. . . .”


  Bea shakes her head, her face growing distant. Then she continues. “Talking about it brings it all back. We knew something was terribly wrong, but no one could tell us what. April brought Theo home. We watched him really closely but it was getting worse. Eventually she got him to a different doctor, who diagnosed a heart defect.”

  I remember Daisy Rubinstein, her harrowing account of watching her baby lose his life. Suddenly I feel sick.

  “Go on,” I say quietly.

  Bea’s face is sober. “Theo went downhill quickly. They took him in for surgery. They told us he’d need several operations, and even then, they might not be able to completely cure him. The first one went well enough, but after the second . . . He started having seizures. The first time, April was alone with him. She took him to hospital. They gave her drugs for him, but there wasn’t anything else they could do. I remember them coming home—I’d just got back from work. Both of them were exhausted, Theo crying and crying. It was grim. She took as much time off as she could, then stopped working altogether so that she could care for him.

  “It was horrible, Noah. Theo was so weak, further surgery wasn’t an option, but we were told without it, he didn’t have long. It was so hard to watch him, fighting to move, even to breathe. Then one night, he started crying.”

  Bea’s eyes are wet with tears. “I swear I’ve never heard anything so terrible. There was no way to comfort him. Will came round now and then, but he was a student. April begged him to help that night, but there was nothing he could do. It seemed everything we did made it worse. The effort of crying meant Theo was exhausting himself. He’d close his eyes and his little chest would gradually slow; but then he’d wake up and it would start all over again. . . .”

  Bea breaks off. When she continues, her voice is wavering. “Theo died not long after that. I wasn’t there. I had to go to work, but I was glad that if he wasn’t going to get better, at least it was over.”