The Darkest Lies: A gripping psychological thriller with a shocking twist

by Barbara Copperthwaite

  Obviously, the police should be called. Of course. But if I could figure out who this SSG was first, then all the better. There was no one we knew with those initials, though. Not even close.

  I forced myself to read more:

  What is happiness? I think it’s a really good book and a really nice boy to snuggle up to. I think a lot about boys. Someone who will look after me and protect me…

  … I love to think about me and SSG kissing. That’s because he’s the right person for me. It shows how perfect we are together. I’d been so nervous, but he’s experienced and that really helps. All my nerves fly out of the window when he touches me, strumming my body like a guitar. He’s so special…

  … It snowed today, and all the boys in my year had a snowball fight. I got three crumbled on my head, two on the back of my neck and one in my eye. They are such children. SSG is a man. Just imagine everyone’s face when they realise I’ve got an older man. They’ll be absolutely jell! Ha! Especially Chloe…

  So this SSG was an older man. How old? Did you think of Aleksy as a man? He was almost eighteen, after all. What if this SSG was a paedophile who had been grooming you? The thought made me dizzy. A dirty old man with designs on my gorgeous, innocent little girl. What had the two of you done together? How far had this gone?

  My stomach clenched and I ran to the loo. Fell onto my knees with my head bent over it. I wasn’t sick, but it took several minutes before I felt in control enough to stand and face that notebook again.

  I had to. I had to unmask this pervert.

  SSG was so tender today. He makes me feel so safe. He told me how much he loved me. ‘I want to spend the rest of my life with you,’ he said. And he meant it. I could tell by the look in his eyes. I can’t wait for us to get married. I’ll be 14 soon, so we’ll have to wait two years, but it will be worth it. I love being held by him. He just Smells So Good, lol!

  The caps caught my eye. Clearly SSG weren’t his initials, they stood for your nickname for him. So who was this Mr Smells So Good?

  I closed my eyes and forced myself to take a deep breath. I needed to calm down if I was to think clearly.

  I tried to think of men who wore aftershave. Not many men in the village did. Most were old-fashioned types who thought it was feminine and would probably beat up a bloke if they discovered he used moisturiser. So chances were this SSG was in his late teens or early twenties. Aleksy fitted that age range. And he used strong body spray. So it was Aleksy!

  But another line was bugging me. I reread it. Strumming my body.

  The answer hit me like a thunderbolt. Oh my God, I had never thought, never imagined… I’d trusted him with you, Beth.

  I dialled DS Devonport’s direct line, where it went to answerphone. So instead I called Flo. She answered within a couple of rings.

  ‘I know who hurt my daughter,’ I said. ‘He groomed her, took advantage of her, then hurt her when he tried to take things further.’

  Forty-One

  Things happened quickly after I’d notified the police. I called Jacob at work and told him everything. By the time he arrived home, Flo was knocking on the door with an update. Her hand, with well-scrubbed nails cut short and rounded like a child’s, rested on my arm as she explained that your guitar teacher, James Harvey, was being questioned, following the shocking discovery of your diary.

  ‘We’d like you to give permission for Beth to undergo a medical check, to see if she has been sexually assaulted,’ Flo added. Her short ginger bob swayed as she spoke. She tucked both sides behind her ears, then looked at my clenched fists.

  I couldn’t uncurl them as I gave my consent.

  ‘I always liked the bloke,’ muttered Jacob, stunned.

  My reply was a bitter bark of laughter. ‘Me too. Liked him and felt for him. He always seemed a lovely man, but awkward; aware of every move he made, everything he said. Didn’t seem to fit in around here. Now I know why. You know he’s applied to do teacher training, don’t you? So he can prey on more innocent girls.’

  I’d always tried to put him at ease, and he’d seemed pitifully grateful for my efforts. How he must have laughed at us as he seduced you right under your parents’ noses. The words in the diary haunted me.

  All my nerves fly out of the window when he touches me.

  ‘I could kill him for what he’s done.’

  ‘If he’s guilty, we’ll find the evidence to jail him,’ assured Flo.

  ‘If he’s touched her…’ I swallowed. Tried again. ‘If he’s touched her, I don’t know—’

  ‘Stop it, Mel!’ shouted Jacob. ‘I don’t need to hear this. I don’t want to think about… that. Christ, it’s hard enough…’ A ragged breath in, held, out. His cheeks reddened as if they had been slapped.

  Pain constricted my throat but I forced the words out, desperate finally to voice what I’d been longing to say for so long. What Jacob didn’t want to hear.

  ‘When I’m on the marsh I can feel her, Jacob. She must have screamed for us. She must have cried for her mummy and daddy, and we weren’t there.’

  ‘Shut up! Shut up!’

  Jacob stormed from the room, tears rolling down his face.

  ‘Are you all right? Do you want to talk about this, Melanie?’ asked Flo.

  Throwing a glare her way, I stomped from the room too. Into the hall and up the stairs. If you had seen me, you might have laughed, Beth; my stomping reminded me of one of your strops.

  I locked myself in the bathroom, trying to calm down. Jacob was right. I had to put my faith in justice. But it didn’t stop how I felt. I’d always imagined myself to be a forgiving person, but a mother can never forgive someone who hurts her child. I wasn’t a violent person; knew I would never carry out my threat, and yet that didn’t make the feeling inside me any less real.

  I wanted to kill James Harvey for hurting you. In just three weeks, the changes wrought in me were deep and permanent. I was losing myself. Bits of me were being scoured away and the dust of me blown in the wind, flying somewhere across the Lincolnshire fens. Soon there wouldn’t be anything left that was recognisable.

  Would you still recognise me, Beth?

  We had been too happy. That was the problem. No one goes through life so untouched by pain.

  Your dad and I had been childhood sweethearts. Friendship had given our relationship a good foundation – we genuinely were best friends. When I’d fallen pregnant unexpectedly, it hadn’t been a trauma; there had been no heart-rending decision. Instead, we had sat down, talked about things sensibly and decided that, although the timing could have been better, we very much wanted to be parents. We were excited to see how you would turn out; a mixture of the two of us, physical proof of our love.

  Our parents had been supportive, not disappointed, and we’d married because we’d wanted to do everything right. It had been a tiny wedding, but perfect. Full of love, laughter, family and friends – well, you have seen the photographs, Beth, seen the joy on our faces for yourself. As we had exchanged vows in Fenmere’s church where I, and later you, had been baptised, I’d known I would spend the rest of my life with your dad.

  The pregnancy had been smooth, the birth painful, but no worse than anyone else experiences. You, my beautiful daughter, were so perfect that the memory of the pain quickly faded. We had become a happy family, leading a small but relatively successful life. We had no desire to move away, branch out or take over the world.

  You may not know this, Beth, but the only problem had been our assumption that other children would come along. Our only sorrow was that they never had. Even that had been taken in our stride, though. We had never bothered having tests to find out what was wrong; we simply accepted our lot. We were perfectly happy as a family of three, well, four if you counted our honorary second ‘child’, Wiggins.

  Of course, over the years there had been arguments, strops and fallings-out. Since you’d become a teenager you had got a little sulkier, but nothing worrying.

  Now, from out of the bl
ue, we were dealing with this.

  We had tempted fate with our happiness.

  * * *

  I splashed my face with water, then went downstairs to make peace with my husband. But then I saw him with Flo, their heads together, intimate.

  They were kissing.

  I backed up the stairs and sat at the top, hugging my trembling knees to my chest. How had I found myself in this nightmare?

  I should have rushed downstairs, confronted them… but I didn’t have the strength. It was taking everything to hold it together as it was. Perhaps it was a way of getting his own back for the ‘affair’ he thought I was having with Glenn. Perhaps it was the pressure of what was happening. Perhaps he simply didn’t love me any more and had fallen for Flo.

  Beth, we were crumbling without you.

  Forty-Two

  I couldn’t settle. Jacob was the same. The family had gathered round, all waiting expectantly for news. Jumping at everything, sitting down then standing up again, often losing the thread of our conversation because all we could think of was you and James Harvey. Most of the time the only sound was the ticking of the grandfather clock we inherited from Jacob’s grandparents, which stood in one corner of the lounge, beside the window. Fighting the urge to scream and shatter the silence made me visibly shudder, and I tensed all my muscles against it.

  Flo kept trying to talk to me, but her calm sympathy annoyed me and made me itch to punch her. Jacob seemed to appreciate her words, though. Of course he did. All those times I’d been grateful he’d dealt with her, saving me the trouble, I’d been pushing them together.

  By two o’clock I was going out of my mind. There were so many horrific scenarios running through my head, and I couldn’t talk to anyone. Mum kept suggesting counselling. My dad and John were more your strong, silent types; good at practical things, bad at emotions. As for your dad, I was too scared of blurting out what I’d seen. A row at that moment might tear us apart for good.

  So I sent a text to Glenn.

  Something has happened. Fancy a walk on the marsh?

  See you in 10 came his reply.

  ‘I’m going to take Wiggins out,’ I told Jacob.

  He nodded weakly. ‘Want some company?’

  ‘You’ve barely got the strength to speak. Stay. Keep the relatives company.’

  ‘Thanks, Mel. If you’re sure.’

  I was sure I couldn’t be around him, and would use any excuse to get away. I kept thinking of him kissing Flo. Why her? Why now?

  Why not? We had both been pushed beyond endurance.

  Even though there was nothing untoward about my clandestine meeting with Glenn, guilt nibbled at me. Jacob would not be impressed if he knew, and I clung to his jealousy as a sign of hope that Flo was a fling and it was me he loved. I would not give up Glenn for him, though. Not when your dad had betrayed me when I needed him most. Not when Glenn had become such an indispensable friend in so short a time, and I needed someone to offload my pain with. Someone whose feelings didn’t have to be tiptoed around.

  For such a wide, open landscape, I felt strangely claustrophobic while waiting on the marsh for him. As if someone were watching me – your attacker, perhaps. I could be seen for miles in the daylight, and it made me uncomfortable. This was supposed to be a secret meeting, but anyone could happen across us. Still, it was a lot less public than the pub. Even if we’d met in Wapentake, the chances of us being spotted together were high; it wasn’t exactly a great metropolis, boasting a population of around thirty thousand.

  Despite my paranoia, there didn’t seem to be another soul in sight, aside from the wading birds far in the distance, hurrying up and down the tideline for food. The wind slapped my face, trying to beat some sense into me, but I pulled my hood up, instantly comforted, like a child diving under a duvet to keep monsters at bay. But I missed the wind. Some people hated the constant breeze that haunted the fens. The area was so flat, it rarely ceased. Even in summer it could be fierce, and one gloriously sunny day a few years earlier I had got a huge blister on the top of my ear from windburn after hours of walking without a hat on. But even so, I loved the wind, especially now. It felt like a treasured companion: the one thing that could always be relied on in this uncertain world.

  Screw it. I threw my hood back and turned my face to feel my cold February companion clawing and numbing my flesh. We revelled in one another’s company.

  ‘Beth? Are you here? Can you hear me?’ I called softly.

  The wind gentled, smoothing my clothes, soothing my skin with its caresses. It whispered in my ear, but I couldn’t make out what it said. Was… was that you, Beth? I knew it was only wishful thinking, but wanted so much for it to be you. My arms ached, physically ached, to hold you.

  ‘Melanie?’

  I gave a little cry of shock, jumping. I’d been concentrating so hard on the wind that I had somehow missed the sound of Glenn’s van pulling up in the car park, and him walking up behind me.

  ‘What’s happened? Have the police arrested someone? Are you okay?’

  ‘It’s Beth’s guitar teacher, James Harvey! I found a diary Beth was keeping and…’ Tears leaked from my eyes; I bullied them away. I started to walk along the sea bank, Glenn by my side, bringing him up to date on finding your diary and calling the police.

  I had to speak up to be heard over the wind in our ears, but there was no one to listen in so I could speak freely. And I did.

  My fears that you had been groomed… You being fooled by a clever, manipulative man… The things you hinted in your diary that you had done…

  They were bad enough. But it was my reaction to those things I really needed to share. My pain. My fury. My fantasies of grabbing my sharp dressmaking scissors, which had lovingly snipped squares of fabric to make patchwork cushions and throws for my family. But which I now wanted to use to chop James Harvey’s penis off.

  I wanted to punch him, kick him, have him on the ground, bloodied and beaten and shown no mercy. I wanted to be as strong as a man, and reduce his handsome young face to jam for desecrating my daughter.

  It took a lot to articulate these terrible thoughts. I didn’t want to admit them to myself, let alone anyone else. But my biggest terror was that, if I didn’t get them out of me and into the world, they would poison me into acting on them.

  This was not your mother speaking, Beth. The woman who had nurtured you, taught you always to be kind. Who had kissed you better when you hurt yourself. This was not the woman your dad loved. It wasn’t someone I wanted either of you ever to meet.

  Glenn was wonderful. He didn’t seem to mind my pain. The graphic scenarios. In fact, the only time he said anything was to probe a little deeper, to get me to open up further. I appreciated that.

  As I spoke, my body quaked. Adrenaline rushing around even though I was lost only in memory. We went over my emotions again at discovering you were missing. My fears. How I had imagined your body broken and twisted by a car; the feelings that had swept through me when we had thought you were dead.

  Glenn flushed at the impact of my words, clearly angry on my behalf. But he never once told me that he had had enough. He took verbal blow after blow.

  I talked, too, of how hope faded for you as time went on.

  ‘I’m betraying Beth for even thinking these things, let alone speaking them out loud. If Jacob knew…’

  ‘Well, he won’t hear from me. No one will.’

  ‘Thank you.’ My words were spoken so quietly, and were snatched away instantly by the tumbling air. I wasn’t sure if Glenn heard. But other words were pushing forward, eager to be shared.

  ‘I used to hold her hand all the time. I didn’t want to let it go. Thought if I talked hard enough, prayed hard enough, begged her to come back, that it would happen. One night I held her hand and tried to will it to happen. You know? I mean, actually trembled with effort.’

  I laughed at my stupidity and grabbed at my face. ‘My cheeks were wobbling like this. Imagine! But magic doesn’t work.
There are no gods. There’s no great They that will step in and do good works if you only believe hard enough.’

  The wind skirled around us, and my sigh joined it. ‘I’m so sorry for talking so much. If you don’t want to hear me going on, I understand…’

  ‘Hey.’ He held his hands up. Those big, strong, practical hands, so different from Jacob’s artistic, tapered fingers. ‘I’ve told you I don’t mind. I’m a good listener, remember.’

  ‘The best. Aren’t you cold?’ I added, suddenly noticing that once again Glenn was carrying his coat instead of wearing it.

  ‘Told you, I’m tough. Men don’t feel the cold like women do. Even when we do, it’s one more thing to fight against – I’m not going to get beaten by the cold, I’m going to win.’

  ‘You know that’s crazy, don’t you? Why fight the cold when you can put a coat on and be warmer?’

  He made a dismissive gesture, slowing to squeeze my shoulder, but quickly let his hand drop away. We were friends, nothing more, and I was grateful to him.

  ‘How are you doing? You must miss Katie so much.’

  His face was a careful blank. ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Hey, you can talk to me, too, you know.’

  Turning his back on me, he sighed. ‘I’d say you had no idea, but you’re one of the few people who knows exactly how I’m feeling – and you’re going through something even worse.’

  His voice was so gentle that I barely heard him. I stepped closer.

  ‘Talk to me about it.’

  When he turned, the pain etched on his face was a mirror of my own. ‘What a pair, eh? Both grieving for our lost daughters. Please God, they’ll come back to us soon.’

  Beth, my heart went out to this father forced apart from his child. It was so unfair. I made up my mind there and then that if I could help him in any way to get back in touch with Katie, I would. I would track down his wife and persuade her to let this wonderful man see his family.