I, Witness

by Niki Mackay

  Marcus. Poor me, poor Bethany. Maybe it’s not going to be the devil I know though, maybe not this time; maybe I have a new enemy, but I can’t think who. I guess I’m still stupid enough to think Marcus wouldn’t stoop this low. I squelch the urge to cry hysterically. Bethany has drifted off watching TV. I cover her, glad that my legs are working again. I climb into bed with her because I’m cold and because I can’t bear to be too far.

  I make deals in my head. Please let us go. I’ll do what I need to do and take better care of my daughter. I promise I will. I’ll leave and never look back and then I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to her. I need to get away from Marcus, to get Bethany away. The bits I love either aren’t real or they’re only a small irrelevant part of a much bigger, darker picture.

  I keep stroking Bethany’s hair and I hear her breathing get deeper, watch her small eyelids flutter and close. My daughter. My lovely daughter who I will not consign to a life of fear. If we can get through this, we will be fine. Somehow we will be fine.

  We both snooze, though I don’t think I am gone for long. I wake with a start, blood pumping around my veins, hot and full of purpose. I walk around the space, a plan formulating in my mind.

  My little one’s eyes flicker and open. She sits up stretching and I smile at her and pull her up to sit. I bend on my knees so that our eyes are level and I say, ‘Bethany, I’m going to call for your aunt and I need you to be quiet while I do and be ready to run when I say. Okay?’

  She nods, but looks worried. I go over the plan with her again and she starts crying. ‘Why are we here, Mummy? Why do we have to run?’

  ‘We’ll talk about those things later, Bethany. Now, I need you to be strong and I need you to do what I’m saying. Can you do that?’ She nods.

  I put her behind me, pick up a small wooden chair and I start shouting. I’ve been calling for so long that I almost give up and then:

  ‘Sssshhhhhh.’

  ‘Martha, Bethany’s not moving, her breathing isn’t right. Whatever you gave us she’s reacting to really badly.’

  ‘I didn’t give her anything. It should be safe. Please, Claudia, you just have to help her.’

  ‘Martha, she’s not right, she’s going to die if you don’t help us. She’ll die and it will be your fault.’

  It’s quiet and then, ‘He’s not here . . . I have to call him . . .’

  ‘Martha, now! You have to help me now. Oh my God, she’s stopped breathing, Martha. Martha!’

  There is silence from her side. I make panicked sounds, the door swings open and I do it before I have time to think, before I change my mind. Whack. I feel the wood land on her and the leg falls off the chair as she crumples to the floor, screaming. And Bethany is screaming and I’m sorry, I really am, but there’s no time. I push Martha completely to the floor, pinning her by her shoulders with my knees.

  ‘Key?’

  ‘He’ll kill me.’

  ‘Key, Martha, now, or I’ll kill you myself.’

  Bethany screams again, loud, piercing.

  ‘Bethany, be quiet.’ Something in my voice stops her.

  Martha hands me the key, sobbing. I walk out, dragging my daughter with me and I lock the door, ignoring the bangs coming from the other side. We are in a short hallway. It is a stand-alone purpose-built building made of breeze blocks. There is another room, one Martha must have come from. I’m tempted to look in it, see if the diary is still there at least, or anything else, but I don’t have time to waste. I grab Bethany – she’s too big for me to carry, but I half-drag, half-propel her and we are out. I don’t know where we are. There isn’t much else here, a big green expanse of grass. I can hear the river rushing by, but no sign of any people. I have no idea how long I’ve got, but we go quickly. Bethany is crying. I shush her but I don’t stop. Outside are two large fields. I don’t know where any of them go. There seems no point heading for the river, the other direction might lead to a road. That’s the one we take. It’s drizzling and soon enough we are wet through. Bethany is keeping up, just about, and eventually we are rewarded and come to a road. A big main road. Lots of cars, lots of people. Safety. I am not going to fail this time. This time I’m going to keep putting one foot in front of the other and save us. Save myself and my daughter.

  41.

  Dear Ruth,

  This letter won’t get to you, you’ll never read it. That makes me feel sad. I’ve enjoyed our correspondence, though I admit it’s been a little one-sided. I was glad we got to meet again though. I asked you a few simple questions, didn’t I? It’s sad that you couldn’t answer them, or wouldn’t. Your final act of spite, I suspect.

  I wanted to know if you had held me, before you said goodbye forever. I couldn’t remember if we’d hugged. I wanted to know if you’d felt anything at all before you disposed of me from your life, like so much rubbish. You didn’t give me a straight answer, blethering on and on about what good people the Horfields were, thinking I was unaware of who they were exactly to you.

  They were pathetic people actually. Annoying do-gooders. They drove me mad with their incessant head-leaning sympathies, their constant quest to understand me and my fake brother. They couldn’t crack me, though they thought they had.

  I played my part well enough. You should have seen her face when she realised what I had in store for her. I like justice, Ruth. I did tell you that. If I had thought at any moment that you were sorry, even a little bit, for what you did to me then I might, might have been able to forgive you. You might still be alive, Ruth, my pathetic gaggle of siblings might still have had a mother, albeit a shit one!

  I think I’ll probably keep writing to you. I sort of miss you, Ruth, despite all your flaws.

  Love as always

  42.

  Madison Attallee

  When I get back into the office Emma says I have a visitor. It’s James Reynolds.

  ‘I think it’s about time we spoke,’ he says.

  ‘I think you’re probably right.’

  As soon as I shut the door he begins, and though I’m quite certain I already know what he’s going to say I let him speak. ‘You said you have children.’

  I nod. ‘One, a little girl.’

  ‘What sort of child is she?’

  I shrug. ‘Just a normal little girl, I guess.’

  ‘Right. Kate was like that, out of the three of mine, the most “normal”. Doesn’t say much in this family.’ He wipes a hand over his brow and goes on, ‘My wife, Ruth, was not a good mother. I knew it shortly after Martha was born. She seemed to start off okay with our son. We always had help, mind, but she played with Marcus, enjoyed dressing him up, taking him out. Didn’t like pregnancy, was almost phobic about it, to be honest. Particularly the second time around, then the third.’ He seems lost in that memory for a moment. ‘She wouldn’t let me be involved, which wasn’t unusual for men then, mind. I think she was already depressed and, well, it was even worse with the hormones perhaps, and the children. Their needs. Mine. You can imagine, I’m sure.’

  ‘I can.’

  He nods. ‘Anyway, a few months after Martha was born Ruth became very withdrawn. Post-natal depression, or so I thought. She saw a doctor, he prescribed some pills, recommended exercise.’

  ‘It didn’t help?’

  He shakes his head. ‘No, though later I found out she hadn’t been taking the tablets.’ He waves a hand. ‘It’s by the by. I suspect they wouldn’t have helped anyway. It wasn’t just depression. Her behaviour was bizarre. As I said, she had been quite bonded with Marcus and then all of a sudden she turned on him.’

  ‘Turned on him?’

  ‘I can’t think of a better way to put it than that. She wouldn’t pick him up or cuddle him, sent him to the nanny. Poor little thing was devastated.’ He looks at me intently. ‘I know it’s not an excuse . . . but perhaps you can see how he might have be
come the man he is?’

  I shrug, thinking about Claudia’s terrified voice on the phone.

  James goes on, ‘Anyway. She didn’t bond with Martha, and then along came Kate. She cried when the test came back positive. She started ignoring me. She drank a lot, whilst pregnant and after Kate’s birth. She’d lapse into silences that lasted days. Took herself off to bed. I’m ashamed to say I didn’t manage well – I had an affair with the nanny.’

  ‘Did Ruth find out?’

  ‘Yes, but she didn’t seem to care. Said she didn’t blame me.’

  ‘Kate mentioned that Ruth had no contact with her parents,’ I say.

  ‘No, none at all. She was living with them when we met, though she never introduced us and she didn’t invite them to the wedding. All she would say on the matter was that they had treated her terribly and she could never forgive them. She had a therapist when I met her.’

  ‘Can you remember the therapist’s name?’

  ‘Now you’re really going back . . . Horton?’

  ‘Could it have been Horfield?’ I ask him.

  ‘Yes. Yes, I think it was Dr Horfield! How did you know that?’

  ‘I’ll explain later. Please, carry on.’

  He shrugs. ‘There’s not much more about Ruth, to be honest. I stopped the affair, threw myself into being the best dad I could while keeping money coming in. I tried to love the kids enough for both of us. I tried to love Ruth but she wouldn’t let me, and then she died.’

  ‘Suicide?’

  He nods. His eyes shine with tears. ‘I wasn’t surprised.’

  ‘It must have been awful.’

  He nods. ‘One of the worst things about it was that Martha found her, did you know that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No, why would you. She had been sitting with her body all day by the time we got home. She already had some difficulties.’

  ‘What was wrong with her?’ I ask, wondering if he knew that Oliver must have been causing chaos for his children. But I don’t think so.

  He shrugs. ‘I don’t know. I paid a fortune to the psychiatrists who couldn’t seem to work it out either.’

  He chokes for a moment, holding back a sob, I think. But I don’t buy it. He told the nurses to stop treating her, after all. ‘I have done many awful things in my life. I have felt inadequate so often.’

  I don’t say anything, but wait while he regains some composure. I don’t know if I feel sorry for him. Parenting is probably the most important job we will ever do. This man has not got it right and he’s had opportunities to change. But who am I to judge?

  ‘Martha is not a normal little girl. She’s not like her sister, Kate, who was always robust, able to manage even when faced with terrible adversity. I knew, just knew she would be okay, in some way.’

  I don’t even begin to point out all the ways in which this statement is not true. Kate is a nervous wreck. My guess is she was a nervous wreck back then. She just hid it under an agreeable smile. And then I realise what he is telling me. It isn’t Marcus.

  ‘You’ve been protecting Martha,’ I say.

  He looks at me, his eyes pleading. ‘She’d never have managed.’

  ‘You set Kate up?’

  He’s shaking his head. ‘No, God no, of course not. It . . . it just somehow happened that way. If she hadn’t walked into the room . . .’

  ‘James, tell me what happened, from the beginning.’

  A tear escapes then, making its way down his cheek. He seems oblivious. He tells me, ‘I love Kate. Please, you must understand that. I love both of my girls, but I made a decision in a moment to save the one who was more fragile.’

  ‘James . . .’ I prompt him back to the night of Naomi’s murder. Time is not on our side.

  ‘I was . . . away that night.’

  ‘Where were you?’

  He pulls a tissue from his pocket and dabs his eyes gently. ‘I had a . . . girlfriend I suppose you’d call her, nothing serious.’

  ‘You were at her house?’

  He nods. ‘Yes, not far from home.’

  ‘The children thought you were away working.’

  ‘Yes. Kate planned the bloody party. I should have known.’ He pauses. ‘Anyway, I got a call from Marcus just before midnight. He was hysterical, absolutely beside himself, said I had to come home.’ Marcus, again.

  ‘And you did?’

  ‘I did. I met him out in the back garden, he was a mess. I followed him up to Martha’s room and there they were.’

  ‘Naomi was already dead?’

  He nods. ‘And Martha was sitting there smiling and holding the knife.’

  ‘You got her out?’

  He’s twisting the tissue now between his hands, turning it into a long thin line. ‘It was instinct. I just picked her up and we left, the three of us. We went out the back. No one saw us; the kids were all in the living room, I suppose, or in other bedrooms. We went to one of the vacant properties – the flat Kate’s in now, actually. I cleaned them up. Tried my best to calm Marcus. Martha was perfectly placid – seemed to have no idea what she’d done. Then the police rang to say they had Kate in custody.’

  ‘You sent Martha to the hospital?’

  ‘Yes, a day later, by which time she was pretty much comatose. Kate confessed and Marcus and I promised to do what we needed to protect Martha.’

  He’s crying openly now. Tears stream down his face.

  ‘Why would Martha have killed Naomi?’

  ‘I don’t know. She never said. I’m not certain if she even remembers it.’

  I think about what Denise had told me. ‘That’s why you didn’t continue with her therapists – in case they uncovered it.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What was in Naomi’s diary?’

  He shakes his head at that. ‘I don’t know, I had no idea Marcus had it.’

  ‘It was Marcus who called you that night?’

  He nods and his eyes widen as he takes in the implication.

  ‘Martha has discharged herself from Sandcross,’ I tell him.

  ‘Oh no.’ The blood seems to drain from his face.

  ‘Do you remember Oliver?’ I ask.

  He frowns. ‘Kate’s boyfriend?’

  ‘Yes. I have reason to believe he was Ruth’s son.’

  He looks at me as though I’m mad; I carry on. ‘I think that her father, Raymond, was also Oliver’s father.’ I watch as that sinks in. He blinks. Looking at me wide-eyed.

  ‘My God.’ His face contorts. ‘What the hell . . . Kate? What would he want with . . . his sister?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. Ruth gave him away for adoption, shortly after she met you.’

  His face is crestfallen. ‘That’s terrible.’ He shakes his head. ‘Why didn’t she tell me?’

  I shrug. ‘I don’t know. Maybe she was ashamed.’

  He looks appalled at that and says, ‘Does Kate know this?’

  I nod.

  ‘She must be very upset,’ he says.

  ‘That’s an understatement. Do you remember Ruth’s mother, Margaret?’

  ‘Yes. Well, vaguely. I waved at her a few times when I called to take Ruth out.’

  ‘You didn’t find it strange that you didn’t know them?’

  He shrugs. ‘Yes, but Ruth had told me she didn’t get on with her father and that her parents weren’t people she wanted to know. I felt like a knight in shining armour, to be honest.’

  I resist the urge to roll my eyes at him. Instead I tell him, ‘I’m going to see Margaret. I’ve found her.’

  And then I pass him the phone. ‘You should speak to Kate.’

  He’s shaking his head and the little sympathy I felt for him wilts. He is a coward. A foolish, unquestioning coward. If he’d paid more attention to his family when they needed him h
e could have stopped all of this before it started. I look at him sternly. ‘Call Kate. Say you’ll explain later but make contact. She’s your daughter, for God’s sake.’

  43.

  Kate Reynolds

  Madison’s number flashes on my phone, but when I pick up it is my father’s voice in my ear: ‘Kate.’

  I am hit again by just how much I’ve missed him.

  ‘Daddy.’

  There is a pause. A place in time where we must both be lost in thought. Something happens to my stomach, it clenches in on itself like a fist closing, taking with it all of my insides.

  He’s not speaking.

  ‘Are you with Madison?’ I ask.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I didn’t kill Naomi, Dad.’

  ‘I know, love, I already know.’

  ‘What do you mean you already know?’

  He pauses. ‘I’ll explain everything. Can I come round?’

  I sit and wait and I am swamped by so many thoughts and feelings: anger at the years lost, confusion as to what I should do next, and sadness that he has kept things from me. The reality that whatever’s he’s been hiding, it looks like he sacrificed me.

  I am trying to contain my rage, scared that I will attack him when I see him, but when he arrives at my door all I see is a man I have always loved, pale and old. His face is tear-stained. He whispers, ‘I’m so sorry, Kate.’

  I go to him and put my arms around him. I hear him sob as he holds me.

  ‘Dad, what’s going on?’ I ask.

  He is shaking as he releases me. He follows me through to the living room and says, ‘How is the flat?’