Your Guilty Lies (ARC)

by Ruth Heald

  ‘You’d been through enough. Your father was dead. You had the horrible injury to your arm. I didn’t want anything else to hurt you.’

  ‘But I must have known at the time. You let me forget, overwrote my memories with what you wanted me to believe.’

  ‘I thought you were young enough to forget. And I felt so guilty. I should have left him. I should never have let him be involved in yours and Melissa’s lives. When you hurt your arm at the pub, I blamed myself. I thought the one thing I could do for you was give you a stable upbringing and let you believe you’d had a happy childhood. When I became more interested in psychiatric care, I read a lot of self-help and psychology books. So much of it was about how an unhappy childhood messes you up as an adult. Patients I see now, they rehash things from their childhood again and again. I thought I could give you the benefits of a happy childhood just by telling you that was what it was like. It seemed like the least I could do for you.’

  ‘I don’t know what to think, Mum. You lied to me about so many things.’

  I think about how she lied to me about her own injuries too; never let on that they were anything to do with Dad. She played down her headaches so I wouldn’t worry about her. And then I think about how Mum stepped in front of the glass, letting it smash into her instead of me. She was trying to protect me then. Has she only been trying to protect me since?

  ‘I hope you can forgive me, Katie. I had to ring you as soon as Melissa confessed that she’d told you. I know I’ve made a mistake.’

  I wander into the bedroom and look down at my babies, asleep in their cots. I know I’m not perfect myself. I’m going to mess up sometimes. I hope when I’m older they’ll forgive me too.

  The doorbell rings, interrupting my thoughts.

  ‘Mum, I have to go,’ I say quickly. It will be Mick, and I rush down the stairs before he knocks on the door even harder and wakes up the girls.

  When I let him in, he’s still in his maintenance uniform. He looks around the house, fascinated by its nooks and crannies. ‘It’s a real beauty,’ he says, inspecting the Victorian ceiling rose.

  ‘So, what’s so urgent you call me out of the blue?’ he asks.

  ‘Well, I found a basement.’

  ‘You found a basement?’ He raises his eyebrows. ‘You mean you didn’t know it was there before?’

  I show him the cupboard under the stairs, shine my phone torch in and point to the door at the back.

  ‘I’ve never seen one like this before,’ he says. ‘Mind if I have a look?’

  ‘Of course not. I’d like you to, actually, I think someone’s been living down there.’

  ‘In your basement? Do you think you’re in a horror film or something?’ He laughs, but he quietens when he sees the expression on my face. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll check it out for you, damsel in distress,’ he teases. I slap him on the shoulder for winding me up, feeling relieved that the atmosphere in the house has lightened.

  He opens the door and goes through, propping it open with his toolbox. His workman’s boots stomp down the stairs confidently.

  ‘Is it this mattress that makes you think someone’s been living here?’ he asks.

  ‘Yeah,’ I say.

  From the top of the stairs I see him poke it with his hand. ‘I reckon it’s been down here a long time. Years and years, in fact. It’s as mouldy as anything. I doubt anyone’s slept on it recently.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Well, you can never be completely sure, but I reckon they’d be better off sleeping on the streets than breaking into your house, going through your cupboard under the stairs and then coming down here to sleep. This mattress was just dumped down here. Probably years ago. You have to pay the council to take mattresses away, you know. It was most likely easier for the previous owners to just leave it down here and forget about it.’

  The way Mick’s put it, it seems ludicrous to think that anyone would be sleeping down there. I know I should feel relieved, but I can’t seem to shake the uncomfortable feeling I have deep inside my stomach.

  ‘I think these pictures have been here ages, as well,’ he says. ‘They do look old. Interesting, though.’

  ‘Pictures?’

  ‘Come and take a look.’

  I ease myself onto the steps and then go down slowly, but I’m not shaking like I was earlier. With Mick’s high-powered torch, I can see it’s just a room.

  He’s standing by the wall, shining the torch on a couple of old photographs on the wall that I hadn’t noticed before. The photos are faded and water-damaged but I can just about make them out.

  One is of a family, a mother and father and two children. They are standing by a beach, scowling at the camera. The mother’s sensibly dressed in a flowery smock, and the two little girls are dressed the same. Only one of the girls’ faces is visible. The other’s has been scratched out, perhaps by time and damage, but it looks more deliberate than that. It looks like she’s been scratched out with fingernails.

  The second picture shows just the two girls, holding hands. Sisters, identically dressed, their dark hair in pigtails. Again, one of their faces has been scratched out. This time there’s no doubt it’s deliberate. Whoever damaged the photo has scratched so hard that there’s a hole in the middle of the girl’s face.

  ‘They’re weird,’ I say, shuddering.

  ‘Yeah. But from a very long time ago. They must have been here for decades. Every house has a history.’

  I peer more closely at the pictures. Whoever damaged the photo was clearly angry. Then I notice the pencil markings on the wall beside them.

  More drawings, like upstairs. A family of three. A mother, a father and a little girl. All smiling.

  I shiver. Where’s the other girl? The one who’s been scratched out in the photo? What happened to her?

  He turns to go back up the stairs. ‘Happy no one’s living in your basement now?’ he says, smiling.

  ‘Yes,’ I reply. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘I take it you don’t want me to fit a lock? There wouldn’t be much point, as someone would have to break into the house first to get to the basement.’

  ‘You’re right,’ I say, feeling silly. But as I go up the stairs, I can’t get the pictures of the family out of my head; the way the little girl’s face had been scratched out so viciously that she’d disappeared entirely.

  * * *

  Mick leaves, and I’m left alone in the house. Just me and the twins. Paula’s still out. I go up and wake the girls from their nap, feed them and then sit cuddling them on the sofa. I can’t help but feel afraid. There’s a whole part of the house I didn’t know existed. A secret basement with a mattress and family pictures.

  And the weird thing is that Ian must have known. He’s included it on the architect’s plans. Why did he never mention it to me?

  I need to get out of the house. I bundle the twins into the pram and walk down the drive. My next-door neighbour is gardening, trimming his perfectly straight hedge.

  ‘Hi,’ he says.

  ‘Hi,’ I reply. I try to hurry away. I want to avoid his questions, but he’s coming down the ladder.

  ‘I’ve been trying to catch you. I see you’ve put the house on the market.’

  ‘Yes,’ I say, not sure what explanation to provide.

  ‘It’s a shame,’ he says. ‘I was pleased to have you as neighbours. Glad someone was doing up the house at last.’

  ‘It was too big for us in the end.’

  ‘Have you had many viewers?’

  ‘No, none.’

  ‘I guess people don’t forget. It will be hard to sell. It’s a pity the project’s too big for you. You seemed like the right type of people to turn the house around. Overlook its past and make it a happy home.’

  I laugh bitterly. ‘It hasn’t quite worked out like that. And what do you mean, overlook its past?’

  ‘Oh,’ he says. ‘I assumed you knew. But I guess it was a very long time ago now. Over forty years. But people round he
re have long memories. That’s why I doubt you’ll have much interest. No one local would buy it.’

  ‘What happened?’ I ask, suddenly afraid. I think of the pictures in the basement, the girl with the scratched-out face.

  ‘A child died there.’

  ‘In my house?’ I say, blood draining from my head.

  ‘Yes. She fell down the stairs. They say she was pushed.’

  ‘Pushed?’

  ‘They thought the father did it, but they could never prove it.’

  I feel sick. ‘Which stairs? Where in the house?’ But I already know what he’s going to say.

  ‘In the basement.’

  Thirty-Eight

  I walk as quickly as I can with the double buggy, manoeuvring round trees and lamp posts at speed as I try to calm my racing thoughts. But no matter how fast I go, I can’t shake the horror from my head. A girl died in my house. In the basement.

  I think of the pencil drawings on the wall in the bedroom, the scratched-out girl in the photo in the basement. They must have been her. The girl who died.

  A drop of rain lands on me and I turn back towards the house before it gets heavier. At home, I reach for my phone. I google my own address and ‘suspicious death’ but get no results. It was so long ago. Forty years. The records probably aren’t online.

  I go to the kitchen and pour myself half a glass of wine to calm myself down. Then I remember. The old newspapers I’d seen in the cupboard under the stairs. Most of them had been cleared, but one dusty box had been left in the corner.

  I dash into the cupboard and pull out the old cardboard box of newspapers. The box disintegrates in my hands, but the newspapers remain intact. I flick through them. They’re all local papers. Dated forty years ago. I hold my breath.

  On page 3 of the first paper, I see the headline.

  Devastating household accident leaves girl dead.

  I scan the article quickly for information. It’s definitely about the girl who died in this house. It mentions the road and a girl falling down the basement steps to her death.

  Halfway down the article I see the words:

  Her father has been arrested on suspicion of murder and her twin sister has been taken into care.

  I gasp, hardly able to believe what I’m reading. The girl who died was a twin. They’d lived here, in this house, just like my twins.

  I remember when I first told my neighbour I was expecting twins. He’d stepped back in shock. I thought he’d just been surprised, but now I realise he must have been shocked at the coincidence.

  Underneath the paper there’s a scientific journal. A psychiatric one. The kind of journal my mother used to keep in the magazine rack when she was retraining to be a psychiatric nurse. I frown, puzzled, and flick through the pages. A few pages in there’s a study focused on a girl whose twin sister died. The girl isn’t named because she’s a minor, but it’s clear it’s the surviving twin. I read the details of the case. It’s horrific.

  Both twins had been hurt by their father. The twin who died had been a bully, helping her father to abuse her sister. The surviving twin reported a catalogue of abuse from name-calling, to punches and kicks, all at the hands of her sister. It only stopped when her sister died.

  The remaining twin had been put into foster care immediately. There are pages of analysis of the impact the psychiatrists think the abuse had on the girl. I shiver. That poor girl. I can’t imagine being used as a punching bag by a father, let alone a twin sister. She was so lucky to survive.

  I put the journal down, and turn to the next newspaper.

  ‘Local father protests innocence over death of daughter in basement’, the headline says.

  I feel light fingertips on my shoulder and I jump, letting out a scream.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Paula asks, but my twins, sensing my alarm, are already screaming hysterically.

  ‘Sorry – I—’ I turn to Paula and see the look of concern in her eyes. She picks Alice up and rocks her in her arms, calming her.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Paula – did you know there was a basement in the house?’

  She looks at me and sighs, taking in the newspaper articles on the table. ‘Yes,’ she says simply. ‘I grew up round here. I know what happened.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘What good would it have done? I was so shocked when you said you were having twins. It felt like history was repeating itself. And you seemed so scared of the house already. I was hardly going to tell you a girl died here. It would have made you feel awful. Much better that you didn’t know. That you could have a fresh start without the burden of it all.’

  I nod. ‘It’s all just so horrific. I can hardly get my head around it.’

  ‘Maybe you should just forget about it,’ Paula says. ‘Try not to think about it, and don’t go down to the basement.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It might not be safe. The stairs could be slippery. You could fall.’ Her voice is emotionless. I stare at her for a moment, goosebumps travelling up my arms.

  ‘Do you want me to take the twins upstairs for their nap?’ she asks.

  ‘Yes,’ I say gratefully, glad to hand them over so I can concentrate.

  When she’s gone, I turn back to the newspaper article.

  A police source has reported that there is evidence to suggest that Luke Ainsworth had been violent to his twin daughters over a number of years.

  I read it again. Luke Ainsworth.

  The same surname as Ian’s. He must be Ian’s father.

  I swallow. That means the girl who died was Ian’s sister. And Ian never even mentioned it.

  * * *

  The next morning I give Paula £5 and ask her to get the twins some cheap nappies. She wants to take the girls with her, but I insist they stay with me.

  Once she’s gone, I go with the twins to her room. I know I shouldn’t be looking through her stuff, but I can’t help myself. She knew what happened in this house and she never told me. And so much about her is a mystery. Like why she has nowhere to go if she moves out. Why wouldn’t she have her own place? What other secrets is she keeping? I go through her bedside drawer. Just underwear. She really doesn’t have very much, and I feel embarrassed that I’m even looking. But then my hand closes over something plastic at the back of the drawer.

  A phone.

  Not Paula’s Samsung phone. It’s a first-generation smartphone and not particularly sophisticated. It must be an old phone. Maybe it will provide some clues to who she really is.

  I press the power button and am surprised to find it’s not locked.

  I quickly flick through her contacts. She only has about twenty people listed. But then that makes sense. Since she’s been living with me, she hasn’t met up with any friends or family. She told me her parents and sister were dead and she doesn’t have children. I wonder if she has any living relatives at all.

  My number’s in her contacts. There’s also an entry for Ian. I open the contact. It’s definitely Ian’s number. Why does she have it? I frown. I’ve never even seen her using this phone.

  The next contact, Hanna, has a German country code. I remember Paula telling me she worked for a German family as a nanny before she came back to England when her father became ill. Could this be the family?

  None of the references Paula gave Ian have called me back, and I’m desperate to speak to someone who’s employed Paula before. I make a note of the number and then take out my phone and call it. No answer. I leave a phone message explaining that Paula’s helping look after my daughters and asking for Hanna to get back to me on my mobile or the landline. I know there’s only the slimmest chance she will. I have to leave the message in English as I don’t know any German. But it’s worth a shot.

  Returning to Paula’s phone, I go to the messages. I’m shocked to find there are lots of text messages between her and Ian. My heart beats frantically as I open them. The latest one is from just after the twins were born.

>   I’m catching the next flight back. I love you.

  I swallow. He loves her?

  Then I read the next one.

  I’ve tried to ring but can’t get hold of you. Perhaps a bad line? Can’t wait to meet the girls.

  Just before those messages there’s a whole string of texts from Paula to him.

  Why aren’t you answering my calls?

  * * *

  When are you coming back?

  * * *

  The girls can’t wait to meet you. Ring me!!

  * * *

  Hope you get these messages soon! I’m shattered but it’s all so exciting.

  * * *

  Keep trying to ring you but no answer.

  There are pages of messages. They seem familiar. And as I scroll down, I realise why. They are all the texts I sent to Ian after I gave birth. And they’ve been sent from Paula’s phone to Ian’s in one big block. On the day before he came back to see me.

  I stare at the phone in shock. Ian told me my messages came through all at once. He was telling the truth.

  I look back at the texts and scroll up to the older messages. They started just before the twins were born, after he’d told me he was going to Thailand. The messages from Ian are clearly intended for me, asking how my bump was doing and updating me on his fake business dealings. But I never got the messages. Paula did.

  I feel like I might throw up. Ian had told me he’d messaged me. We’d thought the texts hadn’t gone through. But he’d been contacting Paula, thinking she was me. How could he have got Paula’s number confused with mine? It doesn’t make any sense. My stomach churns.

  I go through the phone contacts and click on my own number, holding my breath, afraid of what I might find. There are loads of missed calls to Paula. All dated from the time I was in hospital with the twins. I hadn’t called her from the hospital. She was with me. I’d thought I was calling Ian. I see the same stream of texts. The ones I thought were going to Ian. My pulse quickens and anger rises inside me. I can’t believe she’s done this. Ian was telling the truth about not receiving my texts or calls. Paula received them. She’s intercepted them. She was the one who made sure Ian didn’t know I’d given birth. She was the one who stopped him coming back to meet his babies.