Your Guilty Lies (ARC)

by Ruth Heald

  ‘Are you alright?’ Paula asks, looking worried. ‘I can sort out the babies while you dry your hair.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ I say.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Sabrina called.’

  ‘Did she want to know why she couldn’t see the girls today?’

  ‘No. It wasn’t that. It was about you.’ I study Paula’s face, looking for a sign, a flicker of worry, but there’s nothing.

  ‘Oh really? What about me?’

  I take a deep breath. ‘She thinks you pushed her down an escalator. A long time ago.’

  Paula’s eyes crinkle and she laughs. ‘Is that the best she could come up with?’

  I frown.

  ‘You didn’t believe her, did you?’

  ‘I—’

  ‘You’re so naive, Katie.’ She ruffles my wet hair. ‘You’d believe anything.’

  ‘She sounded convincing.’ My voice falters.

  ‘She just wants to see your twins, that’s all. It’s no coincidence she’s telling you this just after you’ve told Ian to get out, is it?’

  ‘I suppose not…’ Now I’m talking to Paula about it, the whole thing sounds ridiculous.

  ‘Think about it. She’s married to Ian, who’s lied to her for years. And she’s stuck with him despite everything. She’d do anything for him. And now she sees me as someone who’s stopping Ian from seeing his daughters. And stopping her from seeing them too. So she makes something up so you don’t trust me.’

  ‘She was just so convincing on the phone…’ I say again, but already I’m doubting her. What Paula’s saying makes sense. Sabrina just wants to discredit Paula. Paula’s only been trying to protect me. Ian’s the one who’s lied to me again and again.

  * * *

  In the night, I startle awake.

  I thought I heard piano music, but I must have dreamt it, because now the house is completely silent. When I venture downstairs, I see the piano sitting unoccupied in the dining room. But the haunting music still echoes round my head. I must be imagining it. The events of the last few days have unnerved me. I’m losing my grip on reality.

  I pour myself a glass of water and then sit down to calm my nerves. The clock on the oven reads midnight.

  When I walk through the hallway to go back to bed, I can just make out the music, the only sound penetrating the silence.

  It’s coming from the cupboard under the stairs. From the basement.

  It can’t be. I open the cupboard and peer inside. The music is louder now and I recognise it as a childhood lullaby. My eyes adjust to the dark, and at the back of the cupboard I see a gaping hole into nothing. The basement door is open.

  I must be dreaming. Everything I’ve learnt about the girl who died in the basement must be filtering into my subconscious.

  I feel a sense of unreality, that fearlessness I have in dreams, as I take a step closer to the entrance to the basement.

  ‘Hello?’ I shout down.

  There’s no sound except the music.

  I peer into the darkness below, but I can’t see much without my phone. I scan the basement as my eyes adjust to the pitch-black emptiness, going over the area methodically, until I’m convinced no one’s down there.

  There are shadows in the darkness, on the mattress. Small objects, not human shapes. I can’t make out what they are.

  As I lean forward to look further in, I’m aware that if someone came up behind me, it would only take a single push for me to go tumbling down the stairs. I scratch nervously at the scar on my arm.

  Remembering the door slamming shut behind me last time, I look down for something to prop it open. But whoever came before me has already done that, propping it open with a heavy box of tiles.

  I shiver. Where are they now?

  I try to convince myself there’s a reasonable explanation for the open door. Perhaps the house has finally had some viewers and the estate agent has opened the door to show them the basement and forgotten to shut it. But that doesn’t explain the music.

  I take a step inside and creep down the stairs. When I get close to the bottom, I can make out the belongings on the mattress.

  An old tape player, broadcasting the lullaby, the sound slightly static.

  Next to it sit Alice’s caterpillar toy and Frances’s elephant. I stare at them in horror.

  Someone has brought my twins down here.

  * * *

  I reach out my hand to the wall to steady myself. But instead of the wall, I feel something shiny. The unexpected sensation makes me jump and I turn to look at what I’m touching. It’s a photograph. A new picture sellotaped to the wall, in line with the other two. I can hardly make it out in the dim light, but when I get closer, I gasp. It’s a picture of Frances and Alice. Frances’s face has been scratched out, just like the girl’s face in the old photo. The girl that I now know died down here, in this basement. I stifle my scream. What’s the picture doing down here? And what does whoever put it here want with my girls?

  I look at the other photos again. The family with the daughter scratched out. The two girls side by side in pigtails, scowling at the camera, one of their faces completely erased. I peer closer at the remaining girl’s features. Thick, dark curly hair. Round face. Pronounced nose and defiant jaw. But it’s the look in the girl’s eyes I recognise. Pure anger. I’ve seen that look before. A shiver of recognition runs through me. I know who she is.

  Forty-Two

  I stare at the picture on the wall. The girl is a younger version of Paula.

  I remember Paula telling me about her childhood, about her sister who died. And suddenly everything clicks into place.

  Paula lived in this house. Paula’s the twin of the girl who died. She’s Ian’s sister.

  I run out of the basement, breathless, up the stairs.

  In the hallway, I see Paula with Alice and Frances, one under each arm. Fear stops me in my tracks. She’s about to take them down there. Why?

  ‘What are you doing?’ I ask.

  ‘I…’ A frightened look crosses her face, but only for a second. Now she looks determined. ‘The twins couldn’t sleep,’ she says.

  ‘So you were going to take them to the basement?’

  ‘They like it down there. I wanted them to hear the music. It comforts them. And I can’t play the piano at night. It would wake you.’

  ‘Give them to me,’ I say.

  But Paula holds them close. ‘No.’

  ‘I know about you, Paula. I know you used to live in this house. I know your sister died here.’

  ‘So what?’ Paula looks at me defiantly. ‘I’ve been honest with you, Katie. You always knew I was from the area. And I told you my sister died, remember?’

  ‘You didn’t tell me you used to live here. You told me all about the girl’s death. But you never said she was your sister. You never said she was your twin.’

  ‘It was all too much for me to talk about…’

  I remember how calmly Paula had talked about the girl in the basement. She hadn’t seemed sad at all.

  ‘It’s been difficult for me, Katie, living in this house with you. With all my memories. That’s why I take the twins to the basement sometimes. I like to remember my sister.’

  ‘But you hated your sister. You told me that before. She used to hurt you.’ I remember Paula telling me she hated her, remember reading the case study in the psychiatric journal which detailed all the ways Paula’s sister had hurt her.

  ‘It wasn’t always like that. There were good times, when we were younger. Before my sister turned against me, we were close. I like to think of those times. Remember her when she was nice. Coming down to the basement calms me. And it seems to calm the twins too.’

  ‘I’m sorry about what happened to your sister.’

  ‘At the end I hated her, but at the same time I couldn’t stop loving her. You know how it is. The way I feel towards your babies sometimes when they scream.’ She bobs Frances and Alice up and down in her arms and fear rises up in me
. ‘I hate them one minute and love them to death the next.’ She half smiles, as if she’s said something funny.

  I need to get the girls away from her right now. ‘I’ll take them, Paula.’

  ‘But I want them to listen to the music.’

  ‘Please,’ I beg.

  She hands them over reluctantly, and I hug them tight, their warm bodies bursting with life. I bury my face between theirs, breathing in their baby scents and then kissing their heads.

  My mind is whirring, thinking about Paula’s connection to this house. Thinking about how we first met. Thinking about how Ian fits into all of this.

  ‘Why didn’t you say you were Ian’s sister from the beginning?’

  ‘Ian hates me. I know the truth about what he did. He would never have let me into the house.’

  ‘He must have recognised you at the baby shower. That was when you first met.’

  ‘Yes. He’s a convincing liar, isn’t he? He behaved as if he’d never seen me before.’

  ‘Why?’ I ask, reeling.

  ‘He didn’t want to tell you about his past. And I think he was shocked to see me.’

  I remember meeting Paula at the coffee shop that first day, her coming into the house with me. She must have known Ian had inherited the house. She must have been watching from the coffee shop, waiting for me to turn up.

  ‘You targeted me from the beginning, didn’t you? That’s why you introduced yourself in the coffee shop the day I arrived.’

  Paula sighs. ‘I used to visit my father in the house when he became poorly, and then in his care home in the final years of his life. When he died, I thought I’d inherit it. But Ian did. Ian, who never even lived here. Ian, who killed my sister. I waited in the coffee shop to confront him when he showed up.’

  ‘But he didn’t come.’

  ‘No, he didn’t. You did.’

  I shiver. ‘And so you befriended me?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve explained that. As soon as I saw you were pregnant, I knew I had to protect you from Ian. He’s dangerous.’

  I remember looking around the house on the first day with Paula. How there’d already been a mattress in one of the bedrooms.

  ‘Were you already sleeping there?’ I ask. ‘Is that why you had nowhere to live?’

  She nods. ‘I’d got in round the back. I slept in my father’s old bedroom. I felt closer to him there.’

  ‘But what did you do once I moved in?’

  ‘I slept in the basement. We were there so often as children that I felt at home there. I felt closer to my sister.’

  I shiver at the thought of Paula being in the house that first night, me sleeping upstairs with no idea she was there.

  ‘And then you volunteered to be my doula, all so you could keep living here?’

  ‘It wasn’t just to live in the house. It was to protect you too. I was so afraid for you. I had to find a way to stay in the house with you and look after the twins.’

  I feel afraid now, my heart racing. She’s planned this from the beginning. Getting into Ian’s house. Befriending me. Intercepting our calls. But something in her story doesn’t add up. Why didn’t she just tell me about Ian in the first place?

  ‘I need to think, Paula. This is all such a shock to me.’

  Paula comes closer to me, looks at me urgently.

  ‘You do believe me, don’t you, Katie? You have to believe me. Ian killed my sister.’ She indicates the stone steps leading down into the basement. ‘It was right here. I saw him push her down those stairs.’

  21

  We’re watching TV in the living room when the phone rings. Mum scurries to answer it and then calls my father over.

  Mum returns to sit beside us and I’m frozen to the sofa as I hear my father’s voice getting louder and louder. Words like ‘bitch’ and ‘whore’ invade the living room. He only ever uses those words for our mother. Whoever’s on the phone must be making him furious.

  ‘Get out of here before he comes back,’ Mum whispers to us, and we run past her and up the stairs to our room.

  Dad’s shouting echoes round the house as we lie, huddled together in bed, covers wrapped around our heads to try and muffle the noise. Then there’s silence. He must have hung up the phone. I hear footsteps in the hallway and I pray he turns towards the living room, to my mother, and doesn’t come up to find us. But then I hear his footsteps on the stairs. The sound stops when he reaches our door.

  From under the covers I can hear his heavy breathing getting closer.

  Suddenly he pulls the covers off us, and we are exposed. His huge red face is up close to us, his eyes bulging. A vein in his forehead throbs.

  ‘Who sent the note to your brother?’ he bellows.

  I glance at my sister to confer, but she doesn’t hesitate.

  ‘She did,’ she says.

  Forty-Three

  I look down the steps to the basement below and a shiver runs down my spine, as I imagine a girl’s body crumpled at the bottom. I remember Sabrina’s accusation that Paula pushed her down the escalator. I step quickly away from the basement door.

  ‘Look, Paula, you have to go. I can’t think straight anymore. And I can’t have you here in the house anymore, around the twins.’

  ‘But you need me here. To protect you from Ian.’

  ‘We’ve changed the locks – he can’t come in.’ My voice falters. I’m afraid. But I force myself to continue. ‘You need to leave.’

  She looks at me, tears in her eyes. ‘I thought I meant something to you, meant something to the girls.’

  I feel like crying too. I’d thought the same. But I don’t know her at all.

  ‘Just go,’ I say, not caring where she goes. ‘Get out of my life.’

  ‘OK,’ she says, through tears. ‘If that’s what you want. If that’s what you think’s best for the girls, then I’ll leave. As long as you know that I’ll always love them and I’ll always be there for you and them if you ever need me.’

  I feel a wave of guilt wash over me. Has she just been trying to help me all along?

  I follow her to the bedroom and watch her pack up her things. Then I hold the door open for her and let her out of the house, holding back my tears.

  I put the girls down on the mats in the living room and go round the house, double-locking every door and window. I don’t want anyone to be able to get in tonight.

  I need to ring someone. Get some help. I go upstairs and grab my phone from the side in the bathroom, praying it will have dried out and be working again.

  I push at the buttons urgently. Nothing. It’s completely dead.

  I run back downstairs, and pick up the landline in the living room, ignoring my screaming babies.

  I try and ring Mum again. I know it’s the middle of the night and she’s on holiday, but I need her help. If I could get hold of a key to her house, maybe the twins and I could stay there, just for a few days.

  The phone rings and rings but my mother doesn’t pick up. She won’t recognise the landline number. I leave a rushed message and then try my sister. She doesn’t pick up either.

  If I had anywhere to go, I’d leave now.

  Instead I pick up my babies and cuddle them and then ring Amy, cradling the bulky phone between my head and shoulder. She answers in a daze. I tell her everything. About Paula, about Ian. I tell her I can’t spend the rest of the night in the house on my own. She promises to come over immediately and I order her a taxi. I can pay for it with the cash I have left over from this week’s piano lessons.

  In the meantime, I sit down and study the newspaper articles once more, trying to make sense of everything. There’s one person who might have the answers. Ian. We’ve changed the locks; he can’t get into the house anymore. But I need to hear the truth from him.

  I call him. He picks up on the first ring. ‘Hello?’ he says uncertainly, not recognising the landline number.

  ‘Ian. It’s me.’

  ‘Katie – why are you calling at this time? Is everything
alright? Is this about Sabrina? I’m so sorry she rung you earlier about Paula. I told her not to. She’s just got it into her head that Paula pushed her. I don’t know why.’

  ‘It’s not about Sabrina. It’s about Paula. Why didn’t you tell me she was your sister?’

  ‘My sister?’ he replies, sounding shocked. ‘But I don’t have a sister.’

  ‘Just be straight with me, Ian. It’s past the time for lies. Paula’s your sister.’

  ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about, Katie.’

  ‘Paula grew up in this house.’

  ‘It must have been before my father moved in, then. And anyway, what does it matter if she did? She can’t be my sister.’

  ‘Ian. I need you to tell me the truth. Paula says she befriended me to protect me from you. Because you were dangerous.’

  ‘She’s says I’m her brother and I’m dangerous?’ Ian sounds more confused than ever.

  ‘She thinks you killed her twin sister.’

  ‘What? I killed her sister? But I’d never even met her before. This is absolutely ridiculous. She must be getting me confused with someone else. Or else she’s trying to manipulate you, to turn you against me.’

  ‘You inherited the house from your father, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘His name was Luke Ainsworth?’

  Ian goes quiet. ‘Yes,’ he says eventually.

  ‘Well, you did have sisters. There are newspaper articles in the house. Luke was accused of murdering his daughter, Paula’s twin sister. And Paula says he didn’t do it. You did.’

  ‘What?’ Ian says. ‘You’re saying my father was accused of murder? Are you sure you saw this in a paper? It’s not something Paula made up?’ Ian’s so convincing, but then I know he’s a good liar.

  ‘Yes, I’m sure.’

  ‘This doesn’t make any sense.’ There’s a long pause, and I can almost hear Ian thinking, probably making up some other lie. ‘I hardly knew my father,’ he continues slowly. ‘I lived with Mum. And he lived with his wife in this huge house. I suppose it’s possible he had other children, but I never saw any.’