The Secret

by Debbie Howells

  A few minutes later, Niamh comes back – carrying an armful of clothes and her school bag – with Sergeant Collins. Without speaking, she climbs into the car.

  ‘Let’s go.’ Putting the car into reverse, I turn it around, not wanting to linger a moment longer than necessary. In the short time we’ve been away, an invisible line has been drawn between the past and the future, and we’ve crossed it. Now, the only way is forward. I can no more imagine living here than I can imagine being with Andrew. As we drive away, leaving Abingworth behind us, the realisation hits me. I’ve no desire to ever come back.

  *

  The next morning I drive Niamh to school, then go to my meeting with Alison Wantley. In the safety of her office, with a view onto a quiet street in the heart of Chichester, I start to tell her everything about my marriage. It’s painful. It’s also cathartic.

  I walk around the town centre after, doing a bit of shopping and looking in the windows of estate agents before I drive back to the farm. For the first time in years, I feel a tentative sense of hope. I’d never loved living in Abingworth. I miss nothing about village life, nor have any desire to bump into familiar faces. None of those people really care. Even Della has made no attempt to contact me. All these years of living there and no-one will miss me, even slightly.

  When I get back to the cottage, I start to tidy away the breakfast things, then go upstairs, throwing open windows, picking up Niamh’s discarded clothes on the floor of her bedroom. Underneath them, I find an envelope.

  Niamh

  When Dylan and Hollie fell in love, my father always knew he’d have to stop them. But he let it go on, until their hearts grew closer, their love deeper – to the point where they couldn’t live without each other. Then he went to Dylan’s room and told him. My father likes to watch people suffer.

  I heard my father shout, Dylan’s cries of pain. Later, when I found out what he’d done, I knew he might as well have given Dylan a loaded gun and told him to point it at his head.

  Dylan was expected to be the brilliant academic who’d have the same high-flying medical career as his father. Anything else – being the talented artist and musician he was – that was a failure in my father’s eyes. But it was never about what Dylan wanted. My father only cared about my father.

  The sun was shining the day he told Dylan the truth. A day he destroyed his son’s dreams, tearing Dylan from Hollie. Then my father took it further, told him he wasn’t good enough to be his son, dismantling Dylan’s future piece by piece, with layer upon layer of his cruelty. Dylan didn’t kill himself; my father destroyed him.

  Chapter Fifty

  Jo

  Noticing a missed call from Elise Buckley, I call her back. ‘Elise, it’s DS May. Sorry I missed you earlier. Is everything OK?’

  She sounds jittery. ‘I found something. I think you should see it.’

  *

  As I drive over to the farm, the toxic effect of being in close proximity to Andrew Buckley seems to hang over me, and I think about what I have to ask his wife. I thought I’d got the measure of Elise Buckley, but now I’m less sure.

  When Elise opens the door, she looks flustered. ‘Come in. I’ll get Niamh.’

  ‘In a moment.’ I wait until we go through to the kitchen. ‘I need to ask you something. It’s probably nothing, but when we were asking your husband about Hollie, he said we were talking to the wrong person – that we needed to talk to you. Do you have any idea why he might have said that?’

  I watch her tense.

  ‘No.’

  ‘There’s no easy way to say this, so I’m just going to come out with it. You told us you were on a flight to Athens the day Hollie died. I checked with the airline, Elise. They said you didn’t show.’

  I’ve never imagined Elise could have killed Hollie, but when her face turns white, suddenly I confront the fact that I’ve let my own experiences influence my perception of her. Maybe I’ve read her terribly wrong.

  ‘It isn’t what you’re thinking,’ she says at last. ‘If you must know, I had a hospital appointment. I found a lump. You’ve no idea how difficult it’s been taking phone calls without anyone knowing. I couldn’t let Andrew find out. He’d use it to wear me down. Another addition to his list of reasons why I’m an unsuitable mother … I’ve been back several times – scans, a biopsy. It’s malignant, but they think they’ve caught it early enough. I’m waiting for a date for surgery.’

  It’s a lot to deal with, on top of everything else, as well as keeping it from her family. ‘I wish I’d known.’ Then I frown. ‘But he couldn’t use your illness to discredit you.’

  ‘You think Andrew wouldn’t do that? You really don’t know my husband. He’d say I couldn’t possibly look after Niamh if I’m about to have surgery and all the follow-up treatment – on top of everything else.’ She sighs. ‘It’s true I went to pieces after Dylan died. Andrew has kept it out of my medical records, so far … but he said that if he wanted to, he could tell the airline enough that I’d lose my job.’ For the first time, she looks directly at me. ‘Basically, my husband’s been blackmailing me.’ She pauses, swallowing. ‘And I’ve let him.’

  It might sound implausible to anyone who didn’t know them, but I can all too easily imagine Andrew Buckley’s exaggerated account of the problems his wife has, no doubt most of them caused by years of his abuse. Shaking her head, Elise changes the subject. ‘This is what I wanted to show you.’ She passes me an envelope.

  Inside there’s a single piece of paper. Taking it out, I unfold it, feeling a sense of shock as I read it, the missing pieces falling into place at last, as I discover the reason behind Dylan’s death and Hollie’s behaviour, why Andrew Buckley had to force Hollie and Dylan apart.

  It was nothing to do with Hollie’s problems. It’s to do with an affair Andrew Buckley had, years ago. With Hollie’s mother, Kathryn.

  Hollie Hampton was Andrew Buckley’s daughter.

  I look at Elise in disbelief. ‘You didn’t know?’

  She shakes her head. ‘I had no idea. But I’d no idea the bastard was shagging Stephanie, either. It’s ironic, because we moved here to make a fresh start after Andrew had been having an affair – it must have been soon after that he met Kathryn.’

  ‘Where did you find this?’

  ‘Niamh had it. She has a collection of things that were Dylan’s. It was among them.’

  ‘She knows you’re showing me this?’

  A new calm seems to have come over Elise. As she nods, I ask, ‘Is she here?’

  Elise glances towards the door. ‘She’s upstairs. I’ll call her.’

  She goes to the stairs to call her daughter and I think of Niamh, keeping her secret all this time, determined to protect her mother. When Elise comes back to the kitchen, she looks exhausted. ‘Niamh was worried what it would do to you if you found out.’

  ‘Yes.’

  As Niamh comes in, her expression is wary as she looks at me. ‘I should have shown you before.’ She glances anxiously at Elise.

  ‘It would have been helpful – but I understand why you didn’t. You were trying to protect your mother, weren’t you? She knows everything now, Niamh.’ I pause, thinking not just of Niamh’s secrets, but the way Elise kept her potential cancer diagnosis hidden. ‘It isn’t always easy, but sometimes it’s better for everyone to be honest.’

  ‘Did he kill Hollie?’ Her voice is quiet.

  ‘We’re still not sure. Tell me …’ I pause. ‘Where did you get this?’

  ‘Hollie gave it to me.’ Her eyes don’t leave mine.

  ‘When?’

  ‘A week before she died. She’d only just found out. She asked me to look after it for her.’

  ‘Did she say where she’d found it?’

  ‘Her mum had this little case of letters and stuff. Hollie had read some of them, but always felt guilty about it. But then she found this one.’

  I shake my head slowly. ‘For the first time, she understood why Dylan ended their relat
ionship. She must have been beside herself.’ As I pause, I figure it out. ‘But you already knew. Before Hollie did.’

  Her calm is eerie as she nods. ‘Dylan told me. He didn’t want Hollie to know that James wasn’t her father. He said she didn’t need to.’

  ‘But Hollie found out anyway.’ Poor Hollie. Surrounded by lies and tragedy – no wonder Stephanie described her as a tortured soul. Frowning, I go on. ‘Did she talk to your father?’

  Niamh shrugs. ‘She said she was going to. She said she wanted to hurt him really badly, like he’d hurt Dylan, then she wanted to kill him, not just because of Dylan but because he’d had an affair with her mother. She never believed her mother killed herself.’

  ‘Did she tell you what she thought happened to her mother?’

  Niamh’s narrow shoulders shrug. ‘She said she took some pills.’ She pauses. ‘Hollie thought …’

  ‘Oh, Niamh …’ Realising the magnitude of what she’s carried, my heart goes out to her. ‘Did Hollie think your father gave the pills to her mother?’

  ‘She said he was her doctor.’ As Niamh says it, I feel sickened. Andrew Buckley could have prescribed the pills, then left it to Kathryn whether she took them or not – not caring either way, because that’s the kind of man he is. ‘Do you know if Hollie told her father – James, I mean – about the letter?’

  Niamh’s face is blank. ‘She was upset with him about something. But I don’t think so. Hollie couldn’t bear to see him upset.’ In the same way Niamh couldn’t bear to see her mother upset.

  ‘But she didn’t say what she was angry about?’ Had she found out about James’s involvement in the porn ring?

  ‘No.’

  So, Hollie had kept the truth from her father because James Hampton had been hurt too many times, through circumstances beyond his control. Andrew Buckley had had affairs with both his first and second wives. For the first time I understand just how much James must hate him. But, at last, Buckley’s time is running out.

  Niamh

  After our father told Dylan that Hollie was our half-sister, Dylan told me, ‘He’s evil, Niamh. He doesn’t care about any of us. His whole life is a lie. Get away from him as soon as you can.’

  Over the days that followed, I saw how Dylan suffered. Our father had watched him fall in love with our half-sister, taunting him with cruel words, dragging him lower, twisting Dylan’s life in his bare hands until the morning it snapped.

  The night before, there was a dullness in Dylan’s eyes. ‘There is no point anymore,’ he told me. ‘I love Hollie and I can’t be with her.’

  ‘You’ll love someone else,’ I tried to tell him. ‘There’ll be another girl, Dylan.’

  But the light was dimming in his eyes, his life force ebbing away even as I watched, shame taking its place, guilt that he hadn’t known and it was wrong. He already knew there wouldn’t be anyone else. There wasn’t anyone like Hollie.

  I remember the quiet in the kitchen the next morning. The sense of emptiness, as if the house already knew Dylan had gone. It was an hour later that my mother tried to wake him, calling up the stairs, ‘Dylan, it’s late. You need to get up.’

  He didn’t reply. But time didn’t matter where Dylan had gone. I sat listening as she opened his door; when she cried out, I knew. There was no-one to keep him here. When the greatest love is warped into something twisted, there is nothing left.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Jo

  When I get back to the office, the DI wants to see me.

  ‘Border Police at Newhaven have arrested two men for trafficking migrants. Children.’ The DI looks grave. ‘They said they were on their way to a house in Sussex. Near Chichester. They haven’t said much more than that but they’re being interviewed as we speak.’

  ‘You think they were headed for Mason’s place?’

  ‘We’ll find out in due course. But if they were, it would explain where Mason’s images came from. Poor little souls – after everything they’ve been through, to end up in the hands of men like this.’

  ‘Niamh Buckley finally gave us what we need, sir. Turns out Andrew Buckley was Hollie’s father. Even now, I’m not sure that Hampton knows as Hollie only found out a week before she died. It’s hardly surprising so many people described her as being agitated. But it doesn’t explain why she went to the surgery that day and accused him of assaulting her. The chances are she’d found out about James’s – and obviously Buckley’s – involvement in the porn ring. Don’t forget, she took Niamh to Mason’s place.’

  The DI frowns. ‘We don’t have proof of that.’

  ‘Not yet. But the evidence is stacking up against our doctor.’ I pause. ‘Poor Hollie … You can imagine how she must have felt when she discovered James wasn’t her father at all – and that Andrew Buckley was, which meant Dylan was her half-brother …’

  The amount of damage one man’s selfish actions can cause is utterly devastating.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Elise

  Over the days that follow, I discover the extent of what Niamh’s kept from me. Putting it together with what she still keeps to herself, I edge closer to the truth. Whether Andrew will ever admit to killing Hollie is another matter, but the weight of evidence against him, his proven violent behaviour and aggression, his treatment of Dylan, his possible involvement in both Kathryn and Stephanie’s deaths, and not least his determination to keep Hollie’s relationship to him a secret, all paint a clear picture.

  Andrew’s arrest offers me a chance to reset my life. When Forensics finish in our house, Niamh and I go back to sort through what we’re taking with us, putting the rest in storage for Andrew until he’s released. Pitched from limbo into a process of rapid adjustment, I gradually come to terms with a failed marriage and a husband who’s a criminal.

  But though there is evil in this world, there is also good. In an uncertain life, Chris Nelson is an unlikely guardian angel, offering us his farm cottage for as long as we want it and giving Niamh a place to stay while I have my surgery. It’s a breathing space, a gesture of kindness that I accept gratefully. In our own time, we’ll work out how to move on.

  When Andrew is charged for his part in Phil Mason’s porn business, he’s jailed. But as far as Hollie’s death is concerned, the evidence is circumstantial and the investigation into her murder remains unsolved. When my divorce comes through, I’ll be leaving Andrew in the past, and by the time he gets out of prison, Niamh will be an adult and able to make her own decision as to whether she wants him in her life. But his part in mine is over.

  So that’s what it’s about now. Leaving the past behind; moving forward. We’re all human, with short lives and instincts we have limited control over, and in an ever-changing world, all any of us can do is keep moving forward.

  Niamh

  No ending is ever perfect. But just occasionally, there is closure.

  For a while I thought my mother was having an affair. It was those mysterious phone calls, the shadows under her eyes, her secrecy. But it was the cancer – and everyone in my family has a secret, just as everyone makes mistakes.

  ‘I’ll fucking kill him, Niamh,’ Hollie had sobbed the night she showed me the letter my father had written to her mother. ‘I hate him. He killed Dylan …’ Her voice grew more high-pitched with every word, until she fled, distraught, into the darkness. Running from pain there was no escape from, towards a future that, like Dylan, she didn’t want.

  Everyone noticed Hollie was at breaking point, but only I was the holder of her secret, the one who had the power to ruin lives.

  ‘There’s no point, Hollie,’ I’d tried to convince her. ‘You don’t know what he’s like. He’ll hurt you. He hurts everyone. Don’t tell him. Believe me, you don’t want him in your life.’

  *

  She persuaded me, against my will, to go with her that day, climbing over the fence into the gardens of Park House. ‘Can’t we go somewhere else?’ I asked.

  But she ignored me. ‘Come on!
I want to show you something!’ She started marching towards a gap in the hedge. Reluctantly, I followed her through into a rectangular area away from the house, surrounded by tall hedges and carpeted in fallen leaves. Bending down to pick something up, Hollie grabbed my arm. ‘Listen.’

  She threw something into the middle of the leaves. After a couple of seconds, there was a loud splash as it hit water. ‘The pool.’

  I shrank back against the hedge. With all the leaves, it was impossible to tell where the ground ended and the water started.

  Around us, the wind was picking up, the sky a shade of yellow under clouds that had blotted out the last of the sun. ‘I want him to suffer.’ Her voice was murderous. Then, stretching out her arms, she spun around in circles. ‘I want everyone to know what he’s done. My dad, first … Then your mum.’

  ‘No.’ My cry was drowned by the sound of the wind, as I felt anger rip through me. I’d kept everything to myself for so long, protecting my mother from what really happened. Growing up, I’d had to watch her suffer so many times at the hands of my father. And now Hollie had the power to make everything a million times worse. ‘It’ll destroy her.’

  ‘What about me?’ Her face was pale under a sliver of the new moon.

  ‘You can’t change the past, Hollie. It’s happened. You have to move on,’ I begged her.

  But her eyes were wild, desperate, as she stared at me. ‘He’s evil, Niamh … Look what he did to Dylan. We can’t let him get away with it. He has to pay.’

  As she said that, I knew she was right. My father deserved to atone for his sins, for the cruelty inflicted on all of us. But an image of my mother’s face came to me. She’d suffered too much already. ‘You can’t hurt my mother,’ I said softly.

  ‘God, Niamh … this isn’t about your mother.’ Throwing her arms up in the air in an exaggerated show of frustration, Hollie turned her back on me and started walking away.