The Liar’s Daughter (ARC)

by Claire Allan

  Looking for something to use to pin Joe’s death on me. Planting

  evidence. An uneasy feeling prickles at the back of my neck.

  ‘You’re being paranoid,’ I whisper to myself.

  But then I see that there are only three porcelain dolls on

  the shelf, where there should be four. Scarlett isn’t standing

  where she should.

  I spot a whisper of green velvet poking out from under the

  legs of the chest of drawers. On my knees, I reach under the

  drawers and pull her out, skirt first.

  Her face, once perfectly porcelain, flawless with green glass

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  eyes set against the palest of skin, is a mess of sharp edges and dust. Someone has very deliberately applied brute force to her

  face and crushed it. She is broken beyond all hope of repair.

  I touch my hand to the crooked edges where her cheek is

  now hollowed out, her green glass eye forced inwards, and yelp

  as the sharp porcelain slices the side of my hand. Watching the

  blood pool then drip on her clear white skin, I wait for the

  stinging sensation to take hold.

  When it does I allow myself to cry, but only a little. I’m

  scared. I’m scared that someone – most likely Ciara – is delib-

  erately targeting me. Someone is pushing me because they know

  that I do have a breaking point.

  Someone is creating their own narrative of whatever happened

  in this house and they firmly believe, or want people to believe,

  that I snapped. That I killed Joe.

  They want me to snap again. To show myself in all my flawed,

  unhinged, damaged glory. But I won’t do that. I’m better now.

  I can control my emotions. I have a husband who loves me

  and a daughter who needs me, and I won’t show either of them

  just how broken I was.

  Broken just like Scarlett. She may be only a doll. A stupid

  remnant from my childhood to anyone looking in. But she is

  the last one my mother bought for me. She is symbolic of

  happy times – more innocent times. And the one person left

  alive who knows this more than anyone is downstairs right

  now painting herself as a grief-stricken daughter.

  I reach into the pocket of my cardigan, pull out a spare tissue

  and wrap it around my hand, feeling my nerve endings throb

  and sting, a welcome distraction from the sick feeling in the

  pit of my stomach. I look down and see there is blood on my

  cardigan and more has run up my arm, leaving a red tide in

  its wake.

  The door to my room opens just as I reach for the handle

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  and Alex is there, Lily in his arms, looking first at me, my eyes wet with tears, my cardigan stained with blood, then at the

  broken doll.

  He glances to my hand, the tissue I have held to my cut

  already becoming sodden with yet more blood. I don’t think

  it’s a deep cut, but it doesn’t seem to want to stop bleeding, or

  throbbing with pain.

  ‘Jesus, Heidi, what happened? Are you okay?’

  ‘I’ll live,’ I say, trying to give him a watery smile, which I’m

  sure looks less than convincing. ‘I don’t think Scarlett will,

  though.’

  ‘What happened? Did you drop her?’ he asks.

  ‘No. I found her like this. Half hidden under the chest of

  drawers. Someone broke her and then tried to hide the evidence.’

  ‘Someone?’

  ‘I’d put my money on Ciara,’ I tell him.

  His eyes widen just a little. I want to take Lily from him, to

  hold her, but I know my hand is still aching. Still bleeding. I

  lift one of her muslin cloths from her changing bag and wrap

  it around my hand.

  ‘I’ll need to clean this out to get a good look at it,’ I say.

  ‘You don’t really think it was Ciara, do you? Don’t you think

  it might have just been knocked off the shelf by a breeze or

  something? These things happen. It doesn’t have to be malicious.’

  ‘There’s no breeze in here,’ I say, wanting him to be on my

  side. No, needing him to be on my side. ‘Look at how her face

  is smashed in, Alex. That doesn’t come from a tumble from a

  shelf!’

  ‘But if she hit the drawers on her way down,’ Alex says, lifting

  the doll and carrying her back to where I found her. ‘Look,

  there’s debris on the top here.’

  There is a small smattering of porcelain-coloured dust, a few

  chips. But I’m still sure that someone has done this deliberately.

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  Or am I? I look at Alex and he has a look of sympathy, or pity, or something in his eyes.

  ‘I’m not making it up,’ I tell him. ‘You think I’m unhinged,

  don’t you?’ I ask, aware that right at this moment, my hand

  bleeding, my eyes red with tiredness and tears, I do in fact look

  unhinged.

  ‘I think, Heidi, that you’re exhausted and stuck in this strange

  limbo that would drive anyone to distraction. But accidents do

  happen.’

  I don’t know if there’s any point in arguing back. What would

  it achieve, after all?

  ‘Look, maybe you’ll feel better after we get that cleaned and

  you can have a rest. I’ll go and get the first-aid kit and we’ll

  get you sorted then you can grab a few hours’ sleep. I’ll wake

  you if we get the call about Joe. I’ll see if maybe this doll can

  be repaired, too,’ he says, gesturing at Scarlett, but I know she’s beyond fixing. No amount of glue and patience in the world

  will put her back together again.

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  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Ciara

  Now

  I shouldn’t have had that third cup of coffee. I’m jittery now

  and my heart is thumping. I wish I still smoked proper ciga-

  rettes, not these pathetic vape devices. I wish I could have a

  drink right now. God, I wish I could smoke a joint. I wonder

  if anyone would notice if I rifled through my father’s meds and

  found something to give me a suitable hit.

  I’m not a drug user. Not really. Cannabis doesn’t really count,

  or the odd discreetly acquired prescription med. And I need

  something to take the edge off.

  The police had walked in and turned everything on its

  head. ‘We will be here to support you,’ they said before leaving

  and offering absolutely no support, just the fear that they

  would find out ‘foul play’ had played a role in my father’s

  death.

  Dr Sweeney had been happy to sign the death certificate.

  That should’ve been the end of it. He knows what he’s doing,

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  after all. We thought we’d just move on to the wake and the funeral and then with the rest of our lives.

  But now everything has changed.

  I’d love to just block it all o
ut, but I’m sure it wouldn’t look

  good if I was stoned out of my head, either. I suck on my

  e-cig, hoping for a hit of something it can’t give me, and pinch

  the bridge of my nose. I’m tired. Really tired. Maybe Heidi

  had the right idea of going for a sleep, but I sense Kathleen is

  on the point of unravelling and I feel it’s my responsibility, for my sins, to support her. To contain her.

  I should probably eat something, I think. I’ve not had anything

  since last night. I’ve not been hungry, but now my stomach is

  growling and I realise if I don’t at least try to eat something

  there’s a good chance I’ll be sick.

  I can’t face the vat of vegetable soup Kathleen has made, so

  I decide to make some toast and put on a pot of tea as well.

  The panacea for every ill, it seems.

  Comfort food, I realise. I need comfort food.

  I hear someone come into the room and turn to see Alex

  walk in, looking just as pale as the rest of us. He’s an attractive man, I suppose. Not my type, of course, but I can see he is

  handsome. Tall, thin – possibly a little too thin – with thick dark hair that he wears just long enough that it has started to curl a

  little at the ends. He wears glasses, a modern dark-rimmed pair,

  and is in need of shave. He’s not quite rugged, but he screams

  ‘nice guy’. He has a decent job, dresses well. He’s fairly sociable.

  I wonder what he sees in Heidi. How he fell in love with her.

  She has never had any redeeming qualities, in my eyes. Quite

  plain-looking, quiet, spoiled – I struggle to understand what he

  sees in her and I very much doubt he knows all about her past.

  I’d seen the fear flash in her eyes when I’d mentioned it earlier.

  ‘I was just going to get myself a glass of water,’ Alex says.

  ‘Heidi’s still sleeping.’

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  ‘I’m putting on a pot of tea. Making some toast, if you’d prefer that?’

  ‘I think I’ve reached tea saturation levels for the day,’ he says.

  ‘And I grabbed a burger when I was out earlier. Walked as far

  as McDonald’s.’

  ‘Oooh, a Big Mac would hit the spot right now,’ I say with

  a wry smile, relieved to have just a hint at a normal conversa-

  tion.

  ‘I’ve brought the first-aid kit back,’ he says and I notice for

  the first time the blue box in his hand. ‘Can I get past you to

  put it back in the cupboard?’

  ‘First-aid box? Did you hurt yourself or something?’

  He sighs. ‘No, it was Heidi. She cut her hand.’

  I raise an eyebrow, wonder if she’s up to her old tricks. Alex

  looks weary again.

  ‘One of the dolls in her room was smashed. She cut her hand

  trying to clean it up.’

  I have the good grace to blush and thankfully he doesn’t

  seem to notice.

  ‘She’s very upset about it,’ he says. ‘It was one of the dolls

  her mother got for her.’

  ‘God Almighty.’ I hear Kathleen’s voice from outside of the

  room. ‘The man who raised her is dead and she doesn’t shed

  a tear but she’s in bits about a doll. That girl! There was always a want in her.’

  ‘I’m sure she is upset about Joe,’ Alex stutters. ‘It’s just, you

  know, her link with her mother?’

  ‘He was a parent to her longer than her mother was,’ Kathleen

  declares before sitting at the table.

  Alex doesn’t respond. He just looks extremely uncomfortable

  with her outburst.

  ‘Is it a bad cut?’ I ask. ‘Did you find what you needed in the

  first-aid box, because I can always take a run out to Sainsbury’s

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  and pick up anything else you might need? It might do me good to get out of here for a bit.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s particularly deep. But it did bleed a lot,’ he says. ‘It seems okay now and she’s sleeping. I think it will do

  her good. She’s getting herself so wound up, which is under-

  standable, but you know, it’s not good for her.’

  I raise an eyebrow, wonder if Alex does know just how bad

  things can get when his wife gets wound up. Does he know

  what she is capable of?

  ‘I think we all need to keep a special eye on her,’ I say. ‘She’s

  very vulnerable, isn’t she?’

  The look on Alex’s face tells me this is news to him. I wonder

  if I’ve said too much.

  ‘In what way?’ he asks.

  ‘You mean you don’t know?’ Kathleen says incredulously. ‘She

  must’ve told you.’

  Alex bristles. ‘If she’d told me I wouldn’t be asking questions

  now.’

  ‘Your wife was a very troubled young woman,’ Kathleen says.

  ‘But maybe you should ask her about it. I don’t think it’s our

  place to say.’

  Alex looks to me. ‘What does she mean?’ he asks.

  ‘As she says, it’s something you probably need to talk to Heidi

  about. And you know, it was a long time ago and she’s been

  stable for a good while now.’

  He looks alarmed. ‘Stable?’

  ‘That probably makes it sound worse than it was,’ I say, aware

  that it was actually that bad. ‘She struggled a lot, you know,

  after her mother died. It was to be expected, I suppose. And

  maybe we should have seen the signs faster, but she was just so

  angry and paranoid and didn’t want to talk to any of us . . .’

  The last bit wasn’t exactly true. She may well have wanted

  to talk to us, but we – and especially me – didn’t want to talk

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  to her. She was a freak who’d stolen my father. I thought he deserved the hard time she put him through.

  Just as I think she deserves to have that stupid doll of hers

  smashed to pieces. I’m not proud of myself for that, but it was

  either that or take my anger, grief and fear out on her.

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  Chapter Thirty

  Heidi

  Then

  The poor pet. Is it any wonder she’s acting up? Losing her mother so young. Joe’s a saint taking her on. Honestly. No one would blame him if he just walked away.

  The whispers from the mammies in the school yard weren’t

  long in reaching my ears. And acting up? I wasn’t doing anything.

  I was just wandering around the playground on my own, rattling

  a stick against the railings.

  Sure, when Kathleen had called for me to come on now, it

  was time to go home, I’d pretended not to hear her, even

  though her voice was high and scratchy and everyone else

  seemed to have gone quiet.

  But that wasn’t acting up.

  I just didn’t want to go home. Truth was, I didn’t know what

  home was any more. All I knew was that the only place I’d

  ever remembered living my whole entire life didn’t feel so safe

  and cosy now.

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  But if I said anything, anything at all, what would become of me?

  When I did see Granny she seemed so sad all the time. She’d

  visit at least once a week, but she was never really present. Not

  the way she used to be. She seemed as if she’d given up on

  life. Grandad’s health was deteriorating. She was struggling.

  There was even less chance than before that they would be

  able to take me in. ‘Oh, wee doll, as nice as it is to see you,

  it’s like a knife to my heart at times. You’re so like your mammy

  was at that age,’ she would say and break into fresh tears. The

  last thing I wanted to do was to make her life any harder than

  it already was. Speaking up would’ve done that.

  I already felt guilt-ridden just for reminding her of my mother,

  but that wasn’t my fault. I couldn’t help how I looked. Maybe

  if I cut my hair I’d look different. That’s what I was thinking

  the night I took the big scissors and hacked at my ponytail. I

  watched my curls fall to the ground. One strand followed by

  another, followed by another.

  Maybe if I looked less like Mammy, Granny wouldn’t be so

  sad. She wouldn’t cry when she saw me.

  Maybe she would invite me to stay more and I could show

  her what a great help I could be with Grandad, and that I

  didn’t take up much space, or eat much or need her to spend

  money on me.

  Maybe if I looked less like Mammy, Joe wouldn’t look at me

  the way he did. He wouldn’t cross the landing at night-time

  to ‘see if I was okay’ and ‘offer to tuck me in’. He mightn’t tell me how beautiful I was and how I made his heart happy.

  He wouldn’t call me his special girl.

  Joe had been horrified when he saw what I’d done to my

  hair. He’d called for Kathleen, who was living with us at the

  time, and her mouth opened wide in shock like a cartoon

  character.

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  ‘Oh, Heidi, what have you done to your lovely curls?’ she asked.

  I looked downwards. Yes, maybe I’d got carried away with

  the scissors. I didn’t mean to cut my hair so short, but at the

  same time, I could see that it had got to Joe and that gave me

  a sense of satisfaction.

  ‘Can you do anything with it?’ he asked his sister.

  ‘Christ, Joe, I don’t think there’s anyone who could do

  anything with that. We’ll just have to try to tidy it up the best