by Claire Allan
That’s ridiculous. It makes no sense. Who in here would be so
brutal as to hurt a frail old man?’
Her voice is getting louder. She looks at me while she spits
out her last few words and I have all the confirmation I need
that I am very much in the frame for Joe’s murder. In the eyes
of his nearest and dearest, at least.
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Chapter Thirty-Three
Heidi
Now
The clock in the hall ticks loudly and the old radiators rattle
as the heating comes on. It’s bitter cold outside now, I can hear
the rain lash against the windows.
The police van has pulled up, officers are coming in, dressed
in white suits, carrying cases and bags and lights, and people
are asking questions. I can see curtains twitching across the
street. A neighbour’s car pulls up but he doesn’t go straight into his house, despite the cold. He stands and watches. I see him
lift his phone. The word will spread quickly.
It’s late now. After ten. I’m exhausted and I can feel my nerves
jangling. I want to do just what DI Bradley suggested and go
elsewhere while the police pull the house apart looking for
God knows what, but Ciara has stated her intention to stay, as
has Kathleen, and there is no way I’m leaving them to it. I
dread to think what they could say or do to point the police
in my direction. I’m still hoping the pathologist, for all his
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experience, is wrong. Not that Joe didn’t deserve to be murdered
– but just that the thought of there being a killer in our midst
is unsettling and exhausting.
I yawn. ‘I’m really tired,’ I say as Alex and I sit together in
the living room.
We haven’t spoken much since DI Bradley left. I don’t think
we know what to say to each other. We’re in shock.
I rest my head against Alex’s shoulder and feel that he is
tense. Guilt washes over me for embroiling him in this mess. I
feel him kiss my forehead. It’s typical of him that he is trying
to comfort me.
‘Curl up here,’ he says, wrapping his arm around me. ‘Take
a nap here on the sofa if you can. I’ll not leave you.’
He has barely finished talking before I’ve started to drift off.
I jump awake to Marie’s voice, loud, distressed, in the living
room.
‘It’s a nightmare,’ she says. ‘A nightmare.’
Ciara walks into the room and flings herself at her mother
as if she is still a child and the pair sob loudly, dramatically.
‘I didn’t hurt him. I didn’t do anything,’ she sobs, her shoul-
ders heaving up and down.
Marie pats her back, kisses the top of her head the way Alex
had kissed me. They rock together, keening and sobbing, and
Marie whispers over and over again that of course she knows
that Ciara did nothing. Sure, Ciara doesn’t have a bad bone in
her body. She would never . . .
‘I wanted to make it right between us,’ Ciara cries. ‘I thought
we would have time. I thought he would’ve . . .’ She descends
into floods of tears again.
It feels as if they are putting on a show for the police’s benefit.
There had been no obvious indication before now that Ciara
had wanted to make anything right with her father. Like me,
she was tolerating him out of a sense of duty. This display does
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nothing to reassure me that a narrative that will ultimately point the finger of blame in my direction is being played out in front
of me.
I can’t bear to listen to them or watch their spectacle unfold
any more, so I go to the kitchen, where I’m surprised to find
Kathleen alone, her mug in her hand. No police officer is near.
‘That big tall fellah has gone to make a phone call,’ she says.
‘I’m surprised he left me alone. If you’re making a fresh cup
of tea, I’ll have one. This has gone cold.’ She gestures to the
murky beige liquid in the cup in front of her.
I hadn’t been planning on making a cup of tea at all, but I
fill the kettle and switch it on anyway.
‘I just keep running everything over and over in my head
all the time. Trying to make sense of it,’ she says, her voice
cracking as she struggles to keep her emotions in check. ‘I can’t
help but wonder what they found . . . what they saw . . .’ Her
sentence drifts off.
I don’t answer her. I simply make her tea and stir in a sugar
before sitting it in front of her.
‘I should’ve come home earlier,’ she says. ‘I should have, as
soon as we knew he was sick. Sooner even.’
‘Sure, we didn’t know how sick he was. Not until the operation.’
That operation had changed everything. When his treatment
had turned from curative to palliative. When we knew we were
in the end game, we had a limited time to say all we needed
to say and do all we needed to do. She came as quickly as she
could after that.
We sit in silence for a bit, our thoughts doing enough talking
for us.
‘Things are very strained between you and Ciara, aren’t they?’
Kathleen asks.
I shrug. I don’t know what she wants me to do. I can’t deny it.
‘It’s been a very stressful time for everyone. You know things
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have always been challenging between us. Between all of us.’
She nods. ‘I thought once you two girls grew up, you’d see
some sort of common ground. It can’t have been easy for Joe,
dealing with his illness and the two of you at each other’s
throats.’
I’m pulled. We were hardly at each other’s throats. Yes, the
tension was palpable, but we just did what we had to do while
ignoring each other as much as humanly possible. There’d been
no screaming, roaring rows.
I’m not sure how to answer. ‘I’m not sure what you mean,’
I stutter.
Kathleen moves awkwardly in her seat. ‘Ciara says you’ve
been cold with her, and I’ve seen it myself. Telling us all you
couldn’t wait to sell the house? And that was before he even
. . .’ She doesn’t finish the sentence, can’t bring herself to say that he has died. ‘Look, I understand that this is a stressful time but, you know, given everything, it’s not a good look for you.’
‘Given everything? What exactly are you implying?’ I say,
feeling heat rise in my face. My heart rate starts to increase.
‘I’m not implying anything,’ she answers.
‘Yes, it’s true there’s been no love lost between us, but that’s
not all down to me, Kathleen. You know that. You were there,
remember? I tried to be a friend. As a child I tried, but she
drew a very straight, very deep line in the sand and she’s never
wavere
d from that. And now? Well, now I’m big enough and
ugly enough to choose not to pander to people who clearly
don’t give two damns about me.
‘But that doesn’t mean I’ve done anything wrong. I’ve been
protecting my feelings. I’ve been protecting my family. I’ve not
set out to hurt anyone. Not your precious niece and certainly
not Joe. Though God knows, there’s little love lost there, either.
But that doesn’t mean I killed him, for the love of God!’ I whisper the world ‘killed’, afraid to say it out loud.
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‘You are a cruel person, Heidi Lewis,’ she says bitterly. ‘I’m not saying he was perfect. I know his flaws, but he did the best
he could for you when no one else wanted to. You never showed
him any love. Any respect, even. Is it any wonder Ciara thinks
you’re responsible for what happened?’
‘She can think what she wants, Kathleen,’ I snap. ‘It doesn’t
make it true.’
There’s so much that I want to say. I want to tell her I showed
him more love and respect than he ever deserved. That I had
hurt myself by not breaking contact with him. That I had kept
his sordid secrets because I was too ashamed of myself to admit
them to anyone. I know I could shatter her illusions with a
sentence or two – but what good would it do now? As far as
I could see she had made her up mind just like Ciara and
anything I could say would only be dismissed as the lies of a
bitter woman.
‘There’s no need to get upset,’ Kathleen says.
I look at her incredulously. She’s just confirmed my suspicions
that Ciara is pointing the finger of blame at me, and I’m not
supposed to get upset?
‘There’s every reason to get upset,’ I tell her. ‘I see what’s
going on here. I know Ciara isn’t the only person who thinks
I’m to blame. Because of course, I’d be to blame. Poor Heidi.
Unhinged and mad. Sure, it was only a matter of time before
I did something really bad, wasn’t it?’ I mock.
Kathleen has the good grace to blush but I see how her body
language changes, too. She tenses, pulls herself away from me
a little. Does she think I’m not done? Does she think I’ve more
people to despatch from this earth? More people who have
wronged me? Because I’m sure she knows she wronged me,
too.
Each of the McKees is as bad as each other and I won’t be
the fall guy for their twisted ways any more.
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‘I’m not saying that at all,’ Kathleen says meekly.
‘But you’re thinking it,’ I say, my voice low. ‘It’s written all
over your face.’
I’m about to say more, when DC Black comes back into the
room. As quick as anything, Kathleen is on her feet making
him a cup of tea, even though he says he’s had more than
enough for one day.
I think we’ve all had more than enough, of everything, for
one day. I’ve had more than enough for a lifetime.
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Chapter Thirty-Four
Heidi
Then
Even as a teenager Ciara McKee could be unspeakably cruel.
She was spectacularly lacking in any form of empathy.
She wore her hatred for me as blatantly as she wore her heavy
goth make-up and her thick-soled boots. She was as wicked as
any evil step-sister could be. I started to dread her visits.
It soon became not good enough that I simply stayed out
of her way when she came over. She would come and find me,
seemingly with the express purpose of making me feel as bad
about myself as possible.
I spent my prepubescent years dreading every second weekend
knowing what was coming. The fact that I dreaded it even
more than the weekends she didn’t visit – the weekends when
it was just Joe and me in the house – said a lot.
Is it any wonder my young mind started to struggle with
notions of love and boundaries and what constituted abuse,
given I was so desperate for attention and for affection?
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When I was roughly eleven and Ciara would have been sixteen, I remember her perching on the end of my bed as I
tried to read. I had taken to keeping my head in a book, escaping
to more peaceful worlds as much as possible.
I wanted Ciara to leave me alone but I was too afraid to tell
her to get lost, so I just did my best to ignore her.
‘Do you know what I’d do if nobody wanted me the way
no one wants you?’ she said, a fraction too loudly for me to
ignore.
I made the mistake of looking up and catching her gaze for
the briefest of moments.
I didn’t ask her to tell me, though. I stayed quiet. I’d learned
that staying quiet generally made things go away quicker. I had
already become adept at managing harmful situations. Or so I
thought.
‘I’d kill myself,’ she said, as if she was talking to no one, then she turned to look at me. ‘Don’t you think that would be an
idea? I mean, you must miss your mum a lot, and you could
be back with her? I know some people say it’s a sin, but how
could it be? You’d just be going to be with your mum.’
She stared at me for a moment while I stared back. I didn’t
know what to say. How to react.
‘That’s what I’d do anyway,’ she added before getting up and
walking out of the room leaving me, an eleven-year-old child,
wondering if she had a point.
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Chapter Thirty-Five
Ciara
Now
‘We can do this in the morning, if you’re getting too tired.’
Detective Constable Eve King sits opposite me. She looks
younger than me. Prettier too. Petite and able to carry off one
of those pixie haircuts I’d love to have but that wouldn’t suit
my taller, more rounded frame.
She has a gentle way about her, a face that shows sympathy.
I have to remind myself why she is here and why she wants
to talk to me in the first place.
‘I think I’d rather get this over and done with for now,’ I say.
‘And you’re sure you don’t want to have any legal representa-
tion?’
‘There’s no need. I’ve not done anything wrong.’ I wonder
if I sound too defensive.
‘Okay,’ DC King says. ‘You can ask for legal representation
at any time, and I’ll remind you that you are not under any
direct suspicion at this time. However, we will be making a
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note of everything you say and if things change, this information could be used in any court proceedings.’
I nod, w
onder how long it will take. I’m so tired by now I
think I could lie in bed while the SOCOs searched around me
and not be bothered.
‘When was the last time you spoke with your father?’ she
asks, DC Black at her side, pen poised.
‘I’m not sure. Maybe it was around eight thirty. Nine perhaps.
I brought him a cup of tea.’
‘And did you stay with him for any length of time?’
‘Not really. Five minutes maybe.’
‘And what did you do when you were there?’
I shift in my seat. I don’t want to tell her what I did when
I was there. Things had become heated. Tension that had been
simmering had boiled over. There’s no way she would under-
stand. There’s no way in which telling her the truth would
work in my favour.
I edit the facts in my head before I speak. ‘I sat with him,
on the chair by his bed, for a bit while he drank some of his
tea. We talked about how he was feeling and then he said he
was tired and was going to sleep, so I left.’
‘And how did he say he was feeling?’
‘Still quite sore from his operation, lethargic too.’
‘And his frame of mind? How did that seem to you?’
Should I answer ‘needy as be-damned’? Would that start a
whole other series of questions coming my way?
‘Well, he knew he was dying. You know, of cancer. He’d been
quite low about that. And that he didn’t feel he was rallying
from his operation the way he should.’
‘Had he expressed any thoughts of wanting to end his life?’
She is looking at me directly in the eyes.
I shake my head. ‘No. He wanted to hang on for as long as
he could. He’s . . . he was . . . a stubborn old goat.’
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She pauses. ‘I know in some circumstances like this, people who are terminally ill want to have some say in when they die.
It’s understandable really, especially if they worry they may be
facing a lot of pain as their illness progresses. Sometimes they
may ask someone to assist them in ending their life . . .’
So, the police think this might have been some sort of mercy
killing? That someone had helped him go gentle into that good
night? If only they knew the truth about my father, they
wouldn’t be so generous about anyone’s motives.
I shook my head. ‘He didn’t want to die yet. If you’re asking
me if I performed some sort of mercy killing, you’re on the