He has a nice voice, deep with a soft Cornish burr, which threw me a little. I’m not sure what I was expecting a private detective to sound like – a New York drawl maybe, like in the films? I tried to concentrate on the dates he was giving me, feeling a little foolish.
‘I was outside your workplace on the evening of Thursday the fifth – sorry about that by the way, but part of the job and all that – and left Cheltenham the next day; got the lunchtime train back to Bodmin.’
Thursday the fifth. I remembered that evening, just a few days before the Saturday when Mum suddenly rang my doorbell, when my life changed forever. The shadowy figure in the car park. It was him then. At least I wasn’t imagining that.
‘It was the 12.52, if you want precise details,’ he was saying. ‘The 12.52 from Cheltenham Spa to Bodmin Parkway, changing at Taunton. So, I don’t know who you’ve been seeing hanging around talking to your friends and neighbours, but it wasn’t me, I can assure you of that. Maybe I’ve got a lookalike, eh?’
He laughed, and I found myself laughing too, telling him I was sorry to bother him, that some odd stuff had been happening and that I was trying to do a little detective work of my own. I end the call before I can embarrass myself any further. I stay in the bedroom for a while after that, my head in my hands at my desk, plunging back into despair.
I’m so confused. I know, without any doubt, that somehow what happened all those years ago with Lucy Allen is behind all this. But who, for God’s sake? Who? I can’t even talk to anyone about it; there’s nobody who can help me. Nobody …
I stand up, knowing I need to go downstairs and act normally, but how much longer can I pretend to Mum that I’m OK? Despite her outward cheeriness, I keep catching her watching me with an uneasy expression, her face a little paler and more drawn these days than it was when she first arrived. I wish desperately that I could confide in her, but I can’t, can I? She’s all I have now, and I can’t put that at risk. The kids are gone, Jacob’s gone, my friends are slipping away, and I can’t even talk to the few people who are still speaking to me, not about this. And now I have even less idea about the truth of what’s happened here than I did when I woke up this morning. I’m back to square one, and all I know is that somebody’s out to get me.
And, until I find out who, I can’t trust anyone.
Chapter 31
‘I’m going to nip out to the supermarket, love, and do you know what? I’m going to buy us some Easter treats. Cheer you up a bit.’
I look up. I’m on the sofa, half watching the cookery segment on This Morning. The chef’s decorating a batch of Easter cupcakes, adding tiny white chocolate eggs to the vanilla buttercream icing.
‘You don’t have to, Mum.’
‘I know I don’t have to; I want to. All those Easters I missed, Beth. All those Easter eggs I didn’t buy you. Let me, please.’
She looks pale again, tired, but so wistful and so eager to please that I haven’t the heart to argue. And anyway, I’m feeling a little more cheerful today because it’s the Thursday before Easter weekend and tonight is Eloise’s school play, finally. I may not have the children for Easter, but at least I’ll see them tonight. I bought their eggs weeks ago – big, fancy ones from the posh chocolate shop on The Prom, personalised with their names. I can’t wait to hand them over this evening, can’t wait to hold my babies again, to kiss their soft cheeks. I miss them so much it’s like a physical ache.
‘Oh, go on then. Do you want a lift?’
I smile at Mum and she beams.
‘No, no, I’ll walk. I can manage a couple of shopping bags; it’s not that far.’
She heads for the door, waving over her shoulder.
‘See you in a bit.’
When she’s gone I switch the TV off. I’m still feeling low, but the thought of tonight’s keeping me going; I need to find something to wear to the concert and wash my hair. I’d been so looking forward to Liv coming up for tonight, as she’d promised, but she called yesterday apologising profusely, saying someone had gone sick and she now had to work over the holiday weekend instead. I wondered, briefly, if this was a lie, if the real reason she wasn’t coming was because she was ashamed to be seen with me after the porn site debacle, but I let it go, more worried about how Eloise is going to react when her aunt doesn’t show. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her when I called last night. I didn’t want to upset her before her big day, and anyway our phone calls have been so brief and so perfunctory for the past couple of nights. She knows something’s up, that much is clear.
‘There’ve been rumours at school,’ Jacob said gruffly, before passing the phone to the children on Monday night. ‘Nothing specific, just something about embarrassing video footage of you on Facebook. Eloise isn’t happy. She wants to know what’s going on. I’ve managed to fob her off for now, but she may well find out sooner or later. Nothing I can do about that.’
I’m trying to stop dwelling on it all now, just trying to look forwards. Mum was, I think, relieved when I told her what Mike had said, and that I’d now accepted I was imagining seeing him all over Cheltenham colluding with my friends.
‘Just as I told you, love!’ she said. ‘Now, no more worrying. Whoever did it will get their punishment one day, you’ll see. And nothing else has happened since Robin left, has it? So it probably was her, wasn’t it? It’s all over now. Just forget it. We’ll have a nice Easter, and then hopefully you can get back to work, and the children will come home, and we’ll have a wonderful summer together. It’ll all be fine, OK?’
And maybe she’s right. It’s true, nothing else bad has happened since I fired Robin. So maybe it is really over after all, I think now. It’s just that something still doesn’t feel right about it being Robin, and yet …
BRRRR.
My mobile phone is ringing. Jacob.
‘Hello?’
‘Beth.’
Just one word, yet already he sounds so … so angry, and my throat constricts.
‘What is it?’
‘I’ve just got back from the school. I had a call just after ten saying that Eloise was terribly upset and that I needed to come and pick her up.’
‘What? What’s wrong? Is she sick?’
I’m starting to panic, clutching the phone so tightly my fingers are hurting.
‘No, she’s not sick.’
He practically spits the words into my ear.
‘Well … what, then?’
‘It’s you, Beth.’ A pause, a heavy breath. ‘She’s finally found out. One of the boys in her class somehow got his hands on that video of you. He was showing it around in the playground before lessons this morning. Ten-year-old children, Beth, looking at videos of you naked, touching yourself. I can’t even …’
He sounds like he’s struggling to form the words.
Oh no. Please, no …
‘And Eloise? She’s … she’s seen them too?’
My voice is a strangled whisper.
‘Yes, she’s seen them. She’s mortified, Beth. She says she doesn’t want to go back to school and is refusing to take part in the play tonight. She’s upstairs now, crying her little heart out …’
‘Jacob, I need to see her. I’m coming over, now, please …’
I slump down onto the nearest chair. I’m feeling so dizzy I might actually faint, but I have to get to my daughter, I have to comfort her.
‘Please, Jacob, is that OK?’
‘NO!’ He shouts so loudly I jump. ‘No. You are not to come over, do you hear me? She doesn’t want you anywhere near her. She doesn’t want to see you, or speak to you. She made that very clear in the car on the way back here.’
‘But—’
‘Listen, Beth. The answer is no. Our daughter is very, very upset, and you’re the cause of it. All that work, all those hours of rehearsal … She’s devastated, but she says there’s no way she can go on stage tonight with everyone laughing at her. Laughing at you … Do you see? Do you see now the awful consequences of your recen
t behaviour?’
He’s angrier than I’ve ever heard him and that’s scaring me, but it’s what he’s saying that’s scaring me more.
Eloise, my darling girl. I can’t bear this, I can’t …
‘But Jacob, please … It’s not my fault; it wasn’t me. I didn’t … Please, can you just tell her?’
I’m suddenly sobbing so hard I can barely speak.
‘No. And I can’t talk to you anymore, not now. We’ll be in touch. Goodbye, Beth.’
And then he’s gone, and now I feel as if my world, already so fragile, is crumbling around me. Blackness is creeping ever closer. I think about Eloise, and about Finley – my children, my life. I think about Lucy Allen and how her mother must have felt when she lost her, and now, for the first time, I realise that I truly understand. I can feel her pain, her agony.
My children may still be alive, but I’ve lost them, haven’t I? I’ve lost them, and now I get it. This is it. This is my real punishment. It’s what I deserve, I know that, but how can I survive this?
BRRRR.
The phone’s ringing again. For a moment, numb with fear and grief, I just stare at it, sitting there on the arm of the chair. It’s a private number this time. I consider ignoring it, but it’s still ringing, ringing, ringing. It might be important, might be something to do with Eloise maybe, and so I force myself to move. I reach slowly for the handset, my finger fumbling for the button to accept the call.
‘Hello?’
My voice sounds hoarse, thick with tears, and I couldn’t care less. Nothing matters now.
‘Beth Holland?’
The voice is male, brisk, business-like.
‘Yes, this is me.’
‘Hi, Beth. My name is Miles Cranford. I’m a reporter on the Daily Star? I just wanted to let you know that we’re going to be running a story about you on Saturday. We spoke to your boss a few days back – she might have mentioned that?’
Oh God, oh God, oh God. No, no, no …
‘But … Oh, please, no, don’t do this! She said … Gabby said you hadn’t been back in touch. She thought …’
My heart is pounding so hard I can feel it hammering painfully against the wall of my chest.
‘Ah well, she wasn’t too helpful,’ he says, with a little laugh.
A laugh? He’s laughing about this?
‘I believe you claim you were hacked, but the footage is definitely you, isn’t it? So, you know …’ he’s saying. ‘We have that, and some of the comments from your patients. Someone forwarded me some screenshots, you see, before it was all deleted. Some very complimentary remarks, I have to say. I think you’ve got some fans out there now, Beth.’
He laughs again as I listen, aghast. I think I’m about to vomit.
‘Somebody filmed that footage without my knowledge. You can’t—’ I splutter, but he’s still talking.
‘It’s a great story. GP manager in X-rated video storm. Imagine it! But Beth, while we were doing a bit of background research, you know, for the story, well, we came across something, and I just wanted to run it past you, maybe get a comment? I’m going back a bit here, quite a few years, and it may be something hard for you to talk about, but I need to ask …’
His voice has softened a little, taken on a more wheedling, questioning tone, and I feel a shiver down my back, an icy finger of fear moving slowly along my spine.
‘It’s about something that happened back in the early 90s, when you were a pupil at Fairbridge High School in Bristol. A fellow pupil very tragically took her own life, and a source tells us that you had some involvement in that, Beth? I mean, I know there were never any charges brought, don’t worry’—again, he lets out a light laugh, and I’m frozen now, a sort of paralysis creeping over me; the only moving part of me is my chest, pumping up and down, up and down. I’m starting to hyperventilate—‘but a source tells us that there were allegations of bullying, before this girl killed herself? Bullying by you, I mean. Do you have any response to that, Beth?’
I sway in my chair, black spots dancing before my eyes.
This is it then. This is it. It’s all over, isn’t it?
‘No comment,’ I whisper. ‘No comment.’
Chapter 32
It’s worse than I ever thought it would be.
I was down at the local shop before it even opened at eight, hovering on the pavement as the door was unlocked. I rushed to the newspaper stand, folding the paper in half as I paid, too terrified to look. Now, back in my kitchen, with Mum still upstairs in the shower, I open it with shaking hands, turning the pages until …
Oh. My. God.
And there I am, naked in a national newspaper. OK, not completely naked; they’ve put little stars over my nipples and over my crotch. But I’m still largely naked, no pun intended. Two photos – big photos – that are stills taken from the video footage. There’s one of me standing in front of my mirror, slightly side-on, hands stroking the rolls of flesh on my stomach, wobbly thighs and bum turned towards the camera. The second shows me in the bath, breasts visible above the bubbles, hands under the water somewhere. And the headline … I read it again, my cheeks burning.
SCANDAL OF COTSWOLD GP MANAGER’S STEAMY SECRET VIDEO
I’m breathing so fast that my chest is starting to hurt, but I force myself to read the article, my feeling of desperation growing with each sentence.
A GP practice manager from Cheltenham has shocked patients after a link on her surgery’s Facebook page took them to a porn website, where she’s currently starring in a saucy video. The steamy shots show Beth Holland (40) frolicking naked in her bedroom and enjoying a spot of solo underwater fun in her bathtub …
Frolicking? Solo underwater fun? But I didn’t … I wasn’t … Oh shit, shit, shit …
I read on, eyes skimming the text now, seeing mentions of ‘the curvaceous mother of two’, ‘eye-popping cleavage’, ‘recently divorced’, and ‘generous derriere’, my hands gripping the kitchen counter for support. This is horrendous. Horrendous. It is a carefully worded article, with no mention of the footage being obtained without my consent, or my account being hacked. And then I read further and I freeze. This is it; this is the bit I’ve been terrified of seeing since Miles Cranford, whose by-line now sits under that hideous headline, rang me on Thursday.
Beth’s sizzling X-rated video has now been enjoyed by thousands of randy web surfers, but it’s not the first time she’s been in the spotlight. Back in her schooldays Beth was the focus of attention for a very different reason, after being linked to the suicide of a troubled pupil at a Bristol secondary school. No charges were brought, and Beth’s family moved away from the area after the scandal.
Her latest racy antics have plunged her into the spotlight again, and although she’s currently ‘on leave’ from work, patients are hoping she’ll make a return very soon. ‘Maybe they should put her on reception instead of hiding her away in the back office,’ said one horny chap. ‘That would cheer us up when we’re waiting to have our piles checked, wouldn’t it?’
Beth declined to comment when contacted earlier this week.
I stand there, staring at the page, and I realise that I’m whimpering; little involuntary noises are coming out of my mouth. I can’t even process what this means, what impact this story being printed in a newspaper is going to have on my life. I just know that it’s going to be enormous. Huge. Today is going to change everything. I take a deep, shuddering breath, then another, trying to quell the panic. I need to move, need to do something – call my solicitor maybe? – but it’s as if my mind has disconnected from my body and all I can do is stand there, eyes fixed on the newspaper, the words dancing in front of me, bouncing across the page.
‘Beth? Beth, what’s that? Are you OK?’
It’s Mum, crossing the kitchen towards me, hair still damp from her shower. A towel is draped across her shoulders, concern etched on her un-made-up face. I swallow.
‘The pictures. Someone sent them to the papers, Mum,’ I m
anage to say, and I push the newspaper along the counter towards her. She frowns, fumbling in her dressing-gown pocket for her glasses and starts to read, and I stand there numbly, watching her. When she reaches the last couple of paragraphs she looks up at me, eyes wide, and I know she’s read the bit about Lucy. A fresh wave of horror washes over me, because how do I explain that now? What do I say, to her, to Jacob, to everyone?
‘Mum …’
My voice is croaky, my throat tight and dry, but she doesn’t respond. Instead, she shakes her head and then, to my surprise, picks up the newspaper and very slowly and deliberately begins to tear it up. She rips it into long strips, dropping each one on the floor as she completes it. When she’s finished, when the entire thing is in shreds, she bends down and scoops it up, marches to the recycling bin in the corner, lifts the lid, and stuffs the bundle of paper in. Then she turns to me.
‘There. That’s dealt with that load of nonsense,’ she says, sounding satisfied. ‘Shall we have a cup of tea?’
Stunned, I stare at her for a moment, and then, surprising even myself, I laugh.
‘But … don’t you want to talk about it? The article? What it said?’
She shrugs.
‘Maybe later. First, my darling, you need a hot drink and sustenance. One of your so-called friends has clearly been at it again, talking to the press. I’m furious and upset, but I’m more concerned about you. You look dreadful, and I want you to sit down and let me look after you, all right? We’re having tea and pain au chocolat because it’s Easter Saturday after all. And after that, if you still want to, we can talk. OK? Now sit.’
She gestures to the nearest stool and I stare at her for another few moments, marvelling, then do as I’m told. The tea is hot and strong, the pain au chocolat sweet and flaky and delicious, and as we sit there, the morning sun warming the room as it floods through the patio doors, I feel a strange sense of calm descending.
The very worst has happened, and yet maybe it’s not as bad as it could be after all, is it? Yes, there’s a mention of something bad happening in my past, a link to a suicide, but it’s vague, and it even says that no charges were brought. There’ll be questions, yes. But maybe, just maybe …
The Happy Family Page 22