by Ruth Heald
Forty-Four
Whatever Stephanie’s said to the landlord, it’s worked. He hands back my phone and steps aside, letting me out of the door.
I jump into the car.
I want to speak to Matt, to tell him where I’m going, but there’s no way of contacting him. We hadn’t bothered to connect a new landline when Pamela’s contract ran out.
Instead I just drive. There’s no time to waste. It’s over an hour’s drive from here to the village. I must find Stephanie and get Olivia back.
In the car, I go back over everything in my head. I remember when I first heard the story of Stephanie’s husband. Miriam told me in a whisper over drinks that her police force were investigating him for sexual harassment. At the time he had a huge media profile. He’d grown a media empire from nothing and had shares in magazines, TV stations and technology start-ups, as well as running a talent agency.
I feel a flush of shame as I think back. I was a different person back then. I wanted success at all costs. My colleagues would do anything and everything to get a story. They’d trail people for days, camp outside the houses of grieving widows, even hack the phones of murder victims. Morals were thrown out of the window. I had to compete.
I sat outside Stephanie’s house for two weeks in my car, waiting for her to come out, so I could question her about her husband. But she stayed inside the whole time. I should have given up then, but I didn’t. I was so desperate that one night I went through her bins. I found a letter from her psychiatrist, saying she had missed appointments.
That gave me an idea that I now bitterly regret. No one ever came to the house and Stephanie never left. She must have been going stir crazy in there all day on her own. She needed help. I put together a leaflet advertising a mental health helpline for struggling new mothers and slotted it through the letter box. Stephanie was the only person who had the number and I was the only person at the other end of the line.
I never thought it would work, but a few days later she rang me. I’m ashamed of how pleased I was with myself that I’d fooled her. Over several weeks I gained her trust and eventually she told me everything. The story was even bigger than I thought. He was regularly raping young women who worked for him. His crimes went back years and he’d been paying the women off to keep them quiet. It was the biggest scoop of my career. I knew it would make my name as a journalist.
But I was worried about Stephanie’s safety. Her husband was dangerous and I persuaded her to leave him. She promised me she would. I delayed going to my editor with the story until I was sure that she’d be long gone. But she changed her mind when she realised she couldn’t stay with me. She didn’t want to go to a women’s shelter. When I spoke to her later she was still at the house.
The story was on the editor’s desk by then. He was going to publish the next day. I couldn’t stop the chain of events I’d started. I was terrified of what Stephanie’s husband might do to her when he read the article and saw that she had betrayed him, telling a journalist everything. I begged her to leave as soon as she could. I couldn’t tell her why, but somehow I managed to convince her to leave that night. I was so relieved when I hung up. I thought everything was fixed, that she’d leave that evening before her husband saw the story.
But she didn’t. She waited until the next day. By then it was too late.
I imagine her husband turning up to work in the morning, seeing his face on the front page of the paper. I imagine him seeing the quotes attributed to Stephanie. The accusations. The revelations. He’d have been overcome by rage when he realised the source was his own wife. He’d returned home to find her about to leave with their daughter.
I was in the office early that morning, ready for a busy day following up the story. I was so convinced I’d adverted disaster for Stephanie that I hardly thought of her at all. I was busy celebrating my scoop, accepting the congratulations of colleagues. They were thumping me on the back, cheering me. I was walking on air. I knew great things were just around the corner for me. All my hard work was finally paying off.
I didn’t stay long. My editor wanted me to go over to Stephanie’s house with a photographer and wait outside to snap a picture of Stephanie’s disgraced husband and try to get a quote.
As we neared the house, feelings of guilt started to rise in me. I told myself that Stephanie was OK, safe in the women’s shelter I’d recommended. But I couldn’t help feeling bad about betraying her. We’d become close over time and I’d grown to like her. I naively thought that in time she’d forgive me, understand that I needed to expose her husband, so that he’d go to prison and be punished for his crimes.
Just as we were approaching her home, we got a call through with a tip-off. There were reports of a body in the river nearby. I wondered for a second if it was connected to Stephanie, if her husband had drowned himself, and I felt a shiver of fear. Even so, I had no idea of the horror to come.
I arrived shortly after the police. I watched helplessly as they pulled the little girl from the water, her body limp and lifeless, her hair fanning in the water as they dragged her to the shore. As soon as I saw her, I knew she was Stephanie’s daughter. A scream pierced the air and it was a moment before I realised it was mine, as I sank to the muddy ground.
The paramedic did chest compressions by the riverside and I watched as her body jumped and shuddered with the force, praying her heart would restart, praying she’d live.
But her soul had already left her. She was gone.
I threw up again and again on the grass, until there was nothing coming out but bile, my body convulsing with sobs.
I overheard the chatter of a group of locals standing just outside the police barrier. Half an hour ago, they’d seen the little girl walking beside a man they’d assumed was her father. It was Stephanie’s husband. He’d drowned her to punish Stephanie. He wanted to take away the only thing that mattered to her. It was his revenge.
It was all my fault. If I hadn’t written the article, Stephanie’s daughter would still be alive.
Tears stream down my face and I can hardly see the road in front of me. I feel so ashamed of what I did. Stephanie’s right to never forgive me. She’s right to punish me.
She’s done to me what I did to her. Watching me the way I watched her. Following me, observing me, worming her way into my life. Pretending to be my friend, manipulating me into trusting her.
I welcomed ‘Emma’ into my life. I didn’t recognise her because Stephanie and I had never met, only spoken on the phone. I’d never even seen a photo of her; her husband had controlled her social media so tightly that it had been impossible to find a picture to accompany my article.
I confided in Emma about my relationship with Matt and my struggles with my baby. I trusted her the way she’d once trusted me. She babysat my daughter and took her to the park. She hugged her and tickled her tummy and held her. She looked after her in a way I didn’t feel able to.
And from the beginning that was all she wanted. To befriend me and then destroy me, the way I destroyed her.
I need help. I pull over into a lay-by. I’m about to call Matt but then I remember Stephanie has his phone.
Instead I call the only other person who knows the history between me and Stephanie.
Miriam.
Miriam never forgave me for betraying her trust by using her tip-off to target Stephanie. But now I need her.
She picks up immediately. ‘Claire?’
‘It’s Stephanie,’ I say breathlessly.
She gasps. ‘Stephanie?’
‘She’s taken Olivia. To punish me. For what I did.’
‘Slow down… Where has she taken Olivia?’
‘Back to the village,’ I say. ‘To the river.’
‘I’ll be there as soon as I can.’
* * *
I turn my key in the engine and skid out of the lay-by back onto the road. With my foot pressed down on the accelerator, I recklessly overtake car after car. All that matters is that I get to
Olivia in time. I have to save her.
Today
I can hear her coming for me. The screeching of brakes. The dulling of the engine. She’ll be here in a minute.
I hold Olivia tight.
I never knew it was possible to hate someone as much as I hate Claire. My anger ripples out of me in waves. Every time I used to google her and see her image I would feel like I’d be sick. The smiling Twitter profile. The list of awards. She didn’t deserve to be happy. How dare she get away with it?
I was obsessed. I knew where she lived in Balham. Friends on Facebook with lax profile settings meant I’d seen her wedding photos. I know what dress she wore, how happy she looked. I went to the church where she got married, walked up and down the aisle, feeling sick and filled with rage. Imagined it all.
But I kept my distance. Told myself she wasn’t worth it.
Until I learnt that she was pregnant. I found out from her husband’s website. He’d set it up for his veterinary surgery, and put a picture of him and a heavily pregnant Claire pride of place on the homepage.
She was going to have a child, when she had taken mine away from me.
That was when I knew. I couldn’t passively observe any more. She didn’t deserve a baby. Not after what she did. She couldn’t have what was rightfully mine.
Her husband’s surgery was in a village near Oxford. I knew Claire would be moving out of London. It didn’t take much detective work to learn that Matt’s parents lived near the practice and to engineer a meeting with his mother. She was chairperson of the tennis club and when I enquired about membership and told her I was thinking of moving to the area, she was only too happy to tell me about her high-achieving son, who was shortly due to move in next door to her with his wife and daughter.
It was easy to find a place to rent in the village. I even managed to move in before Claire herself and I could introduce myself to her as a local resident. Thanks to my new neighbour who was so desperate for a babysitter that she’d leave her three-month-old with me, almost a stranger, I was able to pretend I was also a mother. I wanted Claire to trust me as much as I had once trusted her. I wanted her to depend on me.
We’d never met so she didn’t know what I looked like and I knew that there had never been any photos of me printed in the press. My husband had kept my online profile so low that no one had been able to find one. But I was sure she’d recognise my voice. I shivered when she spoke to me the first time, clutching her baby in her doorway, her jumper stained with baby sick. Her voice was so familiar. It brought everything back.
But she was so caught up in herself that she didn’t seem to register any familiarity. In fact, she seemed lonely, glad of my company. She was easy to befriend. On the very first day we met I took a spare key from a tray in the hallway, that must have been left by Pamela. In the beginning a few misplaced items and noises at night were enough to make her wonder if she was going crazy.
It doesn’t take much to destroy someone’s sanity. My husband taught me that. If you hack away at someone in the same place, again and again, eventually they crack.
Claire was an easier target than I thought. The fault lines were already there.
‘Stephanie!’
She’s calling me. I hear the desperation in her voice.
I turn to face her. After all these years, it’s finally time to make her pay.
Forty-Five
When I arrive at the village, I pull over by a pub that backs onto the river.
I force myself out of the car, sick with nerves.
I’ve never been back here and I can hardly make myself turn down the narrow alleyway towards the river. I feel faint, as if I might collapse on the pavement.
But I have to get to my daughter.
I make myself run down the alleyway alongside the pub, my heart thumping.
As I come out the other end, back into the daylight, I catch sight of the sparkling river.
Memories flood my mind: The bare arm, sticking out of the reeds. The men in uniforms doing mouth-to-mouth. The scream of the police sirens.
I can’t bear it. My ears are ringing and I can hardly catch my breath. I can feel myself losing my grip on reality, as the environment around me blurs into one green-blue haze. I stumble and fall to the muddy ground.
I push myself back up, my vision still double. I can’t waste any time. I have to get to Olivia.
There’s a blurred figure sitting by the riverside.
It must be Stephanie. The trees are bare now and raindrops dance on the water. There’s no sunshine, no birds. But I recognise the spot. It’s the exact spot where Lily died.
‘Stephanie!’ I manage to get the words out through tears.
At first I think she hasn’t heard me, but then she turns and rises up to greet me, my daughter in her arms.
I reach her side, holding out my hands for my daughter. ‘Give her back!’
Stephanie pulls her away.
I tense with fear, my heart racing. What’s she going to do to my baby? I imagine Olivia submerged, caught in the reeds. Just like Lily. I can hardly breathe.
‘I won’t,’ she says. As our eyes meet I can’t get the thought out of my head that she’s still Emma, that she’s still my friend. Somehow, I still can’t believe Emma would betray me.
But her eyes are harder now, cruel. I remind myself that she’s Stephanie. She created ‘Emma’ just to hurt me.
‘You don’t deserve Olivia,’ she says, echoing the note that came through my door. My heart contracts and I long to hold my daughter.
‘You sent the note?’ I ask.
‘Yes. And I moved the smoke alarm. Did it work, Claire? Did it scare you?’
‘I thought you were my friend,’ I say.
Stephanie laughs bitterly. ‘I thought you were mine. On the helpline. You were the only one I could trust.’
‘I’m sorry.’ The wind whips round me, blowing the rain into my face and turning my voice into a whisper. I remember how desperate Stephanie seemed on the phone, and guilt engulfs me, a vice around my heart. Back then I was so focused on the story that I couldn’t see how cruel I was being. I was supposed to be Stephanie’s lifeline, but I took away everything she loved.
Stephanie is lost in her own thoughts. ‘You didn’t even answer the phone,’ she says. ‘After Lily died, you just ignored me.’
‘I couldn’t face you. I was a coward. I’m so sorry.’
‘You didn’t care.’
I shuffle closer to Olivia. If I can just get a little bit closer, I’ll be able to reach out and grab her.
I keep talking.
‘I did care about you. I told you to leave him. I was worried about you. I wanted you to be happy.’
‘You published the story that destroyed my life. My daughter is dead because of you.’
She’s right. What I did was unforgiveable. My body tenses. Even after all this time, I can’t believe that I could be so manipulative and cruel.
But I can’t let Olivia be punished for my mistakes.
If I reach out now, I might just be able to grab her. But if I lose my balance, we’ll both fall into the water below.
I try to distract Stephanie, not knowing what else to do. ‘Did you always intend to take her?’ I ask. ‘From the very beginning?’
Stephanie adjusts Olivia in her arms, shifting her onto the other hip, so once again she’s out of my reach.
‘I wasn’t certain at first. But when I saw how little you cared for her, it was clear I was doing the right thing. The one thing a baby needs was the one thing you couldn’t provide. You couldn’t love her. You didn’t have it in you.’
Her words make me reel. ‘I have postnatal depression. I thought you understood.’
Stephanie laughs bitterly. ‘Yep. That’s you, Claire. Despite having everything, you had the audacity to say you were depressed. Even though you were living the life I wanted. The life you stole from me.’
‘I wanted to love her,’ I say. Tears free-fall down my face. I look
at Olivia’s tiny hands peeking out from under her clothes. It’s too cold for her. She needs a coat.
‘Please give me another chance.’
‘I didn’t get another chance, Claire, did I? After you published your story I had no chance at all.’
‘I’m sorry, Stephanie. I still think about Lily every day. A day doesn’t go past when the guilt doesn’t eat me up.’
It’s true. I’ve never been able to get Stephanie’s daughter out of my head.
‘Why did you do it? Why did you set up the helpline? Why did you make me confide in you? You knew I was vulnerable.’
‘I couldn’t think of anything else,’ I say quietly. ‘I wanted the story so badly. You never left the house. It was the last roll of the dice. I thought if I set up the helpline, you might confide in me, tell me about your husband.’
She turns to me, her eyes raging. ‘And I fell into the trap.’
She steps into the water, holding my baby.
Today
The shock of the cold water wakens my senses. I can feel the heaviness in my shoes, in the bottom of my jeans.
I wade in further. I want to get away from Claire, away from everything she reminds me of.
I don’t want to think of her. I only want to think of Lily.
I try and imagine her face; her mischievous green eyes, dimpled smile, flowing hair. But the image is static, a photograph.
I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to imagine her laughing and running around. The film in my head jumps and skips. I can’t conjure her up like I used to. I can’t feel her here.
‘Stephanie.’
Claire interrupts me and I squeeze my eyes shut tighter.
‘Shut up.’
I stroke Olivia’s hair gently and try to speak to Lily. This is the last place she saw, where she took her last breath. I imagine her soul still lingering, waiting for me to come back.