If DS Slater can’t or won’t find out what happened to her, then I will.
Two
The birth did not go well. Grace was breech, the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck, and the midwife was sweating through her scrubs. In the rush to get her out, the cord was tugged too hard and ruptured. I lost enough blood to put me in a hazy, confused state while Grace was checked over and cleaned up. The gory chaos of the birth was followed by a blood transfusion which had me hooked up to a machine while Charles placed Grace on his chest and stroked her soft head with his fingertips. I watched through tired eyes, and in that moment I felt jealous of him, of the easy way he soothed her, of the obvious love he felt for the tiny human I had grown inside my body and almost died pushing out. I wanted to hold her in my arms, rest her head against my chest and watch her fall into a contented sleep. I wanted the perfect moment I had been led to believe all mothers experienced.
In the days that followed the birth, part of me resented this tiny baby for the pain she’d put me through. And as if that wasn’t enough, there was barely a second in the day where Grace’s small face wasn’t bright red and scrunched as she howled at me. She refused my nipple. On the rare occasions she did breastfeed, I had terrible cramps that shuddered through my body. She never wanted to nap and I was completely exhausted, barely able to shuffle to the bathroom for a few seconds of agonising pain. She only ever softened when Charles walked her up and down the corridor at the hospital. She didn’t want me, and a paranoid voice in my head told me that it was personal, that she saw every flaw I had. She knew who I was and she spurned my affections because I wasn’t worthy.
But Grace’s initial rejection made me more determined to win her over. After I’d recovered from the blood loss and regained some strength, I laid her on my chest and let her sleep. I placed my finger inside her tiny fist and allowed her to squeeze it as hard as she could. When she was crying, I stroked her head, touching the smoothness of hair over her soft skull. She yawned to reveal a pink mouth and I was fascinated. I even came to enjoy the funny noises she made, and I watched the spit bubbles emerge from her lips.
It was during this gradual shift in circumstances that I discovered I was falling in love with my daughter, not because I was supposed to, but because I liked being around her. She was part of me. She was the good part. I wanted to keep her safe, and, more than anything, I wanted to be a better person for her.
But as hard as I tried, I’m not sure I ever truly became a better person.
* * *
When we arrive back at our empty house after the long, tortuous identification, Charles heads straight to the kitchen and slops whisky into a glass. Georgie and Porgie, our two ever-enthusiastic black labs, bound into my legs, licking my hands, before moving on to Charles, most likely sensing his distress. Through a foggy haze, I hear one of them begin to whimper. I can’t watch.
There is a cloud around me of poisonous gas, sapping all the energy from my body and disconnecting me from Charles and the dogs and from our beautiful home: a sprawling Victorian mansion of a house. Rather than spend more time comforting my husband, I find myself stepping heavily up the wide staircase, shedding my jacket and shoes as I go, leaving them where they fall. Oil paintings shake in their frames as a stiletto hits the wall. The old floorboards groan under my step. My hand grips the oak railings until my knuckles turn white.
Her room is at the end of a long corridor of doors. There are seven bedrooms spread out through Farleigh Hall. Grace, in effect, had the entire first floor to herself, because the master bedroom is on the second floor, converted from the old ballroom. Now, as I walk down the corridor towards her room, it hits me how utterly empty this house is going to be without her. I’d coveted Farleigh, longed to live here. After the first time I’d visited the sprawling estate, I’d gone back to my tiny flat and practised writing the address as if it were my own: Kat Cavanaugh, Farleigh Hall, Ash Dale, Derbyshire. No house number. No ‘Flat 3B’. No woodlice in the kitchen. Charles had provided me a ticket out of poverty and I’d yanked it greedily from his chubby fingers. What I hadn’t anticipated was Charles giving me a treasure even better than money: Grace.
But now, after longing for the kind of luxury Farleigh Hall could give me, I run my fingers along the mahogany-panelled walls and feel nothing but the chill of the wood. This house is a shell without her voice, without the sound of music blaring out of her room. I close my eyes and I still hear her violin practice echoing down the corridors. The grief swells up like a tornado, threatening to knock me from my feet.
When I reach her room, I hold my breath as I swing the door open. Surely there should be a change in atmosphere. Grace’s room should be unrecognisable. The sight of an apocalypse. Scorched earth, never the same again. But nothing has changed since she left for school yesterday morning. The cleaners haven’t been in since Grace went missing, which means it still smells like her. Her clothes have been left dangling over the ottoman at the end of the bed. Her bedding is tangled in a ball, as it always is. Her violin rests against its stand in the corner. She could come bursting out of her bathroom with a towel wrapped around her hair and a sheet mask sliding down her face. I stand in the doorway and wait for her, a smile on my face, expectant. What are we trying today, Grace? Relaxing honey mask? Cooling cucumber? Pedicures in the village?
But she will never step out of that bathroom again.
I can’t get the colour blue out of my head.
I wrap my body around the ball of bedding and close my eyes, inhaling what’s left of her scent.
* * *
It has to be done and it has to be done alone. There is someone who needs to be told about Grace. Charles offered to drive me, but he was barely coherent by the time I navigated my way back down the stairs with bleary eyes. Besides, I never drive there. I either book a taxi or I take the bus. Today I book a taxi. Charles always thinks that this behaviour is endearing, because I came from nothing and he’s old money, but I don’t want these people to know my change in circumstances. I don’t want them to know anything about me. If I could, I would never go to that place again, but the person I’m about to see is stubborn. I worked hard to get out of where we’re from, but she refused to leave.
Before the taxi arrives, I chug down a large measure of Charles’s whisky, sending my mind into a pleasant haze that will surely get me through the journey. Then, because Charles begins to weep again, I find my shoes, snatch up my handbag and wait outside, no longer able to bear the greedy, tearful husband inside the house. It’s not fair for him to take comfort from me when I’m dried up and hollowed out. What comfort do I have for him? What’s left of me?
When I climb into the hybrid, a low whistle sounds from the front of the car. ‘Some place you have here.’
‘Yeah, I know.’ I reel off the address and the driver programmes it into his satnav. The whisky sits sourly in my stomach, and every time I close my eyes, I see Grace’s chipped fingernails and the cuts on her flesh.
‘Not driving today?’ he asks. ‘If I were you, I’d take that Jaguar out for a spin. And on a glorious spring day like this? With the top down?’ He shakes his head as though I’m a crazy woman for not continuously rejoicing in my own wealth.
‘No,’ I say. ‘My daughter died yesterday.’
I watch through the rear-view mirror as his face pales before I lean back against the seat. There are dull aches in my skull and abdomen, radiating out to the rest of my body. Good. Give me pain. I close my eyes and picture Grace on the gurney. If I’d drunk more whisky, maybe I could have blocked it all out. Charles has the right idea, crying and drinking, reaching out his hands like a baby waiting to be held. Why haven’t I been doing that? Why haven’t I broken down and made everyone around me step up to console me?
No, the mother has an obligation. Here I am, doing what needs to be done, and trying to do it right. Though I have to admit to myself that it isn’t all from a place of altruism. The truth is, I have an ulterior motive. I know my daughter d
idn’t kill herself, and there are certain people in my life that I need to be sure didn’t harm my child. I’m about to confront one of those people. I want to see the expression on her face when I tell her that Grace has died. Perhaps I’ll learn what really happened to her that day.
Three
The taxi drops me off at the end of the street and I hand the driver the cash. He says he’s sorry for my loss as I’m closing the door. Coming here usually involves shedding my wealth like a second skin. I wear nondescript clothing and tie my hair back in a tight ponytail. She’s the only one from here who knows about my circumstances, and she’s ashamed of them. Of me. Today, though, I completely forget about my usual ritual and arrive wearing the clothes I threw on this morning, which happen to be the same expensive clothes I wear day in, day out: a cashmere cardigan, Louboutins, a soft leather tote from Mulberry. I’d usually avoid all of these brands, because it gets me off to a bad start with her. But there’s nothing that can be done about it. A shudder runs through my body, and I consider calling the taxi back.
‘Katie, is that you?’
A familiar voice calls to me from the concrete garden outside a small terraced house. A woman limps over to me, her polyester leggings rubbing between her thighs to make a swish-swish sound, and leans on the back fence.
‘Look at you. I hardly recognised you. Oh, I love that bag,’ she says, the pink flesh below her chin wobbling up and down.
‘Hi, Mrs Nash. It’s fake.’
‘On your way to see Susan?’ she asks.
‘Yes,’ I reply, trying to move along.
‘Oh good. Give her my love, won’t you?’
I brush a lock of ash-blonde hair away from my face and nod. Everyone on the estate loves Susan, as Mrs Nash calls her (I have another name for her), which is no surprise seeing as Susan gave them all a load of cash to share between them. Lucky, lucky Old Barrow residents. It was Charles’s money, obviously, and it was supposed to be put towards her moving out, but she decided to tell all her friends she’d won a few grand on the lottery and split the whole lot with them.
My heels click-clack against the pavement. I’m on the road behind the terraced houses, looking in on the washing lines and plastic garden furniture. Every step taking me closer to that house makes my heart beat faster. A horrible thought consumes me: what if now is the moment I lose control and break down? What if Grace’s death hasn’t hit me yet because I haven’t said it out loud to anyone except a random taxi driver?
After a few more steps, there it is: my childhood home. I take a deep breath to steady myself, as I always do. The two-up two-down terrace should’ve been adequately sized for one woman and one daughter, but Susan, my mother, is a hoarder. I don’t come here very often, and I’ve certainly never brought Grace with me. When Mum wanted to see Grace, I’d offer to pay for a taxi to bring her up to our house, but she would always take the bus. It was never too often, either. Mum frequently forgot Grace’s birthday – she never remembers mine – and Christmas was hit-and-miss depending on whether she had plans with the neighbours or not. Not that any of this bothered me, except that I hated to see Grace disappointed when Grandma hadn’t bothered to send her a birthday card.
It’s Grace’s disappointed face on her eighth birthday that I hold in my mind as I knock on the door. Mum had been to visit the Christmas before her birthday and, for once, they’d had a nice time together, playing with Grace’s dolls. Mum has always loved dolls. She keeps a collection of the pasty-faced things in the lounge, sitting upright amidst all the other crap, with their eyes that follow me through the room. Come February, when Grace’s birthday came along, my poor, naïve daughter thought that Grandma would want to spend it with her, so she invited Mum to her birthday party. I called Mum and begged her to join us, using as much charm as I could muster, but none of that works with her. She’d already arranged to cat sit for Nadia Patel at number 45. That’s how it is with Mum.
‘What are you knocking for? Where’s your key?’
A waft of stale house stink hits me as soon as she opens the door. I’m surprised by how old she looks. Mum always said I got my attractive features from my dad, and I believe that may be the only true thing she’s ever said to me.
‘I forgot it.’
‘How did you manage that?’ she says, shuffling away from the door to allow me into the home.
I follow her in, dodging the stacks of magazines and trying desperately to ignore the overflowing bin. No part of me wants to close that door and shut myself in this house, but I have to. No part of me wants to be here in this place, where I used to eat my toast leaning over the sink in the mornings, sit on the sofa and watch soaps with my silent mother, put myself to bed when she was in a drunken stupor. No part of me wants to remember any of that, especially not today, but I had to come. I need to be face-to-face with her as I deliver the news.
Despite being in her late sixties, Mum is still sprightly. She’s always been a slip of a woman, because she doesn’t particularly enjoy food. The pleasure of chocolate cake is lost on her. She’d be just as happy with a plate of kale. That, and the fact that she’s always out and about in the community, means that she’s managed to stay fit.
‘Well?’ Her eyebrows shoot up as she waits for my response. As she moves a bag of clothes from an armchair, placing it on top of a leaning stack of newspapers, her gaze travels over my body, taking in my outfit. ‘Why are you dressed fancy? What, did you want to rub it in, did you? Show everyone on the estate that you’re rich now? Is that it? You think you’re better than us, flashing your cash? Is that husband of yours with you? Driving around in that ridiculous car like he’s the “big I am”—’
‘Mum.’
She ignores me. ‘It’s disgusting is what it is, parading around in expensive things when there are people starving on the streets—’
‘Grace is dead.’
‘What?’
‘Grace is dead.’ I take a deep breath. ‘She didn’t come home from school yesterday. I rang the police and they searched for her. They found her at the bottom of a quarry this morning. She fell and broke her leg – bled to death.’ Another deep breath. ‘I had to identify her… body.’ My legs are wobbly, but I’m getting through it. ‘She died, Mum. She’s gone.’
The gold mantelpiece clock continues to tick as anger and injustice swell up inside me again. I long to knock it onto the carpet and smash it to smithereens, grinding the glass into the stained carpet. It’s ticking song mocks me, reminding me that time carries on while my daughter will not. And as it ticks on, my mother continues to stand there in complete silence, gawping at me. Twenty ticks later, a low moan emits from her open mouth and she starts to fall.
Alarmed, I reach out to try and steady her, but she bats away my hand with surprising force before collapsing on the carpet. She begins to wail, loud and obnoxious, like a siren that I can’t physically stand to hear. Awkwardly, not knowing how to comfort this woman who never comforted me, I place an arm over her shoulder and make soothing noises.
‘Come on, Mum. Try and sit on the chair. Come on.’
‘She’s… gone?’ Her eyes connect with mine, and not for the first time in my life I think about how much she resembles a child. ‘My poor baby.’
No. My baby. Mine. No one else’s. Anger floods back into my veins and I get to my feet, withdrawing myself from the woman on the floor. None of her wailing and moaning strikes me as genuine; instead it seems to me that she wants to make my daughter’s death about her, which is pretty much exactly what I thought she’d do. The dull ache in my skull begins to throb almost unbearably and I gaze across the room, searching for a bottle. Locking eyes on the bounty I need, I pick my way through the mounds of belongings to get to the glass cabinet, then open the door, snatch up a bottle of gin and take a long swig.
‘Give me some of that, will you?’
Miraculously, my grief-stricken mother has perked up at the sight of the alcohol. She climbs to her feet and reaches for the bottle.
&
nbsp; As she drinks, I sink down in one of the chairs and rub my temples. My martyr mother, the woman who lives like an angel outside the house, who changes as soon as she’s within these four walls. I expected nothing more from her and the whole encounter has left me with an unpleasant taste in my mouth. When I’m unhappy, I usually go to Grace to cheer me up. Happiness, for me, has always been fickle and fleeting, but Grace’s smile has certainly helped through the years. Her goofy jokes too. Charles bought her a book of jokes when she was eleven and she never stopped reading from it. Those memories are helping me get through this moment with my own mother and her manipulative histrionics. Now that she has the gin, she sits happily sucking it down like a baby from a bottle.
‘What happened?’ Mum asks, mollified by alcohol.
I shake my head; nothing about this feels real. ‘I don’t know. The police… Well, the police found a suicide note in the pocket of her dress. They believe she killed herself.’
A long silence draws out while I stare at my fingernails. She’d tried to claw her way out of that pit after falling. She’d tried with enough exertion to rip off her own fingernail in the process. Was that suicidal? Would she fight back to such an extreme?
Mum breaks the silence with a voice low enough to reverberate through the glass door of the cabinet. ‘What did you say to her?’
I lift my chin to meet her gaze. ‘What?’
Only Daughter: An gripping and emotional psychological thriller with a jaw-dropping twist Page 2