Only Daughter: An gripping and emotional psychological thriller with a jaw-dropping twist

by Sarah A. Denzil

  ‘You must have said or done something to her. A young girl like that doesn’t kill herself if she has a loving mother.’ She sets the gin bottle down next to the electric fire, avoiding eye contact.

  ‘You think that I made Grace suicidal?’ My voice is barely audible over the sound of the ticking clock. But I don’t whisper in anger; rather shock. Out of all the ways I’d imagined this conversation, her blaming me hadn’t made the cut. However, now that I’m here in front of her, the woman who barely gave a shit about me my entire life, somehow it all makes sense.

  She snatches up the bottle and takes another swig. ‘That girl was perfect. It’s you who ruined her.’ One more glug. ‘You were never right. You came out wrong. Too much of him in you.’

  ‘Him’ is my father, the man who had the indecency to leave my toxic mother when she was pregnant with me. It was probably the best decision he ever made.

  ‘Grace didn’t kill herself.’ I stand. ‘I don’t care what the police think. Someone made her write that note and then they pushed her over the edge.’

  ‘Who would want to do that?’ Her words are beginning to slur from the quarter bottle of gin she has drained.

  ‘I don’t know. Either someone who wanted to hurt Grace or someone who wanted to hurt me.’

  She lets out a humourless laugh. ‘You’re already making her death about yourself, aren’t you? Poor Katie. You must be loving this. How many people have you told already?’

  ‘I haven’t told anyone,’ I lie.

  Her eyes narrow and she nods knowingly. ‘I feel sorry for Grace, I do. In fact, I always have felt sorry for her. You might have the money, but that’s all you’ve got. At least I have a real family here.’

  ‘That’s right, Mum. You chose your family, didn’t you? And that family never included me, did it?’

  ‘You never wanted family, Katie.’

  ‘That’s not true.’

  She takes another swig and stares at the fire.

  ‘You’ve never forgiven me for what I did; that’s the real truth,’ I say.

  She swallows the gin before responding. Her voice is low, emotionless, and her eyes never move from the fire. ‘Well, not everyone has a child like you, do they? A violent, twisted piece of shit.’ Finally, her eyes meet mine. ‘How do you sleep at night, Katie?’

  Four

  I’ve not been Katie Flack for a long time. The name still carries a bit of infamy around Old Barrow, certainly at my old school, and that’s one of the reasons why I never go home. Running into people from that part of my life is never a pleasant experience.

  I was ten years old when I first started acting out. My school had a reputation for being rough, with plenty of troubled kids coming off the council estates nearby. Out of a bad bunch, I was one of the worst. There was barely a day that went by without me getting into a fight. I broke Lucy Bates’s nose, gave Kevin Clarke a black eye and kicked our PE teacher in the shin, among other misdemeanours. My violence was the beginning of a conduct disorder. It led to what happened with Annie Robertson. It led to nightmares, and more violence, and an event so appalling that my mother never forgave me.

  ‘I’ll let you know when the funeral is arranged.’ As I open the back door, letting some much-needed clean air into the kitchen, I can hear Mum shuffling behind me. She’s quick enough to reach me before I leave.

  ‘So that’s it then? You’re going to drop this news on me and go?’ Mum places her hand on the door to hold it open.

  ‘I won’t stay here and be insulted by you. For one thing, you insinuated that I was responsible for my daughter’s death.’ I step into the wasteland of her back garden, completely devoid of anything green.

  ‘It was the gin talking,’ she replies.

  That lifts my hackles, because I know it’s a barefaced lie. I rotate on my heel to face her. ‘Did Grace ever visit you?’

  When a slow smile spreads across her lips, all the blood drains from my face. ‘Yes.’

  ‘On her own?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She knows I hate this and she loves it. Now she has the upper hand. I wish I could slap away that smug expression.

  ‘Well? When? Recently?’

  ‘Two weeks ago.’

  I shift my weight from one foot to the other. Though I’d come to my mother all guns blazing – after all, when bad things happen in my life, it’s usually connected to my mother – I hadn’t expected this. The last time I saw the two of them together was at a disastrous Christmas dinner three years ago. Charles had hoped to repair our relationship by inviting Mum as a surprise to us both. It was his first Christmas since his mother had passed, and it had awakened the romantic notion in him that family must appreciate each other no matter what.

  I can’t stop myself from asking, ‘What did you do? What did you talk about?’

  ‘We talked about you.’ Her voice is soft; she is relishing the power this new information has given her. ‘Among other things.’

  ‘Was she upset about anything?’

  ‘They were private talks, Katie.’

  My hands ball into fists of frustration. ‘Well now she’s dead, so I don’t think her secrets matter anymore.’ My chest tightens, like elastic wound into a knot. Grace is dead. My daughter is dead. She’s dead. Every time I say it, it doesn’t sound real. A bizarre combination of words that string together to make no sense whatsoever. Standing in the garden of my childhood home, facing my childhood bully, I feel too far away from my daughter. I need to go home and be in her room again. Why did I leave? Why did I come here?

  ‘We talked about school, what she was up to, that kind of thing.’ She shrugs. ‘Maybe you didn’t know your daughter as well as you thought you did…’ Mum backs away from the door. There’s a hint of a smile on her face, slowly turning into a smirk, because she’s won the game, she’s rattled me to my core. A question runs through my mind: Did you ever even care about Grace? But I can’t muster up the strength to say the words out loud.

  And with that, the door closes. A fleck of old, dry paint flutters from the door frame, mere inches from my nose. Before I walk away, I peel another long, crumbling piece of paint from the wood, giving myself a moment to stop shaking.

  Did you make me who I am, Mum? And, in turn, did I affect who you were, Grace?

  * * *

  On the journey home, I long for Mum’s bottle of gin to warm up my freezing insides. This driver is thankfully a silent one, and we pass through the rolling green hills of Derbyshire without a peep between us. There’s nothing left in me for idle conversation. If I’d thought I was hollowed out after the hospital this morning, the meeting with my mother has destroyed what was left. I find myself scrolling through my phone, because when my fingers are at rest they quiver like an alcoholic’s.

  What did you do, Grace? Why would you willingly go to that woman? Didn’t she know that my mother is nothing more than a spider waiting for prey?

  But Mum could well be lying about those visits. It might be one of her cruel games to twist the knife. She never laid a finger on me when I was a child, but I don’t remember her smiling unless I was crying. There’s no doubt in my mind that every bit of badness in me I owe to my mother. Every manipulation, every time I lash out, it’s because I learned it from her.

  All the good parts of me were shaped by Grace. Not even my mother can take that away from me. I won’t let her.

  The closer we get to Farleigh Hall, the more the memories of Grace come flooding in. Charles’s family estate is a few miles out of a small village called Ash Dale, between Bakewell and Buxton. The taxi swings through the village, following the path of the Wye, with views of the Peak District all around us. It’s in Ash Dale that Grace went to primary school, where she learned how to read and write, how to add up numbers and make friends with other children. She went orienteering in the woods behind the mining museum. If you take a right out of Ash Dale village instead of following the main road to the left, you reach the Ash Mills, part of the industrial landscape t
hat Charles’s ancestors helped to shape. I once made a Victorian-style outfit for Grace to wear on a school trip there. She learned all about Geoffrey Cavanaugh, the man who built Farleigh Hall: a great Victorian industrialist who owned several paint factories in and around the area, along with, of all things, Stonecliffe Quarry. The thought has me reeling, my belly full of gin flipping over like it’s on a spin cycle, but the driver doesn’t notice as I briefly close my eyes to steady myself.

  The taxi travels up the hill from Ash Dale, moving away from the Wye, bending with the roads as they narrow and narrow. Finally, we come to a wider area with a flat expanse of never-ending green, and in the middle of all that green is Farleigh Hall. The taxi veers right onto the driveway, gravel crunching beneath the tyres, through two wrought-iron gates built in 1885. How many times did I drive Grace through these gates after collecting her from school? How many times did I ask her to turn the radio down as she bopped along to One Direction, her hair swinging from side to side? How many times did I roll my eyes as she formed a heart shape out of her fingers to express her love for Zayn?

  She’d been a bubbly girl before the teenage years set in. While there were fewer hearts and not as much One Direction, my Grace was still a cheerful soul all the way up to seventeen. She’d never donned black eyeliner and Doc Martens and grunted like the girls I went to school with.

  We pass the stables (empty since Charles’s deceased mother, Emily, stopped riding), the aged and battered Land Rover (because old money doesn’t need to shout about it), the woodshed, the tasteful cherub statue on the drive and, finally, we reach the house.

  Grace called it the ‘cross house’ when she was four years old. Rich, romantic Geoffrey built the house in mock Tudor style, with black beams criss-crossing over the whitewashed walls. Climbing ivy loops over the archway of the front door. This brings back memories of Grace at that age, trying to grasp the leaves dangling down whenever Charles carried her into the house.

  Both Georgie and Porgie are whining at the door when I enter, tails wagging, eyes big and confused. I’ve learned to recognise that these are their hungry faces. I head into the old pantry, now converted into a utility room, to feed them.

  ‘Don’t bother.’ A stumbling Charles approaches, stops and leans against the door frame. ‘I already fed them.’

  Idly stroking one on the nose, I examine the two dogs more closely. ‘They’re looking for Grace.’

  Charles nods and his head bobs up and down, chin hitting chest.

  ‘Do you think they know?’

  Charles shrugs. ‘Maybe. I think they knew when Mum passed. I still take them to her grave every week and they sit there for a few minutes.’ He leans down and scratches the ears of one of the dogs. I think it’s Porgie, judging by the slightly more amber tint of his eyes.

  ‘I didn’t know you visited Emily’s grave every week.’ Would a good wife know that her husband visited his mother’s grave every week? Should a good wife know?

  ‘I’ll have another grave to visit soon. So will you. Unless we decide on a cremation. What do you think?’ Despite slurring his words a smidge, Charles seems to have pulled himself together. He crouches down, staring up at me with bloodshot eyes, Porgie licking his fingers.

  ‘I don’t… I hadn’t.’ The thought of Grace in the cold ground repulses me, makes me feel dirty. But if we cremate her she’ll burn away to nothing. ‘I need some air.’ The utility room is too small and musty, stinking of wellies and damp umbrellas. Grace never did air out her umbrella after the latest downpour like I asked.

  ‘We need to decide, Kat. We need to arrange the funeral.’ He follows me out of the room and into the kitchen, the sound of the dogs pattering behind. ‘Oh.’ He stops and sighs. ‘I forgot to ask how it went.’

  ‘How you’d imagine. Where’s that whisky you were drinking?’ Cupboard doors open and slam shut. My head continues to throb – not that alcohol will help that. Grace’s mug, with a large gold G on it, stares at me from the middle shelf.

  ‘Is she going to come and stay with us? Help out with the funeral?’

  ‘No.’ I close the cupboard door, turn to him and lean against the counter.

  ‘I’m sorry, Kat,’ he says.

  But I’m shaking my head. ‘What for?’

  His eyes are wet again. He pulls me into a hug, but for once it doesn’t feel like it’s meant for him.

  Charles and I aren’t a touchy-feely couple. He knows that I hate most body contact. We certainly don’t go walking down the street hand in hand like a couple of teenagers. Yet I lean in to him and I hold him close. He’s soft and warm, smelling like lemon and sandalwood.

  ‘How are you holding up?’ he asks. ‘Because I’m a total fucking mess.’

  ‘I… Well…’ Before I can answer, the house phone shrieks. Usually one of the maids would pick up the phone, but they haven’t been here since Grace failed to come back from school yesterday.

  Charles moves across the room to take the call, leaving me with an oddly cold aftertaste. At least I find the bottle of Scotch on the breakfast bar. I grab a tumbler, pour a large measure and promise myself that this is my last one. We’ve both had too much to drink; I’m aware of that. But what else will take me away from the grim reality? Every time I close my eyes, I see her face. I see blue fingernails and blue-tinged skin.

  ‘Yes. Right. Okay.’

  Is it our first condolence call? There’s been no announcement yet. Soon an outpouring of grief will begin, because Ash Dale is far too small a village not to mourn the bright and beautiful. They’ll mourn Grace and cry for her and they’ll send us food, but none of them will want to help uncover the truth. I’ll be on my own for that, mark my words. Luckily, I have enough simmering anger at my disposal to make sure whoever hurt her will pay. Because there’s no way Grace killed herself. No way.

  ‘Are… are you sure? No, that’s not possible.’ Charles’s voice begins to tremble.

  I set down the glass and move closer to my husband, until we’re face-to-face and I can clearly see the pallor that has spread across his skin. There are tiny droplets of sweat on his upper lip.

  ‘What is it?’ I mouth.

  Could it be the police calling to inform us of a development? Evidence that someone pushed her, perhaps? Bruise marks on her skin, or… or worse? Was she hit? Did she suffer?

  He hangs up, drops his gaze. Won’t look at me.

  ‘What is it?’

  A shiver of fear snakes down my spine.

  ‘Grace was two months pregnant at the time of her death,’ he says at last.

  I don’t react, simply stare at him silently, every part of me still. Grace was two months pregnant… The sentence sounds alien. I have no emotional connection to what he’s saying to me; it’s nothing more than a jumble of words that don’t belong together.

  ‘What? But that’s not possible. She was just a kid!’ Her Ariana Grande posters are still on the wall. There’s a stuffed bear on a shelf. Her nail-polish colours range from pink to bright yellow. How could that same girl, my child, be pregnant?

  ‘They’re sure, Kat. Grace… she was… she would’ve had a baby.’

  The betrayal of what he’s saying to me hits me hard in the abdomen, like two short, sharp punches. I take a moment before I draw air back into my lungs. It’s as I take a second breath that I become fully awake. She would’ve had a baby…

  I open my eyes and allow my anger to take shape, to give me the strength I so desperately need. Whoever hurt my daughter has no idea who they are dealing with or the lengths I will go to in order to find out what happened to my child.

  My mother did not exaggerate my past. There are certain things about me that no one in my carefully crafted, perfect life knows. I’d put my previous behaviour behind me for one person: Grace. Now Grace is gone.

  Five

  Silently, Charles and I make our way to the nearest chairs, by the kitchen table, and sink into them. We sit next to each other, neither one of us looking at the other. Both sic
kly, pale versions of ourselves, like two crumbling statues. He has no idea of the decision I’ve made. He thinks I’m taking in all of this, slowly, like him. What I’m actually doing is trying to figure out where to start in order to find out who impregnated my little girl. To find out what happened to her. Did she even know she was pregnant?

  ‘Did she have a boyfriend?’ Charles asks. ‘I… Why didn’t I know about any of this?’

  ‘She did,’ I reply. ‘But… I didn’t know about the baby either, you know. She never told me.’

  Yes, I knew about the boyfriend, but I hadn’t even entertained the idea that Grace was having sex. The boy she’d once brought to the house was short with mousy-brown hair, struggling to grow a moustache. He never came across as much to worry about. I’d thought she could do much better, but that was about it. Teenage girls tend to develop differently to boys. Girls are beautiful in a gangly, giggly way at that age, whereas the boys are awkward creatures, in-between any kind of identity, sporting patchy facial hair and dousing themselves in terrible aftershave.

  But what if I’d fallen into the same trap so many other mothers fall into? Everyone else’s kid is having sex and drinking and staying out late, but not my kid. My kid is special. My child is – was – perfect, at least to me, and the idea of contemplating anything other than that perfection hurts almost as much as the fact that I’ll never see her again.

  ‘What’s his name? I’m going to kill him.’ My usually mild-mannered husband is on his feet in half a heartbeat, red blotches spreading from chin to chest as though he’s been tie-dyed. His mad eyes roam, find my glass of whisky; he lifts it and lobs it into the oven door, breaking both.

  ‘Fuck!’ he yells. ‘Fuck. This.’

  ‘Come here, sweetheart.’ I gesture to him with my arms out wide. This is what he needs – more comfort. For once I wish Emily was here, to take some of the comforting responsibility. In life, I resented her closeness to my husband, but now I wish she was here to help carry this weight that’s pressing down on me. ‘You’re not going to kill Grace’s boyfriend.’ He folds into my arms. His head rests on my shoulder and I stroke his hair.