Every part of my body tenses with pure rage. ‘Take that back.’ I pause, desperately trying to control myself. ‘I went to every school play, I took her wherever she wanted to go, I spent time with her…’ I stop talking as he slowly shakes his head.
‘Yeah, when you felt like it. You didn’t go to every school play. You’d have months of total disinterest in our daughter, until finally something would click and you’d start paying attention again. I gave you a pass because of what you went through with your own mother, but it’s clear that I made the wrong fucking decision, because she’d still be here if I hadn’t. That’s the way I killed her. You wanted to know that, didn’t you? I killed her because I allowed you to hurt her.’
Beneath the table, my legs are trembling. This is all wrong. He’s all wrong. I was a good mother. Grace never wanted for anything. She never knew about the emptiness inside me because I took every precaution to keep it from her. Fake it until you make it, that was me. That was how I became a mother.
‘And you’re right about another thing: I did lie to you about where I was on the day Grace went missing. I wasn’t at the office in Derby and I wasn’t in a meeting in Nottingham; I was in Sheffield, speaking to a consultant at Weston Park Hospital.’
All of the pent-up rage drains from my body, leaving me bloodless and limp. H for hospital.
Charles rolls up a sleeve to reveal a bruise on the inside of his forearm. How had I not noticed that? ‘In case you wanted proof, here you go. This is from one of several blood tests I’ve had recently. And I haven’t fucked you, Kat, because I have cancer.’
A cold sense of dread hits me in my core and the noise of the bar narrows until all I can hear is a high-pitched buzzing. Charles leans across the table and shakes my arm.
‘No, don’t you dare. Don’t you dare faint on me. You’re going to listen to this. I’m dying. My daughter killed herself two weeks ago and I’m dying. She had an illness, Kat. I don’t know if it’s the same illness you have, because I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but I know that she wasn’t well and that’s why she took her own life. Are you listening?’
I limply nod my head.
‘I’ll send you the records of my hospital visits; I’ll send you the emails that record my appointments; and we’ll see the consultant together. I’m not lying. I have prostate cancer and perhaps I’ll soon be with our daughter again.’
Twenty-Two
Charles walks out of the bar and leaves me sitting in front of an open laptop and a half-empty glass of wine. I can’t stand up because my legs are trembling all the way from my hips to my toes. All I can do is wait until it passes.
I sit there alone, trying not to picture the expression on Charles’s face as he told me about his cancer diagnosis. But when I stop imagining Charles’s face, I see Grace, staring at me, judging me for what I did.
But it made sense, Grace. I thought everything pointed to him.
No, that isn’t true. My mother got in my head and made me think it was him. I examined the evidence and made it fit what I believed. How could I have got it all so wrong?
After about an hour, I finally feel able to stand. With numb fingers, I slowly pack away the laptop, go to the bathroom, splash cold water on my face and leave.
* * *
Georgie and Porgie leap up to my waist, licking my hands, wagging their tails. All I can think about is Emily Cavanaugh, the matriarch, the woman Charles respected more than anyone else. I never met his father; he died in a car accident several years before we began our relationship, which I think made Emily even more protective of her son. If she knew what I’d accused Charles of, I would be out of this house in an instant – back to nothing. Back to poverty.
While Charles’s words about divorce were said during a flash of anger, I can’t help but think that I should begin to protect myself, in case he was serious. After all, how can we possibly go on after I accused him of abusing our child? That in itself is marriage-ending, isn’t it?
My mind runs through practicalities. There’s an account with money in it that I can call my own, but the rest is spread around Charles’s own accounts. He could try to screw me in the divorce, which means I might need a decent solicitor.
But as I stroke Porgie’s head, all those thoughts disappear. None of that matters. I don’t care about the money or a possible return to poverty. If what Charles said is true, then my husband of almost eighteen years is ill, and I need to process that, but right now all I can think about is Grace. When I close my eyes, I see her bleeding through her clothes, pawing at the quarry stone, the ghosts of the Suicide Spot terrorising her mind. I still don’t know what happened to her, and I’ll never find out if Charles kicks me out of the house.
I need to figure out what might happen next. He might insist I find a hotel or stay with a friend, or he might go down to London and stay there. Maybe he’ll cool down enough for us to stay in the house together – temporarily, at least. I push Porgie away and he whimpers, but it’s all a show. He merely wants more food. Greedy.
My feet ache; my belly is empty; I’m weakened by the stress of the day. Perhaps it’s time to concede that I cannot do this in the clinical way I thought I could. This emotional wound is opening up. I thought I could force it to clot with my anger, but I can’t.
The dogs follow me through the house as I collect the laptop and take it through to the family room. I’m in the process of booting up the computer when the house phone rings. I shoo a barking Georgie away and snatch the phone from the coffee table.
‘Hello?’
‘Hi, this is Chloe from the Waterford catering company. We’re calling about the event next week.’
‘What event? Sorry, there’s been a family tragedy and I’ve been all over the place. You’ll have to remind me.’
‘I’m so sorry…’ She hesitates. ‘It’s the charity clay-pigeon shoot that you’re hosting at Farleigh Hall – proceeds going to the Prince’s Countryside Fund. We’re arranging the catering…’
‘I’d forgotten all about it,’ I admit. ‘Can I call you back?’ With everything going on, I’m not sure I’ll even be here next week.
Just as I’m hanging up the phone, I hear the front door opening, and while the person makes their way through the hallway, I consider heading upstairs in case it’s Charles. But then Michelle walks into the family room, her usual easy smile brightening the gloomy atmosphere.
‘Afternoon, Mrs Cavanaugh,’ she says. ‘Want me to let the dogs out for a run?’
‘That would be great, thanks.’
‘Oh, you don’t look at all well.’ She stops in her tracks, frowning like a disapproving mother. ‘Have you eaten?’
‘No,’ I confess. ‘I’m a bit under the weather, to be honest.’
‘Let me make you some toast,’ she suggests. ‘Toast and butter. It’s what my mother always used to make for me when I was sick.’ When she smiles, her grey eyes twinkle. In her fifties now, Michelle is still an attractive woman. I envy her warmth. Some people exude goodness, and that can’t be faked – no matter how much I try.
‘I’m not sick. But I don’t feel well either.’
‘I know,’ she says, already on her way out of the room. ‘But you need to keep your strength up.’
I lean back on the sofa with the laptop open on my thighs. The document detailing Charles’s wrongdoings is open on the screen. It would be tacky, but I can still threaten him with its release. If a journalist found out about these health-and-safety violations, the chain of pubs Charles inherited when his father died would be closed down pretty swiftly. Perhaps I still have the upper hand here, if not the moral high ground. The thought of using this information against Grace’s father is one of the many causes of my nausea. But then I have a second thought: I haven’t checked the validity of Charles’s story yet. What if the cancer is nothing more than a fabrication?
Who would lie about having cancer? Someone without remorse. A killer.
I need to be careful if I’m to uncov
er the truth, and I need to make sure I’m not too hasty in accepting excuses and stories. Even now, after the day I’ve had, I can’t trust Charles. I can’t trust anyone.
* * *
By the time he comes home, it’s dark, Michelle is gone and I’m alone in the family room, feet curled under my body, the grey dress loose around my disappearing frame. Even though I want to self-medicate, I am forcing myself to avoid any kind of alcohol in order to keep my faculties sharp and fresh. This is not going to be easy.
Charles stumbles into the house, tripping over the umbrella stand – I hear it crashing onto the tiles – then bumping against the hallway wall. He falls over his feet as he comes into the room and sees me snuggled up on the sofa.
‘I thought you’d be gone.’
‘No,’ I say carefully. ‘I’m still here. And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry about earlier.’
Charles collapses into a chair and begins removing his shoes. ‘It’s worth nothing, Kat. Nothing at all.’
‘Someone murdered our daughter. Aren’t you angry about that?’
He throws his brogue to the floor and it thuds against the thick carpet. ‘Our daughter was ill and she killed herself. She was depressed. Here.’ He pulls a small square of card from his trouser pocket and throws it down at my feet. ‘Call her therapist if you don’t believe me. She was lost, and we failed her.’ He crumples in, face reddening, nose streaming. But there’s a hardness to him now. He pulls himself together with a lot more ease than before. ‘I want you gone. I won’t live with a woman who thinks I could rape and murder my own daughter.’
‘No,’ I say softly. ‘We’re going to work through this.’
He regards me with complete incredulity. ‘Are you insane?’
‘Maybe.’ I smile at him through the darkness. ‘I don’t care what you say, Charles. Someone killed our only child and I’m going to find out who. Here.’ I toss him my phone. ‘Look at the texts I’ve been getting.’
Charles has to hold the phone at arm’s length to read it. ‘What are these? Are they threats?’
‘Yes.’
‘What was the link in this one? I click on it and it doesn’t go anywhere.’
I switch on the laptop and open the video of Grace bullying the dark-haired girl. Charles watches with his hand over his mouth. ‘Play it again.’ I do and he shakes his head. ‘If someone told me about this, I wouldn’t believe them.’
‘Me neither.’
He sighs, passes me the phone, then leans back against the chair, his greasy, thinning hair creating a halo. ‘This is all so fucked up.’
‘And we haven’t even got to your cancer yet.’
He begins to laugh, and a low chuckle reverberates around the room.
‘You know, whatever happens, I’ll always be grateful for what you did for me,’ I say. ‘Without you, I’d be working behind a bar, or on drugs and living with my mother.’
He shakes his head. ‘No, you wouldn’t.’
‘I was convinced that the one thing I did right in this world was Grace, but now I’m not so sure.’ I shake my head. ‘Do you think Grace had, I don’t know, a personality disorder or something?’
He turns to me sharply. ‘The therapist would have told me.’
‘How did you get the therapist to tell you about Grace’s sessions?’ I ask.
‘I paid her.’ He shrugs. ‘Everyone has a price.’ When he sees the surprise on my face, he adds, ‘It’s the way the world works.’
‘How unremorseful of you.’ But he’s right, as much as I hate to admit it. ‘Do you think most rich people don’t care about other people? If you grow up getting whatever you want, does it stop you empathising with others?’
He stares out into the distance. ‘I don’t know. I don’t think so.’
Twenty-Three
A reluctant agreement is made, because even though Charles hasn’t quite come around to my thinking, he at least wants to understand what happened to Grace just before she died. Our truce is fragile, with broken trust on both sides. I would like to trust him again, if only to have an ally to help me get through this, but I’m not there yet. Proof of both the therapy and the cancer would help.
Charles moves into one of the spare rooms, but we decide to remain living together as part of our pact to find out what happened to Grace. Part of that agreement involves having a daily conversation about what I’ve discovered. Our truce includes going ahead with the charity event, which is now fast approaching. I even tell Charles some of the things I’ve learned about Alicia and Ethan – missing out my little misdemeanours, like sending the orchestra all of Alicia’s bitchy messages and saving her cosy videos with Ethan in case I need them for leverage in the future.
The text messages have ceased for now, which makes me wonder why the sender has stopped. I haven’t been to the school, therefore inadvertently complying with the threat about poking my nose in where it isn’t wanted. What could I possibly have learned at Lady Margaret’s that day? The messages came from two numbers, but were they from the same person? Or two separate people with two separate agendas? Staying away from the school doesn’t have any link to me seeing who Grace ‘really was’.
I decide to take Charles’s advice and call Grace’s therapist. A woman called Dr Bruner, who insists that I call her Mandy, answers the phone and agrees to answer my questions.
‘I was so sorry to hear about Grace passing away,’ she gushes. ‘I wanted to come to the funeral, but I’m afraid I didn’t feel up to it. When a patient, and such a young patient, passes away, it’s…’ She drifts off, as though recognising that there’s no good way to end that sentence. ‘She was a lovely girl.’
I can’t bring myself to play this game, to acknowledge all the virtues my daughter possessed, to explain my grief to another person and wait for their pity or judgement. Instead, I dive in. ‘My husband paid you extra to tell him about Grace’s sessions.’
‘Oh, I… Well, it wasn’t quite like that.’
‘It was, Dr Bruner. Mandy. It was exactly like that.’
She sniffs. I ignore it.
‘Was Grace depressed?’
‘I never made that diagnosis,’ she admits. ‘But I would say that she was suffering from anxiety. She was very concerned about school and she showed signs of stress. I told Mr Cavanaugh all of this.’
‘When was the last time you saw her?’ I ask.
‘Let me think,’ she replies. ‘It would have been the Thursday before…’
‘She died,’ I finish, aware that my voice is unemotional and that dear old Mandy is probably diagnosing me already.
‘She was upset as soon as she walked in the room. I asked her to tell me what was wrong, but she wasn’t communicative that day. I remember it well because she was out of sorts. She left early, in fact, because she didn’t want to talk.’
I press a hand to my abdomen, sickened by the thought of Grace lost and tearful, storming out of her therapy session. ‘Was she behaving in a way that would be consistent with her taking her own life?’
‘Oh, well now, Mrs Cavanaugh, that isn’t a question I can answer. People behave in all different manners before they commit suicide. Some are very distressed, others are in fact very amenable and happy. To be honest, a lot of people who commit suicide show relief, because they’ve made the decision and that alleviates some of their pain.’
Pain. There’s that word again. How it creeps into our lives, sometimes treading softly and sneakily, other times stomping its great feet. I never imagined that I would ever experience as much pain as I do right now, listening to this woman describe my smiley, enthusiastic daughter as someone who could have committed suicide. Someone who was in pain. To me she’s still the same eight-year-old who sang karaoke all through Christmas, who even managed to force Emily Cavanaugh into a duet for ‘Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree’.
‘Okay, thank you.’ She’s still speaking as I put down the phone, but all I want is silence.
* * *
I’m awake a
t night again, staring at my outfit for the shoot tomorrow: a cream cashmere V-neck, Marc Jacobs trousers in camel and a tweed hunting jacket. Later, for the dinner, I’ll change into a white knee-length dress with a cropped pink jacket. Soft, malleable, approachable. All the hard edges are gone, and I’ll be rounded off, like a shark with its teeth filed.
It’s been five days since I accused Charles of killing Grace and I’m still not even close to uncovering what happened to her. But Charles took me to see the consultant who diagnosed his prostate cancer, which took place in the correct hospital, in the right department. It all adds up, except for the fact that I can’t stop thinking about one thing Charles said: everyone has a price.
Do I trust him? Not fully. Not completely. I still don’t trust anyone on this earth.
* * *
The next morning, I complete the look with a slick of lip gloss and two long curls framing my face. As soon as my outfit is on and my hair and make-up are complete, the tired and stressed Kat fades away and I become someone reborn. I even eat breakfast as the caterers set up, this time without any hint of nausea. The house bustles with excitement, and yet Charles and I are silent.
His agreement was grudging – the text messages his one reason for carrying on. But at least he’s entertaining the idea that Grace was killed. As he sits cleaning his shotgun ready for the shoot later, I notice his jaw is set with determination. Today, our house will be a battleground.
When I move to the morning-room window to watch the cars arrive, all I can think about is the day of Grace’s funeral as we’d lined up in this spot, waiting for the coffin. If I close my eyes, I can see the deep mahogany of the wooden box and imagine her lying in the soft cream interior. I pull out my phone and call her again, suddenly remembering that I still haven’t found her missing phone.
Only Daughter: An gripping and emotional psychological thriller with a jaw-dropping twist Page 15