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

by Sarah A. Denzil

  On my way to the office my phone beeps: Why are you here?

  Another anonymous text. This time from the first number to text me.

  You should get out.

  I stop to reply: Why? What are you going to do?

  Make you pay for not keeping your nose out of my business.

  My response: Is this Daniel?

  Who’s Daniel?

  If it is, I think you’re the one who should be worried. You have no idea what you’ve started.

  When the text messages stop, I carry on down the hall to the head teacher’s office.

  ‘Get in here, Mrs Cavanaugh.’ Rita is on her feet. She ushers me in and shuts the door.

  ‘I have your address book.’ I take the slim book out of my bag and drop it on her desk. ‘I made a few notes. You should probably change those passwords; they aren’t particularly strong.’ I dump my bag on the carpet and sit down in the chair opposite her desk, waiting for her to get back to her seat.

  ‘Did you know that hackers start with the password? They use common passwords, like colours and flowers, and then they try different combinations with thousands of email addresses. The more unusual and complicated your password, the more secure your account is. Could I possibly get a glass of water? It’s very dry in here.’

  Rita stares at me open-mouthed, which is good, because I want her attention. ‘Did you seriously steal my address book and use my password for the school’s website?’

  ‘Yes, I did.’

  ‘That’s… a crime.’

  ‘Are you going to phone the police?’

  ‘I… I’m not sure,’ she says.

  ‘Let me tell you exactly why you’re not going to do that.’ I hold up one finger to instruct her to wait while I pull up the screenshot on my phone. ‘The music teacher, Mr Hawthorne, was having sex with my daughter. She was pregnant with his baby at the time of her death, and when she told him about it, he tried to make her abort the child. One of your students told me all about it, which she had to do because Grace never talked to me herself. You see? This is proof.’ I show her the phone. ‘So what’s going to happen is that you’re going to tell me where Daniel Hawthorne lives, and I’m going to go there now and explain to him why fucking my seventeen-year-old daughter was a very, very bad idea. I’ll also be talking to his wife.’

  Rita sighs. ‘Kat, wait.’

  ‘You don’t seem surprised, Rita. Did you know?’

  ‘It’s not that,’ she says. ‘It’s this screenshot. There’s no profile picture and the name is “Dan”, without a surname. You can’t see the mobile number. There’s no way of knowing for sure if this is Daniel Hawthorne.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Rita!’

  ‘This is an extremely serious allegation against a teacher. For one thing, I’m not giving you his address while you’re worked up like this. For another, I need to see the original texts to figure out if it really is Daniel. I won’t act without that, or at least the testimony of a credible witness.’

  ‘I’ll bring Lily in to speak to you.’

  ‘Lily who?’ she asks.

  Then it dawns on me that I never asked for her last name. ‘Shit. I don’t know. Hold on.’ I check the email address she used to forward the screenshot, but there’s no surname. ‘Look, I heard it from Ethan and Sasha that there were rumours about this relationship going around the school. Don’t you think that’s a pretty huge coincidence? Dan is Mr Hawthorne’s first name.’

  Rita speaks slowly, as though she’s dealing with one of the students. ‘It is, and it’s certainly an investigation that the school needs to make. We may even need to bring the police into this. But kids tell lies and make up stories, Kat. They always have and they always will. Daniel is barely twenty-four. He has a long career ahead of him, and he’s a target for these kinds of rumours because he’s young. You know that as well as I do. It could be a completely different Dan, anyway.’

  ‘Jesus.’ I put my head in my hands. ‘I don’t know what to believe anymore.’

  ‘Kat, you know I’m on your side,’ Rita says in a gentle voice. ‘Just give me some time before you act, okay? I’ll look into it.’

  I snatch my bag from the ground for the second time this afternoon. ‘An investigation by you isn’t good enough. If I find out that one of your teachers was involved in the death of my child, you’ll pay – along with Daniel Hawthorne. And that’s a promise.’ I lean over the desk and I let my guard down. I let all the emotion slip from my face. Rita takes a step away, her expression unsure and frightened.

  * * *

  All I want is to know what happened to her. All I want is to be able to visit Grace’s grave and know that I did right by her, that I fought for her. Nothing I do will bring her back, I know that, but there must be a reason she was taken away from me. All of this has to make sense, otherwise I’m not sure I can carry on living and breathing. How can I live with the nightmare of her chipped blue nails and her cold, stiff body? What’s the point in anything?

  In my dream there are two deaths. One where I see the light fade from a pair of brown eyes. Another where desperate fingers scrape against stone until they come back bloody and broken. I wake as a mouth opens to scream, the blackness of it threatening to swallow me whole. That’s no way to live, dreaming these things over and over.

  There is blame for the things that happened to my daughter, and if I can find a place to direct that blame, maybe the nightmare will stop. Maybe I can finally lay her to rest once and for all.

  Rita’s reaction to my concerns is a wake-up call. I know what I need to do next. It’s time to make use of the incredible wealth I married into.

  One thing that rich people sometimes like to do is find out what their lovers or spouses are up to behind their backs. I know at least one woman who hired a private investigator during a divorce to find proof that her husband was cheating on her. She got the house and custody of the children. When I call her, she gives me the name of the person she hired, telling me with glee that he’s very good in bed, apparently.

  ‘Thanks, Vanessa,’ I reply, ‘but I just want him for the investigative services.’

  Vanessa’s testimonial is perhaps a bit alarming, but without her recommendation I wouldn’t know where to begin. Who knows what kind of charlatans there are out there, ready and willing to take my money any way they can get it.

  Matthew Gould is the investigator’s name. We arrange a meeting for 2 p.m., and as I wait for that time to come around, I find myself pacing the library in Farleigh Hall, Georgie and Porgie knocking their tails against my legs, shedding black hairs over the antique rug. I take a glass of Pinot Noir with me, sipping it slowly, not wanting to consume too much alcohol before I leave. This is merely to help me relax, to reduce the anxiety building in my chest.

  I didn’t redecorate after Emily passed away three years ago, which is strange now that I think of it. She was this looming figure in Charles’s life and I resented her almost every minute. She chose the heavy curtains in the dining room and the red carpet in the bedrooms. The antique furniture is all either hers or has been inherited from Charles’s ancestors. The few modern rooms at Farleigh are the family room, which was once the billiard room, and the kitchen, which is the one place Emily allowed me free rein. ‘A wife should control her kitchen,’ she’d said, while delegating all of the cooking to our staff.

  As I pace back and forth in front of the many shelves of old books, I keep thinking back to the moment Charles and I told Emily I was pregnant. It was early into our ‘relationship’, if you can call it that. We’d been seeing each other for about nine weeks, and he still hadn’t broken things off with the other woman. I hadn’t been nervous as I’d arrived at the house with Charles. Instead, I remember thinking to myself that all of this could be mine if I played the game well. Charles was a man I felt I could easily manipulate. The only obstacle was his mother.

  She’d taken me into the kitchen to make tea and patted me gently on the arm.

  ‘You must be very
clever, dear, to get pregnant this fast. What did you do? Did you lie to him? How do I even know that the child is my son’s?’

  I made sure to act incredibly shocked and offended. ‘It was an accident.’

  But she’d just chuckled. ‘Oh yes, of course. You keep playing that act and don’t let it slip.’ She poured boiling water into the teapot, splashing a few droplets onto my hand. ‘If I’m honest, I’m struggling to be angry. Charles hasn’t had much luck with relationships and I was beginning to think I’d never have grandchildren.’ She paused and licked her lips. ‘There will be a paternity test once the child is born. I’m no fool.’

  Her threat didn’t worry me; I knew the baby was Charles’s, having never cheated on him. ‘I think it’s a boy,’ I’d said, hoping to win her over with the promise of an heir to the Cavanaugh business. Women like her always wanted boys.

  ‘Remember, Katie—’

  ‘Kat,’ I’d corrected, hoping to distance myself from everything that had happened with Annie Robertson at my old school.

  ‘Remember to keep that act up, dear, because I’ll be watching you. My son deserves a good wife.’ She’d lifted her pointed chin and raised her eyes – the same slate grey as her son’s – and fixed me with a long stare.

  It was at that moment I decided my life would be easier without Emily in it.

  Unfortunately, it took a long time to reach that point, and now I find myself wishing she were here. Emily Cavanaugh would have moved heaven and earth to find out why her grandchild died. And I could do with an ally as ruthless as myself.

  Twenty-Nine

  Matthew Gould hands me a latte when I meet him at his office in Buxton. He’s tall, relatively handsome, with wavy brown hair that catches on his stubbled jaw. He leans back in his chair, resting his ankle against his knee. Dressed casually in jeans and a flannel shirt, he reminds me of the kind of man cast as the love interest in a movie. A man at ease with who he is. Good on you, Vanessa. She goes up in my estimation.

  ‘Vanessa Richards recommended you,’ I say, as I sip on the excellent coffee. ‘Highly recommended you.’

  At that he grins, and his face becomes almost boyish. ‘How is she? We haven’t spoken in a while.’

  ‘She’s good. Filthy rich, thanks to you.’

  He performs a faux bow, tipping his chest forward slightly. ‘I try my best. Are you here to get rich too?’

  I shake my head, becoming more sombre. ‘My daughter died and I want to know what happened.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ he says.

  I bite my bottom lip, unsure how much to tell him right away. I don’t want to scare him away with my suspicions or with information about my past, but I know that I need to tell him enough so that he can investigate every possible avenue.

  ‘What happened to your daughter, if you don’t mind me asking?’

  ‘Not at all,’ I say cautiously. ‘It’s why I’m here. She fell, or was pushed, down Stonecliffe Quarry. The police conducted a short investigation, but because there was a note in her pocket, and because she was found in the “Suicide Spot” and there were no witnesses, her death was ruled a suicide. She bled out, alone and freezing cold, at the bottom of the quarry.’ When my voice cracks, he reaches down for a box of tissues, but I shake my head.

  ‘Would you like a glass of water?’ he asks.

  ‘No, thank you,’ I say, regaining control of my voice. I clear my throat as he waits patiently. ‘I don’t believe that my daughter did commit suicide. She had… issues – I can’t deny that – but the letter she left for us was odd, nothing like how she usually sounded. The police, however, decided that I was wrong. I have nowhere else to turn. That’s why I’m here.’

  He nods. ‘Let me quickly tell you what I do here. I listen, I investigate and I give you an honest report. I don’t judge people and I don’t make decisions without investigating the evidence first. You won’t be dismissed here, Mrs Cavanaugh.’

  Relief floods through my body. I didn’t realise how much I needed to be believed until this moment. I launch into the rest of my tale, telling him all about the pregnancy, the back-stabbing between her friends, my husband’s sneaking around, finishing with the text messages I believe are from Daniel Hawthorne to my daughter. After I’m done talking, I finally understand the expression ‘warts and all’ because I’ve laid it all bare. For once, it makes me feel vulnerable, and a little nervous of his reaction. As I wait for him to speak, I try to ignore these uncomfortable, and fleeting, emotions which I’m not used to experiencing.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ he says. ‘Losing a child is… Well, there aren’t any words…’ His easy bravado is gone, and I see him adjust his weight, obviously trying to work out what to say. ‘You only found out about her pregnancy after she died? That’s…’ He shakes his head.

  ‘You don’t need to worry about me.’ I pick up one of the complimentary pens from his desk and tap it against the wood. ‘I’m tough; I can handle anything life throws at me. Even when life has decided to lob razor blades my way.’ I hope the tone of my voice doesn’t undermine the strength of my words. The truth is that the last few weeks have been the worst of my life, but until I find Grace’s killer, I’ll keep going. Tap. Tap. Tap. The Pinot Noir has failed at keeping me calm. I inhale deeply to steady myself. ‘There’s more that I need to tell you. I don’t know for sure that this is linked – in fact, it probably isn’t – but there’s some stuff in my past.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘I’ve been receiving these threats.’ I show Matthew the texts on my phone. ‘In one of them, the sender addressed me by my maiden name, Flack, which suggests that they know about my background. My birth name was Katie Flack. I prefer Kat now, and my married name is Cavanaugh.’

  ‘I’ll make a note of the number.’ Matthew takes a pen and scribbles it down in a notebook.

  ‘Using my maiden name might be nothing more than a ploy to rattle me. Some of the snootier people around here have never accepted me into the fold because of my poor upbringing. I grew up on a council estate. But…’

  Matthew lifts his head. ‘Go on.’

  ‘I had anger issues at school. It’s possible that there’s someone out there, from my past, with a grudge. Perhaps Grace’s death, with the report on the news, brought me some unwanted attention. The text messages came from different numbers. Some focused on Grace, whereas others threatened me. What if they’re different people? Honestly, I’m confused and I don’t know what to think. I’ve shown some of these messages to the police as well. They think that because of the high-profile nature of Grace’s death, it’s someone’s idea of having a laugh. It wouldn’t be hard to figure out that I’m Katie Flack. It’s not a secret that I’ve hidden away. You can pull up my police record, too. It’ll tell you all about my…’ I search for the right word. ‘Difficult past.’

  Matthew raises an eyebrow. ‘I’m sorry. You don’t seem…’

  ‘The type?’ I suggest. ‘Trust me, I am. No matter how hard I try to escape Katie Flack, she keeps finding me.’

  * * *

  She’s screaming as she rolls around on the dirty ground, her eyes bloodshot and red-rimmed, her mouth cavernous. Her desperate fingers claw the dirt, but it does nothing to help her and a blue nail peels from her finger. I’m forced to watch as her head is slammed into the soil, knowing I can’t do anything to stop this from happening. Her head is smashed down for a second time. When she lifts her chin I see the red blood trickling from her nose. She screams but no one can hear her – except me. Her eyes find mine and there is nothing but hate in her expression. Pure hate.

  I don’t know what’s worse: the scream, or the silence that comes after. Within the silence hangs the suspense, because I know what’s going to happen next, and I know that I can’t stop it. When my arms are pinned down behind me, I realise that my lips are moving and I’m begging for it to stop. Fear takes control of my body. I care about nothing and no one except getting away and surviving. I want to survive, and I will at all costs.
>
  I jolt awake as though electrocuted, sitting straight up, my chest rising and falling, my heart knocking hard against my ribs. My body is hot all over, and for the first few seconds, I’m almost positive that I can smell dirt and blood mingled together. But that’s impossible, because I’m here in my room, staring at the wall, staring at my dress on its hanger, ready for the day ahead.

  The door to the room opens and Charles stands in the doorway, hair mussed, eyelids drooping.

  ‘What is it?’ My husband has that thick, drowsy voice that everyone has when they wake from a deep sleep. ‘Nightmare?’

  ‘Yes. How did you…?’

  ‘You were screaming,’ he says.

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I thought they’d stopped.’

  ‘No. They haven’t stopped.’

  They will never stop. They will only get worse.

  * * *

  In the movie version, the mother would sit back and cry and accept her daughter’s suicide. She’d be at home with mascara-stained eyes while the father is out there with a baseball bat, threatening anyone who hurt his daughter. I’m not the movie mum and I’m not the movie dad either. This is how I fight. I use my brain and I use the charm I was given. I’m going to fight back with everything I have. Maybe, if my investigation fails, I might get out the baseball bat and give it a go. One thing I do know is that the person who hurt my daughter will be found.

  Since seeing Matthew Gould a few days ago, my nightmares are even more intense than before, and I’m beginning to consider that the cause is my lack of trust in Charles. He doesn’t trust me either. Since our tentative truce, we’ve lived in our own spaces. I tell him my suspicions about Grace and he nods along, not giving much away about his thoughts. The thorny issue of divorce hasn’t come up since the day I confronted him. But this lack of trust is the reason for my next move.