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

by Sarah A. Denzil

  Matthew is in the process of uncovering the dirt on Daniel, as well as researching Grace’s school friends. But Charles is my territory. He’s the man I married, and because I don’t trust him, I need to make sure he isn’t lying to me. Yes, he took me to see his doctor, and yes, he has started to look ill recently, and he certainly spends a lot longer in the bathroom. But can I be sure that he hasn’t orchestrated all of this?

  No, because I wasn’t there when he had the blood test. And Charles is a rich man who has already claimed to have bought people off. He even offered a bribe to Grace’s school to get her out of trouble. I can’t trust him at all. I need to see where he goes. I need to know whether he’s lying to me.

  As soon as I hear Charles’s car leave the grounds, I go to my phone and open the app I installed to trace him. It’s a simple GPS tracker that shows exactly where he is on Google Maps. Charles isn’t the best with technology, and I’m confident that he won’t even notice this new app, let alone figure out what it does.

  I get out of bed, shower and throw on jeans and a shirt. On the way out of the house, I leave a note for Michelle, feed the dogs and down a cup of coffee. This new idea has me energised. I’m finally in control. I have a private investigator on my side and I have a way of keeping tabs on my husband. I’m closer than ever to finding out what happened to Grace, even if my nightmares are haunting me, even if my clothes hang from my body and anxiety grips my chest, refusing to let go. They won’t make me surrender.

  My nightmares are mine and mine alone to experience, and for that reason I’ve never mentioned them to my therapist. Perhaps it’s a bad idea to keep recurring dreams from your therapist, or maybe that dream-analysis Freudian bullshit is pointless anyway. Either way, no one knows what I dream about and no one ever will.

  The screaming girl sometimes comes to me in the middle of the day, the black space between her bloodied teeth opening wider and wider. I often think about what I need to do to stop her from finding me. Atone for my sins? Or maybe it’s inevitable that one day she will swallow me whole, and every struggle, every difficult choice, every painful experience will finally come to an end.

  Since Grace died, my dreams have elaborately expanded. Too often I dream of the Suicide Spot, waking up with the scent of Grace’s shampoo on my pillow, wondering if my illusion of her will be shattered irreparably by the time I find out truth.

  Thirty

  When Charles’s car comes to a stop between home and Derby, I decide to get into the Land Rover and follow him. What’s the point in having this app if I’m not going to act on it? I make my way out through Ash Dale, navigating towards the tiny icon that represents Charles’s car. He isn’t near his office, and I want to find out what he’s up to. Of course, it could be a business meeting, or he’s stopped for breakfast – who knows? Zooming in on the map isn’t giving me much of a reading.

  Thirty minutes into my journey, he drives away from wherever he was, moving in the direction of the office. I consider going home but then decide to keep following. As I’m keeping one eye on the phone screen, a text message comes through, and the hands-free function reads it out loud to me.

  You’re dead. How could you do that to me?

  And yet again, the number is different. I shake my head, frustrated by this unknown stalker who won’t reveal their identity to me. Using speech to text, I reply.

  ‘Why don’t you grow up and tell me who this is.’

  Two words ping back.

  Fuck you.

  I take a left turn too fast and I’m forced to slam on the brakes when I see parked cars ahead and another car coming in the opposite direction. As much as I hate to admit it, my stalker has rattled me and I need to calm down.

  As the driver on the opposite side of the road glowers, I lift my hand to apologise, like a good citizen would. After driving on for a few minutes, my phone rings and I answer it via the speaker, not paying much attention to the name on the screen.

  ‘Kat, how could you do that to Alicia?’

  ‘Jenny?’

  ‘Have you decided to destroy my family? First you flirt with my husband and then you ruin my child’s future. I thought we were friends. I was there for you. I defended you when everyone was blaming you for Grace’s suicide.’

  ‘Who blamed me?’

  ‘Everyone! We all thought you were a terrible mother. We all know that Grace was pregnant.’

  ‘When did you find out? Before or after she died?’ Pinpricks make their way up and down my arms. Was I the last to know that my daughter was pregnant?

  ‘You know Alicia and Ethan have been thrown out of the sixth form?’

  ‘No, I didn’t know that.’

  ‘Well, they have. We found out today.’ I can tell Jenny is crying. ‘That’s her chance of going to Oxford ruined.’

  I almost laugh. Considering the fact that Alicia is a B student at best, Jenny’s plans for Oxford University were pretty ridiculous. But I manage to stop myself, knowing that laughter at this moment is not going to get me the information I need.

  ‘Alicia and Ethan are suffering the consequences of their actions,’ I remind Jenny, forcing myself to stay calm. ‘That’s not my problem. If you want to know more about your sweet daughter, you should see some of the awful texts she sent to Grace before she died.’

  ‘Oh, get off your high fucking horse, Kat. Grace was the worst of them all. You keep acting like she was some kind of angel but she was a real bitch. A spoilt brat.’

  ‘That’s hilarious considering how much you spoil your brat.’

  ‘Alicia is hardworking—’

  ‘You’re delusional!’

  ‘Loyal—’

  ‘She was screwing Grace’s boyfriend!’

  ‘Fuck off, Kat. Everyone knows what you did to get where you are. You got pregnant on purpose and tricked Charles into a lifetime of misery. You’re nothing but a chavvy little gold-digger so don’t you dare act high and mighty with me.’

  I tighten my grip on the steering wheel to allow my hot skin a moment to cool.

  ‘Jenny,’ I say, calmly and quietly, ‘you have no idea who you are talking to. You’re right about one thing: I came from nothing. The way I grew up, this conversation wouldn’t happen, because we’d have already started throwing punches. I’m more than a bitch, Jenny. You don’t know who I am or what I’ve done. I’ve had blood on my hands before. I understand how fragile bones are because I’ve seen them break. I know what sound a skull makes when it’s crushed.’ I pause for a few seconds, letting my words sink in. ‘Now, I would never do anything as uncouth as threaten you with violence, because when I married Charles and had Grace I vowed to be a different person. But it might be an idea to modify the way you talk to me, because as a better person, I’ve decided that I value respectful discourse. Seeing as you’ve chosen to be disrespectful, I think I’m going to hang up now. Okay, Jenny?’

  Her voice is a breathy whisper. ‘Okay.’

  ‘Also, I think it’s best that our families stop socialising from now on. Don’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Goodbye, Jenny.’

  She hangs up. I loosen my grip on the wheel then tighten it again. My forehead has broken out in tiny beads of sweat. I turn down the heat and lean back against the car seat. I hadn’t intended to say that to her. Usually nothing on earth can make me dredge up those memories, and now I need to fold them away and return them to the envelope I keep at the back of my mind.

  Angela helps me compartmentalise the bad things I did when I was a teenager. That day with Annie Robertson is the one I never allow myself to think about. The blood on my hands, the surge of adrenaline running through me, Annie’s eyes meeting mine. I can’t linger on those images. I need to keep my attention on the road ahead. I check back on Charles’s movements to see that he’s still heading towards his office. Maybe following him like this was a bad idea. Am I going to uncover anything suspicious, or is all this a complete waste of time?

  I take a left, travelling t
owards Charles’s office, followed by a right, avoiding bad traffic on the A road. It’s as I make the right turn that I notice a blue Volkswagen Golf behind me. It was a few vehicles back when I was coming out of Ash Dale. Could they be heading in a similar direction, or are they following me? Perhaps this route is a popular shortcut on the way to Derby?

  As an experiment, I decide to go off track, taking a left followed by another left. After a few more turns I’m back into the countryside, and the Volkswagen is still behind me. I try to see who is driving the vehicle using my rear-view mirror, but whoever it is has a hat pulled down low over their face. I’m pretty sure the driver is male, but I can’t be certain.

  With all my impromptu turns, I’ve ended up on an unfamiliar road full of bends. I’m forced to slow down in order to traverse the corners on this narrow road, but the Volkswagen doesn’t slow down at all. In fact, it speeds up. There’s no one else around, and for once, fear rushes through my veins, like a drug in my bloodstream. Part of me craves this kind of adrenaline rush, but knowing how easily things could end badly for me doesn’t give me a thrill.

  The car is right behind mine, almost bumper-to-bumper, and I find myself travelling at a much faster speed than is comfortable. More than once, my left tyre clips the grass verge. I’m glad the ground isn’t wet today. When the car bumps me from behind, I aggressively beep the horn. The Volkswagen beeps back, then there’s another thud from behind and my body is thrown forward, and this time I lose my temper, slamming on the brakes to come to an emergency stop, letting the car behind crash into the back of my vehicle.

  As metal crunches against metal, my airbag deploys and my face slams into the fabric, taking my breath away. My ribs smash into the seatbelt, leaving me bruised and dazed.

  Get out of the car, Kat. Open the door and get out.

  I unclick my seatbelt with shaky fingers, open the door and step onto the road, trying very hard not to show that my body is trembling. My ribs throb with pain and my legs could buckle at any moment, but I need to know who has been following me. Fuelled by the adrenaline coursing through me, I stumble down to the Golf to find the driver fighting with his own airbag. I open the driver’s door, lean across his lap to unclick the seatbelt and drag him out, ignoring his bloody nose and dazed expression. When I swat the hat from his head, I see straight away that it’s Daniel Hawthorne.

  As I raise my fist, he cowers away. ‘Don’t, please don’t!’

  ‘Why are you following me?’ I keep my fist raised, rage shuddering through me, burning me from head to toe.

  ‘I thought…’ His mouth gapes open and then snaps shut. ‘Why doesn’t anything frighten you?’

  ‘Stop whining and tell me why you’re following me.’

  To my horror, he begins to cry. He slides slowly down the side of the car, forming a misshapen puddle on the road. There’s no way I can get answers from him in this position, which means I’m forced to hoist him back onto his feet, propping him up with my weight until he supports himself again.

  ‘It’s all gone wrong,’ he utters between sobs. ‘None of this was meant to happen.’

  My hands stay clenched at my sides; fist still longing to smash into his teeth. ‘Why are you following me?’

  ‘I thought it’d scare you off. Nothing scares you off. Not the messages… You wouldn’t stop coming to the school, so I thought if I frightened you on the road… I’m such a – a – fucking idiot.’ He hits himself with the palm of his hand, missing his injured nose and lightly slapping his forehead instead. ‘I just didn’t want the school to find out.’

  ‘That you were having an affair with my daughter?’

  He stares down at the ground with his mouth gaping, tears running down his face. I’m sick of watching other people cry about my daughter.

  ‘You impregnated her.’

  A loud moan escapes from his open mouth and a long line of drool runs down his chin. But I don’t care about his feelings.

  ‘You told her to get an abortion?’

  He nods his head.

  My hands ball back into fists and I raise my right arm again. Somewhere, in the background, there’s the sound of another car coming towards us, but I don’t bother to move, even though we’re blocking part of the road.

  ‘Did you kill her?’

  His head snaps up and his eyes meet mine. ‘What? No!’

  ‘Why should I believe you? You’re the one who sent those threatening messages to me, aren’t you?’

  He lifts his hands as though begging. ‘Why couldn’t you leave it alone?’

  Somewhere behind me a car door opens and slams shut.

  ‘Because you killed my daughter!’

  His lip trembles as he stutters, ‘I – I didn’t. She killed herself.’

  As I’m about to finally release, to hit this pathetic mess of a man, someone catches my fist and holds me tight. I whip around to see Matthew Gould holding me back.

  ‘Don’t do it, Kat. It’s not worth it.’

  ‘But he—’

  ‘I’ve already gathered a stack of evidence against him. He’s going to lose his job and possibly face prison time,’ Matthew says. ‘Don’t do anything you can be arrested for.’ He gently lowers my hand down to my waist and manoeuvres me away from Daniel. Then he takes his phone from his pocket and makes a call.

  Thirty-One

  Matthew had been following Daniel, that was how he’d found me preparing to break Daniel’s face with my fist. After preventing me from committing a crime, he called the emergency services and an ambulance arrived for us both.

  What I’ll never know, since Matthew stopped me, is what I would’ve done to Daniel if he hadn’t. There’s no doubt in my mind that I would’ve allowed that punch to launch, but would I have gone even further? We were on a quiet country road with no CCTV and possibly no witnesses. Could I have killed Daniel Hawthorne? Wrapped my fingers around his neck and squeezed tight? Do I possess the strength to do that? After all, I’m not sure what a person like Daniel contributes to this world. I taught myself how to stop leaving oily footprints where I stepped, but people like Daniel Hawthorne are too weak-willed to change.

  What I learn, after speaking with Matthew, is that Daniel was with his wife at the time Grace died, which is perhaps the oldest alibi of all time. Would she lie for a cheating, morally bankrupt scumbag like Daniel Hawthorne? Would she stand by her man? Some women do. Some people are so broken and manipulated that they don’t see the alternative. I hope Sophie Hawthorne realises that she can dump that pathetic man and start a better life on her own.

  After my nose and ribs are checked over, I’m not sure what to think anymore. While still at the hospital Matthew shows me – along with the police – the evidence that Daniel was sleeping with Grace. After these last few weeks, it’s almost a relief to uncover a piece of the puzzle. But at the same time, when I think about the way Daniel abused his power over my daughter, I find it hard to stay still as I listen to Matthew. All I want to do is storm into the police station, fight my way through to whatever interview room Daniel’s in and beat him senseless. Is it unladylike of me to visualise revenge through violence? Is it wrong? I close my eyes and imagine that moment I had with him by the car. I’d come so close…

  It was Daniel’s wife who allowed Matthew to search his laptop, which means she can’t be completely on her husband’s side. Matthew uncovered many emails Daniel obviously thought he’d deleted. Those emails reveal a romantic relationship between him and Grace. I glance at one or two examples while I’m waiting to be released by the doctor, but I find it difficult to read them, so he hands them over to the police officers taking our statements.

  Daniel Hawthorne, to no surprise, is not a criminal mastermind. He’s actually pretty stupid. He thought sending threatening messages to me would stop me from coming to the school, when all it did was make me more suspicious. He knew there were rumours about him and Grace, which he didn’t want the faculty to discover, but the way he went about everything was wrong-head
ed. Now he’ll be fired from his part-time job at the school, will lose all of his private clients and will be arrested.

  But none of that sounds like true punishment. Even if he didn’t push my daughter over the quarry cliff, he had a hand in her death. He made her sad and vulnerable. He made her feel hurt and alone. Daniel Hawthorne deserves pain.

  * * *

  ‘Mrs Cavanaugh, can I come in for a moment?’ DS Slater has his hands shoved deep into his pockets, and an expression on his face that says entering my house is something he does not want to do at all.

  I match his unenthused expression. ‘Please, come in. Make yourself at home. Can I get you a drink?’

  ‘A tea would be appreciated. Is your husband home as well?’

  ‘No, but you can talk to me. Milk and sugar?’ It’s lucky that Charles isn’t home because when I told him about the crash, I didn’t mention the driver of the other car involved in the collision, or what was discovered about Daniel and Grace.

  ‘Two sugars please.’ He shrugs. ‘I have a sweet tooth.’

  The detective follows me into the kitchen with his usual striding gait, though I do note a slight slump of his shoulders. Perhaps he’s here to apologise for dismissing my concerns, which would explain the puckered lips, like a Bulldog and a wasp, or so the saying goes.

  Michelle puts the kettle on while I gesture for DS Slater to sit at the kitchen table with me. I don’t particularly want to lounge on a sofa with him. I want this conversation over and done with.

  ‘We’re investigating Daniel Hawthorne following the collision with your vehicle yesterday,’ he says. ‘Can you talk me through what happened?’

  ‘I was driving towards Derby to surprise my husband at his office when I noticed a blue Volkswagen Golf following me. I decided to try redirecting away from the main roads to get rid of the follower, but I lost my way and ended up on a very quiet country road. The road where I was picked up in the ambulance.’ I gently touch the bridge of my nose, which is still swollen and sore.