Epilogue Margot, The Last
Epilogue
Margot, The Last
Silence descends upon us. And when you don’t say anything, it triggers me.
‘Don’t ignore me when I’m asking you a question,’ I snap. ‘You really believe that was enough of a reason to kill me and steal my daughter?’
You don’t reply because you can’t. You know there is no justification for what you did to me.
I still feel sick when I think about the moment I was murdered. Ellie was exactly seven weeks old when I returned with her to an empty home after recording a TV show in London. I was putting her down for a nap in the nursery while you were downstairs letting yourself in with a key I’d forgotten you still had. I had only just become aware of not being alone when a figure suddenly emerged behind me and wrapped a plastic bag tightly over my head. I turned, and through a transparent section, I saw your face. But it wasn’t a version of you I recognised. There was a manic expression behind your wide eyes, your nostrils were flared and spit bubbles flew from your mouth. I fought back, God knows; I have never fought for anything as hard in my life. But I couldn’t overpower you. When you finally let go, I slumped to a heap on the floor, drained of life.
Briefly, I felt the presence of another – Drew, I assume – and then it was just you and me.
Now I understand why it felt like you had the strength of two people, because a second person is always living inside you. At least that’s what you want to believe. I’ve tried to convince you otherwise, that you’ve imagined us all, that you are imagining me right now. You are always trying to deflect the blame from yourself on to others. But you refuse to accept that. So I remain your most recent reluctant passenger.
You acted so swiftly after my death that it had to have been well planned in advance. Quite impressive: tick tick tick, going through your checklist. First, you found Ellie’s passport in the unlocked filing cabinet in our office. Then you parked my car in the garage, laid my body in the boot, strapped Ellie into the car seat and drove off. After my spirit’s previous container was unceremoniously dumped in a storm drain in the building site behind our houses and my car left in a supermarket car park, you picked up your own vehicle, which you’d left there with your luggage inside, and drove to a long-stay car park outside Heathrow. As you’d expected, the check-in desk staff didn’t query why a harassed new mum carrying a stressed, screaming infant had a different surname to her child. By midnight, you and my daughter were on a prebooked flight to Pakistan while the police were searching for Ellie and me.
The orchestration continued, not missing a beat. The aunt and uncle who adopted you and Drew after your parents’ deaths had returned to Pakistan years earlier and were expecting your arrival. The taxi they sent to pick up you up from Allama Iqbal International Airport drove you to their sizeable home in the Punjab province. They remembered your teenage accusations against me and how no one had believed you. Now, accompanied by my baby – who you told them was your brother’s daughter – they were all ears. You recounted how, even though two others had been charged with Drew’s unlawful killing, I was actually the guilty party. Confident in the depth of their gullibility, you laid it on with a trowel: I’d manipulated and seduced a vulnerable man with a history of depression and addiction, and after becoming pregnant, had denied him any potential access to his child after my due date. Then, during a final, fraught confrontation, I’d murdered him and planted evidence to frame our mutual friends.
I listened in disbelief as you admitted to your family how you couldn’t bear to see Ellie with me, so for her own protection, you had killed me and kidnapped your niece. Despite their understandable shock – and plenty of unspoken doubts, I assume – they believed that whatever had happened, you had Ellie’s best interests at heart. The two of you were the only family they had. And they would do anything to protect you.
I’m only aware of everything else that’s happened back home through your research trips to this internet café. Soon after charges were brought against Liv and Brandon, I suddenly went missing with my young daughter. I was dead by then of course, but only you knew that. You told newspapers anonymously that I was being treated for post-natal depression, and Nicu made several desperate public appeals for me to come home. And then, nine days later, my body was discovered around the same time my car was located in the supermarket car park.
I recall how it was our thirteenth day in Pakistan when British police found CCTV of you swapping my car for your own and carrying Ellie. ANPR cameras mapped your route to the airport, and security cameras caught you entering Heathrow and leaving Allama Iqbal. Newspapers have been fascinated by the case, reporting how police have since confirmed you’re wanted for questioning in connection with both my and Drew’s deaths. And that’s why I told you I believe neither Liv nor Brandon will make it to trial, not while you are also a suspect.
According to another report, they’ve sold everything to hire a top-ranking defence team who will pin everything on you. But I know you don’t care if that happens or not. Because even if you are tracked down by British police, there’s no extradition treaty between the UK and Pakistan. So it isn’t a given you’ll be forced to return home. And in a population of more than 230 million, your family can easily move you to one of the many other homes their business owns. Since our arrival here, they’ve relocated you four times to different places as a precautionary measure. They also have properties in Saudi Arabia and I know you’re considering a move there one day so ‘your daughter’ can make the most of its highly rated multinational schools.
Your daughter. Urgh. It sickens me that you think of Ellie as that.
She isn’t yours and never will be. She is mine. Only I can’t be with her, I can never touch her, comfort her, talk to her, and she can never feel my love. I can only see her through you. I detest that she’ll never know who I am, that she’ll never have the life I dreamed for her. That she will only ever have you.
‘Killing you was in Ellie’s best interests,’ you say aloud, suddenly but quietly. ‘Everyone knew what a terrible mother you were. I did what anyone in their right mind would do.’
‘You actually think you’re in your right mind?’ I laugh. ‘You are absolutely crazy, woman! It was your dead brother who convinced you that I wasn’t a good mum, whispering in your ear all the time, demeaning me and manipulating you. Not because he believed it, but because he wanted a way out of your head. And the only way he could do that was to talk you into killing someone else. I was an easy target. You’re pathetic.’
‘Enough!’ you say, this time loud enough for other café customers to turn their heads. Aware of the attention, your cheeks flush. But I’m not one to be silenced.
‘Just give her back,’ I shout. ‘Return her to Nicu, Frankie and Tommy where she belongs and allow her to live a normal life.’
‘Or what?’ you whisper.
‘Or I fight fire with fire. I’ll intrude into your every thought, day and night, when you’re awake and when you’re asleep, until I slowly drive you more insane than you already are. You won’t know whether you want a shit or a shower. You think what Ioana put you through was bad? By the time I finish with you, you’ll be holding that Stanley knife to your neck, begging me to make you slit your fucking throat.’
You take a swig from your Coke bottle.
‘I’d strongly advise against it,’ you tell me.
‘Why? What do I have to lose?’
‘My daughter,’ you say, matter-of-factly. ‘Anything you do to me, you’ll be doing to Ellie. Hurt me and you’ll hurt her. Torment me and you’ll torment her. If I suffer, so does she. She will feel every bit of my pain. I’ll make sure of it. And what will that be like, watching it happening but not being able to do anything to stop it? It will be agonising. Never forget, Margot, I am all she has now.’
My hope deflates like a burst tyre because I know you’re right. While I’m inside you, Ellie has two people protecting her, not just one. Kill you and I not only kill myself, I kill her too.
A message from your aunt flashes on the phone screen. Ellie is waking up. She needs feeding and you won’t let anyone do that but you. You sign out from the computer, and we make our way back to the car.
Once we’re back on the road, I reflect on when our paths first crossed, when the burglary at your family home went so wrong so quickly and I found you hiding under that bed.
And how I instinctively knew that if I wanted to save my own skin, I had to set fire to that bedroom to remove all the evidence, living or dead. Warren had spotted you too. Instinctively, and without asking, he suspected what I was about to do. He tried to stop me, but I was too quick for him. I pushed him to one side and threw the cigarette lighter to the floor. The lighter fluid ignited immediately and quickly spread across the carpet and bed above you. There was nothing Warren could do to save you. Although he wanted to.
But I didn’t.
You know this for certain because that’s what you saw with your own eyes. You edged your way towards us under that bed and your eyes witnessed my hand tossing the lighter. Years later, when you and I laid all our cards on the table, I thought you’d accepted my explanation that Warren was the guilty party, that he’d wanted you dead, not me. It turns out we were each holding back a card. Only now I’m inside you am I aware you know the truth.
‘My mum used to believe in cause and effect,’ you say as the car starts. ‘That all action in the universe creates a reaction that will return to you. That’s why you are where you are now.’
If I’d known that back then, I wouldn’t have set fire to you. I’d have snatched Warren’s gun from his hand and shot you straight between the fucking eyes.
I’d have made certain that I killed you first.