Chapter 66 Birdy
BIRDY
“I wish I could go back and do things differently,” I tell him.
“I wish you would open this door,” Carter says from inside the tunnel.
“Do you think our paths are already mapped out for us no matter what we do? Or if someone knew when they were going to die, do you think there could be a way to change it?”
“I’m not sure I understand. Perhaps we could talk about it face-to-face?”
“Or is it like the butterfly effect? Might something small change things? Are there always consequences? If I flap my wings hard enough could I still maybe change my daughter’s world so that history doesn’t keep repeating itself?
I don’t want her to be abandoned like I was, I want her to be loved.
That’s why I had to do what I did. I’m dying, Carter. I’ve got cancer.”
“I know.”
What?
“Nobody knows, so how could you?”
“I saw the drugs in your bag. They’re the same ones my mum takes. What did you do to Eden, Birdy?”
“Eden, Eden, Eden. Why are you so obsessed with that woman? Eden stole my daughter, my husband, my home; she stole my whole life from me. So I decided to steal hers before mine was over. Ten years ago I hired her to take care of my daughter, but instead she started fucking my husband whenever I wasn’t around.
I was so busy, and so damn grateful for her help, I didn’t see what was going on right under my nose in my own home.
My own bed. It was only when I visited my daughter at The Manor—ten years later—that the truth started to come out.
I visited Gabby every day for a week—begged Mary not to tell her father in case he tried to stop me.
I’d missed ten years of her life, I didn’t want to miss a moment more.
Every day she would whisper a new word. A new clue. ”
“Gabriella told you what Eden did?”
“Watching Gabriella come back was like witnessing a miracle. The doctors said seeing me again triggered something inside her mind. Despite the time that had passed for the rest of us, Gabriella was still trapped in a world of her own inside her head from ten years earlier. For me, my little girl was gone and a young woman had replaced her. For her, time had not passed in the same way, so she recognized me immediately. As though she had seen me the day before and I’d never left.
“My mother abandoned me when I needed her most. I still can’t believe I did the same thing to my little girl.
History has a horrible habit of repeating itself in families, but sometimes the past only becomes clear in the present, when the dust of our decisions has had time to settle.
My history was rewritten, and my future was stolen, because of Eden.
Gabriella started whispering each time I visited The Manor, and with Mary’s help, I finally learned the truth. All of it.
“My daughter loved to play hide-and-seek as a child, just like I did.
She was hiding in my wardrobe that day when she saw Eden and her father in bed together.
She knew what they were doing was wrong and she was smart enough to keep quiet, but after Harrison left she was foolish enough to get caught.
She told her babysitter that she was going to tell her mummy what she saw.
Eden panicked, grabbed hold of her, and pushed her over the banister at the top of the stairs. Gabriella landed on the stone floor.
“Eden thought my eight-year-old little girl was dead. She left her there for hours. Then, when it was dark, she dragged her broken body outside and left her lying in the road. Put her bike there too, to make it look like a hit-and-run. I think that was her plan. Then she called Harrison to say Gabby was missing. Harrison called the police—me, his wife the detective—and of course I drove straight home. In the dark. In the rain. Eden was waiting by the window for me to arrive. Just as I was turning into the road where we lived, she dialed my mobile. Which of course I answered, desperate for news about my missing child. Eden timed it perfectly, to distract me, and it worked. I took my eyes off the road to answer her call, the car hit the bike, and I thought I’d hit my daughter.
I thought I had caused my little girl’s injuries, but it was the babysitter all along.
“For ten years Eden let me think what happened was my fault.
“She stole my life from me so I stole hers.”
“So you did kill her?”
“No. By the time I got to the top of the cliff she was gone.”
“But then who—”
“I still don’t know. I think maybe someone else beat me to it.
Got there first and pushed her over. When I read your transcript with Old Stu, I panicked.
I thought he had seen me walking up the coast path that morning, that he might even be able to identify me.
But it was obvious when I interviewed him that he didn’t recognize me, and then he denied seeing a second woman at all.
I really don’t know what happened. We planned it all so carefully, it was supposed to be me but we all wanted her dead—”
“We?”
“Me, Harrison, and Mary. We were all in on it. We all love Gabriella and hate Eden for what she did. The plan was to make Eden think she had lost her mind, and take away everything that she cared about, just like she did to me. It was only supposed to last for a couple of days, because any longer and we feared she’d find someone somewhere to back up her story and confirm she was the real Eden Fox.
Her family had disowned her years ago, and she didn’t have anyone else.
She married Harrison when she was barely twenty, she had nothing in common with her old friends, and she was too young—and too stupid—to have anything in common with his.
But we still worried someone might corroborate her story.
“We removed all traces of Eden from Spyglass. But we couldn’t find the spare key for her Range Rover, so Harrison left a phone in the glove compartment, just in case she found the car key and managed to get away.
The phone was only left there as a precaution, in case Eden strayed too far, to track her movements and lure her to the suicide spot when the time was right.
Harrison sent her the text message, but he was never going to meet her there.
It was always meant to be me. But when I got there she was already gone. ”
“So she jumped?”
“We don’t know. Harrison and Mary both knew the plan, but they both said it wasn’t them. Maybe Eden did the right thing for the first time in her life. Who cares. She’s dead.”
“Is she?”
I think maybe I hit him too hard.
“Of course she is. Have you forgotten the body on the beach?” I say.
“A body with a face that nobody could identify? You don’t know that she jumped. You said you didn’t push her. And the coroner’s report was inconclusive until they can do further tests … so how do you know that Eden Fox is definitely dead?”
For a second I worry he might be right, but then I remember.
“The hairbrush I took for you to give the forensics team belonged to Mary, not Eden. We did that on purpose so that the DNA wouldn’t be a match.
The whole point was to kill Eden without anyone even noticing that she was missing.
Mary was going to move in here and be a live-in carer for Gabriella.
Nobody was even supposed to notice that the real Eden was gone.
But then a dog walker saw more than he should, and you started asking too many questions, and she washed up closer to home than we hoped. So our plan had to change.”
“But you still can’t know for sure that the body on the beach was Eden.”
“Of course it was her,” I say, even though I’m starting to feel less sure.
“It could have been someone else. It’s a popular suicide spot—”
“I know. My mother killed herself there, remember?”
“Did you or Harrison ever confront Eden about what she did to Gabriella?” he asks.
“I was going to, but when I reached the top of the cliff she wasn’t there, so I never got the chance.”
“But then how can you be sure that’s what happened? After ten years, could Gabriella be … misremembering?”
It’s a good question, but the answer is still “No.”
“Lying then? How do you know what she said happened really happened?”
“Well, for starters, Harrison didn’t deny sleeping with the babysitter that afternoon.
And as for Eden pushing her over the banister and staging the accident, why would Gabriella lie?
She has the mental age of eight. I don’t think a child of that age could be capable of coming up with such an elaborate story. Why would she?”