Chapter 42
FORTY-TWO
‘The video has already been uploaded all over Instagram and TikTok.’
Grace almost squealed with pleasure as she scrolled through the images on her phone.
The girls were almost drunk on their success, the atmosphere in Charlotte’s car was electric.
Lucy was beside her daughter in the passenger seat.
Ellen was in the back with Grace. She had hold of her hand and wasn’t planning on letting her go for the rest of the evening.
‘You adding the hashtag was genius,’ Charlotte called over her shoulder. ‘It’ll be so much easier to find everything.’
Ellen still didn’t really understand how this had all come about. ‘When did you decide to do that?’
Grace put down her phone for a moment and looked at Ellen, her face flushed with their success.
‘We’d talked on the phone about whether or not either of us ever planned to track him down.
I mean, we both knew we didn’t want him in our lives, but I was so curious.
Then Charlotte found him on Facebook and we got more and more cross as we saw him out and about at various bars and clubs.
We thought, what if he is still doing it?
What if there are girls out there who he might be doing this to even now? ’
The same fear had occurred to her, but she hadn’t been brave enough to face it. The way Lucy reached out to put a hand on Charlotte’s shoulder, her thumb rubbing her arm, suggested she was thinking the same thing.
Charlotte threw a smile in her mother’s direction before taking up the story.
‘We didn’t decide to do it until we were in the pub tonight and we looked him up and he was there.
Even in the car on the way there, we hadn’t properly formulated a plan.
We just knew that we wanted to show him up for what he really was. In front of everybody.’
Ellen swallowed a lump in her throat. ‘I am so proud of you, Grace. And you, Charlotte. You were both amazing up there.’
Grace grinned at her. ‘I know. It felt so good. Like I had the power to really do something.’
For all her ebullience, Ellen was still conscious of the gravity of what had transpired.
Charlotte had known about Ian’s existence her whole life; for Grace it’d all happened so fast these last few days.
She and Charlotte seemed to have formed this instant bond that had carried them through this evening, but what happened next week, next month, when it all sunk in for real?
She squeezed Grace’s hand. ‘How did it feel? Seeing him like that?’
Grace paused to consider. ‘Surreal, I think. That’s probably the best word.’
Ellen was also worried about other implications for the two girls. ‘What if he does get his lawyer involved?’
‘Let him.’ Lucy turned to look at her. ‘It’s all true. What can he do?’
She and Lucy had already called Robert and Joe to tell them what had happened – and that the girls were safe – but something else occurred to her. ‘What about Abigail and Emily? What if they see the video?’
‘Good point. We’ll call them when we get home.’
Robert must’ve been looking out for them, because he had the front door open as soon as Charlotte pulled onto the drive. Grace was out of the car in moments and straight into his arms.
Both girls were so wired by the events of that evening that they were able to recount – with help from the videos that were being shared online at an alarming rate – the whole thing to Robert and Joe, who both looked stunned.
Ellen was a little concerned that the excitement might not be the best thing for Robert’s recovery, so she was a little relieved when Grace and Charlotte decided to relocate themselves to Robert’s study so that they could respond to all the reposts on his computer as well as their phones.
Joe and Lucy had insisted that they made the coffee and were in the kitchen. Clearly, they needed a moment alone and were giving Ellen and Robert the same thing. The two of them were on the sofa.
Robert held her hand in his. ‘How was it for you? Seeing him again. I was worried it would bring things up for you.’
She’d considered that, too, but in fact the opposite had been true.
‘I think seeing the girls’ reaction to it, the way they were so brave and honest. It made me realise that keeping this a secret, pushed down inside myself, had just given it more power.
Bringing it out like that, it took that power away. ’
He smiled. ‘I’m glad. I really am.’
She didn’t want him to think she was making light of the impact it had had on him. ‘I’m not trying to absolve myself of responsibility, though. I’m still guilty of keeping the secret from you all these years.’
‘I know. But we have to get past that. We’re still here. Our family is still here. Nothing – and no one – can ever touch that.’
Judging by the watery look to Lucy’s eyes when she and Joe came back in, they’d had a similarly emotional conversation. Before they could discuss it, though, Grace barrelled into the sitting room, followed by Charlotte.
‘Mum, look at this.’
Ellen took Grace’s phone and peered at the direct message that she was pointing to. What she read took her breath away. ‘I hope you don’t mind me contacting you. I think Ian McCready did the same thing to me.’
She passed the phone to Lucy and watched her reading it, before she looked up at Ellen with a bittersweet smile on her face. ‘He’s finally going to get what he deserves.’