Chapter 36
Chapter Thirty-Six
On the road by the bottom of the stone steps, Lily stopped. Breathing heavily, she looked up between the houses, but there was no sign of anyone. Maybe she’d got it all wrong.
Turning, she moved to look down the steps to the river. On the small landing platform, a figure was silhouetted against the moonlight.
“Clara!” Lily called as she set off down the steps. “I was worried. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Clara whispered, then placed a finger in front of her lips. “You shouldn’t have come.”
“I wouldn’t have if you hadn’t sneaked out. What are you doing?”
“I told you. I want to trap them.” Her head shifted, staring into the bushes. “There’s someone here. You shouldn’t have come. I was so close.”
“What were you planning on doing?” Lily spat.
“I told you I’d be prepared this time.” She pointed at the steps, and Lily squinted in confusion. The sound of a branch snapping was loud enough to set Lily’s pulse racing again.
“There’s definitely someone there,” Clara murmured, then raised her voice. “Come out, you coward!”
Silence.
Lily scanned the bushes. “It’s Vanessa,” she whispered.
“Vanessa Hargreaves?”
“Yes. She started the fire…” Another noise in the bushes had Lily taking a step that way. “I know it’s you,” she shouted. “You may as well come out, Vanessa!”
Silence fell again, and Lily had ascended a few steps when a figure appeared at the top of them.
“It’s you two,” Vanessa said, a lightness to her voice as she walked casually down the steps.
“I was out for my evening walk and wondered who was hanging out around here. I was worried it was teenagers.” She slowed as she neared the platform.
“You should come away from here. The current is stronger than you’d think. ”
“Sadly, I know exactly how strong it is,” Lily said sharply. “And you can stop your act. I’ve been in your house. I saw everything. All those newspaper cuttings and the articles about me. You’re obsessed.”
Even in the moonlight, the flash of panic was clear in Vanessa’s eyes. “Everyone’s fascinated by the fire. I won’t deny collecting newspaper articles.”
“What about starting the fire?” Lily said. “Will you deny that?”
“Of course I didn’t start the fire. Your mum was a friend. The fire was an accident.”
Lily stared at her. “I don’t think you meant to hurt them. You thought they were out for the evening and the house was empty. I read in the paper that you were the first to raise the alarm. You called 999, didn’t you?”
“Yes, because I could see the smoke from my bedroom.”
Lily nodded. “Which you were looking for, because you started the fire.”
“No.”
“It’s true,” Lily said. “You’d just taken out a business loan. If the development project had gone ahead, the village would have been turned into a building site and you’d have gone out of business before you even got up and running.”
“I didn’t want the project to go ahead,” Vanessa said fiercely. “It doesn’t mean I started the fire.”
Lily took a step closer to Vanessa. “I know it was you,” she said, her voice low and threatening. “I promise you I won’t stop until the truth is out. I’ve seen the papers in your house. I even took photos.”
“That doesn’t prove anything,” Vanessa said, but her words were slightly strangled. “I didn’t do anything. No one will believe your accusations.”
“There’s a detective coming to talk to me tomorrow. She’s very interested in what I have to say.”
“You’re lying,” Vanessa whispered, panic clear in her voice.
Lily stood tall. “Her name is DS Sutton.”
“You can’t prove anything,” Vanessa mumbled. “Any evidence went up in smoke twenty years ago.”
“So there was evidence?” Lily said.
Vanessa squeezed her eyes closed. “Why can’t you just stop? You can’t change the past, so what’s the point?”
“The point is that you killed my parents and tore my life apart. All because you didn’t want your business to be ruined.”
Her eyes flared with anger. “The development wouldn’t only have been bad for me. Malporth would have been ruined.”
“So you thought you’d do the village a favour and kill my parents?” Lily growled.
“I didn’t mean to hurt anyone,” she snapped defensively. “Everyone was supposed to be out. And I only meant to set off the smoke alarm.”
Lily’s throat clogged. “You’re going to pay for what you did.”
She gave a small shake of her head as though she’d only just realised what she’d said. “You can’t prove anything.”
“You just admitted it,” Clara said flatly.
“That’s your word against mine. I’ll say you’re crazy. Clara already has a track record of accusing innocent people.”
When Vanessa turned to leave, Lily felt a surge of panic. She was right – the papers she’d found weren’t evidence enough to convict her.
“I have proof,” Clara said, making Vanessa stop in her tracks. Slowly, Clara moved to stand near Lily and picked up her phone, which was tucked in the shadows on the steps. “It’s been recording this entire time,” she said, holding it aloft.
With a gasp, Vanessa lurched towards the phone.
Lily caught the shock on her grandmother’s face as she took a swift step back, shifting out of Vanessa’s reach.
Time slowed as Clara lost her footing and stumbled backwards.
Then she was at the edge of the jetty.
A scream tore out of Lily when the dark water enveloped her grandmother.