Chapter 15 #2
Everywhere smelled differently too – of cigarettes and Jordy’s strong cologne and strangeness.
Melissa’s crusty high heels kicked off in the hallway; her dirty footprints all over the clean floors.
I’d sit on the stairs and listen to them price up Mum’s Murano glass perfume bottles or Victorian silhouettes.
Melissa even rubbed her hands together in glee when she googled the price of the Edwardian brooch she’d found in the drawer of her dressing table.
She turned her phone off when she saw me in the doorway but it was too late to pretend she’d been doing anything else.
I’d already heard them talking about the house sale too – I’d been dreading that conversation the most but I’d caught Heather rooting through the filing cabinet in Mum’s office.
‘What are you looking for?’
‘The Energy Performance and FENSA certificates for the house. I’ve got a client who might be interested in buying it so I thought I’d get everything up together for the estate agent.’
‘You’ve placed it with an agent already?’
‘Not yet but I’ve got one in mind. Your mum’s wish was to sell it, Ivy; it’s just something that has to be done. Then we can get the money into your trust and it’ll be safe and sound.’
‘And I’ll be homeless.’
‘You won’t be homeless,’ she sighed, sifting out the two pieces of paper she’d been looking for. ‘Any idea who put the extension on by the way – was it your mum or the previous owners? And where’s the cess pit?’
I walked out. She’d find all that stuff out anyway if she wanted to, she didn’t need to ask me.
My house didn’t feel like mine anymore anyway. Larry had managed to scare off my crows by clapping them out of the trees in his dressing gown with his cock and balls hanging out, and when I went to check on the mice, Melissa had put poison down at the entrance to their nest behind the water butts.
‘They’re vermin, love,’ she advised me. ‘Can’t have them getting near the house. They’ll be in all your cupboards; you’ll never get rid of the buggers.’
What poison could I put down that would get rid of her, I wondered as I swept it away.
I didn’t like any of them. Melissa could barely look at me, Larry was always making jokes about fancying rabbit stew whenever Maddox hopped in and Jordy kept away, like I was a bomb waiting to go off.
Occasionally they would try to engage me in conversation, but it felt like they were trying a bit too hard and I just couldn’t find the will to make the effort.
It was all very awkward – I had been spawned from the womb of a serial killer, after all.
By Day Six, I was in the habit of getting up early, cleaning out Maddox’s hutch and putting him outside in his run with a big handful of dandelion leaves then disappearing off for the day, not returning until it was dark.
I’d stay out at the arcades or beach, walking around, reading Book Four in Freddie’s Sweetpea series.
It was all there was to do. I hated being at home, I didn’t have any friends or girlfriend to waste time with and pretty soon I’d be homeless too.
There was no silver lining. If the thought of vodka didn’t make me feel so stomach-flippingly nauseous, I’d have hoodwinked some local to buying me a bottle from the pub.
But I knew that wasn’t the answer. So I continued to drift and pray for a miracle to deliver me from the Australians.
One morning, Melissa caught me coming out of the bathroom after my shower and followed me to my bedroom.
She gazed around the walls at my posters and signed Arsenal memorabilia from the time Mum was working on the autobiography of their coach René Heemskerk and I got to have a tour of the club and met some of the players.
She reached up and took the signed ball down from my shelf.
She may as well have punched me in the face.
‘You’ll love Brizzie, Ivy,’ she said, tossing the ball up and down. ‘The Matildas played Brazil at Lang Park a few months back. Larry went to see it. He watches all the sports so you can bond with him over that.’
‘What’s the Matildas?’
‘Our national team.’
‘Oh.’
‘You might make the team one day. You’ll love Brizzie though. We’ve got a place near the beach. A big garden. And you’ll have your own room right next to your dad’s …’
‘You keep his room as it was?’ I said, taking the ball and placing it back on its stand.
‘Yeah. But your room has a better view of the golf course and the bathroom’s just next door so it’ll be easier for ya. And we don’t live that far from UQ so you’ll be able to walk there.’
‘What’s UQ?’
‘Queensland Uni.’
‘Provided I get in,’ I reminded her, taking my Arsenal pencil sharpener and pencil from her as she absent-mindedly sharpened it over the bin.
‘Oh, you’ll get in, have no fear.’ She folded her arms across her chest. ‘You got a good brain in your head, just like your …’
‘Dad?’ I finished.
‘Yeah.’ She looked as though she was stifling a sob.
‘You can let it out, if you want. I cry about him too sometimes.’
She nodded and tears trickled immediately down her cheeks but she wouldn’t look at me.
‘Did he like football?’
‘Uh, not really, no.’
‘Oh.’
She walked to the window as I towel-dried my hair and stood watching the crows pecking at the seed I’d put out for them on the lawn. ‘Ah they’re back,’ she noted. ‘That’s good.’
‘Took a lot of peanuts.’
‘It’s a nice place, this. Claud did well for herself. Married the right men.’
‘Her career as an award-winning journalist bought this actually. She had to buy Mitch out. And her previous husband was a twat so I wouldn’t give either of them much praise for this.’
‘Oh, right,’ she said, looking out at the crows again.
‘You wouldn’t want me to have my dad’s old bedroom?’ I asked.
She stared at me, all pinched and awkward. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m not ready to do that, love. It’s his space.’
‘But he’s dead.’
‘I know he’s fucking dead,’ she snapped, striding back across the room. ‘And your mother is the bitch who killed him!’
I was left standing on the carpet shaking at her sudden outburst. I thought I had a temper but Melissa went from meek and mild to vicious in one hyper-quick scorpion whip.
It hadn’t taken much to touch a nerve – asking about my dead dad’s bedroom.
She didn’t like that his blood ran in my veins, but so did hers: Rhiannon’s.
I was a confusing mixture of purest love and pure evil in her eyes.
By Day Seven, me and the Australians were living as housemates – no real line of communication, just the odd nod or request for dinner passing between.
But by this time, I had finished reading Book Four.
At the end of it there was still no sign of my brother but I had learned something new about my past, just as Freddie said – at some point when I was two years old, I’d been diagnosed with cancer.
And Rhiannon planned to come out of hiding, head back to the UK, and use her own stem cells to help me get better.
She was going to give up her freedom for me.
I asked Heather about it – she said it was when Claudia was living away from the area so she didn’t know anything.
How the hell had she managed to keep that out of the press, she asked?
I broke into Mum’s big filing cabinet and found all my old medical records – vaccination certificates, baby development log, weight charts, but there were no cancer treatment plans; no mention of it anywhere.
And Heather knew nothing about it either.
‘Are you sure I was never ill?’ I asked her again. ‘It says so in the book – juvenile myelomonocytic leukaemia. A rare form of blood cancer primarily affecting children under four. But there was no mention of it in my files or online medical records either.’
‘This is the first I’ve heard of it, darling.’
And then I realised – it wasn’t true.
‘Who the fuck would lie about me having cancer?’
I went straight into Book Five – the final Sweetpea book Freddie had given me – to find my answer.
As it turned out, my Aunt Seren, Rhiannon’s sister, had been the one to cook up the scheme – along with Claudia and a police detective called Nnedi Géricault – to tell Rhiannon I had cancer just to get her back to the UK.
To bait her like a fish. To catch her, once and for all. It all started to make sense.
I also knew exactly who River Dade Goffey was now, thanks to Book Four.
I ached for him to appear again in real life, watching me from a distance like in London; like he’d been doing the night of Kieran Andrews’ murder.
I knew why he had killed him as well. It wasn’t just to stop me from doing it.
It was because Andrews was a predator. And River had good reason to hate predators even more than Rhiannon did.
River Dade Goffey was an eight-year-old kid from Kansas, dubbed the Wichita Wonder Kid, whom Rhiannon had freed from an apartment in San Francisco back in 2021.
He had been missing, presumed dead, for the past three years up until that point.
A predatory paedophile called Elliot Mansur had been holding him hostage, abusing him, pretending he was his son and travelling with him across state lines in order to stay hidden from the police.
And when River was eleven, Rhiannon had saved him.
River had done a tell-all interview with a journalist called Cress Fratburger a few years back when he was twenty-one and I watched it on YouTube.
He told him how he had been playing video games in the apartment where he and Mansur had been living and before he knew what was happening, two people had broken in and started attacking Mansur in cold blood.
One of them was a woman, whom he later recognised as Rhiannon Lewis.
A grainy photo of her flashed up courtesy of a CCTV camera from a nearby coffee shop.
Did either of them say anything to you? asked Fratburger.
Yeah, said River, black eyes shining in the lights.
She gave me a hug. She looked like an angel.
I’d been praying for someone to come and save me – some superhero.
And God heard my prayer. Up until that point, I thought there was no way out, that Mansur would kill me or I’d kill myself.
She showed me another way. And I’ll always be grateful to her for that. I owe her my life.
I googled to see if River had any social media or websites or anything but I hit a constant stream of brick walls.
There were fan sites set up for him, TikToks, threads and feeds full of fan art because he was clearly a very beautiful boy – now man – but as for River himself, apart from the odd livestream he’d done on Instagram for missing children’s charities, no sign of him.
I wanted to talk to him again so desperately I even tracked down one of his sisters, Willow, on Facebook, but she hadn’t updated her page in years and I chickened out of messaging her.
I checked my emails, just in case he had reached out but only found spam.
Ukrainian Beauties, some crypto lottery win, and someone else extorting me for nude pics of me that didn’t exist, but right at the bottom was another message that had arrived two days ago.
My mouth went dry as I waited for my phone to download it.
FROM: Prisoner Number #668664. Lewis, R.
SUBJECT: Ivy, you in danger, girl.
‘The fuck?’ I said, chest all tight. I couldn’t catch my breath as I read.
Hello, Ivy,
I hoped you might get in touch one day. I’m glad you did.
I tried writing to you a few times (about a thousand times actually) but I never heard back so chances are Claudia never passed them on to you.
Anyway, I’d love to meet with you if you still want to.
I will ask the governor for a special visit – I’m allowed one under strict conditions because I’ve been a very good girl.
Maybe sometime before my big interview that’s coming up?
I’d prefer to speak to you before I speak to the nation.
Also, I don’t want to worry you but I have received a threat that you may be in danger, so I’ve asked someone to keep an eye out for you.
Someone I trust. He will look after you on my behalf.
I’m sure you will be fine, if you’re anything like me, but just in case.
I’ll let you know about the visit soon. Stay tuned …
R x