Chapter 20
‘My sister didn’t get hit by a car. That’s just the story I told Holly,’ I say.
‘So what happened to her?’
I rub my hands down my face. ‘She was murdered.’
‘Oh, Kate. No.’
‘And you know the worst part?’ I feel my face fall and I snort a laugh. ‘I could have stopped it.’ The back of my eyes sting; I press them with the heels of my hands. I hate talking about that part.
‘What happened?’ Teri asks.
‘Lily asked me… Lily told me she was scared and wanted to stay at my place. She wanted me to pick her up. I thought she was being dramatic because Lily was always being dramatic. That’s just who she was.’ I pause, remembering, and, despite myself, I smile. ‘She was the quintessential wild child.’
Teri nods. ‘My sister – Melody – she was pretty dramatic. But go on.’
‘Lily was in a relationship with a man called Rob, a guitarist in a band. She was happy, or so she said, but they had a pretty volatile relationship. So, one day she called asking me to pick her up. She wanted to stay at my place. She said Rob had been on a bender, and he was jealous about someone living in the same building as them, that he was convinced she was having a secret affair, and she couldn’t handle it anymore.
But Lily was always calling me late at night, asking to be picked up, usually because she was stranded outside some nightclub where she’d spent all her money, or because she and Rob had had a fight.
I had my own plans that night. I don’t remember what, but I said no. I told her to call one of her friends.’
I’m going to be sick just talking about this, so I take a breath to calm myself.
‘And the next day,’ I say, ‘the police came to see me. Lily was dead. He’d pushed her so violently that she’d hit her head on the corner of the table, and she died.’
‘Oh my God.’
‘I’d just finished my degree. I was living with my friend Jen, and I was supposed to look for work, but I couldn’t.
I just stayed in bed all day. Soon, I was running out of the little savings I had.
Then I saw an ad for a live-in nanny in Chiswick.
I applied and got the job. I moved out of the flat I shared with Jen.
I had a place to live rent free and the work was easy.
I mean, there wasn’t much to do. And I adored Holly.
In many ways, she was the focus I needed after Lily died.
I’d spiralled into a depression, and you could say she pulled me out of it. ’
Teri moves her arm away from my shoulders and crosses her arms over her knees. ‘So, probably a dumb question, but if he’s such an asshole, why did you marry him? Is it because he’s rich?’
I blink at her, wiping the last of my tears. ‘No, that’s not why.’
‘So what is it?’ She waits for my answer, eyebrows raised.
‘Almost a year ago, when Holly turned sixteen, he told me that he was letting me go. She no longer needed me. I was to move out within a week.’
‘Well, fair enough, really.’
‘I know that, but that’s not the point. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t leave her alone with him.’
‘Why?’
Am I dreaming? ‘Have you not listened to anything I just said? I’ve just told you! He’s a monster!’
‘Well, I mean, you said he doesn’t like her spending money on new clothes or something, but a monster?’
I lean away from her. ‘Are you kidding? Have you not been listening?’
‘I have! Really! But you said he never hit her, so I’m confused. That’s all.’
‘I didn’t know what he was capable of, okay? I would never have dreamed that Rob would hit my sister, let alone kill her, and yet that’s exactly what happened. What was I supposed to do? Not act until Max did the same to Holly? I couldn’t live with myself if that happened.’
‘God, Kate. You’re so dramatic.’
My jaw hits the floor. ‘You want more? How about this? One day, Holly brought back the class pet. It was a hamster. The children used to take turns looking after it over a weekend. Max would never have said yes to that, so when it was her turn, she forged his signature and kept it in her bedroom. Max never went in there. I shouldn’t have let her keep it, but it was only for the weekend.
Then that Saturday night, I went out with my boyfriend for dinner around the corner.
I’d left my wallet at home so went back to get it.
I could hear Holly’s screams the moment I put my key in the door.
I stood at the living room door. Holly was sobbing.
Max was holding her wrists, screaming about the hamster.
I don’t know how he’d discovered it. I mean, it was in a cage in her bedroom. She kept asking why he took Peanut—’
‘Peanut?’
‘The hamster’s name, Teri.’
‘That’s cute.’
I give a quick shake of the head. ‘He was so angry – he was red in the face. I went right up to him to pull him away from her, but as soon as he saw me, he let her go anyway. He snarled something like, “I thought you were out with your boyfriend?” I didn’t dare let her out of my sight after that.’
‘What happened to the hamster?’
‘I don’t know. When I asked, he just laughed.
He probably let it out in the street or something.
I went to school with Holly and told them that he had run away.
But after that, I always made sure to be around when he was home.
’ I look at her with narrowed eyes. ‘He’s awful.
He’s a monster. I don’t know what else to tell you to make you believe that.
I don’t understand why you don’t see that after everything I’ve said! ’
‘I do. I do. Absolutely. So how did you end up marrying him?’
I sigh. ‘He made a pass at me once.’ I tell her the story, how he tried to kiss the back of my neck, his hands cupping my breasts.
I shudder at the memory. How he laughed when I turned him down, then watched me clean the kitchen floor because I’d dropped the eggs.
‘So that night, after he told me I was let go, I went into his bed. We made love that night. Four months later, we were married.’
‘What about your boyfriend?’
‘It wasn’t serious.’
‘That’s lucky,’ she says.
I frown at her.
‘Still. That was fast,’ she adds.
I give a half shrug. ‘That’s what he wanted. We got married midweek at the registry office in West London. There was only Holly and one of the partners from Sterling.’
‘Really? That sounds odd. I’d have thought you two would’ve had a grand wedding. No expenses spared.’
‘Not really, not when you know him. I was twenty-three. He was forty-four. I think he thought if he didn’t snap me up, I might find someone else, someone my own age.’
‘That doesn’t sound like Max.’
I tilt my head at her. ‘How would you know what sounds like Max?’
She shrugs. She’s leaning back now, her hands flat on the floor behind her. ‘I don’t. I’m just saying, from the way you described him. So what’s the money for?’
‘To take Holly away. I figured that once I had ten thousand pounds, I could leave with Holly, get a lawyer and get custody. I’ve been looking at houses to rent, schools for Holly, a new job for me.’
‘Where?’
‘In Hull.’
‘Why Hull?’
‘No reason. It’s big enough, and it’s far away from here.’
She studies me for a moment, her head tilted. ‘So why haven’t you left? You’ve got all this cash.’ She picks up a few notes and lets them fall theatrically.
I frown at her. She seems so flippant. Here I was, thinking I was confiding my deepest fears and secrets, and she doesn’t seem to care one bit.
To think that fifteen minutes ago I was considering telling her the truth.
Something happened. I need your help. He’s in the freezer. Can you help me get him out?
I shudder. Jesus. I need some sleep. Or get my head examined. Or both.
‘I will,’ I say. ‘Soon.’
‘Well—’ she pats my knee ‘—your secret is safe with me. Thank you for trusting me, Kate. It means a lot.’ She gives me a kind smile.
Maybe I’m overthinking things. Maybe she wasn’t being flippant, just a little confused. Maybe I didn’t express myself very well. I start to get up.
‘Stay,’ she says. ‘I want to know more. How did you and Max end up in Brookford?’
I blink, thrown. ‘Erm… Brookford.’ I rub my forehead. ‘Max had a fling at work.’
She frowns. ‘A fling?’
‘An affair.’
‘How did you find out?’
‘I found a note in his office. Actually, Holly found it. It was stuck under his laptop. I walked in looking for her because Holly was never allowed in his office. I don’t even know what she was doing there.
She showed it to me. It said, “I think I love you,” with a set of lips in red lipstick.
Did you know people still did that? Imprint their lips like that?
It’s awfully cliché, isn’t it? Anyway, it frightened the hell out of me.
After everything I’d gone through to be with him, I couldn’t bear the idea of losing him to someone else. Who would protect Holly then?’
‘Well, yes, indeed!’ she says. ‘Who would protect Holly?’
‘I asked him about it. I pretended I was the one who’d found it, and we had a fight.
I mean, he had a fight with me. Then he walked out.
He left us for a whole week and stayed in a hotel.
He didn’t even pack any clothes. I couldn’t contact him, he wouldn’t answer my calls – nothing.
He went to work, though, because I rang there and the receptionist would say he was too busy, or he was out, or he was in a meeting.
He came back one week later. Not asking for forgiveness, mind.
More like he’d gone to the shops and it’d taken longer than he expected.
I’m pretty sure he was with her. I don’t know why he came home, but I was so relieved when he did.
I begged him to give us another chance. He said it didn’t mean anything, but—’
‘He said that?’
‘I didn’t trust it. I told him I wanted a fresh start. Away from that house, away from all the memories of Saskia. I did a lot of begging, and he agreed.’
She sits back. ‘So why do you think he was having an affair in the first place?’
‘Erm. I don’t know. Opportunity?’
‘There has to be more to it than that.’
‘I don’t know, Teri. He didn’t expand on the subject.’
‘Don’t get touchy. I’m just curious, that’s all. For Max to have an affair at work means he must have been unhappy at home, don’t you think?’
Here we go again. I shake my head and laugh. ‘I’m not being touchy, Teri. Of course there was something wrong in the marriage. He was – I mean is – a psychopath. That usually makes for an unhappy marriage, in my experience. It’s not like I loved him.’
She tilts her head at me. ‘Maybe you should let him go. Have you thought of that?’
I pick up some notes, just like she did, and let them fall. ‘That’s what I’m doing.’
‘No, I mean, let him and Holly go.’
My head hurts. It’s all this talking. The emotional rollercoaster.
It’s giving me a migraine. I don’t understand what’s happening.
I have just poured my heart out. I have described the nightmare that Holly and I are living in.
I have told her about my sister’s murder, for Christ’s sake.
And I have confided in her about my deepest fears, the kind that keep me up at night.
She waits for me to reply, a concerned expression on her face. ‘I’m not leaving Holly with him, Teri,’ I say. For a moment, I forget that he is dead in the freezer. ‘I thought I’d explained that for, like, the past hour.’
‘Don’t be so defensive,’ she says. ‘I only mean that, well, it’s not very fair to keep his daughter hostage—’
‘Hostage?’ I shriek.
‘You know what I mean.’
‘No! I don’t!’
‘You don’t love him, Kate! It’s not fair to force him to be with you if you don’t love him! Let him go! Let them both go!’
Oh, my God.
It’s her.