Chapter 47
FORTY-SEVEN
HAVEN
FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER
The walk from Valerie’s house to Liane’s house is a lonely one.
But who else could I make it with? Joel is at home with his brother, the pair of them having been sent out of the kitchen by their father just before he initiated his important conversation with his wife.
I will be reunited with my boyfriend soon enough, but for now, I am all by myself and it had to be this way.
Somebody had to be elsewhere, making sure that the conversation was being recorded correctly. That somebody was me, and I can happily confirm that everything worked as it should have. The sound of sirens in the distance only makes that belief stronger.
As I keep walking, I send a message to Joel.
Almost there.
He replies straight back.
I love you.
I say the same thing in return before adding something important.
I can hear the police.
I wait to see what he says.
I can hear them too.
If Joel can hear the sirens, that must mean his mother can hear them as well and I wonder how she will be reacting to that.
Will she be trying to run? Will she seek to escape and avoid the punishment that is coming her way?
Or will she accept her fate and sit calmly in her home, surrounded by her family and all their memories, making the most of her last few moments of freedom before it’s gone forever?
As I reach their street and see the house where the crucial conversation took place only fifteen minutes ago, I can’t see any sign of Liane leaving. Nor can I see any sign of the police, though the sirens are getting louder and I know they will be here within seconds.
Sure enough, this sleepy suburban street is transformed into a cacophony of chaos a moment later as two marked police cars arrive, swiftly followed by a third, all of them with their blue lights flashing and their headlights aimed directly at the house they are here to visit.
As the cars park and uniformed officers get out, I keep walking towards the same address, eager to get there as quickly as they are, but for a very different reason. While they are here to make an arrest, I am here for something simpler than that.
I am here to give my boyfriend a hug.
I know he is going to need it.
The police officers are just ahead of me, and I watch them as I walk before noticing the front door opening.
Frederik appears. He is welcoming the police in, not waiting on them to knock and announce themselves, but actively ensuring not another second is wasted before they make their arrest. That simple sight tells me that he has accepted what has to happen and he will not be offering his wife any of the help I heard her beg him for in the recording.
But I already knew he was on board by the fact that he agreed to my plan when I presented it to him as he stood with me and Scott in Valerie’s house earlier.
‘Take one of these boxes back home with you,’ I’d said to Frederik as I gestured to the multitude of stacked boxes full of Valerie’s various things. ‘Carry it into your house and put it down by the dinner table, right next to where you will be sitting with Liane.’
‘Why?’ Frederik asked.
‘Because inside that box will be your phone and it will be connected to mine,’ I had explained.
‘We will be on a call together, although neither of us will speak. It will be a secret. Liane will have no idea. But I’ll be able to listen in and hear what you are talking about.
I’ll be able to record every word of it too. ’
I’d then explained to Frederik how I had an app that recorded every call on my phone and transcribed the dialogue.
‘All you need to do is get Liane talking about what she did to her mother,’ I had said.
‘She needs to confess to murder. She needs to explain why she did it. Her reasoning. Her motive. How she still wants to get away with it if only you’d agree to stay quiet.
If she does all that, we’ll have everything we need for the police. ’
‘You can do it, Dad,’ Scott had said then.
‘And you need to. For me. For Joel. And for you. We all knew Mum wasn’t perfect.
But now we know she is a criminal, we can’t ignore it.
We have to do the right thing. Mum can get the help she needs in prison.
And Grandma can get the justice she deserves too. ’
Frederik had taken a little while to answer us both then, but that was understandable. It can’t have been easy for a husband to accept a plan to catch his wife for a serious crime. But ultimately, just like his sons, he chose to do the right thing.
‘I’ll take this box,’ he said sadly, and with that, the plan was set.
Now, as I see him stepping aside to allow the police officers into his home, I can see that he is still struggling with the enormity of what has happened. The finality of it all. But it needed to be done. Now it has.
Once I had heard Liane’s confession, and checked that my phone had recorded it correctly, I made a call to the police to inform them that there had been a confession to a murder and I had the evidence.
I gave them Liane’s address and told them that she needed to be arrested before she could try and flee, and that I would meet the officers at the scene and provide them with all the evidence they needed.
Now that time has come and I seek out the nearest officer before explaining who I am and handing over my phone that is now a very important part of their investigation. Then I try to get inside to find Joel.
But unsurprisingly, the police aren’t keen on anybody else entering the scene, so I am forced to hang back, although not for long.
I see Joel step outside, followed by his brother, and it looks like the pair of them are keen to get some fresh air and have a break from that house where so much is happening tonight.
I run towards Joel and wrap my arms around him before squeezing him tightly, and I can feel that he needs such an embrace at this difficult moment. That’s why I keep squeezing him and I don’t let go until I have told him that I love him and we will get through this together, however hard it may be.
When we separate, I make eye contact with Scott, who lingers nearby and nod my head in his direction, a subtle sign of appreciation for his part in all of this. He nods back too, but there is no need for words between us. We said enough when we were making the plan.
I look back to the house then in time to see Frederik walking out, looking dazed, as if he has just been twelve rounds with a world heavyweight boxer and is now trying to get his bearings again.
My heart breaks for him and the path his life has taken, especially how it differed so greatly only a few hours ago.
He’s gone from thinking that he and his wife were about to retire and travel the world together to learning that the woman he married is a cold, calculating killer and now she is going to prison for the rest of their lives.
But bless him, even with all that, he still chose to do the right thing and it’s clear where his sons got their strength and bravery from.
They certainly didn’t get it from their mother.
And then she appears. Being marched out of the house.
Her head bowed and her hands behind her back, her wrists wrapped in cuffs and an officer either side of her.
She is being escorted to the nearest police car and, at first, it seems she isn’t even going to look up and acknowledge those of us standing by and watching.
But I’m wrong because she does look up.
It’s at the last second, but she does raise her head.
When she does, I wonder who she will look at.
Her husband? Her eldest son? Her youngest?
No, she doesn’t look at any of them.
Instead, she only looks at one person.
Me.
I’m the last thing she sees before she is bundled into the back of the police car and driven away.
How do I feel about that?
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.
After all, if I didn’t know Liane hated me before, I sure know it now.