‘Watching me?’ I repeat.
‘You’re clueless. I watched you from across the road in a house I rented in Muriel Crescent. I even followed you to work. We followed you here. Watching you, watching Evie. Phil took all your photo albums and Evie’s birth certificate from your bedroom so we had evidence she was ours if we needed it. You were so out of it, you never even realised anything was missing.’
I think about that day I’d entered my bedroom and just felt inexplicably that something was wrong. The bin bags full of stuff had been open but I thought it was just my imagination.
‘Phil’s a military man, an expert. He documents every detail so there are no mistakes.’ She turns to him and smiles, in her stride now. ‘He even planned your mother’s demise. That was a stroke of genius, as it turned out.’
I think about Mum’s distress about her accident on the stairs. How she thought she was losing her mind.
‘I was waiting for my chance, I just didn’t know how I’d do it. You getting the Gregory’s job was perfect, Joanne Deacon was a gift. On the verge of bankruptcy and desperate for cash, she gave me a way in. In time, I knew your routines better than you did. We wanted your interfering mother off the scene and that’s why Phil planned the accident, but, as it happened, you made such a mess of everything that the incident led to our chance to take Evie.’
‘I thought Jo was my friend.’ I have to say it out loud, to make it count for something.
‘You’re a bad judge of character then,’ Tara sniggers. ‘Although she did start to get cold feet once she’d taken her. I think she actually believed us when we said we were just teaching you a temporary lesson, that we’d return Evie to you. We had to snatch her back from Jo pretty quickly, she seemed to think Evie belonged to her.’
‘Evie,’ I whisper. ‘I want to see her.’
‘She’s safe. I’ll tell you that as my parting gift. But you can’t see her; you’ll never see her again. Just like I never got to see my baby. You see, Phil here is quite the expert at making death look like a beautiful accident.’
‘Tara, why? Why do all this now?’
‘Because this ending is just perfect. They’ve got Evie back, so the heat is off us, but I’ve got you. So, you see, you’ll never get to see each other. Two lives ruined for the price of one.’
‘You’ll never get away with it, not now you’ve come back.’
‘I wouldn’t be so sure. They haven’t found us so far. We had to practically deliver little Evie right into their hands, they’re so incompetent.’
‘So why did you bring her back?’
‘Things were hotting up. Haven’t you seen the national newspapers this morning? That stupid bitch Jo Deacon, getting herself a nice little paralysing syndrome instead of just dying when she had the stroke.’ Her face contorted. ‘They’re interested again, the police will be stepping up their inquiries. I’ve got my revenge, now I’m ready to start a new life and there’s just one last thing to do.’
Phil takes a step towards me.
‘Joanne Deacon will never make a full recovery, even if she has blinked. I’ve been to the hospital, spoken to the doctors. We always used fake names with Evie, told her we were her aunt and uncle. She loves us, won’t betray us, because she knows nothing. Police resources won’t stretch to a national manhunt for a child that’s returned unharmed.’
She hands Phil a bottle.
‘Make her a nice cup of tea, Phil, and put plenty of this in.’ She smiles at me. ‘It’s time to end it all, Toni.’
‘I don’t understand why you—’
‘That’s just it. You never tried to understand my pain, you were so involved in your own suffering.’
‘Tara, I couldn’t function, please. Let’s just talk about what happened, about Evie.’
‘None of your clever tricks,’ she snaps, as Phil comes back into the room. ‘We’re not here to talk. You can either drink this or I’ll force you. It’ll only take a few sips.’
She takes the mug from him and he holds my arms behind my back in a lock. My back arches, my face tips back. She pours the tea and I seal my mouth shut as the burning fluid scorches my skin.
Her fingernails dig into my lips, trying to prise them open. I knock my head from side to side so she can’t get the mug near me. I’m vaguely aware of a shadow coming from behind her when suddenly her face explodes forward, blood and bits of flesh everywhere.
My arms are released and I stagger forward, tripping over Tara’s body and falling to the floor. I look up to see Harriet Watson smashing a hammer into Phil’s arm, then his already mangled hand, crushing it completely.
He throws his head back and screams and Harriet smashes the hammer into his face. He falls to the floor. She hits him again on the skull as he falls and then she turns to me, the hammer raised.
I cower, holding up my hand uselessly as protection.
‘Shall we have a cup of tea now the unpleasantness is out of the way, Toni?’ she asks, calmly. ‘Then I’ll show you where the smell is coming from.’
75
Present Day
Toni
I sit, dazed, on the couch, staring at the bodies of Tara and Phil. In films, people who look dead suddenly jump up and start throttling people again. But these two don’t look like they’re getting up any time soon.
Was Tara telling the truth? Is Evie still alive?
I breathe in and out. Harriet’s right, you get used to the smell.
I can hear Harriet pottering around in the kitchen. She really is making tea. Everything seems so ordinary, but I can’t move.
I hear the back kitchen door smash open, hear yelling, shouting. Suddenly, the room is flooded with uniforms and I feel myself being led away, outside into the fresh air.
I look up into the face of DI Manvers.
‘Toni, are you OK? Did she hurt you?’
‘You were right,’ I say quietly. ‘She’s harmless. Just mad as a box of frogs.’
‘I was wrong.’ He shakes his head. ‘She’s murdered Joanne Deacon. Suffocated her in her hospital bed.’
I receive the news, understand it. I don’t feel anything.
‘Toni, look at me.’
I do.
‘We have her. We have Evie.’
The world stops turning.
‘She’s fine,’ he says softly. ‘She’s not hurt, she knows she’s coming home.’
I begin to softly sob. ‘Have they hurt her, is she hurt?’
‘Evie has been well cared for.’
‘It’s true,’ I say faintly, feeling woozy.
‘We’re going to take you home now to pack an overnight bag and then you’re going to see your daughter.’
‘Thank you,’ I hear myself say. ‘I’ll be fine.’
‘Wait, please!’ Harriet Watson shouts, breaking away from the police officers trying to restrain her and rushing into the room. ‘I want to show Toni the smell. I want you to see it’s not Evie. I would never hurt Evie.’
DI Manvers gives his grudging permission for Harriet to lead us upstairs. As we move upwards, the smell grows stronger.
‘Jeez, I’m gonna throw up,’ I hear one of the officers say. ‘I know this smell, it’s not going to be pretty.’
We wait at the bottom of the second flight of stairs while Harriet and DI Manvers climbed to the top.
‘I want her to see,’ Harriet says.
DI Manvers nods and I follow them up.
Harriet produces a key from her pocket and inserts it into the door. She pushes it open and we stagger back from the stench. Bluebottles buzz frantically at the window, more than I’ve ever seen in my life. The officers at the bottom of the stairs clutch their noses.
‘It’s Mother,’ Harriet says softly. ‘You see, she refuses to come downstairs when she’s nursing Darcy.’
* * *
Much later, on the way to the unit, DI Manvers explains a few things.
‘Darcy was Harriet’s sister, born before Harriet. She died from cot death when she was just six months old. The old woman kept the baby swaddled and wrapped in a bottom drawer all those years. Even when they moved, Darcy went with them.’