I Bluetoothed all the files onto my laptop then handed Alice the Dictaphone to give to Mum. I told her not to listen to it and not to tell Mum I’d found her going through Janine’s handbag. She promised. She’s a good girl. An honest girl. My innocent little sister had no idea how important this recording was.
At first, I didn’t know what to do with these recorded conversations now they were in my possession. I could only guess that Mr Smith had given them to Janine. She obviously knew what was on them, so maybe Dad did, too. I couldn’t be sure.
But before I got the chance to ask him, Mum hung me out to dry: she posted all over social media my recording of Mr Smith apologising to me. By lunchtime, every kid at school thought I’d had sex with my English teacher. They started yelling words like ‘slag’, ‘slut’ and ‘teacher’s whore’ at me in the corridor. I did my best to ignore it. Then, on the way home, a gang of boys from Year 11 cornered me in the park. They started grabbing my breasts and bum, saying I was ‘easy’. I was terrified they were going to rape me. I broke free and ran home. I called Mum, screaming at her down the phone and crying, but she didn’t even apologise. In fact, when I threatened to tell Dad what we’d done to Mr Smith, she warned me what would happen if I did. I nearly told her about the Dictaphone, but I bit my tongue. I was going to fight fire with fire. I vowed to ruin her like she’d ruined me.
Then, just when I thought that day couldn’t get any worse, Dad came home early from work, tears streaming down his face. He was sobbing and it was a while before he could tell me what had happened. Janine had been killed at End of the Line and the police were hunting for Mr Smith.
I immediately had a horrible, gut-twisting feeling that Mum had played a role in this. And if she had, then so had I. I ran to the bathroom and couldn’t stop being sick in the toilet. A day later, when Mr Smith killed himself, I had another death on my conscience.
I couldn’t live with the guilt. I lost my appetite, I barely slept, I locked myself in my bedroom and wouldn’t speak to anyone but Alice and Dad – certainly not to my bitch of a mother. I had no one to confide in. Mum and Mr Smith had used me, but I didn’t think he was capable of murder. Mum, on the other hand, was capable of anything. I had to tell someone what I knew.
I remembered Mr Smith had a brother. I’d seen his photo on his phone when he gave me a lift home. So, after his funeral, I approached Johnny Smith on Facebook and a few days later we met. Mr Smith had told him what he’d done to me, so Johnny wasn’t as angry as I thought he’d be when I admitted, shamefully, the part I’d played in his brother’s death. He asked me loads of questions about Mum and I told him everything, apart from about the Dictaphone conversations. I might need those myself. Once I’d given him enough background information on her and what she’d done to our family, I sat back and waited. Only I never heard from him again.
As time went on, I mellowed out a little and even thought about putting it all behind me. Mum was back out of our lives again, we’d moved house once more, I had a private tutor and Alice changed schools. We were no longer living in Mum’s shadow.
But it all changed when the police arrived to tell us her and Dad had been involved in an incident at Henry’s care home and someone had died. They were being questioned. The police let Mum go first, so she took us to our old house to stay with her.
Mum told us what had happened. Dad had been protecting her and Henry from Mr Smith’s brother. She said Johnny had threatened to hurt Henry. It had all got out of hand, and in self-defence Dad had killed Johnny. Mum kept telling us Dad was a hero, but I knew there was more to her story than she was letting on. There always is.
Poor Alice couldn’t get her head around what was happening and I held her hand as she cried. I swallowed hard to stop myself showing Mum any emotion and waited until Dad was released on police bail. I knew he would tell us the truth. Only he lied to us as well. I could tell, because he couldn’t look either of us in the eye when he spoke, and his version was virtually word for word what Mum had said.
Later that night I sat on the landing at the top of the stairs, listening to them argue. Dad wanted to take Alice and me home, but Mum wouldn’t let him. And she had video evidence that would ensure he’d end up in prison for what he’d done, even though she’d manipulated him into doing it. From the sound of it, he went to attack her, and I willed him with all my heart to kill her. But he wasn’t like her. He had no choice but to stay and protect us from her.
Mum and Alice seemed happy we were all living back under one roof, but we were far from being a family. She was more maternal towards Alice than she’d ever been with me, but I wasn’t stupid. She was only sinking her claws into my sister to get to me.
Over the weeks, I watched as Dad slowly disintegrated before my eyes, and it was all because of Mum. I fucking hated her. For a long time I believed Mr Smith, Johnny and Janine were dead because of me. But eventually I realised it wasn’t my fault – it was the woman who called herself my mother who was to blame. She manipulated us all, but she wasn’t the only one who could make someone’s life hell. Today was as good a day as any to start wiping that smug, satisfied look from her face.
I slipped off my headphones and checked the inbox of the email account I’d created. Mum had already replied to Janine Thomson’s email asking what she wanted. The fun had only just begun.
I thought about replying, but hesitated. Instead, it would be more entertaining to drag this out for as long as possible. I was going to play with her like those killer whales you see in YouTube clips, tossing a seal into the air, catching it in its jaws, then spitting it out and doing it all over again before finally going in for the kill.
I’d send her another clip a few days from now, then another in a week or so. Maybe I’d start withholding my phone number and calling her, playing excerpts of her conversation with Ryan down the line.
I hoped her sanity would be the first thing to go, because then maybe she’d be locked up in that loony bin again and we’d be able to get out of this house. But if that didn’t work, I’d make the recordings public and ruin her.
‘You have to remember, Effie, you and I are cut from the same cloth,’ she told me once. ‘You are your mother’s daughter. There is so much you can learn from me.’
She was right. I had learned from her.
And now it was time to start putting all those lessons into practice.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First and foremost, thank you to John Russell for all your support during the writing of this and my other books. Your understanding and patience make this book business so much easier! And thank you for sitting guard outside the office to prevent me from being distracted too often. Thanks also to my mum, Pamela Marrs, for your constant encouragement.