And then I see it: something in the way his blue eyes are placed in that pleasant face.
‘You’re Lily’s son. That’s why you were there, that’s how you knew Nancy. Living in the shadow of the big house that your parents looked after.’
‘No,’ he says, irritated. I wait. ‘Bob was my stepfather. She remarried after my father died.’
‘And you didn’t take his name. So you kept that quiet. What, did you not like to mention it at school, what your parents did?’ I’m guessing, but his mouth tenses. ‘And what about this, now?’ I fill my voice with as much conviction as I can muster. ‘You know this is the end for you. They won’t believe it.’
‘Oh, they’ll believe it.’ He laughs. ‘You’ll be surprised what people will believe.’
He’s so assured, he’s not even worried.
Yes, I think, because you’ve done this before.
Sophie, a runaway who wasn’t a runaway. Now me, a suicide that isn’t a suicide. And—
‘Nancy,’ I say. ‘She didn’t run away either, did she?’ He doesn’t reply. ‘So what did happen? Did you do the same as with Sophie, trick her, hide her somewhere?’ I’m throwing words at him, trying to get him off balance; to get under his skin. The door behind him, it’d be what; eight, nine steps? ‘And then what? Did you get bored of her, decide to get rid of her? To murder her—’
‘No!’ His voice is loud. ‘Shut up.’ His top lip is glistening now, he’s sweating despite the chill. ‘Nancy was an accident. It was her fault – it was all her fault.’
‘How? Because she got pregnant? With Jay’s baby? Is that why you did it? Because the girl you wanted was with someone else. That’s it, isn’t it. She was pregnant with his baby.’
‘It wasn’t his,’ he bursts out.
I stay silent.
‘It was ours. They’d broken up. I comforted her. She didn’t want anyone to know. I understood: we were … different.’ I can imagine: the housekeepers’ boy, still no one you’d notice; Nancy, a teenage princess. Him infatuated, totally. ‘And then she got pregnant. She was so upset, but I knew what to do. We were going to go away, until we were older, until her family couldn’t bully her.’ His mouth twists. ‘We’d even written our notes, decided what we’d say. But she let me down.’ There’s a whining note in his voice now.
‘That night, when we’d planned to go, she came to me. She told me it was fine.’ His voice breaks on the word. ‘She wasn’t pregnant any more, because she’d told her parents. They’d sorted it, that’s what she told me, and now she was going away. It was going to be smoothed over, like nothing had happened.’
‘She was going to boarding school.’ Just like Lily told me.
‘She didn’t even mind. She said she wanted a fresh start. I said, we could still go. We could still be a family. I’d always wanted that. She said it was madness, she was far too young to have a baby. I got angry, I called her – names. And she said she never wanted to be with me, not really. Look at you, she said. Look at me. And then she – she laughed at me.’
The room is very still. I can smell the damp earth.
‘So you lost control,’ I say slowly. I see it now. Not planned. Opportunistic. A teenage boy rejected, reacting in blind fury. ‘What did you do? Did you stab her? Did you hide her?’ Suddenly, rage is filling me; I want to hurt him, like he’s hurt so many people. ‘Is that it? You stabbed her?’
The knife in his hand flashes again, and I shrink back against the wall.
‘She provoked me.’
‘But then why did she leave a runaway note …’ I can see the answer in the sly curve of his mouth: just the hint of a smile. ‘No, you left the note.’ He went into Parklands, into Nancy’s house, and left the note she’d written on her bedspread. That’s what they found, when everyone woke up the next day. ‘But Sophie? Why did you have to do this to her, too?’ There’s despair in my voice. ‘Just to hurt someone?’
‘No. No, this is why I knew people would never understand. It wasn’t to hurt – it was love. When I saw her, I knew. They could have been sisters. She even lived next door to Nancy’s house.’ His voice softens. ‘It was like it was meant to be; my second chance. Our chance – to repair the past.’
So it wasn’t a mistake: Sophie getting pregnant. A baby.
‘But you couldn’t run away with her, this time, you’d have been discovered. You hid her, instead.’
‘No one would have understood. But we were in love.’
‘But you know now, don’t you?’ I have to make him realise. ‘This is the end – it’s over.’
He shakes his head slowly. ‘Not yet. I can fix this. I’ve done it before.’ He points the knife at the bottle in my hand. ‘Because you’re going to take those pills.’
‘I’m not.’ He won’t be able to cover this up, not again, even if I don’t get through this – his skin under my nails, scratches on his face, whatever it takes, I will leave traces that they will find, if something happens to me, leading them to Sophie. ‘You’re not going to cover this up. I won’t do it.’
‘Oh, but you will do it.’ His certainty shakes me. ‘You’ll see.’
He takes a step back, the knife still in his hand, and now he’s beckoning through the smaller door, through to the next room. ‘You can come out now.’
At first I hear nothing. Then the rustling, just faint. The footsteps are slow, tired-sounding.
She walks in.
45
Her hair’s grown. Of course it has. And she’s so pale, under the grime. She’s no shoes on, just greying socks, a big T-shirt under her jumper and old tracksuit bottoms. She is taller, too.
My eyes fill with tears. Sophie. She’s alive. She really is. Wild joy fills me – and then fear. ‘Sophie—’ I take a step towards her, my hands reaching out.
‘Don’t move another inch.’ He points the knife right at me and I freeze.
Above the masking tape, her eyes are full of fear, like a cornered animal. The tape’s round her wrists too: her hands twisted awkwardly in front of her; back to back.
‘So that’s why you’re going to take the pills,’ he says. ‘Or I’ll hurt her.’ He says it so calmly, so matter-of-fact.
I understand now. ‘You don’t need to do this. You can go away. You don’t need to. I won’t tell anyone. Just let us go and—’
He gestures impatiently. ‘Stop it, Kate.’ He sighs, like I’m an annoyance. ‘Of course you’ll tell someone. Look what you’ve done so far.’
‘I was just trying to find out what happened,’ I say now, keeping my voice steady.
‘We wanted to be together. Didn’t we, Sophie?’ She nods. He’s broken her, I think, my poor girl. ‘But you wouldn’t let her go. And yet you couldn’t find her either, could you? Right by you, and you never realised.
‘You’ve failed her, until now. You told me that. But now here’s your chance: your chance to save her. To make it right, like you wanted.’
To save her … and I stop. Then what? A half-life with him, hidden away. Or worse?
Make it right. I wasn’t perfect. But this wasn’t my fault.
I stare at him; the hatred radiating off me. It wasn’t my fault. Sophie didn’t leave me, not forever; she just made a mistake. She wanted to come home. I’m not a bad mother.
It was him. He did this to me – to us. To my daughter. He ripped our lives apart.
‘So that’s why,’ he says, ‘you’re going to do what you’re supposed to do now. Take the pills.’
‘You wouldn’t.’ My mouth is so dry with fear my tongue sticks to the roof. ‘You don’t want to hurt her. Nancy was an accident.’ No. I can’t be this close, only to lose now. He takes a step towards Sophie and lifts his hand. ‘You wouldn’t hurt …’
‘No, I don’t want to. I never want to. But she’s been a bad girl, haven’t you? A disappointment. And I didn’t even know, until your mother told me, the full extent of all your little tricks, to get away from me.’ Her eyes are shiny, wet with tears, above the ugly silver tape covering her mouth.