Chris Curran - Her Deadly Secret

‘If you could see him. He’s changed so much. Sometimes, I can hardly bear to look at him.’ Her mother’s voice was gruff and she brushed at her cheek with the back of her hand.

Rosie forced herself to whisper. ‘I haven’t been able to look at him for fifteen years. And how you could bring yourself to take him back—’

‘But if you just talked to him.’

‘My god, can you hear yourself? You know what he did. Christ, what he was probably doing for years.’ Rosie stopped, aware of the listening silence from the back seat, and she turned, twisting her mouth into what she hoped might pass for a smile. ‘Tell you what, girls, shall we ask Nana to take us to the soft play centre? You can have tea there if you like.’

A squeal from both girls and then Fay, ‘Oh, yes please, Mummy, I love you. Nana, can we?’

Rosie felt her mother squeeze her knee with a soft, ‘Thank you, darling,’ before adding loudly, ‘Of course, if that’s what you want. And when you two are playing, Mummy and Nana can have a nice chat.’

If the girls were hungry they soon forgot about it when they saw the brilliantly coloured apparatus. They threw off their shoes and headed away. As they disappeared into the mass of shrieking children, all twisting and bouncing with excitement, Rosie shouted: ‘We’ll be over here. No going down head first, remember.’

It wasn’t until they were settled at a table that Rosie looked properly at her mother. Marion had aged in the past few weeks. Around the time of Alice’s death, she had gone from being plumpish to almost angular. The weight had gradually come back on, but today her face was as drawn and grey as it had been during that dreadful time. The urge to touch her, to say it was all right, was very strong. Instead, Rosie waved at Fay at the top of a twisting slide. Harriet, gasping and pink from her own shrieking plummet down, stood at the bottom urging her on. As Fay leapt forward, Marion pressed one hand to her own breastbone.

‘It’s all right, she’s quite safe. They test these things all the time,’ Rosie said.

Her mum looked at her with a tight smile. ‘Yes, I’m sure they do.’

They watched as two little girls in matching pink jogging bottoms walked by giggling together, followed by a man with a toddler wriggling in his arms and a small boy clutching at his leg, begging to be carried too. As he passed, the man raised his eyebrows at Rosie in mock exasperation.

She pulled her purse from her bag, trying to put off the inevitable. ‘You keep an eye on them and I’ll get some drinks. Do you want tea or coffee?’

Her mother touched her sleeve. ‘Rosemary …’ Rosie could feel her jaw grow hard. ‘Just come round, will you? Bring Fay. Please, dear, it would mean so much.’

She couldn’t trust herself to say anything more than a hard, ‘No.’

‘But he’s your dad and he’s never even seen Fay. He’d be so happy if you’d bring her over just for a few minutes. It’s all he talks about.’

‘Apart from lying about what he did you mean?’

Her mother let out a small groan. ‘He didn’t do it. I know that now and I can’t forgive myself for not sticking by him.’ She glanced round and lowered her voice. ‘It was dreadful for him in there. He won’t tell me much, but he has nightmares and … Oh, Rosie, to think we let him go through that alone for all those years.’

‘He deserved it. Deserved much worse for what he did.’

Marion leaned forward, whispering so fiercely her breath tickled Rosie’s cheek. ‘But he didn’t. He loved Alice; he could never have killed her. I don’t know how we could have let them persuade us. And as for the rest, what they suggested, I never believed that. It was too horrible. I would have known if he was interfering with her.’ She twisted to look into Rosie’s face. ‘You’ve said yourself: he never touched you like that. Well, that proves it, surely.’

‘Maybe I was too young. Or not pretty enough.’

Her mother’s shudder made the plastic table shake. ‘You don’t believe that.’

Rosie felt like screaming at her to shut up, but she took a deep breath and made herself speak. ‘What I know is that, if he was innocent, he could surely have made a better job of defending himself at the time. Even I could see his story didn’t hold up properly and I was desperate to believe him.’ Her voice was shrill enough to stop a small boy in his tracks. He stood staring at them, a red ice lolly sticking from his mouth.

‘Billy, come on, Billy.’ He continued to stare, crimson juice dripping onto his white Tshirt. A woman was beside them now, taking his hand. ‘Oh, Billy, look at you. Come and sit over here till you finish that.’ She shot a glance at them that said very clearly it was their fault.

Rosie looked towards the play area and her mother followed her gaze. Fay and Harriet, running through a maze of foam shapes, waved and laughed at them. Rosie waved back then turned to Marion again, lowering her voice. ‘Just because he’s convinced you – made you believe what you want to believe – that proves nothing.’

‘He has evidence but he wants to let it lie. Can’t face any more police or lawyers.’

Rosie stood up. She needed to get away. Couldn’t hear this. ‘I’ll go for those teas.’

At the counter, she was able to talk and smile as if nothing was happening. But her hands were shaking and the teacups rattled in their saucers as she put them on the table.

Her mother said: ‘I’ve upset you. I’m so sorry. Dad told me not to say anything. Said it would do no good raking it all up.’

The words came out in a rush. ‘This so-called evidence proves someone else killed Alice, does it?’

‘No. Just that Dad didn’t.’

It was rubbish, of course. As she’d known it would be. ‘So why did he admit he did it then, after all this time?’

‘Because his lawyer said it was best to go for parole. He could get out almost immediately if he accepted his guilt. If he hung on hoping for a new trial, he’d be in there much longer. And he couldn’t have survived that. All he cares about now is getting his family back.’

‘So he doesn’t want to find out who really did it?’ It was difficult to get the words out.

‘He said he couldn’t make us go through all that again. It would do more harm than good. But he showed me the new evidence and it convinced me.’

A spurt of anger made Rosie grit her teeth and take a heavy breath. ‘But it was you who told me we must accept that he did it.’

‘I know and I’ll never forgive myself for that, Rosemary. And it was partly my fault he was convicted.’

‘What are you talking about?’

Her mum closed her eyes, swaying back and forth, her voice very soft. ‘I was so angry with him. You remember what it was like when he got ill and had to give up work. Our lives changed so much. You and Alice were arguing all the time and so were Dad and I.’

Rosie swallowed a gulp of tea. She didn’t want to think about any of this. Their dad had been forced to give up his job when he developed rheumatoid arthritis. He was a violinist, and an important one too – leader of the Eastbourne Philharmonic Orchestra – but it was soon impossible for him to play at that level.

They just about managed to keep hold of the big house in the village outside Hastings, but could no longer afford the fees for the private school both girls went to. Somehow, they wangled Alice a scholarship so she could stay there, but Rosie had to move to a state comprehensive.

Her mother was still going on. ‘I knew it wasn’t his fault that he was ill, but he seemed to accept it all so easily. Almost as if he was happy about it. I think it was a relief to have less responsibility and to stay at home. But it damaged us as a family and that didn’t appear to bother him at all.’