that! The possibilities are endless.’
She takes yet another step forward and I step away, feel the banister against my back.
My fingers touch the metal filigree work that looks so attractive, but that Linda told me Sophie glanced her head on when she fell.
And here I now stand myself. Is this what happened to Sophie? Did she discover they were monitoring her every move, too?
She walks towards me clutching a syringe.
‘It’s time for you to sleep, Freya. We’ve come so far in our work here, I can’t let it be ruined at this stage. If you cooperate, you can stay with your daughter . . . for a while, at least, until my studies are complete. I give you my word.’
Her word?
‘You give me more lies, you mean.’ I look desperately at Audrey as Lily walks forward and I press harder against the balcony. ‘Please, make this stop now. She can’t carry on ruining people’s lives like this.’
I feel dizzy, vulnerable. I can rush Lily and try to knock the needle from her hand, but if Audrey assists her, she can probably sedate me even with a struggle.
‘Think of your sacrifice as a wonderful gift to so many. We are not simply money oriented. We are psychologists, scientists, devoted to our field even when today’s experts wish to discount our work, obsessed as they are with their political correctness, their human-rights legislations.’
I slide further along the balcony towards the wall at the end. She’s completely deluded.
‘What you’re doing is unethical!’ I shout now. ‘You can’t just do this to people . . . it’s illegal!’
Lily shakes her head.
‘Some of the greatest psychological studies have been unethical. I ask you, where would we be without them? Take Stanley Milgram’s obedience experiment, or Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford prison situational study. Both of these great men, now vilified and shunned by the very people they helped to progress. The ethical do-gooders still whine that Little Albert was not protected from harm. Barely a mention of the great strides in progress my grandfather made during his lifetime.’
‘Skye!’ I scream as loud as I can in the hope my daughter can hear me, wherever she is.
She lunges at me, the syringe held high.
‘And now it’s time for you to leave us, in the knowledge you have contributed to a very worthwhile experiment. As dear Sophie and little Melissa did before you.’
I duck down and jump behind her as her arm comes down, vicious and stabbing.
Before she can pull back her arm to attack me again, I push her as hard as I can, and with a terrific crack and groan of metal, the decorative balcony gives way and Lilian Brockley crashes down three floors with it.
The house seems stunned into deathly silence . . . And then, as Audrey and I look down on the apparently lifeless body of Lily Brockley, an apartment door opens and Matthew and Susan Woodings soundlessly step out on to the landing and stare silently up at us from the first floor, their faces without expression.
I rush to the stairs to make a run for it just as a figure appears on floor two, looking up at me as he rushes to the stairway.
Dr Marsden.
51
I run back inside my apartment and snatch up the heavy bronze hare Brenna bought us as a housewarming gift. Where is Skye?
I feel like I’m about to vomit any second, but I run back out on to the landing to find Dr Marsden waiting there. I never suspected Lily, but I’ve known all along in my heart there’s something strange about him.
‘Get away from me!’ I swing the sculpture down and up in front of me. I am more than willing to smash it into his face if he comes near me. I’ll do anything necessary to get my daughter back.
‘Freya, please. Just settle a moment, the police and ambulance service are on their way.’
He’s called the police? It doesn’t make any sense.
Audrey appears from behind him, for the first time looking slightly dishevelled and wild eyed. When she speaks, her usually deep tone sounds weak.
‘Lilian Brockley is our sister, Freya, she owns Adder House and we are all family here.’ She glances down. ‘Even Susan Woodings, my niece, has suffered with her nerves which has affected her pregnancies.’
‘But you were part of this, too.’ They can’t all just shirk responsibility. They turned a blind eye to Lily’s actions.
‘It happened gradually, you see. Lily got the idea a few years ago, of carrying out real-life experiments on