I Know Your Secret - Ruth Heald Page 0,82

gripped her harder.

‘Sophie,’ she said. ‘Sophie,’ she repeated urgently. ‘You know the school has rules about physical contact.’

I laughed for half a moment, thinking she must be joking. She was the one who always flouted those rules, who was willing to give us a hug, or jokingly ruffle our carefully styled hair.

But she wasn’t joking. I felt it in the way she extracted my arms from around me, saw the irritation in her frown.

Dark circles underlined her eyes and she looked like she’d been crying. Her face was bare of make-up. The only time I’d ever seen her like that.

I wondered once more if she had a serious illness. If that’s why she’d been off school. Was that why she was being so cold to me?

‘I need to talk to you,’ I said.

‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’

I thought that she couldn’t possibly know what had happened to me, couldn’t know my father had died. She must have been off sick for longer than I thought. She must have been off when it happened.

She turned to walk away.

‘Please’ I said, grabbing her arm.

‘Don’t make a scene,’ she hissed.

Students were already staring at us curiously. They all knew who I was. The girl whose father died in a fire. The girl whose mother was accused of his murder.

I’d already got used to their stares, but they clearly alarmed her.

‘Come with me,’ she said, pulling me into an empty classroom.

We stood opposite each other and I thought of all the times I’d confided in her, all the times I’d confessed to her.

I was about to blurt it out, ask to move in with her when she started to cry.

‘I’m so sorry about what happened to your father,’ she said. ‘I’m so, so sorry.’

I watched her tears falling down her face, mesmerised. I hadn’t been able to cry myself. I’d felt numb, as if I was operating in some kind of parallel universe, as if it was all just a dream. Or perhaps my previous life was the dream and this nightmare was reality.

‘Thank you,’ I said blankly. My heart filled. She really cared about me.

‘How are you holding up?’ She reached for my hand.

‘Not great. I don’t know where they’re going to put me. My aunt’s staying with me at the moment, but they’re talking about foster families. My own family won’t take me.’ I stared down at my feet, thinking of all the excuses my relatives had made about being too busy with work.

I expected her to butt in and say I didn’t need to go to a foster family, that I could move in with her. To say what she always used to say to me when I told her about my parents’ fights. She’d want to take me in now, to help me.

But she didn’t say anything. I wondered if it was because of her health.

‘Can I move in with you?’ I blurted out. ‘Like we talked about.’

She pulled her hand away from me. ‘No, no you can’t. I’m sorry.’

‘Why not?’ I could hardly believe what she was saying.

‘I don’t have the space.’

‘But you must do. You offered before.’

‘You don’t understand. Before, well… I was expecting to move into a big house where there’d be space for all of us.’

‘For all of us?’

‘Yes…’ She looked at me, her eyes searching mine. ‘I mean, my boyfriend too. But that hasn’t worked out.’ She started crying again, loud, angry sobs.

I’d never seen her like this.

‘I can sleep anywhere,’ I said. ‘On a sofa, wherever.’

‘I just can’t take you in. I’m sorry, but I can’t. I have a lot of stuff going on myself. In my family. And it’s just not the right time. I’m sorry.’

Afterwards, she went into the staff toilets. I stood outside, listening to her sob. I hadn’t cried when I heard my father had died. I hadn’t cried when my mother was arrested. But now the tears came and I couldn’t stop.

Fifty-Seven

Beth

I stare at Danielle. If she’s really Sophie, like she says she is, then it was her mother who murdered Nick, the love of my life.

‘What happened to your mother?’ I ask Danielle, remembering what she said about her mother coming to live with her. She couldn’t have meant Virginia, could she?

‘She was in jail for fifteen years. She’s just been let out.’

I stare at her in shock. Her sentence had been for life. I remember reading something once about life not really meaning life. But fifteen years? Surely that was too short. And surely someone