I Know Your Secret - Ruth Heald Page 0,84

ask.

She nods, her gaze never shifting from me. I see the hatred in her eyes.

‘You understand, don’t you?’ I say, desperate to explain. ‘He was everything to me. We were in love. And your mother killed him. She thought if she couldn’t have him then no one could.’ Virginia wasn’t supposed to be with Nick. She wasn’t good for him.

‘It wasn’t like that. It was her flat, hers and my father’s. It was supposed to be mine once I finished university. But instead he let you live there. His girlfriend. And all the time you were befriending me at school.’

She knows everything.

‘All I did was love your father. You know how unhappy your parents were. You used to tell me about it.’

Nick had told me their relationship hadn’t been working for a long time. They weren’t sleeping together anymore and he’d wanted to get out, to be with me.

‘If you hadn’t tried to take him from my mother, he wouldn’t be dead.’

‘Their relationship was as good as over. You know what your mother was like.’ Nick had told me how controlling she was, how when he’d tried to talk to her about me, she’d smashed up their kitchen. I had thought I could rescue them both, Nick and Sophie. That we’d all be able to live together happily. That was why I’d told Sophie I could take her in, get her away from her mother.

‘So that’s your explanation, is it? That you were in love?’

Danielle glares at me and my stomach contracts as I think about how much I loved Nick, how much I still love him. It feels like a piece of my heart will forever be missing.

‘We were. We were in love. Why are you here, Sophie? To get some kind of revenge?’

‘I just want to talk. Just want you to explain yourself.’

‘There’s nothing to explain. I loved him. I wanted us all to live together. You, me and Nick.’

Danielle laughs incredulously. ‘That was never going to happen. Not after your affair.’

‘Nick didn’t do anything other than look out for me and you. He loved you. Your mother wasn’t right for him.’ She’d needed to let him go, let them both be free of their volatile relationship. It would have all worked out in the end, if she’d only let go of him. Nick and I could have started again, Sophie would have been free of her parents’ arguments, and Virginia would have been out of a relationship that was making her unhappy.

Danielle laughs. ‘I don’t know how you can be a marriage counsellor, sit there all day telling people how to fix their relationships, when the truth is you destroy marriages.’

‘What do you want from me? Do you want to punish me? Is that it?’

‘Something like that.’

‘You were the one who complained about my counselling, weren’t you?’

‘You deserved it. You were following me. But even before that, you paid no attention to any of the professional guidelines. You jumped at the chance to come to my house and help me ask Peter to leave, even though you knew you were breaking the rules.’

‘Because I felt sorry for you.’ She had been manipulating me, even back then. I realise that I don’t know what happened between her and Peter after that night. The next time I’d seen them, she’d been pregnant and our session had been focused on that. ‘What was that night about? Did you really ask Peter to leave?’

She grins smugly, taps her fingers on my desk. ‘No. He was already staying with a friend that night.’

‘So why did you call me over?’

‘I wanted to see how much it would take to get you to break the rules. It turned out to be easy. And I wanted to get you drunk, to find out more about your life. I learnt a lot that evening. About your break-up with Richard. How you were probably going to have to move house.’

I remember that night. How ill I’d felt after just a few glasses of wine.

‘I wasn’t drunk, was I? You drugged me.’

‘I needed you to lose control.’

‘Why?’

‘So I could take photos of you, passed out drunk. They’ve all been helping in the case against you. Going to a client’s house and getting drunk hardly looks good, does it?’

‘But that wasn’t what happened.’

‘We’ll see what the investigators believe, shall we? I’ve got my diary to back up what I say. I’ve been keeping the diary that you suggested I start in our first session. Recording every moment of your