I Know Your Secret - Ruth Heald Page 0,85

incompetence. How you tried to persuade me I wouldn’t be a fit mother. How you started following me.’

I shrink down into my seat, ashamed.

‘Were you were always planning to get me struck off? From the beginning?’

‘I wanted you to lose everything. Your home. Your family. Your job.’

‘My family?’ I whisper. I remember what I’d thought about her and Richard, how she’d told me her ex had said she had Kate Winslet’s smile, just like Richard used to say to me. How she had a Victorian jade brooch, like the type Richard liked to buy me. How would she have found out that about him? She’d first worn the brooch before I’d gone to her house. ‘Did you have a relationship with my husband?’ I ask.

She grimaces. ‘No. I wouldn’t sink so low. Even to hurt you. But I did send you the pictures. Of Richard with his younger girlfriend. It was funny, I’d planned to find Richard, figure out a way to break up your relationship. I’d even signed up for one of his courses, so I could befriend him, find out what made him tick, work out how to get to him. But I didn’t need to do any of the hard work. He’d already done it himself. When I started watching him, saw him going to the pub with his students, it was easy to see he was already cheating on you. All I had to do was befriend her, which wasn’t too difficult, but it did take a few months. I found out she went to a weekly Pilates class in the evenings and I started going too. I told Peter I was working late. Antonia and I started going out for drinks after Pilates. And then after a while she confided in me about Richard.’

I stare at her incredulously. I hadn’t even met Danielle then, and she went to all that effort to find out about Richard. Just so she could taunt me.

‘I understand why you sent me the photos. But why wear the brooch to therapy?’

‘I was playing with you, Beth. I wanted you to think it might be me who was sleeping with your partner. I wanted you to really question yourself, to wonder if you were going crazy again. Before I came to counselling I dyed my dark hair blonde. I wanted to look like her. I wanted you to think that I might be the person Richard had been sleeping with.’

‘You’re the one who’s crazy,’ I say. I’m starting to realise just how far she’s gone to hurt me. I feel a cold fist of fear around my heart. She wants to destroy me. How will this end?

‘I planned everything so carefully.’ She smiles at me, as if she’s expecting me to congratulate her. I want to scream at her for destroying my life, but I need to get her onside. She wants validation.

‘I never even guessed,’ I say. ‘You completely fooled me.’

She smiles gleefully. ‘You’re so easy to fool.’

‘But why involve Richard? Why not just target me?’

‘Richard made you happy. And you didn’t deserve a happy family. It was so frustrating when I’d gone to all that effort befriending Antonia and sending the photos, that you just forgave him. But then I had to find another way to get to you. That was when I started therapy. I needed to get close to you. Get close to Charlie.’

A shiver runs down my spine. Charlie’s with Richard now. At least, I think he is. ‘What do you mean, get close to Charlie?’

And then I remember. The bruises on Charlie’s arm. How they had appeared after she’d found him when he’d let himself out of the house onto the street. ‘Did you hurt him? When you found him in the street? Did you hurt him to get at me?’

‘Maybe a little. But not on purpose, that wasn’t part of the plan. It was difficult to get him to come back to the house. Once I’d given him a taste of freedom, he didn’t want to come back to you at all. Just wanted to find his dad. I had to drag him along a bit to get him to cooperate.’ She shrugs. ‘It wouldn’t have hurt him that much. It wasn’t a big deal.’

‘What do you mean, you gave him a taste of freedom?’ My eyes are wide, realisation dawning. ‘Was it you who let him out of the house?’ I remember how I’d been distracted that evening, how I’d been rushing to