I Know Your Secret - Ruth Heald Page 0,86

answer the phone.

She nods. ‘I called your landline to distract you so you were out of the way. Then all I had to do was tell him that his daddy was outside and wanted to see him. It was easy. He practically ran out of the house. He was just outside when you came back to say goodbye to me.’

My mind races. So that’s why he said he’d been looking for his dad. Danielle had told him that Richard was outside.

Fury rises inside me. I jump out of my chair, lunge at her. ‘How could you do that?’ But my words slur and she ducks out of the way. I land with a thud on the floor. ‘He nearly got hit by a car. Because you let him out.’

Danielle shakes her head. ‘I made that bit up. Just to scare you.’

‘But why? Why did you let him out in the first place?’

‘It was all part of my evidence base,’ she says calmly. ‘Evidence that you were an unfit mother. Like the prescription pills you thought he swallowed.’

‘What?’

‘I put your bottle of pills underneath Charlie’s bed. When you finally found it and Charlie had to go to hospital – well, it all added to the evidence for social services.’

‘Social services? It was you who reported me. Is that why you planted my pills? So Charlie would get ill and you could report me to social services? You didn’t care about Charlie at all?’

‘Nothing happened to him, Beth. The bottle was empty. It was there over a week before you even found it. All that happened to Charlie was that he was taken away from you. And that will be good for him. He’ll be happier, living with Richard.’

She thinks that Charlie’s been taken away from me, that that’s why he’s not been in the house the last few days.

‘He’s not living with Richard. He’s just staying with him for half-term.’

‘Maybe for now. But I think you’ll find he’ll be living with him soon enough. I’ve sent everything to social services. The photos of you passed out drunk on your sofa after drinking at my house. Details of how you left the door unlocked and he got outside onto the street on his own. Information about the bruises on Charlie’s arm. How Charlie nearly swallowed your prescription pills. There’s no way they’ll let you keep him.’

Sixty

Danielle

Beth leaps at me again and I move away. I smile at her anger. This is what I wanted all along, and it feels good to finally see her upset, to see how much I have hurt her. It’s what she deserves.

‘I want you to leave, now.’ She stands over me, her face red, slurring her words, indicating the door.

‘No. I haven’t finished.’ There is so much more to say, so much more to tell her. I’ve been the puppetmaster of her life for years, manipulating everything. And she hadn’t even noticed.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Can’t you guess, Beth? Or are you too stupid?’ I’m enjoying this, but not as much as I thought I would. I thought she’d be more impressed that I’d made her think I’d slept with Richard, that I’d orchestrated social services’ involvement in her life. It had taken a lot of effort, a lot of planning. But she’s too drunk to realise the extent of it, just how clever I’ve really been.

‘Get out of my house,’ she repeats.

I shake my head.

She speaks slowly, as if she’s struggling to form the words. ‘What else have you done? Is it you who’s been following me?’

I laugh. ‘The way you followed me? No, that’s not me. At least, not now. It’s my mother.’ My mother told me she’d been watching Beth since she got out of prison, that she’d seen me come here for therapy.

‘Is she the reason you want revenge now? Are you doing all this for her? She doesn’t even love you. She never did.’

I recoil. That’s not true. My mother sacrificed everything for me. ‘She did. She always did.’

‘How could she kill your father if she loved you? How could she do that to you?’ Beth is shouting now.

‘She didn’t,’ I say quietly. Suddenly the room feels airless and I feel like I can’t breathe. I’ve said it out loud. The truth. But Beth isn’t listening.

‘She’s put you up to this, hasn’t she? She’s a hateful person, she always has been. That’s why your father wanted to leave her. Can’t you see that?’

‘She hasn’t put me up to this. It was all me.’