I Know Your Secret - Ruth Heald Page 0,88

wasn’t an angry person before his affair. My father drove her mad. You think her anger made my father have an affair, but it was the other way round. His affair caused her anger.’

I shake my head. That can’t be right. ‘No – she wasn’t a good person. You know that.’ Nick had always said that his wife was angry, difficult to live with, that their relationship hadn’t been working for a long time.

‘That’s not true. She was only unhappy because of him. She was fine before.’

I frown as my mind floods with confusion. I always tell my clients not to see things in black and white, that relationships are nuanced. And yet I always saw my relationship with Nick as perfect, believed that we would still be together if he hadn’t died.

‘None of this is my fault,’ I say. ‘I didn’t start the fire.’

‘No one would have started it, if it wasn’t for you. My father wouldn’t be dead. My mother wouldn’t have been in jail. You deserved every punishment I gave you. That psychiatric hospital was the right place for you. I thought you’d be there forever. But you got back up again. You started training to be a counsellor. How ironic that someone who destroyed so many lives thought they could help others.’

I remember when I started training, how hopeful I’d been that I could really help my clients. It had meant so much to me. ‘I’d sunk so low. I knew what it felt like to think life wasn’t worth living,’ I say softly. ‘I became a therapist so I could help people who’d felt like me.’

She laughs. ‘All about you, isn’t it? Never about the hurt you inflicted on other people. And then you found Richard. Had a child. You had everything. The family you’d denied me when I was growing up. And I wanted a child then myself. But I couldn’t put the past to rest. Couldn’t control my anger.’

‘No matter what you do to me, it won’t bring your father back.’

She doesn’t seem to have heard me.

‘Marriage counselling was just a front,” she says. ‘But I did need help. I told Peter I was going to individual counselling to sort out my anger issues.’ No wonder Peter hadn’t turned up for the first few sessions. He was never supposed to.

‘You still need help,’ I say softly. If only she could see that. She’s the one that needs psychiatric support, not me.

‘I knew that if I hinted that Peter was abusing me, then I could suck you in. At school you told us once you’d had an abusive partner. One who used to hurt you.’

‘You remembered that?’

‘Of course. I idolised you when I was at school. I hung on every word you said.’

I can’t believe how far she’s gone to set me up. ‘So all of those hints about Peter being abusive were just to get me to break a rule and come over to your house?’

Danielle nods.

‘I was worried when you cancelled the sessions afterwards, though. I thought I might have taken it too far. But that turned out fine. Because you believed me when I said I never got your messages. And you were caught off guard by Peter turning up with me and the news of the baby.’ She strokes her stomach, reflectively. ‘Although that was a surprise to me too. A happy one, of course. But a side benefit was that it played into your fears about Richard cheating on you with me.’

‘You planned everything.’

She smiles. ‘Not everything. You played quite a big hand in things yourself. You stalked me. I hadn’t foreseen that. That was a real bonus in my catalogue of evidence.’

‘What do you want from me?’ I ask, desperately.

Danielle smiles. ‘Everything you love. But I’m starting with your home.’

‘Why are you buying it? Do you even want to live here?’

She winds her hair around her fingers and frowns as she makes a show of looking around the room. ‘Not really. It’s not very nicely decorated, is it? It needs a lot of work. No, I don’t think I’ll bother. As soon as you’ve been forced to move out, I can pull out of the transaction.’

‘So it’s just to get me out?’

‘Of course. You destroyed my whole family. Now you’re losing everything too. Your home. Your job. Richard. Charlie.’

‘You’ve taken this too far,’ I say shakily. ‘This isn’t the real you. You were always such a nice girl. You’re nothing like your mother.’ I have to please her