I Know Your Secret - Ruth Heald Page 0,89
now; pretend. I have to save myself. ‘You can withdraw your complaint to social services, phone them up and tell them you got it wrong. Then I won’t tell anyone what you’ve done.’
‘You think I’m not like my mother?’ Danielle says, standing up from her chair and rising to her full height. ‘Well, maybe I’m more like her than you think.’ She leans over me and whispers. ‘It wasn’t her who set fire to the flat. It was me.’
Sixty-Two
Danielle
My words are supposed to sound threatening, but my voice wavers, the guilt welling up inside me. I killed my father. I feel sick with shame.
‘It was you?’ she says. ‘You started the fire? Why?’ Her face reddens and she steps closer to me. I think she might hit me, but she doesn’t.
I can hardly get the words out. I’m back in the corridor of the block of flats, hearing the alarms, feeling smoke in my lungs, then running, my feet pounding down the stairs and out into the fresh air. If Dad hadn’t been having an affair with Beth I would never have started the fire. He’d still be alive today.
‘I wanted to hurt him. I saw the evidence of your affair. He’d told me he’d renovated the flat for me, but it was all for you. I wanted to burn the place down. I didn’t realise he was inside. It was all your fault.’
Beth’s gone pale. ‘It wasn’t my fault. You started the fire, not me.’
‘I didn’t mean to kill him.’ I shake with regret, my body caving in on itself. I slump back into the chair. ‘My mother spent all those years in prison because of me. Because of you.’ I wipe the tears from my face with the back of my hand as I think of Mum. I don’t even know where she is. I haven’t heard from her since Peter asked her to leave and she moved out.
‘You were the one who started the fire. Did you lock your father inside too?’
I stare at her, eyes wide. I can hear a ticking clock, a car on the street. I can’t think straight. ‘No. I didn’t know my father was in there.’ I feel the guilt rise inside me. I remember when I got to the stairs, I thought I’d heard screams. But I’d told myself I was imagining it. The smoke alarms were so loud it was hard to distinguish other sounds. I’d dismissed it and run away. I could have saved him.
‘But when you left, did you lock the door of the flat?’
‘No!’ I don’t understand what she’s getting at, why she’s saying this. Why would I have locked the door? The place was on fire.
‘You didn’t go to the trial, did you?’
‘I did. That’s how I knew about you.’
‘But you weren’t there for all of it. You didn’t hear all the evidence.’ My heart pounds.
‘No.’ I take a shaky breath, grip the arms of the seat. After I’d seen Beth that day in court I’d never been back. I couldn’t cope with my guilt anymore, couldn’t watch my mother endure the endless scrutiny, all to protect me.
‘That was part of the case. Someone had locked your father in the flat. That was one of the reasons the jury was convinced your mother was guilty.’
I stare at her in shock, trying to compute what she’s saying, unable to find the words.
Out of nowhere, there’s a crash from downstairs. I jump. It sounded like a window breaking. I hear footsteps on the stairs. I look at Beth, and she looks back at me, her eyes wide.
Then she starts to shout. ‘We’re in here! In here! She’s locked me in.’
A second later, there’s a bang on the door of the room and a voice shouts through. ‘I know you’re in there, Beth. And you too, Danielle. I’ve seen your car outside.’
I unlock the door and come face to face with my mother.
Sixty-Three
Beth
‘Well, this is very cosy,’ Virginia says. ‘The two of you together. Are you having one of your therapy sessions, Sophie? Damaged by your horrible childhood?’ She turns to me. ‘I suppose she’s telling you it’s all my fault.’
‘We were just talking,’ I say. A moment ago I thought that whoever was coming up the stairs would rescue me. But now I smell petrol, see the cigarette lighter in Virginia’s hand. I freeze.
‘Beth was just telling me the truth,’ Danielle says, venom in her voice. She steps closer to her mother. ‘She said that you locked Dad