Scrolling back to the start of the memoir she began reading it again, making sure she was taking in every last detail, checking her notes, analysing Freda’s tone and nuances in the recordings, but she got no further than the first few pages before the music started up again, snatching at her thoughts, and making concentration impossible.
Tears filled her eyes and her heart almost burst with frustration as she returned to the daybed and put a pillow over her head to help block out the deafening concert.
‘Did you read to the end of what I sent you?’ Freda asked, sounding only mildly curious as she replaced her teacup on its saucer and put both on the coffee table.
Marianne simply stared at her. She had no intention of answering anything until she knew what this woman was up to with Joely.
‘I’m sure you did,’ Freda continued, ‘but even if you didn’t you already know everything that happened, what you said and did, the lives you destroyed …’
Biting out the words, Marianne said, ‘What you’ve written …’
‘What your daughter wrote,’ Freda interjected. ‘They’re her words, not mine, at least most of them. Obviously, I gave her some guidance. I can’t help wondering how she feels now she knows that she’s the author of her own mother’s sexual exploits with a much older man.’
Hating the very idea of Joely even knowing about it, never mind being tricked into writing about what had happened back then, Marianne rose to her feet. ‘It’s time you left,’ she said with so much steel in her voice it caused Freda’s eyebrows to arch.
‘It’s uncomfortable, isn’t it,’ Freda said, ‘thinking of your own flesh and blood engaging in a sexual act with you, even if only in a literary sense. However, I believe incest isn’t a stranger to your family. Didn’t your mother mistakenly sleep with her own brother at one of the famous orgies?’
Marianne’s eyes flashed with rage. ‘That was an ugly, vindictive lie spread by a girl who was jealous of my mother,’ she cried furiously. ‘It wasn’t true, but it was vile enough to make it impossible for my mother and her brother to see one another again.’
‘Really?’ Freda said disbelievingly.
‘I don’t care what you think,’ Marianne spat dismissively. ‘I don’t even care how you know …’
‘Sit down,’ Freda told her. ‘What your mother did or didn’t do with her brother is of no interest to me, I’m only interested in what you did to mine.’
Marianne glared at her as the past crackled like sparks in the air between them. David Martin – or Michaels as he was called in the pages she’d read – the man who still haunted her dreams to this day, was this woman’s brother. Marianne had never imagined that she and Freda would meet, not back then, or now, but here she was sitting on the sofa and clearly proud of the way she’d tricked Joely into telling the terrible story of her mother’s teenage mistakes.
‘You know what you did to him,’ Freda said, her tone seeming oddly distant and yet horribly present. ‘He was a good man, a decent man with his whole life ahead of him.’
‘He was …’
‘He wanted to teach. It was his dream and he had so much to offer …’
‘Why are you doing this, Freda?’ Marianne cried. ‘Why are you here?’
Freda regarded her with incredulity and scorn. ‘You know the answer to that,’ she retorted. ‘I want the truth, Linda Barnes – or I believe they call you Marianne now. I want your name in that memoir, not hidden behind a law that protects minors … You’re going to finish the story with a full and unambiguous admission of who you are and what you did to my brother.’
Marianne didn’t hesitate. ‘I’m not doing anything until you tell me where Joely is. I need to know she’s …’
‘I don’t care what you need to know …’
Marianne turned on her heel, walked to the kitchen and snatched up her mobile.
Moments later she was upstairs closing the bedroom door behind her, and going swiftly to the bathroom she locked herself in. Her hands were shaking so badly it took longer than it should have to connect to Callum. You’ve got to answer; you’ve just got to.
‘Hey, Marianne,’ he said cheerily.
‘Callum, do you have Andee Lawrence’s number?’
‘I’m sure I do, but is everything all right? You sound …’
‘I’ll explain later. Text it to me, please. Do it right away.’