Page 57 of The Girlfriend’s Secret

‘I just told you, there is no evidence,’ Scott cries.

‘Then we have to find some,’ I say before taking a seat on the bed beside Scott. ‘You cannot spend the rest of your life like this. Neither can your brother, or your father. It sounds like you have all suffered enough. If you can’t do this for your sake, do it for theirs.’

‘I don’t know what to do,’ Scott admits before burying his head in his hands again, and I am in agreement with him there. I don’t know what to do either. But it is clear that something does need to be done and sooner rather than later.

Liane is dangerous and there is no telling what she might be capable of next, especially if I don’t give her what she wants and leave her family alone. But I can’t leave them, not when I know what danger the other members of this family are in. Poor Frederik, being married to a woman like her for so many years. Poor Scott for having to grow up in a toxic atmosphere in which he knew his mother resented him and longed for a life of financial freedom over responsibility. And poor Joel, my boyfriend, the man I love, for having to experience all of this too.

He’s kept it all so well hidden from me, but now I know the family is not as perfect as it seemed on the surface, I realise there were a few warning signs that not all was right. Like in Australia, when Joel would talk about how he was unsure about ever moving back to England. I just thought he was loving life abroad, but what if it was just because it was an escape? Maybe the only thing that would have dragged him back to England was to pay his respects after the death of a loved one. Maybe Liane knew that and that could have also been a part of her motivation when she pushed Valerie down the stairs. Sure, she wanted money and a chance to live the life she felt she had missed out on so far. But what if she also saw a chance to get her son back from the other side of the world, knowing he wouldn’t miss the funeral of the grandmother he adored?

‘Valerie must have known about Liane’s dark side,’ I say then. ‘She must have known that her own daughter had all these problems and anger in her life.’

‘Sure, but she loved her and she never would have imagined her own daughter would hurt her,’ Scott says. ‘We all thought Mum was getting better. Dad said so. But now I think the only reason she was getting better was because she had made a plan and she knew that once she had done it, she was going to have everything she ever wanted.’

That sounds awful, as awful as everything else I’ve heard in the last five minutes.

Scott checks his watch then. ‘I need to get back downstairs. Joel is in the bar, and I’ve been gone way too long.’

He stands then, but I reach out a hand to stop him.

‘No,’ I say. ‘Stay here. I’ll call Joel and get him to come to us.’

‘What?’ Why?’

‘Because we all need to talk,’ I say firmly. ‘And we all need to decide what happens next.’

Scott stares at me as if I’m mad and maybe I am. But there is only one way out of this for us all.

‘Liane had a plan to get what she wanted,’ I say. ‘Now it’s time we make a plan to make sure she is punished.’

THIRTY-NINE

LIANE

PRESENT – VALERIE’S HOUSE

There can be a lot of motives for murder. Money is a common one, and that was my main driver. But I’d be lying if I hadn’t thought about how my mother’s death could be the catalyst for my youngest son to return from Australia and hopefully settle somewhere much closer to home.

I missed Joel terribly when he was overseas and found no solace in messages or occasional video calls. I wanted him closer to me, where he could call around and say hi, share dinner with us, and be a proper part of our lives. I admit that I have not been the best mother to him or his brother. I said some terrible things to both Scott and Joel when they were growing up, things that I regret, but also things that I felt were true at the time. Like how having them had denied me the chance to pursue a career I loved, or pack everything up and just go travelling, or just sleep in past six a.m. on a weekend when I was already exhausted from work. I should never have told my sons that I blamed them for my difficult life, but I did, and that was a mistake. But I have done my best to make up for it over the years, although I can still sense a distance between me and my children. I could still see how Scott was struggling for money with his business yet refused to ever ask us for help or even move back home to save some money himself. And like how Joel picked one of the furthest places on the planet to travel around when Europe was on his doorstep.

Both my boys need their space from me, just like I felt like I needed space from them when they were young. But I have found a way to get Joel back from the other side of the world and now that he has his inheritance money, he intends to stay. That’s good. If he had decided to take the money and use it to fund more travelling, I would have got his father to have a quiet conversation with him about how his grandmother would have wanted him to spend her money on something more secure than endless travelling. Frederik would, under my instruction, lead Joel into buying or renting somewhere closer to home, under the pretence that it was ‘what his grandmother would have wanted’. Knowing my youngest as well as I do, I know he would have felt guilty if he had gone against what he thought were his grandmother’s wishes and so he would have stayed put. But as it turned out, that conversation didn’t need to occur because Joel has decided to stay of his own accord.

But there is a catch.

He is staying with her.

As long as Haven is on the scene, her and her false accusations against my son remain a problem. She might not have guessed who the real killer in the family is, but she has guessed that there is one. So I am going to have to make a plan to deal with her. Will it be a similar plan to the one I made for my mother? Will this plan also involve murder? I can’t see any other option if Haven doesn’t go away.

‘Joel’s here,’ Frederik says, looking up from his coffee at the kitchen window, and I turn around to see what he has seen. When I do, I spot our son walking down our driveway towards the door, the bag he packed when he left here with him, but that’s all there is. There is no sign of Haven or her bag.

As my husband goes to open the door, I am wondering what has happened to send my son here so soon after he left. But I don’t have to wonder for long because it’s written all over Joel’s face when he enters the kitchen.

He looks sad. Lost. Single.

‘Are you okay?’ I ask him. ‘What’s happened?’

‘She’s left me,’ Joel mumbles back before Frederik walks in behind him looking sheepish. As I process that shocking but fantastic news, my husband opens the fridge and pulls a couple of beer bottles out.

‘It’s not too early,’ he says, as if reading my mind as he pops off the lids before handing one to his broken-hearted son. ‘Not at a time like this.’