Page 63 of Her Last Breath

‘What on earth are you talking about? You aren’t making sense. He isn’t dead. My Phil, he left me, he’s with that whore in Newcastle.’

‘Your Phil? Let me tell you about your Phil. He was a depraved monster. Abusing young children, keeping their pictures as mementos. Look at you, you’re horrific. Holding on to his memory, pining after scum like him.’

‘I want you to leave,’ Melody was unsteady on her feet, grabbing Jane’s arm. But Jane shook off her hand, pushing her aunt roughly away from her.

‘No, you will listen to me. Your husband was a perverted bastard.’

‘You shut your mouth, my Phil is a good man.’

‘He’s a fucking dead man! But I wish he wasn’t. Because then he could suffer all his life, just like his victims.’

‘No …’

‘Why are you still defending him? I’ll tell you why, shall I, Aunty Melody?’

Jane pulled the rolled-up printout out from inside her jacket pocket. She threw it in her aunt’s face.

‘Look at it!’ she screamed, as the picture fell to Melody’s feet.

‘Get out!’

Picking up the picture, Jane grabbed her aunt’s face, forcing her head against the printout. Her aunt was sobbing as though in pain. Jane didn’t care, she was holding on to her with as much force as she could.

‘That’s you!’ she screamed at her. ‘That’s you in the room, you stupid twisted bitch! Taking the fucking photos!’

Jane had recognised the image straight away. It was an ugly shamrock-shaped brooch which she had loved so much as a child. Melody wore it all the time, and it was there in the picture, reflecting off the glass, behind her darling brother.

‘You are a wicked liar,’ Melody said, wailing and shaking. ‘Just like your mother and your brother. Get out! Get out of my house! Go and crawl away and die like your brother did.’

Jane shook her aunt, her words piercing her core. She dragged Melody across the lounge and pinned her against the glass cabinet. The same one that was in the picture. She got into her face, nauseated by the snot and tears. Turning her head away from her, Jane’s fingers dug into Melody’s jaw as she did so. She wanted to crush the bones she could feel under the skin. Instead, she put her mouth close to her aunt’s ear and whispered coldly:

‘Don’t worry. Phil may have escaped punishmen, but you won’t. You’re going to pay for what you both did for the rest of your miserable life. I will make sure of it.’

Jane slammed her aunt into the cabinet, then walked away, to the dull, lowing sounds of her sobbing.

Chapter 40

A heavy silence filled the dark interior of her car, as Jane sat outside her mother’s house. She was numb. There were no more tears, just an emptiness. Nothing seemed to matter anymore, nothing held any value. Everything replaced by cold grief for her brother. She looked up at the terraced house, in darkness, apart from the low light in the front room.

How could she go back into that house? Her mind started to slot the pieces into place, understanding replacing the confusion she’d grown up with. Her mother must have known. Ed must have said something to her. Jane didn’t trust herself to be under the same roof as Maeve tonight. The years of accusation, blame and guilt that had been forced onto her, when all the time the secrets and lies between these sisters had been the real culprits, Jane just another victim of Phil.

Jane texted Sameer: I need to see you. Urgently.

He replied a minute later: Family wedding. Talk in the morning? X.

Jane didn’t reply, turning the ignition and driving into the night. Knowing exactly where she was headed.

The lake was menacing, even after her eyes had adjusted to the darkness. The moon reflected in the water, bouncing on the lapping waves. Jane took off her jacket and boots, just like Ed had done, standing on the grassy bank at the edge of the water. This was the place, the same spot he had gone into the water. A silt slope meant that the lake was shallow enough to wade in near the bank before a cliff-like drop that sucked you into the terrifying full depth of the water … Jane stepped in, her heart beating fiercely as the freezing cold of the lake lapped around her. The nightmares she’d had over the years, the fear of drowning, making it traumatic for her to even go to a swimming pool. As she waded further into the dark water, her breathing quickened and her anxiety spiked. This was a mistake, she needed to get out of there. As panic gripped her, Jane felt the water slick and slimy as it licked her exposed skin, sucked at her waist. She tried to turn back to the shore, but lost her balance, slipping off the silted slope into the deepest part of the lake.

Jane started to flail, to kick out, gasping for air, as her head went underwater, trying to gain balance. She couldn’t remember swimming since she was a child, trying to mimic what she saw others do. As she went under again, she thought for one moment that maybe this was the easy thing to do, just let it all end here. Give in to her despair, the crushing weight of the revelations she had come face to face with. Is this what Ed had done? Decided it was too much, that it would just be easier to check out? As the water suffocated her, Jane panicked, snapping out of her dark reverie. This wasn’t how it would end, she needed to get justice for Ed. For Alice and Mark.

Spurred on by these thoughts, she pushed her body upwards, her head breaking the surface of the water, swimming until she could see the lake bank. She waded out of the water, choking and drenched. Lying on the muddied bank, panting and breathless, tears burnt her frozen skin.

Shivering, Jane trudged back to her car, to an emergency towel and the spare set of clothes she kept in her boot. Hair still damp, she went to a petrol station to buy a bottle of Smirnoff. The attendant knew better than to ask; this was Burnley and anyone wanting alcohol after midnight was not to be messed with. Jane looked online, finding a Holiday Inn, checking herself in. Safely ensconced in her hotel room, she caught sight of herself in the bathroom mirror. Pale, tired, broken. She looked as though she was already dead and starting to rot.

After taking a hot shower to wash away remnants of mud from her hair and feet, Jane got under the sheets. She switched the wall-mounted TV on for some background noise, the vodka bottle clutched in her hands. She remembered too many nights when she had quietened her pain and resentment through drink. She twisted the bottle cap, only to screw it back on tight again. Tonight, this wasn’t going to be enough.

Instead, she turned off the TV and lights and lay staring at the ceiling. She wanted to feel her agony, feel her loss and trauma. Mourning for her brother and herself.