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I don’t believe Matty, of course I don’t.
The man is a consummate liar. When I think how he protested his innocence all these years, how he suckered so many people in. How well he kept up his ‘normal person’ act with us.
No, I can’t believe a word he said, never mind that this is my own mother he’s talking about. As Parliament Hill comes into view, my mind goes back to the day she helped Lucy Allen find her dog. The way she refused to give up even when my friend was flagging.
A person with dark urges wouldn’t act like that. Psychopaths can’t empathise with other people, let alone animals.
Same as that business with Sally Sniders. Matty was all for teaching her a lesson. Frankly, so was I. It was my mother who encouraged me to have compassion for a bully, to try to understand why the cow behaved the way she did.
Hardly the hallmarks of an evil mind.
Even so, Matty’s words have left a mark. I find myself going over what he told me, finding new ways to refute him even though I know I shouldn’t be giving him head space. He’s taken up enough space in there to last a lifetime.
And yet. . .
When I think about it, she did look angry rather than upset that day in the café.
There was a private look that passed between them when she told Matty I thought the victims resembled her.
And she did glance at me as if to gauge my reaction while telling Matty off for being amused that Gemma Nicholls had been mistaken for a mannequin.
I push the thoughts away, curse him for being so manipulative. Curse myself for letting him play me.
He played you your whole childhood, I rebuke myself. You going to let him play you now too?
And yet, and yet. . .
I remember Mrs Coates teaching us the best way to get a person to think about something, is by telling them not to.
Human beings are designed to look behind the curtain, she said.
Is that what Matty’s done? Made me peek?
A drop of rain trickles down the windscreen. The sky is crying too.
‘Tell me it’s a lie,’ I say to my mother’s ghost.
Straight away I’m angry with myself. Of course the bastard’s lying.
Buster greets me at the door, his wet nose pressing against my leg, letting me know he wants his ears rubbed. I drop to my knees and bury my face in his fur. He nuzzles against me, understands my mood in the way only an animal who spends all day watching you can.
Matty watched us too, I think. He learned our ways, knew exactly how to push his agenda. How to get inside our skulls. Twenty years have passed and he’s still doing it.
And yet. . .
I get to my feet, pat my flank for Buster to follow. I mean to go to the kitchen to get him a Bonio, but I must be on some kind of autopilot because I’m walking to the bedroom that used to be my mother’s.
I open the door, go inside. I haven’t kept it as a shrine, but I haven’t cleared it out either. Laziness more than anything else, same reason I bought the flat after my inheritance came through from Grandad and Nanna G. Buying the place seemed easier than looking for somewhere new. Change too daunting.
The carpet in here needs vacuuming. There’s a thick layer of dust on the shelves. But it’s more or less how she left it; minus the empty pill bottle I chucked before calling the ambulance. Give it five minutes after I’m gone, Sophie. Just to be sure.
I move as if in a trance; my body and brain not communicating. I approach the dresser against the far wall, pull open the top drawer. It sticks a little then gives. Buster is watching me from the door, his ears flat against his head.
The photograph of my father is long gone, but the other one is still there. The image of a little girl cut out of a newspaper and stuck in a frame. Hair worn in pigtails. Snub nose. Freckles. Three years old at a guess.
I hear Matty again—
