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He knelt beside her then stood again, holding his hands out as if denying involvement in something.
‘Who did this?’ He scratched his head. ‘I should get help,’ he said. But he didn’t.
He knelt again, keeping his hands tucked around his stomach. ‘You look…’ He held his face closer to hers. I think he might have been trying to feel her breath on his cheek. ‘Have you gone?’
He stood again. ‘Maybe this is for the best,’ he said, his voice cracking. He walked again, all the way left then all the way right. ‘You’re free now. You don’t need me any more.’ He dragged his arm across his face. ‘We don’t have to keep doing this to each other.’ He nodded slowly. ‘I think, maybe, it’s better for everyone.’
He reached towards her but didn’t touch her. ‘Rest in peace, my love,’ he whispered. ‘I did love you. I did.’ And then he turned and walked past the camera.
And that, my friends, is why my mother killed herself.
Because how on Earth would the Beaufort-Bradleys have made the story stick if she had lived? She had been the victim of a brutal, sustained attack. Tristan’s DNA was on her. The blank tape Tristan gave the police, claiming it was the one he’d taken to his one-to-one, would have been too suspicious. Lydia and Mina – would they really have been able to lie, standing in court rather than in a quiet room with a tape recorder?
And I would have been given the chance to say my piece to someone other than Eakin, who I’m sure had links to that wicked family, and slowly everyone else would have backed me up because my mum would have been alive, making their guilt ache.
Lydia would have backed us.
My mother killing herself meant no defence against the Beaufort-Bradleys’ allegations was ever made. The charges were never tried in court.
I have no idea what my dad said to them about it. Maybe he even went along with the Beaufort-Bradleys so as not to drag out an investigation. And once his poor wife was dead, how my dad blossomed outside the festering damp and shade of his family.
There must have been police who doubted their story, who wanted further investigation into my mother’s death, or even into Tristan’s supposed rape, but the Beaufort-Bradleys had powerful connections, and suicide must have seemed an awful lot like a confession.
In the end, you can’t prosecute a dead person, and the whole thing went away. For everyone but me.
So I slipped into my dad’s room and opened the curtains, and the pale morning light fell across his grey hair and lilac bedspread. He was so old and thin.
There was a picture next to the bed of him receiving a prize in his full glory, half-smiling, half-smirking as if he’d just told a hilarious joke. The woman who had owned Trevethan, his patron and – I suspected – lover, one of many, clapped her hands beside him with a dazzling grin.
It was a relief, really, that I doubted his capacity to answer any questions. No more talking. This could all end here, right now, today.
I had a knife in my pocket, but that seemed both too violent and too cold. I needed nothing between him and me.
I climbed onto the bed, straddled his chest, and as his eyes fluttered open I slid my hands around his skinny, sagging throat and squeezed. I kept squeezing until his eyes went still.
No, he didn’t look peaceful. He looked like someone had just choked the life out of him with their bare hands.
101
NOW
‘It’s Dan,’ says Mina, fumbling with my phone. ‘Dan?’
Bevan and Croft can’t get past because the lane is too narrow. I’m going as fast as I dare. Dangling brambles screech against my paint.
Oakridge Nursing Village, Lydia said. One was built a few years ago. Where? Highwill? Howell? Hylwel? I know it’s north. I swing into the main road.
‘Satnav. Satnav,’ I say.
‘Dan, sorry, we need to look at the satnav.’ Mina taps at the phone.
‘Frances?’ Dan says – Mina must’ve put him on speaker.
‘Oakridge Nursing Village,’ I say. ‘If it’s not in maps, look for Hylwel.’ I spell it.
‘Frances?’ Dan shouts.
‘Yes?’
