Joely was sitting on the harbor wall huddled into her padded coat, hair fluttering about in a sprightly breeze. The Rising Sun was behind her and in front a handful of small boats was anchored in the mud waiting for a tide and better days. As she gazed out at a bruised and belligerent sky, her eyes half-followed the gulls and cloud shadows as they passed over the rocky headland of Foreland Point. She was thinking about Holly and occasionally confusing her with young Freda; then of Callum, which caused the ache in her heart to deepen and swell with the pain and knowledge of how even the deepest love could go wrong.
Martha had messaged to say she understood they couldn’t be friends again, but if Joely ever changed her mind . . .
Joely was sure she wouldn’t, so she hadn’t messaged back.
She still had no idea what had actually gone on there, but for the moment she wasn’t particularly keen to find out.
She sighed, and like leaves resettling after a gentle gust her thoughts returned to the memoir. She still hadn’t transcribed all that Freda had told her, but since Freda seemed in no hurry for it, and had so far shown no inclination to explain her bizarre excuse for the monstrous lie, it could wait.
I didn’t do it, it was the moth.
What the heck had she meant by that?
Was she losing her mind? Had she somehow got her own life confused with the characters she’d created? Joely had even begun to wonder if the memoir was actually another work of fiction dressed up as fact, but that didn’t seem to make much sense. Freda was using her own name and she must surely be aware of how hard it would be for anyone to admire her once they knew what she’d done. She’d even admitted it was a form of punishment, so she seemed to want to be despised and scorned in the worst and most humiliating way.
“ . . . I lied to make sure that when he went to prison he would go as a rapist in the truest sense of the word. I knew, you see, that it would destroy him and that was what I wanted.”
The most devastating revenge, and yet she’d said, I didn’t do it, it was the moth.
So did she have some sort of alter-ego she was trying to blame? An invisible friend who urged her to do things that her real self knew to be wrong? Clearly time had done nothing to ease her normal conscience, if anything this project proved that she was deeply troubled by what she’d done.
So many questions in need of answers, but one thing appeared certain, Freda’s aim with this memoir was to try to clear the name of the man she’d set out to ruin.
Taking out her phone she looked down at the screen and wondered if she should ask Sully to find out who David Michaels really was. If she was helping to create an unexploded bomb for some unsuspecting politician, movie star, business leader, or leading churchman, didn’t he at least deserve to be warned that his past was going to be brought back into the public eye? He very likely had a family now who might know nothing about his affair with a fifteen-year-old girl, or of his time in prison.
However, if Freda had used a different name where would Sully start? In fact, was it even necessary to find the man if Freda was protecting him with a pseudonym?
Realizing there was probably only one person who could help her with this, even though it would mean breaking her NDA, she connected to Andee’s number.
“Hi, it’s me,” she said to the voicemail. “I’m in need of a detective, or at least some friendly advice on how to go about finding someone. No rush, whenever you can get back to me. Or given my circumstances, I’ll try you again later.”
Later in the day Joely was sitting with Freda in the kitchen not entirely sure how much more she wanted to hear, or even how willing she was to stay on and complete the assignment. She only knew that the disturbingly darker turn things had taken was making her uneasy.
Speaking into the silence, her voice dry and distant, Freda said, “What he did, the way he led on a silly, naïve young girl, was unforgivable, of course it was. There’s no excuse for a grown man to behave in such a manner, or to expect any sort of forgiveness . . .” She took a breath and another before forcing herself to go on. “He didn’t receive any, from anyone . . .”
Joely watched her swallow and press her fingers to her mouth as though not wanting any more words to come.
But they did.
“I don’t suppose I expected it to go so far, but once the police became involved . . .” Her voice broke and as tears welled in her eyes she began to shake her head.
Joely fetched her some water, and set it on the kitchen table in front of her. “Maybe we should take a break for a while,” she suggested.
Freda stared at the glass and many minutes passed before she spoke again. “He said later, ‘I was besotted with her. I just couldn’t resist her even though I knew it was wrong.’ He never tried to deny that the affair had happened, or that he’d broken all his promises along with every possible rule. The law too, of course. He behaved as honorably as he could in the circumstances. He accepted that he’d never be able to teach again, that he’d have to suffer unimaginable public disgrace . . . He even wrote to me to say sorry.”
“Do you still have the letter?” Joely asked.
Freda didn’t answer, her eyes were glazed, her thoughts clearly elsewhere. “He was a good man,” she said quietly, “and his life was ruined by a lie. Nothing can change that, we can’t turn back the clock to correct mistakes or untell lies, but we can punish the person who committed the crime.”
After Freda had disappeared to her room Joely stayed where she was in the kitchen, concerned by Freda’s state of mind, and even afraid of how far she intended to go to punish herself. She wondered if she ought to alert someone to how worried she was? It seemed a good idea to call Edward and ask for his advice, so she decided that as soon as she’d transcribed the last few minutes with Freda she would drive into town and do that. She didn’t want Freda listening in to a call she made from the house.
As she passed through the library on her way to the writing room, she paused to prop open the door and thought she heard someone moving about in the studio on the other side of the connecting wall. She listened, trying to catch the noise again, but there was nothing so she continued up the stairs.
It didn’t take long to draft the lines containing young Freda’s remorse. Joely even added a few to make it seem more heartfelt and genuine. She had no details yet of the arrest, or the police interviews, nevertheless, simply to think of how shocked and afraid that young man must have felt when the police had come for him caused Joely’s heart to twist with the angst of it. On the other hand, in today’s world he’d be considered a predator, even a pervert, someone who deserved everything that came to him, and Joely couldn’t bring herself to argue with that. She wondered if Freda would want to fictionalize the detention part of the story—she wouldn’t have been there, so she couldn’t know for sure what had happened.
Now that all her notes were on the screen she glanced up to clear her mind of the words and her heart practically leapt from her body as she caught sight of Freda’s ghostly reflection in the window.
“I’m sorry,” Freda said from the doorway, “I thought you must have heard me come up.”
Still recovering, Joely attempted a smile as she turned around. “Is everything all right?” she asked, aware that this was the first time Freda had joined her in the writing room while she was working.
“Yes, everything’s fine,” Freda assured her. “I wanted to let you know that Bill is driving me into town so if there’s anything you need . . .”
“Uh, I don’t think so, thank you. I might go myself when I’ve finished here.”
Freda nodded and came forward to peer at the computer screen.
Resisting the urge to cover up what she’d done so far, since she hadn’t read it back yet, Joely waited tense and curious. There had to be another reason for Freda coming up here when she could easily have left a note in the kitchen to say she was making a rare excursion into town. So what was this really about?
“Please print out what you’ve done so far,” Freda said. “I’d like to read it through properly.”
Reluctantly, Joely did as she was asked and handed the pages over.
Without any thanks, Freda returned to the door. “You really haven’t worked out who the moth is yet, have you?” she asked, seeming almost irritated by this.
Joely frowned and felt unease coming over her again.
“You surprise me,” Freda stated. “With your compulsion to try to work everything out before you’re told I thought you would have by now.”
Joely’s tension was building. There was something different about Freda now, something that she couldn’t fathom but knew she didn’t like.
“The moth,” Freda said bitingly, “or young Freda as we’ve called her in the story, is your mother, Joely,” and turning around she started quietly down the stairs.