Home. Even if for just awhile. I shut the front door behind me, rested my back against it, and slid down onto the floor. I was on discretionary bail for two counts of murder. They must have given me bail only because I was in such a state — I was hardly going to do a runner.
What I’d done all those years ago had finally caught up with me. Even if I had done it to protect my sister, that didn’t change anything. I was still a murderer. Fifteen years later, a grown adult under stress battling undiagnosed PTSD — was it so unlikely that I could have done it again?
The bloodied scarf haunted my mind, as well as the recovered memory of me grabbing at it when Teigan had tried to leave that morning. Was it moments afterward that it became covered in blood? I lifted my numb body off the floor and forced myself to the bathroom. I couldn’t bear the pain. If I had hurt the most important person in my life, then I had no reason to live.
In a daze, I reached the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet, my comatose state morphing into something much more frantic. The scarf covered in blood, the sound of Teigan’s yelp as it had constricted around her throat when I had grabbed it, my father’s lifeless eyes staring up at me. My breathing turned staccato as I popped the blister packs of as many different pills as I could, sweeping them into a pile. Paracetamol, ibuprofen, aspirin, whatever I could get my hands on. My heart thudded in my chest, eager to stop beating.
“Suzanne! What the hell are you doing?” Steph shrieked as she ran in. “Stop it, and give me those.” She tried to snatch the packets away, while I scooped up the pills scattered around the sink.
“Leave me alone!”
“You can’t do this,” she screamed. “You have a daughter, for God’s sake.”
“Not anymore.” I crumbled to the floor as the words escaped my mouth. “She’s gone, Steph, she’s gone.”
“Shh.” She knelt down and pulled me in towards her. “Don’t say that.”
“But she is. There was blood … on her scarf.” I started rocking back and forth, my chest heaving from my sobs.
“I know. I found the scarf.” She winced as she said it, admitting her betrayal.
We fell into silence for a moment. “Where was it?” I whispered. It was all my broken spirit could manage.
“In your bedroom,” she replied in a similarly small voice. “Hidden in the drawers under your bed. I was just looking for an old pair of trainers or something I could go for a jog in, because mine had a big hole. I wasn’t snooping, I swear.”
I shrugged. I didn’t care anymore whether she snooped on purpose or not. The point was that she’d found something that confirmed my fears. “You must hate me.”
She didn’t reply, but just squeezed me close, then stood up, leaving me huddled in a ball on the bathroom floor.
An hour or so later, after Steph had removed all the drugs from the house and forced me off the floor, I found myself on the sofa under a blanket. It wasn’t cold, but I couldn’t stop shaking. Steph walked through and plonked Tonks on my lap.
“Thought you could do with a Tonks cuddle,” she smiled weakly. “Um, so are you on bail conditions?”
“Yes, they took my passport and stuff. Need to report to the station every day.” I hadn’t told her about the second charge of murder, about Dad. I couldn’t bear to explain it all to her, not on top of everything else.
“I can give you a lift if you want. I don’t think you should be driving at the moment.”
It felt bizarre to be talking about the situation in such a pragmatic, natural way. I was living a nightmare, and there she was, worrying about giving me lifts.
“Do you think it’ll be on the news?” She was trying to sound normal, but I could hear the strain in her voice.
“Probably. Tomorrow.” Panic shot through me as I realised that she’d hear about Dad tomorrow, as well. I needed to explain everything. Tell her about the abuse. My heart weighed heavy. Everything I’d worked so hard to protect her from would be all over the news, haunting our family’s name forever more.
“Oh, Suze. You’ll get added shit because of all the social work stuff and all. The families you work with will lap it up.”
I hadn’t even thought of that. God, Debs Knotwood would be in her element. My heart sank as I imagined Carly’s reaction. Just the day before, she’d asked me to take her back to her foster parents, and now she would think I was a monster. Which, I supposed I was.
I felt sick again, picturing Carly’s shocked face. If I was going to be all over the news tomorrow, I needed to remind myself of the small scrap of good I’d done amongst all the shit. I needed to see Carly one last time and ask for her forgiveness.
I waited until Steph went to the toilet, grabbed the car keys off the coffee table, and left.