As soon as she’d made the connection with the necklace, Corinne could see it was her. The individual features had been changed, skin stretched over newly implanted cheekbones, nose cracked and sawn and put back together, chin reshaped, weight loss, hair extensions, coloured contact lenses. There wasn’t a single bit of Stella that was still Catherine Pryor and yet the essence of Stella was obvious in the angle of the head, the impassive expression in the eyes.
All night, Corinne had lain awake, trying to get to the kernel of truth she knew lay at the core of this mystery, but all night it had eluded her.
That Stella had changed her name was fair enough. Many survivors of unhappy childhoods choose to leave the trappings of their childhood selves behind when they grow up, and victims of abuse often reject their own names if they were given to them by their abusers. Corinne once had a friend who’d married to rid herself of her hated father’s name, and then when the marriage went sour had randomly changed her surname to the name of the road she was living on.
That Stella had been so full of self-loathing that she’d paid someone to take a scalpel to her face and her body again and again also made a kind of horrible sense. Corinne had had students who cut themselves compulsively when the pain of their lives got too much to cope with.
But the central mystery remained.
Why had Stella chosen to put herself back in the care of Oliver Roberts?
‘I don’t understand,’ Hannah said, for the tenth time since Corinne had managed to make her believe she was serious. ‘I mean, do you think Roberts knows who Stella really is?’
‘I doubt it.’
‘So why come here? You’d have thought she’d run a mile from anything to do with him. He thought she was making it up! Oh, poor Stella.’ Hannah’s voice broke on the last word and Corinne felt a sharp tug of worry.
Her daughter was so fragile at the moment. Could she really cope with this? Whatever this turned out to be.
‘She could be seeking some sort of closure. She might see the whole episode at Westbridge House as unfinished business in her life that she needs to process before she can move on.’
Hannah groaned. ‘God, you sound just like him.’
‘Who?’
‘Roberts.’
‘Or there’s another, less welcome, explanation. What if Stella is here seeking revenge?’
‘Revenge? How?’
‘This clinic is Roberts’ baby, the showcase of his professional achievements to date. You said yourself that the deaths of Sofia and Charlie have hurt admissions, and investors are pulling out. What if that’s the plan? To ruin him?’
Hannah was staring at her as if she’d grown another head.
‘Mum, you can’t be serious. This is Stella we’re talking about. Dreamy, otherworldly Stella. Are you honestly suggesting she would murder two people – two people she liked very much – just to get her own back for something that happened fifteen years ago?’
‘No. Of course not. Only … Oh, I don’t know, Hannah! I don’t know anything except that I no longer trust Dr Roberts and, until we understand Stella’s motivation, we can’t trust her either.’
‘I’ll talk to her. Ask her straight.’
‘Don’t!’
Corinne spat out the word so loudly it stopped both her and Hannah in their tracks.
‘If you talk to Stella, it could put you in danger. Who knows what she might do if she thinks she’s about to be exposed?’
Hannah looked sceptical.
‘Also, I don’t know what laws I might have broken taking those confidential records. And think of the trouble Geraldine would get into. I lied to her, Hannah. I told her I was writing a profile on Roberts. She thinks he’s about to be discredited, finally.’
‘Lying? Breaking laws? God, Mum. What’s happened to you?’
Corinne couldn’t answer that, because what could she have said except that it’s surprising what you’d do to protect your children.
‘That’s why I want you to leave here now, Hannah. You can go to a different clinic to finish your treatment. As an outpatient.’
A strange expression crossed Hannah’s face and Corinne had a sudden realization. She was scared. Her brave, headstrong elder daughter had become so institutionalized she was scared of leaving The Meadows.
‘Hannah, I’ll help you.’ She took hold of Hannah’s hand and pressed it, feeling how cold the fingers were, and how the skin was tight to the bone, like a latex glove. ‘I’ll take time off work. I’ll look after you.’
‘Mum. You can’t shield me from everything. I’ve made a mess of things. No, don’t argue, I have. I chose Danny, even though I knew, deep down, I loved him more than he loved me. There always has to be one person who loves more, right? That’s what I told myself. And in our case it was me. And I chose to press on with plans for more IVF, even though it was destroying us.
‘And on some level, I must have chosen to believe I was pregnant. One more test, one scan, could have proved I was deluded, and I chose not to have any. I’m not a victim, Mum. I need to take responsibility for the choices I’ve made. Even the shitty ones. Especially the shitty ones.’
‘Darling, if it’s about Danny, you don’t owe that man anything—’
‘It’s not about Danny. I promised myself that I wouldn’t leave here until I was better, and I have to follow through. And I need to find out what happened to Charlie.’
Corinne found herself flooded with so many conflicting emotions that, for a moment, she felt almost numb. She was still frightened for her daughter but, for the first time in months, Hannah was sounding like Hannah.
‘You’re sounding so much better,’ she said, unable to help herself. ‘So much more like your old self.’
‘I’ve been having hypnosis from Laura. It’s helping.’
Still, she didn’t want Hannah to stay here.
‘How can we entrust your recovery to Roberts, now that we know he’s capable of such a serious breach of judgement?’
‘That was a long time ago, Mum. How many patients do you think have passed through this clinic since it opened? Women who’ve suffered all kinds of abuse. What happened at that other place was awful, but he was just starting out then. He’s clearly learned from it.’
‘And Stella?’
‘Mum, Stella is damaged. But she’s not a murderer. She loved Charlie even more than I did.’
‘So why come back here?’
‘I don’t know. The same as I don’t know why my body decided to pump itself full of pregnancy hormones. You know, the more I learn about the human mind, the more I realize how clueless we really are about what goes on in our own heads.’
Corinne knew Hannah was right, and yet she couldn’t shake off that unnerving sense of things not being as they should be. For a moment she thought about telling Hannah about the trip to Tunbridge Wells and about Patricia Garitson and her warnings about Steffie.
But even as she tried to formulate the words in her head, she knew she couldn’t say them. She’d left it too late to explain to Hannah about finding the photograph of Steffie among her private things. Hannah would think it such a breach of trust. She remembered Jacob Garitson’s pale, twitchy eyes, and how he’d said, ‘She hurts people.’
Wasn’t there a possibility, she thought, looking at her daughter, who seemed to be buzzing with renewed resolution, that Hannah was safer in here than outside?