I can hear Ciara moving around downstairs. I can hear her talking to someone. The noise is too muffled to make out whether she is talking to herself or maybe on the phone. I should have taken her mobile and thrown it across the room, too.
I look at my watch. It’s seventeen minutes since she spoke to Alex and he’s not here yet. I start to wonder, did she really speak to him at all? She could’ve faked the call for all I know. This could all be another move in her game. She is smarter than I’d ever given her credit for.
She’d painted a very public picture of me being on the brink of a breakdown while she’d, for all intents and purposes, maintained her poise. Any outpouring of emotion she’d shown had been perfectly in keeping with a grieving daughter.
And she was his daughter, after all. His blood ran in her veins. His sick and twisted blood.
I put Lily, who is now sleeping, into the centre of the bed, placing pillows on either side of her so that she can’t roll off, then kneel down and put my ear to the ground to see if I can make out exactly what Ciara is saying and to whom.
There is an urgency to her voice. A manic quality. I press my ear tighter against the well-worn carpet.
‘It has to be her,’ I hear her say. ‘She’s upstairs. Yes … I know … there’s no proof, but it makes total sense, don’t you see?’
The loud ringing of the doorbell makes me jump. It’s Alex, or at least I hope it’s Alex. Then again … What if he believes her too? What if they all believe her?
I stand up, glance back to Lily and, content that she is safe, I go to the bedroom door and pull it open. I tense when I hear Alex’s voice at the bottom of the stairs.
‘What is it, Ciara? Jesus, you look awful. Where’s Heidi? Her car’s outside. And Lily?’ The panic in his voice is evident.
‘Come in, come in,’ I hear Ciara say. ‘Let’s get a cup of tea and talk.’
She sounds so calm. So normal.
‘Ciara, you’re scaring me,’ Alex says. ‘Where’s my wife?’
From the top of the stairs I call out ‘I’m here,’ but there is no hiding the tremor in my voice. Alex looks up at me, his face a picture of complete confusion.
‘Heidi, what’s going on?’ he asks as Ciara glares at me defiantly.
I open my mouth to speak, but Ciara cuts in. ‘Heidi here has something to tell you. About what happened to Joe. About what she did, but don’t worry, because she had a good reason and the police will understand. We just have to stand firm together.’
Alex does not break his gaze from me.
I’m shaking my head. ‘That’s not it at all,’ I say, but I can see the fear on his face. The shock.
‘What’s she talking about?’ he asks.
‘I didn’t do anything. You have to believe me,’ I say. ‘It wasn’t me.’
‘It was self-defence,’ Ciara says, ignoring me. ‘We can tell the police it was self-defence. We’re going to tell them what he did, Alex. We’re going to tell everyone.’
Alex looks between the two of us. I gingerly take a few steps down towards him.
‘Alex, don’t listen to her … She has it all wrong.’
I’m forcing myself to maintain eye contact with him, even though every fibre of my body is screaming at me to look away.
‘Heidi …’ She says my name, just my name.
His face crumples. I can see I am losing him.
‘Why don’t we all sit down?’ Ciara says, and I follow her, limply, to the living room.
I glance back at Alex trailing dejectedly behind me, all colour drained from his face.
Clearing my throat, I speak. ‘Alex, you must believe me that I love you and I never meant to keep anything from you. I just … I just couldn’t bring myself to tell you the truth. I’ve never told anyone. I wouldn’t have told anyone … but Ciara …’
‘Don’t say it,’ he says, raising one hand, closing his eyes, shaking his head.
I half expect him to put his hands over his ears.
But I have to tell him anyway, because it just can’t stay hidden any more.
‘Joe hurt me,’ I say, closing my eyes because I can’t bear to see the look on Alex’s face when my words register with him. ‘He abused me,’ I say, my voice as small as it was when I was nine years old and heard that squeak of the floorboard. ‘He did things … And I didn’t know what to do because if I told anyone, he told me … he told me no one would believe me, or I’d have to go into a home and that no one would ever want me because I was too old for a family.’
The words are pouring out. ‘He hurt me and I swear, I didn’t do anything to encourage it. I told him to stop. So many times I told him to stop but he didn’t. He said … he said he couldn’t help it. And it was only because he loved me so much.’
I am bent double, my head in my hands, my chest as tight as if someone was squeezing it just as someone had squeezed Joe’s chest on the night he died.
I can’t speak any more, not for the moment. All I can do is cry, shame clawing at me. I hear Alex cry too. Alex, who never cries. The only time I’ve ever seen him shed a tear was the day Lily was born. The first time he held her in his arms and he vowed to protect her.
Ciara cuts in, ‘Anyone would understand. I understand. He was a monster, Alex. If he hurt Heidi and he hurt me, who else could he have hurt? He deserved to die. No one would blame Heidi for snapping – all that stress she was living under. I’ve told her I’ll tell the police what he did to me, too. And I can prove it.’