May 2018
It felt strange to see the sold sign on Angela’s house propped against the wall, and an excited young couple carrying boxes up the path.
Angela had moved in with her mother as she’d planned, and I felt a sudden rush of sadness. I’d spoken to her just before she left. Told her I would never understand what she’d done, but I would be there for her if she needed me.
It had turned out that neither of my friends had been who I thought they were. Maybe I chose friends unwisely, or perhaps I’d simply been gullible.
I slipped my key into my front door, and opened up to my familiar lounge. Grace skipped in, bouncing onto her bottom to open her toy box. It was time for a change. I would move into Mum’s house before Grace started school. Lawrence would have to accept that.
Once Grace was in bed, and I’d poured myself a glass of wine, my mind whirred for the millionth time over everything that had happened.
I looked at Mr Snookum still perched on the shelf. Bridie had admitted to stealing my spare key, and moving the rabbit from the loft, to scare me. She’d even given my mother the original rabbit that had belonged to the real Rachel – another ploy to unnerve me. I was still struggling with her duplicity. The fact I’d cried on her shoulder when my mother died, the way she’d showered me with comfort, helping me through. She’d been there for me when I needed her most. Had it all been a lie? I was being ridiculous. Of course it had.
I lowered my gaze to the books by Felix T Clarke on my bookshelf, and a flutter in my stomach reminded me that he was my father. I’ve finally found my father. I was proud to be the daughter of a famous author. All those years of wondering, and now I knew exactly who he was – who I was. Happiness simmered on a low light, but didn’t boil over. Despite wanting to feel ecstatic – crack open a bottle of champagne; after all, this was something I’d dreamed of since childhood – I was still haunted by my real identity, which felt like a new pair of gloves that didn’t quite fit, and in a style I’d never worn before. And however much I didn’t want to feel anger towards at my mother – Laura – I wished she’d told me, confided in me.
And there was the niggling concern that someone had chased me in my car that day in Ireland, which I couldn’t shake. Who had it been? It hadn’t been Bridie. She would have gloried in mentioning it, wouldn’t she?
I rose, and pulled out the book he’d signed for me the day I’d seen him in the bookshop, and smiled at his photograph on the back. My father.
I opened the book, and let out a gasp. It slipped through my fingers as though in slow motion, crashing to the ground with a thud.
Dear Rachel,
I hope you enjoy the book.
Very best wishes,
Felix T Clarke
I stumbled towards the sofa, my eyes on the open book on the floor, its pages splayed like a dead bird’s wings, Tierney’s words swirling and curling on the page – the same handwriting that was on Imogen’s suicide note.
I fell onto the sofa, my head spinning. What did it mean? Had Tierney written the letter?
Memories prodded my mind, vivid and frightening:
I’m heading down a narrow staircase. Looking at my cream shoes, splattered with blood, a pain in my forehead.
‘Rachel,’ I whisper, as I pass the child at the foot of the stairs. ‘Rachel, are you OK?’
I hear raised voices in the kitchen. ‘Da?’
I pad across the lounge, passing the table laden with half-eaten food, and peer through the crack in the kitchen door.
‘You left me for dead.’ It’s Tierney – younger – spitting as he yells, a knife in his hand. ‘You’re a fecking madwoman.’
‘Please don’t hurt me,’ the woman cries, stepping backwards, covering her face with her arm, as though he might hit her. I know her. It’s my real mother.
‘You have no idea what I’m capable of, Imogen,’ Tierney continues, his free hand balled into a fist.
‘I’ve a fair idea.’ She steps back once more, and presses her body against the worktop. ‘I know it was you.’
‘What was?’
‘You raped me, Tierney. I was just seventeen. You followed me from the pub, and you raped me.’
Tierney claps slowly. ‘What took you so long?’
‘I see you in Bridie. She has your eyes. You raped me, then you pretended to rescue me.’
‘My wife rescued you, Imogen,’ he spits. ‘Do you think I wanted you here?’
‘She knew what you did, didn’t she?’
He grabs her hair, and she lets out a small cry. ‘And now I’m going to kill you,’ he says.
‘What, like you killed your wife?’ she cries. ‘I saw you, Tierney. I saw you kill her and drag her outside – plant an apple tree where you buried her body. I saw it all.’
He lunges towards her. I turn. I run.
I covered my eyes with my hands, as the reality that Tierney was evil – that he killed Imogen and his wife – crumpled me into a heap. I heard my mum’s words. The cuts. They were exactly the same. They should have been different. Had she noticed that the cuts on Imogen’s wrists were both the same depth? That if she’d taken her own life, her second cut wouldn’t have been as deep as the first?
And Tierney couldn’t have been in a coma for months. He must have been rescued, and then he’d returned – watching them.
Had it been Tierney who rammed my car off the road in Sligo – worried I would uncover the truth about Lough End Farm?
But there was one thing I was certain of. My father – Tierney O’Brian – was a killer, just like his daughter Bridie. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
I shot up, and stumbled towards the downstairs loo, feeling sick. I’d liked him. Thought he was caring and kind. Stupid, gullible Rachel.
Had it been in Bridie’s genes to kill like her father?
But where did that leave me? I was his daughter too.
Nurture is more important than nature, I told myself over and over as I threw up in the loo, my head pounding, my limbs shaking – even more determined to leave Finsbury Park, and start again somewhere new.