I can’t bear to be near him, can’t bear to look at him but if I’m going to get answers then I will. Walking across the room along the side of the pool, I imagine what would have happened if I had died that day Eva came to see me. My girls would be left without answers, without the truth.
I stand next to my Rebecca. Anika has moved so she is by my side. The three of us, towering above the couple who tried to ruin me in their different ways.
‘Kate, come on. You’re just torturing yourself,’ Eva says. I ignore her, asking the girls to move her out of the way. They pull her to the window, sit her down on one of the lounge chairs. I crouch down in front of Stevie and he meets my eyes.
‘So, are you capable of the truth?’ I ask.
‘He’s already told me what happened,’ Eva says again. ‘Before we fell.’
I turn to look at her, tears running down her cheeks. ‘I swear, he has.’
‘I want to hear it from him. I have to hear it from him if I’ve any hope of getting over this. Do you have any idea how much you have ruined my life? I gave birth to twins, raised them on my own. I lost the closest thing I had to family because she was so blinded by love for you that she thought I was insane and spiteful.’ I glare at him again, hoping for a reaction.
‘Say something then!’ I scream in his face. Everyone around me jumps, the sudden surge of adrenaline makes my heart hammer against my chest.
He looks up at me, blood trailing down his face from the wound on the back of his head. ‘I’ve already told Eva. If you want to know, ask her.’
His smile is enough to let me know he has no wish to let go of that power. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say I was standing in front of Satan himself.
‘Typical coward. When it comes down to it, you don’t want to accept what you really are. A pathetic little man. Let’s face it, you only married Eva because you wanted in with Gavin. You wanted to get your claws into his business so you could say you’d made something of yourself. Isn’t that true? This house might be big, but the walls are paper thin. I heard everything you said, Stevie. Everything. You confessed what you did to me and you tried to get your wife here to give you an alibi.’
He shakes his head, eyes darting between us. His breathing is laboured and I stand back to watch him squirm.
‘Kate?’ Eva’s voice makes me spin around. ‘I have the proof he raped you.’
I frown. Why would she say that?
‘I have my voice recorder in my bra. I switched it on when we were upstairs, when he told me everything. Here,’ she sits forward, pushing out her chest, ‘take it. Do what you want with it. I don’t care anymore. I just want this to stop. Please.’
Anika steps forward and reaches in for the device. She holds it up to me. ‘It’s still on.’
‘Stop it and put it in your pocket,’ I say and Anika does what she’s told.
I look across at Brenda who is still standing by the door. She has turned her back to us and I scoff. Quite happy to attack me in the street when I was weak, but the moment I have the control she can’t handle it.
‘So, Brenda. I have an apology to make to you,’ I say. She turns around slowly and when she looks at me, I can see she is trying not to cry. Trying her best to maintain that scowl she is so good at. ‘I was made to think Gavin raped me. You see, Stevie didn’t just drug me, he drugged all of us that night including Gavin, so that no one could disturb him. He put on some of Gavin’s clothes, covered himself in some aftershave I’ll never forget the smell of. Jesus, he even smoked one of Gavin’s cigarettes in the hope that all of these things would make me think it was him. And it worked for such a long time. I can see why Stevie did it, it’s quite clever, actually. Gavin had been accused of rape before you guys moved to our village. So he was probably thinking that people wouldn’t question it if it got out. Yeah, it must’ve been him, he’s been to court about that before, they’d have said. So I’m sorry that I got it wrong, Brenda.’
Brenda looks down at the floor, then past me to Eva. She has a ‘we fucked up’ look on her face and it makes me feel wonderful and sorry for them at the same time. The Shaw women really have no luck when it comes to men: Walter Shaw leaving Brenda to look after the kids on her own and Eva falling for the biggest liar ever to walk the planet.
‘Kate…’ Brenda starts and I hold my hand up.
‘No need. Just accept my apology. It’s genuine.’
I don’t want to hear what she has to say, how she wants to explain herself. She will have to live with herself knowing that she got it so wrong.
‘Mum?’ Anika says. ‘What are you going to do now?’
Exhaling, I crouch down next to Stevie again. ‘I want him to pay for what he has done.’
Our eyes lock and for the first time, I see fear in his. Stevie is scared of what is going to happen to him. I stand, take a step back and sit down on the step leading up to the lounge chairs. ‘You can deny this till you’re blue in the face, Stevie. But the girls are just waiting on their DNA results coming back from Carla and when that happens, you’ll have no lies left to tell.’
Everyone falls silent as I tell Anika to take out her phone. ‘Call the police and tell them what’s happened. Tell them we have him on tape confessing to my rape and that they need to get here right now.’
Anika pulls her phone out of her pocket and I watch Rebecca’s expression change. ‘Is that it?’ she shouts. ‘All these months of building up to this and you’re going to leave it like this?’
‘Rebecca, this is my decision. Not yours,’ I say. ‘I know you wanted your Hollywood-style revenge, love, but that’s not how things work in the real world.’
She sighs loudly and comes down from the ledge, stands next to Stevie.
‘Stevie?’ Rebecca asks. ‘Do you feel any remorse for what you did? Have you ever wondered about the kind of damage you’ve caused?’
Silence hangs between them as Rebecca waits for an answer. Watching him, I will the words to leave his mouth. An apology, even if he doesn’t say it out loud, a look to tell me he’s sorry. I would take that after all this time. He remains silent, keeping the power with him.
‘Aren’t you going to answer me? Don’t you think you owe us an explanation? An apology? Don’t you care for us at all? Anika and I, we are your daughters by blood, even if the thought makes me want to gag.’
‘Rebecca,’ Anika says, shaking her head. She wants her sister to stop talking, to stop taunting. It’s not worth it, even I’m thinking that.
‘Anika, just phone the police. I want this done now,’ I say. Anika lifts her phone, ready to make the call when something catches my eye. A glint of light shining in through the window reflects off something in Rebecca’s hand. I watch her, almost certain I don’t have enough time to stop it from happening. The look on Stevie’s face is one of horror when he realises what she is about to do. She raises her hand towards Stevie’s neck and I cry out, lurching forward and knocking it from her. It skitters across the floor and stops by the edge of the pool. I stare at her in disbelief but she smiles at me, as if she isn’t defeated.
‘Get me the fuck out this chair,’ Stevie shouts. Rebecca turns to face him and I watch her. I reach out to pull her away, afraid of what she might do next.
‘Okay,’ she says. ‘But as soon as the police get here, they’ll take you away, cuff you and lock you up.’ Rebecca walks around him, stops just behind him.
‘Stevie, I have one more question I need to ask you, and I want you to be honest for once in your pathetic little life.’
This is getting ridiculous, out of control. I move closer and reach out to pull her back when she asks him, whispers in his ear menacingly.
‘Are you a strong swimmer?’
Before any of us can blink, take a breath, do anything, Rebecca raises her leg and kicks the chair, sending it crashing to the side. He lands just on the edge of the pool and before I can stop her, she forces him into the water, hands bound behind his back, still tied to the chair. Rebecca is in there with him, holding him under, blood and chlorine swirling around her. She is hissing through her teeth, her words incomprehensible. Anika is screaming at her to get him out and Eva is at the edge of the pool watching it, hands still bound behind her and unable to do anything.
Everything around me is moving, white noise buzzing in my ears. I jump in, pull my daughter’s hands out from the water and muster up as much strength as I can to pull the chair to an upright position so Stevie is above the surface. Gasping for air and eyes wide, he doesn’t get much time to take another breath as Rebecca fights me off and attempts to push him over again.
Anika is in the water, pulling Rebecca away from behind and trying to stop her from killing Stevie. All these years of hating him, hating the family and wishing them all dead, especially Stevie – now that I’m faced with the reality of it I can’t let it happen. I can’t allow my daughter to do this. I manage to pull him to the edge of the pool. Brenda is standing above us, waiting to help pull him out. She bends down and slides an arm under his and just as she is about to lift him, there’s another glint in the corner of my eye. I turn in time to see Rebecca’s hand raised, knife gripped as she brings it down towards Stevie’s chest.
Guilt and fear grip me as I watch my daughter, try to stop her. Years of seeing me struggle to cope with the trauma of what happened to me along with exposing the Lairds and Shaws for what they truly are has finally got to her. She’s snapped, lost all control. Her eyes are frenzied, like she isn’t behind them.
Screams fill the room, along with the calming sound of water lapping against the edge.