The Silent Ones (ARC)

by K. L. Slater

  The same thing was obviously on Neary’s mind.

  ‘Do you understand, Brianna?’

  ‘Yes,’ she replied in a small voice.

  It was a relief, not that Dana or Neary showed it. It was important not to give anything away now. Both Brianna and her mother needed to know they’d reached the end of the line as far as Brianna giving her side of the story was concerned.

  Neary started recording.

  ‘Brianna, yesterday evening you stated that Maddy Fletcher attacked Bessie Wilford, is that correct?’

  ‘Yes,’ Brianna said in a surprisingly bold voice.

  ‘Can you tell us how you knew Bessie Wilford?’

  She thought for a moment. ‘We just did. She’d been to Grandma’s house before and one day when she left to go home, she asked me and Maddy and Josh in for lemonade in the school holidays.’

  ‘Which school holiday was that?’ Neary asked.

  ‘It would be the last one,’ Brianna said. ‘May half-term week.’

  ‘Had you been to her house before that?’

  Brianna shook her head.

  ‘Answer out loud, please.’

  ‘No!’ she said curtly, and for a second, Dana caught a glimpse of her mother’s fire.

  ‘So you and Maddy weren’t worried about going to her house alone?’

  Brianna laughed. ‘She’s an old lady! She isn’t like a dangerous stranger. A man.’

  She looked at her mother, who gave a tiny nod. Brianna was talking about Bessie in the present tense and Dana realised the girls still hadn’t been told that Bessie had died from her injuries.

  ‘Can you tell me exactly what happened from when you left your grandma’s house yesterday?’ Neary said.

  ‘We went for a little walk up the road and then we had a dare to run down to the shops and back again,’ Brianna said clearly. ‘But when we got to the shops, we decided to go a bit further. To Bessie’s street. It was all Maddy’s idea.’

  ‘So you got to Bessie’s street,’ DS March said. ‘And what happened next?’

  ‘We just skipped along to her house. It’s right at the end of the street. We went in the gate and round the back because that’s the door Bessie uses.’

  ‘I see. And did you knock?’

  Brianna hesitated. ‘We… just walked in. Bessie can’t hear you knock unless she’s in the kitchen, because she’s deaf.’

  ‘And did you call out to tell her you were in the house?’

  ‘She’s deaf,’ Brianna repeated as if Neary suffered from the same condition. ‘We went through to the living room and she was asleep.’

  ‘Did you wake her up?’ Neary asked.

  Brianna’s face paled. She looked at her mother, then down at her hands.

  ‘Brianna? What did you do when you saw Bessie was asleep?’

  Dana watched as the girl twisted her fingers together and shifted in her seat.

  ‘I can’t remember.’

  ‘I think you can remember and I need you to tell us what happened next.’

  ‘I can’t remember, Mum.’ Brianna looked up at Chloe with wide, brimming eyes.

  ‘Think, Bree,’ Chloe urged her. ‘When you saw Bessie was asleep, what did you do next? What did Maddy do?’

  ‘She shouted loudly in her ear and Bessie woke up and fell out of the chair,’ Brianna said in one long breath.

  ‘And what did you do?’ March prompted.

  ‘I didn’t do anything wrong! I stood near the door and then I went to the bathroom.’

  ‘Did you help Bessie get up from the floor?’ Neary asked.

  ‘It wasn’t me! I didn’t do anything wrong. It was Maddy. She was the one who hurt Bessie and she was the one who stole her ring.’

  Forty-Nine

  2003

  Ray stood at the bottom of the stairs and leaned heavily against the faded banister.

  He could hear both his daughters moving around in their bedroom and he listened for a few more moments. They didn’t know it yet, but what he had to tell them would colour their lives forever. Juliet’s especially.

  It was all he could do not to walk away and grant them a few more hours of peace.

  But it had to be done. He couldn’t put it off any longer.

  He shouted for them to come downstairs. Seconds later, he heard their door open and footsteps padded along the landing.

  He walked back into the living room and sat next to Joan. She held a tissue up to her face, but he knew that underneath it, her eyes were bone dry.

  Sometimes he really struggled to understand how the woman he loved was put together, even after all the years they’d been a couple. He knew she loved him, but she could turn instantly cold if he put a foot wrong.

  And she ruled the kids with a rod of iron. There were times the girls crept around her as if they were treading on eggshells.

  Little Corey never did, though. Joan’s moods went straight over his head.

  The lad might have been a handful, but Ray’s heart squeezed when he thought of his young son’s joie de vivre, his constant curiosity and enthusiasm. Often for the most ordinary of things.

  ‘What’s up, Dad?’ Chloe was first through the door, followed by Juliet.

  ‘Sit down,’ Ray said quietly. ‘We’ve something to tell you both.’

  Juliet looked cautiously at Joan. ‘You OK, Mum?’

  Joan glared from behind her tissue. She never looked at her daughter any other way now since the accident, but Juliet couldn’t leave it there. The heaviness on her chest wouldn’t let her.

  ‘This isn’t… it’s not about Corey, is it?’

  ‘Of course it’s about Corey, you idiot child,’ Joan screeched, dropping her tissue and pressing both her temples. ‘It’s all been about Corey ever since you mucked everything up.’

  ‘Joan.’ Ray held his hands up. ‘We agreed I’d tell them.’

  ‘Tell us what?’ Juliet said faintly.

  ‘Get on with it then,’ Joan growled, snatching up her tissue again.

  ‘There’s no easy way to say this, so I’m just going to jump in with both feet.’ Ray paused, his bottom lip trembling. ‘I’m sorry, girls… your brother died in hospital this morning.’

  ‘No!’ Juliet wailed and stood up, raking her hands through her hair.

  ‘The bleed on his brain, the aneurysm, it got bigger and he fell into a coma.’ Ray looked at his hands. In this moment, he felt as if he were a hundred years old. ‘There was nothing they could do for him.’

  He looked at Juliet and saw she was motionless now and staring into space. He’d seen shock before and it looked just like this.

  ‘Chloe, fetch your sister a glass of water, love.’

  ‘But this is all her fault,’ Chloe snarled, halfway between tears and fury. ‘She should never have taken him to the warren if she wasn’t feeling well.’

  ‘Precisely,’ Joan said under her breath.

  ‘This isn’t the time for pointing fingers,’ Ray chided gently. ‘We’ve all got to stick together. We’ve got to keep it together. Me and your mother have talked about this at length, and I tell you now, what happened to Corey must not be discussed outside this house. Is that understood?’

  ‘It’s not to be discussed inside the house either, after today,’ Joan remarked. ‘I’ve got to try somehow and put my poor boy’s death behind me.’

  Ray turned and looked at his wife. Her chafing fingers, her lined, baggy face. She might not be sobbing but she was suffering, he could see that.

  ‘But the paramedics, they said he’d be OK,’ Juliet cried.

  ‘They said he should be OK,’ Chloe remarked. ‘They said he should recover.’

  ‘They can’t give any guarantees when it comes to head injuries,’ Ray said, tears clouding his own vision.

  ‘The main thing is that he’s at rest now.’ Joan sniffed and dabbed at her dry eyes. Then, in a rare moment of compassion, she looked at Juliet. ‘I know you didn’t mean to fall asleep. It was a terrible accident and now somehow we’ve got
to try and put it behind us.’

  Ray nodded and squeezed his eyes shut. He’d really loved that boy.

  They all had.

  Fifty

  Juliet

  While I’m waiting to see Maddy, I think about my therapy session with Dana.

  I’ve thought through everything we talked about. Some of what Dana said to me felt like a powerful spotlight suddenly shining on me after years of sitting in a darkened room.

  Could it be possible that I’ve set my ten-year-old daughter the perfect example of how to take on others’ blame and take on the role of the person who always puts things right?

  Josh is a healthily mischievous boy. He dodges bedtime, homework and the odd household chore regularly if he can get away with it. Every time Tom or I chastise him, Maddy is there at his side defending him.

  ‘He was helping me with my art homework,’ or ‘I said I’d sweep up the leaves in the yard for him.’

  I’ve never given it any thought before, but now it seems so relevant, resonating with me at a deep level.

  Could it really be that my family have subconsciously cast Maddy in the same role they set aside for me all those years before?

  Things have been this way for so long, I truly believe that my mother, father and sister are completely unaware of our dysfunctional arrangement – as I was until I met Dana. I’m certain all of them would refute it, even if presented with the evidence.

  It’s all so messy and has gone on for so long, it’s hard to know what’s real and what isn’t.

  One thing I’m now certain of is that our mother is a narcissist. She constantly craves the attention of her husband, children and now grandchildren in order to feel valued. She labels us according to her own needs, and none of us has been permitted to grow up fully as ourselves. Including my own daughter.

  Looking at it now as Dana has helped me to do, with all the crap and family politics neatly brushed away, I feel an aching sense of shame and regret that I didn’t work it out for myself before my daughter got pulled into the monstrous machine that is my family.

  And Dad? Dad is like a satellite that orbits around Mum, making excuses for her behaviour, smoothing her path and absolving her of any responsibility or blame.

  Dad is lovely and hard to get angry with, but he’s enabled Mum to act the way she has without challenge for so long.

  Being around my family, I always felt uncomfortable, an outsider. But I never knew why.

  Dana has helped me to see things clearly at last.

  She helped me to see that Chloe has been a victim as much as I have. Although she’s always been Mum’s favourite, she is neurotic and needy because of it. She thinks everyone is out to get her. Worst of all, although she appears bossy and entitled, she doesn’t feel she has any power in her own life at all.

  I don’t want my daughter to end up like that… like me. I refuse to let Maddy join the treadmill the rest of us are chained to in this family any more. It’s not too late to help her redefine herself.

  Brianna is being interviewed and Maddy is next in there.

  Somehow I have to make her understand that she can speak up and tell the truth.

  She doesn’t have to bear the weight of other people’s shortcomings all on her own.

  Like I have for all these years.

  Fifty-One

  DS March puts her head around the door as I sit waiting.

  ‘Just to let you know we’ve interviewed Brianna now. Won’t be long until Maddy’s turn.’

  ‘Is my sister coming back in here?’ I ask.

  ‘She had to pop out, apparently. Brianna is having a drink and a bit of quiet time.’ March shrugs and disappears again.

  What could be so important that Chloe needs to leave the centre when Brianna obviously needs her support? My niece might have told lies about Maddy but I don’t like to think of her abandoned by her mother.

  I push my irritation away. If I don’t think about something other than what’s happening in this place, I’m going to lose it.

  Finding out the truth about what happened to Bessie Wilford is one thing, but should a miracle occur, I need to a life to take Maddy back to. If we lose the house, the business, everything we have, we’ll be starting again with a whole new set of problems.

  If Beth needs any more information about the Van Dyke contract, I want her to feel she can ask me but I know she won’t. She’s said so many times I’m not to fret about it.

  Yet I worked so many hours on the damn thing, I’ve committed most of the details to memory, and I have a notepad at home full of pencilled scrawls, including costings.

  Tom has always scoffed at my preference for a pad and pen when it comes to recording information, but this time it’s proved its worth against fallible technology.

  Despite everything I said to Beth earlier, I reach for my phone and open up the business emails, just to see if there’s any more updates about the Van Dyke clothing that’s due to be delivered soon.

  I gasp out loud when the screen loads.

  I can see immediately that the densely packed main inbox I viewed earlier is now virtually empty, just a few unopened spam-type messages left in there.

  Like most people, I don’t maintain the housekeeping I should on my emails. I mostly just open them and then leave them in the inbox, apart from the odd few I might delete upon reading, so there should be at least eighteen months’ worth in there.

  I know I promised Beth I wouldn’t meddle, but it’s a bit much for her to actually go ahead and make the decision to delete everything. So far as I remember, she’s quite a nervous IT user, and I can’t quite believe she’s had the confidence to do that.

  More likely is the possibility that it’s some kind of virus that has wiped the communications.

  I feel sick. All my suppliers’ contacts were on there, and thanks to Chloe’s staggering negligence, we have no back-up files. Surely Beth realises that? She’s the one who uncovered it, after all.

  A sinking feeling in my abdomen drowns the sparks of hope I had that the final stages of the Van Dyke contract might have progressed.

  My finger is sliding across the screen to close the email window when a lifeline comes to mind. About a year ago, I deleted an important email by mistake. I panicked and Tom came to the rescue, showing me how easily it could be reinstated via the digital trash bin.

  I hardly dare to hope. But if Beth has somehow deleted this stuff by mistake, she might be worried sick about telling me for fear of adding to my problems.

  A few simple clicks and I might be able to help her out. Help myself out.

  I open the trash box and immediately breathe a sigh of relief. It is full to the brim with emails, including, as far as I can see, all the ones I saw there yesterday.

  I’m finding it increasingly hard to focus with everything that’s happening with Maddy, and I don’t want to make a mistake transferring all the messages back, so I decide to text Tom and ask him to sort it out.

  But before I can do so, a particular email catches my eye. It’s new and from Fenna at Van Dyke clothing. The subject line reads: Confirmation, which sounds like everything is going to plan. I open the email and read the contents.

  Dear Juliet,

  * * *

  I’m so sorry to hear you’ve been forced to close InsideOut4Kids. I had no idea about the troubles with your daughter but I appreciate your honesty in letting us know that you’re unable to fulfil the contract.

  * * *

  I wanted to let you know that we have been lucky enough to secure our clothing requirements for the next thirty-six months from another quality supplier, so your worries that you have somehow let us down are unfounded.

  * * *

  Everyone at Van Dyke’s wishes you the very best in what must be a difficult situation.

  * * *

  It has been a pleasure working with you.

  * * *

  Kind regards,

  Fenna Jansen

  Head of European Sales

&nb
sp; I clutch my throat and sit back. Read the email again and think through what its crazy contents mean.

  Obviously I haven’t contacted Fenna and told her I’ve had to close the business, so who the hell has?

  Then I remember the phone hacking scandal of a few years ago, and it becomes obvious. Some journalists will stop at nothing to get their story, and the press are very interested in Maddy and Brianna at the moment. Someone must have hacked into our email system and meddled with the suppliers’ communications to cause more excitement around the case.

  I snatch up my phone again. It’s imperative Beth is made aware of this before she sends out any more sensitive information. Then I’ll try and figure out how to change the password on the account.

  It might not be too late to rescue the situation. Beth can call Fenna to explain that the email about InsideOut4Kids closing down was a hoax. It’s our only chance.

  Infuriatingly, my call goes straight through to voicemail.

  ‘Beth,’ I say breathlessly. ‘Listen. It’s possible that someone has hacked into the business account and sent a fake email to Fenna at Van Dyke’s saying that the company has been closed. Ring me as soon as you get this; it doesn’t matter what time it is.’

  I call Tom next, but there’s no answer. Where the hell is everyone?

  I have this sense of trying to herd up a thousand sheep without any escaping. It’s an impossible task to stop the suppliers finding out what’s happening in my personal life. All Fenna has to do is google my name and it’s all there… scant facts tangled up in all the awful hype about the case.

  There are voices approaching outside, and I feel a knot of dread at the thought of having to put a face on in front of Mum and Dad. My head feels like it’s about to implode.