The Liar's Daughter

by Claire Allan

  ‘You do not have to say anything but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned, something that you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’

  ‘You’re entitled to have a solicitor present. Do you have someone you use or would you like us to arrange one?’

  Alex shrugs. We’ve never had use for a solicitor before, save for the conveyancing of our house, and that’s hardly anywhere near the same level.

  ‘I know a good solicitor,’ Ciara chimes in, handing him his glass of water. She takes a deep breath, turns to the two police officers. ‘You have to know this about my father,’ she says. ‘He was not a nice man. He was not a good man. He did things …’ she pauses. ‘We can prove he did things … He confessed, in his diary. I’m sure your SOCO team took it with them?’

  ‘We can certainly check that,’ DC Black says.

  ‘What kind of things?’ DC King asks.

  I can’t look at her in the eye. Ciara is, as always, stronger than I am.

  ‘He abused us, Heidi and me. For years,’ she says.

  If DC King is shocked her face doesn’t show it. ‘Then it’s a shame he was never brought before the courts,’ she says, and while she’s right, the message is clear. Vigilante justice is no justice at all.

  ‘Yes,’ Ciara says. ‘It is a shame. A crying shame. It’s a shame he wasn’t hauled before the courts a very long time ago, but he was a very manipulative man. Clever. He had us all scared to speak. He was very controlling.’

  ‘I didn’t know about it,’ Alex blurts. ‘Until that night, I didn’t know. I only saw it in the diary. Where he wrote it. Heidi hadn’t told me.’

  Guilt wraps its way around my heart and pulls tight. It’s a physical pain unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before. This time, I am to blame.

  ‘I think maybe this really is a conversation we’d best continue at the station, don’t you, Mr Lewis?’ DC King says.

  Alex nods.

  ‘Would you like to come with us, please?’

  I know it’s not a question, not really. Alex will be going with them. In the back of an unmarked car.

  ‘No!’ Ciara says, and I look up at her. ‘This isn’t really necessary, is it? It isn’t right. Alex says when he went in to see my father he was barely breathing. Gargling. And then he stopped. Alex didn’t call for help, but you said my father was suffocated. All the evidence pointed to that. It pointed to someone putting something over his head and smothering him.’

  The two officers exchange looks.

  ‘I didn’t do that,’ Alex says. ‘I didn’t hold anything over his face. I swear. He was taking very shallow breaths. I should’ve called for help, but I was so angry I didn’t. I should’ve. I should’ve turned the evidence over to the police. I know he was very ill, but he should’ve faced some sort of justice. Proper justice.’

  ‘We really should continue this at the station,’ DC Black says as he starts to guide Alex out of the house, and I watch my husband being led towards a police car.

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Ciara

  Now

  Heidi looks broken. More broken than before. She stares at the doorway, as if expecting Alex to come back in at any time.

  ‘I can’t believe this is happening,’ she says eventually, looking downwards.

  ‘I’m sure the police will find out what really happened,’ I tell her. ‘They will be able to see that Alex is telling the truth. All this has to have a rational explanation.’

  Although I’m not sure what it could be. The coroner can’t have got it so wrong. I wonder, for a moment, if Alex has told us the truth, or is he covering up something else? My gut tells me he’s genuine, though. His story rings true, as does his fear and his sadness.

  ‘Let’s focus on what we can do to help,’ I tell her. ‘Let’s see if we can find Joe’s diary. If we can find that, and get it to the police, it could help in some way.’

  ‘Do you think Kathleen or Marie took the diaries? Or Stella?’ Heidi says.

  I shake my head. ‘Stella definitely didn’t. I’d know. Possibly Kathleen or Mum.’

  ‘Do you think the police might have taken them?’

  I shake my head again. ‘If they did, they would have told us, or they would have found what he’d written by now. I’m sure of it.’

  ‘But maybe we should call them. Just to check.’

  She is agitated, wringing her hands together and scratching her arm so vigorously, I’m worried she might break the skin.

  ‘I’ll call them,’ I tell her. ‘And I’ll call Mum and Kathleen, too.’

  She blinks at me, her eyes wide with gratitude. ‘Could you? Would you?’

  Her vulnerability unnerves me a little. It saddens me. I know I’ve seen it before, when I was young and vulnerable myself. I nod and lift the phone.

  As expected, the police confirm they didn’t remove any paperwork from the house. Heidi’s face falls as I tell her the news. I see the livid red marks on her arms from her scratching. I kneel in front of her and take her hands in mine to stop her from hurting herself.

  ‘You have to stay strong now, okay? For Alex and for Lily. I’ll call Mum and Kathleen now. I know this is scary but,’ I glance down at her arms, ‘hurting yourself isn’t going to help.’

  She looks down, startled as if she hasn’t even realised she is doing it, and starts to rub her arms gently.

  ‘You’re right,’ she says. ‘You’re right.’

  I sit beside her while I make the calls.

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  Ciara

  Now

  Kathleen agrees to come over. I asked her if she had the diaries and she went very quiet for a moment.

  ‘Yes, I do. But why do you need them?’

  ‘Oh, just some admin. Dad left some passwords, pin numbers, that kind of thing, in his diary. I need to access some stuff to close accounts, access his savings, et cetera.’

  ‘I can look through them, see if I can find anything?’ she said. ‘I’ll call you right back. I’m sorry for taking them. I just wanted to feel closer to him. It’s a comfort to me seeing his handwriting.’

  ‘I get that,’ I told her, trying to keep my voice level. ‘It’s really only his latest diary I need to see. If you could even bring that. I’ll give it straight back,’ I lied.

  I didn’t tell her about Alex. I didn’t tell her to look or not look at the back pages of the diary. I just piled on the traumatised daughter voice thick and heavy until she sighed and agreed.

  ‘I won’t be long,’ she’d told me.

  That had been half an hour ago and Heidi and I are now both getting impatient.

  I feel as if I could cry when I see a taxi pull up outside and watch as Auntie Kathleen, looking so much older than her years, climbs out of the car and looks at the house, pausing for a moment before she spots me in the window. She doesn’t smile. She looks serious.

  ‘She’s here,’ I say as if Heidi hasn’t been as fixated on the window and watching for her arrival as I have.

  ‘It will help, won’t it? What he wrote?’ she asks me.

  ‘I hope so,’ I tell her, but the truth is I don’t really know if it will or won’t.

  She gives me a weak, watery smile. I jump when I hear the doorbell ring, even though I have watched Kathleen walk up the path and reach her hand towards the door.

  ‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Try to keep calm,’ I tell Heidi. ‘Remember, as far as she knows we only need this diary for admin reasons. We want her to keep believing that for now. We don’t want to upset her.’

  Heidi nods. Sniffs and sits on the armchair, cradling her arms around her. I go and answer the door, my face impassive.

  ‘Thank you so much for coming, Auntie Kathleen. We’re just trying to get everything organised, you know. Tie up all the loose ends.’

  She nods. ‘I’m not sure what the rush is, but I respect your choices. I suppose it would be nice to have it all wrapped up before I go back to England. I c
an’t stay here forever.’

  ‘I appreciate it. We appreciate it,’ I say as I lead her into the living room, where she spots Heidi.

  ‘Oh, I didn’t realise she was here,’ Kathleen says, reaching into her bag and pulling out this year’s leather-bound diary, handing it to me.

  ‘Nice to see you, Kathleen,’ Heidi replies. ‘Thanks for doing this.’

  Kathleen sniffs and nods. She’s clearly still angry with Heidi for the graveside scene. My anger over that has gone now. Now that I know what Heidi has been through. It has been replaced by my own sense of guilt.

  But I don’t have time for wallowing in self-pity now. I want to get this to DI Bradley as soon as possible. I flick through the pages, trying to find my father’s hastily scrawled words.

  ‘Are you looking for something?’ Kathleen asks.

  ‘Just the pin numbers and passwords,’ I say, feeling my palms start to sweat.

  I was sure he wrote in the back of the diary but there’s nothing there. I examine it closely. See ragged edges close to the spine where pages have been torn out.

  I look up at Kathleen.

  She is looking around the room. I see her look intently at Heidi. It must be obvious that she has been crying. Her eyes aren’t quite as red-rimmed as they were but they are still puffy. She still looks miserable.

  I feel my heart start to thud a little faster as I flick through the diary again. I’m not sure why I do, it’s obvious that pages have been torn out, but it doesn’t make sense and I can feel myself starting to panic.

  I catch Heidi’s eyes and she reads the worry on my face. Her eyes widen.

  ‘Can you not find what you’re looking for?’ Kathleen asks. ‘That’s what you wanted, isn’t it? His diary?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say, distracted as I run my fingers along the rough edges of the paper. ‘It was this diary I wanted, but …’

  Kathleen sits down close to Heidi, who seems to be shrinking further and further into herself.

  ‘The house feels strange without Joe in it, doesn’t it?’ she says. ‘I wonder who will live here next.’

  She sounds so jovial. So relaxed.

  ‘Did anyone else have access to this diary?’ I ask her.

  ‘No, I don’t think so,’ she says. ‘Why do you ask?’

  I try to stop my voice from shaking. Someone has torn the pages out. That much is clear.

  ‘There just seems to be something missing. Some of the info I needed.’

  ‘Pin numbers and passwords? That kind of thing?’ she asks and I see it.

  I see she is trying to catch me out. I see that she knows exactly what I’m looking for. She’s just waiting to see if I’ll confront her about it.

  ‘Yes,’ I say, ‘that sort of thing.’

  Heidi is looking at me, her eyes pleading with me to solve this huge problem that is beyond my ability to solve.

  ‘Ah, good. Because the way you’re acting, I’d almost swear you were looking for something else.’

  ‘What else could there be?’ I ask her and I know we are playing a game. Just as I know she is not on my side.

  She shrugs. ‘Maybe something that should never be seen by anyone else,’ she says, flicking an imaginary piece of fluff from her skirt before holding my gaze. ‘Because if you’re looking for those disgusting things he wrote, I’ve destroyed them. Burned the pages. They contained all sorts of things. Lots of private information, you know, things you wouldn’t want falling into the wrong hands. Things you wouldn’t want the whole world knowing.’

  Chapter Seventy

  Heidi

  Now

  Has Kathleen really just said what I think she said? She’s destroyed Joe’s confession? There’s nothing to show the police? Nothing to help Alex? I feel as if I might be sick.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I hear Ciara ask as I try to fight the nausea in the pit of my stomach.

  ‘What I mean,’ Kathleen says, ‘is that I have burned whatever it was my brother wrote about things he said he did in his past.’

  ‘But why would you do that?’ Ciara asks.

  I can hear the disbelief, the pain, in her voice.

  ‘It’s all very simple,’ Kathleen says.

  She’s trying to maintain a façade of cold indifference, but I see that she is trembling.

  ‘I saw the things he had written. That “confession” of his. And there was no way I was risking anyone else reading that.’

  I can’t hide the horrified look on my face.

  ‘No!’ Ciara says, shaking her head. ‘No, you can’t have done that. You’d no right to do that!’

  ‘Had I not?’ Kathleen asks. ‘Do you think I want everyone and his mother talking about my brother in that way? I don’t care if he’s dead, I won’t have people saying he was some kind of pervert.’

  ‘He was more than a pervert,’ Ciara says. ‘He was a monster. He hurt us. Me. Heidi. Abused us. Raped us!’ The last two words are shouted.

  Raped us. The words out loud have a powerful effect on me. Like a punch in the stomach but one that releases all the hurt and anger that has just about been contained over the years. My fists clench. Tears run freely down my face, but I don’t care any more. I am not ashamed. I will not be ashamed any more.

  And at that moment I see a flicker of something on Kathleen’s face. I can’t miss it. She’s not that good at hiding her feelings. And it all slots into place.

  ‘You already knew,’ I say, my voice little more than a whisper.

  ‘What?’ Ciara says. ‘No, she didn’t.’

  ‘She did,’ I say.

  Guilt is written all over Kathleen’s face. People will ask questions. People will want to know how he managed to keep it a secret. Except he hadn’t kept it a secret, after all. One person knew, and that person, rather than confronting him and stopping it all, moved away to England and left me, left us, to our fate.

  ‘Didn’t you, Kathleen? You knew, all those years ago. You knew and you did nothing to stop it. We were just children and you let him do that to us. You’re as bad as he was.’

  Kathleen colours. For the first time the swagger she had when she came into the house leaves her.

  ‘I … I …’

  ‘No,’ Ciara says. ‘That can’t be true. ‘She would’ve stopped it, wouldn’t you?’ She’s addressing Kathleen now.

  ‘I did stop it!’ Kathleen says. ‘Or I tried. I thought he did. I thought I’d got through to him. I told him … told him I knew what he was doing and I’d go to the police. Or worse, I’d get the boys onto him. They’d have sorted him out. He was terrified of that, terrified he’d get his knees done. Or a bullet to the back of the head. Said he’d stop. Said he’d never do it again.’

  Ciara’s face is rigid with shock. She sits down, head in her hands. She looks like she might be sick.

  ‘And you took the word of a liar?’ I ask, but I don’t need her to answer. I know the answer. I know that the fear of a bullet to the head, or years in prison branded a nonce, weren’t enough to stop him and his twisted ‘compulsion’. ‘Maybe if you’d stayed, eh? Maybe if you hadn’t left and gone to England.’

  ‘You can’t blame me for it!’ she says. ‘That’s not fair.’

  ‘Not fair?’ Ciara is shouting now. ‘Not fair? Are you serious? You were the only person who had the power to make sure it never happened again and you abdicated your responsibility. So yes, we can blame you and it’s perfectly fair. And more than that, you destroyed evidence that proved what he did! Jesus Christ, Kathleen. Coming in here and talking about fair. You’ve no idea what you’ve done.’

  ‘I believed he would stop,’ Kathleen says, crying now. ‘He knew he had so much to lose. He knew he was doing the wrong thing. And he was my big brother, and I loved him. I needed to believe in him.’

  ‘You left him in sole charge of a vulnerable female child!’ Ciara shouts. ‘You knew what he was capable of and you never thought to get Heidi out of there.’

  ‘Well, neither did you! You knew as well, Ciara
. You knew what he did to you!’

  ‘I was a child myself!’ Ciara shouts again, crossing the room and pointing her finger directly at Kathleen. Jabbing it towards her, pressing it against her collarbone.

  I can see her hand curl into a fist. She is trembling with anger.

  ‘You! You were the grown-up. You were the person with the power. But instead you cleared off. Lived your life without a thought of what might have been going on here. You could just pretend it had stopped because it was easier for you to do that than to face what your brother had done. You’re disgusting,’ she screams, and there is no other word for it, into her aunt’s face.

  I see a fleck of spittle shoot from her mouth, landing on Kathleen’s face. Kathleen looks as if she, too, might throw up. She can’t move. She is pressed back against the sofa and Ciara is looming over her. I want to reach out and take Ciara’s hands, the way she stilled mine earlier.

  I’ve seen her lose her temper before, but this? This is a whole new level of anger. I’m not quite sure what she would be capable of but I’m determined that Kathleen will not be coming out of this situation as a victim.

  She could never be a victim. What she did – or didn’t do – is unforgivable.

  It was bad enough what he did. But to have someone who could’ve stopped it, who chose not to? That was a different level of cruelty. I wonder how many times she’d seen me flinch when he stood too close. How many times she’d heard me crying. I wonder what had crossed her mind all those times she had soothed me, told me I had to be brave. Was she making excuses for him? Had she been as complicit in all of this as he was?

  ‘Ciara,’ I say gently and she looks at me, and it’s as if she is coming out of her trance. Is aware of her position, her anger. Knows how close she is to losing control.

  She steps back and I see Kathleen sag with relief that the immediate threat to her has passed.

  Ciara takes a deep breath. ‘You stupid, selfish bitch! You let him get away with it then,’ Ciara says, her tone measured but no less intimidating, ‘and by burning his confession, you’re letting him get away with it now. And you’ve taken away the evidence we need to help Alex!’