by Jane Isaac
When he finally served up the food and sat opposite, acid swirled in her mouth. The last thing she wanted was to eat anything right now.
‘You seemed tense when the detective was here earlier,’ he said.
Marie picked up her fork and pushed the food around her plate. ‘They’ve confirmed the DNA match. It is Alicia’s body.’
‘I’m so sorry, love.’ He dropped his fork, reached across and took her free hand, weaving his fingers into hers. A comforting gesture he’d adopted a million times over the years. A tear splashed into her pasta.
She looked up and through her bleary eyes she suddenly saw the young boy in him again. The lanky teenager with the cow’s lick framing his face. Daniel’s quiet mate who always hung behind, one of the wallflowers of their friendship group. Everyone liked Vic, though few people got more than a few words out of him, apart from Daniel. Not bad-looking either when he filled out in his early twenties. Daniel had the charm and the lip, and Vic was the silent one, always in his shadow. Rarely with a girl in tow and when he did have a girlfriend it was always a passing fling, over in a few weeks. Never a long-term relationship.
It wasn’t until after Alicia’s disappearance, after her separation with Daniel, that she’d broken beneath the surface with Vic and realised what a thoughtful man he’d become, and how deep and interesting he was. She had no idea he painted watercolours, or was learning to play the saxophone, or, like her, read Jeffery Deaver novels.
It seemed the more they talked, the more they had to talk about, flitting from one subject to another, often changing mid-sentence. Vic seemed more relaxed when it was just the two of them and opened up. They chatted and chatted, as if time was coming to an end and they’d never have the chance to discuss everything.
After she’d agreed to marry him, he owned up to having harboured a crush on her since her early teens. She’d always been his best mate’s girlfriend and for that reason he’d kept his distance. No wonder his other relationships were so short-lived.
‘No secrets,’ he said on their wedding day. ‘That’s the key to a successful relationship. We tell each other everything.’
Except she hadn’t told him everything…
Losing Liam had changed Daniel. He’d sailed through life until then, getting what he wanted with a wink of those blue eyes, that lopsided smile. The twins’ birth and Liam’s death morphed him from a laid-back twenty-two-year-old to a ready-made adult, bearing the stresses and strains of the world. And if Liam’s death cast a cloud over them, losing Alicia only served to thicken it, immersing them in a fog of sorrow until they couldn’t see anything before them. Gone was the perennial twinkle in Daniel’s eye, the forever optimism. Replaced with sunken cheeks and the greying pallor of worry.
There were few who could have coped with the inevitabilities of losing their best friend and half their friendship group by declaring their love publicly. Vic had put everything on the line for her and they’d been as close to happy as Marie could have hoped for. Until now.
‘What can I do to help?’ he asked.
Marie pulled her hand away. ‘There’s something I need to tell you,’ she said. ‘And I want you to know how sorry I am, and to know I really had no idea.’ Her words became muffled by the sobs that followed. She covered her face with her hands.
A chair scraped the floor. And he was there, at her side, stretching his strong arms around her. The action, touching as it was, made her feel even more wretched. She dug her head in his shoulder, took a deep gulp and eased her breaths.
Vic filled a glass with water and handed it to her. Their carefully prepared dinners sat on the table untouched.
‘I need to tell you,’ Marie said. ‘and ask you not to judge, to bear in mind how young we all were.’
His face contorted. ‘I don’t understand what you are saying.’
She met his gaze. His eyes wide like pools. Suddenly, she realised she couldn’t do it. Not here, not now.
‘I’m so sorry for everything that’s happened, everything I’ve put you through.’ Her chest heaved and she sobbed again.
*
‘Are you okay?’ Vic asked. ‘I mean, I know you’re not okay, but can I do anything to help?’ Half an hour had passed. Half an hour in which they’d eaten their food in relative silence and moved into the front room. Vic had switched on the television. A comedy panel show filled the screen, although neither of them were watching it. ‘I know this is hard. You can talk to me, you know?’
The elephant in the room was so large it was suffocating. Marie turned to him. ‘The DNA test showed Daniel wasn’t Alicia’s father.’ There, it was out there. She’d said it.
‘What?’ He jolted back, surveying her from afar. ‘Are you saying what I think you are saying?’
Marie cleared her throat. She wasn’t sure how to craft the words. ‘Daniel isn’t her father she repeated. There was someone else.’
‘And you only thought to tell me this now?’
‘I didn’t want to upset anyone.’
‘Marie!’ His voice hiked up a notch. ‘You’ve had the police running around in circles, brought heartbreak to a family, broken a man who grieved for a son who wasn’t his and believed his daughter had been kidnapped… and you never told anyone. How could you?’
‘Vic, listen. We can’t tell anyone. The police have to—’
Well, that won’t be difficult for you, will it?’
‘Please! Let me explain?’
‘Explain? You’ve had fifteen years to explain. All those long discussions, those intimate moments. You cheated on your husband and let us all suffer. How could you?’
‘Vic, please.’
‘No. This time it isn’t about you, Marie. This is too much, too heavy for me to process.’ He stood.
‘Don’t.’
He paused for the shortest of seconds. ‘I don’t believe it. I mean, if you can lie about this…’
‘It’s not what you think.’
‘How do I know when you’re being honest? I mean, what other lies have you told me?’ He held up his hand, moved towards the door. ‘I need some time out.’
She knew she had to tell him the truth. But the truth was so horrific, she grappled for the right words. She followed him into the hallway, opening and closing her mouth, rooted to the spot as he stalked out of the front door.
42
Marie slumped in the kitchen chair and hung her head. She’d wanted to tell Vic about the priest so many times, but there was always a niggling voice buried deep preventing her. What if he didn’t believe her? What if he thought she’d brought it on herself? Fifteen years ago, everyone knew Father Bryan. He was an upstanding individual, well respected; his face occasionally gracing the pages of the local newspaper for the charity fundraising he did in the community.
And then there was the problem with Alicia. What if Vic had put two and two together and questioned her paternity back then? He was her one constant. Daniel and he were best friends at school. He’d given up his closest mate to be with her. How would he feel if he knew she’d lied about something so fundamental?
And she had lied.
Tears burned her eyes. Father Bryan had been all smiles and attentiveness. Attentiveness she’d mistaken for care. She shuddered, thinking of his condolence card with the teddy bear sleeping on the front. The card she’d found in Alicia’s memory box. The card he’d delivered after Liam had died.
An icy shiver slipped down her back. Father Bryan was now a bishop, rising high in the senior echelons of the Catholic Church. On the rare occasions he came back to Kingsthorpe, he was treated like royalty. Nobody would believe he would attack anyone.
She’d told no one at the time. Stood under the shower until her back ached and her legs were raw. Kept the secret. It was his word against hers. Convinced herself that Daniel was the twins’ father. Of course he was. Twins ran in his family. Yet many a time, she’d wondered, worried, pondered about whether to share the burden. What if he forced himself on someone else? B
ut she’d kept it under wraps, unable to deal with the fallout and the shame.
She switched back to that fateful evening. Sitting at either end of the sofa; her squished into the corner with her feet tucked beneath her. White wine sloshing in their glasses as they chatted. The low clouds outside heralding an early dusk. She’d switched on her grandmother’s corner lamp to brighten the room, the shadows creating a silhouette of him on the wall behind as he lifted his glass. Their usual Wednesday evening chat.
He’d caught her completely off guard. One minute, she was asking him to leave. The next he’d placed his glass down and was there, on top of her. She remembered the confusion, the panic; his weight bearing down. Pleading with him to stop. He’d seemed in a trance, oblivious to her calls. When she’d screamed, he’d pushed her face to the side, a hefty hand pressed against her cheek, holding it there. Frozen in a paralysis of fear. Pain tearing through her.
Just when she thought she could no longer bear the pain, he climbed off. She didn’t notice him pulling up his trousers. All she could recall was the rip of the metal as he zipped up.
And she’d laid there, not daring to move. Her pants around her ankles. It was as much as she could do to wriggle down her skirt.
The sofa had shifted as he’d moved back to his seat and ran a hand through his hair. ‘Now Marie,’ he’d said in the calmest voice. ‘I think we both know that shouldn’t have happened. I’m not sure what God’s plan is, but I expect to see you at confession. This is between you, me and God. He will be our judge. It won’t help the situation to involve anyone else. We need to deal with this properly. Like adults.’
With that, he’d rearranged his clothing and she’d wriggled back, her breaths hitching, not daring to speak. ‘Think on what I said now, Marie. This is between you, me and God.’
She didn’t remember him leaving. Didn’t even recall the front door close as he let himself out. Stayed hunched on the sofa, listening to the sound of his car engine disappear into the distance. Knees pressed to her chest. Feeling wretched. Violated. Desperately trying to make sense of what had happened. Daniel was her first boyfriend; the only man she’d ever slept with. They’d been together since she was fourteen. Had she encouraged Father Bryan without realising?
Deep down she knew it was wrong. He’d broken his vows and taken advantage of a young woman he was counselling. A woman who’d recently lost the only family she had close by. She should call the police, report him. He might do this to someone else. But so many things had stopped her. Would people blame her for leading him on? And his words, ‘God’s plan’. What did that mean?
She thought about the days and weeks afterwards. Of walking around in a stupor. Daniel didn’t question the change in her mood, putting it down to her continuing grief over losing her gran. He liked the way she stuck to him like glue, going along to his football matches, watching him at practice, because she didn’t want to be in the house alone.
Then the pregnancy… She knew she was pregnant, even before she saw the blue line in the window of the pregnancy test. She’d noticed the changes in her body. The nausea, the fatigue. And the inevitable question reared its ugly head. All those weeks panicking, worrying, standing beside a beaming Daniel while he told everyone their news. Marie swiped another tear from her eye. The relief at finding she was carrying twins, convincing herself they were Daniel’s.
Did the police really think Father Bryan might be responsible for Alicia’s death? Surely not. Although, he’d already broken his vows and found a way to justify a rape. A shiver rushed through her. She’d kept the rape a secret afterwards, turned her back on the church. Continued to keep the secret throughout the pregnancy and after the birth. So that when Alicia disappeared it was so dark, so dirty that she couldn’t bring herself to tell anyone. She’d persuaded herself she was doing the right thing; Father Bryan couldn’t have been involved in Alicia’s abduction, all she’d do was pour more anguish on an already brimming pile for the family. But now… now that everything was out there, she was beginning to wonder at the ramifications of her decision. At the people she’d let down.
A car engine sounded outside. Vic. Marie jumped up, rushed to the front room window, peered around the curtain’s edge. And watched her neighbour opposite climb out of their car. Her heart deflated. She stepped away from the window, lowered herself into the armchair. The sound of Zac’s breaths brought her back to the present, to reality.
The attack wasn’t her fault. She’d been raped.
She needed to find a way to tell Vic, to explain, and soon. She couldn’t bear to lose him too.
43
Beth was awoken by the sound of a mobile phone ringing. Darkness filled her bedroom.
Nick stirred beside her. ‘Yours or mine?’ he mumbled.
‘I think it’s mine.’ She reached out and patted the bedside table until she found it, blinking at the brightness of the screen as she swiped to answer.
‘Hello!’
‘Beth, I’m sorry to bother you so early.’
The urgency in the voice at the other end of the line made her sit upright. ‘Who is this?’
‘I’m sorry, it’s Marie Russell. I didn’t know who else to call.’
A fleeting glance at the clock. 6.28 a.m. ‘Has something happened?’ Beth asked, her voice full of sleep.
‘It’s Vic. We had a… disagreement last night. He stormed out. Didn’t come home. I’ve tried his mobile and it goes to voicemail. I don’t where he is.’
‘What kind of disagreement?’
‘That’s what I need to speak to you about. Can you come over?’
Beth rubbed her forehead. ‘Okay, I’ll be there in half an hour.’
*
Redland Drive was quiet when Beth arrived. Apart from a dull light in the Russells’ window, the neighbouring houses were immersed in darkness, curtains tightly drawn, residents inside enjoying the final minutes of night before their day began.
Marie was at the door before Beth exited the car. Limp hair hanging loose around a sallow and drawn face.
‘What happened?’ Beth asked in a low voice, stepping inside.
‘It’s complicated.’ She motioned for Beth to follow her into the kitchen and closed the door behind them.
Beth pictured Vic, the attentive husband. It seemed odd for him to go AWOL at such a crucial time for Marie. Unless there was more to it… ‘Is your son with him?’ she asked.
‘No. Zac’s asleep upstairs. Vic didn’t leave until after he’d gone to bed.’
‘Where was he going?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know?’
‘He didn’t say.’
‘Has he ever stayed out before?’
‘No. Never.’
‘What exactly happened, Marie? You said you had a disagreement.’
Marie’s face fell. She indicated for Beth to sit, pulled out a chair for herself and explained her conversation with Vic, the evening before. When she got to the part about Vic’s anger over Alicia’s paternity Beth held her breath. They still hadn’t been able to speak with Daniel and he wasn’t due back until lunchtime. She thought of the cherished photos on his mantelpiece, the determination in his face, the refusal to accept the suggestion this body might be Alicia. The thread of hope in his eyes that they might have found another child and his daughter might still return one day. Problem was, she wasn’t his daughter and the last thing Beth needed was for Vic to spill the beans and word get out before the police were able to alert him themselves and check he was safe.
‘I presume Vic knows to keep this to himself?’
‘I did tell him, but—’
‘What?’
‘He was angry. I’m not sure it went in.’
The air in the room thickened.
‘Why didn’t you tell him you were attacked?’ Beth asked.
Marie looked down and touched her wedding ring. ‘I don’t know. I wanted to. I tried to. I just couldn’t find the words. It was difficult enough having
to admit it to you yesterday.’ She lifted her gaze, nervously twirling her wedding ring between her thumb and forefinger. ‘Did you speak with Father Bryan?’
‘Yes. He came to the station and gave a DNA sample.’
‘What did he say?’
It wasn’t usual practice to share information about an interview unless it benefited the case. She did need to update Marie though. ‘He denied the rape. He was away on a retreat in Wales when Alicia was taken. We’ve released him pending further inquiries.’
Marie blanched. She twisted the ring faster. It was a moment before she spoke. ‘I’m worried about Vic.’
Beth took a breath. Usually a man of Vic’s age and position, staying out all night after an argument with his wife wouldn’t be high priority for the police. She wasn’t aware of any health issues or history of depression that made him vulnerable. But Beth was curious. If there was something else at play, something Marie wasn’t sharing with her, finding Vic might prove the catalyst to uncovering it.
‘Okay, think carefully. Where would Vic be likely to go? Does he have any friends nearby he might stay with, or family?’
‘His mum and dad passed away some years ago. He has a sister who lives in Newcastle.’
‘What about friends?’
‘I’m not sure. I didn’t want to start calling anyone this early, especially after the news of the last few days.’
‘Think carefully.’
‘He plays darts once a week but doesn’t really socialise with the guys outside their meetings. Vic’s more of a family man. He does like a drink though. Usually I go with him if we can get a sitter and drive him home. Is it too early to try the local pubs?’
‘Which ones?’
‘He plays darts at the Old Five Bells in Kingsthorpe centre and occasionally watches the football down at The Windmill nearby. We generally go out to quieter places together. He likes the country pubs best.’
Beth jotted down his favourites, asked what he was wearing and requested a recent photo. It was almost 7.30 a.m. ‘Right,’ Beth said. I’ll drive around to the pubs nearby and see if I can get any response. You ring Vic’s sister and his friends to see if anyone has seen or heard from him.’ She held up her phone. ‘If he gets in touch, call me immediately.’
