Wall of Silence

by Tracy Buchanan

  Daphne had slept with Patrick too!

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Friday 3rd May, 2019

  11.30 a.m.

  Melissa felt her legs weaken. She crouched down, putting her head in her hands. How could she not have known? Daphne went to put her hand on Melissa’s shoulder, but Melissa batted her away. ‘You slept with him too.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Melissa,’ Daphne said. ‘But maybe it’s best you know anyway. Maybe it’ll convince you to leave him.’

  Melissa looked at her. ‘You were supposed to be my friend.’

  ‘I tried not to be. As soon as it happened, I regretted it. I tried to distance myself. But you were so kind to me . . .’ Her voice trailed off.

  ‘How could you?’

  ‘It was a mistake. I was drunk, so drunk.’

  ‘The lay-it-all-out-on-the-table kind of drunk?’ Melissa asked sarcastically.

  ‘Yeah. It was one of those lock-ins, not just one, but a few. There were other men too, it got out of hand. I got out of hand.’ She hung her head in shame.

  ‘Is that why you and Ryan split up?’ Melissa spat.

  Daphne nodded. Melissa stood up and went to the window, pressing her palm against the glass and looking out at the trees as she tried to catch her breath.

  ‘Melissa . . .’

  ‘Go away!’ Melissa screamed at Daphne. ‘Just fucking go away!’

  Daphne stood up and let herself out. Melissa turned and threw the bloody brush she’d been using at the door, splintering the wood.

  It was just betrayal after betrayal after betrayal. Ryan’s betrayal too, as he hadn’t told her. Why hadn’t he told her? Only one way to find out.

  She went to the back door and ran outside, gulping in fresh air. Then she headed for the forest, the soles of her wellies trampling leaves and mud. In the distance, several runners appeared from the woods. At the front was Andrea, clad head-to-toe in bright pink Lycra gym clothes.

  Another one of Patrick’s conquests, Melissa thought to herself.

  Behind Andrea were Charlie and several other mums Melissa recognised from the school run, Rebecca Feine at the back, looking exhausted. Melissa had heard about the Forest Grove Runners’ Club, had even considered joining it until she realised Andrea was leading it.

  ‘Oh, hello, Melissa!’ Andrea said.

  Melissa looked at her in shock. How could she even talk to Melissa? Surely she knew the cat was out of the bag about her and Patrick? Melissa had seen the Facebook posts; it was clear that Patrick and Andrea’s hook-ups hadn’t stopped when they were young.

  Melissa went to walk off but Andrea grabbed her arm. Melissa raised an eyebrow, looking at her hand.

  ‘Shouldn’t you be with Patrick?’ Andrea said. ‘If it were my husband, I wouldn’t leave his side.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Andrea,’ Rebecca shouted from the back. ‘He won’t be alone, he has Bill and Rosemary, and Melissa’s entitled to take a break. Come on, let’s leave her with her thoughts.’

  But Andrea didn’t budge, instead looking Melissa up and down as she took a quick swig of water.

  Anger burned inside Melissa and she slammed her palm into the bottom of Andrea’s bottle, the top coming off and spurting her face with water. ‘That’s for fucking my husband.’

  Then she strode off as Rebecca smiled.

  Melissa continued walking until she got to Ryan’s cabin and knocked at his door. He took a while to answer it. When he eventually did, she could see he looked like he’d been sleeping, hair all mussy, face creased.

  His eyes widened as he took in Melissa’s tear-streaked face. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘I know Daphne slept with Patrick.’

  Ryan raked his fingers through his hair. ‘Do you want to come in?’

  Melissa stayed where she was. ‘No, no, I don’t. I just need to know why you didn’t bloody tell me. You must have known.’

  He leaned against the door frame. ‘I promised Daphne.’

  ‘When did it happen?’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘Yes, it matters! I want to know how long you’ve been keeping it from me.’

  Ryan’s eyes focused on something in the distance. Melissa turned to see Maddy walking through the forest towards them, her short pink hair distinctive against the green leaves. As Maddy drew closer, Melissa could see she’d been crying, her mascara running down her cheeks, her dark eyes glistening with more tears.

  ‘Halloween, 2003,’ Maddy said in a monotone voice. ‘That’s when it happened.’

  Melissa frowned. ‘I was pregnant with the twins then.’

  As Melissa looked into Maddy’s brown eyes, it all suddenly clicked into place. She put her hand to her mouth. ‘Patrick’s your dad.’

  ‘Yes,’ Maddy answered.

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Friday 3rd May, 2019

  11.50 a.m.

  ‘Did you know Maddy is Patrick’s?’ Melissa asked Ryan.

  ‘Yes,’ Ryan admitted. ‘That’s why Daphne and I split up – I figured it out five years later. I could see Patrick in Maddy when I looked at her. I confronted Daphne when we were drunk, and she admitted it. I didn’t know Maddy was aware too until a few days ago, did I, Mads?’ Maddy shook her head.

  ‘How long have you known?’ Melissa asked Maddy.

  ‘A few months,’ Maddy said. ‘Remember the New Year’s Eve party when Grace wore that dark Matilda wig? Everyone kept saying how alike Grace and I looked with her dark hair like mine.’

  Melissa nodded. ‘I remember. Grace was delighted.’

  ‘It just kept playing on my mind,’ Maddy said, blowing her nose on a tissue Melissa gave her. ‘Every time I saw Grace, I could see it. Same shape eyes, same mouth.’

  Melissa examined Maddy’s face. She was right. Now she knew, she could see Grace in her. The twins too.

  Oh God, the twins. Poor Lewis.

  ‘That’s why you split up with Lewis?’ Melissa asked.

  Maddy’s eyes welled up again. ‘Yes. It was horrible. He’s my half-brother!’ she said mournfully.

  ‘Oh, Maddy,’ Melissa said, leaning over and squeezing her hand.

  ‘Maybe that’s how Patrick got the idea that Grace was yours,’ Melissa said to Ryan. ‘He heard the same comments about Grace and Maddy looking alike but came to a completely different conclusion?’

  ‘Makes sense,’ Ryan said. ‘He came and asked me if Grace was mine a few weeks after the party.’

  Melissa thought of the argument people had reported hearing between Ryan and Patrick. So that was what it was about. ‘Why didn’t you deny it?’ she asked him.

  ‘I did! He wouldn’t bloody listen. I was tempted to tell him the truth, but I’d promised Daphne.’

  ‘So Patrick really has no idea you’re his?’ Melissa asked Maddy.

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’ She shook her head. ‘That night with Mum must’ve been quite something if he didn’t remember it.’

  ‘That’s what the lock-ins were like,’ Ryan said with a sigh. ‘Drunken messes.’

  Melissa looked at Ryan, her heart going out to him. He’d held the secret for years and treated Maddy like his flesh and blood all the same.

  ‘How did you finally figure it all out?’ Melissa asked Maddy.

  ‘I did some digging,’ Maddy said. ‘You know me, like a dog with a bone when I want to investigate something.’

  Ryan looked up, smiling sadly. ‘Yep, my little journalist.’ The smile vanished from his face and Melissa realised what he was thinking: Maddy now knew she wasn’t his little journalist – not biologically, anyway.

  ‘Anyway,’ Maddy said, leaning back against a tree and raking her ring-clad fingers through her pink hair, ‘you know that dick, Carter? Andrea’s son?’ Melissa nodded. ‘He was totally off his head at the New Year’s Eve party and he pretty much confirmed that his mum and Patrick had had sex. I don’t know how he knew – maybe he overheard his mum saying something. He also told Lilly and Lewis that you and Dad were having an affair,
’ Maddy said to Melissa. ‘I think he just liked winding us all up by repeating all the random rumours he heard . . . with a bit of truth mixed in too, it turns out. Anyway, it sort of cemented the idea in my mind that Patrick was a cheater.’ She looked up at Melissa. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ Melissa said. ‘I’ve got over the shock, sadly.’

  ‘I put two and two together,’ Maddy continued, ‘and I was so fucking angry, and embarrassed too. Sorry, but Patrick is everything I despise. I know what Mum did was shitty to you both, but she doesn’t try to make out she’s some perfect person or anything. But Patrick . . .’ Maddy wrinkled her nose. ‘He’s the opposite, gives off this “perfect family man” vibe, it makes me sick! So when I saw him parading you all around like you’re the perfect bloody family, it made me furious.’

  ‘That’s why you made those posters?’ Melissa asked her.

  Maddy looked at her in alarm. ‘You know?’

  ‘I had a suspicion, but this confirms it.’

  ‘You did those posters?’ Ryan asked.

  Maddy scratched at the remains of some blue nail polish on her thumbnail. ‘Yeah. The plan initially was to confront him, face to face, but I chickened out.’

  ‘So you put posters up instead,’ Melissa said, ‘in the place where you knew his event would be, by the plot for the well-being centre he had planned?’

  Maddy nodded. ‘I wanted Patrick to know someone knew he wasn’t so perfect.’

  ‘What about the brick?’ Melissa asked. ‘What was that all about?’

  ‘The brick?’ Maddy asked, frowning.

  ‘We had a brick thrown through the window with one of your posters wrapped around it,’ Melissa explained. ‘Lewis’s face was circled, with “DAD KILLER” written on it.’

  ‘I swear, I didn’t have anything to do with that!’ Maddy said. She thought about it for a moment. ‘Though it does sound like something Carter would do. He put a brick through a teacher’s window once. He enjoys destroying things, the little psycho, and he was banging on at school about Lewis probably trying to kill his own dad.’

  Melissa thought about it. ‘It did happen just after some posts about Lewis on the Facebook group.’

  ‘And Carter probably hated Lewis after their run-in on the football field,’ Maddy added. ‘Everyone was going on about what a wimp he was, crying when Lewis punched him. That would really piss off an arrogant twat like Carter.’

  ‘But how did he get one of the posters?’ Ryan asked.

  ‘Shit,’ Maddy said, rolling her eyes. ‘I printed them off at school when I was working late on the newspaper. I might have left one behind. I did see Carter creeping around there once. He likes standing around in the dark like a complete weirdo.’

  Melissa thought of the figure she’d seen watching from the forest the night of the brick incident. She’d thought it was the same person who’d followed her through the forest that time, but that had been Bill. No, this figure hadn’t been quite as tall as Bill and had been skinnier too . . . and now she thought about it, in the moonlight, she could see they had been wearing a puffa jacket like the one Carter had spilt blood on after Lewis punched him, the same one Andrea had said she’d have to replace.

  It must have been him.

  ‘Do you think the little shit might have broken my cameras too?’ Ryan said.

  Maddy’s shoulders slumped. ‘Sorry. I did that. I overheard you guys talking that night in the lodge. I didn’t want you seeing it was me who put the posters up.’

  ‘Jesus, Maddy!’ Ryan said.

  ‘Sorry, Dad.’

  Ryan sighed as he looked at Melissa. ‘After all that, the posters had nothing to do with what happened the afternoon Patrick was stabbed.’

  Maddy quickly shook her head. ‘No way! You thought that?’

  Melissa and Ryan nodded.

  ‘Seriously, I have no idea what happened that afternoon,’ Maddy said.

  ‘The twins said nothing to you?’ Melissa asked.

  ‘Nada.’

  ‘Anything else you noticed about the kids recently?’

  Maddy frowned. ‘When Lilly was drunk once, she kept saying something about Joel being too cold. I couldn’t quite catch what she said, but Lewis basically told her to shut up so she did.’

  Melissa suddenly felt giddy. Debbie had said something about Joel being cold too.

  When I saw your little Joel lying there, so cold, too cold.

  ‘What could she mean?’ Melissa asked.

  ‘Ask her?’ Ryan suggested.

  ‘She’s not talking,’ Melissa said.

  ‘I thought she might have mentioned it in her suicide note.’ Maddy flinched. ‘God, that still sounds awful out loud. I can’t believe she tried to kill herself.’

  ‘She didn’t leave a suicide note,’ Melissa said.

  Maddy’s brow crinkled. ‘That doesn’t sound like Lilly – she loves writing in that journal of hers. I’d be surprised if she didn’t write some sort of letter before she did what she did.’

  Melissa looked towards the oak tree in the distance. ‘You’re right.’ She gave Maddy a quick hug and squeezed Ryan’s hand. ‘Thank you for telling me all this. You did the right thing.’

  Then she strode away, heading towards the great oak.

  When she got there, she searched around it for any sign of a letter, but there was nothing. Then she caught sight of the hollow in the tree, the hollow where she’d once hidden.

  She reached inside, fingers grasping the edge of a piece of paper, and pulled it out to see it was a folded letter addressed to her.

  Lilly’s suicide note.

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Dear Mum,

  If you’re reading this, I’m gone. It’s for the best, really. Truth is, I’m a bloody coward. And at least this way I won’t hurt anyone else, like I hurt Dad . . . and poor Caitlin too with the hogweed.

  But most of all, poor Grace.

  It’s just better I go now, even though I know how much pain it’ll cause. The pain of losing me isn’t as bad as the pain I know I can cause by sticking around, trust me. I’m just protecting you by doing this.

  That’s why I stabbed Dad, to protect Grace. I thought he was going to hurt her, just like he hurt Joel. I always think about how Joel must have felt in his last moments, and all I want to do is wrap him up in my arms to stop him feeling so cold.

  Maybe he’s here with me now, at Grandma Quail’s bench.

  Is this how you felt after Joel died? Like every route you considered taking was blocked, so there was only one sure way, the end of a rope?

  I wish I had told you everything from the start, we all do. But when you leave it for so long, the words get stuck. Grace said that. She’s so clever, isn’t she? She said it’s like when you leave a chimney for too long and it gets all stuck with soot.

  The truth got stuck. And now I’m stuck. I want to help Grace. I want to march down to the police and say it was me who stabbed Dad, not her. But I’m so scared. I’m scared to see the disappointment on your face, on Nan and Grandad’s faces too. I’m scared of what might happen to me in St Fiacre’s.

  It’s easier if I just go.

  So . . . that’s it. I’m done. I know you’ll be able to handle this, Mum, despite what Grandad keeps telling us. You have to, for Lewis and Grace.

  I love you. Lils. x

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Friday 3rd May, 2019

  1 p.m.

  Melissa sunk on to the bench, putting her head in her hands, Lilly’s letter by her side.

  It was Lilly who stabbed Patrick . . . and she had done it to stop him from hurting Grace . . .

  Just like he hurt Joel.

  Melissa looked up at the sky, letting out a scream. Birds flocked away, wings flapping. She leaned her head back, tears streaming down her face.

  What did Lilly mean about Joel?

  And why had Patrick said it was Grace? Why had Lewis backed that up? Why didn’t Grace say something?

  What was it Ryan
had said about them: One for all and all for one. A conspiracy of silence.

  And as she thought of it, it made sense: if Patrick thought Grace wasn’t his, then that meant she was nothing to him. He could use her to protect a real Byatt, his perfect daughter, Lilly.

  Her phone buzzed and she looked down at it to see a message from Bill.

  Patrick is asking after you. :-) See you soon? Bill

  ‘Oh, I’ll be there,’ Melissa said to herself as she quickened her step. ‘But first I have someone else to visit.’

  When she got back to her street, instead of going to her car to drive to the hospital, she continued walking down her road and on to Old Pine Road, passing Bill and Rosemary’s house until she was standing in front of Debbie Lampard’s house. She took a deep breath and walked up the path, knocking on the front door.

  Debbie answered in her dressing gown, yawning. Her blue eyes widened when she saw Melissa. ‘Oh, Melissa! You must excuse me, I’ve just woken, had a late shift last night.’ She examined her face. ‘Everything okay? How’s Patrick? And Lilly too? I heard she was taken ill?’

  ‘They’re fine. Can I come in?’

  ‘Of course,’ Debbie said, opening the door wide, worry registering on her face. ‘Do you want a tea, I was just making myself one.’

  ‘No, I’m fine, thanks.’

  Melissa walked down the hallway. Debbie’s house was one of the smaller ones on Old Pine Road but it had a lovely view right through the forest from the back.

  Melissa sat across from Debbie on one of her comfy pink sofas.

  ‘Can I just ask you something?’ Melissa asked.

  ‘Fire away.’

  ‘You fell out with Bill and Rosemary after Joel’s death, didn’t you? Why was that?’

  Debbie’s face went very pale. She drew one of her cushions on to her lap and hugged it close. ‘Oh, you know, over something trivial. I can’t even remember.’

  ‘It can’t be trivial, Debbie,’ Melissa said gently. ‘You used to be so close. Trivial doesn’t put a stop to friendships.’

  ‘Why are you asking this, Melissa?’

  ‘My family is falling apart at the seams and I need to know why.’ She leaned towards Debbie. ‘And I think it has something to do with Joel’s death.’