A Mother Never Lies

by Sarah Clarke

  Now that he looks properly, he can see the dark part is made up of two sections. The longer part uses horizontal brushstrokes, left to right; four, five, six times. At the end of it, the shape changes. The strokes are circular here, the paint so thick that the red beneath it has disappeared entirely. He traces the shape with his finger. Long and straight. Round and round. Long and straight. Round and round. With a gasp, he throws the picture back onto the floor.

  He knows what the shape is.

  What he’s painted.

  It’s a body. He’s painted a body.

  He starts pacing again then. A prone body, surrounded by red. It doesn’t take a genius to work out what that colour represents. Did he see a dead body? Did he kill someone? He shakes that thought out of his head. He was only three when he was taken away from his family.

  But maybe it was his fault? A game that went tragically wrong. Some toddler tantrum so full of anger that he caused a terrible accident. Or something worse. The images from his dream surface from behind his eyelids. Stairs, he can see stairs. A front door maybe. Chaos. Noise. Fear.

  But nothing that makes any sense.

  He twists round and punches the wardrobe door. The pain feels good, but the sound of splintering wood just infuriates him more. It’s just another mistake, another stick for his parents to beat him with. He disgusts himself. He grabs the knife, lifts up his T-shirt, runs the point along his abdomen. A bit more pressure and this could be over, the images turned to blackness, the memories gone for good.

  But no, this can’t happen, not now. He needs to find the truth. He pulls his hands away, closes his eyes and concentrates on his breathing. Imagines the air coming in through his nose, flooding his body with oxygen, leaving via his mouth. It’s amazing how well it works. How it clears his mind, enables him to think properly about things.

  About the fact that his dad died.

  When he was three.

  That it’s his dad lying there.

  Surrounded by blood. And chaos. And noise. And fear.

  His mum may have had blood on her dress, but it was his dad who was killed.

  Violently.

  Through the glaze of tears, Ben sees the laptop sat open on his desk, the brightly coloured Google sign glowing in the darkening room. He thinks about what he could search for, the clues he could type in. 2005. Clanwell Street. Man killed at home. Child witness. The answer will be in there, ready to be released onto his screen. He just needs to unlock the right algorithm.

  It’s time.

  Time to find out what he did.

  Chapter 33

  SEPTEMBER 2005

  Phoebe

  I slip the key in the door and let the tears roll down my cheeks. I’m finally home. The hallway is in darkness, but I don’t turn the light on, I don’t want to risk it seeping upstairs and into Charlie’s bedroom via his half-open door.

  ‘Mummy?’

  I let out a loud gasp. Charlie is curled up on the stairs, his new favourite place since our experiment with a naughty step spectacularly failed.

  ‘What’s wrong, Mummy?’

  I flick on the light so I can see him properly, work out why he’s not in bed at this hour. But it was a bad decision. His expression changes from sleepy relief to absolute terror. The front of my dress is covered in the boy’s blood. I quickly pull my jacket tight around me, but it’s too late. He starts crying, but when I go towards him, he backs away, squirming against the stair.

  ‘I’m sorry to scare you; it’s not my blood.’

  ‘Did you kill someone?’ His small voice trembles and I fight the urge to gather him up.

  ‘Gosh, Charlie, of course I didn’t! A boy, on the bus. He hurt himself.’

  ‘Did you save him?’

  No, I didn’t save him. I let him die. ‘The ambulance people took him; they’ll look after him,’ I lie. ‘Charlie, why aren’t you in bed?’

  ‘I had a dream.’

  ‘A scary dream?’

  He nods his head and his bottom lip drops, wobbles. I take a few steps towards him and he doesn’t recoil this time. I take his hand in mine. ‘Why didn’t you go in to see Daddy?’

  ‘Daddy?’

  The tiny hairs on the back of my neck stand up, tingle on my skin. ‘Did Daddy come home, or is Grandma still here?’ I think of our Jeep, its death wobble, Dan’s impatience to get home. Was it parked on the street? I can’t remember now.

  ‘They argued. It woke me up.’

  My shoulders release. He made it home. And of course they would argue – Dan would be furious that Flora couldn’t go one night without getting drunk. But then Charlie’s words come into focus. ‘You were asleep when Daddy got home?’

  He nods. ‘Grandma told me the best story; she didn’t even have a book to read from. Then she tucked me and Rabbit in, and Rabbit wanted to go to sleep, so we did.’

  Why would Flora lie, drag Dan home? Had she got bored of playing the perfect grandparent? Did she have somewhere better to go?

  ‘Grandma was really cross when Daddy got home. She said he should trust her more, that she’s a good babysitter.’

  ‘Grandma was angry?’ It doesn’t make sense.

  ‘Then she said that it wasn’t her job to open your eyes and that she was going to wash her hands.’

  Did Dan just change his mind about Flora babysitting? But if so, who was it that called him? I need to find out what’s going on. ‘Shall we go upstairs, go see Daddy?’

  ‘I called him, but he didn’t come.’

  ‘When you woke from your dream?’

  ‘That’s why I got up.’

  ‘Daddy sleeps like a log, remember? Like the biggest, oldest tree in the forest,’ I whisper.

  Charlie shakes his head. ‘He’s not asleep, Mummy. He’s not in bed.’

  I look at my watch. It’s nearly two o’clock, but sometimes Dan likes to stay up, watch some sci-fi movie that wouldn’t interest me, or battle with virtual teenagers on his PlayStation. But the house is in darkness. I think of the man on the bus, the point of his blade, and the shadows that followed me home. My breathing shallows. I kiss Charlie’s soft curls and release my hand. ‘Wait here. I’ll be back in two ticks.’

  Slowly I walk down the hallway towards our kitchen. ‘Dan?’ I call out, but softly. I don’t want to spook Charlie any more than I already have. I push open the door, with an inexplicable certainty that I will see Dan on the floor, blood gushing out of his heart.

  But the floor is empty, the tiles shining in the moonlight flooding through the wide glass panels of our bifold doors.

  I take a few more steps and then I see them.

  A midnight tryst.

  Two bodies lying on our new sun lounger. An empty bottle of champagne fallen prone on the decking. I grab hold of the work surface. He thinks I’m out of the picture, sleeping on goose-down pillows at the Ritz. How could he do this? After everything he’s promised? I think of him taking the phone call, how far he walked away from the table. Not Flora at all. Did he plan this? My belly contracts in pain, then stabs at me.

  Everything comes out in one long, guttural moan. Even the insulation from the thick glass can’t shield them from the noise, and they both turn in horror. That’s when my cries turn to laughter, and then I’m cackling like a demented witch. Dan looks so caught out. I can see his quick brain furiously flicking through which lie to tell, what angle to try, and coming up blank. They move towards the house together, in unison, and then the large glass door slides open.

  ‘Jesus Phoebe, quit the noise.’ He’s chosen to go on the offensive, and his arrogance is so breathtaking that it works, stunning me into silence. ‘Look, it’s not what you think, okay? Jess is just a friend.’

  ‘A friend,’ I growl back.

  ‘She’s had a tough night. She just wanted someone to talk to.’

  The weight of irony threatens to crush me, but I can’t let it. He doesn’t even ask why I’m covered in blood. He’s too wrapped up in his own crisis to notice, or perhaps to car
e. Another wave of anger surges. ‘I know that Jess is the slut you were fucking!’

  ‘I should go.’ It’s the first time she’s spoken, and I fight the urge to slap her. She looks so prim and proper, picking up her bag and smoothing down her skirt. All while she’s ripping my family apart.

  ‘Who you’re clearly still fucking,’ I hiss. My hand drops to my belly, but she pulls away from my touch.

  ‘Phoebe …’

  It’s so obvious now. The late nights that he promised were work, that he swore on our baby’s life were about our family’s future. All lies. Just the chance for him to be with her. Our holiday, the plans we talked about. How could he say those things? ‘You said it was over, promised on our baby’s life.’

  ‘It is over,’ he pleads, but he can’t look at me.

  My voice gets louder, the release is addictive. ‘Do you know that I’ve just pushed a dead boy off me to get to you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Stabbed in the heart, murdered in front of me.’

  ‘Phoebe, stop.’

  ‘Another boy, his head battered to a pulp, my shoes sliding in it.’

  ‘Phoebe!’

  But I don’t heed his warning. ‘Blood everywhere. Splattered all over me.’

  ‘Mummy, stop!’

  I spin round. Charlie is stood in the doorway, his beautiful features all screwed up, tears and snot dripping down his face.

  ‘Now look what you’ve done!’ Dan’s booming voice rears up behind me. I’m torn; devastated that I could have been so stupid, but furious that Dan has twisted this to be my fault. I watch Dan dash towards our son, pick him up and rock his trembling body until the tears die down. I watch Jess take advantage of the distraction, scurrying out of the room, and then out of the house. And all the while, I don’t move. I stand frozen to the spot.

  Until my belly stabs again, and this time I fold over with the pain. I can’t help letting out a cry.

  ‘Can’t you see what you’re doing to him? Go and sort yourself out, for God’s sake.’

  Perhaps he’s right. I’m hurting all over. Maybe I’m not seeing things straight. Could Jess just be a friend now? Did I give him the chance to explain? I don’t remember. I reach out to Charlie, but he pulls away, repelled by my appearance or maybe my desperation. I suddenly realise how filthy I am. I need a shower, a jet of water to cleanse my body and clear my head. My tummy clenches again, harder this time.

  I turn away from them both and head down the hall to the stairs. I clasp the banister and use it to drag my exhausted body upwards. The pains are coming more regularly now, and I time each step to fall between them. The bathroom is at the top of the stairs and I crawl inside. Our bathmat is large and fluffy; when Charlie was a baby, I would lie him on it after his bath, all snug in a towel, and tickle his feet until he laughed. I lie on it myself now. I don’t want a shower; I just need to sleep. But the pain is too strong.

  *

  I kneel on the sullied bathmat and keen in agony. This can’t be happening. I can’t have lost her. My beautiful baby.

  This is his fault. He promised the affair was over, on her life.

  Then he broke it.

  How could he do that? How could she mean so little to him?

  He can’t get away with this. Not this time.

  I stand up. I don’t care what I look like anymore. He needs to know what he’s done.

  I open the bathroom door.

  They’re at the bottom of the stairs. Charlie is back on the same bottom step, with Dan crouching over him. I can see Charlie’s rabbit gently flapping against the side of his face as he rubs him up and down his cheek.

  ‘What’s wrong with Mummy?’

  I watch Dan pause, look up and directly into Charlie’s eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry that you had to hear that, little man. Mummy said some terrible things.’

  I said some terrible things? How dare he!

  ‘She’s not thinking straight. But I’ll keep you safe.’

  But you didn’t keep our daughter safe, did you?

  You let her die.

  No, I’m not the monster here.

  That’s on you, Dan.

  A surge of anger rushes through me. Enough. I half run, half fall, down the stairs. Dan looks at me in confusion as I grab his head. It feels so malleable, so vulnerable, in my hands. Like that boy on the bus. His head caved in.

  ‘You killed my daughter, now you’re poisoning Charlie!’

  Dan tries to break free but I’m so strong now. Not frozen in fear anymore.

  ‘He deserves so much better than you!’

  And then I whack his skull against the radiator. Again and again. ‘This is for my baby. And for my son!’

  I don’t stop, and he can’t stop me.

  And it feels glorious.

  Chapter 34

  CHRISTMAS DAY 2019

  Phoebe

  I can’t get the damn earrings in. They were my first Christmas present from Charlie and I need to feel them against my skin today. To remind me that I’m not intruding on their family, it’s the other way around. But my hands are shaking too much to hold the delicate post still. I roll the tiny diamond between my thumb and forefinger in an effort to calm my nerves. Charlie wouldn’t have chosen them of course; not even a ten-month baby as special as him could do that. These little twinkles of love were Dan’s doing. Back when he cared enough to make the effort.

  I pull my ear taut, close my eyes and use my fingers to guide the earring in. Finally it works. I add the back and then adopt the same strategy with the second earring. After a couple of misplaced jabs that one goes in too. I stare at myself in the mirror. Pixie hair; full make-up to hide the faint bruising still evident across my nose; sparkly ears. It’s a new woman staring back at me. Fiona. Not the Phoebe who tried so hard to make her marriage work, to keep her family together. Or who walked a tightrope for fourteen years, swaying between a deep urge to end her life and an animal compulsion to survive.

  And not the woman who walked out of HMP Bronzefield almost three months ago either. The UK’s biggest female prison, with its special area for restricted access prisoners: the country’s most serious offenders.

  The solicitor thought I’d get my sentence reduced to manslaughter, that the events of the day would be enough to convince a jury of the defence of momentary lack of control. But I always knew they’d convict me of murder. The CPS made a big thing about me washing the blood off myself, like that showed I was of sound mind. But it wasn’t that detail that persuaded the jury. They convicted me much earlier than that.

  I saw the growing disgust on their faces during the opening speech, when that smarmy barrister with his clipped public school accent listed Dan’s injuries. The shattered cheekbone and multiple fractures to his skull; the massive bleed on his brain. I watched their appalled stares become even more horrified when the presence of our son was added. His ringside seat. Twelve supposedly impartial men and women couldn’t look at me after that. They found me guilty before the trial really began.

  It was the judge who took pity on me. Perhaps he understood the ripple effect of gang violence more than most. Murder convictions always carry a life sentence, but the judge gets to decide how much of it is custodial, and he gave me fourteen years. I’d already served one of those on remand after leaving the clinic. So October 2019 became my D-Day. Then it would just be fortnightly meetings with my probation officer. Tom.

  My barrister told me that I should be grateful to the judge for such a short sentence. He didn’t understand what the true sentence for my crime was, who I’d lost forever. I wanted to hate him for his ignorance. But the truth is, I felt nothing. I just followed that prison officer out of the courtroom. Flora and Paul were in there somewhere, but I didn’t even bother to look back. There were times when I wanted to kill myself inside. And there’s more opportunity to make it happen than you’d think should be possible in prison. But in the end, he kept me alive. The bland letters sent by Charlie’s adoptive parents t
wice a year told me nothing, except for one important thing. That he was still out there. However miserable my life had become, my son existed in the real world, so I had to continue existing too.

  And it was the right choice because here I am, about to share Christmas lunch with him. All these months of breaking down his defences, building up his confidence, keeping Flora at bay, have paid off. We may not be mother and son in the traditional sense, but we have developed something better. A friendship. Mutual understanding. Whether that’s through shared experience or DNA doesn’t really matter. I pick up my phone to check the time and can’t help clicking into his text message again. Are you sure it’s okay for me to come? I’d asked. His response was short, and to the point. But he’s expecting me at 1 p.m.

  I pull on a pair of Hobbs high-heel boots. I remember the shop assistant calling them timeless classics when I bought them, which is lucky because it was at least twenty years ago. The leather has lasted well so they were clearly worth the two hundred pounds I paid. As I stand up, I realise that I feel braver wearing these. It’s ridiculous really, how a pair of shoes can do that. In prison I wore trainers every day, and that habit just continued when I returned to London. It’s weird that uncomfortable footwear can feel so liberating.

  Flora is in the front room when I get downstairs. The door is closed but I can hear her singing along to the radio. Pa rum pum pum pum. I pause for a moment. ‘Little Drummer Boy’ has always been her favourite Christmas song. Every year she would sit me next to her and explain its story to me, about how the boy couldn’t afford a present for Jesus so used his talent as a gift instead. She would then remind me that creative talent should never be underestimated, and I would feel guilty about my role in curbing her acting career yet again. But still, I always enjoyed that moment with her. And she taught me to love the song almost as much as she does.