Her Mother's Lies: A gripping psychological thriller with a stunning twist

by Rona Halsall

  An hour later, they set off, Martha quietly brooding, her body rigid with nerves while Izzy kept the chatter upbeat and light. Greg’s house was a couple of miles from the cabin, so it only took a few minutes to get there, but the road was blocked by a police car and they couldn’t get near.

  Izzy glanced at Martha as she pulled to a halt. ‘What the—’ A tap on the driver’s window made Martha jump, and her heart leapt when she saw a police officer peering in at them.

  The officer gave a quick smile when Izzy wound down the window, bending low so he was at their eye level. ‘Sorry, ladies, but the road’s closed. You’ll have to go back the way you came. If you’re wanting to get into town, you can go to Caeathro and round by Pontrug.’

  Martha blinked, her pulse quickened. ‘What’s happened?’ she said, her voice a little higher than usual. ‘What’s going on?’

  Izzy put a discreet hand on her arm and gently pushed her back in her seat, a signal to be quiet.

  ‘Sorry, I’m not at liberty to say,’ the officer said, staring at them both in turn.

  ‘No worries,’ Izzy said, all bright and breezy. ‘I’ll just turn around, then.’

  The officer nodded and stepped back while Izzy closed her window.

  Martha felt light-headed, her heart pounding at such a rate she thought she might faint. ‘Do you think this is to do with Greg? Do you think he reported me? Oh my God!’ She chewed at her lip, body shaking.

  Izzy looked behind her as she started to reverse so she could turn the car around. ‘It could be all sorts of things. Could be a domestic or a car crash, or anything. Let’s not jump to conclusions.’ She flashed Martha a smile. ‘I’ll do what the officer said and see if we can get to his house from the other end of the street, okay?’

  Martha nodded, her hands tucked between her knees, body tensed to try and stop the tremors that ran through her. They drove in silence, Izzy concentrating on navigating her way to Caernarfon, where they found the other end of the road was also blocked off. She turned around again and backtracked before pulling into the car park at McDonald’s.

  She stopped the car and turned to Martha. ‘It’s not far from here, is it? How about we go and do a quick recce? There’s bound to be a few people about, having a nosy. I say we go and ask them what’s happened. Then if it’s nothing to do with Greg, I vote we come back later, when the police have gone.’

  Martha nodded. ‘What if…?’ Her head was throbbing and she swallowed her words back down, not daring to voice her fears.

  Izzy leant over and put an arm on her shoulder, pulled her close, until their heads were touching. She rubbed Martha’s arm. ‘Let’s just wait and worry about things when we know what’s going on, eh?’

  Martha leant into her friend. ‘I’m so glad you’re here. I couldn’t have coped with this on my own. I feel so bloody pathetic sometimes.’

  Izzy gave her arm a squeeze. ‘Come on, don’t be so hard on yourself. After what you’ve been through these last few days, I think anyone would feel a bit thrown. It’s been one knock after another, hasn’t it? There’s nothing pathetic about how you’re feeling.’

  After a moment, Izzy released her and sat up. ‘Okay, let’s do this. Ready?’

  ‘As I’ll ever be.’ Martha’s stomach churned with nerves and she followed Izzy up the road, her heart pounding.

  A small group had gathered by the roadblock, and further up, Martha could see more police vehicles, including vans. There were people in white suits going in and out of Greg’s house. Her heart flipped and she put a hand to her chest.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Izzy said to a young woman with a toddler in a buggy, who was staring up the road.

  The woman turned to her, a shocked expression on her face. ‘There’s been a murder. A man’s been beaten to death, that’s what I heard. Honestly, I don’t know what this town’s coming to.’

  Martha felt herself sway, the blood draining from her face.

  Did I do that? Did I kill him?

  She turned and ran back down the road.

  Fourteen

  Martha

  Now

  Martha ran all the way back to the car, hiding herself on the driver’s side while she waited for Izzy to return. The seconds ticked by at an excruciating rate, her mind numb with panic as she peeped over the car roof, expecting to see the police charging down the road after her. Finally, she spotted Izzy, sauntering towards her.

  ‘Draw attention to yourself, why don’t you?’ Izzy said as she unlocked the car and they both got in.

  Martha’s pulse was still racing after her dash down the road, sweat sticking her T-shirt to her back. She pulled on her seat belt. ‘We’ve got to go. Now, Izzy. Let’s just get out of here.’

  Izzy turned to her, looking calmer than she had any right to look, given the situation. ‘Okay. You’ve got to be honest with me. What exactly happened when you had that fight with Greg? Come on, you’ve got to tell me.’ Her eyes searched Martha’s face. ‘Every. Little. Thing.’

  Martha shrank away from her, scrunching against the car door, her voice as small as she herself would like to be. ‘I already told you. I pushed him and he fell over, clattered into a chair. Might have hit his head on the table leg.’ She frowned, jaw clamped tight, eyes staring at the wing mirror, watching for trouble. ‘Or the floor. I don’t know. Well, he was on the floor when I left him. Shouting. Telling me to get out. He was alive.’

  ‘Well, apparently he’s dead now.’ The words whipped Martha’s head round, her eyes meeting Izzy’s questioning gaze.

  ‘I didn’t kill him. I didn’t.’ She was appalled that she should even be speaking such words. She cared for people, for animals. That’s what she did. Killing someone? No. No, she hadn’t done that.

  ‘Beaten to death, that’s what the woman said, wasn’t it?’

  Martha burst into tears, the reality of it smacking into her. Greg’s dead. Did I do that?

  Izzy started the car. ‘We’ve got to get out of here. Whatever happened’ – she turned to look behind as she reversed out of the parking space – ‘and I’m not saying it was you… but your fingerprints will be all over the place and you’re going to be a prime suspect, aren’t you?’

  Izzy concentrated on driving while Martha tried to calm down and get her thoughts in order. The idea that she might have killed the man she’d thought of as her dad was making her stomach gripe, acid burning up her throat. A murderer. I’m a murderer. She started hyperventilating, panic freezing her mind on a picture of Greg lying on the floor. He was shouting. He was alive. Her breath pumped in and out like a piston engine.

  Izzy put a hand on Martha’s knee, shaking her leg as she drove back towards the holiday park. ‘Calm down, will you. Take some deeper breaths before you pass out.’

  The touch of Izzy’s hand jolted Martha out of her thoughts, bringing her back into the car. Gradually her breathing started to get back to normal, the little black dots disappearing from her vision. She held a hand to her chest, could feel her heart still hammering.

  ‘Look, we’re okay.’ Izzy’s voice was gentle and reassuring. ‘We’ll just pick up our stuff and move on. Nobody knows we’re here, do they?’ She glanced at Martha, eyes narrowed. ‘Did you tell your mum?’

  Martha shook her head. ‘No, she thinks I’m still in Cornwall going for a job interview.’

  ‘Good girl.’ Izzy gave a satisfied smile and concentrated on the road as she navigated a roundabout.

  Martha’s mind insisted on going through the events of the previous day, trying to work out if there was a possibility that she’d fatally wounded Greg, but she was sure she hadn’t hit him that hard – he’d fallen because he’d tripped over the furniture. He was fine, she kept telling herself, wondering if it would be manslaughter if he’d hurt himself when he fell. Or is that murder?

  Adrenaline pumped round her body as she packed her possessions into her bag, rushing around the cabin, making sure she’d left nothing. Izzy did the same, neither of them speaking, as
they focused on getting the place cleaned up and making their getaway as quickly as possible.

  Within half an hour, they were back in the car and on the road.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Martha asked, realising she’d been so locked into her thoughts, so wrapped up in the fact that Greg was dead, that she hadn’t even considered what was going to happen next. She checked her watch. ‘There’s a train at one twenty that’ll get me back tonight if you want to drop me at the station.’

  ‘I’m taking you home.’ Izzy made it sound like it was the obvious thing to do.

  ‘What? No, you’re not. I can’t let you do that, it’s hundreds of bloody miles and it’ll cost a fortune in fuel and then you’ll have to drive all the way back up to Leeds.’ She shook her head. ‘Jeez, it’ll take you days. No, honestly, I can’t let you do that, Izzy. It’s too much to ask.’ She felt flustered for reasons she couldn’t fathom. ‘Anyway, I’ve got a return ticket, it’s all paid for. If you’ll just take me to the station, I’ll be fine.’

  Izzy glanced across at her, then looked back at the road. ‘Honestly, it’s not a problem. It’s Easter holidays next week and I’m up to date with all my work. I could do with a proper holiday and Cornwall’s as good a place as any.’ She smiled. ‘I’ve never been and it looks so beautiful.’

  They drove in silence for a moment while Martha processed what Izzy had said. A lift home was way easier than catching a train, with all those connections, and Izzy was being so supportive. But then someone who’d been a mental health nurse for a few years, and was studying psychology… well, you’d expect a bit of empathy, wouldn’t you? She relaxed back in her seat. It’s okay, she reassured herself. Everything’s going to be okay.

  ‘I didn’t do it,’ she said, more to convince herself than anything else. ‘I didn’t kill him.’ Saying the words brought a new shiver of fear. Greg’s dead. She was finding it really hard to accept that this was the truth.

  Izzy was quiet for a moment before she said, ‘Well, it sounds like somebody did, and if it wasn’t you, then who?’

  Martha chewed her lip. ‘Mum always said he was a chancer. Maybe he did something criminal, got in with the wrong crowd. Owed somebody money?’

  It was a dreadful thought, and she hated to think ill of the dead, but surely it was the only explanation. Her mind took her back to the night of the beating, all those years ago, when he’d been so badly injured he’d needed an ambulance to take him to hospital. Did the same thing happen then? Was history repeating itself? It was something her mother might be able to shed some light on. In fact, her mother had been the key to this all along, she realised, thoroughly annoyed with herself. She hadn’t even needed to come racing up here to find her dad, wasting all that money on train fares, when they were going to need it to live on. She looked out of the window, despondency making her shoulders drop.

  ‘Well, it doesn’t matter what he did, if you’re really sure he was alive when you left him…’

  Martha’s breath hitched in her throat. She doesn’t believe me.

  ‘There was a light on in his house last night. Don’t you remember? So he must have been all right then.’

  ‘And you’re sure it wasn’t on earlier? It’s just you wouldn’t notice so much if it was still light outside.’

  ‘Jeez!’ Martha snapped. ‘Do you want me to be guilty?’ She was unsure now, the idea of her own culpability rooting itself in her mind.

  Izzy sighed. ‘We don’t know, do we? I don’t think you intentionally killed him, but maybe he hurt himself when he fell.’ She shrugged. ‘That’s a possibility, isn’t it?’

  Martha heaved in a breath, impatient with Izzy’s insistence on seeing possibilities she was desperately trying not to consider. ‘That woman said he was beaten to death.’ Her voice was strident, each word enunciated. ‘Falling and banging your head would not make the police think that, would it?’

  Izzy held up a hand. ‘Okay, okay, you’re right. So, someone must have gone in after you left. And your theory about some sort of criminal connection sounds plausible. But whatever happened, nobody is going to link you to him, are they? Your mum will say you were in Cornwall. Nobody else will know you’ve been away, will they?’

  Martha thought about it. ‘No,’ she said, carefully, before nodding when she’d convinced herself it was true.

  ‘And did anyone see you go into his house yesterday?’

  Martha visualised the scene, walking round the back of the houses, everything quiet, sneaking into his backyard, slipping into his kitchen. She shook her head. ‘No, nobody saw me go in.’

  Izzy was quiet for a minute. ‘What about when you left?’

  ‘Same, I didn’t meet anyone and I went right down the back alley to the road.’

  ‘Good, good.’ Izzy smiled. ‘That should be all right then.’

  But it wasn’t all right. It was far from it.

  Dad’s dead. And in Martha’s mind it seemed a horrible coincidence that he’d been killed on the very day that she’d found him. However much she told herself that she’d played no part in his death, the feeling that she had refused to go away.

  Izzy put on the radio. ‘We need to lighten up, hun. It’s a long journey, and if you don’t talk to me, then we’ll both fall asleep. Come on. Forget it for now. Yes, it’s horrible. But it’s clearly not your fault, okay? Just bad timing.’

  Martha listened to the music, singing along when she knew the words, because then she didn’t have to think about it, could believe it wasn’t her fault, that it hadn’t even happened.

  Fifteen

  Martha

  Now

  At six o’clock that evening, Izzy pulled into the car park of a pub somewhere north of Cardiff. They’d taken the scenic route down through Wales because after her experiences on the M62 and M6, Izzy had said she never wanted to go down another motorway in her life. Not with those lorries hurtling past her and cars weaving in and out, undertaking, overtaking, sitting on her bumper. But the road was winding, the journey slow, and now she looked completely exhausted.

  ‘Sorry, I know I said I’d get you home tonight, but…’ She sighed and turned to Martha. ‘Honestly, I’m knackered. I don’t think I can drive any further today. We can have something to eat here, then kip in the car and set off early tomorrow. What do you think?’

  ‘Okay, that’s fine.’ Martha gave her a watery smile which said the opposite, worry pulling at her face. ‘I’m really grateful for the lift, but… honestly, if it’s too far, you can drop me at Newport.’

  ‘Don’t be silly!’ Izzy laughed. ‘It’s lovely to be somewhere other than Leeds. The scenery has been wonderful, but I’ve never driven this far in my life.’ She winced. ‘Not trying to make you nervous, but I’ve basically only ever driven local journeys. Anyway, like I said, I’m after a bit of an adventure.’ She shrugged. ‘I’ve nowhere to go, nowhere I have to be for a few weeks. So… I’m all yours.’

  ‘I feel bad getting you mixed up in this. Especially now my dad’s…’ Martha fizzled out, unwilling to finish her sentence.

  ‘No worries. Honestly, nobody can trace us back to his house. We’ll be fine…’ She frowned and studied Martha’s face for a moment. ‘Unless your fingerprints are on the police system somewhere?’

  Martha gasped. How can she think such a thing? But then, I don’t suppose we know each other that well. She swallowed her annoyance at the question, but it was clear in her voice when she replied, ‘No, they’re not.’

  Izzy smiled. ‘Well, there’s not a problem then, is there?’

  The radio was still on in the background, and Izzy grabbed Martha’s arm, turning the sound up. It was the Welsh local news, a report about a murder in Caernarfon. The women looked at each other as they listened.

  ‘Police are following a number of lines of enquiry,’ Martha repeated.

  ‘Routine speak,’ Izzy said, dismissing the idea that they might be implicated. ‘Means they know bugger all.’

  Martha thought back over t
he last twenty-four hours and wondered if anyone would remember them. We’re not traceable, she reassured herself. There’d be no number plate recognition on these backroads, would there? And if they kept off the motorways they’d be fine.

  Tears pricked at her eyes, a swell of emotion crashing over her like an enormous wave, leaving her gasping as sobs came unannounced, tearing through her chest.

  ‘Oh, Martha.’ Izzy leant over and pulled her into a hug, holding her tight as she cried like she’d never cried before. The two men who’d treated her like a daughter were dead. Both of them, within days of each other. And her mum was critically ill in hospital. Suddenly it was too much to bear.

  ‘My God, what a horrible day,’ Martha said as she eventually calmed down, pulling away from Izzy and fumbling in her pocket for a tissue. ‘I still can’t believe Dad’s… dead.’

  ‘Oh, I know it’s a tough one to come to terms with.’ Izzy’s voice was soft and full of sympathy. She leant back against her seat and they were quiet for a moment. ‘The thing is, though… and this is me trying to find the positives in a terrible situation… maybe you can draw a line under that part of your life? Put it behind you?’

  Martha’s chin quivered, her voice no more than a whimper. ‘But I’ll never know now.’

  Izzy put a soothing hand on her shoulder and gave it a squeeze. ‘Never know what, hun?’

  ‘If he loved me.’ Martha’s face crumpled and her shoulders started to shake, her face hidden in her hands. She remembered their last meeting. You can’t be here. That’s what he’d said.

  ‘Oh, Martha,’ she murmured. ‘Of course he loved you.’

  Martha’s body shook. ‘It didn’t feel like that. In fact, he looked horrified to see me. Like he’d seen a ghost. He couldn’t wait to get me out of the house.’