The Mother's Mistake: A totally gripping psychological thriller

by Ruth Heald

  I look at him. He’s completely straight-faced. His eyes stare at me, hopeful.

  ‘OK,’ I say, trying to digest everything he’s said. My mind’s spinning.

  There’s one other thing.

  ‘How did Sarah’s scarf get under our bed?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking and thinking about this,’ he says, ‘but I have no idea how that scarf got there.’

  His deep brown eyes stare at me intently. I believe him.

  Someone left the scarf there, but it wasn’t Matt. I’m sure he’s telling the truth.

  Thirty-Three

  Before dinner, I make myself listen to the messages on my phone. Most are from last night, but Emma has also been trying to get through to me today. I know I should call her back, but I really can’t face her. I’m so embarrassed. I start to compose a text to tell her I’m fine but hung-over, when my phone starts vibrating in my hand.

  Miriam. Why on earth would she be calling? I haven’t heard from her since we met in Oxford. I don’t want to speak to her now. There’s too much going on in my head.

  An alert comes through to say she’s left a voicemail. When I listen to it she says she’s just returning my call and to ring her back.

  I feel sick. I have no memory of phoning her.

  I swallow and check my call records. There it is. At 3 a.m. I called Miriam. During the hours I can’t remember. I’ve no idea why I rang her or what I said.

  I was so drunk that perhaps I clicked call by mistake and cancelled it immediately. I go back into the record to check.

  That can’t be right. It says I was on the phone for five minutes to her. At 3 a.m.

  I feel sick.

  My phone buzzes in my hand. Miriam again. I swipe across to cancel the call. I can’t face talking to her now.

  * * *

  For once, Matt and I sit down to a peaceful dinner, Olivia sleeping soundly upstairs.

  ‘Are you feeling better?’ he asks.

  ‘A little.’ I still feel grubby and I have a headache, and I can’t stop worrying about what happened last night. But I’m glad Matt and I have finally managed to talk without Ruth interfering.

  ‘It will be OK,’ he says.

  ‘I hope so.’ I can’t stop thinking about the scarf.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘I’m just thinking about the scarf. Who do you think put it there?’

  He frowns. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘It could easily be your mother. She was in the bedroom that day, clearing out Pamela’s clothes.’

  Matt frowns. ‘I don’t know…’

  ‘Or Sarah? She could have planted it because she wanted you back.’ It seems unlikely, even to me. I’m convinced it’s Ruth.

  ‘Sarah wouldn’t do something like that.’

  ‘Well someone put the scarf under the bed. And someone sent the note. Someone close to us.’

  Matt hesitates for a second. ‘Emma?’ he says. ‘She’s the only other person who comes to the house.’

  I laugh. ‘She’s my closest friend. Why on earth would she do it?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’ He sighs. ‘Maybe you were right the first time,’ he says sadly. ‘Maybe I’ve been wrong about Mum. Perhaps she’s been trying to set me and Sarah up. She always invites Sarah to the house, pushing us together. She knows Sarah will never leave the village, she wouldn’t drag me away to London, away from her.’

  ‘Ruth could have planted the scarf to split us up, then sent the note to force me out of the house and get me out of your life.’

  ‘I don’t know. Perhaps I can believe the scarf. But the note – it just seems a step too far, even for her. But if you like, I can ask her about it, help us get to the bottom of who sent it.’

  I raise my eyebrows. It’s hard to imagine him confronting Ruth.

  ‘Look, Claire. Why don’t you let me move back in? I can look after you. We can work out what’s going on together.’

  I hesitate, but only for a moment. I want to be with Matt and be a family again. After all, he hasn’t cheated on me. If Matt was here I wouldn’t be so afraid. And then I wouldn’t need to drink to get to sleep.

  ‘We can give it a go,’ I say.

  Matt beams at me. ‘I can go over to Mum’s and get my stuff now.’

  ‘Matt.’ I stop him. ‘It will only be for a little while. I can’t live here long term. I want to move.’

  ‘I just want us to be together,’ he says. ‘Whatever it takes. We don’t have to stay here, in this house.’

  I feel a weight lifting as Matt reaches out and touches my arm.

  ‘I hate it here,’ I admit.

  Matt grips my hand. ‘I just want us to be a family again. We can move wherever you want. Out of this house. Out of this village if you like. Even back to London. I could commute to the surgery each day. I don’t mind. I just want you and Olivia to be happy.’

  I nod, overwhelmed with relief. ‘I love you, Matt.’

  He takes my hand in his, his touch sending a shiver through my body.

  Reaching out, he strokes the graze on my cheek. ‘I love you too, Claire.’

  I cling to him. I look up and meet his eyes, and he runs his hand through my hair. His lips meet mine and I open my mouth to his kiss, letting myself go, completely absorbed by him. I feel his hands running over my body and suddenly I want him. We strip each other’s clothes off quickly and soon he’s pushing inside me urgently. My nails dig into his back and I grip him as if I’ll never let him go.

  It’s over too soon, and instead of feeling relaxed, I feel unsettled. I wonder if I’ve forgiven Matt too quickly. I worry that something’s still not right between us.

  My phone rings. It’s Emma. Again. I’ve been too embarrassed to answer her calls, ashamed of going missing.

  I force myself to answer the phone, and go into the living room, away from Matt.

  ‘Claire! I’m so glad I got hold of you… I was worried about you.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say.

  ‘And Matt was really panicking. He thought you were missing. But don’t worry, I didn’t tell him anything.’

  My chest tightens. ‘Tell him anything about what?’

  ‘About the guy. Graham, was it?’

  I don’t know whether to choose yes or no as the answer.

  ‘Right.’

  ‘You don’t remember, do you? Gosh, Claire, you were so far gone.’

  My heart sinks. ‘Did I leave the club with him?’

  I remember dancing with men, their bodies close to mine on the crowded dance floor. I wrack my brains to try and recall more, but my memory is a black hole.

  ‘Yep. I just left you guys to it. But when Matt kept calling I had to cover for you. I said I didn’t know where you were. That’s why I’ve been trying to get hold of you. I wanted to check we were telling the same story. And to check you were all right, of course. And to hear all about Graham.’

  My mind flashes back to the church doorstep. My dress was hiked up when I woke. Did I have sex? I can feel the bile rising in my throat.

  ‘There’s nothing to say,’ I tell her.

  My mind’s racing. Would we have used a condom? I don’t remember seeing one lying around on the church steps. It’s only about eighteen hours since I might have slept with him. There’s still time to get the morning-after pill.

  ‘Look, Emma, I have to go. Matt’s here.’

  ‘OK. Well let’s have a playdate soon. And don’t worry, I won’t let anything slip to Matt.’

  I hang up the phone, run to the toilet and throw up.

  My vision is blurry, and I don’t have time to move before I see his fist coming towards me and feel it making contact with my cheekbone. I hear the crunch of the impact, feel my cheek splitting in two.

  A second punch lands across my left ear and I fall backwards against my daughter’s bookshelf. Punch after punch after punch, until the pain of each impact is indistinguishable from the last. My body is not my own any more. Just a mass of sensation.
/>   He doesn’t care. I’ve told him I’m leaving him and he is making sure I can’t. It doesn’t matter to him if I live or die.

  I can only see out of one eye now. I focus on the doorway. If I can slide across the floor somehow, then perhaps I could crawl out of the door and reach the phone.

  He’s kicking me now. I raise my hands to cover my head and he kicks it harder. Stars dance in front of my eyes.

  I shouldn’t move. If he thinks I’m unconscious maybe he’ll stop. Or maybe he won’t stop until I’m dead.

  There’s movement in the doorway. For a blissful second I think it’s the police coming to rescue me. But it’s my daughter, eyeing the scene silently, thumb in her mouth, clutching the soft toy koala that her father brought her back from a business trip. She meets my eyes but says nothing.

  I feel a bitter guilt, as I choke on the blood that fills my mouth.

  She’s not shocked. I thought I’d protected her, I thought I was giving her a better life than the one I had. But I’ve failed her.

  My good eye meets hers. I try to speak, to get out the words.

  ‘Run,’ I garble through blood and tears. It’s less than a whisper.

  A harder kick to my face. He will not stop me. He will not stop me warning her.

  ‘Run,’ I repeat, and I feel the blood running down my chin.

  But she stays still.

  The beating stops.

  There is something wrong with my hearing. The world is foggy.

  I see his shadow walk across the room. I see him take her hand. I try to scream out to stop him, but I can’t.

  Thirty-Four

  The house is quiet. Matt has drifted off on the sofa, and Olivia is still asleep in bed. While I have the chance, I grab the car keys and drive to a pharmacy two villages away. I can’t risk anyone seeing me at the local store. I leave Matt a note to say we’ve run out of baby wipes and I’ve gone to get some.

  There’s a queue and I tap my foot impatiently as people hand in prescriptions and the pharmacist goes to search for them out the back. I wish I wasn’t here, wish I wasn’t doing this. But I have to. Just in case.

  When it’s my turn I ask for the morning-after pill, but they won’t give it to me until they’ve questioned me about my sex life. I tell them we used a condom but it broke. I tell them I’m with a long-term partner. And yes, we usually use condoms. She asks me about breastfeeding and warns me that I might have a small drop off in milk supply. I nod. There are others standing around waiting and I keep my voice down. Finally, the pharmacist hands over the packet and I leave. When I get home Matt is still asleep on the sofa. I go to the kitchen and take the pill with water, shame overwhelming me.

  In the morning, I tell Matt I need some time to myself and I’m going shopping in Oxford. It’s the weekend and he’s happy to look after Olivia. I take the car and drive to the STI clinic at the hospital.

  The waiting room is crowded with people. I glance round furtively, worried I’ll be recognised, or that someone will notice me and see the turmoil in my head. I’m overwhelmed with guilt about what I’ve done. But no one is looking at me. Everyone is engrossed in their mobile phones.

  I’ll just get through these checks, they’ll confirm I’m all right and then I can get back on with my life. And I won’t drink again. I can’t drink again.

  The one thing that’s certain is that I woke up on the steps. I didn’t get there on my own. The church is nowhere near the club. Someone must have gone with me, taken me there.

  I wonder if Emma knows more than she’s letting on. She must have known how drunk I was when I went home with him. She let me go. Why would she do that? And then she let Matt worry. Did she really think I was just having a good time?

  I could ask her for more details, but she won’t be able to tell me if I slept with him. She won’t know. And I’ll never know either. I just need to move on. Matt and I are happy now. We can move away from everyone in the village and get on with our lives. Put everything behind us.

  Eventually I’m called into the nurse’s room, and I tell more lies about my sex life to get the tests. Just one partner. Fancied a check-up. Condom broke. Luckily, the tests are quick.

  When I get back home, I go upstairs. I don’t want to be around Matt or Olivia. I’m too ashamed. I sit on the bed for a moment, listening to the sounds of Matt playing with our baby downstairs. This is it. The life I want. I must make sure Matt never finds out what happened. I should get the test results back in one week. Then my mind will rest.

  I dread to think if the test results are positive. They’ll want to trace all my partners. I’ll have passed on the infection. I’ll have to tell him then. I won’t have a choice.

  My phone rings and I see it’s Miriam. I’m about to reject the call when it occurs to me that she might know what happened in London. If I called her in the middle of the night and spoke to her, then I might have told her where I was, what I was doing. I feel sick. She might tell me something awful.

  But I have to know. I swipe to answer the call, holding my breath.

  ‘Hi,’ I say.

  ‘Claire?’

  ‘I’m sorry I called you in the middle of the night.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry, I had my phone off.’

  ‘Oh,’ I say, disappointed. She’s not going to be able to tell me anything.

  ‘You left a message.’

  ‘Oh…’

  ‘You don’t remember, do you?’ Her voice is sad rather than accusing.

  ‘No,’ I admit.

  ‘You just said you were worried because you thought Matt’s ex-girlfriend was trying to take Olivia off you.’ I sigh. Is that all?

  ‘I’m sorry I called you about that. I don’t know what I was thinking.’ How had I managed to get myself so worked up about Sarah, that I thought it was a good idea to call Miriam at 3 a.m.?

  ‘You seemed really agitated. Quite upset. You asked me to look up the police records. About the accident on the farm.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Miriam. I shouldn’t have asked you that. You already told me you couldn’t do it.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ she says. ‘I did look in the end. I was curious. I wasn’t going to tell you if I didn’t find anything.’

  ‘Oh,’ I reply, realisation dawning. ‘You did find something?’

  ‘There’s a huge file on the records, Claire.’

  ‘And?’ I hold my breath, afraid of what she might be about to tell me.

  ‘Are you at home?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say.

  ‘Is Matt with you?’

  ‘Miriam, what is it?’

  ‘It’s not good news, Claire. It’s like you thought. The police suspected Sarah of pushing Felicity.’

  ‘She did it, didn’t she?’

  This changes everything. Matt said she’d felt guilty. It must have been because she pushed her sister. And if she’d do that to her sister, then what else is she capable of? Is she the one who’s been tormenting me?

  ‘There’s evidence, though it’s not conclusive. But there’s more. Something I need to tell you.’

  ‘What?’ I ask, my heart hammering.

  ‘Sarah wasn’t the only suspect. The police also investigated Matt.’

  ‘What?’ I gasp.

  ‘It gets worse, Claire. He confessed to pushing her.’

  I collapse down onto the bed. Surely Matt couldn’t have pushed her?

  ‘Did he go to jail?’

  ‘No. He withdrew his confession a few weeks later. The police were pretty convinced he’d done it. There just wasn’t enough evidence.’

  Thirty-Five

  I feel like running. Running away. I have so much adrenalin in me, so much anxiety, that I’m struggling to control it.

  I’ve told Matt to go back to his mother’s. But I haven’t told him why. I need time to digest what Miriam said. According to her, Matt confessed to pushing Sarah’s sister out of the hayloft, leading to her eventual death. I can’t get my head round it.

  No one in this vil
lage is who they appear to be. Not Matt. Not Ruth. Not Sarah. I’ve lived under the same roof as Matt for the last six years. I’ve married him, had his child, and yet the whole time I’ve never truly known him.

  I want a drink so badly, I feel sick.

  Matt’s always been here to stop me drinking, to manage me, to ground me.

  I’ve always resented him for it. But now, without him, I’m not sure if I can control myself.

  I can almost taste the tang of the wine on my tongue, feel it gliding down my throat.

  Without Matt, the only way I really know how to cope is with alcohol.

  I need oblivion.

  I remember Matt putting the bottles in the recycling bin. Had he remembered to empty them all first?

  I leave Olivia on the playmat, go out to the bin and rifle through, pulling out the bottles one by one, not caring about the noise. They’re all empty. I dread to think what this might look like, but I’m so desperate, I hardly care.

  Ruth passes by the bottom of the drive.

  ‘Sorting out the rubbish?’ she asks.

  I redden. ‘Yes,’ I say. And then, ‘Just looking for something. I think I threw out a bank statement.’

  ‘Below all the wine bottles, was it?’

  ‘It must be near the bottom of the bin.’

  ‘Olivia OK?’

  ‘Yes. I should get back inside and see to her.’

  ‘Yes, you should.’ Judgement radiates off her, as she walks away past the cottage and down the side path to her house.

  I go back inside, but I can’t focus.

  I call Emma and within half an hour we’re in the garden centre café having lunch, a bottle of cold white wine on the table between us. She reassures me that I’ve made the right decision in chucking Matt out again, although I don’t go into my reasons. I still can’t process the fact that Matt confessed to committing a violent crime, so I let Emma assume it’s still about him cheating. We chat about the babies and Emma tells me all the advantages of single life. When she mentions Graham, I brush it off, unable to admit that I blacked out and found myself alone on the church steps. She reassures me there’ll be other men and we soon polish off a second bottle of wine.