‘Yeah, where else would I be going?’ Her eyebrows draw together. ‘Why are you acting strangely?’
I shrug. ‘I wasn’t aware that I was.’
‘And they say teenagers are supposed to be the weird ones.’
As she heads back upstairs, I collapse at the table. Did last night actually happen or did I imagine it? Am I having a breakdown?
I wait until she shouts ‘Bye, Mum!’ and hear the front door close before I lock it, slip the chain through the latch and hurry into the back garden. Alistair is still in the shed, confirming that no, this is not all in my imagination.
It takes a good hour and a half before I’ve dug a hole to a depth of about five feet and the length of his body. I’m exhausted and sweat is dripping down my back and chest. But I can’t rest until I’ve dragged his body from the shed into the hole in the most secluded part of the garden. It’s hidden by conifers and even Elsie can’t see beyond them. Then without any last words or a goodbye, I toss his keys in with him. I use the spade to smother him in a blanket of soil until the ground is level. The excess I spread across the borders. And suddenly, this part of the nightmare is coming to an end. Nina no longer has a father and I no longer have a husband. I wish it could be over as quickly as that.
I’m filthy and am desperate to wash away the stink of death clinging to my skin, but there’s something else I need to do first. I grab the suitcases from the basement and stuff Alistair’s clothes into them. I want every shoe, shirt, tie, pair of trousers and jumper out of my sight. Then along with his golf clubs – including the one Nina used to kill him – I hide it all under the basement staircase until I can decide what to do with them. Finally, I park his car about half a mile away before returning home.
I drag my feet into the bathroom where I sit under the shower and remain there until the hot water turns cold. My world has caved in on itself and I’m buried under the rubble. All I know is that I must continue to breathe under its weight because Nina needs me. I must protect her from the truth at all costs.
CHAPTER 63
MAGGIE
TWENTY-FIVE YEARS EARLIER
I know how much of a mess I look. I’ve not eaten a proper meal in five weeks, I can only sleep when I’ve trebled my dose of tablets and when I look into the mirror I barely recognise the drawn, exhausted shell staring back at me.
The girls at work have started to notice. To their credit, they’ve rallied around me since I told them Alistair had walked out on me and Nina. Lizzy, the practice manager, suggested I took a week off to gather myself. I thanked her but declined; I’d feel worse if I were at home alone day in, day out, knowing my husband’s dead body is less than a hundred feet away from me.
I’ve put the little energy I have left into being hypervigilant around Nina. I have been walking on eggshells and anticipating the moment when everything about that night comes flooding back to her. But to date, there’s been no indication she has the first clue about what she did. Even when I capitalised on her blank memory and told her that her dad had moved out, there wasn’t a flicker of recognition in her eyes about what actually happened.
However, she’s struggling to make sense of Alistair’s sudden departure. She cannot understand why, when they were so close, there has been no contact between them. So I am the only person she can direct her anger at. She has been flying off the handle at the slightest provocation, she slams doors, listens to her music at an unbearable level and does nothing to help around the house. These aren’t just ordinary teenage tantrums; they’re indicative of something running much deeper. She has made it clear in no uncertain terms that I am to blame for driving her dad away. And I have no choice but to take it on the chin. Because I’d rather face the brunt of her tears and mood swings than have her remember any of that awful, awful night.
Meanwhile I have been trying to continue with life and my job as best I can. I keep making excuses to leave the reception desk, then I lock myself in the bathroom and cry my eyes out. It’s where I am now, sitting on the closed lid of a toilet, my arms wrapped around my body, as if giving me the hug I so badly need that nobody else can offer.
When I am alone, I keep replaying my final confrontation with Alistair moments before his death. Nina’s reaction was absolute proof that something traumatic had happened to her in there. I think of our last conversation and the fear in his expression; his was the face of a man who had been caught red-handed doing the worst possible thing he could do to a child.
Over and over, I keep asking myself if that was the first time or if it had been going on for years. Had there been red flags staring me in the face all along and I was too trusting or too ignorant to have noticed them? I rack my brains, but I swear I never saw Alistair behave inappropriately around Nina. He didn’t look like a child abuser; he was just an attentive, loving husband and a father.
When Nina was born, he was besotted with her and that never changed as she grew up. She’d sit on his lap and watch football matches on TV with him, they’d sing along to ABBA records, bake together and he’d take her to the cinema to watch Disney films. Sometimes when I felt excluded from their club, I’d remind myself that Nina was lucky to have had the love of two parents while I barely had the attention of one. How could she have continued to adore him after what he did to her? Had she started splitting herself into two as a way of dealing with the two versions of her dad? And when she heard me confronting him that night outside her room – had that forged those two Ninas into the furious shadow I watched execute her father?
I didn’t think it was possible to fall out of love with someone so quickly, but now all I feel is hatred towards the man I once adored. I refuse to think about the good times or the love and the intimacy we shared. I’m not going to search for him in the identity of my daughter. As far as I am concerned, he never happened. I won’t miss him or grieve for him or imagine how our life might have been. I am rewriting our history. It has always been and always will be just Nina and me. I am not sorry that he’s dead, only that it wasn’t me who killed him.
CHAPTER 64
MAGGIE
TWENTY-FIVE YEARS EARLIER
I find what I am looking for in Dr King’s office. He has an extensive library of medical journals and books. Some are old and bound in leather covers; others are modern textbooks lined up beside folders of papers and back issues ofThe Lancet.
I volunteered to work late tonight and as soon as the last GP left the building, I locked the doors behind her and drew the blinds shut. Then I made my way inside Dr King’s room and began my search. I need to know what I am dealing with.
I haven’t said a word to Nina about what happened the night she killed her father three months ago. And she finally appears to have bought into my lie that he’s simply abandoned us. However, protecting her from the truth has come at the expense of our relationship. And I suspect the part of her brain that’s burying what Alistair did to her isn’t able to hide it completely. It’s starting to reveal itself in the way she’s punishing me by engaging in sexual activity. One of the school mums told me she saw Nina and Saffron with a group of older-looking boys drinking cans of alcohol at the Racecourse last week. I’m convinced I saw love bites around her neck. But I was too afraid to confront her about them and risk upsetting the apple cart.
I get to work immediately, sifting through then replacing each book and journal on the shelves in exactly the same position as I found them. Hours later and when I’m two-thirds of the way through, I stumble across a possible answer. The book dates back to the early 1980s and lists every recognised mental health condition. It describes symptoms and potential causes, alongside case studies and suggested methods of treatment. My eyes scan up and down each page as I pore over each one. Finally, I locate something resembling Nina’s behaviour.
‘“Psychogenic fugue”,’ I read aloud. ‘“This psychological state occurs when someone loses awareness of their identity. Often, they participate in unexpected movement or travel. However, when consciousness returns, they often find themselves somewhere with no memory of how they reached it. It is similar to amnesia, but is frequently found in people who have experienced dissociative identity disorder. That is a condition created by the brain as a defence against trauma to help disconnect from extreme psychological distress. Events often include natural disasters, conflict, extreme violence, domestic abuse or a history of child abuse.”’ Even reading the words ‘child abuse’ makes me shudder. But I continue. ‘“Victims are physically and mentally escaping an environment they find threatening or unbearable. Psychogenic fugue can last for hours, weeks or even months. And when it has run its course, it is unlikely they will remember what happened.”’
I pause to digest this new information. Nina ticks every box.
‘“The condition is so rare that there is currently no standard treatment for it”,’ the passage summarises. ‘“The most effective therapy is to remove a person from the threat of a stressful situation to discourage any future threats.”’
