‘Going somewhere?’
73
LIZZIE
I’ve been at the police station for hours, questioned and questioned until I’m not even sure what I saw anymore. George is dead and I’m terrified that I’m going to get the blame for killing him. I realise now that I’ve calmed down that it couldn’t have been Nick who I saw running away, he was home with the kids. Besides, Nick would never do anything like that. Neither would I, but I’m scared that Nick will believe it’s me. He will think I’ve finally flipped. That maybe I walked in and saw George bending over Mum to kiss her goodnight and thought that he was going to hurt her, so picked up the first thing I could put my hands on. Nick is always scared of what I will do when I have my anxiety attacks. He should know that I would never hurt anyone, let alone kill them. My whole life I have been tormented by the guilt I feel at causing Carol’s death, so how could I deliberately cause another?
The policewoman told me that my mum is okay. I’m right and she’s been drugged. They’re running tests but they are pretty sure that it’s antihistamine, which is what I always suspected. Even though I suspected it, the knowledge that I was right hits me like a sledgehammer. My mum was being slowly drugged so that she wouldn’t realise what was going on and could bemanipulated, and maybe to make her so dizzy she might fall again, this time with worse consequences. And tonight, someone tried to kill her. And killed George. Who would do such a terrible thing?
I lie down on the narrow bench that serves as a bed in the police cell and rest my head on the thin pillow. None of this makes sense. I remember how I thought that George might be after Mum’s money. Yet he is the one who was killed.
I must have dropped off to sleep through sheer exhaustion because the next thing I know is that the cell door is open and the policewoman is talking to me. ‘You’re free to go, love,’ she says.
I rub my eyes and sit up. ‘Have you caught who killed George, and has been drugging my mum?’
‘We’re questioning someone at the moment.’
‘Who?’
‘We can’t tell you yet. Your stepsister is waiting outside for you.’
‘Alison?’ I get to my feet.What is Alison doing here? And where’s Nick?
The policewoman leads me out then Alison comes rushing over to me.
‘Lizzie. How are you?’ She hugs me. ‘This is all so awful. I’m so sorry.’
I’m overwhelmed by her compassion for me when the man she regarded as her father has been killed.
‘Your mum’s okay, thank goodness. She’ll be home tomorrow.’
‘And Nick?’
‘We thought it was best if I talked to you first.’
I don’t like the ‘we’. As if they’re a partnership instead of us. I look at her warily. ‘What’s going on, Alison? Who have they arrested?’
Her eyes meet mine and something in them makes me steel myself for the answer.
Please don’t let it be Nick.
There’s a long pause before she says, ‘Kenny.’
74
ALISON
Three hours ago
Kenny. The last person anyone would suspect. I walk into Sheila’s house and notice that his bags are packed and guilt is all over his face.
‘Why did you kill Dad?’ I ask.
He looks at me in surprise, and I can see the pain in his eyes, which are red-rimmed from crying. He and George were really close. ‘It was an accident,’ he stammers. ‘It was Judith I wanted dead. But he startled me. Dad was no innocent, you know. We planned all this together. Right from the start.’
I keep my voice soft, calm. I want to encourage him to tell me everything. ‘You and Dad planned to kill Judith for her money, then were going to frame Lizzie? Why? Is it because of what happened to your mum?’
I don’t say ‘Mum’, I know that Kenny hates that. When he found out that Carol wasn’t my real mum he forbade me from ever calling her mum in his presence again. ‘It’s your fault she died. You’ve got no right to call her Mum,’ he’d say. Never in front of Dad and Sheila though. He was all sickly charm in frontof them. Kenny the good egg who would help anyone. Only I knew the real Kenny, but even I didn’t think he would stoop this low.
