‘What’s going on? Why aren’t you leaving?’ he’d asked.
‘Who are you?’ snapped Henry. ‘A cop?’
And Kit had laughed. ‘No, Dad. I’m the son you abandoned on the steps of the hospital back in 1999.’
Henry just stared at him, his jaw slack with shock. Marielle, who had been watching him intently, stood up, brushing Henry’s hand away from her neck. ‘Peter?’ she’d gasped. ‘Oh, my God, it’s Peter. Henry, he’s come back. I knew it. I knew he wasn’t dead. He’s got your eyes, Henry.’ She stood before Kit, reaching up to touch his face. She looked wild with her unruly hair and the large padded plaster on the side of her neck.
‘How … how did you know?’ Henry asked as he joined Marielle. Kit could hear the doubt in his voice.
‘Look at him, Henry,’ she marvelled. ‘He’s the spitting image of you when you were younger.’
Kit cleared his throat, trying to remember his prepared speech. He’d imagined this moment for a long time but had never thought it would happen, that he would find them. He had Lena to thank for that. ‘My adoptive parents had always been honest with me about how I was found on the steps of a hospital,’ he began. ‘Old records from St Calvert’s mentioned Simone and Lena. I searched for them both, but Lena was easier to find, thanks to Charlie. I hoped she could give me some answers, but when her son told me she was suspicious of the two of you and she thought you might have kidnapped a woman, well …’ he shrugged ‘… I was intrigued. I broke in here one night and found the newspaper cutting.’ He reached into his jeans pocket and handed it to them. ‘Your wall of newspaper articles tells quite the story. I didn’t know for certain, of course, but things started to click, especially when Isaw you, Henry. I was leaving Lena’s house and you were washing your car and I noticed our resemblance. Why would you abandon me?’
Marielle grabbed his hands. ‘We never abandoned you, Peter. They said you’d died.’
‘Who said?’
‘Hugh Warrington and Simone Harvey. That’s why …’ She swallowed, not finishing her sentence. She turned to her husband. ‘Didn’t they, Henry? Tell him.’
Kit saw a look of defeat in Henry’s face and watched as his father slumped onto a chair.
‘Henry?’ Marielle rounded on him. ‘Henry, tell him.’
Henry groaned, head in hands. ‘I can’t do this any more,’ he mumbled through his fingers. ‘I’m so tired of it.’ He removed his hands from his face, revealing anguished eyes. ‘I’m sorry, Mari, I really am. If I had my time again I might not have done it.’
‘Done what? You’re not making any sense, Henry.’
‘It was you, wasn’t it?’ said Kit. ‘You arranged this. Why?’
‘I thought … Hugh told me they’d found a family for you. I never thought they’d pretend you were abandoned. That wasn’t part of the deal.’
The air in the kitchen stilled as his words sank in. Then Kit heard a noise that sent chills down his back. It was coming from Marielle. They both turned to where she stood by the worktop.
‘You took the one thing from me I’d always wanted, Henry!’ she wailed. ‘What kind of man are you?’
‘We’re the same, my love,’ Henry replied, standing up and going to her. ‘We’re both the same.’
The way he spoke made Kit feel sick.
‘No, we’re not!’ Marielle screamed. ‘You’re the murderer, Henry. Not me. I know what you did to Hugh. To Simone. I understand it all, now. You let me believe I’d killed her, but it was you, wasn’t it? You killed her to stop her telling me the truth about what you did. How much did you pay Hugh Warrington to take our baby and pretend he had died? That’s why he was hanging around our house last year, wasn’t it? He was blackmailing you. How could you have done such a wicked, wicked thing?’
In one swift movement Marielle grabbed a knife from a wooden block and waved it in front of Henry’s face.
‘Put down the knife, Mari …’
Kit stood, waiting, a tiny thrill at what was unfolding in front of him growing in the pit of his stomach. These, he realized, were his people. For so long he’d felt adrift, directionless, different from everyone in the world because of the kind of thoughts,desireshe had.
Marielle lowered the knife, but she still gripped it tightly.
‘I did it because I loved you,’ Henry said eventually. ‘And you love me, for all my faults. Because we’re the same …’
‘Will you stop saying that!’ she cried. ‘We arenotthe same, Henry.’
‘We are. I know you killed Violet all those years ago. You’re no different from me.’
Kit stared at his mother in shock. She’d killed someone too?
‘What are you talking about? Of course I didn’t kill Violet. I’m not saying I wasn’t glad she died. I hated her, asyou know. She was a horrible stepmother to me. But I didn’t kill her. She drowned after taking too many pills.’
