“The anger, Iris. You’ve never felt anything like it, I guarantee you. He was dead, and yet I still wanted to hurt him. I wished then that I’d kept him alive. So that I could inflict more pain on him, by stealing youout from under him. I wanted something of his, like he’d taken something of mine. It didn’t take long. I realized you were practically gagging for it, so lost and lonely and pitiful. I knew you’d been following me around like a pathetic puppy. Sitting outside my house night after night. And it was nice, to have someone else around for a while. I actually started to think we might be able to make a go of it. But then you kept going on about going to see your mother, and I thought you were planning to leave me, like Alice left me. So I took care of that problem, too.
“You started to change. Confusing me. Dressing like her. For a while, it felt like those early days with Alice all over again, when she couldn’t do enough to please me. I thought I could find a way of making amends for what I did to her through you. And now, this. You’ve been lying to me for so long.
“And I really hate being lied to. Did you really think you stood a chance against her?You?”
It is this that makes me finally go for the knife. The implication that I am not as good as Alice. I lunge forward, tearing my legs out of his, just as a crash comes from the front hall. Jack is quicker than me, though. He grabs the handle, waves it wildly around, then takes a haphazard stab at me.
I feel the flesh of my arm tear as the blade meets the skin. The white-hot, searing pain that makes me stagger backward, clutching at my blood-soaked sleeve. And then Jack makes the mistake that will cost him dearly. He should have killed me. But his shock at the knife meeting my skin buys me a second.
A second where the kitchen door slams open, and the police burst through it. The last thing I remember, before I black out, is Jack being tackled to the floor. The sound of the knife skittering across flagstones.
Epilogue
Six months later
The table isheaving with food. A juicy roast chicken has been placed toward one end of the table, ready for carving. Smaller plates are dotted on every available surface: There are potatoes and carrots and cauliflower cheese and peas and broccoli. I’ve never seen such a spread. Tilly, I’ve learned, does like to show off her prowess in the kitchen every Sunday.
The house is a hub of activity. It’s nicer on the inside than I’d originally thought—less beige, more cream. There is a flurry of movement as the final plate—stuffing—is set down on the table; then Dad stands and begins to carve. It’s a singularly masculine role, and he takes it up with relish. The two girls—I always struggle to know which is which—squabble over something inane, and Tilly scolds them before heaping food onto their plates and throwing a small glance in my direction. She doesn’t like me being here. I get the sense she still doesn’t quite trust me. She tells Sally all about it:
There’s just something odd about her. Like there’s nothing going on underneath. She treats her father like he’s God’s gift. I don’t know, maybe I’m being unfair.
Tilly is, by far, the worst part about this new arrangement, though I know I have her to thank for my newly reinstated relationship with my father. He’s a lot kinder than my mother, and we’ve had many talks where he’s opened up and apologized about his behavior over the years. “I’m so sorry, Iris. I think after Marcie…Well, I think I just needed to get away. And your mother…you know what she was like. She wasconvincedyou had something to do with her death. And I’m sorry to say, I almost believed her. I shouldn’t have left you behind after everything. You were so young.”
It didn’t take much to convince him of Mum’s madness. Of the way she pined for him when he left, the way she made me the scapegoat for everything. “I was unfair on you,” he admitted finally. “I know you only ever had her best interests at heart.”
I reach for the peas, allowing my sleeve to fall back and reveal the long, jagged scar left by Jack’s knife. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Tilly grimacing at it. I’m enjoying the sensation of being part of a proper family for once. I’ve been invited to stay in the spare bedroom for as long as I need, and I’ve been preparing all week, practicing my indulgent smile, my laugh in anticipation of Dad’s frankly terrible jokes. These days, I’m the picture of the dutiful daughter.
Dad’s sympathetic about what I’ve been through in the past year. It’s part of the reason he won’t allow Tilly to say anything about my presence in the house, though I’ve heard them whispering together sometimes, with her asking when I’m going to leave. Dad shuts her down immediately, tells her he’s lost me once and he’s not going to do it again. “Think about everything that’s happened to her, Till.”
He is referring, of course, to Jack. The aftermath of his horrific attack is still a little hazy, though I do recall the way plan B fell into place at exactly the right moment. Plan A was always a long shot. A final, desperate attempt to see if Jack could ever love me for me. The shudderconfirmed it: He could not. I’d suspected that would be the case all along. That’s why I laid the foundations for plan B.
After Serena left with the necklace, I messaged Catherine. I told her that Jack’s drinking was getting out of control. Had she had any more thoughts about the location of the key to the chest? She replied, listing a few hiding spots, and, lo and behold, I found it. Buried beneath the recipe cards. Heart hammering, I’d unlocked the chest. Jack—as it turns out—was not quite as clever as he’d thought. Because in among the wedding photos, the sickeningly happy pictures of him and Alice in the early stages of their courtship, there were others. Pictures of bruises, black eyes, red welts. She’d been documenting her abuse as she prepared to leave him. Jack must not have known they were there.
With my doubt about plan A and the memory of Jack’s behavior toward me over the last few weeks reverberating around my head, I went to the police, met Serena there. She brought the necklace with her, and one final nail in Jack’s coffin: Martha.
Martha, who had witnessed the horrific abuse that Jack subjected Alice to. Who had noted the scratches on the back of the door. She was tired of sticking up for a man who was capable of that, family loyalty or no. While Alice was alive, he’d threatened Martha in no uncertain terms: If she said anything, he’d ruin her. Perhaps worst of all, she’d provided Jack with an alibi on the night of Alice’s death. He’d known he would be the prime suspect. This time, he’d threatened Martha with her life. The guilt had been eating her up ever since, and when she saw that he’d invited another woman to live with him, she knew she needed to do something. She’d hated him for a very long time, was willing to accept whatever punishment came her way for the chance at redemption.
And so the three of us presented what we knew to the police. And in typical British fashion, it was logged into a system, and we had to wait. I convinced Serena and Martha to let me go back there afterward. Toldthem that we didn’t want Jack to get wind of what was going on and bolt. Told them that we must nail him for what he did to that poor, poor woman. Reluctantly, they agreed.
I had to try. I had to see. I’m not sure what I would have done if he’d taken me in his arms, confirmed he’d known who I was underneath all along—that he saw in me the same darkness that he harbored within him. Perhaps suggested we move abroad together. Start afresh. But like I say, I knew the odds were slim. Nobody ever seems to like what they find underneath my veneer. That’s why I’ve gone back to acting now. I grin at Dad across the table, tuck in to the food. It’s delicious. Tilly, for all her many faults, is a good cook.
After Serena lost contact with me for a day and then the night, too, she panicked. Suspected it was happening again. And so she went back to the police and emphasized the urgency of the whole situation. Just in time, as it turns out. That cut could have been fatal. I lost a lot of blood in those few seconds it took for the police to restrain Jack. The hospital was nice, though. Dad came to visit. His sympathy was a balm for both the physical and the mental scars.
On my direction, the police found the scratches on the back of the door, had them tested, and discovered Alice’s DNA. It wasn’t long before everyone was doubting whether Alice really did kill herself. It had never been conclusive. It was looking very bad for Jack indeed.
And now he is awaiting trial for the murder of not two but three people.
Alice, Freddie, and Mum. It’s Mum’s death that hits the hardest. I can almost understand why he felt compelled to kill Freddie; jealousy can do funny things to a person, after all. But Mum was needless. I feel partially responsible, but how was I supposed to know the lengths Jack would go to?
In prison, Jack began to talk. He knew his goose was cooked. He said he hadn’t intended to kill Mum: His intention was to warn her tostay away from me, but she’d confronted him outside the house as he was watching it one evening, and he’d pushed her inside in case the neighbors heard. She was screaming at him, telling him to stay away from me. She’d seen him come to collect me. She wanted to warn me, after everything. She managed to break free from him once inside, and ran upstairs to grab her mobile, call the police. She didn’t get that far, apparently. He’d grabbed the back of one of those ratty old T-shirts of hers, and she’d toppled backward, right past him. Rumor has it he’s aiming for a manslaughter charge for Mum’s death, but I don’t think he’ll get it. Not in light of Freddie and Alice.
A nice upside to all this tragedy is that Mum left me the house. Well, it wasn’t an active decision on her part, but, without a will, her whole estate passed to me. I don’t want it, of course. I’m doing it up to sell. Too many memories, and I’d rather not be reminded of Marcie at every turn. Dad’s helping me with the DIY that I don’t outsource to contractors. He’s surprisingly handy.
He did try to get in touch with me after Mum’s death, as it turns out, but he didn’t have my number. He’s apologized profusely for that, too. “Your mother was…” He sighed, scraping at the back of his neck. “Complicated. I got in the habit of changing my number, and I must’ve lost yours in the process.”
But he was still my next of kin, and the hospital tracked him down. He turned up looking sheepish. After numerous apologies, during which I assumed a stately, aloof silence, I finally caved. It was nice that he cared enough to grovel. He told me how special I was. How special I’d always been to him. When I smiled at him, I pressed my tongue to the roof of my mouth.
I would never, of course, reveal that Mum was right in her suspicions. That I felt something in me snap when Marcie and I had that final blowout, where she told me that Billy thought I was weird. It was easy, after that, to find the strength to push her, just as she’d pushed me allthose years ago at our grandparents’ farm. She was gone in an instant. She’d taken and taken and taken from me. And now it was time for me to take from her. To instate myself as a full member of this family.
