The Last Thing She Told Me Read online

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ he replied, pushing my hand away.

  ‘No, I insist,’ I said, putting the note firmly into his hands. ‘I’m not having you out of pocket. You can get her some popcorn, if you’d like to treat her, but nothing more.’

  ‘Right you are,’ he said. ‘It’ll be a nice trip out for us.’

  I smiled and walked away, hoping I wouldn’t get a mouthful from Ruby later.

  *

  I parked a couple of doors down from Grandma’s so it wouldn’t be too obvious that anyone was visiting. I didn’t want to hand an open invitation to whoever was behind the threats and the bones on our doorstep. I glanced across at Andrea’s house as I walked past. There was no sign of police activity and the tent had gone from the back garden. I should knock and ask how she was, but I suspected she was angry with me and I couldn’t face that right now. Besides, I had things to get on with. Important things.

  Grandma’s house smelt damp as I stepped inside. James had said he ought to do the central heating in the next week or two, before winter set in. He was clearly right. It would make the world of difference too. The house seemed cold because it was cold. Once the heating was in, it would feel different. It would start to feel like a home. Our home, not Grandma’s.

  I went into the living room to flick the heater on. It would be so much more welcoming once we had a radiator in there. It was a decent-sized room, plenty of space for our sofa along the back wall. And with a coat of paint and maybe some laminate flooring, it would be unrecognisable. If our move was to work, we had to put our own stamp on the place. Make it different, so we weren’t reminded of Grandma at every turn. It would be difficult, though, because so many memories were tied up in it.

  I looked around the room, full of everything she had acquired over recent years. There were no secrets in here. I felt sure of it. I had to work out where she would have put something special when she’d first moved there. Something she wanted to keep safe but didn’t want anyone to find, least of all Grandad.

  I walked into the kitchen. This had always been her domain. Grandad had been of a generation of men who never stepped into the kitchen if they could help it. I wondered if she’d kept it in a bygone era because she wanted it that way. Somewhere time had stood still. Where she could be alone with her memories.

  I opened each of the kitchen drawers in turn, riffling through the contents. I wasn’t sure exactly what I was looking for, only that I would know when I found it.

  An hour or so later, all cupboards and drawers searched, I turned my attention to the pantry. I remembered Grandma reaching up for her biscuit barrel in there. I lifted it down, holding it against my chest while carefully prising the lid open. There was a handful of biscuits at the bottom: a few fingers of shortbread, a couple of Bourbons and a stack of digestives. Grandma would have gone for a Bourbon. I picked one up, intending to do the same in her memory, when there was a knock at the door.

  I sighed and put the barrel down. I wondered if Andrea had spotted my car and decided to find out if I’d heard anything more about the investigation. Or perhaps one of the other neighbours had arrived to vent their spleen at me.

  When I opened the front door, I was surprised to find Mum standing there, looking even more dishevelled than when I had left her house. She stepped inside before I had the chance to say anything and shut the door behind her.

  ‘How do you know about Great-aunt Aggie?’ she asked breathlessly.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘You said you knew Mum had been left the house by her.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Well, I’ve never told you that. I’m sure of it.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Someone else did.’

  ‘Who?’

  I hesitated. I knew Mum wouldn’t take kindly to discovering that I had meddled in a family falling-out, on top of everything else.

  ‘Great-uncle John,’ I said.

  Mum’s eye twitched. She was staring at me hard. ‘What are you talking about? You don’t have a great-uncle John.’

  ‘Your cousin John, Olive’s son. I tracked them down from the photos I found in Grandma’s wardrobe. He only lives in Heptonstall. Olive’s still alive. She’s a hundred, living in a nursing-home there, although she’s not very well at the moment.’

  It was like a dark cloud had passed over Mum’s face. Her eyes were wide and staring. She stood shaking her head, seemingly unable to say anything.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ I asked.

  ‘He’s not my cousin,’ she whispered.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He lived next door.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘We’ve got crossed wires somewhere. Auntie Olive, Uncle Harold and John, we used to get Christmas cards from them.’

  ‘They weren’t my real aunt and uncle,’ she said, her voice slow and shaky. ‘They lived next door to us. I just called them aunt and uncle. They weren’t related at all.’

  I frowned at her. It didn’t make sense. ‘So John’s not your cousin?’

  She shook her head, tears forming in her eyes. Her hands were shaking. Somehow, I’d got this whole thing wrong. Very wrong indeed.

  ‘But he said . . .’ I realised he hadn’t said anything. Not really. It was all me, putting two and two together and making eighty-four.

  ‘Did you speak to him on the phone?’ Mum asked.

  ‘No, in person. I went to the home and saw Olive first. Then he arrived and it just sort of went from there. He came to ours for afternoon tea and we’ve been to his house a few times. The girls have really taken to him.’

  Mum let out some kind of primitive howl and sank down on to her knees. My throat was dry, my head reeling.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Have they been alone with him?’ Mum whispered, unable or unwilling to look at me.

  ‘Only once, last week when we had the viewing. I had to ask John because it was short notice and, well, you weren’t available.’

  ‘Were they all right? Afterwards, I mean.’

  ‘Yeah. As I said, they really like him. Ruby’s with him now.’

  ‘No!’ Mum screamed. I flattened myself against the wall as she stood up and moved shakily towards me. My insides were twisted. I knew I’d done something awful but what?

  ‘You need to go and get her now!’ she shouted.

  ‘Why? What’s he done? Please tell me.’

  Mum’s face was contorted, her eyes laced with pain and fear. ‘He did bad things to me,’ she whispered. ‘Things he shouldn’t have done. When I was fourteen.’

  I decided to tell him the following Tuesday. I knew he would notice and I didn’t want him inside me when he found out. I’d had enough of him inside me.

  I stood at the kitchen table and watched him drink his tea, waiting until he had a mouthful before I spoke.

  ‘There’s summat I need to tell you.’ It was a whisper, barely audible above him slurping.

  He put his mug down and his face darkened. I think he knew but said nothing. He was still going to make me spell it out.

  ‘I’m pregnant,’ the whisper came.

  His eyebrows met and knotted in the middle, his face contorted into unimaginable rage. ‘You filthy slag,’ he spat. I stared at him, not daring to say anything more. ‘Whose is it?’ he barked.

  ‘Yours,’ I whispered.

  ‘You think I were bloody born yesterday?’

  ‘It’s yours. I’ve never been with anyone else. You know that.’

  ‘Aye, you hadn’t. I bet you have now, though. Bet you’ve had all sorts going through your knickers.’

  I started to cry.

  ‘Get rid of it,’ he said, standing up and walking towards me. ‘Whoever’s it is, you need to get rid of it.’

  I cowered back against the wall. ‘I think it might be too late,’
I said.

  He grabbed the collar of my shirt and pulled me towards him. ‘I said, get rid of it. I don’t care how. And you tell no one. If you do, I’ll tell your mam and everyone in the fucking village what a dirty slut you are, how I’ve seen you up against the cowshed with half of the local lads. You’ll have to leave. You’ll have to go away somewhere. No one will ever want to see your face around here again.’

  He pushed me back into the wall and walked towards the door, turning as he opened it.

  ‘You were rubbish anyway, lying there like a piece of meat. A frozen one at that. Summat wrong with you, there is. Not that you should worry about it. No bloke will be interested in you now, not once I’ve told everyone what a whore you are.’

  He slammed the door behind him. It was a long time before I moved. The first thing I did was go to the door and lock it, in case he tried to come back. And once I had locked it, I slid to the floor and cried. Cried with relief that he would never touch me again. That I would never have to shut my eyes and wish myself out of my own body. And cried with despair because I was still carrying his baby. There was still a part of him growing inside me. And I had no idea what I was going to do about it.

  *

  I didn’t tell Mum. She came into the bathroom without knocking. I was standing there in my underwear, feeling the bump with my hands. She screamed. A proper terrified scream. All the colour drained from her face and she stared at me, her eyes wide and disbelieving.

  I lowered my head. ‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered.

  When I looked up she was still staring. Her hands were shaking.

  ‘No,’ she said finally, in a tiny voice. ‘You can’t do this to me.’

  ‘I didn’t have any choice,’ I said, wiping the tears from my eyes. ‘He made me do it.’

  ‘Who did?’

  The truth seemed so unbelievable, but I had to tell her, whether she believed me or not.

  ‘John next door.’

  She frowned. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

  ‘I’m not. He came here every Tuesday when you were at work. He made me do it. I couldn’t stop him.’

  ‘John didn’t do this to you. He’s a lovely chap – he goes to church with his mother.’

  ‘Well, he did. He forced me to do all of it. He said he’d tell on me if I breathed a word to anyone.’

  She shook her head vehemently. ‘Now listen here, young lady, you’ve got yourself into trouble and you are not getting out of it by blaming my best friend’s son. He’s twenty-five, for goodness’ sake. What would he want with a little girl like you?’

  ‘I don’t know. I thought he were just being friendly. He took me up the ridge to watch the sunrise.’

  ‘No, you’re lying. You’re making it up. Who are you protecting? Who is he? Some lad from school? Because whoever he is, he’s going to be in big trouble when your father finds out.’

  ‘I don’t want you to tell Dad.’

  ‘I’ve got to. Look at the state of you. You’re not going to be able to hide that for much longer, are you? How far gone are you? Three or four months?

  ‘Five, I think.’

  ‘Good grief. Why ever didn’t you tell me before?’

  ‘Because he told me not to. Said you wouldn’t believe me.’

  ‘Who did?’

  ‘John.’

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake.’

  She rolled her eyes and sighed deeply. John had been right. She didn’t believe me. Dad wouldn’t either. No one would.

  ‘I don’t want it,’ I said, looking down at my bump. ‘I want to get rid of it.’

  She started crying this time. Her legs seemed to buckle underneath her. She sat down on the edge of the bath. When she looked up at me, her eyes were ablaze. ‘You are not getting rid of a baby,’ she screamed at me. ‘That’s killing, that is. It’s against God’s will. How dare you talk about killing a baby?’ She was gasping for breath. I’d never seen her like that before. I’d known she would be angry, but nothing as bad as this.

  ‘I can’t have it. It’ll always remind me of him. Of what he did to me.’

  Mum swallowed. She appeared to be trying to compose herself. It was a moment or two before she spoke. When she did, her voice was quieter, more controlled.

  ‘We’ll give it up for adoption straight afterwards,’ she said. ‘Not official, like. Just someone who’s desperate for a baby. And we’ll keep you inside until then. It’s a good place to hide here – we’re out of the way enough. No one need ever know.’

  She looked down as she said it. She appeared to be fighting back tears.

  ‘What about school?’ I asked.

  ‘I’ll make summat up. Tell them you’ve gone away to look after a poorly aunt. And as soon as it’s born we’ll get rid of it. And that will be the end of it. It will never be spoken of again.’

  19

  I screwed my eyes shut, not wanting to believe what I’d heard. ‘Oh, God, I’m so sorry. What have I done?’

  ‘You need to go and get her,’ said Mum, who was now, oddly, the calmer of us.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, trying to force my legs into action. ‘I’ll go and get her. Everything will be fine.’

  ‘Where’s Maisie?’ asked Mum.

  ‘She’s at Emily’s. It’s only Ruby. But that means she’s on her own with him.’

  The legs that couldn’t move a second ago suddenly broke into a run.

  ‘Call me when you’ve got her,’ Mum shouted after me.

  I got into the car and set off before I’d even got my belt on. I’d never forgive myself if he’d done anything to her. Maybe he already had. I tried to remember how she’d seemed when I’d collected them yesterday. Maybe a bit quiet but I didn’t think anything of it because she’d been quiet a lot lately. I hit the side of my own head as I drove. How could I have been so bloody stupid? Screwing up my own life was bad enough but now I’d put my daughters at risk.

  I felt betrayed too. I’d trusted him, confided in him. He’d become one of the family. And all the time he must have been laughing behind my back at how gullible I’d been. I’d read about women like me. Women who hadn’t known their daughters were being groomed online. Only I was worse than that. I’d introduced her to him, told her he was her uncle and left her alone with him. If I did get her back safely, she’d never forgive me for that. And nor did I deserve to be forgiven.

  I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel as I waited at the traffic lights in town. Perhaps I should call the police. John might turn nasty when I got there. But there again, what would I tell them? That they should go and arrest a man in his seventies who I’d mistakenly believed was family, then given twenty pounds to so he could take my teenage daughter to the cinema?

  I was unable to believe how stupid I’d been. As if I hadn’t done Ruby enough harm already, I’d now delivered her into the hands of an abuser. I didn’t know yet what he’d done to Mum but from the state of her it had been bad. Very bad indeed. And already in my head I had joined the dots. If it was Mum’s baby they’d discovered next door, I now knew who the father was.

  I felt as if I might throw up but I wasn’t going to pull over. I wasn’t going to waste a second more than I had to. I sped away from the traffic lights up the hill and turned left, trying to stop all the horrible thoughts that were going through my head. I pulled up twenty yards down the road from John’s house and ran to the door.

  It was only as I got there I remembered I hadn’t thought what to say. Did I accuse him there and then or did I simply grab Ruby and go? I hammered on the door. There was no reply. I looked behind me and saw his car had gone. He’d taken her. He’d taken Ruby. I got my phone out, ready to call the police, then realised he might have taken her to the cinema. That had been the arrangement. I checked the time. The film would be about to start. That was where he was. He hadn’t abducted her – although he would be s
itting next to her in the dark. The idea of his hands wandering on to her thigh, or worse, came into my head.

  I called Ruby. Her phone went to voicemail. She’d have turned it off before the film started. I left a garbled message for her anyway, telling her to meet me in the cinema foyer urgently. I texted it as well, just in case, then jumped back into the car and drove as fast as I could towards the cinema. We usually walked into Hebden from our house. I’d forgotten what a nightmare it was to find a parking space. After a fruitless circuit, I dumped the car on double yellows in Market Street.

  I got out and ran towards the cinema, dodging a car as I crossed the road, slipping on the cinema steps as I sprinted up them. I burst through the front doors into the foyer. The woman in the kiosk looked up, startled.

  ‘I need to get my daughter,’ I said.

  She frowned at me. I realised I was making no sense.

  ‘My daughter. She’s in there. Can I go in and get her?’

  ‘You can do. The film’s started, mind.’

  ‘Right. Yes. Thanks.’

  I went through the door. The first thing I saw was Kenneth Branagh, looming large on the screen, sporting a ridiculous moustache. I stood still while I waited for my eyes to adjust to the dark. I had no idea where they’d be sitting. It was going to be a nightmare trying to find her. I thought of calling her name but suspected she would simply sink into her seat in embarrassment if I did.

  I walked down the aisle, looking backwards and squinting along each row in turn. It crossed my mind that I’d have to make up some excuse when I found her. She wouldn’t understand what was going on. I’d need to say something to John too. I didn’t want to accuse him of anything in front of Ruby. And I didn’t want to alert him to the fact I’d spoken to Mum and knew what had happened. Maybe I could say I’d forgotten she had a dentist appointment. That was the sort of thing I’d do.

  I reached the front of the cinema. There was no sign of them. I ducked down as I crossed the front row to go up the other aisle. A woman tutted. It was easier now to see people as I was facing them but I still had to wait for bright moments on the screen to illuminate them more clearly. I saw a couple of teenage girls with long hair and had to remind myself that I wasn’t looking for someone with long hair since the haircut. Halfway up towards the back, I caught sight of a girl with hair the same length as Ruby’s. I could just make out a parka hood on the seat behind her and, next to her, a man with a bald head. I stood at the end of the aisle and hissed, ‘Ruby.’ Her eyes were fixed on the screen. I’d have to go closer.