Good Girl, Bad Girl(115)

Silence. I can hear her breathing.

Glancing along the front path, I see Lenny moving into place. Aiden is with her. They’re both wearing body armor. Firemen have unspooled hoses and hooked them to the nearest hydrants, positioning them just in case.

“I know what you did, Felicity. I know why you did it. You couldn’t fall pregnant. It wasn’t your fault. You did everything the doctors suggested—the vitamins and diets. Rounds of IVF. How many times did you try?”

“Four,” she whispers.

“That must have been expensive.”

“It almost broke us. Bryan didn’t want to keep paying. ‘If it happens, it happens,’ he said.”

“That must have been hard. Being around Maggie made it worse because she had Felix. Every day you were being reminded of what you couldn’t have . . .”

She gives a hiccupping sob.

“In your desperation to have a child, you slept with your brother-in-law. Dougal is Aiden’s father, not Bryan.”

Felicity groans.

“Nobody could ever find out—not Maggie or Aiden or your husband. That’s why you couldn’t let Aiden fall in love with Jodie. You couldn’t let them sleep together or have a baby.”

“It was incest. It was wrong,” she whispers.

“When Bryan told you that Jodie was pregnant, you didn’t know that Aiden was the father until you overheard them together in the caravan that night. You confronted Jodie. You begged her to have an abortion.”

“I wanted her to understand,” says Felicity. “But she wouldn’t listen.”

“You followed her.”

“She was being foolish. She was risking Aiden’s future and her own. He’s going to Cambridge. She’s going to the Olympics.”

“Did you tell her that Aiden was her half brother?”

I hear another stifled sob. “She wouldn’t have believed me.”

“What happened?”

“I wanted her to hear what I was saying . . . to think about the implications. She was ruining everything.”

“You tried to stop her.”

“I didn’t hit her hard.”

“What did you use?”

“A piece of iron—a fence post. It was lying on the ground . . . near the bridge. I only hit her once. I thought she was pretending, you know. I shook her. I said her name. I put my hand on her chest . . .”

“You pushed her body into the water.”

“I thought she was dead. I thought I’d killed her.”

“She was still alive.”

Felicity moans.

Lenny is signaling me from the road. Aiden is with her.

“He’s here,” I say. “The police have brought Aiden.”

I hear the floorboards creak as Felicity stands. Moments later, the library curtains twitch and open a crack.

“I want to talk to him,” she says. “I need to explain.”

“Come out and you can talk to him.”

“No! Send him in.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

Her voice changes: “SEND HIM IN, OR I’LL KILL HER!”

“Please stay calm,” I say. “If you lose your temper the police will storm this place.”

“Let them try.”

“You don’t want that. Let me come inside. Swap me for Evie. I can make them understand. I can get Aiden for you.”

There is a long pause before the lock turns. The door swings inwards. Felicity has her arm around Evie’s neck.

“Let her go.”

“Not until you’re inside.”

“Don’t believe her,” yells Evie. Her eyes are swollen and almost closed, and vomit stains the front of her pajamas. I slip past them into the hallway, which reeks of turpentine, gas, and alcohol.

Felicity keeps her distance, holding the cheap plastic cigarette lighter to Evie’s cheek.

“Put your hands through the railings,” she says, pointing towards the stairs.

Felicity kicks a roll of packing tape across the floor and tells Evie to bind my wrists. Evie struggles to unspool the tape because her own wrists are bound, but manages to secure my hands while Felicity stands over her.

“Turn off the gas and open the windows,” I say. “We have to air the house.”

Felicity ignores me, jerking her thumb towards the door, telling Evie to get out.

“I’m not going without Cyrus.”

“Please, Evie, just go,” I say.

“She’s going to set the house on fire. She’s poured stuff all over your books.”

Felicity waves the lighter in front of Evie’s face, threatening to flick at the flint wheel. “Last chance.”

Evie seems to react instinctively, spinning around and scrambling up the stairs. Blindly, she collides with a wall and bounces off but keeps going, disappearing into the upper floors. This is madness. She has to get out.

“Stupid little cow,” curses Felicity, climbing past me on the stairs.

“Leave her,” I say. “You have other things to worry about.”

Lenny’s voice interrupts me, projected through a loud-hailer.

“Mrs. Whitaker . . . we have your son.”





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