One Small Mistake(116)

She was right. But I couldn’t finish the book without Ada. The truth is, my story was never about me and Jack. It was about us. Me and my sister. It always was. ‘I heard you’re donating all your profits to a mental health charity,’ Stephanie says, snatching me from my thoughts. She enquires casually, as though my response doesn’t matter, but her focus on me is pin-sharp, the way Jack’s was when he was hunting that deer. ‘Is it true?’

I cast around for Josh. He normally swoops in to field difficult questions, but he is uncharacte?ristically absent. I finish scribbling my message and slide the book across to Ada, deciding to answer her honestly. ‘It is.’

‘Because you think Jack was mentally ill? Or because his dad was? I suppose Jack may never have done what he did if it wasn’t for how Jeffrey treated him, do you agree?’

I don’t want to profit from Jack’s death. From my abduction. And the reluctant part I played in it. That’s why I turned down an astronomical amount of money for interviews and television appearances. That’s why I turned down a career as Elodie Fray, author, and the tremendous advance Harriers offered for a follow-up novel to One Small Mistake. That’s why every penny I made from this book has been donated. But I do not tell this to the stranger in front of me because everything I’m willing to share about me and Jack and Wisteria Cottage, everything that can help other women avoid repeating my mistakes, is in the pages of this book. So I give her a non-committal shrug, trying to mask the unease that prickles across my skin in the face of her questions, and hold out Stephanie’s copy to her.

She doesn’t take it. ‘You work at Somerset Rape Crisis Centre. Why is that?’

Shock rises through me like saliva before vomit. In a bid to keep my new life private, only a handful of carefully selected people know where I work. Where I live. Beside me, Ada tenses.

‘Are you hoping for redemption after putting your family, friends and the rest of the nation through hell? How do you feel about David Taylor being charged as an accomplice? Do you regret killing Jack?’

I am the unwilling assistant tied to a spinning target. She is a seasoned knife thrower, flinging her questions at me like flying daggers. Only, they are intended to impale. And they do. Each one slices and tears and lodges bone-deep. The guilt that sits across my chest in a steel band tightens and I can’t draw breath.

‘She didn’t put us through hell. Jack did,’ Ada snaps. ‘He had her kidnapped from her own bed. The choice he gave her in the woods wasn’t ever a choice. He would’ve taken her to Wisteria either way because he was in too deep, and he wanted her. He was obsessive and controlling and killing him was the only way she could save us both.’

Immediately I am overcome with the memories of that night. The people around me turn to ash and I am being dragged back to Wisteria.

‘Of course she doesn’t regret it,’ retorts Ada.

Tippies. I am in Tippies Bookshop. I am not trapped inside the cottage. Breathing deeply, I wipe my damp palms against my dress. Sweat, I remind myself, not blood.

Stephanie hasn’t taken her eyes off me. She is looking for something, trying to turn over a boulder at the bottom of me to examine all the things I battle to keep hidden. And she finds them. The guilt that turns my face into my pillow at 3 a.m. to muffle the endless sobs. Moments of missing Jack that are so fierce, they become a physical ache. Moments of hating him for what he did, what he tried to do, that are so vivid, they burn. And the regret that I took his life, that I couldn’t find a better way, thuds through me like a second heartbeat.

‘Do you deserve this book deal, Elodie?’ asks Stephanie.

I swallow. There is only so long you can ignore your critics, the ones who post about you online and fire off death threats and hate to your inbox. There is only so long you can ignore the voice inside your head that tells you they are right. Now, I am faced with both, and I am silent because I’m sure I deserve her barbed questions.

‘Yes,’ hisses Ada. ‘She does. Don’t you think she’s been through enough? She was manipulated, sexually assaulted, beaten, held in a basement against her will for months. Why should she give up her dreams because of what he did? She isn’t responsible for her abuser’s actions, and she won’t continue to suffer for them. My sister saved my life. She’s helping people at the charity, with this book and, as you’re clearly aware, she hasn’t made a penny from it. If she were a man, you’d have no problem with her publishing this book. If—’

I lay a hand on Ada’s arm to stop her. ‘I think you have everything you need for whatever you’re writing,’ I tell Stephanie, nodding towards the phone in her hand which is recording this exchange.

Ada, realising she has given several powerful soundbites, swears under her breath.

‘You’ve had your pound of flesh,’ says Mum, appearing behind Stephanie. ‘I think you’d better leave.’

‘Now,’ intones Dad.

‘Nobody wants you here,’ says Mel, the girl with the perfect eyeliner.

Then the rest of our readers, our friends, our family, chime in with a surge of support. Stephanie is surrounded and uncomfortable. Josh emerges from the back room, red in the face and trying to work out what is happening. As soon as he gets the gist, he is escorting Stephanie through the bookshop and out the back door. And I feel a rush of love for everyone who came tonight.