The Silent Ones: An absolutely gripping psychological thriller(80)

I believe him.

Apparently when Dad last visited George in Edinburgh, the staff there told him that a woman called Beth had also been to see him a couple of times – had said she knew George from long ago.

‘Chloe didn’t know until a couple of months ago that your parents had put Corey up for adoption,’ Dana explained. ‘Ray only told her after he found out about Beth’s visits. He knew she would probably find out and at least had the decency to forewarn her, finally. Chloe approached Beth and asked her to keep what she knew to herself until she could muster the courage to tell you. And Beth held it over her, demanding money, telling her to neglect her admin duties in the business.’

‘Chloe never told me Beth was involved. I just thought Chloe herself had finally broken after all the years of keeping the truth to herself of how Corey fell that day,’ Tom added. ‘I’d never have let Beth have involvement with Josh and in your business affairs if I’d known what was happening. I’d like to think I would have suspected Beth for framing the girls for Bessie’s death but truthfully, it probably wouldn’t have occurred to me. That level of wickedness would be hard to imagine from someone who has been your friend for so long.’

When I found out the facts, I knew in my heart that Chloe had been a victim of our family just the same as me. She was young too, at the time it happened; of course she would have felt bound to follow Mum and Dad’s instruction to stay quiet about Corey’s accident. She was playing her own role in our dysfunctional family unit.

But she has been an adult for a long time now and she could have reversed that decision. She could have done the right thing and told me the truth at any point.

Should we continue to give our parents control over our lives as adults and respect old family rules, or do we work to reach a stage where we make our own decisions? Chloe chose the former. And because of that, I can’t be near her right now.

I need space to work through my whole life being a lie.

She’s said she understands, and maybe in time we can find a way to begin to repair our relationship. I don’t honestly know right now but a part of me hopes that might be possible.

Moving away from the village has meant Maddy and Josh both starting at a new school. Josh has already made new friends, and Maddy is getting there. Both seem remarkably resilient, though Maddy sees a therapist once a week. She’s been able to understand how she and Brianna did some things that were wrong, like stealing money from Mum’s purse. It could have been a way of coping, maybe a cry for help, who knows?

Mercifully, Josh has virtually no recollection of what happened in Beth’s house after she drugged him. Before that, he says, things were just normal and he was allowed to watch back-to-back Netflix movies and eat pizza as Beth had initially promised.

Beth is being held on remand pending her trial. She has written to me from prison. It’s not a flowery letter full of remorse, far from it. She still holds her grudges as strongly as ever but she did tell me accusingly her lawyer is expecting she could receive a twelve-year sentence… and could be out in six, with good behaviour, Neary tells me.

She has asked me to visit her but I haven’t responded. She is part of my past now, as my parents are. Mum has also shown no remorse and is furious with Dad for visiting Corey… George, as he is known now.

Dana emailed to say she’d seen Brianna and she is well. Chloe has allowed her to have some counselling sessions and of her own accord; Brianna confessed she’d thrown the ring she removed from Bessie’s hand into the hedgerow as they left. The ring has now been recovered and returned to Bessie’s family.

Dana said Brianna and Chloe still live with Mum, but Dad has left home. Nobody knows where he is, but apparently Mum gets the odd postcard from Europe.

My lovely dad. A man I never really knew at all.





Three Months Later





Sixty-One





It’s an ordinary-looking building, just a small two-storey block on a road behind a busy high street.

The manager shakes my hand.

‘I’m Eileen Boyd, very pleased to meet you. You don’t know how happy I was when Dana called me,’ she says, beaming. ‘The staff were overjoyed to discover you existed.’

I am giddy with anticipation, sick with worry at this long-awaited visit somehow going wrong. It all had to be done properly; Corey – or George, as he now thinks of himself – has had to be prepared so he understands who I am.

Dana takes in my expression and squeezes my hand. ‘Everything is going to be fine,’ she says, reading me like a book as usual.

Tom has taken a week off work to look after Maddy and Josh, and he’s also offered to do some research into assisted accommodation around the East Midlands area, should everything go well here in Edinburgh.

I’ve started up the business again under another name, and have even managed to salvage some of the contracts that were cancelled. I’m just biding my time to see how it goes, but for now, being with my husband and children is what takes priority.

Dana and I follow Eileen along a corridor and up a flight of stairs to a carpeted landing. She stops at a door and opens it to reveal a large communal lounge area with a big television and comfy sofas at one end and a few scattered tables and chairs at the other, where people, most of them young, are sitting playing cards or board games. She walks over to the window, where she stops and turns.