‘I was returning to find the evidence you have of the End of the Line donations that we used to set up the business. I didn’t want you holding that over me anymore. You know I paid it back in donations of my own once we started making money.’
‘Well, that doesn’t matter now, does it, because we’re all back together.’
Behind me, the legs of Tony’s chair slid backwards. His tone was deliberate and measured.
‘If you think I’m going to spend a second longer under this roof with you, then you are deluded, Laura. I’m taking the girls and we’re leaving.’
I shook my head. ‘No, you’re not, Tony. We’re back together now as a family – as we should be – and none of you are leaving this house.’
He gave a forced laugh. ‘And what would ever make me want to stay here?’
‘How about this? Because when you beat the wrong man to death, he was trying to video-record a confession from me. And when his phone fell to the ground, it continued to record until after you ended his life and I pressed stop. I now have that phone in my possession with footage that proves you weren’t just trying to protect us, you’d lost control and thought you were getting revenge on a man who molested our daughter and duped you into spilling my secrets. When you heard that recording of Effie and him online, you were angry and ashamed of yourself. So if you leave me again or try to take the girls away from me – I will hate myself for it, but I will hand that phone to the police. There will be no doubt in their minds that you used unreasonable force and you will go to prison. And even if your daughters still want anything to do with you, they’ll only be able to visit for an hour every two weeks – provided I give them permission, which I doubt I’ll do. The rest of the time, they’ll spend here with me. Just me. Effie is already ruined, and the same will happen to Alice once her friends find out their father is a murderer. Is that what you want, Tony? Because I don’t think it is. So I am asking you not to make me do this.’
He paled and blinked hard as his brain registered my words. Suddenly he lurched towards me from across the room; my arms covered my face and chest to protect myself and he pinned me to the fridge. He wrapped his hands around my throat and pushed into my windpipe. I struggled to breathe, like Janine when I’d hit her in the throat. At that moment, she’d been terrified of me, only I wasn’t terrified of Tony. They say you only hurt the ones you love, so he must still have feelings for me. I didn’t put up any fight.
‘Go on then,’ I urged, my voice a rasp. ‘Kill me with your daughters upstairs. You’ve seen what being in care did to me, and that’s just what’ll happen to them.’
I could feel the heat of his breath on my cheeks, but despite what he wanted to do to me, he couldn’t bring himself to carry it out. His satisfaction at the thought of killing me wasn’t as great as his love for his girls.
I gritted my teeth and my heart was racing. He let go and stepped backwards while I clutched my neck and pulled myself together.
‘So,’ I continued eventually, ‘is steak and chips okay? I’ve got a packet of peppercorn sauce somewhere.’
He shrank back to his chair in the dining room, a beaten man.
Later, I decided to give Tony a grace period of a couple of weeks before suggesting it might be in his best interests to move out of the spare room and back into my bed. But even sleeping next to each other didn’t bring us closer.
Over the next two months I did everything in my power to make our transition into a proper family a successful one. Fortunately, Alice wasn’t old enough to know the sort of person her mother really was, and appeared oblivious to the hostility Effie was showing towards me. I sensed Effie’s frustration at not being able to admit the truth to her sister or her dad without dropping herself in it. Likewise, Tony couldn’t admit to anyone that he’d murdered a man in a blind rage. I was the keeper of all their secrets. I had plenty of my own, including the spot in the field behind the house where I’d buried a sealed Tupperware box containing Johnny’s phone and Tony’s gloves and running shoes, the ones I’d worn when I’d bludgeoned Janine. I hoped never to need them, but an insurance policy did no harm.
In the search for a new normality, I instigated Sunday as ‘family day’. We’d begin by visiting Henry in the morning, followed by a drive to a countryside pub for a roast beef and Yorkshire pudding lunch. The afternoon would be spent sprawled out across the sofas watching a DVD.
At first it didn’t matter that Alice and I were the only ones outwardly enjoying this time, but gradually it began to grate on me. My husband was still far from being the Tony of old I loved. The Crown Prosecution Service had yet to decide whether to press any charges against Tony and it played heavily on his mind. He no longer worked overtime or went to the gym, and when he returned home from work each night, he barely let the girls out of his sight. It was as if he feared something – or someone – might influence them in a way he didn’t approve of if they weren’t under his supervision.
‘You can trust me,’ I told him. ‘You know I’d never do anything to hurt them.’ He responded with silence.
Now, as Alice unpacked groceries in the kitchen, I watched Tony in the garden alone, a haunted man pinching his eyes and shaking his head. I observed for the first time how much weight he’d lost. His once-broad shoulders were rounded and his muscular frame more angular. Seeing my strong, energetic husband so weak and unattractive frustrated me. I’d been waiting so long for his return, but my patience wasn’t infinite. He was becoming as meaningless as my father after my mother’s death.
If things aren’t going to get any better for him, I might need to reassess our situation.
The thought came out of the blue. I wanted to dismiss it, even told myself off for thinking it. But then, like thoughts do, it expanded to another until it spiralled into a full-on conversation in my head.
There is always a way out of his suffering. Who better to help him than you?
Tony was the last thing I wanted to lose from my life, but he wasn’t the man I’d married.
Don’t rush into a decision yet. Just know that the next candidate might be closer to you than you thought.
I was beginning to wonder if I’d always be the one to suffer, so other people didn’t have to.
I was about to join Tony in the garden when my phone vibrated. An email icon appeared on the screen. There was nothing in the subject line, but the address gave me a chill. [email protected]
I hurried into the garage for privacy and opened the message. Only three words had been typed.
More to follow, it said.
‘More to follow?’ I said out loud. What did that even mean? I was about to delete it when I noticed the email had an attachment, a sound file.
The fluorescent lightbulb above me began to flicker like a Morse-code light show. I waited anxiously for the file to download, wondering what on earth it could be. Nothing could have prepared me for the answer.
‘I’ll do it,’ I heard a recording of my voice say. ‘If you are serious about wanting to end your life, then I will be with you in person when you do it. I will be on your side from the beginning to the end of this process, but this is a business relationship. We both have our parts to play, Steven. Yours is to tell me who you are and mine is to ensure your transition is a smooth one.’