Poor Alice couldn’t get her head around what was happening and I held her hand as she cried. I swallowed hard to stop myself showing Mum any emotion and waited until Dad was released on police bail. I knew he would tell us the truth. Only he lied to us as well. I could tell, because he couldn’t look either of us in the eye when he spoke, and his version was virtually word for word what Mum had said.
Later that night I sat on the landing at the top of the stairs, listening to them argue. Dad wanted to take Alice and me home, but Mum wouldn’t let him. And she had video evidence that would ensure he’d end up in prison for what he’d done, even though she’d manipulated him into doing it. From the sound of it, he went to attack her, and I willed him with all my heart to kill her. But he wasn’t like her. He had no choice but to stay and protect us from her.
Mum and Alice seemed happy we were all living back under one roof, but we were far from being a family. She was more maternal towards Alice than she’d ever been with me, but I wasn’t stupid. She was only sinking her claws into my sister to get to me.
Over the weeks, I watched as Dad slowly disintegrated before my eyes, and it was all because of Mum. I fucking hated her. For a long time I believed Mr Smith, Johnny and Janine were dead because of me. But eventually I realised it wasn’t my fault – it was the woman who called herself my mother who was to blame. She manipulated us all, but she wasn’t the only one who could make someone’s life hell. Today was as good a day as any to start wiping that smug, satisfied look from her face.
I slipped off my headphones and checked the inbox of the email account I’d created. Mum had already replied to Janine Thomson’s email asking what she wanted. The fun had only just begun.
I thought about replying, but hesitated. Instead, it would be more entertaining to drag this out for as long as possible. I was going to play with her like those killer whales you see in YouTube clips, tossing a seal into the air, catching it in its jaws, then spitting it out and doing it all over again before finally going in for the kill.
I’d send her another clip a few days from now, then another in a week or so. Maybe I’d start withholding my phone number and calling her, playing excerpts of her conversation with Ryan down the line.
I hoped her sanity would be the first thing to go, because then maybe she’d be locked up in that loony bin again and we’d be able to get out of this house. But if that didn’t work, I’d make the recordings public and ruin her.
‘You have to remember, Effie, you and I are cut from the same cloth,’ she told me once. ‘You are your mother’s daughter. There is so much you can learn from me.’
She was right. I had learned from her.
And now it was time to start putting all those lessons into practice.