I stare at the carpet. There are drag marks in the deep pile from the doorway, clots of mud from my shoes. I wonder what I did to my little girl. The cellar below our house was old and damp and out of bounds since before we moved in, a dirt floor prone to flooding. Some nights I would hear rats scratching at the walls. There was no light. The bulb had blown and I never replaced it.
Why?
I don’t know.
What have you been keeping down there in the dark?
Shut up. Shut up.
‘You need a hobby, Mum,’ Edie said to me that morning, the last time I ever saw her. ‘You’ve started to imagine things.’
‘Is it possible that you just wanted her to sleep?’ Mimi asks. ‘Just wanted some peace and quiet? Just wished for a break from it all?’
‘Yes,’ I sniff. ‘I did want a break.’
‘And how did you get one?’
I look up at her with round, glassy eyes. ‘Did I do it?’ I ask her, the pain in my head a cleaver. ‘Did I? I don’t remember any more.’
I keep seeing her, the last morning. Edie, dashing her face against the plaster, the look in her eyes mean and hungry. I didn’t know she was pregnant then. She’d hidden it from me.
‘I think this is going to be painful for you, Samantha, but I hope you can forgive yourself,’ Mimi tells me sweetly. Her eyes shimmer with tears held back.
Edie and I on the landing, her shrieking at me, the trickle of blood from her nose, me shouting back, angry and hurt and frightened, our voices intertwined like climbing vines, up and up and up. I wish I could take it back. It was only a necklace. It was only a—
‘How do you know?’
‘What’s that?’ Mimi says.
I grit my teeth against a fresh wave of agony. ‘The dragonfly on the necklace. The one my mother gave me. You mentioned Edie had it. How did you know?’
She watches me a long time. It’s a thoughtful, considered gaze and it makes my skin crawl. Finally, she unwinds the scarf she is wearing and hands it to Alex. He approaches me and I shrink away as far as I am able but the ropes have pulled so tight around me that I can barely move at all. I’m shaking my head, no, no, no.
‘Those are constrictor knots,’ Mimi tells me, settling back against the pillows. ‘They get tighter the more you struggle. Alex was in the Scouts. He won awards for his knot-tying.’
Alex’s blank, distant face is terrifying. He doesn’t even flinch when I kick him in the shin, spitting at him, pulling the ropes into my arms so deep it burns.
‘Get away from me!’ I scream. ‘I didn’t kill her! I didn’t kill her! I didn’t kill her!’
My head seems to split like an overripe peach; a fresh gout of blood in the newly opened wound spatters on to Mimi’s fancy carpet, coin-sized drops of scarlet. The bells ring, clamour, a flock of crows lifting off from the base of my skull, circling the little bone dome; I close my eyes, breathe. In. Out. I want a memory, a real memory, fleshy and true, not fed to me piece by poisoned piece by this woman.
Something is nagging at me. I can feel it, as insistent as a flickering neon sign. Nosebleed. The phone calls in the night, the breathing. That one word, in a voice so familiar I can almost grasp it. Nosebleed.
Alex shoves the scarf into my mouth and I gag against it, tasting the bitterness of Mimi’s perfume on the fabric.
I hear Mimi, to Alex. ‘Pass me the phone. Sadly, I think it’s time for Plan B.’
I open my eyes, making a concerted effort to see. My vision is blurred and seems to be skipping, as if on a time delay. Breathe in. Mimi has a handset pressed to her ear. Breathe out. Now she is talking calmly into it. In. She looks across the room at me. Out. Alex turns to her and says, ‘I’ll make you that cup of tea now, Mum.’
In. Out. In. I open my eyes. The television is back on, playing quietly in the background. Alex is no longer in the room. I look over at Mimi, who has her arms folded.
When she speaks, she doesn’t look at me. ‘You implode without forgiveness. That’s what happens. It’s what happened to Edward. He drove into an icy river. Never ever struggled. He let the car fill up with water, all the way to the top. Just sat there, hands in his lap. He couldn’t forgive himself for not going to the police when he had the chance. He couldn’t live with the guilt of knowing. Now the same thing will happen to you. Because you can’t forgive yourself.’
I make a muffled bleating sound through the scarf. She doesn’t even look at me.
‘William left your car by the side of the road. Later, Alex will take it to the Kissing Bridge, where – as it happens – my Edward drove into the water. This evening, after dark, the guilt and the depression that has been building up inside you will cause you to throw yourself off the bridge and into the water, where the head injury you suffer will cause you to drown.’
No, no. I shake my head.
Mimi smiles kindly. ‘I wondered if anyone would believe it. “Grief-stricken mother takes own life” is a bit – well, it’s clichéd, isn’t it? But then I realised. Nancy Renard will believe it. Peter Liverly’s son will believe it. Your brother will believe it. They’ve all seen how you’ve been behaving. The slow chipping-away of your sanity. You’ll be surprised how little impact the loss of your life will have.’
I’ve never been so frightened in my life, such sheer, unending panic; I can feel it crawling all over me like a swarm. Even the pain in my head is muted, suffocated by fear. I wonder what she sees when
