She wasn’t making any sense. She was hysterical. She said she’d spent years looking for us, after it all happened. She knew we’d lied. She just kept asking us why, saying we’d ruined her life. She started demanding we go to the police. Changing our story, all these years later. It was insane.
Serena picked up her bag and walked away. But when I tried to follow, the girl grabbed my arm, her fingernails piercing my skin.
Don’t, she said. Don’t you dare. You fuck me around again, I’m warning you, you will regret it.
Then she turned up at our offices. She lied, gave the name of the client, the one we’d taken to the club that night – she must have got it from the guest list. Lisa let her in, was fussing around her, bringing her a coffee, thinking she was someone important. I wanted to run, to throw her out of the fucking window.
But I played along for Lisa, took her into my office. When Lisa was gone I asked her real name. She said I didn’t need to know, that I had no right to know. I told her I was sorry, that I’d been a coward, that I remembered that night and I wish I’d said something. I told her I was trying to protect my girlfriend, my now wife. My pregnant wife.
That’s why I’d lied to the police. I told her that I was sorry, that I wished I could undo it. And then I asked her to keep quiet. I begged her. I offered her money. Anything to keep my secret.
As soon as I finished my speech, she gave this little smile, started tapping away on her phone. And that’s when I saw how stupid I’d been. She’d recorded me. And before I could grab her phone, she’d sent herself the sound file. It was too late. There was nothing I could do.
She said I had three options. I could go to the police, tell them I lied and risk getting done for perverting the course of justice. I could let her take the recording she’d made to the police. Same outcome, maybe worse. Or, I could give her money. It didn’t feel like much of a choice. I didn’t know then that money was never going to be enough.
At first, I just took money from the company account. By now you’ll know, of course, that I’d moved the accounts offshore to make it harder for Rory to find out. Looking back, I can’t believe how naive I was. I’d meet her in the new development, hand her the cash in envelopes. But of course, it was never enough. She kept coming back.
But even as I was giving her the stacks of fifties from the company safe she was starting to worm her way into our life. Turning up at your antenatal class, making friends with you. I didn’t even know her name, so it meant nothing to me, all this talk of Rachel, your new friend. She was laughing at us, she must have been.
I only found out later that she was blackmailing your brother, too.
It was when she said she wanted the money from the house that I really lost it. She deserved it, she said. Her baby deserved the sort of life that we had. She called it justice. I went too far that night, I admit that. I hadn’t meant to grab her throat that hard. But it was like she wanted to destroy us.
I told her to forget it, to leave us alone, for good. She did the opposite. She turned up at our house, that very same night. Our anniversary. And you told me this was her – your new friend, Rachel. And that was when I saw that I couldn’t scare her. She wasn’t going anywhere.
Having her in the house was like being slowly suffocated. She wouldn’t rest until she’d taken our home, or put me in prison, or both. I’m sorry, Helen. I am. But in the end, it felt like the only way. She had to be stopped. She left me with no choice.
You know the rest. Charlie had left the cellar, gone outside to find Katie. I took a coat from the pile in the hallway, so I could hide the brick inside it. And then I found Rachel, wearing that velvet dress. I told her I’d made a decision, that I had worked out how to get her the money quickly. I pulled her down to the cellar, and I closed the door behind us. And then I did it.
I thought I could make it look like an accident. But every time I tried to leave the cellar, I could hear people on the other side of the door. And there was so much blood. On my hands, on the brick, on the coat. Spreading out behind her head, like I’d knocked over a tin of paint. And then when I looked closer, it wasn’t just blood. Something white and translucent. Something that told me there was no way back. In the end, I panicked. The concrete just seemed like the only way. I thought I could make it go away. For you, for us. I was wrong.
I’m so sorry about Rory, about what I put him through. I didn’t know it was his coat I’d taken. I hadn’t planned it like that. But when I realised – I suppose it just presented itself as an easy solution. I know how insane that sounds. I think I really did lose my mind, for a while.