Page 60 of The Girlfriend’s Secret

Joel looks at me, and I nod, and then he finally takes a seat. I do the same, sitting in the wooden chair that accompanies the desk in here, and now that we are all comfortable, it’s unfortunately time to get uncomfortable.

‘Mum killed Grandma,’ Scott says to Joel in what must surely be a contender for one of the shortest but craziest sentences ever spoken in human history.

As to be expected, Joel looks like it is the most ludicrous thing he’s ever heard. But then Scott explains what he explained to me. About how he was there just after their grandmother had died. How he saw the way his mother was in the immediate aftermath. How he is so certain their mother is lying about what really happened because she is the reason Valerie fell down the stairs. What he doesn’t need to go into as much detail about with Joel is their mother’s history of behavioural issues and how her anger, frustration and general bitterness at how her life turned out gave her the motivation to kill her own mother to inherit a fortune and change her circumstances forever.

When it’s all been said, Joel looks like I must have looked after I heard it.

Except for one very key detail.

He believes it a lot quicker than I did.

‘I knew she was hiding something,’ Joel says, not crying as I thought he might, but simply staring blankly at the carpeted floor. ‘I obviously had no idea it was something as horrible as this, but I could tell there was something she wasn’t telling us about Grandma. I just figured it might have been about how the two of them had been arguing recently and they hadn’t been on the best of terms before Grandma died. They were always arguing, weren’t they?’

Scott nods.

‘Mum would moan about something, and Grandma would say that she didn’t appreciate how lucky she was, and then Mum would get annoyed,’ Joel explains to me. ‘It was so common we barely even acknowledged it anymore. I don’t think we had a family meal where Mum didn’t get annoyed at Grandma for something.’

It’s that fact, that sad but relevant experience, that seems to be allowing Joel to see that what his brother has just said is not just possible, but very, very plausible.

‘I don’t know what we’re supposed to do,’ Joel says next, showing that while he can believe his mother is capable of murder, he isn’t sure we are capable of making sure she is punished for it.

‘I have an idea,’ I say then, speaking up once I’m sure the siblings have finished their difficult conversation.

Scott and Joel look at me, both brothers needing guidance in this heavy, hard moment. So it’s up to me to try and give it to them.

FORTY-TWO

HAVEN

EVENING

As I continue to walk around Valerie’s home, looking at the last remnants of her life that haven’t yet been shoved into a box destined for either the dump, the charity store or Liane’s bank account, I hear a car parking outside.

I freeze before forcing myself into movement again and head down the stairs, rushing towards the door so I can get there before someone else can open it. The door isn’t locked. There’s nothing stopping the person who has arrived here coming inside and seeing me standing here, where I don’t belong.

But I don’t bother to try and lock the door to buy myself a little more time. Nor do I consider hiding under a bed like I did the last time I was almost caught here. Instead, I just stand in the hallway, probably in the exact same spot where Valerie landed after she was pushed down the stairs, and I wait to welcome the person who is approaching the front door.

I take a deep breath because this is a crucial moment right here.

This is the part where my plan can succeed or fail.

This is when I find out whether Liane is going to pay for what she did.

Or if I am going to pay for thinking I could ever catch a woman as clever as Liane.

FORTY-THREE

LIANE

I’m setting the dinner table in my family home, a task that I have done countless times over the years. Often, it felt like a chore, like something that had to be done rather than something that I wanted to be done. So many times I was exhausted from work and parenting that the last thing I wanted to do was make the effort to place cutlery down on a table and ensure everyone had the correct place setting for the meal ahead. But tonight is different. Tonight feels special. Tonight feels like an occasion worthy of a family meal.

While I’m down here doing this, my youngest son is upstairs, in his bedroom and licking his metaphorical wounds after the breakdown of his relationship with Haven. I haven’t bothered to try and coax him out of there all day, although Frederik had a good idea how we could potentially get him to come out tonight.

‘Let’s get a Chinese takeaway,’ my husband called to suggest to me about an hour ago. ‘If that doesn’t get Joel out of his bedroom and his bad mood, nothing will.’

I agreed with Frederik because it certainly seemed like it was worth a shot. Having Joel’s favourite food for dinner tonight gave us the best chance of getting our youngest son to sit down and talk to us. Or at least sit down and eat while we talked to him. But my husband wasn’t done with the suggestions there.

‘I’ll invite Scott too,’ he said. ‘I’m sure he won’t say no to a takeaway either, and it’ll be good for Joel to have his brother around for support. It’ll be good for us to have the whole family together for the first time since… well, since she left.’