Letters To My Daughter's Killer - [61]

I am frightened.

There is a knock at the door.

They are bringing him in.

Part Four

You sit on the chair opposite me. Your face is pale, drawn, your eyes ringed with shadow.

For a long time I cannot meet your gaze. I study my hands while Dr Meredith repeats the agreed protocol for the meeting. She will be with us throughout, guiding us.

As she finishes, I raise my eyes to look at you, and you glance away and back, away again. Rub your palms together.

Your discomfort is a balm.

‘Is there anything you wish to say now?’ Meredith asks me. ‘Before Jack begins?’

‘No.’

‘Jack?’ She invites you to start.

‘I’m sorry,’ you say. ‘I am so, so sorry.’

For what? I think. Say it, say it. What you’ve done. I need it spelled out. I need it in letters ten feet tall, lit in neon. I need it carved in granite. I need it broadcast from the rooftops. I need to hear it.

‘Please go on,’ Meredith says.

‘I killed Lizzie, I took her life, and I am so sorry. I’m sorry I did it, and I’m sorry I lied about it. I loved her so much.’ Your voice is small, shaky.

I hold myself rigid, desperate not to collapse, to stay strong enough to hear all I’ve come to hear, to learn answers to all my questions.

‘Ruth, is there anything you want to say?’ Meredith asks me.

‘Why did you lie?’

You blow out a breath, knuckle your fists together. ‘I didn’t want to end up here,’ you say. ‘I didn’t want to lose Florence.’

I think of her astride your shoulders, curled in your arms that awful night, clinging to your legs and screaming at the police, leaping at the sight of you at the funeral.

‘I was scared,’ you add after a pause.

In the silence I can hear Meredith breathing, hear the click as you swallow.

‘Why have you confessed now?’ I say. And as I speak, I am aware that I’m putting off the moment when I hear the full unvarnished truth, because I am frightened.

You begin to speak. ‘It was eating away at me. I got very depressed, it was destroying me. I tried not to think about it but I couldn’t stop. It got worse. And, erm… I started thinking about… suicide. A breakdown of sorts. So… erm…’ You take a deep breath, readying yourself to talk.

Fear rises in me like a tornado, swirling black, devouring me, and I start to my feet. Close to fainting, my head prickling, eyes awash with dancing dots. ‘I can’t do this, I can’t-’

‘We’ll take a break,’ Meredith says. ‘You don’t have to do anything you don’t wish to. We can leave at any time. Let’s go next door for a moment.’

We leave you and go through to an adjacent space. My teeth are chattering in my head. I can smell Lizzie’s blood; the shock feels fresh, my heart bruised and aching.

‘Breathe,’ Meredith says. ‘Slow, steady. Take your time.’

She does not pressure me, nor rush me.

Should I go? Should I leave and try again another time? Would that be any easier? If I go now, will I ever come back? Ever know?

Oh Lizzie.

‘I want to carry on,’ I say.

Meredith nods.

We go back in.

Your face is wet. Your nose red. You have been weeping.

I am poised, on the tightrope, on the cliff edge, at the high point of the zip wire. ‘Tell me,’ I say. Plunging, tumbling, vertigo in my head.

‘That day,’ you clear your throat, ‘it had been difficult. We were struggling money-wise, we were having to take a break from the mortgage. We’d been shopping and then there was Lizzie’s haircut.’ You bite your cheek. I wait. ‘We had tea and put Florence to bed. Lizzie put Florence to bed,’ you amend. ‘I was angry, angry about everything, not having any work, the fact that Lizzie had spent over seventy pounds on her hair, but I hadn’t said anything to her yet.’

‘Why not?’ I interrupt.

You consider for a moment, then say, ‘Because I wanted to take it out on her. I wanted to hit her. I was winding up to it. I never saw it like that back then, but the course I’ve been doing, the anger management, that’s what I’ve learnt. I wanted to hit her.’

It is hard to hear.

‘She said she had something to tell me, she hoped I’d be happy.’ You shake your head several times. I can see the rise and fall of your chest, as if the words are pulsing to escape. ‘She was pregnant.’

You knew. Something flies loose inside me.

‘I said she’d have to get rid of it. We could barely feed and clothe Florence, let alone another child. We started arguing. She was saying that I could find some other work, office work, temping or a call centre, that we’d manage. She wouldn’t listen to me.’

I know what’s coming, can feel the vibrations underfoot, sense it in the way every hair on my body rises.

‘Did she shout at you?’ I say. The need for the tiniest specific, accurate detail is acute. I want it all pinned down, to the nth degree.

‘No, she knew not to shout.’

A pang in my heart.

‘You’d hit her before?’

‘Yes,’ you say simply, your mouth working.

‘How many times?’

‘I don’t know, I’m sorry.’

‘How often, then?’ I say.

‘Three or four times a year.’

I hate you. Why could she never tell me? ‘You hit her when she was expecting Florence, and the summer before she died, like Rebecca said?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you use a weapon before?’

‘Sometimes. Not the poker.’ Your voice tight.