My Mother's Secret Read online

  MY MOTHER’S SECRET

  Sanjida Kay is a writer and broadcaster. She lives in Bristol with her daughter and husband. She’s written two previous thrillers, Bone by Bone and The Stolen Child.

  Published in trade paperback in Great Britain in 2018 by Corvus, an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.

  Copyright © Sanjida Kay, 2018

  The moral right of Sanjida Kay to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities, is entirely coincidental.

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  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Trade paperback ISBN: 978 1 78649 252 4

  E-book ISBN: 978 1 78649 253 1

  Printed in Great Britain.

  Corvus

  An imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd

  Ormond House

  26–27 Boswell Street

  London

  WC1N 3JZ

  www.corvus-books.co.uk

  To my mother,

  Rosemary O’Connell

  ‘If I were to marry you, you would kill me.’

  Reader, I married him.

  Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

  PROLOGUE

  ‘Did you know my name means God?’

  She shook her head and the movement made her forehead throb, her vision blurring into ultramarine and plum. She winced.

  ‘So I’m kind of a superhero.’

  ‘Like Spider-Man?’ she asked, smiling in spite of the pain.

  ‘Yeah. What do you think my superpower could be?’

  The child knelt on the floor beside the camp bed and stared into her eyes. His own were large and dark as treacle. He was so close, she could see how long and thick his eyelashes were, and smell the cream Arjun must have put in his hair to try and stop it standing on end. The boy was going to be a heartbreaker when he grew up.

  ‘Can you fly?’

  ‘All superheroes can fly,’ he said scornfully.

  A little light spilled into the room from round the edge of the door, which was ajar; it was just enough to see the boy. There were no windows and Arjun had turned off the lamp when he left. She rolled gingerly onto her back and closed her eyes. The darkness was soothing.

  ‘Maybe you could be invisible.’

  ‘That’s not very exciting,’ he said.

  ‘Is this where you sleep?’

  ‘Sometimes,’ said the boy. ‘If Daddy’s working late and there’s no one to look after me. My mummy’s dead,’ he added, matter-of-factly.

  ‘I’m sorry, Dev,’ she said, taking his small hand in hers.

  ‘That’s okay. She’ll come back. Maybe as a horse. She loved horses.’

  He was only six, she thought. How could he hope to understand death?

  ‘Perhaps your superpower could be to talk to horses?’ she said.

  ‘Lizzie?

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Are you going to die, like Mummy did?’

  ‘No, Dev, I’ve just got a really bad headache. I had a funny turn in the shop, so your daddy said I could lie down for a little bit. I’ll be better soon.’

  For a couple of minutes the child said nothing, and she was aware of how loud his breathing was, and the strange smell of the room: of damp in the walls and dust, curry powder and laundry liquid. She gradually realized that something was happening on the other side of the door; there were raised voices and then a bang, as if a fist had pounded against something: a shelf maybe, or a table. The child jumped and his breathing sped up. He gave a little whimper.

  ‘He’s been here before,’ he said. ‘I saw him.’

  ‘Who has?’ she asked.

  ‘The bad man,’ he whispered.

  She forced herself to sit up, swing her legs round. She pressed her hand against her forehead; her skull felt as if it was being crushed in a vice. The child had disappeared into the darkness. She stood and swayed; the floor lurched like the deck of a ship; nausea threatened to overwhelm her. She squinted towards the door and saw Dev standing, peering through the chink, his hair haloed by the light.

  Whoever was on the other side was shouting and there was a loud crash and the sound of hundreds of cans falling, of glass shattering. She forced herself to walk over to Dev. The yelling and swearing grew louder. She gripped the boy’s thin shoulders and tried to pull him away from the door. He resisted. She looked around, but there was no other way out of this room. Arjun was asking whoever was with him to leave; he said he would call the police. She tried again to get Dev away, but he grabbed hold of a shelf and she thought it might topple, or he would cry out and give them away. Instead she hugged him closer to her; she could feel the beat of his racing heart, the tremor in his body.

  Through the crack in the door, she could see a man. He was large, well over six foot tall, and broad. He was dressed in black. He had a tattoo, like a blurred tear on one side of his face, and his head was shaved. He was shouting at Arjun, destroying his shop, overturning shelves and smashing bottles. Each time something crashed on the floor or was hurled against the walls, she and the child flinched. And then he stopped. He looked towards them. She shrank back, still gripping the boy.

  Someone, barely inches away from her, on the other side of the door, spoke. His voice was thin, reedy, almost refined. The man with the tattoo was listening to him. His chest was heaving, but he’d stopped tipping over the shelves. The other man continued to speak in a low and soothing tone. It was going to be okay, she thought, they would leave.

  ‘Now, Mr Kumar, I don’t like my people to be unhappy, but equally we cannot let this slide, can we?’ he said.

  She should phone the police, she thought, she ought to take this chance before anything worse happened. She let go of the boy. Her mobile had been in her rucksack, but she didn’t know where Arjun had put it. She hoped he’d brought it in here and he hadn’t left it out there. She went back to the camp bed in the corner and ran her hands over the floor. She felt grit and dust beneath her fingertips, but she couldn’t see or feel her bag.

  The man with the soft voice was still speaking to Arjun, but she was too far away to make out the words. She crouched on the camp bed and felt the strap of her rucksack. It had fallen down the back and was wedged between the metal frame and the wall. She pulled it up and rummaged inside for her phone, but she couldn’t find it. She glanced over her shoulder and saw the outline of the child. He was too close to the door. Frantically she searched again, and then tipped the contents onto Dev’s Spider-Man duvet. It was there, she’d got it! She switched the phone to mute, so the men wouldn’t hear the click of the keys, and started to dial.

  There was a sickening thud, like the sound of a cricket bat hitting a watermelon, and Arjun screamed. The boy gave a cry. She ran to him, her fingers slipping from her phone. But she was too late.

  The man on the other side of the door had heard him. Or maybe he had known the boy was there the entire time. She saw his arm – he was wearing an expensive navy suit and a white shirt with gold cufflinks – shoot through the gap in the door. He seized the child by the hair and pulled him into the newsagent’s. And in that brief moment, as the door swung open and shut, she glimpsed the expression on his face, and she saw the knife.


  EMMA

  It’s as if we’ve stepped into a Constable painting, a bucolic vision of England. There’s a single oak ahead of us in the heart of the valley; the grass is lime-green and the steep sides of the Cotswold escarpment are covered in dense woodland. Even though it’s May, the sky is shale-grey; there’s a brooding mass of clouds on the horizon.

  ‘We could have parked right there! Why did you make us walk all this way?’ Ava whines.

  ‘Because you’ll appreciate it even more,’ says Jack.

  Stella snorts. ‘Yeah, like anyone but you is going to “appreciate” a mouldering old church.’

  ‘It’s so creepy. I don’t like it,’ Ava says.

  I have to admit, the lowering sky and the dark green of the trees surrounding us make me feel a bit hemmed in.

  ‘I’ve been bitten!’ she shrieks and jumps about, slapping at her ankles.

  ‘I did see a horsefly back there,’ I say.

  ‘It’s probably nothing. Just a scratch,’ says Jack.

  ‘Let me have a look.’ I turn Ava’s slim calf in my hands.

  Sure enough, there’s a large red lump starting to form above her ankle bone.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ve got some ointment,’ I say, sliding my backpack off my shoulders.

  Stella rolls her eyes.

  ‘Of course,’ says Jack, ‘your mum is prepared for anything. Break a leg, and she’ll wrap you in her space-blanket while we wait for mountain rescue on speed-dial.’

  ‘You’re kidding, right?’ says Stella. ‘A space-blanket.’

  ‘I do have a space-blanket, as it happens. You never know when you might need one . . .’ I rub antihistamine into Ava’s leg and she stops whimpering. ‘It’s so light, it would be stupid not to bring it.’

  ‘I told you,’ says Jack.

  ‘Oh my God, you are insane.’

  ‘We could use it to fly to the moon,’ says Ava.

  ‘Jesus, Mum, the Taliban carry those things to stop the US spying on them with thermal cameras,’ says Stella.

  ‘Multi-purpose,’ murmurs my husband.

  I finish putting away my first-aid kit. Ahead of us are a tiny stream and the remains of an old bridge.

  ‘Look! The people who once owned this place probably swept down here in their coach and horses, right over that bridge and up to the big house,’ I say brightly.

  ‘Like, that’s even interesting,’ says Stella.

  There’s a sign saying the ruined bridge is unsafe. A round, stone ball lies to one side, as if it has tumbled from the crumbling turrets. It’s now half-obscured by long grass. There’s a cowpat next to it. We head to the right; buttery-coloured Cotswold stones poke through the soil.

  I start singing ‘Follow the Yellow Brick Road’.

  ‘Spare me,’ mutters Jack under his breath, striding ahead of us. He’s smiling, though.

  Ava joins in with the chorus, and we keep singing and she forgets to moan as the hill curves steeply upwards.

  I don’t have my husband’s strength or resilience in the face of concerted opposition: I would never have managed to drag a fourteen-year-old and an eleven-year-old out of the house when they’d much rather be Snapchatting (Stella) or practising ballet (Ava). So I’m pleased Jack’s cheerily ignored any opposition to his plans, as he normally does, even if it means visiting yet another church. We haven’t been to see this one in a while, but sadly there’s no cafe nearby that the girls and I can escape to.

  I’m out of breath. I really should lose some weight, I think, as I always do when Jack is marching us up some hill. He’s as fit as a flea. He goes to a posh gym in town and does kettlebells and something called HIIT in his lunch hour.

  At the top, there’s a mansion that a family actually lives in, rather than opening it up to the public and allowing the whole world to traipse through the living room to raise money to repair the roof, plus a walled garden with stables and greenhouses that are also off-limits. The church is open but to reach it you have to walk round in a loop and double-back to give the owners a modicum of privacy. I get distracted by a lily pool and stop to take some photos on my phone. It’s surprisingly dark: there’s a thick hedge behind me, and beech trees overhead. I imagine this must have led to the main driveway for the house at one time. I lean over the fence, the metal cold against my stomach, and try and get a water lily to fill the frame in my camera. When I finally manage to take a halfway decent photo, I look up, ready to show Ava.

  She’s gone. I can’t hear her or Stella and Jack, either. There’s the faint smell of horses and leather. It’s silent. It appears darker than before. The first spot of rain hits my cheek. I look round, but the narrow path is empty of walkers or my family.

  I start jogging and call out, ‘Ava? Stella?’

  I still can’t see them. The path grows narrower, the trees tower over me and it’s impossible to see over the hedge. Shrubs encroach. Something snaps across my face, stinging my cheek. I cry out. It’s a branch. I feel as if I’m in a tunnel. I run faster. A black shape explodes out of the bushes and I jump back. It’s a blackbird, disappearing into the wood in a flurry of feathers. I can’t breathe. There’s no sign of them, no sign that anyone else even passed this way.

  I start screaming their names, over and over, the names of my family, my loved ones, the people I cannot live without. My heart is beating so hard it’s painful.

  I must have missed the turn for the church, because now I’m on a wide driveway flanked by those giant beech trees, last year’s masts crunching beneath my feet, and the house is behind me, the windows shuttered against tourists. There’s still no one else around. No walkers. No one appears at the window. I can’t stop shouting; the silence will choke me. I feel as if my chest is in a giant vice that’s squeezing my ribs. I run to a fence and look down into the valley. There’s a girl on horseback a long way below me. She isn’t even aware that I’m up here, shouting for help. The path twists to the left, away from the fields, and disappears into a dark thicket of laurels. Is that where they are? I’m frozen. I don’t know where to search next, what to do.

  And then Jack is running towards me. He puts one hand on my shoulder and looks straight into my eyes.

  ‘Take it easy. Deep breath. In. We’re all here. We’re safe. Breathe out.’

  I see the girls peeking round a trellis draped with pink tea roses. Their faces are white. They’re fine, though, just as Jack said they were.

  Once I’ve stopped hyperventilating, Jack folds me in his arms.

  ‘We were inside the church,’ he murmurs in my ear. ‘You know I’d never let anything happen to them, don’t you?’

  I nod, and pull away. Ava comes and flings her arms around my waist.

  ‘Are you all right, Mum? I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have left you. I thought you saw . . .’

  ‘It’s okay,’ I say. ‘It’s my fault, not yours. I should have kept up.’

  Stella scowls at me. ‘You screamed the whole bloody place down,’ she says and stalks away.

  It’s obvious, now, where the path to the church was. I wipe a sheen of cold sweat from my forehead and hold Jack’s hand tightly. I swallow uncomfortably and take a sip of water from the bottle I’ve brought with me.

  The tiny church is cool, almost cold. I sit on a pew to try and pull myself together, while Jack strides about, pointing out features to Ava. I think she was humouring him, but now she’s actually interested.

  ‘It dates back to the twelfth century, but there was a pagan site here even before then. The whole church is in the shape of a cross. Take a look at the turret.’

  ‘Oh! It’s a hexagon,’ she says, peering up into the rafters.

  Someone has put vases full of roses next to the nave and their sweet, spicy scent fills the air. I try and keep my anxiety under control, but occasionally, particularly when I’m in unfamiliar places, it bubbles to the surface. I’d like to appear strong and unflappable for the girls, and sometimes I manage. The stained-glass windows are exquisite: Christ stands in a sea of
white lilies, the bloodless marks where the nails were driven into his feet are tear-shaped.

  ‘You always ruin everything,’ hisses Stella. ‘We’re not little kids any more. You don’t have to freak out when you can’t see us for thirty fucking seconds.’

  ‘Stella!’ says Jack, pausing from his monologue. ‘I don’t want to hear you speak to your mum like that.’

  Stella storms out of the church. I jump as the door cracks against the thousand-year-old stone frame. Jack follows her. Ava comes and curls into my side and I put my arm round her and tuck her soft blonde-haired head beneath my chin. Thank goodness for one sunny child who hasn’t yet hit puberty.

  STELLA

  I’m standing by a stone angel when Dad comes out of the church. He has that look – his Dr Seuss expression. He really wants to bollock me, but he can’t. He has to access his inner psychologist and work out how to ‘connect’ with a stroppy teenager, so I’ll feel ‘heard’, but will be put in my place. Dad is quietly spoken, but that can actually be quite frightening. The angrier he gets, the softer his voice goes, until he snaps. It’s only happened twice and it was terrifying. Both times it was about Mum. He’s so uber-protective of her.

  ‘Look,’ I say, ‘have you seen this headstone?’

  Sometimes distraction can work, especially if you act like you’re interested in all this historical shit. The headstone is an angel, a weird one, though. She’s a young girl, really realistic, and she’s got a stone star on her forehead. She’s looking at the ground and pointing at the sky. The angel’s about the same height as me. Perhaps it’s the grave of a girl who died when she was my age. That makes me feel a bit strange, so I don’t look at the inscription. She’s covered in orange-and-white lichen. It’s kind of cool, I guess, although the last place I want to be on a Sunday afternoon is a Norman bloody churchyard with my dad.

  Dad puts his hands in his pockets and rocks backwards and forwards on his toes. He makes his face go all sympathetic.