The Happy Family by Jackie Kabler (electric book reader txt) 📕

it behind them,’ Dad told me. ‘They’ll want her to rest in peace, Beth. And you need to find some peace too.’

And I did eventually. Although I never stopped worrying that one day my past would find me, over the years I did find peace, of a sort. Rita’s counselling helped; she never made excuses for me, for my bullying behaviour, but she helped me to understand why I’d done it, to understand that it was all a horribly misguided attempt to banish my own anger, my frustration, my jealousy. And so, as time passed, I healed. I changed. I left it all behind me.

Or I thought I did.

Chapter 27

Somehow, I sleep until after seven. I wake with a dull headache because, despite Gabby’s advice on the phone, I did drink last night. I opened a bottle of red wine with dinner and downed the entire thing myself while Mum contented herself with one gin and slimline tonic and watched me from across the room with concern in her eyes. When I finally emerged from my room yesterday I made light of it all, telling her I was fine, that everything had now been deleted, and that the videos were obviously someone’s idea of a silly joke which had backfired somewhat. I even managed to laugh as I told her that one of my friends was going to be in big trouble when I found out which of them had planted the hidden cameras.

‘Ooh, I’ll get them back,’ I said. ‘They’ve hidden them so well I can’t even find them, can you believe that? I’m going to have to get someone in. Best practical joke ever, isn’t it!’

She raised an eyebrow and shook her head disapprovingly, telling me it wasn’t her idea of a joke and that she wouldn’t have taken it so well if anyone had dared to do that to her. But she left it at that, offering to cook dinner. She rustled up a salmon and pea pasta which smelled delicious but which I pushed aside after two mouthfuls because I was still feeling sick.

I excused myself from the table and called Ruth. I told her again that my account must have been hacked, described how everything had snowballed after her call, and mentioned the meeting Gabby had demanded. She was hesitant at first, but she finally sounded as if she believed me and wondered aloud who on earth could have been behind it, finally telling me she was there for me if I needed her. I didn’t tell her about Jacob and the kids though. I didn’t trust myself not to break down, and I knew that if I started crying I simply wouldn’t be able to stop.

Jacob had appeared at the door just before we ate, pushing wordlessly past me and marching upstairs to fill bags with extra clothes and toys for the children, grimly muttering, ‘Just leave it, Beth. I can’t talk to you, not now. I can’t even look at you,’ when I tried to reason with him.

He wouldn’t even let me help pack the bags, and by then I was too tired, too mentally exhausted, for another row. When he’d gone again, I fobbed Mum off (‘They’re going to stay at Jacob’s for a few days. He’s decided to take some leave so he might as well have them; they’re off on Easter holidays this week anyway …’) and opened the wine. It went down better than the food, taking the edge off the anguish and helping me to fall into a restless sleep. There was no way I was sleeping in my own room, not while those cameras were unaccounted for, so I moved into Eloise’s. Her small single bed was strangely comforting, like sleeping in a soft cotton cocoon. Her pink starry duvet cover smelt of cherry-blossom shampoo and of her. As I lie here now, slowly coming to, unwilling to get up and face a Sunday with just me and Mum and knowing that I’m going to spend it feeling ill and anxious about my meeting at work tomorrow, I think about Daphne Blake again, and I shiver. My nightmares last night were more like hallucinations, dark and twisted, my body paralysed with fear. Images of Lucy Allen and Daphne Blake flashed through my mind, their faces merging and blending, until I woke, screaming, as if a demon were being unleashed from my soul. My mother must have been deeply asleep because she didn’t come, and I lay there panting, bathed in a cold sweat. I wondered if the scream had been part of the dream, although the ache in my throat made me think otherwise.

And now, now that I can think more clearly, now that the daylight is streaming in through the gap in Eloise’s fuchsia velvet curtains, I’m starting to work it out.

Daphne Blake. The only reason anyone would use that name would be if they knew about Lucy Allen, knew that Daphne Blake had been her occasional nickname. And I took a photo of Lucy, didn’t I? Twenty-seven years ago, I took a polaroid photo of her naked and pinned it up at school with the sole object of humiliating her. Now somebody’s basically done the same to me, only it’s not noticeboards but the internet. Now it’s online, for the whole world to see. My punishment, finally.

I sit up slowly, pushing back the duvet and swinging my legs over the side of the little bed. What I don’t know yet is why now? Why wait so long? But I almost don’t care about that because what I need to do, and do urgently, is find out who. Because it’s now become abundantly clear that somebody I know, someone with access to my home, knows all about Lucy Allen. Knows all about me, about my past, about the thing I’ve tried so desperately to keep hidden from everyone I’ve met, from everyone I’ve loved, for nearly three decades.

I’m on my feet now, walking slowly