‘Why, Serena, what are you going to do?’
‘You don’t want to know what I’ll do, Poppy.’
‘You think I’m scared of you?’ she scoffs in response.
‘I think you need to think about what you’re doing by coming here and throwing threats around and shouting at my family.’
‘Family. Your family. I regret the day I set eyes on you. I should have got rid of you back then but I didn’t. Well, I’m not going to make that mistake again. I’m not going to let you get away with destroying my life and my family again.’
‘Me, destroy your life? I always suspected you were deluded, but now I know you are not only deluded but also stupid. How did I destroy your life? You were the one who wouldn’t stay away from him. You were the one who was always hanging around waiting for my sloppy seconds. If your life was destroyed, you did it to yourself.’
‘If you were enough for him, why would he have had to look elsewhere? Be with someone else? He always used to say that you were tainted. I was pure.’
‘Pure! Ha! Don’t make me laugh! He gave up teaching at a job he loved for me. What did he give up for you, Poppy? What did he ever give you, Poppy, apart from the same clothes as me? And the same bruises and broken bones as me? Come on, Poppy, tell me, what did he ever give you that wasn’t just an extension of what he gave me?
‘Nothing to say? No, thought not. At least I could pretend to myself that he loved me. At least at fourteen, fifteen and sixteen I was still naïve enough to be able to pretend that he loved me. At least I had presents and help with homework and celebrating my exam results to keep me brainwashed into believing he actually cared. What did you have, Poppy?’
‘You really think he loved you?’
‘No, I don’t. I don’t think that at all. I know he didn’t love me. I know he liked me because I was young and easy to manipulate. I know that he wasn’t capable of love, only of controlling and the very worst emotional and physical violence. But at the time, I thought he loved me. The way he treated me made me believe he loved me and I had all these things I could point to that would balance out the horror so I could believe he did.
‘And I wish – wish, with all my heart – that I had told my daughter about him, about what he did and how to spot the signs so she would have known to walk away from your brother the second he started manipulating her so he could abuse her.’
Poppy Carlisle rears up again, comes right up to Mum’s face. ‘MY BROTHER DIDN’T DO ANYTHING!’ she screams before she points around my mother at me. ‘She is the one who did this. She is the abuser in this. And she is the one who is finally going to get what’s coming to her.’
Conrad circles his arm protectively around me.
‘I told you, don’t threaten my daughter.’
‘I don’t need to threaten her, Serena. Logan’s awake.’
Oh God.
‘And he’s told us everything.’
Oh God. I’d hoped, actually hoped, he wouldn’t wake up. If he stayed ‘asleep’ that would mean no one would ever know.
‘Including who hurt him.’
Everyone is going to know. Everyone.
‘He was talking to the police when I left. He has evidence. They are going to be here really soon to put you away.’
Evidence? He has evidence?
‘Can’t wait for you to find out what it’s like to go to prison for hurting someone.’
‘I didn’t—’ I begin.
‘He told me!’ Poppy Carlisle roars, almost knocking my mother over to get nearer. ‘He told me all about what you did to him. He told all of us about—’
Her words are cut short by the arrival of a tall, white man with dark hair. He comes sprinting up the path and through our front door. ‘Poppy,’ he says, breathlessly, interrupting her invective.
She stops and turns to him. ‘What are you doing here?’ she snarls at him, turning the full weight of her anger on him.
‘Bella called me. She was worried about where you were going. She said Logan was awake and that when he told you what had happened you just tore out of there and she was scared of what you were going to do.’
‘Just go away, Alain. I don’t need you here. I can handle this on my own.’
‘You shouldn’t be here, Poppy. Especially not when you’re this angry. You could be violating the terms of your licence, you could get yourself arrested. You should be at home with Betina. None of this is helping you or her.’
‘Don’t try and use my daughter against me.’
‘Our daughter. If the police find you here it’s not going to help anyone. Especially not Logan.’
As if he has invoked them, conjured them up with the power of his words, DI Brosnin arrives in the rectangle of the doorway, followed by two uniformed police officers. Different to the ones who came for me last time, but still with the same grim expressions; still with the look that suggests this is just another day for them, just another arrest, just another thing they have to do.
I didn’t expect it to be special or anything, I just didn’t think arresting people would be so mundane to them that they don’t even look bothered by it.
DI Brosnin smiles at me; it’s such a genuine smile and she clearly doesn’t mind the crush in the hallway. In fact, it looks like it gives her an extra thrill that she has an audience. Clearly nothing mundane or everyday about this for her.
‘I see Miss Carlisle has beaten me to the punch,’ she says. ‘No matter. Now that Mr Logan Carlisle has awoken from his coma, he has been able to tell us what happened in the lead-up to his attack. And he told us it was you. That he had been planning on telling your family about your relationship and you grew incredibly angry. More angry than you’d ever been with him previously and you attacked him when it became clear he wasn’t going to keep things secret any longer.’ She puts her head to one side, looking at me as though I am a curiosity, as though she can’t quite believe I truly thought I would get away with it. ‘So, Miss Verity Gillmare, I am arresting you on suspicion of Grievous Bodily Harm with Intent and, now, coercive control.’ She smiles at me again. ‘I do hope you’re not going to resist arrest or anything like that, Miss Gillmare,’ she states. ‘Now that we know what you’re really like.’
Conrad doesn’t let go of me, and Mum doesn’t step out of the way to let them past. I can see what is going to happen. My family are going to be even more hurt because of me. This time, physically. They’ll happily arrest them just to prove a point, I can tell that from the weight of DI Brosnin’s gaze, the way she has kept her head to one side, the smile that she doesn’t even bother to hide. At the end of the path, there are two more police officers. How she managed to get so many when everyone is aware of the police’s stretched resources is a mystery; why she decided to bring them is not – she has a narrative in her head about how violent I am. Now that Logan has told them, confirmed it for her, she can proceed without any caution or second thought.
I carefully lower my brother’s arm and I step towards my mother. I pause, rest my hand on her shoulder to let her know that I’m fine, that I’m going to go and I’m not going to cause a fuss. Immediately Mum gathers me in her arms. She’s soft and comforting, a safe place to pause while I screw up my courage enough to go with the police.