‘On the wall now or he goes in! I know what you’re trying to do!’ Hughes holds Cory further out over the river, the muscles in his arms tensed. I’m positive I hear Cory whimper. Oh thank God! Thank God he’s all right.
‘Right. Okay. I’m doing it.’ I climb up onto the wall, feel the frost as it bites into the soles of my bare feet. The wind lifts up my hair, the force like a thousand lashes across my cheeks. I stare down into the blackness of the river, another gust of wind causing me to sway forward.
‘I blamed myself, you know,’ Hughes is saying now. ‘I couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep. Almost lost the practice before it had even opened. They dragged Gwyn out of the river a week after she disappeared, but they never found Gabriel. But I know why now. It’s because he never really died. God was just holding on to him until he could be reborn. I knew when I first saw you that Gwyn’s spirit lived inside of you. I knew you could bring me my son back!’
I try to process what he is saying, my fear for Cory all-consuming. It’s obvious that Hughes has suffered some kind of mental breakdown since the loss of his wife and child, his delusions a coping mechanism against all that’s befallen him. ‘Please… let me help you,’ I say, my words slurring through sheer shock. ‘Let me and Cory go and we can try and make this right. You’ll never get away with this, you know you won’t.’
He swallows loudly. ‘I will. SureLife is already sold. I’m moving back to Wales. And the police are incompetent anyhow. They may never find you. And if they do, they’ll assume the baby has been swept away in the current. Three weeks they searched for Gabriel before giving up. Three measly weeks!’
‘James won’t believe I jumped to my death and killed our baby. He knows how much I love Cory!’ Guilt twists like a knife as I allow myself to think about James. My husband, my wonderful husband, who has loved me unconditionally since the first moment we met. And yet, when it mattered, he let me down, didn’t he? If he’d just believed me, all of this could have been avoided. But even as I think such a thing, I know James isn’t really to blame. Of course he genuinely believed I was ill, was only ever trying to do what he thought was right. ‘James will find Cory,’ I say again, sure that, despite everything, he’ll never believe I killed our baby.
‘Are you sure about that, Louisa?’ Hughes raises his thick, black eyebrows in expectation. ‘You’re psychotic, remember. Those tablets worked a treat, didn’t they?’
I grit my teeth. ‘How did you even know I was prescribed tablets? Have you really been following me this whole time?’
‘Remember the man in the pharmacy, the one with his back to you looking hopelessly at a shelf of nappies?’
I shake my head.
‘No, I guessed not. You were never very observant. Of course I had to follow you, to make sure you were actually prescribed antidepressants in the first place. I wouldn’t put it past doctors these days to describe a cup of chamomile. Not that Fluoxetine’s any better. It’s so mild it’s practically a placebo… you’d have barely broken out into a sweat.’
‘So what? You switched them?
He smiles. ‘I enjoyed watching the effects of the Lustrate as it began to wreak havoc on you. You know that particular drug comes with its own black-box warning? Hallucinations, paranoia, suicidal thoughts. So yes, I’m pretty sure after receiving your recent medical records and testimonies from your friends, the police will have no doubt you were psychotic. Oh, not to mention the fact that your dear friend Magda is currently lying dead on your kitchen floor.’
I shake my head, visions of Magda’s lifeless body floating just out of reach. ‘I didn’t mean to kill her.’ The hazy memory of me holding a knife to her stomach causes my head to spin. ‘Everything was a blur. I thought she wanted to take Cory.’
Hughes laughs. ‘You still can’t slot it all together, can you? I always knew you were a little na?ve, but seriously.’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’ My stomach tightens as I ready myself for what I know is coming next. I thought I’d been hallucinating earlier on today, thought I’d finally lost my mind.
‘Magda was never your friend, she only ever wanted the baby for herself. I suppose infertility does strange kinds of things to people… women in particular.’
‘No!’ I clench my fists, unable to believe what Hughes is saying even though a part of me knows it to be true. ‘Magda wasn’t involved. She can’t have been.’
‘She was ever so sad when I told her she’d never be able to carry a child of her own, you know. Of course that wasn’t strictly true, but the occasional white lie is admissible in certain circumstances.’
‘So what? You and Magda were planning on running off together? You wanted to bring Cory up as your own?’
Hughes sucks his teeth. ‘God no! At least not on my part. I just knew she’d be useful, that a friend on the inside would help me correctly diagnose your mental state as the mission unfolded. The Lustrate her sister was taking was also a blessing. Potent stuff it is, Louisa, although you know that, don’t you? No, I always planned on killing the hippy eventually. You just gave me the perfect opportunity to do so!’
‘So I didn’t kill her?’ Relief and terror tear through me in equal measure. ‘But everybody is going to believe I did! Apart from James,’ I manage to say again, no longer sure who I’m trying to convince. ‘He’ll fight for the truth.’
‘No, he won’t.’ Hughes looks up at me, a smile lighting up his eyes. ‘Initially he might. But how do you think he’ll react when he sees your medical records? Not the first time you’ve attempted to jump to your death with a baby in tow now is it, Louisa?’
Sickening realisation robs me of my last drop of strength. He’s right. My ‘suicide attempt’ fourteen years ago, along with my subsequent miscarriage, would have been logged in my medical history… something I have always feared would one day come back to haunt me. If I die, James will be given the full details of what happened that night. He’ll know all the sordid details! ‘Oh shit!’ Another memory drags me back into the past. Earlier today, trapped in a hallucination of my own creation, I told James about Aiden, I’m almost certain I did! ‘The records are bullshit,’ I tell Hughes. ‘They don’t tell the full story.’
I don’t remember the initial impact on the night Aiden pushed me into the canal, only that the water was suddenly all around me, crushing me, pushing me down from all sides like the walls of an imaginary prison. I kicked and clawed at the surface, desperate to find some leverage, reaching out towards the embankment, only for it to slip through my fingers. My body fought for every last morsel of air but the weight of the water soon pulled me down, my lungs burning, my mind blank, panic quickly fading to numbness. I gave in to the darkness as the last gasp of air escaped my lips, replaced by the icy water. As my lungs began to fill, darkness consumed me, bringing with it a peace like nothing I’d ever experienced before. It was then that I saw her. My mother.
Her hair was a shimmering gold, her smile painted on with permanent marker just like Beverley’s had been all those years before. ‘Don’t be afraid, Louisa,’ she whispered, reaching out her hand towards me. ‘It’s safer here, there isn’t any pain.’ I took her hand in mine, allowed her to pull me towards her, her lips touching mine as she kissed me just like she’d always done when I was a child.
‘I love you, Mum.’
‘We love you too, Louisa, we all do. It’s okay, just hold on.’ Aiden’s voice suddenly cut through the darkness, a blur of blue light skimming my eyelids, a siren wailing all around me.