The Stepmother (30 page)

I
’m striding
down Chalk Farm Road, away from Camden, late (as usual), on my way to a gig, when my phone rings.

It’s DI Stevens.

‘Marlena? I hate to tell you – but forensics have confirmed it
is
Nasreen’s body that was found.’ He’s matter of fact. ‘I’m sorry.’

I take a deep breath.

‘The good news is we’ve arrested Lenny Jones.’

I bloody knew it. I knew it when they found the decomposing body of a young woman buried out in an Essex wood a few weeks ago. It’s been a long, hot summer and – it wasn’t good. They were going to have to run extensive tests – but the odds were high it was Nasreen.

‘His DNA’s all over her T-shirt – along with her own blood,’ the DI goes on. ‘It’s a no-brainer.’

I knew when there was no trace of her anywhere in Turkey or Syria that something wasn’t right, that that boy Lenny had made that ISIS bullshit up. Such a convenient way to cover his dirty tracks, sending everyone in the wrong direction. Rather imaginative for a youth like him.

But I’m not glad to have been right this time. Poor, sweet girl. Poor family. I feel gutted for them.

‘You can have the scoop, if you like,’ the copper’s saying. ‘We’ve ordered a media blackout for tonight. I don’t reckon we’d have got him if you hadn’t been so bloody annoying.’

‘Persistent,’
I correct tartly. ‘That’s the word I think you’re looking for.’

On the other side of the road, I see Levi standing outside the Roundhouse.

When he sees me he starts waving madly. I wave back.

‘Hurry up,’ he’s mouthing over Camden’s traffic.

‘Okay,’ I say to DI Stevens. ‘Yes, please. But can I come down in a couple of hours? I’ve got somewhere I need to be right now.’

I hang up, and I hurry across the road to meet my boyfriend. The word nearly chokes me – and I think I mentioned before he has a really dodgy QPR tattoo that I’m not very happy about – but I hurry over with a spring in my step.

I never thought I’d write these words – and I feel a bit embarrassed – but I rush into his arms.

And actually, it feels all right.

J
on Hunter’s
on his way back from Tanzania, so I’m renting somewhere of my own, slightly further out of town: a sweet little place called Pear Tree Cottage. It’s very like Jon’s home. Red bricked this time, a little crooked, on the top of a dale. Well it is the Peak District after all.

It’s got an open fireplace and sage-green window frames. The doorways are low, and the floorboards are a bit creaky – but it’s too small to be scary, unlike Malum House.

Jon’s emailed me a lot recently; we’ve chatted back and forth. He says he’s looking forward to seeing me; he’s got so much to tell me about the kids in the orphanage.

And I find, as I unpack my few boxes and put my clothes away, that I’m looking forward to seeing him too. He’s always been a nice man, Jon, and now he’s left his shackles behind him, he’s so much happier. More free. Free to be himself.

I’ve got a contract now at the same college, and I’m looking forward to going back. I’ve been reading some French literature this holiday for a new evening class I might teach in Derby; in particular a book called
Bonjour Tristesse
.

I started to enjoy it – a story about a French girl and her relationship to the various women who might end up being her stepmother – but it has a tragic end.

It was a little close to home.

Poor wicked stepmothers. They always get a bad press, don’t they?

M
arlena came
to stay just before Jon came back.

She’d bought walking boots and a black Barbour – although it was a super-cool, tight-waisted one of course.

On the second day the sun came out, and she suggested, to my enduring surprise, we went for a ‘proper, sweaty’ walk – so I took her to Thorpe Cloud. It was one of my favourite spots, despite its proximity to where I nearly died. The views went on forever; on all four sides of the summit you could see for miles.

But it wasn’t long before Marlena tripped and broke two of her new inlay nails (she was trying to stop biting the real ones). Then she kept moaning about the slopes being ‘vertiginous’, so we drove on to a less intimidating hill. When we walked through the first village and she spied a homely looking pub, we stopped for a drink.

‘Can’t we call an Uber?’ she joked later – and then I realised she wasn’t joking. She persuaded a local guy to give us a lift back to my car, winking at me as she jumped in the front, telling him, yes, she’d met Madonna once and Prince William – and he was tall.

W
e sat
in the beer garden for a while that afternoon before she blagged the lift, enjoying the warmth of the last August sun.

‘So. You gonna tell me the truth now?’ she said, blowing a plume of smoke into the clear air, and I sighed.

‘He came back, didn’t he? The devil came back.’

‘Yeah.’ I put my drink down, my chest tightening. ‘He did.’

‘The bastard.’ Her face darkened. ‘I knew it was him. Why didn’t you say, Jean?’

It turned out that Ruth had called her when she was on her way back to London and had said, ‘I thought I ought to tell someone that man has been around again.’

‘Matthew? Her estranged husband?’ Marlena had asked. ‘Tallish, dark bloke?’

‘No, not him. A fair chap…’

‘Fair?’

‘Stocky; brought her a rabbit for the pot. I heard them arguing once, just before she disappeared.’

So Marlena had known all along.

‘It’s done, Marlena,’ I said. ‘It’s all done now.’

‘I know,’ she said simply. ‘I saw.’

I
hadn’t thought
he’d ever return. My own devil. I thought he’d had his fun, and he’d slunk back to hell.

Love of my life. I thought I was shot of him after the nightmare that was our break-up, back when Frank was just eight.

When I’d recovered, when Marlena had got me straight again, I’d taken my boy, and I’d left London, and we’d gone to the sea. I thought,
He’s destroyed me once, so he’s had enough.

Simon K.

But he found me again. Last year.

It wasn’t hard, was it, when my face was all over the press about Otto? He hunted me down, and he found me, the summer I met Matthew.

He wanted money. He told me that if I didn’t do what he said, he’d take everything from me.

I told him to get lost. I gave him as much money as I had, and I begged him to leave.

For a while he disappeared again – and I thought that was the end.

You see? Daft and naïve.

Because of course he came back again. He knew so much; too much. He knew about my addictions and my past. He knew I’d got hooked on pills after he started to destroy me the first time. And it didn’t take a genius to work out that I hadn’t been entirely honest with my new husband.

He threatened to tell Matthew everything – and I couldn’t bear it.

Only, when I left Matthew, he had no hold any more. He had nothing to blackmail me with. So then he sought vengeance.

He came to Malum House just after that terrible dinner party, when I collapsed. When Luke might have put something in my drink – or I might have just overdone it myself. I’ll never know.

I’d been paying Simon bits of money in instalments – but he wanted more, and I was scared Matthew would notice because I’d no money of my own left.

‘I’m inside – you know that? I’m inside the house,’ he’d said, and I’d looked at his wind-battered face – the face of a beach bum, a reprobate – those slanty eyes I’d once loved so, those red lips that were too full for a man, and I’d thought,
How could I once have been so in his thrall?

He’d even got a key somehow.

‘You know what, Simon?’ I’d said. ‘Do your best. It can’t get any worse than this.’

I
only went
to meet him at Dovedale that night because after he attacked Scarlett at Ilam Park, I thought he might hurt her again if I didn’t turn up.

I was so tired by then, so exhausted, so ashamed, that I didn’t care any more. It wouldn’t matter if something happened to me.

I thought,
If I die, he can’t do any more. I’ve won. He’s lost.

I thought Frankie would be better off without me. Marlena would be there for him; I was no good any more.

I drove to the Dove Bridge and got out. I sat by the river, waiting for him in the dusk. I drank the whisky and took a few pills to numb the pain. When he arrived on his stupid motorbike – the bike he’d always loved so – we talked for a bit, walking up the path to the shepherd’s hut.

We started to argue when he realised I wasn’t going to give him anything else. We had a scuffle near the hut – I remember that – and, spiteful as ever, he stamped on my glasses and threw them into the dark grass.

I didn’t cry, I don’t think. I used to cry in the old days. But this time I gave him the whisky and told him to finish it. I went outside the hut to pee, near his bike, and soon after that he drove off, and I lay down for a bit in the hut. I must have passed out.

I didn’t know he’d come off his bike.

Did I?

I can’t remember now.

It’s a blur.

T
he day
after we almost walked up Thorpe Cloud, Marlena caught the train back to London. She said she had to go and do a proper interview with Nasreen’s parents
.
The
Guardian
actually wanted it.

‘Do you mind if I go?’ she asked, and I laughed and promised her I didn’t. I just wanted her to do well again. She’d paid her dues. She was doing important work this time – and I could see she loved it.

‘Honestly, babe, I love you, but I’m a townie at heart,’ she said as we drove through Derby to the station. ‘All this fresh air and space makes me feel a bit…’

‘A bit what?’ I didn’t mind. I was enjoying learning to be alone, to my surprise.

‘Panicked.’ She lit a fag and blew the smoke out of the window. ‘I will come again, I promise. Soon.’ She kissed and hugged me, smelling of Chanel and cigarettes. The kiss was a second; fast becoming a norm. ‘Or you come down to me, yeah?’

And Marlena was gone.

I owed my little sister a lot, but I didn’t need to say it, it turned out.

It didn’t make me feel panicked, all the space.

It made me feel free.

J
ust before I
left London for good, I did a talk on the subject of stepmothers for my final presentation in the self-assertion class. I went through the fairy tales and the myths, touching on stories like Cinderella and Snow White.

‘Where are all the men in this?’ I finished. ‘What responsibility are
they
taking as they watch their daughters and new wives struggle to meet in a good place? Why are the first wives always pure and innocent? And why is it
always
the girls that have the trouble with these women that replace their mothers? Was Freud right – is it all about the innate jealousy we are born with, wanting to get rid of our same-sex parent? Or is it rubbish – is it just because all the stories were written down by men?’

And the class laughed as if I’d said something clever, all looking up at me. And I said, ‘Still, hopefully, step-parent or not, they – and we –
will
all live happily ever after, masters of our own destiny.’

And the group clapped loudly as I stood there beaming – I could actually feel myself beaming – and I took a little bow.

I won’t let myself be silenced again.

H
ello
!

T
HANK
YOU so much for taking the time to read
The Stepmother
. Without you, there would be no point writing stories, so I am truly grateful and indebted to you for picking up my latest novel, which is a bit of a twist on Snow White, as I’m sure you realised.

The subject’s one that’s close to my heart: we all know families, however close, can be tricky – and in this day and age, more and more of us live in stepfamilies, which can be even more tricky than our natural ones (though that’s not a given!). I hope I might have addressed some of the issues that come with the merging of families – though I sincerely hope none of you has had to endure what some of my characters go through!

And if you
have
enjoyed
The Stepmother
then I would be even more grateful – if that’s possible – if you could take the time to write a quick review, or tell one of your friends – or family – about the book! Writers are not much without their readers’ support, and it’s always fantastic to hear from anyone who has taken the trouble to pick up one of my books. If you’d like to get in touch, I can be contacted through Facebook, Twitter or Goodreads – or my own website, where I sometimes remember to blog! Finally if you’d like to keep up-to-date with all my latest releases, just sign up here:

A
nd
, as always, happy reading ☺️

• @claireseeber
  
• ClaireSeeberAuthor