Page 23 of The Good Girl

Chapter Twenty-Two

Molly sat on the patio steps staring at the lawn, not seeing, just staring, her hands resting limply in her lap.

To her left, the pool in the corner of the garden was covered over and she wished it was open so she could run across the grass and dive straight in.

Wash herself and everything away. She hadn’t changed out of the dress from the night before, creased and stained with something she didn’t want to examine too closely.

Her mother was dead. That simple, brutal fact sounded like a klaxon in her mind, over and over.

A hideous noise that silenced everything else.

She stared down at her bare feet planted on the soft grass.

The same grass her mum used to pace across in her Birkenstocks, talking too loudly on the phone, or watching the gardener, making sure he mowed straight, alternate rows in the lawn so it looked stripey.

Now she was gone. Would never feel the tickle of grass on her skin or complain about a wobbly line.

Molly couldn’t cry. The tears wouldn’t come.

Not in the way she thought they would or should.

It felt more like drowning slowly, lungs filling up inch by inch.

Grief, she realised, didn’t always rush in howling, screaming and crying.

Sometimes it came quietly, like mist rolling over the garden in winter.

Molly knew she should be doing something useful.

She should comfort Dee. She should get up.

She should do a million things. But all she could do was sit, rigid and unable to escape the echo of Magda’s words.

Her mum knew Shane was seeing someone. He was holding her to ransom. Said he’d have the last laugh.

Those phrases played on a loop now. Molly clutched her arms, cold despite the warmth of the day.

She remembered being with Shane in the hotel room.

The things they’d done. The things he’d whispered.

And hours before he was here, arguing with her mum.

Making threats, probably making her cry, knowing that the woman she asked about was Molly, her own daughter.

And then she remembered her mother’s body.

The blood. The unnatural bend of her limbs.

The slackness of her mouth, her face almost unrecognisable.

A silk slipper by her head, the other on the stair above.

The moment she had seen her was the worst moment of her whole life.

That was followed closely by the here and now because since she’d heard Magda’s description of events, Molly felt like she was slap-bang in the middle of a sick reality TV show and her family, more to the point, she and Shane, were about to become unwilling stars.

Thinking of him made her skin crawl because somewhere deep inside, she knew. She knew it wasn’t just a fall. That it wasn’t some tragic accident. She knew her mother hadn’t slipped. She had seen the fear in Magda’s eyes. The hesitation. The way she had glanced at Dee before telling the truth.

Shane had been the last one to see her poor mum alive. He hadn’t gone to Glasgow. He was late to the hotel. Molly thought back to his behaviour when he arrived, tried to remember if he acted differently but she couldn’t focus and see him clearly because her head was all over the place.

A thought came, unbidden. What if he’d lost his temper when her mum told him about the divorce?

And he’d snapped and pushed her. Was he capable of that?

She thought back to what Phoebe had told her about poor Kye, and that Shane had threatened him, roughed him up and scared him off.

So yes, maybe he was. Another question pinged in.

What did Shane have on her mum? How was he holding her to ransom?

Was this all about money and what he stood to lose in a divorce or was there more to it?

One thing that eased the tension in Molly’s heart was that for now, their secret was safe and only the two of them knew who the mystery woman was.

And then a thought that made a sob catch in Molly’s throat, that at least before she died, her mum didn’t find out how badly Molly had betrayed her.

The thought of her mum finding out like that flooded her body with a shock wave of fresh shame and as the tidal gates gave way, finally she was able to cry.

Huge, bone-rattling sobs that almost choked her, making her back and throat ache.

It was as she managed to regain control and the tears began to ease, that the doorbell rang.

The detective had arrived. Molly inhaled shakily, pressing her hands to her face, trying to regulate her breathing.

She heard Magda calling her name so stood, ready to face whatever and whoever was waiting inside and for the sake of self-preservation, continue with the charade that was becoming her life.