Page 44 of Twisted Lies

Frost pulled into a service station once she figured she was about halfway home.

The chat with Ariane Debegorski had been both heartbreaking and rage inducing.

Once started, Ariane had talked openly about the abuse and her feelings. She had said that she couldn’t see how she would ever trust a man again. That she would always swallow her own opinions for fear she might be physically attacked for answering back. Between the tears, she had explained how she had spent years trying to understand what it was within her that had given him the right to treat her in such a way. She talked of the guilt of escaping with her life when someone else had now lost theirs.

‘Did you honestly feel he was capable of killing you?’ Frost had asked.

There had been no hesitation in her response.

‘Absolutely. In his rages, Nick became another person. There was no reaching him. The escalation of the violence convinced me my life was in danger.’

As she’d been speaking openly, Frost couldn’t help but picture what a compelling witness she would be for the prosecution. A first-hand account of both the violence and the escalation.

She’d begged Ariane to consider it, but the woman had flatly refused and then asked her to leave.

She had respected the woman’s request, though she had tried to drop a few earworms as she’d made her way to the door.

She took out her phone and dialled Penny’s number, once she’d emailed her request for the court transcripts of the original trial, which would form the basis of her article this evening.

‘Hi, Penny, it’s Tracy Frost from—’

‘Hi, Tracy,’ Penny responded.

She was struck by two things. The warmth in her voice and the use of her first name. Everyone except her mother called her Frost.

‘I read your article twice, and then me and Mum read it together and cried.’

‘Penny, I’m sorry if—’

‘No, please don’t apologise. It was refreshing to read about her in that way. You captured her personality accurately. It got me and Mum talking about all the good times, all the years we had with her before she met Nick. It was good for us and it helped.’

Frost didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t remember a time she’d been thanked for something she’d written. But she had to give Penny a warning.

‘Listen, you might want to give tonight’s article a miss. It’s all about the injuries Trisha sustained. I want people to know everything this bastard did to your sister. It may be hard to read.’

‘We sat through it all at the trial. We know how she suffered.’

‘And one more thing, Penny, just so you know, Trisha didn’t stop trusting you. She didn’t stop opening up because she wasn’t close to you. It’s the exact opposite. She was trying to protect you.’

‘I’m sorry but how…?’

‘Your car accident. You told me she stopped sharing with you when you were rear-ended. There’s no way to prove it, but I’m absolutely sure Nick was behind it.’

Frost heard the sharp intake of breath but continued: ‘The same thing happened to Ariane when she threatened to leave him. Her father was injured in exactly the same way. It was a warning and it worked. He knew that threatening the safety of the people Trisha loved most was a solid way of controlling her. She stopped talking to you because she didn’t want you to get hurt.’

Frost stopped speaking when she heard the gentle sobbing on the other end of the phone.

‘Thank you, Tracy, I always wondered if I somehow let her down in those last few weeks.’

‘You didn’t.’

‘That means more to me than you’ll ever know, but Tracy, I have to ask: Why are you doing this?’

Frost opened her mouth to speak before realising she didn’t even know the answer to that herself.

Thirty-Four

Ormiston Forge Academy was the new name for what had once been Heathfield High School. Situated on Wrights Lane, in Old Hill, the school was less than a mile away from where the boys lived.