The Last Resort, page 28
Only now I know I am capable of going to terrifying lengths when it comes to my sister.
I am a good person who has done a bad thing. I tell myself this every day. But it isn’t enough when it comes to my work. I can’t possibly carry on counselling others when I don’t live by the rules I hand out.
‘I don’t know what I am without my job,’ I say now. I always saw it as a turning point for me, a pivotal time in my life when I reached thirty and realised I needed to move forward instead of living as if I was still nineteen.
Now it is the end of that era, and I’m not sure how I’m going to move on from it. I can’t even make any positive plans. I might tell myself that in time I can come back to it, but I don’t know if that will be the case. All I know is that for now I need to step away and finally deal with the ghost of my sister, as hard as it will be when there is so much hurt.
But my husband is helping me address all the things that have been destroyed, one by one. Like the broken relationship with my mum, which I want to rebuild. When I called her to ask if we could visit, she cried down the phone to me. ‘I would love that, Maggie,’ she said, and I felt myself cut deeper that we had let it go so far. ‘I have a spare room that I can make up for you, and there are lots of lovely walks we can go on with the dog.’ I could hear an excitement in her voice that I hadn’t expected. ‘How long will you come for? Because you’re welcome as long as you want to stay, you know that, don’t you?’
‘I do, Mum,’ I told her, though I hadn’t ever considered it.
‘And we don’t need to talk about anything. Unless you want to,’ she added.
‘Let’s see how it goes,’ I said. I hadn’t told her on the call that I had visited Kieran again since he has been released from prison. I don’t know how she’d feel about it, but it was something I needed to do.
After his release Kieran Blake moved into a small studio on the outskirts of Keyport and I met him at a café in the harbour. He didn’t look much different from how he had been when I saw him a few months ago in prison.
‘I don’t even know what to say,’ I told him, as I placed a mug of tea in front of him and sat down opposite. ‘I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am for what happened to you.’ My words didn’t mean anything; they didn’t stretch anywhere near far enough to make up for the years he had lost.
Kieran told me that back then he’d been trying to make a better life for himself, when he was wrongly convicted. Now he has to start again, and it’s going to be so much harder.
‘What will you do?’ I asked him.
‘Oh, I don’t really have any plans,’ he said. ‘Just one day at a time.’
My heart ached for the man who had lived his life suffering for a crime he hadn’t committed. If I could never comprehend the injustice of it, I had no idea how he would be able to.
‘I’m sorry no one believed you,’ I told him.
‘Maggie, if you hadn’t believed me in the end, then I might still be there,’ he said with a smile that only just reached his eyes.
I nodded. I didn’t think this was true, because I would always have pushed Erin as far as I could, once she told me about Lily’s necklace, but I didn’t say anything. I didn’t think he needed me to.
We spoke for another twenty minutes or so, at which point Kieran seemed ready to go as he gathered his coat.
Nothing could make up for the years he’d been wrongly imprisoned, but at least the right man was now paying for what he did to my sister. I know, because I finally have the whole story. Sam Pashley is prepared to tell it to me himself, and one day I might be ready to listen, but for now I have it from Erin. I know what happened to my sister in the moments before she died.
I have seen Erin once since she has been out of hospital. We met at the beach, with our dogs for distraction – somewhere we didn’t need to look at each other’s faces if we didn’t want to, when the pain between us became too much to bear.
I asked her to tell me the whole story. I needed to hear all of it. When she finished I said, ‘Lily never needed to die.’ Of course I knew that already, but to hear how it happened made it so heart-achingly raw.
We walked along the stony beach in silence for a while, both of us most likely grappling with the things we wanted to say.
I wanted to ask Erin if she ever regretted not saying that she knew it was me who hit her. Maybe I just wanted to know for sure that she was never going to say she’d remembered. Part of me thought I shouldn’t bring it up, in case I was wrong and she really didn’t know.
But, deep down, I felt sure this wasn’t the case. And so eventually I asked her. ‘Do you regret not admitting you knew it was me?’
Erin didn’t answer for a moment as she considered the question and I was grateful that she did, because when she spoke it was with the honesty I wanted. ‘Some days I do,’ she admitted. ‘I don’t like having secrets, I feel like there have been far too many of them.’
No one has been convicted of Erin’s hit-and-run. DI Clayton, who was in charge of the case, had to finally concede that it was a random accident and not connected to anything else. It appeared to jar with her that it was a coincidence, but she had no other evidence.
‘But,’ Erin went on, ‘I then remember why I made the decision. I don’t want to cause any more pain to anyone,’ she said. ‘I played a part in your family’s suffering, even if I couldn’t help it. I don’t want to create any more.’
She said it so simply. She made her decision and I will be grateful to her for ever for that. But it isn’t so simple for me. I have it hanging over me again, another cloud that I can’t address because I cannot talk to anyone but Richard about it. But I also have to accept that it’s what I deserve.
Richard. My saviour. I turn round in my room in the Cliff House to find him slowly packing up books around the photo of me and Lily. He is still here with me. He could have walked away after he discovered the truth, but I know he never will. Richard loves me with all his heart and I know that when you love someone that much, you never let them go.
‘Thank you,’ I say to him as I go over to help.
‘Always,’ he tells me.
Acknowledgements
The idea for writing about a therapist came from the wonderful Nelle Andrew, my agent of over seven years now. I love the idea of someone having so much power over their couples and, having played with different stories for a couple of months, I finally came up with what I wanted THE LAST RESORT to be. I hope you all love it.
Thanks as always must go to my amazing editor, Emily Griffin at Penguin Random House, who I have now been working with for over six years! I feel genuinely so lucky to have both you and Nelle on my team because your guidance and ideas are second to none.
As ever, two brilliant teams have got us the point of putting a book on a shelf. At RML many thanks go to Charlotte Bowerman, Alexandra Cliff and Rachel Mills. And at Penguin Random House to Rachel Kennedy, Rose Waddilove, Jess Muscio, Annie Peacock, Emma Grey Gelder, Issie Levin, Olivia Allen, Jade Unwin and Evie Kettlewell. And for the first time I am so excited to be working with Lucy Price-Lewis and Gareth Price-Lewis on producing the audiobook.
Congratulations and thanks go to Lynsey Clayton for her generous bid in the Ukraine appeal, which won her the chance to have her name in the book. I hope you like DI Clayton!
Thanks also to those who have helped me with all the medical and policing parts that I would not have had a clue about: my cousin, James Read, who gave me graphic detail on sustained injuries – it really was just what I needed for poor Erin to go through. To Lisa Grubb for your insight into A&E nursing – thank you for helping me bring it to life. To Chris Bradford, as always, for everything criminal. You have been there right from the start through every one of my books and I am truly grateful for your knowledge and time. And also to Louise Reynolds and Jen Wyatt for your invaluable insights into the world of counselling.
I was thrilled to be picked for the Richard and Judy promotion again. Having my debut novel, NOW YOU SEE HER selected back in 2019 was an honour, and to be chosen a second time was the most exciting news. Every time I write a book I aim for it to be better than the last: my ‘best yet’. I don’t know whether I achieve this every time, and I am always proud of each one I write. But to have this kind of acknowledgement is such a boost.
I am so grateful to you, my readers, for picking up my books, for recommending them to others, and for sharing your thoughts online. It always makes my day to hear how much you have enjoyed reading a story that has been so close to me for the last year of writing it.
As always thank you to my family. Mum, for your constant support and love and for always crying whenever you read a first copy, or a second copy, or in fact any copy. I know how proud you are.
To my wonderful husband, John. Here it is, your first dedication that you don’t have to share with anyone! I hope you know how grateful I am for the time I have always had to write, and the constant pride and enthusiasm you give me. One day I promise I will write a book about an evil, gaslighting actuary as you would like me to.
And to Bethany and Joseph. I already said it in another of my books but you really are my greatest achievements. Being your mum is what I love most in my life.
THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING
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Published in Penguin Books 2023
Copyright © Heidi Perks, 2023
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Cover Image © Lyn Randle / Trevillion Images
ISBN: 978-1-529-15956-1
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Heidi Perks, The Last Resort
