A Perfect Christmas (39 page)

‘So why are you here?’ she snapped nastily.

‘To find out what you have done with my daughter. Show me you have at least a shred of decency, Nerys, and tell me where I can find her, so I can get her back with me, where she belongs.’

She vehemently insisted, ‘If
she
gives me those papers back, right now, then I will tell you.’ She looked over at Cait, eyes fixed on the pieces of paper she had not as yet inspected.

A puzzled Cait couldn’t understand why her mother was so desperate to get her hands on them. Her brain whirled into action. They had to hold information that Nerys was terrified of anyone finding out.

She made to look at them but was stopped by a frenzied cry from her mother. ‘Don’t you dare read those! They are my private papers. Give them to me NOW.’

Just then a voice was heard calling weakly from downstairs, ‘Nerys . . . Nerys, I need you, darling.’

At her husband’s summons she pushed Glen out of the way so she could call back down the stairs. The voice that only moments ago had been harsh and nasty had become tender and caring. ‘I won’t be long, darling. I’m just . . . seeing to something. Make yourself comfortable by the fire and I’ll be down in a minute.’ Then she spun back again and told her audience, ‘My husband needs me. Now get out, all of you, before I have the police called. And
you
,’ she wagged a warning finger at Cait, ‘give me those papers back before you leave.’ She marched across, hand outstretched to snatch them from the girl.

But Cait wasn’t about to let her until she had discovered just what it was her mother was so desperate to keep secret. Quick as a flash, she jumped up and dashed over to the bed, throwing herself bodily across it. She meant to twist over to the other side and position herself behind Glen and Jan for protection while she discovered what her mother was trying to hide. She’d bargained without Nerys’s determination to stop her. Lunging after Cait, she grabbed her legs, digging her nails deep into her flesh and pulling her back towards her so that she could grab the papers out of her hand. Both Glen and Jan dived immediately to Cait’s aid. Jan threw herself at Nerys, trying to pull her away from her daughter, while Glen fought to wrench her hands off the girl’s legs. In the confusion no one noticed that the offending papers had slipped out of Cait’s hand when she had flung herself down on the bed, before they had fluttered to the floor on the other side . . . all but Glen, that was. Finally he managed to ease Nerys’s grip on Cait’s legs, and Nerys and Jan toppled over and landed on the floor. As soon as Glen had pulled Cait safely out of reach of Nerys, he dashed across to retrieve the papers from where he’d seen them land.

Nerys meanwhile had scrambled up from the floor. Seeing Jan was nearly back on her feet too, she gave her a heavy shove and toppled her back down again. She looked round wildly for Cait and saw she was no longer on the bed but standing on the other side of it, with no papers in her hand. Nerys started frantically searching the floor. Meanwhile Jan was up on her feet and had dashed over to Cait to put a comforting arm around her, pulling her close.

It was Glen who stopped Nerys from searching for something she wasn’t going to find.

‘Looking for these?’ he asked, holding the papers out towards her.

She froze rigid. Her face seemed to pale alarmingly, her eyes to fill with abject terror. It was apparent to her that he had read the information the papers contained.

Looking back at her with disgust and loathing, he said harshly, ‘You know what I can do to you and your precious
husband
with this information I have on you both. I’ll strike a bargain with you instead. Tell me what you did with my daughter so that I can get her back with me where she belongs. Give me back my house and my business. You can keep what money you have in your bank. Then both of you can pack your bags and make sure you get far enough away that you never risk bumping into me again. Either you agree to my terms or you know what the consequences will be. Oh, and one more thing. You agree to leave Caitlyn with us. You’ve obviously never loved your daughter . . .’

Nerys gave a shrill laugh. ‘That’s because she’s
not
my daughter. My daughter is dead! When you lose a child you dearly loved, the pain and heartache of that loss never goes away. Then I saw a chance to put a stop to the never-ending torment through the arrival of another child in my life. I would make this child mine, change her name to my child’s, and then she would become her and it would be like we’d never lost her.

‘I tried and tried but I just couldn’t love her, and neither could Samuel. Our love for our own child, our flesh and blood, was too great to share with another. I began to hate the sight of the other child, resent her for being alive when my own daughter was dead, but by that time it was too late for me to get rid of her so I had no choice but to put up with her until she was old enough to fend for herself. So have your precious daughter back with my blessing. Go on, take her now. Get her out of my sight!’

Glen froze at the significance of what Nerys had just told him. He spun his head to look over at Cait, huddled next to Jan who was holding her protectively. Jan was looking back at him, her face wreathed in shock. He couldn’t see the look on the face of the girl he now knew wasn’t Caitlyn Thomas at all but his own beloved daughter Lucy. She had her head buried in Jan’s shoulder and he could see she was quietly sobbing. He desperately wanted to rush to her now, gather her in his arms, declare his undying love for her, but their reunion would have to wait as first he needed to deal with this selfish wicked woman before him, get her out of his and his daughter’s life for good.

He gave Jan a look that asked her to stay here with Lucy and look after her while he saw to what he needed to do. Then he took hold of Nerys’s arm tightly and, with her screaming at him to let her go, dragged her out of the bedroom and down the stairs, into the lounge where the other selfish, wicked individual, oblivious to what had been going on above his head, was waiting for her to attend to him. Pushing Nerys inside the room, Glen turned and shut the door firmly behind him.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

I
t was gone eleven o’clock when an exhausted Jan sank down in an armchair opposite Glen to look worriedly at him. He was seemingly staring into space, looking absolutely shattered, though that wasn’t surprising with all that had gone on earlier and what he was having to deal with now. She desperately wanted to go over to him and put her arms around him and offer him comfort, but not as a friend which she knew was all she was to him.

Sensing Jan had returned, Glen looked over at her and flashed a wan smile. ‘Is she all right?’ he asked, though in truth he knew it was a hollow question as it would take Lucy far longer than a few hours to accept and come to terms with the truth of her birth.

Jan nodded. ‘She’s finally fallen asleep. Poor lamb was absolutely exhausted. She’ll need a bit of time but she will be fine you know, Glen. How could she not be with you as her father? You’ll make sure she is, won’t you?’

He nodded. ‘If it’s the last thing I do, I will.’

Jan then looked at him for a moment before asking tentatively, ‘Are you ready to tell me what it was Nerys didn’t want anyone to find out? I witnessed her signature on that paper you made her write out, giving you back legal possession of your business and the house, but I’ve no idea how you got her to do that.’

He said to her, ‘I’m sorry not to have explained before but I don’t want Lucy ever to find out what I’m about to tell you. She’s enough to cope with already, getting used to her new name, the fact that she’s actually a year younger than she thought she was, plus learning just what monsters her supposed mother and father were. I can’t believe she lived with them all those years, being treated so appallingly, when they realised they could not replace their own daughter.’

‘Monsters!’ Jan exclaimed. ‘But what secret were Nerys and her husband hiding, Glen?’

‘Oh, that man she lived with wasn’t her husband. He never could be, not in the eyes of the law anyway. He was her brother. But it’s worse than that. He’s her twin brother.’

Jan gasped with shock. ‘Oh, my God!’ It took a moment for it to sink in before she said, ‘No wonder she didn’t allow people to get close to her, she was afraid someone might guess their secret.’

‘Even after I had promised I wouldn’t take any further action so long as she agreed to do what I said, she still insisted on telling me their story in an effort to make me feel sorry for them! She was terrified I might break my word and go to the police, have them arrested and put in jail.’

‘So what is their story, Glen?’ Jan urged him, desperate to know what had driven Nerys to act as wickedly as she had.

‘She told me that right from when they were born Samuel and she shared an unbreakable bond. If their mother tried to part them, they would both scream hysterically until they were put back side by side. Samuel was born with a weak chest and heart, and Nerys always protected him. They needed no one else in their lives but each other. While they were growing up in Wales they were looked on as oddities because they were never seen out without each other and went everywhere hand in hand.

‘When they were about fourteen they knew that their love for one another was far stronger than that of normal siblings. They made a plan that when they were twenty-one and no longer under their parents’ jurisdiction they would run away together, go somewhere far away where no one knew them, and then they would live as man and wife.

‘Then Nerys discovered she was pregnant. They were nearly sixteen at the time. They were overjoyed and couldn’t wait to be parents to their baby, but they knew they’d never be allowed to keep it or raise it together once the truth got out.

‘They had no choice but to bring their plan forward and run away together. With what little money they had managed to save and what they took from their parents, they packed up their belongings and stole away in the middle of the night and eventually arrived in Leicester. They stayed in a cheap lodging house for a few days while they got themselves jobs and two rooms upstairs in someone’s house. For a short while they were blissfully happy, looking forward to the arrival of their baby.

‘But very soon Samuel lost his job because of poor health, and it fell to Nerys to support them on the small wage she was earning as a sock turner in a factory. Once the rent had been paid and a few shillings put aside for gas, there wasn’t much left over to buy food or anything else they needed. Samuel fell ill with a bad cold which turned to pneumonia. He had to be hospitalised. The doctors managed to save his life but the worry sent Nerys into early labour and the baby was born a month early. The child was small, with a weak heart and lungs. Samuel and Nerys were told that she wouldn’t live for more than a few days as there was nothing that could be done for her. She lived for three and they never left her cot side as their daughter gradually lost her fight for life.

‘Grief-stricken for her dead baby, and in the knowledge that if she didn’t do something drastic she would lose Samuel too, which to her was unthinkable as without him her life would be totally meaningless, Nerys vowed that she didn’t care what it took, she would give him the kind of life the doctor had told her he needed to keep him alive and by her side. She knew her best asset was her looks. Told me she had nothing against me personally, in fact she quite liked me, but unfortunately I was the first man she came across who was an ideal candidate for her plan.

‘In a local pub she found the type of tough she knew would carry out the hijack. After charming him into believing they had a future together, she told him of a way she knew of to make a lot of money. The morning after the hijack she went to visit him, pretending to be in a panic. She’d seen the police swarming all over Rose’s, she said, and had found out from a young PC that someone had reported seeing the stolen goods being transported into an outhouse at the back of the factory. He’d given the police a very exact description. With his criminal background it wouldn’t be long before the police came looking for the hijacker, so it was best he take himself somewhere far away until the heat died down. Nerys said she’d let him know when it was safe for him to come back, which of course she never did. The man walking the dog who alerted the police to his suspicions was, of course, Samuel – and there was no dog. The rest you know already, Jan.’

Glen paused for a moment, heaved a deep sigh and said tiredly, ‘I’m just glad that Nerys is finally out of my life for good. And Lucy’s too.’

Jan sat silent for a moment as she digested this horrendous story. What Nerys had done to Glen had been selfish and wicked, but she felt a glimmer of pity for the suffering she had endured in losing her only child. Nevertheless she was overjoyed that Glen had finally got his daughter back as well as what rightly belonged to him. His and Lucy’s futures were now secure. But their good fortune would separate them from her. Glen would now be back in the circles he truly belonged in, far removed from the one she occupied, and Jan knew she would have to prepare herself to say goodbye to the man she had come to care for very deeply. His absence from her life would leave a big hole.

She asked him, ‘Do you think you’ll move into the Thomases’ house or sell it and buy another?’

‘Oh, I haven’t given anything like that a thought yet, Jan. I still keep pinching myself that I’ve got my daughter back . . . that she’s lying in your bed now fast asleep, and that come Monday I’ll have a business to run. I suppose I should give our living accommodation some urgent thought, though, as it’s not fair on either you or Lucy to be sharing a bed for long. I’ll see about putting the house on the market and getting us another one as soon as possible. In the meantime, we could always rent a bigger place while we look around for a new house to suit us. Oh, goodness me, to think that only weeks ago I never dreamed I would live in a house again, let alone be thinking of buying one.’

Jan felt selfish for dreading the end of their time together. It could even be tomorrow they parted company if he found a house that suited him and it was available. She realised Glen was looking at her searchingly and asked, ‘What are you looking at me like that for?’