My Mother's Lies: The BRAND NEW edge-of-your-seat psychological thriller from Diane Saxon

1

PRESENT DAY – SUNDAY, 30 JUNE 2024, 3.30 P.M. – SIOBHAN

Siobhan Martin reversed her car into the only space she could find in the Wrexham Maelor Hospital car park, breathing in as though that would allow her car more room. Her mirrors skimmed through the neighbouring cars’ mirrors by a hair’s breadth, and she allowed herself to sigh out as she turned off the engine.

Without air-con, the car filled with stifling heat as the sun beat through the windscreen. She edged open the driver’s door and sucked in again to squeeze herself out of the narrow gap. It seemed that in recent years car parking spaces had become smaller while cars were made larger all the time. She couldn’t moan; her own SUV was too big for one, but then she needed it to transport all the feed and bedding for the smallholding she owned with her mum.

Her mum, who was currently in hospital, having broken her hip when she slipped over in the chicken compound. The heatwave had baked the ground so hard that Siobhan heard the crack of her mum’s hip as the woman went down.

Frantic, Siobhan had called 999 and shielded her mum from the relentless sun with two large umbrellas and a sheet hung between them. Regardless of all the precautions she’d taken, her mum had still gone into shock and was severely dehydrated as Siobhan had been advised to give her nothing until she’d been through the hospital A&E process in case she went straight into surgery. Once she’d been assigned a bed to await her operation, which they’d delayed until the following morning, she’d been put on fluids. The last Siobhan had seen of her, she’d looked like a frail shadow of her former self.

Siobhan pushed the driver’s door closed, locked it, looped the strap of her handbag over her shoulder and made her way towards the main entrance of the hospital. The light dress she’d slipped on after her shower an hour earlier already stuck to her as sweat beaded across her skin, caused not only by the weather but by panic and fear trembling through her veins. A sleepless night had also contributed to her sensitivity.

As an estate agent, it wasn’t always easy to work from home, but she’d managed to organise a couple of days where she could work flexible hours. After all, she didn’t want to use up holiday allowances until her mum needed her back home. It wasn’t as though she worked for a large practice with people who could fill in for her, and her boss was not exactly the most understanding. It should have been her weekend to work. All day Saturday and a half day on Sunday. Ivan Brown was the kind of person who expected his staff to trawl their way into the office no matter how deep the snow or whether or not the car had broken down. During Covid, despite putting her on furlough, he’d requested that she go into the office every day just to pick up the post and deal with it. Requested was not entirely correct. Demanded, with some degree of aggression. What was she supposed to do? Lose her job?

Siobhan had been contemplating a move, looking at options, but unless she moved to the city, there weren’t that many vacancies she could apply for in her area of work. All the estate agents knew each other. Her application would hardly be a secret. That was the way it worked in Wales. That being said, Tracy Hartridge of Hartridge and Carlton had been making noises about Sean Carlton retiring soon. She’d also been hinting at taking on someone younger, more driven. Someone who could perhaps take over the practice when she wanted to retire. An exit strategy. It was a prospect Siobhan had been contemplating. Another year and it was a possibility. Tracy was a nice woman. A good woman. Her clients came back to her time and again, her employees stayed. Always a good sign.

In the meantime, Siobhan had yet to figure out how she was going to cope right now. Her mum was the one who looked after the animals on their smallholding as a rule. Three pygmy goats, two donkeys, forty-two chickens, six cats and a dog. They’d have more dogs again soon, but they were waiting for the right ones from the rescue centre. Ones that would fit in with their way of life.

Siobhan’s mum was thirty-five when Siobhan was born. Now sixty-six, she had led a quiet life dedicated to her smallholding in the last few years. It seemed her mum preferred to keep out of the limelight, spending her time in the company of animals rather than humans.

Of the forty-two chickens, two were cockerels. Neither liked Siobhan. Truth be told, she wasn’t so keen on them either. The huge Buff Orpington observed her with murder in his eye. Siobhan was never quite sure why they had cockerels, but her mum reassured her that it was a deterrent to foxes.

Siobhan wasn’t so sure.

Her mum raised income by delivering fresh eggs daily to the local corner shop and through the honesty box she’d set up at the side of the road. The latter method often proved to be a loss leader as, all too frequently, the honesty part of it failed and they would find someone had swiped both the eggs and the money from the box, leaving it empty.

Her mum persisted. The local shop took two dozen eggs daily and normally sold them all, but if there was a build-up and they weren’t selling as many for any given reason, her mum was left with a glut.

Siobhan had spent the morning giving Beau, their black Labrador, a 5 a.m. walk down to the river before the heat of the day kicked in, feeding him and the six cats, and collecting the eggs from the previous day that had been abandoned due to her mum’s accident.

The treadle feeders they used to discourage rats had needed to be refilled with layers’ pellets and mixed corn, but that meant she had approximately five days’ worth of feed in them, which was one less job to do daily. She’d cleaned out the housing units, the waterers, the goats’ house and the donkey shed, which was the chore her mum had embarked on when her accident occurred. For Siobhan, it had proved a welcome distraction.

By lunchtime, Siobhan was overheated and exhausted and, no, she’d not managed to work from home. There’d simply been too much to do and too much on her mind to concentrate. Mucking out was mindless.

With visiting her mum, Siobhan would have to catch up later that evening. Perhaps she’d even treat herself to a weekend glass of wine while she did so.

She stepped into the cool, air-conditioned foyer of the hospital and made her way through the long corridors, using the stairs to go up one floor instead of the lift she knew would be stuffy.

She realised just how much hard work her mum put into keeping the rescue animals. All of them had come into their lives almost by accident. Her mum couldn’t help saving lost souls. They’d rescued half a dozen chickens first and continued to do so, building their flock. The donkeys had been abandoned when an old man died with no one else to care for them.

In addition, her mum also ran a soup kitchen she’d set up for the homeless. She never turned away waifs and strays. She grew a wealth of food in their fenced-off allotment and instead of profiting from it, she put most of it into supplying those in more need. Siobhan had never questioned her mum’s desire to look after the homeless.

She never had to cook for herself. It wasn’t that she was incapable, but her mum always had an evening meal prepared when she arrived home from work. The freezer was laden with every kind of meal she could think of. All of them meals for two. She’d had spaghetti Bolognese the previous day and would again that night instead of the Sunday roast her mum would normally cook. The following two days would be fish pie.

She didn’t want to deplete the freezer too much, though, as her mum wouldn’t be capable of standing in the kitchen for some time once she was allowed home after the hip replacement she’d been about to have the previous afternoon. Knowing her mum, she’d insist on cooking. You couldn’t keep a good woman down.

When she’d called the hospital early that morning, expecting to be able to visit, the sister on the ward had advised her to leave it until mid-afternoon before she came to visit.

She thought nothing of it.

Until she pushed through the doors into the heat of the orthopaedic ward, where the air-conditioning appeared to be switched off, to find the bed her mum was allocated the day before empty.

Her heart lurched.

Not just empty but cleared out.

2

PRESENT DAY – SUNDAY, 30 JUNE 2024, 4 P.M. – SIOBHAN

The sick feeling didn’t subside even when the nurse at the desk quietly informed her that her mum had been put into a side room.

‘Why?’

The nurse’s soft voice penetrated her concern. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs…’

‘Miss. Martin. Siobhan Martin.’

‘Siobhan.’ The nurse edged out from behind the nurses’ station, manoeuvring around the meds trolley to come and stand beside her, her features calm, but there was a flicker of something in her eyes that Siobhan couldn’t quite place. Concern? Apprehension?

‘They’re just in with her now, making her comfortable.’ She chinned towards a private room at the end of the long line of bays.

A trace of worry made Siobhan’s stomach clench once more. ‘Why? What’s going on? Can I see her?’

‘Yes, of course. Let me check if they’re ready for you. Mr Carmichael is just doing his rounds, he’d like to see you.’

‘Me? He wants to see me?’

Was that the normal way of things? Siobhan had no memory of either her or her mum ever going to their GP’s surgery, let alone the hospital. She’d no idea what the process was.

‘Would you like to come through to the office to wait for him? Can I get you a cup of coffee? Tea?’

‘I…’

The heat in the ward swarmed over her and Siobhan pressed her fingers against her lips as she pushed down on panic that threatened to surge up and overwhelm her.

‘Water, if you have some, please.’

She allowed the nurse to guide her into a tiny box room jammed with equipment and paperwork, a small computer screen almost swallowed by the piles of files surrounding it.

She sank into a plastic chair and allowed the quiet of the room to settle her. It wasn’t silent, but the noise and movement from the main ward were muffled, blending into white noise, so she found the time to think.

Was this normal? She’d not noticed in her brief look around other visitors being taken to one side; they all appeared to be perched on the edge of chairs next to their loved ones in bays of beds that ran the entire length of the corridor.

Siobhan watched through the wide window overlooking the corridor as nurses hustled from bed to bed, bay to bay, under pressure and understaffed.

Her heart skipped a beat as a tall, regal-looking gentleman let himself out of the side room that the nurse had indicated to Siobhan. She wanted to spring to her feet and rush down the corridor to him, demanding to know what was going on, but there was nothing about his demeanour that invited that.

Weariness etched deep lines around steel-grey eyes as he made his way towards her. The slight bow of his shoulders indicated the exhaustion he must feel. Not a young man, Siobhan wondered at the toll the job had taken on him and why he would stay so long. He definitely looked over retirement age to her.

Covid had managed to dispose of so many of the experienced medical profession, either by killing them, maiming them or simply making them give up as their eyes were opened to a whole new world of horrors.

Her mum wasn’t there because of Covid, merely an accident. Normally a healthy woman, Siobhan had been surprised at the ease at which her mum’s hip had snapped. She’d re-run the moment over and over in her head but still she couldn’t get the sound of it from her mind.

Siobhan surged to her feet as the consultant stepped up to the door. Her breath halted as he paused, his hand on the door handle while a nurse in a navy uniform waylaid him. Possibly a sister. Siobhan didn’t really care. She wanted to see him. She wanted answers.

The grim set of his mouth should have been warning enough as the doctor slipped into the small room and made way for the sister to accompany him as she sidled in behind him, but Siobhan held on to the hope that still gripped her.

How bad could it be? Would she need to get help in until her mum was back on her feet? She was going to have to work from home. It wasn’t the easiest when she had to schedule appointments with clients and show potential buyers around homes.

Nothing mattered other than her mum. She closed her eyes and envisioned her mum, weak and pallid as she lay in the dirt in the blazing sunshine. Her heart quivered. Her eyes popped open as the doctor spoke.

‘Miss Martin. I’m Mr Carmichael. Do take a seat.’

Finding herself in such an enclosed area with two other bodies, Siobhan was relieved to melt down into the plastic chair. Mr Carmichael perched himself on the edge of another chair, while the sister stood with her back to the door, hands linked at her waist.

Siobhan had never been in hospital before, barely ever been to a GP surgery. The man in front of her exuded a confidence that was almost overpowering in the enclosed space. He leaned forward in his chair, eyes direct so she felt obliged to burble.

‘Is my mum okay?’

‘Miss Martin, when your mother came into the hospital through A&E, it was our understanding that she’d broken her hip, having taken a fall.’

Siobhan nodded, although she felt like she was missing a key element of their conversation. ‘Yes.’

‘Were you there?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you notice anything out of the ordinary? Does your mother take a tumble on a regular basis?’

‘No.’ She shook her head again, completely at a loss as to where he was going with the conversation, aware of the woman who stood at the door, her arms now folded under her breasts. Closed in. Uncomfortable.

‘My mum is really very tough. Sturdy.’ Her mum might not like that description, but it was true. She lugged small bales of straw and hay and twenty-five-kilogram bags of feed on a daily basis as though they weighed nothing. She may be small, but she was strong, muscular.

Siobhan fidgeted in the hard chair. What the hell was going on?

‘Is something wrong?’

Mr Carmichael gave a long pull of breath, almost an inward sigh. ‘Miss Martin…’

‘Siobhan.’ She was rarely addressed by her surname.

‘Siobhan.’ His brows drew together. ‘I’m very sorry to tell you that your mother’s condition is more complex than we at first believed.’

She drew in a breath to ask a question, but he raised one finger and stopped her mid-thought.

‘It’s my opinion that your mother’s hip was already broken by the time she hit the ground. I believe the cause of the break was not simply the fall, but what came before.’

Siobhan’s heart skipped a beat. ‘What do you mean?’ But she knew in her heart there was something wrong. It was those thoughts that had kept her awake all night. The sound of the crack as she hefted a bag of feed, and then the fall. Not the other way around. She’d thought she’d imagined it. Sweat broke out on her forehead, a sick anticipation curdled her stomach.

‘I’m afraid that once we started your mother’s operation, we discovered something far worse than a straightforward break in her hip and took the decision to bail out. Sadly, your mother sustained the injury because she already has a very serious condition. We’ve conducted tests that we’re awaiting the results for, but… until then, we can do nothing further. We need far more detailed analysis before we continue, for your mother’s safety.’ He paused, sympathy lurking in those steely eyes. ‘We’re looking at whether this is secondary cancer. We are currently conducting tests to see whether and where the primary cancer might be.’

Cancer?

Cancer!

Siobhan raised a hand to her forehead. Her head swam with the overload of information and rush of fear-induced adrenaline.

Her mum had cancer? Cancer that had broken her hipbone? Wasn’t that the hardiest bone?

Siobhan pulled in a breath, but it stuck in her chest. A burning pain lodged. ‘I don’t understand. Cancer. My mum has cancer?’ She could barely process it. The word scraped like sand on her tongue.

‘It appears so.’ Mr Carmichael nodded. The sympathy in his eyes seemed to dissipate and was replaced instead with professional determination. ‘We’re conducting tests to see whether there’s a primary cancer as bone cancer per se is quite rare. We’re looking at the possibility of it originating in her lungs. It may seem a tenuous link, but bone fractures are not uncommon when lung cancer metastasises.’

Lungs!

‘She’s never smoked.’ Not to her knowledge, in any case.

Mr Carmichael shook his head. ‘It doesn’t necessarily mean she won’t get cancer. It could be anything.’ A cynical smile quirked his lips. ‘Life is not always fair. I’ve found over time that there’s no rhyme or reason to cancer. Sometimes the healthiest living people are struck with it. Your mother may be one of those.’

‘How?’

‘Has she shown any recent signs of being… ill?’

Tiredness. Loss of weight. Lack of energy… interest.

Siobhan’s chest squeezed. She should have noticed. She should have realised. Her mum had dropped pounds recently, delighted after being plump and square for so long.

Siobhan wanted to put her head in her hands but stared at Mr Carmichael instead as she thought of how gaunt her mum had looked recently and she’d done nothing. Said nothing. ‘Yes.’ The word fell from her lips. Her shoulders sagged into the curve of the chairback.

‘Without results, I can’t confirm this, but there’s a possibility that what we found has metastasised from elsewhere into her bones, which is why her hip… crumbled. That’s the most likely scenario. Until we get the results of the blood tests and scans we’ve carried out today, we can’t know for sure.’

Siobhan let out a soft moan.

‘I’m sorry.’ He reached for her, placed a cool hand on the burning flesh of her upper arm.

Tears pricked the back of her eyes at that one small show of sympathy and she choked out the next words.

‘Did you fix it? Her hip. Did you manage to fix it?’

Mr Carmichael leaned forward and shook his head. ‘Sorry, as I mentioned earlier, we decided our best course of action when we saw what we were dealing with was to bail out immediately and give her a better chance once we understand what challenges we are facing. Currently, your mother is being kept comfortable. There is nothing we can do to fix her hip until we find out how much damage there is to her connecting bones. Once we know what margins we have to take, we can resume. Be warned, though, she has what we classify as post-operative delirium, caused partially after the fall when she became severely dehydrated. Her body is refusing to take on fluids, despite an intravenous drip. She is very confused. We are doing all we can to assist her, but I think it would be wise to prepare yourself for the worst.’

Worst?

What could be worse than this?

What could possibly be more terrible than being in this room, listening to this doctor?

Death.

Death could be worse.

3

PRESENT DAY – SUNDAY, 30 JUNE 2024, 8.55 P.M. – SIOBHAN

The soft sigh of her mum’s breath was the only sound in the darkening room.

Siobhan had sat by her bed for hours, until the light began to fade. The soft whisper of respect as nurses came and went, from time to time, changing her mum’s catheter or taking her blood pressure.

In all that time, her mum had never so much as opened her eyes, her cool fingers never gave an acknowledging squeeze of her daughter’s gentle clasp.

Sleep had to be the best way, but Siobhan wanted her to know she was there. To acknowledge her presence.

She glanced at her watch.

She needed to go soon. The healthcare workers had brought her coffee and water, but she’d declined the package of sandwiches made with thin plastic-looking bread. She was starting to regret it, but she needed to go home to feed all the animals and bed them down for the night in any case. She could get herself something then. Freshen up and return later.

Mr Carmichael had said she could stay as long as she wanted. They’d find her a comfortable chair.

She peered around in the dusky light. That all depended on what their idea of comfy was, with the single plastic-coated chair in the corner of the room, made for hygiene, not comfort.

She could always bring a throw and a pillow back with her. A book, a flask of real coffee and a snack for later in the night if she wanted to keep awake.

Siobhan slipped her fingers away and felt a slight resistance from her mum’s hand. Real? Or was it imaginary? Her own desperate need for acknowledgement. Awareness.

With her breath held, she leaned closer, coming to her feet so she could lean over and study her mum’s features. Slack mouthed, her mum’s sallow skin lay in folds around her chin. Something Siobhan had never noticed. Never considered. Her mum wasn’t old. Had never acted anything but robust. Healthy.

No longer healthy.

Her bruised eyelids flickered.

‘Mum?’

Siobhan touched the cool arm that lay on top of the white sheet and gave it a gentle rub.

Her mum’s eyes slit open.

‘Who are you?’ The stilted murmur came through pale, dry lips.

‘Mum, it’s me. Siobhan.’

She gave the arm a gentle squeeze, concerned when her mum blinked. Blank eyes stared at her.

‘Siobhan? I don’t know a Siobhan.’

‘Mum… Mum, it’s me.’ Siobhan gave her mum’s arm another gentle squeeze. A prompt for her to recognise her. The woman stilled, her focus turning sharp as though a light had been turned on inside her head.

The door swung open and light from the corridor slashed through the room. Her mum squeezed her eyes closed against the intrusion and rolled her head away. Siobhan turned to confront the interloper.

Mr Carmichael stepped inside and snapped the door closed behind him. ‘My apologies. I’ve had an emergency to deal with and never got to catch up with you or your mother.’

Confused, Siobhan stared at him as he leaned over to click on a small lamp over the bed, throwing her mum’s features into shadows from above that emphasised the hollows in her cheeks and the bruised look under her eyes, giving her a sinister death mask.

He glanced at her mum and then leaned his back against the wall. His face took on a haggard appearance, most likely down to the long hours he’d already worked.

He took in a long breath before he spoke. ‘I’m sorry to tell you that my earlier thoughts on your mother’s condition have been confirmed. Sister will come in shortly and give you any information you need and answer your questions.’

Was he implying that he didn’t want to answer her questions now?

He pushed away from the wall. His face looked gaunt, making Siobhan wonder how many times he’d delivered this news in his career.

Pity stirred in her, because it was easier to think of the doctor right now than face her own desperate situation and her mum’s diagnosis.

If she could throw herself across her mum’s frail body, Siobhan would. She held back. Respect for her mum and a deep resolve not to destroy the woman by burdening her with her own terror. Terror of losing her.

Surely it was best if her mum never even knew. Could they let her slip away without fear?

‘What…’ She could barely find the words. ‘What’s her prognosis? How long…?’ She glanced at her mum’s listless body, eyes a moment ago open, now closed, face slack. Was it rude to discuss her condition while she lay there? What if she could hear?

Mr Carmichael must have been of the same mind as he opened the door and stepped into the corridor, gliding his hand through the air as an invitation for her to join him.

Siobhan hadn’t realised how much she was shaking until she pressed icy fingers to her lips.

‘I’m sorry. I should make myself clear. We’ve had results back on the bloods we took earlier, and the news is not good. Unfortunately, when your mother fell, we believe she may have suffered a blow to her kidney, or kidneys.’

She nodded. Could it get any worse?

Siobhan pictured her mum on the hard ground, partially on her side. When Siobhan had tried to roll her, her mum had cried out in pain. The only thing Siobhan could do was run inside, phone the ambulance, grab a pillow for under her mum’s head and the umbrellas to shade her.

It had taken forty-five minutes for the ambulance to arrive and probably another forty-five until they decided they had her stabilised enough to move her.

‘That, together with the dehydration she suffered…’

‘Because they took too long to get to her?’

He shook his head. ‘Not necessarily. It will be a combination of factors. The blow to her kidneys, the heat, the damage to her hip, shock. Sadly, it all adds up to her being a very poorly patient right now. We will do our best to make her comfortable, but it is a matter of whether her body has had enough.’

‘Enough?’

‘She may just give up.’

Siobhan shook her head. ‘My mum is a fighter.’

The doctor gave her a grim smile. ‘Even the toughest of people sometimes succumb to the elements conspiring against them.’

Siobhan’s brow twitched into a frown. ‘How long…?’ She didn’t really want to ask.

Dr Carmichael shook his head. ‘It’s not as simple as that. If we can stabilise her bloods, then she could be around for some time, otherwise…’ He shrugged.

‘Otherwise, what?’

A piercing sound in the quiet hallway had Siobhan jumping but the doctor automatically raised his hand and glanced at his bleep. Tiredness etched deep into his features. ‘Looks like I won’t be heading home for a while.’

He reached out a hand and gave her elbow a gentle squeeze. ‘I’ll see what I can do to make her comfortable.’

Siobhan watched the back of his white coat recede up the empty corridor, her chest squeezing at the thought of her mum leaving her.

Oh God, what was she going to do? How would she cope?

She loved this woman so much, she’d never even given thought to her mum’s mortality.

Her mum had always been such a strong woman, always known what to do. So independent. She’d moved them around England for the past three decades, until they’d settled four years ago at their smallholding in Wales. Their forever home, as her mum called it.

Well, it may well be forever. For her mum.

She squeezed her eyes closed against the threat of tears and took in a long breath, letting it slide back out again before she was ready to face her mum.

She slipped in through the door, this time noticing immediately her mum’s focused eyes upon her.

Forcing a smile, she stepped close to the bed. ‘Hello, Mum.’

Puzzlement slid over the woman’s pale face, and she withdrew the hand Siobhan reached out to touch. ‘Who are you?’

What had they told her? That her mum had some kind of delirium. Post-operative.

‘It’s me. Siobhan. Your daughter.’

The papery skin over her mum’s forehead twitched into a doubtful scowl. She settled her head more comfortably against the crackly medical pillow, letting out a low groan of pain as she adjusted her body. Her eyes when they met Siobhan’s turned shifty, something Siobhan hadn’t ever noticed before.

‘I don’t have a daughter. I can’t have children.’

A small puff of disbelief carried on the air as Siobhan let out a laugh.

‘I am your daughter.’