Troy Barker: “And you drove when you were drunk.”
Alec Winters: “I didn’t know this would happen. I didn’t mean for any of this.”
Troy Barker: “You think your son is dead?”
Alec Winters: “He took his seatbelt off to get something from the back seat. I saw something on the road and I swerved. There’s blood everywhere, Troy. I need you here now.”
Troy Barker: “I’m on my way. Do not call anyone else. Do not move or touch anything until I get there. If anyone else stops, keep them there, stall them, but do not call the police or an ambulance. I will deal with this.”
The phone call cut off and the masked man appeared on the screen again.
“What you heard was a transcript of a phone call recorded on the night of Danny’s death between Mr Alec Winters, Danny’s father, and Mr Troy Barker, the fixer. Lucky for us, Mr Barker kept records of every phone call and interaction he had with Mr Winters. Even his fixer didn’t trust him. You will find no police records on Danny’s case, because they were all destroyed. You will find no toxicology reports, because they were all destroyed. The tests done on the car, the blood spatters… All faked, and all on the say so of our elected Member of Parliament, Mr Alec Winters.
“So what happened when the fixer got there? Mr Barker and Mr Winters moved Danny from the passenger seat where he’d died, to the driver’s seat. They destroyed evidence that would’ve cleared Danny’s name. And when they were confident that every single trace of Mr Winters having been there, having driven that car, had been erased, they left. They got into Mr Barker’s car and they left Danny’s dead body behind to be found by a factory worker driving past at five o’clock the next morning. They left the scene to save Mr Winters’ career. Then they used his son’s death to make a saint out of Mr Winters. A symbol of all that’s good, fighting against the poisoned youth. He used us like he used his own son, to further his political career. To make money from the death of the innocent.”
I wasn’t sure how much more I could take. My mum was sobbing into her hands. My dad was curling himself forward, trying to look sorry for what he’d done. And I felt numb. Numb because I no longer had a father. I would never forgive him for what he’d done.
The room was silent and eerily dark, save for the lights from the screen in front of us. I swallowed, struggling to breathe, feeling like I was drowning. And then the voice changer started to speak again.
“Three truths we are delivering tonight. And three truths you will hear. One, Alec Winters is a corrupt thief, laundering money through Sandland like it’s his own private fucked-up bank. Two, Alec Winters has blood on his hands. He was responsible for his son’s death. He was driving. He left his son’s dead body to rot in a mangled car while he fled the scene like the rat he is. But Alec Winters’ deceit doesn’t stop there. He lost a son that night, but he still had two daughters.”
I hadn’t heard that right. I mustn’t have heard that right. Two daughters?
“We did a little digging into the Morgan Rotherham account that Winters used for his dirty money. Why that name? We asked ourselves. What or who is Morgan Rotherham? Morgan Rotherham is the child Alec Winters had with his long-term mistress, born three months after the birth of his other daughter, Emily.”
I couldn’t stop a sob coming from the depths of my soul. Everything I’d ever believed in was being ripped apart in front of all these people. Everything I knew was a lie. My whole world was shattering at my feet and it was all being used for e
ntertainment here tonight.
I felt broken.
Another spotlight shone from the stage onto the crowd and I turned in a daze to see what they were about to unveil next.
“Ladies and gentleman, let me introduce you to Miss Katherine Rotherham and her daughter, Morgan.”
Standing a few feet away from me was a girl, her face as pale as mine, and looking like she was about to pass out or bolt, just like I was. The older woman next to her, her mother I guessed, went to take her hand, but she pulled away sharply and mouthed something that looked like ‘what the fuck’. This girl looked more like Danny than me, but she had the same dark hair as I did, only hers was poker-straight. I had a sister. A sister who was the same age as me. Why did I have to find out about this with the rest of the town? This was beyond fucked-up.
“I don’t want any part of this,” she suddenly shouted into the hall. “Whatever this fucked-up show is, I don’t want to know.” She looked over to where my father sat on the stage, with his head in his hands. “And you are not my father. You never will be. I hate you.” She pushed past her mother and ran out of the hall. I took one look at my parents sat on that stage and I realised then how alone I was. I couldn’t trust anyone, not even Ryan. He’d known all about this and he hadn’t told me. He’d put this show on, letting the whole town into my family’s disgusting secrets before he’d told me. I was devastated.
So, I turned and ran too, pushing my way through the crowds that didn’t part for me as easily as they had for Morgan. When I reached the doors I saw Kian and Finn standing there and Finn’s eyes shot out of his head when he saw me.
“Oh, fucking hell. Emily, you weren’t supposed to see that. Ryan’s gonna go ape shit-” I cut him off, barrelling my way through the doors, hoping the fresh night air might ease the tightness around my chest.
“I had a right to be here tonight,” I said with more strength than I felt. “And now, I’m done.”
My feet carried me down the road subconsciously, but my brain was a million miles away, detaching itself from the carnival of crazy I’d just witnessed, refusing point blank to make sense of it all.
What was going to happen now? Do I even care anymore?
I saw a fleet of police cars with their sirens blaring shoot past me, off to take my loving father into custody I guessed. The flash of their lights and the wail that penetrated through the air made it feel like I was in a disaster movie. Only this wasn’t pretend, this was my life burning to the ground as I walked through the flames. The heat of the fire prickling my skin, making me want to claw my nails across it and draw blood; do anything to dull the pain in my heart. The smoke clogging my lungs, making it difficult to breathe and stinging my eyes with tears I didn’t want to shed. But like any good disaster movie, I was determined I wouldn’t go down without a fight. My world might’ve caved to rubble, but I wasn’t a quitter. I was a warrior. I had to be.
I heard footsteps behind me and felt someone grab at my arm.
“Wait, Emily. Please.” It was Finn and I spun round, my face set like stone as I stared blankly at him.
“What?” I was seconds away from turning back and walking away from him; from all of them.
He ran his hand over his face and I watched as his eyebrows pinched together. I don’t think he knew what to say to me now he’d got me in front of him. I didn’t have time for this. I was done with the bullshit and lies. As I went to walk away, he reached out to me again.