The Girl Who Lied(112)

‘You do? How? God, you must really hate me now.’

‘Sean let slip. He didn’t mean to. He thought I knew it all.’ He lifted her face and cupped her chin in his hands. ‘And I don’t hate you. Not at all. I couldn’t possibly.’ He stroked her face with his thumbs. ‘I understand. I truly do.’

‘I wanted to tell you, I really did,’ said Erin, she took his hands from her face and held them to her heart. ‘But I couldn’t. It wasn’t only my secret to tell. All this time I wanted to tell you that I hadn’t really given her up. Not totally, just to my sister.’

‘You don’t have to explain,’ said Kerry.

‘I do, though. You’ve hated me for what you think I did…’

‘It’s not you I hated, it’s what I thought you did. Deep down I’ve never quite been able to reconcile your actions with the person I thought I knew. Something didn’t sit right. It bothered me. That’s why I never totally gave up on you.’ He looked directly into her eyes as he spoke.

‘I figured this way, I could still be part of Sophie’s family, I could watch her grow and still have contact with her. She doesn’t know I’m her mother, we’ve kept that from her, so far,’ said Erin, her voice heavy with emotion. ‘I knew Fiona and Sean would love her. And it meant she could grow up and know her grandparents and me, even if it broke my heart not being a mother to her.’

‘And now I understand why you were so determined to keep it a secret,’ said Kerry. ‘I get it.’

‘Anyway, what does it all matter? The truth is going to come out now, I’m sure of it. Roisin knows about Sophie being my child. She told Mum that she was going to expose the truth.’

‘How did she find out?’

‘Roisin looked at the blood groups on our medical records,’ said Erin. ‘They’re all there. Fiona from when she was pregnant with Molly. Sean from his Guards’ medical. Sophie from when they tested for glandular fever.’

‘And…’ said Kerry, not sure of the significance of this.

‘Fiona and Sean’s blood groups mean they can’t have a child with a blood group B. Sophie is B.’

‘Okay, but why can’t they have adopted her? What makes Roisin think Sophie is yours?’

‘Sophie is rhesus negative. She can only be that if both her parents carry it.’

‘And you and Niall both do, or did,’ said Kerry.

‘Yep. That, along with a photograph Roisin found that I had given to Niall, one of us together and I’d put what I thought was a clever message on the back. One plus one equals three. It doesn’t take a genius to work it all out.’

Kerry took a moment to get everything straight in his mind. ‘And I suppose, what with Sophie being the right sort of age too. Roisin must have thought she’d hit the jackpot when she put all this information together.’

‘In her eyes she did,’ said Erin. ‘And whether she turns up now or not, it’s all going to have to come out in the open, especially if they’re charging Mum with her…her…disappearance.’

‘Did your Mum not say anything to you about the night Roisin disappeared?’ he asked.

‘She said she’d met her. She’d tried to convince Roisin not to say anything, but Roisin was set on doing so,’ said Erin. ‘Mum said we weren’t going to admit anything and if Roisin had time and money to waste dragging it through the courts, then that was up to her. I think Mum was trying to call her bluff.’

‘I’m not convinced anything happened to Roisin the other night,’ said Kerry. ‘I think your mum left Roisin there safe and well.’

‘So where is she now?’

‘Hiding.’

‘What? I don’t understand. Why would she be hiding?’

‘All Roisin has wanted from the start was for the truth to come out. She had a hunch that you had the baby. She couldn’t seem to force you or your mum to admit to Sophie being yours and Niall’s,’ said Kerry, taking Erin’s hand. ‘So she’s decided to force it out into the open. Knowing that your mum was the last person to see her, and once the Guards really started digging around it would only be a matter of time before the truth came out about Sophie. That way, it was out of everyone’s hands and in the hands of the law.’

‘Do you really think she’d do that? Put her own mother through all this, despite what’s happened in the past?’

‘I think she would,’ said Kerry.

‘The truth about Sophie will come out.’

‘And is that so bad?’ said Kerry. ‘Isn’t it best that Sophie knows who her real parents are? She won’t lose anything. She’ll gain another family, the Marshalls – not to replace the Hurleys or the Keanes, but to sit alongside. She will be the most loved little girl in the whole of County Cork.’