by Dan Scottow
Beth scrambled on the floor, but Margot was faster. She sprang to her feet, kicking the hammer. It scuttled across the ground. She spun towards Beth, and a heavy black motorbike boot connected with the side of her jaw.
Stunned, she fell, and Margot quickly moved closer, stamping on her wrist. There was a crunch, a hideous cracking sound. Beth screamed in agony, and Margot kicked her in the kidneys with such force, Beth thought she was going to be sick.
‘Is that all you’ve got, Kitty? You used to be much tougher.’
Beth pushed herself up onto her knees, her head slumped. Her hair had come loose and hung down in front of her face. Her hands either side of her feet. She breathed heavily, slowly.
Margot retrieved the knife, taking a step forwards, pointing it down close to Beth’s head. She traced the blade across Beth’s cheek, digging the point into her flesh. Beth winced, as a trickle of blood ran down the side of her face.
‘How fitting that it should all end here, like this. Where it all began. It’s kind of poetic, don’t you think?’
Beth’s head fell lower. Margot took this as a sign of defeat.
‘I’d like to say that your family will be fine. I did consider letting them live. But I can’t. I’m going to kill them one by one. Little Daisy will be last… so she has time to realise what is coming…’
Beth sprung upwards, swinging the Stanley knife she had slipped out from her sock towards Margot’s head. The blade sliced through her cheek, sending blood spurting through the air towards Beth. Margot screamed, throwing her hands up to her face. The blade she was holding fell to the floor.
Beth didn’t give her time to recover. She slashed hard again from the other direction, narrowly missing Margot’s eye, slicing a deep gash across her forehead.
‘This face cost me a fortune, you fucking bitch!’ Margot screeched, holding her hand to her wounds. Beth swiped at her again. Margot weaved backwards, and the steel sliced down through the thick black leather of her jacket.
‘That’s more like it. That’s the Kitty I knew. I wondered if she was still in there. And there she is!’ Margot hissed.
She glared at Beth through her gloved hands, lowering her arms to her sides. She charged towards Beth, sending her hurtling backwards. She hit the ground hard, a wave of pain shooting up from her coccyx.
She sprang up, hurling herself at Beth once more, grabbing Beth’s hair in her hands, yanking her head from side to side. This way, then that. Searing pain radiated from Beth’s scalp. She thought Margot might actually tear the hair from her head.
Beth reached her hands up to Margot’s own hair, grabbing two handfuls, pulling as hard as she could in retaliation. The women rolled around on the floor. For a moment, Margot had the upper hand, the next Beth was winning. They screamed, heaving each other about in the dirt. Somehow Margot managed to flip Beth onto her back and straddle her. With Margot’s full weight on top of her, Beth struggled to breathe.
She placed her hands around Beth’s neck and began to squeeze. Beth writhed, trying to throw Margot off, but she was too strong. Her head felt hot, her vision blurred. From somewhere in the distance, she heard Charlie’s voice cry out.
‘Beth! The hammer!’
She turned from side to side, as droplets of spittle dripped down from Margot’s mouth, hitting Beth in the face. To her left, a foot or so from where they lay, was the discarded claw hammer. Throwing her arm out to the side awkwardly, she grappled frantically on the floor.
Margot squeezed harder, and Beth felt as though her head would explode. She felt something hard and smooth beneath her hand.
The handle.
Closing her fingers around it, she gripped it tightly, as she arced her arm up as hard as she could, screaming. The head of the hammer connected with Margot’s temple with a satisfying thud.
Margot’s hands loosened on Beth’s throat, a stunned expression on her face. She was looking at Beth, but it was suddenly as if she wasn’t seeing her.
Beth swung the hammer again, this time striking the back of Margot’s head hard with the claws, gouging into her flesh. Margot fell forwards, landing on top of Beth, who rolled, escaping from underneath the dead weight.
She stood, unsteady, a little dazed. She edged around Margot’s body, prodding it with her foot. Margot didn’t move. Beth turned, hurrying to Charlie, dropping the hammer.
‘Are you okay?’ he called to her, as she limped towards him.
‘I think so. You?’
She was close to Charlie, about two or three feet. Suddenly his eyes widened, his mouth contorted into a scream.
‘Behind you, watch out!’
But Beth didn’t have time to react. Margot’s full weight bowled into the back of her. She flew forwards, slamming into the beam which Charlie was tethered to. Her face smashed into brick. She screamed as the pillar gave way before her. She landed on Charlie, Margot tripping on the two of them, flying over them and landing a few feet behind.
Chunks of masonry and rubble showered down from above. Charlie looked up. Beth tried to get to her feet, but before she could, the balcony came crashing down around them all.
And everything stopped.
59
Dust. And darkness.
Beth’s ears were ringing. She coughed, her throat dry and raspy, full of dirt. She slowly turned her neck, it was painful but she could move. Just.
Charlie’s face was a few inches from hers. His eyes closed. She was unsure if he was breathing. His head and arm were the only parts of his body not covered by the rubble surrounding them. Beth couldn’t see Margot. Couldn’t hear her.
She blinked a few times. As the ringing in her ears subsided, it gave way to another sound. Sobbing. Faint, but definite.
Daisy. Daisy was crying.
Beth tried to roll over. A steel girder was lying across the back of her legs. Heavy, painful. She managed to dislodge one leg from beneath the beam. The other was stuck fast, trapped between bricks, and the steel, and God knows what else. There was blood too. Thick and warm, soaking into denim. Her face throbbed from the earlier collision with the pillar. She moistened her parched lips, turning onto her side. She braced her palms against the edges of the metal and pushed. It hardly budged.
She decided to change tack. She heaved herself. Something jagged sliced into her calf. She winced, sucking in air, and shaking her head. Her daughter was scared. She needed her.
Beth pulled again, harder, trying to ignore the searing pain. Her leg came free, ripping her jeans, gouging flesh on a serrated edge. She let out a whimper. She had no time to nurse her wounds.
Tearing a strip from the bottom of her blouse, she wound a tourniquet tightly around her thigh.
‘Charlie,’ she whispered, as if speaking would cause further carnage.
No response.
‘I’m coming back for you, Charlie, I promise. I need to find the kids.’
She had no idea if he could hear her, but she needed to say it, regardless. She kissed his dusty cheek. Turning herself to a sitting position, she glanced about the room. Dust and debris floated around. The entire structure of the mezzanine had collapsed on top of them. Margot would have taken the brunt of it, with Charlie a close second.
Beth had been lucky. Incredibly lucky.
She forced herself to stand. Her weight on her injured leg was agonising.
‘Daisy,’ she called out into the dark, weakly.
‘Mummy?’
‘Daisy, keep shouting, love, I’ll come to you. I need to follow the sound of your voice!’ More assertive now, the desire to find her children taking over.
‘Mum!’ Peter now, shaken, sobbing.
‘Peter! You both okay?’
‘What’s going on through there?’
‘Don’t worry about that at the moment.’
They sounded close. Beth limped her way down what would once have been a vast corridor, past what remained of a grand staircase. Droplets of blood trailed behind her. She rounded a corner, and the walls opened out ag
ain. This part of the hotel was much more dilapidated than the rest. This must have been where the fire had hit the worst. Beth shivered as the damp air seemed to seep into her bones.
‘Daisy, Peter, I need you to shout. Where are you?’
‘Mummy!’
It sounded as if Daisy was right beside her.
She scanned the room. In a black corner was one of the few remaining doors. The roof was still standing above it. Beth crossed the chasm of the room to the doorway. The handle was long gone. Beth scratched at the frame. Someone had attached a padlock onto the door, holding it closed.
‘Mum, is that you?’
‘Yes. I’m here. Hold on!’
Beth glanced around the floor. A large chunk of masonry sat a few feet away. She grabbed it, whacking it down on the lock. The timber crumbled, the padlock shattered. Beth heaved the door open. The smell of decay filled her nostrils as she stared into the darkness. She could just about make out two shapes in the corner.
‘Mummy!’ Daisy cried.
‘It’s okay. I’m here. Everything’s okay now, I promise.’
She rushed to her children, enveloping them both in her sore, bleeding arms.
‘But it’s not, is it?’ Peter’s voice wavered on the edge of tears. Beth glanced over her shoulder, assessing the distance she had travelled, wondering how much her son had heard.
‘It is, she’s gone. She can’t hurt us anymore.’ Beth sobbed as she grappled with the ropes tethering them to their chairs.
‘But the damage is done, isn’t it? Zoe is…’ Peter couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud. He broke down, and Beth realised he’d heard more than she would have wanted.
‘Where’s Daddy? Is he okay?’
As Beth hugged her daughter, Peter pulled away.
‘You’re safe,’ she whispered, avoiding answering her daughter’s question.
‘Are we?’ She could hear bitterness in her son’s voice.
‘Yes. It’s over.’
And Beth hoped that was true.
60
A fresh start. Hopefully, the last one, but you never know.
Beth’s hair, dyed a vibrant flame red now, was cut shorter and pulled up in a bright yellow scarf, tied in a neat knot on top of her head. Two small, plastic, cherry-shaped earrings dangled playfully from her lobes, green and red projected onto her neck by a shaft of winter sunlight streaming in through the bedroom window.
She lifted a pile of books from a cardboard crate and placed them onto a shelf in the corner of the room.
Daisy was doing okay, all things considered. The kids were both finding it difficult to cope with everything. But they constantly amazed Beth with their resilience. Christmas would be challenging. But they would take each day as it came. There would be good times, and there would be bad. She was certain of that. Beth didn’t expect any of this would be easy. But she was a master of making the best of a situation.
Daisy was too young. She hadn’t been told the ins and outs of it all. Beth knew the day would come when she would hear the stories and make up her own mind. Until then, Beth would enjoy her time with her.
Peter was harder work. He refused to forgive her, would barely remain in the same room as her. He’d heard fragments of what unfolded at the hotel. Devastated that Beth had known about Zoe and hidden it from him. She had lost him, as she’d known she would all along. But at least he was alive. He blamed her for what had happened to Zoe.
He blamed her for Charlie’s death too.
And Beth supposed he was right to. This had all started with her.
Margot had not been able to let go of the wrongs that she perceived. She had tried so hard, but ultimately, she had given in to her hatred; her desire for revenge. A basic primal instinct.
Beth hadn’t changed her name this time. She didn’t want to lose the last part of Charlie she had left. Couldn’t do that to the kids, it wasn’t fair. But they moved away. Away from Brighton, the place she had called home for longer than anywhere else in her life. The only life her children had ever known. There was no choice.
People treated them differently after the tragedy at the hotel.
They would never let Beth just be Beth. There was always that questioning look in their eyes. And so she had done what she did best. She had run away and started again.
She placed the last of the volumes onto a shelf, returning to the box on the floor in the middle of the room. Pulling out one of Charlie’s sweaters that had been wrapped around a vase, she held it close to her face. His smell enveloped her, swirled around her head, and for a moment, she thought the grief might consume her again.
She wanted to seal that fragrance in, keep it forever. She never wanted to forget.
And a sadness and longing that she suspected would never leave her, filled her heart. She smiled wistfully. The loss of Charlie along with the death of her mother had been catastrophic. She had not seen her for years, it was too dangerous, but they spoke on the phone when they could.
So many lives lost on Beth’s conscience.
Crying had never come naturally to her. She had learned to fake it over the years. It was what people expected.
Each day she tried to look for a new reason to carry on. One good thing in her world. Sometimes it was almost impossible, but then she only had to look at Daisy. Hear her giggle as she chased the new puppy around the garden. And there she found her good thing. Leaving her was not an option.
And so she went through the motions. Pretended to smile, laugh, and cry. She would chat to the neighbours, throw her head back at their jokes, eyeing them cautiously for the slightest hint of recognition. She would never allow her children to come face to face with danger again.
She acted like her life was still worthwhile for the kids’ sake. Sometimes, she would think of Charlie and her smile would be genuine. But it was a rare thing.
Folding the jumper neatly, she kissed it, placing it on the foot of the bed, and glanced back down into the box. A small chunky safe-deposit tin sat in her view.
The smile faded from her lips.
Her hand unconsciously drifted up to her neck, as she fondled the tiny silver key which hung around it. Her fingertips brushed against her skin, and she drew in a breath, as her heart rate increased.
‘Mummy, are you coming? We’re taking the puppy out for a walk!’ Daisy screeched excitedly up the stairs.
‘I’ll be right down!’ she replied, as she padded across the carpet, pushing the bedroom door gently shut, and turning the lock. Returning to the packing carton, she lifted out the metal box, holding it tightly in both her trembling hands. She pressed it against her cheek. The cold surface sent a rush through her, making the hair on the back of her neck stand to attention.
The only thing she had taken with her through every incarnation of her life. Through every identity. The one item that linked her to Kitty Briscoe.
It was peppered with rust from where it had been buried at one point. Terrified it would be discovered when she was a child, she hadn’t dared keep it in the house. She had hidden it in the stables in Brighton and gone out to look at it every now and then when she thought people wouldn’t notice. She was afraid she’d been caught out by Charlie, the night after the first note arrived, when she couldn’t sleep and slipped out of the bedroom. She had assumed he was deep in slumber, but he had seen her. She never knew if her story about going for a walk had convinced him.
It didn’t really matter anymore, she supposed.
She unfastened the chain from her neck, and the key fell into her palm. She caressed it between her fingers, biting her bottom lip. Biting so hard she drew blood. The metallic taste filling her mouth.
Hearing footsteps galloping up the stairs, she glanced nervously towards the door. The steps passed hurriedly by, and Beth relaxed a little. Pushing the key into the lock, she turned it, opening the lid and lifting out its contents.
Smiling again, she held it up to her nose, inhaling, as she had done with Charlie’s sweater, but no smell
remained. Placing the package down on the carpet beside her, she drew in slow, deep breaths, trying to remain calm. She carefully unfolded the grubby blue-and-white stripy fabric, tattered, fraying at the edges.
Dark stains, almost black now, coloured the material. The paring knife she had taken from her grandmother’s kitchen all those years ago glinted in the sunlight. Dry blood still dirtied the steel blade. She touched it, and it sent a shiver through her body, like a spark of electricity, the same way it always did.
Excitement? Fear? She wasn’t sure anymore.
She picked up the tiny lock of blond hair, tied with a scrap of pink ribbon, stroking it softly across her cheek.
She closed her eyes, saw the metal piercing Billy’s skin.
Her nipples stiffened as she felt the familiar arousal, and she blushed, ashamed of her reaction to such a thing. Even after all this time.
She knew she should have got rid of the box years ago. But she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She needed it.
She should have left it to burn in the house, along with her father’s body, after she had used the knife to slit his throat.
When she had returned home that evening; the night she’d walloped him on the head with the bronze horse. He was paralytic in his chair. He’d drunk himself into oblivion again. A cigarette sat smouldering in the ashtray beside him. She knew that there would be trouble when he was sober the following day. She had crossed a line. She’d answered back before, but she had never dared to strike him.
He would make her pay. Without a doubt. Her mother too.
So she had retrieved the weapon from its hiding place. Crept up behind him where he slept and finished it. There and then. It had still been sharp, which surprised her, but it sliced through his flesh like a wire through cheese. The fire had covered her tracks, leaving nothing behind but charred bones.