by NJ Moss
We made love. We didn’t fuck, screw, bang. It was romantic. We didn’t have to worry about our neighbours seeing us because I’ve worked my ass off for this house, for this detached house in Clifton, with its high fences and its desirable location. We’ve got privacy here.
She wants to take it all away, for a sick twisted joke.
Or maybe my life is the joke.
I stare at the photo, the only one I’ve bothered to keep. It was taken at my ninth birthday. Mum was called Penny back then, not Penelope, and she wore tracksuits and trainers instead of the elegant dresses she displays on social media. Her hair is tied back and she’s smiling, really smiling, with her hand on my shoulder. She looks genuinely happy.
Was she faking it then? Or did her doubts come after?
They must always have been there, festering beneath her smile, until they finally exploded and she drifted away in the night.
Dad isn’t smiling. The mean old man stares at the camera.
I remember how seriously he took the task of setting the timer. It was so strange. I knew he hated me, hated Mum, hated this life he’d fallen into. Why did he care so much about this damned photo? Maybe there was some love there, a flicker. I don’t know.
I look pathetically happy, beaming like a naïve little prick. I had no idea the only bright spot in my life – the only person who made living with Dad bearable – would abandon me in less than a year.
I wish she’d told me the truth instead of leaving me to wonder and suffer and hate myself. What sort of a person inflicts that on a child?
I throw the photo into the flames.
As it crackles and the edges begin to curl, I think about the look on my father’s face when he told me Mum was gone. He didn’t look sad or regretful or anything really. He didn’t have any emotion on his old, old face. Even then, he was ancient. People would confuse him with my granddad. He said she was gone and she’d never be coming back and then he switched on the radio.
I should’ve screamed or cried or something. But I sat at the table and he looked at me, sighed, and then he went into the kitchen and put some bread in the toaster.
One jam and one margarine? he said.
Yeah, I replied.
All right.
I knew better than to cry in front of him. If I did, he’d get angry. He didn’t like it when I showed weakness. When I was a child, I thought it was because he felt weak, and he didn’t like to be reminded of that. But maybe it’s just he was a cruel bastard who’d use any excuse to give me a slap.
The photo disappears into the flickering fire, the paper melting away, our faces melting away.
I kept waiting for Mum to come back. I accepted what Dad said when he told me. I’d be an idiot to call him a liar to his face. But I didn’t believe him, not at first. I was sure there was more to the story.
And then I found the letters in Dad’s bedside drawer. I don’t know why she didn’t take them with her. Maybe Dad stole them from her and she didn’t know where they were. Or maybe she wanted to leave behind some sign, a little hint, about where she’d disappeared to.
She’d started a pen-pal relationship with a man in Italy, bonding over a shared love of classical cinema. The early letters were all about film. They were short and innocent and straight to the point. But then they became sexual, disgusting and horrible to read. This was my mother. She wasn’t supposed to talk like this. She wasn’t supposed to think like this. I know it’s naïve, but I was a kid.
I stowed the letters away and I never looked at them again.
As the years wore on, Dad found other girlfriends. I learnt a lot from watching that ugly old bastard. He wasn’t even remotely handsome. He wasn’t kind. But when women were around, he had this switch he could flip, making them laugh without trying, making suggestive comments that somehow didn’t seem crass when accompanied with his cheeky smile. When he smiled, I could see what he looked like when he was young.
I sigh and turn to the house: my big proud fucking house.
Please come home, Hazel. Please come home and hold me and tell me it’s going to be okay. Please tell me I’m not broken.
I walk over to the poolside chair, lying back and looking up at the starry sky.
I used to sneak into my dad’s bedroom when he and his girlfriend were asleep. It didn’t matter which girlfriend, only that there was a woman in the bed. I’d creep across the room and gaze down at her, at the shape of her in the dark.
I’d stare and I’d convince myself it was Mum, she was right there, she hadn’t walked out, she’d never leave me. She was right there, and I could reach out and touch her if I wanted. I could climb into bed with her, even if I was too old, and she’d hold me and stroke my hair and tell me I was a good boy.
If I’d known the truth, would it have been any different? Maybe I wouldn’t have felt the need to sneak into those houses, driven by… by what? What the fuck was I driven by? Was it the need to take her back, to make sense of the pain she left me with? I don’t know. I don’t think it can be that simple.
I didn’t do any harm. I didn’t hurt anybody. I would never hit a woman.
I run my hand along my jaw, massaging the tenseness. I need my wife to come home. Even if I can’t tell her everything, I need to hold her like I did on our wedding night, after the sex, when she was pressed close to me.
It’s like you’re going to fall through my skin, I told her.
Oh, Jamie. That’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever said.
I grinned, kissing her sweaty cheek. Don’t sound so surprised.
I should’ve kept us like that, innocent and happy in bed together, with the smell of champagne and roses in the air.
Why did I have to cheat on her, again and again and again?
What the fuck is wrong with me, to risk an angel like Hazel so cheaply?
When she gets home, I’m going to talk to her about moving. We can start fresh somewhere, and I’ll be better. I’ll value what we have.
It’s me and Hazel against the world. I hope it isn’t too late.
46
Before
Charles Maidstone smoked his pipe and the smoke drifted around his face and clouded it. He could hear them upstairs, Millicent and William, and he didn’t know how to feel about the girl’s doting.
It went against everything he’d taught the Comrades: family was a word-made construct, not physical reality, and now Millicent was singing William a lullaby. And even if a lullaby was made of words, it was something else too, something primal and vital. It had no place here, and yet love whelmed in the house, the sort of love his essential nature had starved them of, the Comrades and their children, ever since he became Master.
Perhaps he had loved Constance to some degree, because he’d valued her dying wishes. She’d died giving birth to the boy, and she’d made two requests.
Call him William. My father was called William. And Charley, oh, Charley… let her love him.
She was dying and that was rotten, but he told her no, and she screamed yes as a flare of withering life awoke inside of her, and they argued and it was too dreadful, even for him, far too evil to argue with a woman who’d given birth to his son and who was dying because of it.
Charles was still a wealthy man by inheritance, and he’d accumulated more wealth since then, through the Comrades and their dedication. It wasn’t cheap to bribe and blackmail Constance’s death record into nonexistence, but it was necessary, because if there was no sign of her death, no collection of human-made words to proclaim his dear Connie gone, then perhaps she was still here: perhaps she was in William.
Millicent’s voice rose higher and the girl sounded happy, and she was twisted and she was wrong and her father knew it, but she sounded happy as she sung to the boy. And surely he, Charles, must’ve felt something good at the sound of her lilting voice, at the joy rioting around in each note, because he’d caused her so much pain and now here she was, submerged in hope.
She had found a reason to close a
way the dark parts of herself, a reason to exist: a way to look at her reflection and see a girl who may one day become a woman who’d inspire pride in those around her. He must’ve cared, a little, when he heard his children bonding, at least for a moment, a bare breath.
Or perhaps it is easier to wish it were so, to remake Charles Maidstone into something like a human being, not the monster who raped and molested and abused and encouraged others to do the same.
But truth and untruth are not rigid states, and sometimes fiction is the warmest fact.
47
Hazel
Millie’s flat is small and cheaply furnished. There’s a suitcase on one side of the bedroom, neatly pressed against the wall, and her laptop is open on the desk in the corner. A Word document is open. As I pass, I read, We care about the safety of you and your family, which is why we at Ludovico Tyres only use the most durable…
I walk into the kitchen, trying not to feel sad by how cramped and depressing everything is. I’m not sure where I imagined Millie living – a duchess’ manor maybe – but it wasn’t down a grimy alley above an electronics shop.
I take the water into the bedroom, placing it on the side table. Millie’s stripped her dress off and she lies sprawled in her underwear, her chest rising and falling softly.
“Millie, can you drink some water for me?”
“Hmm.”
“Just a sip.”
I help her sit up, then bring the water to her mouth. She dribbles half of it down her chin and then falls back with a gasp, rolling onto her side and tucking her knees to her chest. At this angle, I can see the tattoo on her hip bone: 13/03/95. I still have no idea what the date signifies.
I take out my phone, meaning to arrange for another taxi to come and pick me up. I didn’t know how long I’d be here, so I told the first taxi not to bother waiting.
There isn’t much else I can do. She needs to sleep it off. She’ll feel better in the morning.
“Millie, I’m going to…”
I trail off as my gaze comes to settle on her memory stick. The pendant lies against her back, flipped around, tempting me.
Millie is articulate, kind, caring, interesting. Tonight wasn’t the greatest display of those qualities, it’s true, but who hasn’t made mistakes when they’re drunk? And part of me was thrilled to see Greta put in her place for once.
If my instincts about her are right, I bet her writing is as amazing as she is.
I know I shouldn’t, and I probably wouldn’t if I wasn’t a little drunk myself. But what harm can it do? I’ll take a quick look and then replace it.
“Millie, I’m going to have a look at your writing, on your memory stick, okay?”
“Hmm,” she grunts.
“I’ll just read a page or two. Okay? You don’t mind, do you?”
“Hmm.”
That’s good enough for me. I know she’s self-conscious about her work, but I think it’s silly. And it’s not like I’m some big-time reader or anything. She has nothing to worry about. I’m not going to judge her.
I take the memory stick and fiddle with it. It detaches and I take it over to the laptop. I slide it into the USB slot and the file explorer appears.
I expect to see Avenging Angel by Millicent Maidstone or something. Or maybe a file marked ‘Novel Work’. But instead there’s a list of files and dates, going back to two thousand and five. I scroll down to the first entry and then stop when Millie makes a murmuring noise.
I close the file explorer and spin in the office chair, waiting to see if she’ll wake up. But she’s just talking in her sleep, muttering words I can’t make out. I think I hear Sprite, and I wonder if she’s asking me to get her a can of lemonade. But then she quietens down.
I turn back to the computer and open the file explorer.
I click the earliest entry.
“What the fuck?”
I double-click the image and it fills the screen.
The man’s face is hardly a face anymore. His head is hardly a head. It’s like he’s been ravaged by a jungle cat. An emerald-green shard of beer bottle lies next to the mess, the jagged edge of it stained with his blood. Gore spreads down his neck and chest.
I click away from the photo, swallowing acid bile, cocktails and vodka and disgust mixing together.
What the hell is this? Research?
There’s a Word file in the same folder titled ‘Little Piggy Deserved It.’
I open it to find a newspaper article.
Vicious Slaying by Unknown Killer, Police Have No Leads.
I read, my belly churning, as the author details how Lenard Fitzgerald was walking home after a late shift at his warehouse-picker job when he was ambushed on an unlit, unmonitored passageway between the street and the train station.
‘He was a lovely man,’ wife, Natalie Fitzgerald, said when questioned about the killer’s motive. ‘I can’t think why anybody would do this. We were planning on starting a family. He was always ready to lend a helping hand. He volunteered at the youth centre twice a week. I’m stunned anybody would want to hurt him.’
Red annotations mark the edges of the article. Millicent has left comments on the text.
Lying slut, one reads, the arrow pointing to Natalie’s statement. He made her say that. Lying fucking bitch slut cunt cunt CUNT. He RAPED HER. He’s a rapist. He’s a monster. I had to do it.
I had to do it. I had to do it. I had to do it.
No matter how many times I read the sentence, it doesn’t make sense. Surely Millie didn’t kill this man. Surely… but why else would she have these photos and this article?
I read the article again quickly, checking for the time of death, then freeze as Millie grumbles from behind me.
Turning, I see she’s lying on her back, the whites of her eyes showing through half-closed eyelids, flickering as she lets out a sleepy moan.
Who are you, Millie? Who the fuck are you?
Once I’m sure she’s asleep, I turn back to the laptop.
The man was killed at three o’clock in the morning. I right-click the photo and click Properties. I won’t be able to tell when the photo was taken, but I can tell when it was added to the memory stick.
She added the photo an hour and a half after the murder.
There’s no other way she’d have this picture.
She killed him. Or she knew the person who killed him.
But she admitted it in her notes. I had to do it.
To be sure, I do a reverse image search of the photo, and of course there are no results. It doesn’t appear anywhere online. The police wouldn’t release a photo this gruesome.
I go through the other files. My hands are shaking and I have to focus hard to click where I want.
The rest is the same: photos, newspaper articles, evil comments implying these men deserved to die.
Millie isn’t writing about an avenging angel. She is one… no, that’s not right. She thinks she is, but she’s wrong.
Most of the newspaper articles mention how loved the victim was. Girlfriends and wives and mothers – and boyfriends and friends and children – talk about how much they miss the dead men. They talk about how hard their lives have become since their loved one was killed without explanation, without reason, savagely torn to pieces in the night.
The last victim – killed a month and a half ago – had a girlfriend.
‘I think he was going to propose to me. He was dropping lots of hints. We were so in love.’
I click off the folder, scrolling through the rest of them. They all have dates except for one, titled Before. Before what? I don’t want to click on it, but it’s like something else has taken over.
“What are you doing?”
I leap to my feet with a scream, raising my hands. What can I do against a person like this? How could I be so wrong? “Nothing.”
“It doesn’t look like nothing.” Millie rises from the edge of the bed. She trembles a little, but she seems more in control now. Maybe finding me on her
laptop has sobered her up.
“I was arranging a taxi. My phone died.”
She can’t see the laptop screen. I’m stood in front of it. She has no way to know I’m lying as long as I stand right where I am.
“Your phone is a part of you. You wouldn’t let it die any more than you’d will your heart to stop beating. Please step aside.”
“Millie.” Tears prick my eyes. “I don’t want to—”
“I said step aside, you self-indulgent bitch!” she roars, and she isn’t Millie anymore. I don’t know what she is.
She marches over to me, stumbling from side to side. I shouldn’t be scared of her. She’s drunk and she’s so skinny I can see her ribs through her bare torso. Her hip bones jut out. And yet terror grips me. I’m going to be sick.
She moves to grab my shoulder.
I slide out of the way, back-stepping to the door.
She glances at the laptop. “Oh, Hazel. What madness would prompt you to betray me like this?”
“I didn’t see anything. You woke up before I could take a look.”
“Then why are you looking at me like that, little lamb?”
“Like what?” My voice trembles as she walks toward me with slow footsteps and a fierce glint in her eyes.
“Like that,” she snarls, baring her teeth. “I’m sorry but—”
I leap forward and push her in the chest, aiming the heel of my palms right at her centre. I hit the place between her breasts.
She grunts and collapses.
I run through her flat, throw the door open, run down the stairs.
Don’t fall, I shout in my head, over and over. Don’t fall. Don’t fall.
I want to stop and take my heels off, but there might be glass in the alleyway. I’ll cut myself and then she’ll use the broken glass to slit my throat, to slice me to ribbons like she did to those men.
I run down the alleyway and burst onto the street, ducking my head and running, running as fast as I can as I reach into my handbag and take out my phone.