Closer Than You Think

by Darren O’Sullivan

  ‘When I made it to the fence, I tried to climb over, but it snapped from the post beneath my weight, and I dropped to the ground,’ I said, unable to look anywhere but at the fence.

  I remembered snippets of that night, after I fell into the garden, and over the years, I had pieced it together. But I wasn’t recalling it from my own perspective. I was outside, looking at me on the floor, like I was seeing my body through the eyes of the killer. Swallowing the saliva that had built up in my mouth I continued.

  ‘I didn’t have the strength to try again, so I curled up into a ball and hoped that in the darkness, and through the pouring rain, he couldn’t see me. I remember I was so cold I couldn’t stop my teeth from chattering. They snapped together so hard it hurt my entire face. Weirdly, that hurt more than my foot, more than my stomach. I hadn’t even realised that when I’d fallen out of the window I had cut my arm open.’ I looked to my arm despite knowing the scar was covered with my long-sleeved top.

  As my gaze met Mum’s, she opened her mouth to say something, but I continued talking, stopping her before she could. ‘I don’t know how long I was there for either. I know that I felt heat coming from…’ I hesitated, swallowed, I didn’t want to cry. I needed to finish. ‘Coming from the fire. It warmed my right side, making me feel colder on my left. The light coming from it made me notice I was almost naked. The flames threw light over the entire garden and beyond and I knew he would be able to see me. I tried to cover myself with the grass cuttings Owen had piled up that afternoon. But it was becoming harder to move. Blood loss, I guess.’

  A single tear fell from my eye and I wiped it away with the back of my hand. Mum said nothing, but held my gaze and waited.

  ‘I must have passed out, because the next thing I remember is someone coming towards me. I thought was him, I thought it was Kay, coming to finish me off and I tried to hide myself deeper in the pile of grass cuttings. I burrowed like a rabbit, digging to hide myself. Then I saw the light from above, and knew it was a helicopter. I remember thinking I had a choice, I could hide from Kay, or I could wave and hope they saw me from above in time to be saved. I should have hidden, but something in me couldn’t. Maybe I wanted to be found, maybe I wanted to die? I don’t know. I reached up into the air, the light from the helicopter making the blood that covered my hands glow, illuminating the grass cuttings stuck to my body. Then a voice, metallic and distant, said something I couldn’t make out, and the helicopter closed in on me.’ I paused for a moment, remembering how the light of the helicopter blinded me. ‘As I slipped unconscious, I heard the metallic voice again. In that moment, I knew Kay was going to kill me. But of course, it wasn’t Kay, it was a policeman there to save me.’

  I focused on the ground where I’d bled exactly a decade before. The memory of that moment the strongest it had ever been. I could smell the blood on my skin, I could taste the grass cuttings in my mouth.

  I looked at Mum, who smiled meekly. ‘What was the metallic voice?’

  ‘His police radio. The next thing I remember is waking up in hospital weeks later. They had buried Owen, you were asleep in the chair beside me, and the photographers were waiting to call me a hero.’

  ‘You are a hero,’ Mum said, touching my arm.

  ‘I’m not, Mum. I’m a coward. I ran, I hid.’

  ‘You survived!’

  I turned to face her, my voice shaking as I spoke. ‘I left Owen to die.’

  ‘You had no choice. Owen was…’ She paused and looked down at our feet, unable to finish her sentence.

  ‘Owen was what, Mum? Owen was what?’

  ‘Owen was going to die, regardless.’

  ‘You don’t know that! I could have saved him.’

  ‘No, you couldn’t.’

  ‘You don’t know…’

  Mum grabbed me by the shoulders, squeezing them hard, forcing me to stop talking and look at her. When she spoke, her tone had softened, replaced with something calmer, more confident.

  ‘Claire, listen. There was no way you could have saved Owen. He was more than likely already dead when you climbed out of the window, and what you did that night was what any other person would have done if they could. But, those people before, God rest their souls, they weren’t as strong as you are, as tough. You did the impossible that night, you performed a miracle because somehow, in spite of everything, you escaped. And Kay…’

  ‘It was just luck, Mum.’

  ‘And Kay hurt no one else after that night.’

  ‘I’m not the reason he…’

  She cut me off again. ‘You survived, and it spooked him. Maybe he thought you would know who he was, maybe he realised someone had beaten him at his own game. But after that night, he didn’t exist anymore. The press hounding you as they did, it was gruelling, I know that, but them looking at you meant they stopped looking for him. He lost his power. People were no longer afraid of the Black-Out Killer, because they had Claire Moore. The one who lived. That’s what finished Tommy Kay – knowing he failed. He didn’t know how to win at his sick game anymore, because you’d beaten him.’

  I had to walk away, so headed back towards the bungalow, towards the bathroom window. Mum followed, a pace behind. The window ledge was covered in a dark brown stain, one that had faded after a decade of sunshine and rain. I had to fight with some weeds to get close but I stuck my head inside. I could still smell the smoke clinging to its walls. Above, the sun beamed in through the hole in the roof. The toilet was still in place, as was the sink. The bath however was gone, a stain on the ground where it once sat.

  I pictured the moment I was dropped on the floor, Owen in the bath, just his thin arm hanging over the rim. The smell of petrol hanging in the air. Kay removed my toes then, and my scream startled him. I think he was expecting me to be delirious, like when I awoke just before he dragged me into the bathroom. He stumbled backwards, dropping the bolt cutters, and somehow I stood, swinging them wildly at him.

  ‘Sometimes, in my dreams, I’m hitting him with the bolt cutters, sometimes he opens the door and runs, and I don’t know which one is true.’

  ‘What’s true is you fought him. You know this.’

  I did know there was a fight, I had scars to prove it.

  ‘Then, I escaped. And he set Owen on fire.’

  Saying it out loud felt wrong, but I didn’t see the point in dressing it up. The facts were the facts. My husband died horrifically. His body was burnt alive, the temperature of the fire had made it impossible to identify him by sight – instead they’d confirmed it was him by a few of his teeth that had survived the inferno. Teeth that had been knocked clean out by Kay. All we could hope was that the injuries he’d sustained had killed him before the flames touched his skin.

  Looking in the window, I could almost hear Owen speaking his final words. But I didn’t know what they would have been. Would he have told Kay to leave me alone? Would he have said he loved me? They were nice ideas, but the reality was, he probably begged for his life, like anyone else would have done. I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t take my eyes from the marking on the floor where the tub once sat. It hypnotised me. Before this bathroom, that night, I was someone else, someone who ran most mornings, who slept with the windows open. Someone who enjoyed sitting outside in the dark, stargazing, losing myself in the universe. Now I was none of those things. I was a ghost.

  ‘You know, Mum, I was drunk that night. Owen and I had shared a few bottles of wine before I fell asleep on the sofa. When I woke, I was dazed, unable to think; he must have already been attacked, he must have called out. He must have knocked things over in the struggle, and I was too drunk to wake up and do anything about it.’

  ‘Claire? You’re not blaming yourself for what happened, are you?’

  ‘I could have done more.’

  She raised her voice, making me jump, snapping me away from looking into the bathroom, looking back to that night. ‘Have you not listened to a word I’ve said?’

  ‘Mum, please don’t sho
ut, this is hard for me.’

  ‘I know it’s hard.’ Her voice cracked, her face reddening. ‘It’s bloody hard. A serial killer tried to murder you, and he murdered Owen. I don’t think many things in life could be harder than that.’

  ‘Mum, stop shouting at me.’

  ‘But you bloody blaming yourself…’

  ‘Mum!’

  ‘No, Claire, no. I’ve wanted to shout and scream and stamp my feet for ten long years. Ten years of wanting to shake you, slap you if needed to get you to see just how amazing you are. And you stand here, blaming yourself for what happened? That man, that monster killed six people before he came to this home. Six people. And Owen was seven, and you were supposed to be number eight. All if this is his fault, all of it.’

  ‘But…’ I stammered, tears falling freely.

  ‘There is no but about it.’ Her tone had softened. It somehow forced me to look into her eyes. ‘None whatsoever.’

  ‘How do I forgive myself?’

  ‘By knowing right here, right now, that that awful man Tommy Kay was an experienced killer. He left nothing behind, he was smarter than everyone – despite the world knowing he did those awful things, they could never prove it – and you were just Claire Moore.’

  ‘Just Claire Moore.’

  ‘You know what I mean. You couldn’t have done anything differently that night, besides die.’

  I thought about it for a moment. She was right. He was experienced in killing, I wasn’t in surviving. For the first time I considered how the odds had been stacked against me. But still, I couldn’t shake the inescapable truth – I could have saved Owen.

  Without warning, I felt heat behind my eyes and before I could cool it, I burst into tears and fell against Mum’s shoulder. She didn’t talk, she didn’t comfort. She just held me and squeezed me and let me cry. I stayed on her shoulder for what felt like for ever. Sobbing, remembering. Once I had calmed down, Mum guided me away from the bungalow and helped me back into the hire car. As I put on my seatbelt, I looked back at the remains of my past and quietly said goodbye as we drove away.

  ‘I guess it’s time to go home.’ I hoped to feel cleansed by the visit. But somehow, I just thought of Owen’s death even more.

  ‘Yes, love. It’s time to go home.’

  ‘I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget what happened.’

  ‘You’re not supposed to, darling, but you have to move forwards.’

  ‘Where do I even start?’

  ‘Maybe by messaging Paul? Telling him what time we are due to land?’

  ‘I’ll never not love Owen,’ I said, looking to her as she drove away from our former home.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘How could I ever think about replacing him?’

  Mum sighed, drumming her fingers on the steering wheel.

  ‘Claire, you know I loved Owen, too, right?’

  ‘Yes, Mum.’

  ‘And you know I don’t like to speak ill of the dead.’

  I didn’t reply, knowing exactly what was coming next.

  ‘Do I really need to say it?’ she asked

  She didn’t, and I couldn’t look at her anymore so lowered my head. My Owen hadn’t always been the nicest man. He’d had a temper at times, he drank a little too much at times. Disappeared for a day or two sometimes.

  ‘Mum…’

  ‘And I think he sometimes had a heavy hand.’

  Her words felt like a slap in the face. I thought I had been clever, I thought I’d hidden it well, but it was obvious now I hadn’t been as careful as I thought. I didn’t respond, but lowered my head, a fresh tear escaping.

  ‘I’m right, aren’t I?’ she said, quietly. And all I could do was nod yes.

  ‘I’m not saying, stop loving him, I’m not saying forget how when he was wonderful, he was wonderful. All I’m saying is don’t give him a sainthood, he had some major flaws.’

  ‘We all do,’ I replied quickly.

  ‘Now and then, let yourself see that version of Owen.’

  ‘Why would I want to do that?’

  ‘So, you realise that he wasn’t perfect, so you can understand it’s all right to like someone, love someone with imperfections. Let yourself have a chance of finding happiness again one day.’

  ‘With Paul?’

  ‘Well, now you’ve said it.’

  ‘What if Paul doesn’t get it?’

  ‘I’ve got a funny feeling he already does. Give yourself a break, Claire. Stop seeing your old life as this perfect thing, because we both know it wasn’t. I’m sorry Owen died, I really am, but it’s time to take him off that pedestal he’s been placed on by the world, and by you, and remember him properly, good things and the bad. And for God’s sake, let someone else in.’

  Nodding, I almost said something that I had withheld for a long time, a guilt I couldn’t shift, but didn’t. I couldn’t, it would have to be a secret I took with me to my grave. Because if I said it out loud, I wouldn’t be the person I wanted to be. To stop myself thinking about it, I took my phone from my bag and saw Paul had messaged me two hours ago. His message was short.

  I’m thinking of you. X

  I couldn’t believe it, but reading it made me want to smile and push down the old guilt. Maybe time does heal all? Maybe someone telling me I didn’t have to see Owen as a perfect man finally allowed me to stop? Maybe it was because of that and the fact today was exactly ten years since, meant I was having a catharsis of sorts. I stopped myself questioning it, questioning everything for a change, and messaged back, my text equally short, hoping it wouldn’t show the battle raging between past, present and future.

  Mum and I are due to land just after 10 p.m. What have you got planned for your evening?

  I was shocked that as soon as I hit send the three dots appeared telling me he was typing back. His message was once again brief, direct, and I had read the exact same message before, after I tried and failed to call it off with him.

  Hopefully seeing you.

  Those three words told me he knew, he understood, and I couldn’t help but feel something stirring inside. A lightness that I’d not felt in a very long time. I was looking forward to something. Something I believed I would never experience again. As Mum drove, I sat quietly gazing out of the window, saying a silent goodbye to Ireland, to Owen, and hopefully, to that night with Tommy Kay.

  Chapter 19

  May 2008

  Newmarket, Ireland

  The seventh

  Finally, after two years the world had, with his help, connected the dots. He had, as planned, leaked to the papers the connection between them all, the random killings no longer random. The Black-Out Killer was targeting bad men, men who hit their wives, controlled their bank balances, dictated who they could and couldn’t see. Abusive men like his own father. They still hadn’t worked out why he also took the wives of these bad men – there was speculation, discussion about his sexuality, and hypotheses about his relationship with his own mother. One psychologist, writing for a tabloid, even spoke of him killing the women in a hope to be stopped. None were right, but he relished them trying to work it out. And the toes, they spoke of him keeping them as trophies, though he couldn’t think of anything more disgusting. But he did enjoy how convoluted it had all become. His message had been delivered as planned. The victims, the ‘brilliant and caring men’, now were seen in their true light. And in the pubs whilst researching the next, he could hear the fear in the voices of men who knew they could be next. There had even been talk of how he was a vigilante, a voice for the abused. A hero. That was until the unexpected happened.

  His last kills, the fifth and sixth on his list, Justin Turner and his wife Melanie, were like all the others. He was controlling, she was reluctant to change. He felt no remorse in ending their lives. But, in the media storm after, it was discovered that Melanie was fifteen weeks pregnant. The parents-to-be knew, as did their closest friends, but they hadn’t gone public with the news. Melanie had lost two babies be
fore and they wanted to be confident it wouldn’t happen again before they got too excited. So, despite him getting to know Justin well enough to know he needed to be next, he hadn’t known that in planning their end he was about to become everything he hated. That baby was innocent, neither an abuser nor coward. There was a chance for it to grow and be good and bring light into the world. He had ended that chance, he had become a man who killed an innocent life. He had become a man like his own father, a person who took the light of another. His father had done it to his mother, to him. And now he had done it to an unborn person.

  As he learned of what he had unknowingly done, he felt the last light in him fade. The man he was, gone. He would no longer let himself think of his father and his wickedness, he would never think of his mother and her light. Everything about himself had to die. In his mind, he no longer had a name, or a face. He would be a shadow. He knew, after he punished his final couple, the man being someone who needed punishing more than anyone else, he would vanish. He would mourn the man he had been before he took an innocent life, and he would become something else. Something not quite human.

  Knowing what he had become changed his perspective, altered his plans. The seventh and eighth he originally picked were no longer suitable. He knew from his research that they were trying for a baby themselves. And he had to let an innocent life be born, even if it was into a life of control and fear. He hoped his endeavours over the past two years meant that the child would grow up into a world that was better than it had been for him when he was young. But he would never know, because, after tonight, his work would be done.

  With the original match out, he had quickly found another. He knew his walk to and from the power substation would be tough. It was nearly a mile away over the farmer’s land, two if he stuck to the roads. It meant this job would be more challenging as there was more chance of being seen. But it was worth it. This last kill, because of how hard it would be to execute, would embed fear into every bad man in Ireland. It wasn’t a hard kill because of the walk. It was hard because of the demographic of the other houses around the one he targeted. There were only nine but they all looked at one another across the narrow single-track lane. The residents were all curtain-twitchers. Their location meant seldom a car or person on foot walked past, and if they did it drew attention. Once the power was out, these people weren’t the type to hide in their locked houses – they would be on the streets, trying to look out for one another. And he would find a way past them all, kill right under their noses. Because of his taking an innocent life the last time, it meant that tonight, he had to pull off the impossible and become a thing of legend. And everyone, even the good, would fear him. And after, once he had completed his task, he knew he would never be found.