Kiss Me, Kill Me

by Mullins, Louise

  As the evening wore thin, I began to wonder if the party was more for the adults’ benefit than mine. The music grew louder, the men rowdier, and my mother’s high-pitched wailing more slurred.

  She stumbled across the room, leaned to one side, her head tilted, eyes heavy and thick with eyeliner that had smudged into the creases of her crows-feet. ‘My little girlie. Are you enjoying yourself?’ She held onto the wall for support, stopping in front of me.

  I shrugged. ‘It’s okay.’ And inhaled the pungent fizz she’d been drinking all evening.

  Her face twisted into a scowl. ‘You ungrateful—’

  ‘Hey, Sam. Come on, let’s dance,’ said Jason, snatching my mother’s hand and tugging on the bell-shaped sleeves of her snake-print top. He turned her to him, pulled her close and winked.

  I smiled back and watched him lead my mother round the room to the theme tune of her favourite chick flick. But it wasn’t my mother’s eyes that had Jason enthralled, it was mine.

  I trod up the stairs, crept along the hall and landed on my bed yawning soon after. Beneath the duvet I listened to the hazy music and the muffled voices of late arrivals. At some point during the night I drifted off into a noxious doze.

  I awoke with a jolt. The smidgen of sky visible between the curtains was ebony, the weight of the man sat beside me heavier than the air.

  I recognised Neil, Jason’s friend as he kicked off a shoe and it thudded onto the floor. I bolted out of bed and whacked my elbow on the frame of my chest of drawers.

  ‘Oh, hey, sorry to disturb you. Your mum said I could sleep in the bedroom.’

  ‘This one’s mine.’

  ‘I can see that. My mistake,’ he spluttered. He collected his shoe from the floor and pushed his foot back into it. He turned but stalled. ‘Did you have a nice time?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your party. Did you enjoy it?’

  ‘Fuck off.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said—’

  ‘No guess as to where you inherited your mouthiness from,’ he said, heading for the door. He opened it and the glaring light filtered into the room and trailed up to my bedside.

  The bathroom door opened, and my mother’s silhouette stepped out onto the landing, bare-footed, eyes glistening, face flushed, hair stood on end. Her features changed rapidly as she absorbed Jason’s friend leaving my bedroom.

  I scooted along the wall as she darted towards me, wide-eyed, and leapt on Neil.

  My mother, the panther – wild, feral, mesmeric – wrapped her hands round his throat and pushed her thumbs into his windpipe.

  He choked, grasped both her hands and tried to prise them apart, but she just squeezed harder, until he slumped onto the floor.

  She stood there, staring at the body on the carpet, her arms outstretched, curled fingers trembling.

  Jason’s footfall roused her from our shared frozen silence, and she screamed. His feet hit the top step and rounded the staircase. He looked from my mother to me, to the man who lay unmoving at her feet. ‘What the fuck happened?’ He knelt, pressed two fingers to the underside of Neil’s jaw. ‘Neil? Get up! Neil, can you hear me?’

  Time drifted and sped simultaneously.

  Jason stood, spun me round, and shook me until my teeth chattered, my head felt slack, and my vision blurred. ‘Mel, what have you done?’

  My mother’s eyes flit from Jason to me to Neil then she pierced her pin of hatred through my bubble of security. ‘Mel?’

  Neil looked pale. His skin mushroom-white, lips blue.

  ‘He’s not breathing,’ said Jason, his fingers digging into my flesh.

  ‘No!’ my mother howled, a piercing cry that shattered the fragile atmosphere.

  Everything was louder, brighter, edgier.

  ‘Sam, how long has he been like this? What happened? How did he…?’ Jason’s voice died as he noted the bruising that had formed around Neil’s throat.

  My mother’s hands fluttered behind her. ‘Tell Jason what he did to you.’

  ‘He didn’t do any—’

  ‘Tell Jason why you had to strangle him,’ her lips quivered.

  ‘It wasn’t m—’

  ‘Who killed him?’ Jason glanced at my mother.

  She shook her head, pressed her lips together and looked away.

  Then his eyes settled on me.

  BETHAN

  Now

  I wait by the window, peering through the glass at the atlas-blue sky. The sheer drop to the river below shimmers crystalline from a pale slice of weak sun that splashes through the bare trees lining the dry-stone wall. A heron’s call splinters the late evening air, swoops down, then crouches in the undergrowth. When it reappears, it’s carrying a mouse in its beak. The rodent tries unsuccessfully to scramble away. I note the complex juxtaposition of the imminent birth of the moon and the cycle of death as the bird beats its prey about the head in the boggy rushes bordering the garden then swallows it whole.

  Impatient for the phone call from police: Can you confirm your name and place of residence? We’re sending officers to your address. Followed by the knock on the door: can you confirm your husband’s name? We’re sorry to inform you, he’s been found unresponsive at the scene of an accident. I watch the delicate hands of the clock on the mantle turn, 7, 8, 9, but by 10 p.m. my eyelids begin to shutter, and I feel the weightlessness of peace wash over me until I am submerged in it.

  *

  I awake from a collage of images: Neil’s pale complexion eclipsed by my mother’s towering form, intermingled with Humphrey’s battered face and body. Their corpses jarring me from sleep.

  A thud and a cough send me spiralling from the bed, tripping over my slippers, and sprawling out of the room. I stand at the top of the staircase, heart racing, looking down at the empty porch shrouded in darkness, positive someone has entered the cottage.

  There is a crash from the kitchen. I thunder downstairs. When I hit the bottom step, I swear there’s a hint of damp air weaving its way down the hall. The whisper of a coat zip tapping against granite.

  I tip-toe into the living room, grab the poker from the fireplace, and like the victim from a detective novel I’d yell at for such dim-witted behaviour, I kick the kitchen door wide-open and switch on the light.

  White hot fear stabs me in the chest. I drop the poker on my sock-covered foot and inhale the yelp. My ears ring with the heavy burden of confused rage that filters between the cracks of my Fabergé-like existence.

  Humphrey’s erect posture belies his unsteady gait. ‘Sorry I woke you.’

  ‘Uh…’ I point at his arm, a cast wrapped around it, held against his torso with a sling, my mouth agape while I try to process the fact he is here, injured but alive. ‘What the fuck happened to you?’

  ‘The brakes failed. I drove into a hawthorn bush. Dislocated my shoulder forcing the door open to get out. Got a taxi back from Ysbyty Gwynedd, ten miles away, which is the nearest A&E hospital. The car’s a write-off though unfortunately. I scraped the side of it on a wall at forty miles an hour. I’m tired. I’d like to hit the sack. Will we be sharing a bed, or shall I sleep on the sofa?’

  ‘Um…’

  ‘I apologise for the way I spoke to you earl…’ He studies his Rolex. ‘Yesterday. It was wrong of me to say those things. I’m sorry. I’ve done nothing but reflect on our fight. I hope you can forgive me?’

  ‘Yes, sure.’

  He sighs, his unharmed shoulder dropping an inch. ‘Goodnight, darling.’ He pulls me into him, crushes me against his chest and kisses my forehead.

  ‘The car?’

  ‘With a garage. The insurers will investigate the damage and decide whether it was caused by negligence or mechanical malfunction.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘They’ll want to know what happened. Why a perfectly good car, barely two years off the forecourt of a dealership, suddenly and inexplicably failed to stop and almost killed me.’

  My limbs go rigid yet feel unsuppor
ted. ‘I’ll be up in a minute. I’m going to get a glass of water.’

  He nods.

  I wait for him to ascend the stairs and close the bedroom door before I release the pent-up frustration building to a crescendo inside me by punching the wall so hard my knuckles burn. I scrape my fist against the rough exposed brickwork as I withdraw it. Then I stare at the bloodspots rising to the surface of my skin until the tension in my muscles recedes.

  I sip ice-cold water from the tap over the kitchen sink, sploshing droplets of it from the rim of the glass and onto my throbbing foot. I stare at the pendulum light fixture until my jagged breaths even out.

  I hobble upstairs in a trance, my foot already starting to bruise, and lie staring at the ceiling, watching the room light up inch-by-inch as the sun rises, Humphrey’s lips vibrating as he snores.

  I check the time on the Westminster bedside clock and give up on the idea of sleep, hopping back downstairs before even the birds have begun to chirp their morning welcome.

  I sit at the dining table still wearing the scent of beeswax. The lacquer is shining, the edges solid against my palms as I tap the hardwood with my newly manicured nails.

  I boil the kettle, swig strong bitter coffee, pour another. It’s the aroma of my second cup that arouses Humphrey.

  He enters the kitchen just after 7 a.m., yawns and stretches, rubs his unharmed hand through his thinning hair, and refills the kettle with stubborn difficulty. ‘How did you sleep?’

  He’s never asked me that before. His head must have bounced off the headrest at the point of impact during his collision with the hawthorn bush.

  ‘Awful.’

  ‘Same.’ He attempts a smile which belies his disconcerting gaze.

  He opens a cupboard door, closes it again. ‘We’ll dine out for breakfast. I’ll reserve a table.’

  ‘I don’t think—’

  ‘I insist. We need oxygen. And we haven’t left the cottage since our arrival.’

  ‘But we haven’t got a c—’

  ‘My insurers have arranged for a hire car to be delivered here at 9 a.m.’

  ‘You’ve got it all sorted, haven’t you?’

  He winks, and for a split second I see Jason and the other half-dozen stepfathers who, after The Incident, walked into and back out of my childhood once they’d got what they wanted from my co-dependent mother.

  I nibble on honey roasted cashew nuts – all I could find in the cupboard – while I watch the time creep ever-closer to the moment the doorbell chimes and a lad who looks too young to drive hands Humphrey the keys to his temporary ride. He gets him to sign an inventory and introduces him to the mid-life-crisis-red open-top S-Class with an aerodynamic spoiler and giant Bola dish alloys.

  ‘You’ll have to drive.’ He raises his elbow and winces motioning for me to get a move on.

  I snatch the car keys off him and march out of the door, foot aching with every step, not bothering to give Humphrey or the naïve-looking man a second glance.

  Behind the steering wheel I hold the power to ram us both into a ditch or enjoy a warm carb-concentrated meal. My foot automatically hits the accelerator as we reach a tight bend and Humphrey grips the door for support.

  Dancing with death somehow makes me feel more alive.

  We park in front of the grey stone façade of The Heights, stood erect beneath a backdrop of lime-green, slate-grey, and rust-coloured mountains, drizzled bone-white at their peaks.

  Inside, there’s a walnut-panelled bar, varnished floor and ceiling beams, and the walls above the dado rail are seafoam-grey. The wide windows allow warm puddles of light to fall over small square tables where a glass vase containing decorative pebbles and a peony floating inside sit centrally on each.

  We’re shown through an archway and into a snug with a distant view of the river running alongside the far end of the gardens. We sit on teal-coloured cushions in silence until our food is brought to the table: eggs benedict on brioche muffins with maple cured bacon and hollandaise sauce. The rich aromatic coffee awakens my senses enough for me to enjoy the sweet and savoury food, momentarily forgetting it will be our last shared meal.

  I do not intend to wait any longer to intervene in ending his life.

  Humphrey leaves the table while I visit the bathroom, pee, reapply my lipstick, smack my lips together and smile at my reflection. This is it. The end of the beginning.

  In the car, I’m not paying attention to the signs, the too narrow road I’ve taken leading us out of Llanberis and further north, away from the cottage. I’m focused instead on all the things I will buy, and do once Humphrey is gone, until I feel his hand on my thigh. ‘You’ve taken a wrong turn.’

  His phone buzzes and he answers swiftly, eyes frozen on the chunky rocks, the wisps of fog hazing the hillside. I stiffen my shoulders at the deep masculine voice emanating down the line, ‘ABS,’ and feel my limbs locking, breath hitching as the conversation becomes more intense, the explanation more mechanical. ‘Fuse blown?’

  I frown, keeping my eyes on the road ahead.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Humphrey says.

  I don’t catch it all, but the word ‘deliberate’ weaves its way across to me. My knees lock, my hands go rigid and when I glance into my side mirror, I see a frozen expression, hard impenetrable features and a spark of cold anger visible in my ice-blue eyes.

  ‘Leave it with me,’ he says.

  My throat constricts and a spasm of uncertainty creeps down my spine.

  He glares through the passenger window at the low-built wall, the hedgerows becoming denser and the river edging closer. ‘You should’ve turned left, back there.’

  ‘Who was on the phone?’

  He sighs heavily. ‘The garage.’

  ‘What’s wrong with the car?’

  ‘Someone tampered with it.’

  ‘Why would anyone do that?’ My laugh jettisons out like cracked glass being stepped on.

  ‘I don’t know, Bethan. Perhaps you could enlighten me.’

  DI LOCKE

  Then

  I looked Rick Kiernan in the eye. The screen was paused on his face while Detective Sergeant Jones rummaged through his man-bag for the Jaffa Cakes I’d insisted he buy me from the petrol station shop, to make up for the coffee he forgot in Greggs.

  ‘Happy now?’ he said.

  ‘Ecstatic.’

  If you didn’t know it was banter, you’d think he was being disrespectful to his superior. But that was just how our relationship worked. We bounced our energy off each other until one told the other to fuck off. In all honesty, it was usually him having to bring me down a notch.

  He dumped the box on the desk in front of me with a satisfied smile sliced across his face, displaying his pearly whites.

  ‘You’re looking pleased with yourself, Dylan.’

  ‘I haven’t eaten a Jaffa Cake in years.’

  ‘That’s a shame,’ I said, ripping open the box.

  He sat beside me and hovered his hand over the remote.

  I motioned to the television. ‘This is the best bit of the film,’ I said, tearing into the wrapper and shoving a biscuit into my mouth.

  ‘Are you going to hog them?’

  ‘Press play,’ I said as I chewed.

  He hit the button. Then he leaned towards me and stretched out his arm.

  Without a second’s hesitation I’d elbowed him away and fixed my other on the back of his hand, trapping his thieving mitt to the tabletop.

  ‘That’s assault, Emma.’

  ‘And that’s theft,’ I said, snapping up the box and returning the opened stack of cellophane-wrapped Jaffa Cakes beside their companions, unable to look away from the screen now that Rick was staring back at me.

  ‘I bet you wish you’d bought me a coffee now, huh?’ I retrieved another biscuit and bit it in half.

  Rick was of average height, average intelligence, and scored no significant findings on the personality inventory he volunteered for when his boss introduced psychometric t
esting to increase work productivity and wellbeing, that could have alerted anyone to the red flags typically identified in serial killers. He had no criminal record, had never displayed a propensity to violence, had a stable childhood, a secure relationship, a job he’d held onto for over a decade. There was no obvious reason to suspect he had the compulsion to murder.

  I believe that was how he’d got away with it for so long.

  MELANIE

  Then

  Neil’s spine arched, his feet wrestling with the skirting board, while his face slowly turned towards me. His eyes were bloodshot. Burst blood vessels had turned patches of his cheeks purple, and his pallor retained an unhealthy hue even after he spluttered, ‘Thank you.’

  My mother’s expression displayed her disgust at Jason for having conducted mouth-to-mouth to bring Neil back to the land of the living. She turned to face the man who, only minutes before, she’d tried to murder. ‘What were you doing in my daughter’s room?’

  ‘You said to crash in the bedroom,’ he croaked, clutching his sore ribs. ‘I didn’t know… I got the wrong room.’

  ‘Why didn’t you say something before I—’

  ‘Pounced on me and began to choke me? I didn’t get a chance, did I?’

  ‘Well, I—’

  ‘Like mother like daughter.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’ Jason puffed out his chest.

  ‘Impulsive, irrational.’ His eyes flicked down to me. ‘Aggressive.’

  ‘Get out of my house and don’t come back.’

  ‘Sam?’ Jason reached out to my mother, but she elbowed him off. ‘Don’t touch me.’

  Neil hoisted himself up off the floor. He almost sank back down but Jason shunted him along and he grappled with the wall until he was stable enough to walk without aid.

  ‘Go back to bed, kiddo,’ said Jason. ‘Me and your mum need to talk.’

  My mother’s last words to me still rung in my ears as I trod the stairs: ‘Tell Jason why you had to strangle him.’