Kiss Me, Kill Me

by Mullins, Louise

  I push his head forward so that his chin rests against his chest to examine the wound. ‘It’s just a gash.’

  ‘Be careful,’ I admonish him. For every injury you acquire will need explaining.

  ‘We should have come prepared.’ Noting the look of confusion on my face he adds, ‘The first-aid kit’s in the E-Class at the garage.’

  ‘Right. I suppose you want to turn back?’

  ‘I should clean this cut up.’

  I’m not returning to the cottage with you.

  ‘I thought you wanted me to experience the “spectacular views”?’ I quote the air.

  ‘I hit my head hard on that—’

  ‘It was your idea to come here. I wanted to stay in the cottage.’

  ‘Yes.’ He smiles, clasps my hand, squeezes my fingers and together we trudge carefully onward.

  By the time we reach the highest point the sun has dipped, the air has cooled, and Humphrey’s gait has changed to what I’d expect a man much older to exhibit.

  He stops for a moment, clutching his head.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘I feel a little dizzy.’

  ‘Are you okay to carry on?’

  Say yes.

  He nods then closes his eyes as if to refocus them from the movement.

  He fumbles inside his coat pocket, the wind blowing his hair upright so that it looks as if he’s been electrocuted. My pulse quickens at the thought of having to rig such an accident when a gust of wind sweeps the phone Humphrey has managed to retrieve from his hand. I catch it before it hits a sharp piece of slate jutting out from a mound of clay peat at a brilliantly dangerous angle.

  ‘Take a photograph of us, right here.’

  I sigh, ignoring the tremor in his voice, snatch the phone, sidle up to him so that we’re almost touching, turn on the camera and aim it so that we’re both centred in the frame. His positioning shadows the dark, claret-coloured stain above his ear as I paint on a smile, snap the picture and hold the phone out for him to collect. But he doesn’t take it. He’s shielding his eyes from the glare of the sun with one hand, entranced by a bird flapping through the sky.

  I shove the phone in front of his face, our image fading before being replaced by the screensaver. ‘Do you want to see it?’

  He dismisses my question with a swipe of his hand, almost knocking the phone from mine. ‘Look at the way the light casts a golden halo around the Peregrine Falcon.’ His face is lit on one side, his enthralled expression one of joy.

  I pocket the phone. ‘Come on, David Attenborough, let’s shift our arses.’

  He laughs, steps forward and points ahead. ‘We should go back before it gets dark and we have to call mountain rescue. This route takes longer but it’s flatter terrain.’

  I cross my arms and bite the inside of my cheek. There is a slope ahead. ‘I’m going this way.’ In search of somewhere to push you off.

  Humphrey’s footsteps grind behind me as I scramble down the track of slate that shifts beneath my feet with every step. Midway through our descent, he stalls to take a breather. ‘Are you trying to kill me?’

  I smile and stride on.

  Nearing a lower portion of the hill he appears at my side. ‘Tread carefully. There are potholes and…’ He falters mid-step, kicks the air behind him, falls on one knee and I involuntarily reach out for him in a feeble attempt to offer my support, but grasp only air as he lands face down with a loud crack, his bandaged arm snapping from the weight of his body.

  I lean over him. ‘H-Humphrey?’

  I take a deep breath, exhale it with a long moan and tug his shoulder until he turns, his face with it, slack features covered with blood. A large flap of skin hangs from a dent in his forehead, the open flesh above his right eyebrow glistens like cream in the semi-darkness. The blood that oozes down his nose and trickles between the gaps in the slate has the consistency of thick strawberry jam.

  Brain matter?

  ‘You idiot!’

  How am I going to explain two head injuries and a broken arm, as well as the car accident that caused it, especially when the police investigate Humphrey’s eventual death and discover the E-Class was tampered with just like the Sprinter?

  His pulse is faint, his heart is still pumping blood round his body, albeit slowly. Although there’s not enough blood surrounding the skull to cause him to bleed out there is a substantial amount of it spreading through the cracks in the slate, creating a marble effect across their surface. It’s then that I notice the impact of his fall has reopened and worsened the cut he received to his head earlier; there’s bone now visible beneath the slice.

  I don’t want to be stuck caring for him. But I can’t leave him here to die. Yet if I call him an ambulance as he’s only just been discharged from hospital the staff will view his medical records, become suspicious over the amount of injuries he’s acquired in such a short space of time, and notify the police who’ll want to question me about them.

  I have no choice; I must keep him alive.

  But as soon as I’ve made this decision he begins to gurgle, and I notice blood seeping from his ear. I’m not medically qualified but I’ve done enough research to know that’s a classic sign of brain injury.

  I force my shaking hands to still and regain control of my hammering heartbeat so that I can drag Humphrey by his feet to a more suitable, less conspicuous site. Except he weighs fifteen stone and my lung capacity proves I’m too unfit to do so. Instead I move the slate and gritty mud to surround him in a way that suggests he fell, and the slate will shift into position around and over him during the storm we’re expecting, so it’ll prove harder and take far longer for someone to discover him. Then I stand, inhale a short burst of relief and survey the scene before me, reassuring myself no one can see the inch-wide gap displaying his pale nose or the protrusion of black where the toe of his scuffed shoe peeps out.

  The wind whistles through the trees as I jog across the stone path in near darkness, the underside of my fingernails clotted with blood and grains of soil. I take a wrong turn, teeth chattering, movements stiff. My surroundings black against onyx, with just a sliver of moonlight to guide the way.

  An hour or more later I reach a clearing. I stop to collapse on the ground, rest my spine against the exterior wall of a slate-built hut and laugh until I cry.

  Six months I’ve meticulously planned Humphrey’s death, choosing the perfect method, place and time, and he goes and dies in an accident.

  I pull his phone from my pocket, swipe the screen to unlock it – grateful it’s not password protected – and my pulse ratchets up a notch at the photograph on the screen: the last shot of us together.

  In the left-hand corner, between two pine trees there is a distinctively humanoid figure standing with his or her head and torso bent forward as though watching and listening to us.

  Did the individual witness Humphrey fall and my subsequent cover-up?

  I jump at the rustle of leaves and the caw of a crow.

  Dizzy with exhaustion, calves protesting, I run. Snapping twigs and catching my clothes on protruding branches, nettles ripping through them and clawing at my skin. I emerge opposite the car park, covered in scratches. I glance back as I reach the locked cast iron gate, see that only my conscience is chasing me. Now I’m presented with another unforeseen problem: how to get the car through a bollard as stealthily as possible.

  DI LOCKE

  Then

  It was the third time I’d watched the remotely recorded interview between Winters and Chapman, and Rick Kiernan. But no matter how many times I saw those soulless eyes meet the camera lens he clocked in the corner of the ceiling of Interview Room Three, they never ceased to cause my skin to prickle.

  I remember watching a horror film with my mates as a teenager and one of them – Craig, I think – said, ‘That’s what evil must look like.’ His words were aimed at the bad guy whose face remained expressionless as he tore his hooked hand through his female victim’s neck and wat
ched her splutter as blood poured from the hole in her throat.

  I knew what Craig meant. I was staring at evil now.

  He might have appeared and acted normal but if you knew the signs as I did, you’d know there was something not quite right about the way Rick looked at you. Or more specifically the way he looked at women. Like Winters. Who we knew was his type. Thick, dark hair, toffee-coloured eyes and pale skin. Having her as well as Chapman interview him was deliberate. I thought it would bring out his predatory side. And it did. Unfortunately, so did the defence.

  I’d made a conscious decision to influence Rick’s behaviour during his interview. Something his solicitor couldn’t prove without admitting his client’s guilt. Which meant I couldn’t be accused of allowing my personal grievances to impact my objectivity.

  Allegations of entrapment could be used to discredit an investigation when a suspect was facing a life term, and as Rick was facing an indefinite sentence, his solicitor had all the more reason to try everything he could to fight the prosecution.

  We had Rick locked up, the evidence against him stacked, and the gun barrels that were the Crown Prosecution Service and his only living victim aimed at him. What we didn’t have was a forensic profile linking Rick to the murders of all five women.

  Even though the circumstances surrounding their deaths were similar, the way they’d been killed was the common denominator, and some fabric CSIs found in the hair on one of the bodies resembled the colour of a sweater in Rick’s chest of drawers. We were relying on the one who’d got away to get him put away.

  MELANIE

  Then

  My mother’s brow was creased, and her mouth hung open. ‘Overdose?’

  ‘Yes,’ said the doctor.

  ‘You’re saying it was deliberate, that she wanted to die?’

  ‘When she regains consciousness, I’ll arrange for the psychiatric nurse to speak to Elin. We’ll need to assess her risk of self-harm before she can be discharged. And as the medications she’s been prescribed are controlled substances it’s likely she’ll be referred to the Community Psychiatric Team for a monthly depot injection, for her safety.’

  ‘This is so out of character.’

  ‘The depression?’

  ‘No. Attempting to take her own life.’

  He nodded lightly. ‘She hasn’t exhibited signs of suicidality in the past according to her medical notes, but the depression could be an unwanted side-effect of the anti-psychotics. Which would explain her apparently sudden decision to end her life.’

  ‘You think she planned to kill herself with my daughter in the house?’

  The doctor glanced at me then back to my mother. ‘That’s something only Elin can answer.’

  ‘Can I see her?’

  The doctor nodded and said, ‘We’ve given her a boost of noradrenaline to counteract the sedative effects of the drugs she took but she’s still unwell and will be for some time.’

  We followed the doctor from the office and into the corridor. My mother stopped halfway down the slope, turned to me and said, ‘You can’t come in.’

  The doctor gave me a weak smile and said, ‘There’s a waiting room down there,’ then led my mother towards the lifts.

  I went back the way we’d come until I reached the waiting room. I dismissed the idea of sitting beside a woman who stank of piss and a man who was talking to himself and continued to the café where I sat on a hard, plastic chair in the corner.

  There was a pile of comics on a shelf above my head. I picked one up and flicked it open, scanning the pages without absorbing the words. I was midway through the third paragraph when my mother tore the magazine from my hands. ‘Up and out.’

  She didn’t speak until we were yards away from the grey painted walls of the ward. She grabbed my arm and swung me round to face her. ‘You gave your Gran too many pills.’

  A car reversed out of a parking space. Its headlights beamed through the small rectangular sash windows, dazzling me. I turned away, blinked.

  Her fingernails dug into my arm. ‘She almost died.’

  A tune began in my head.

  She tilted my chin up, forcing me to meet her gaze. ‘You crushed too many tablets into her drink, stupid girl.’

  The music got louder.

  ‘When will you ever learn? You’re just like your father… Jason left because of you.’

  The singing in my head stopped. The voice that came out of my mouth sounded unlike my own.

  ‘No, he didn’t.’

  My mother released me with a shove. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Jason left because you strangled Neil.’

  ‘Shut up,’ she said through gritted teeth, smiling as a couple neared us.

  I waited until they’d passed. ‘You thought you’d killed him, so you told Jason I’d attacked Neil in retaliation for something he hadn’t even d—’

  She pressed a trembling finger against my mouth and the words died on my tongue. The couple stopped mid-stride just a few feet away from us. The woman shot me a look of incredulity, then tore her eyes from me as her husband coaxed her away and guided her down the corridor.

  My mother steered me to the wall cornering the fire exit to our left where two concrete steps led out to a pair of double doors and lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘I was protecting you. I thought he’d touched you.’

  I pushed her hand away. ‘You misinterpreted it.’

  ‘You stood and watched. You didn’t try to stop me from—’

  ‘Almost killing him.’

  She took a step back, shook her head slowly, and smiled. Her eyes flashed with anger, then glazed over with tears of sadness.

  ‘Jason left because you lied to him. You tried to blame me for something you did. He was going to help you cover it up.’

  ‘Hah.’ She turned and stormed off, out of the hospital. I had to run to catch up with her. I met her at the car where she stood with her shoulders slumped and her head bowed.

  Tony sat bug-eyed in the driver’s seat eating a Snickers bar he’d bought from the vending machine in the entrance to the hospital. ‘Everything okay?’

  ‘She’ll live,’ said my mother, tilting her head back and flicking me a disdainful look. ‘No thanks to her.’

  He glanced quickly into the rear-view mirror, caught me picking at the frayed edges of the seatbelt and swallowed the last mouthful of chocolate. He started the engine, wound the window down, dumped the wrapper in a bin at the edge of the car park as he passed it and drove us home without a word.

  When we got there, he followed us from the car and into the house. He stayed that night and the next. And remained living with us for four years.

  *

  I came home from school one Friday, about two months after he’d moved in, to find an eight-year-old girl sat on the end of my bed combing the hair on the Barbie doll my father had bought me the Christmas before.

  ‘Who are you?’

  She looked up at me with startled eyes and dropped the doll. ‘Caitlyn.’

  ‘What are you doing in my bedroom?’

  ‘Dad said it was mine.’

  ‘Tony?’

  ‘Yeah,’ she smiled.

  I turned towards the door and yelled down the stairs. ‘Mum?!’

  ‘Alright, Mel,’ she said, pounding up the staircase.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ said Tony, appearing behind her seconds after her feet hit the landing.

  I pointed at Caitlyn. ‘She’s not having my bed.’

  My mother frowned. ‘You’re sharing.’

  ‘No way. She can have the spare room.’

  My mother glanced from Tony to Caitlyn. ‘She can’t. Your gran’s going to have it.’

  ‘What? Why?’

  Tony put his hand on my shoulder. ‘She’s moving in so we can keep an eye on her.’

  ‘Because she took too many pills?’

  My mother shook her head then looked away. Tony sighed heavily. ‘Because while she was in hospital your mother collected Gr
an’s post and found out she hadn’t paid her rent for almost seven months.’

  ‘Can’t you pay it for her? You’ve just got your half of the proceeds from the sale of your house.’

  ‘Divorce doesn’t work like that, Mel. I had to give my ex-wife child support to pay for Caitlyn’s upbringing.’

  ‘But if she’s living here with us you don’t need to.’

  He smiled at his daughter. ‘Caitlyn’s only going to be here weekends.’

  I turned to face my mother. ‘You can work it out that she’s here while I’m with Dad, so we never have to share a room.’

  She widened her eyes at my comment. We both knew that was an impossibility. I hadn’t seen my father since the wedding. I didn’t know where he and his wife lived. Hadn’t yet been invited to visit the newly built home they shared with their honey-coloured Labrador.

  BETHAN

  Now

  My hands are shaking so much I can barely hold the steering wheel. My limbs have locked into position, my foot is juddering on the accelerator and my right eye is twitching as I reverse out of the parking space, stopping in front of the swing gate to decide on my best exit point. Without bolt cutters the only way I am going to be able to leave the car park is to drive into the barrier and hope it doesn’t do too much damage to the hire car.

  Does it have a tracking device fitted to it as per the rental insurance agreement?

  The tremor in my hands builds as I back up, put my foot down to rant the engine, and prepare for the collision. I get the car up to thirty-five miles an hour, close my eyes and…

  The parking sensors ping, there is a brief crunch of metal as first, the front bumper, then the bonnet hits the hollow steel arm of the barrier. It bends, snaps off and lands on the concrete several feet from the car with a ding. I brake as I open my eyes, faced with another set of headlights, piercing through the night-time gloom.

  The car swerves round too fast for me to catch sight of the driver or any passengers as it turns and speeds off, but the dim orange glow of the only nearby streetlight allows me to read part of the distinctive personalised number plate: GTY.