Only You: an absolutely gripping psychological thriller

by S Williams

It wasn’t the baby’s fault that its father had raped her.

  But then again it wasn’t her fault either.

  That was a realisation Bella had come to slowly. For the longest time she had thought that it must have been something she had done. Some signal she had given out, but she had realised that that wasn’t true.

  It wasn’t her fault.

  It wasn’t her fault.

  ‘What am I going to do?’ she whispered into the darkness.

  40

  The Craven Head

  Mary storms back through the pub, her heart pounding. She enters the bar and spies Jamie, helping himself to another drink. She strides over to him, excited.

  ‘You’re right, Jamie! She’s Martha, has to be, but she doesn’t realise it! She’s adopted! Her history must have been wiped or whatever, because of what happened. I think someone’s fucking with her, like they’re fucking with us.’

  Mary plonks herself on a stool at the bar, her mind buzzing. She doesn’t see the look of fear on Jamie’s face.

  ‘I don’t know who it could be, but someone’s dragging up the past.’ She puts her hand flat on the table, her eyes shining.

  ‘She’s the Feds, Mouse,’ says Jamie, flatly.

  Mary stops talking and looks at him. He’s clearly had a few more gins since she’d left.

  ‘What?’

  ‘She’s a policewoman, Mouse! She’s up here investigating us! Undercover. Athene isn’t even her real name.’

  ‘What?’ Mary repeats again. ‘Investigating us? Why would she be investigating us?’

  ‘Fuck knows. Maybe something to do with Trent?’

  Mary sighs, suddenly feeling like she wants to lie down on the floor and close her eyes.

  ‘What’s going on, Jamie? What do you mean she’s a policewoman?’

  ‘I found her warrant card upstairs, hidden in her room.’

  Mary shakes her head. ‘What were you doing in her room?’

  ‘Like we said, she seemed to be involved, so I had a quick butchers.’

  Mary looks at him. There were so many things wrong with what he was saying she barely knew where to start. ‘You can’t just let yourself into her room and search through her private stuff, Jamie! That’s not right.’

  Mary jumps as he first bangs his fist down onto the table, then raises it to hit the side of his head.

  ‘Missing the point, Mouse! It’s not going in! She’s the fucking police! Even if she’s Martha with a new name, she’s the police! She kept it hidden! That means…’

  Realisation suddenly breaks across his face.

  ‘It’s her! That’s how she got them!’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  Jamie looks at the door, then at the ceiling, as if he has X-ray eyes and can see into the room above. ‘The photos. If she’s the police then she has access to them.’

  He drops his gaze and looks at her.

  ‘It’s all Athene or whatever her name is! She’s the one who sent the photos. She’s the one who tracked down Trent. She’s been lying to us all. She’s playing some fucking warped game with our heads.’

  Mary looks at him, feeling the truth of what he is saying. If Martha really was with the police then it all made a kind of horrible sense. She’d have the ability to find out about the car crash; have access to the evidence, maybe. But it didn’t explain the subterfuge. Didn’t shed any light on why she’d need or want to manipulate them like this. Trent had gone to jail for what had happened. The whole thing was history.

  Mary swallowed.

  Except, of course, it wasn’t.

  There were still secrets.

  Still things that were buried.

  41

  Bella’s Last Day: Travel Diary

  After the Cigarette

  I’ve just done the worst thing ever, but I couldn’t help it.

  There wasn’t a choice. She cried and cried no matter what I said.

  I had to write it down because she deserves it, but I’m going to rip the page out later, because I don’t want it to contaminate the rest of it. I’ve written it because I’m so ashamed. I tried to tell her but she didn’t understand.

  How could she?

  I hate myself for doing it.

  Even though I know it’s the right thing.

  It had to be done, otherwise they may not believe me.

  I’m so sorry, Athene. If you ever read this you’d probably hate me.

  But I’m doing it for you.

  42

  The Craven Head: Athene’s Room

  Athene steps into her room. If Mary could see her now, she wouldn’t recognise her. The wide-eyed look has disappeared. She looks older. Harder. More like the rocks that scatter the landscape than the girl she has been playing for the last day.

  She closes the door quietly and is about to walk to the bathroom when she stops.

  On top of the bedside table is a can of polish.

  Athene looks at it, working out the meaning, then walks swiftly to the wardrobe and opens the door. She looks down at the laundry bag, feeling relief spread through her, then back at the table.

  ‘Okedoke,’ she says softly, and reaches into her pocket, pulling out her phone.

  43

  Blea Moor, 1998: The End of Summer

  Blea Fell through the lens of the camera looked like it was a secret in stone. The windows were mirror-blinded by the sun shining on them, preventing any chance of observing what was going on within. There was no car parked on the track; both parents being out, doing something with the baby, probably. Maybe taking it to the doctor. Apparently it would never go to sleep at night; would stay up screaming until morning.

  A real night-owl, Bella had said.

  Jamie smiled when he thought about Bella, and panned the front of the house, eyeing the building through the camera lens, trying to see through the windows.

  Bella, Bella, Bella. Jamie muttered her name under his breath like a mantra.

  Jamie settled himself into the coarse grass, rocking his hips against the ground. He was lying down on his stomach, his camera on a stubby tripod. Beside him was a book of moorland birds, on the off-chance he was spotted, and a bottle of diet Coke. In his Nike backpack he had a selection of chocolate bars, a half loaf of white sliced bread, and a packet of cheese and onion crisps.

  Jamie looked through the lens at the house for a moment longer, snapped off a couple of shots, then sat up.

  On top of the hill overlooking the house, Jamie had positioned himself between two gorse bushes; not enough to impede his view, but hopefully enough so he couldn’t be spotted from the house, should anybody happen to look his way. And if anybody got curious, he had his ornithological book, where he had marked out local birds with a highlighter pen. He was dressed in a pair of army combat trousers and a fleece. Although the sun was out, there was a brisk wind, bringing the smell of the sea in from the west.

  Jamie began building himself a chocolate and crisp sandwich.

  So far he had managed to photograph Bella in the kitchen, making herself a coffee, then sitting down on the tatty sofa writing in her diary. Or diaries, he corrected himself, biting into the sandwich. The chocolate was just the right side of soft, and as he chewed, it mixed with the crisps and white bread, until the whole thing became the consistency of slurry in his mouth. He’d stolen the crisps and chocolate bars from behind the bar when he’d left that morning; his parents still asleep. Jamie wouldn’t be surprised if they were still there, lying in their bed, reeking of alcohol and old-people sex.

  Sometimes Jamie would watch them, sleeping. Sometimes he would watch them, and wonder what it would be like to stab them with the kitchen knife. Over and over.

  Jamie felt a slight shiver as the sun went behind a cloud. Stuffing the rest of his sandwich into his mouth, he lay back down and positioned himself behind the camera. As he looked through the lens, the house suddenly sprang forward, the beaten stone of its walls in sharp focus. Jamie moved the camera slightly so he could look through t
he kitchen window. The room was almost half of the ground floor, stretching from front to back, with a whole dining room and living space included. From his angle, Jamie could see the stove, and the sofa in front of it where Bella had been writing in her diaries. The telephoto lens hadn’t been powerful enough that he could see what she had been writing, but it had definitely been passionate. As he had watched her, she had practically been etching the words. He could see her grip on the pen, white and hard. And the expression on her face had actually frightened him a little. Bella, whose features were normally so guarded, had looked so angry. Like there was a rip in her. He had watched as she’d flung one book aside, and picked up another. Jamie wasn’t sure he knew how, but he knew they were diaries; something Bella was putting her secret-self into. There was something about the intimacy of her gaze on the page. There was no thought process going on there, like if you were writing a story. What was in her head was spewing straight into the book.

  And it wasn’t pretty, whatever it was.

  Jamie smiled, and wondered if it was about Trent. Or Mouse.

  Bella wasn’t in the kitchen anymore; or at least not anywhere the camera could see. The diaries had been cleared away, and the sofa was empty. Jamie kept the camera looking through the window a minute more, in case she returned into shot, and then moved it across to the window that looked into the other part of the ground floor; a sort of study where the father worked.

  Jamie didn’t like the father. The father had hungry eyes. Jamie had seen him at various school functions, and very occasionally in his parents’ bar, sipping whisky. The father’s eyes were always watching; eating. Eating up whatever they were looking at, like they couldn’t get enough of whatever it was. Not just eating; consuming. Gobbling. And never satisfied. Always hungry.

  Jamie looked through the camera at the empty room. Bella wasn’t in there, and neither was the hungry father. Jamie gave a cursory look around the room. There was a nondescript picture on the wall, an old-fashioned metal safe, much like the one his parents had in the cellar, and a home computer on the desk. Other than that the room was strangely empty. The space seemed to be barren, like a film set. Not real.

  Jamie felt the shiver again, and moved the camera to the upstairs window. The hill he was hidden on rose above the house, putting him slightly higher than the upstairs windows. Having never been in the house, he picked the top left at random, and caught his breath as the camera picked up Bella’s back. It was just a flash as she walked in front of the window, but it was enough to cause his heart to leap into his throat. He quickly pulled his face away from the camera and looked around him. He knew it was irrational; that even if he was being observed, no one without a camera with a telescopic lens of their own would know what he was looking at, but nevertheless he felt the sick slug of fear in his stomach.

  Jamie looked around the moor, empty other than the lapwings and the skylarks. He glanced at the sky, and saw there was a large bank of clouds, meaning he’d have a viewing window of at least a few minutes. He lay back down and pressed his eye against the lens.

  The room was the bathroom, which explained the lack of clothes. Despite him viewing from the hill, the angle wasn’t acute enough to see if Bella was completely naked; the window sill obscured anything lower than a hint of curve at the base of her spine. Not taking his eye off Bella, Jamie fed chocolate into his mouth, pushing it in slowly between his teeth, and resting his tongue on it, feeling it melt under his heat. Bella was standing in front of the sink, with the bathroom mirror in front of her. She wasn’t doing anything; just staring at her reflection. Jamie wondered if she was about to have a bath; she hadn’t been gone from the kitchen long enough to have had one already. After a moment, Jamie decided she wasn’t. There was no steam in the bathroom; he could see her face clearly in the mirror. It was not a large mirror, so he couldn’t see her breasts; just her face and neck.

  What are you doing, Bella? he wondered, the chocolate slowly becoming liquid in his mouth, filling it. He pushed in a little more. What are you looking at, with those eyes? Bella appeared motionless, just… still. Jamie noticed her right shoulder was moving slightly, meaning she was moving her arm.

  Are you touching yourself? His head hummed inside his skull. Chocolate dribbled out of the corner of his mouth.

  After what seemed an age she looked sideways and down.

  Something in the sink, he thought, or by the side of the sink.

  Then her hand appeared, holding something small. Light from the mirror slid off it, and Jamie realised it was a razor blade; not one of those disposable ones his dad used, but a metal rectangle, the type you put in those razors with the wind-up middle.

  Safety razors, Jamie remembered. Which was a stupid name for them, because it looked anything but safe. He watched as Bella got hold of her hair with one hand, and held it up and out from her head. Bella stared at her reflection a moment longer, then brought up her other hand; the one with the razor blade, and sawed at her hair. She must have been pulling tight, because after a few moments the hand holding her hair jerked away, the tress still held in it.

  ‘Jesus!’ whispered Jamie. Bits of molten chocolate came out, splattering the camera, but he didn’t notice. Bella placed the hair somewhere out of sight, and grabbed the next lock. Slowly she brought the blade to it, and repeated the process. And the next. And the next. Jamie watched, hardly breathing, as he witnessed Bella massacre her own hair. And all the time she did it, Jamie noticed, her expression never changed.

  Subconsciously, Jamie nodded.

  What happened, Bella? What did Trent do?

  The buzzing in Jamie’s head increased, no longer connected to any sexual desire. He stayed stone-still, and then let out a shaky breath when Bella finally finished and placed the blade in the sink.

  Bella looked at her work in the mirror, then turned around.

  And everything got worse.

  Jamie let out a gasp as he saw Bella’s bare front.

  She had not been touching herself, just before she hacked off her hair, or at least not in the way Jamie had imagined.

  There were cuts all over her chest; slashes of red where she had sliced herself with the razor. There was no gushing; the cuts weren’t deep, but they must have hurt. He saw with a kind of blunt horror that bits of the hair hacked from her head were stuck in the blood.

  Despite himself, he looked closer, his eyes pressed hard against the lenses. Bella reached out of shot, her hand returning holding a towel. She turned and wet the towel, then turned back and began wiping the blood off herself.

  Now that the blood was cleared off, Jamie could see that there was so much. As well as the new cuts and slashes, there were older ones; ones that had scabbed over. Ones that had faded. Ones that had scarred.

  Jesus, she must have been doing this for months; maybe even years, he thought, pressing the shutter mechanism that would take the picture.

  And then something else occurred to him.

  Why hasn’t Trent said anything? He must know about this! He must have seen them? Bloody hell, he must have felt them!

  And then the thought doubled down on itself, raising the stakes.

  Maybe he caused them.

  Jamie photographed Bella’s face. She was staring out of the window, looking out at the weird collection of trees in the field opposite her house. Watching her, Jamie felt a shiver of dread wash through him.

  Bella was smiling broadly, but only with her mouth. No mirth or joy or even hate reached her eyes. Her eyes were grey buttons. Her eyes were slate pennies.

  Jamie clicked one more photo, then shut down the camera and crept away.

  As awful as what he had witnessed was, Jamie felt happy.

  Maybe he had something he could barter with.

  44

  Athene’s Phone