Only You: an absolutely gripping psychological thriller

by S Williams

  ‘But not all of them. Some of the cuts, they were on her back. There was no way she could have done those herself; and they looked fresh. Fresh and raw and really fucking nasty.’

  The car’s engine takes on a deeper note as it climbs the track towards the top of the hill. When it clears the rise, they will be able to see Blea Fell.

  Mary realises with a start that the last time she had been in a car with Trent was the night Bella had died, climbing up this same hill after the disco.

  ‘When was this?’ asks Trent, cutting across her thoughts.

  For a second, she thinks he is asking her about what she is thinking; about the fair and the disco and the drive home in the snow. About when Bella grabbed the wheel and spun them out of their life into a nightmare. Spun herself out of life altogether, leaving Trent to take the blame.

  But Trent wasn’t talking to her, he was asking Jamie.

  ‘It looked like someone had hurt her. Cut her or scratched her. She had bruises too. And she was hacking at her hair. Maybe she wrote it out in one of her diaries. Maybe that’s why she was so angry. And maybe Martha has all those diaries; maybe they were hidden in the laundry bag.’

  ‘When was this?’ Trent repeats, just as the car reaches the summit. Jamie smiles nastily.

  ‘Just after you’d come back from reform school, Trent.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ Mary whispers, but not at the implications of what Jamie is saying, huge as they were. She is looking out of the window, down the track at the ruin of Blea Fell. The light has left the day completely, leaving the stars shining bright in the blue-black sky; pins of pain on the velvet of the night.

  Trent takes his foot off the accelerator, allowing the car to roll to a stop. ‘Jesus,’ he mutters.

  In front of them, lighting up the wreckage of Blea Fell, Bella’s ghost forest is on fire.

  Each of the strange gnarled trees is burning. From the distance, the twisted branches look like arms stretching out of the flames, reaching into the sky.

  Trent turns off the engine and steps out of the car.

  A beat later, Mary reaches for the handle, her eyes never leaving the burning trees as she pushes the door open. There is no noise; no sound of cracking or the heat whoosh of burning wood; they are too far away. The flames cast jittery shadows of the trees on the wall of the derelict house.

  ‘It’s like they’re dancing,’ Mary says. ‘The shadows. It makes it like the trees are dancing.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Jamie’s voice is hoarse, like some of the flames had licked up the hill and snaked down his throat. ‘Martha must have set fire to them all. Covered them in petrol or something.’

  But Mary isn’t listening. She isn’t even Mary anymore; she is Mouse. Mouse in her heart and Mouse in her head, walking down the path to confront the figure in the room at the top of the stone steps.

  To say sorry.

  65

  Blea Fell House

  The strange stunted trees crackle and snap as they burn, with a high whine as the sap boils off. The burning juniper smells slightly sweet, hanging in the air like popcorn at a fair. They are burning so ferociously that there is a sharp heat against Mouse’s cheek as she reaches the house and turns down the side, heading for the door at the back.

  ‘Hang on, wait for us! She might be dangerous!’ Trent shouts, but Mouse barely hears him. All she can hear is the past, heading towards her like a runaway train. She can feel the pressure of it, the push of it against her heart. As she reaches the corner of the building and turns, the light from the burning trees disappears, and for a moment she is blind, the night sky only blackness above her. She blinks to reboot her sight, and the back door comes into focus, swinging gently on one hinge in the slight breeze.

  Not thinking, Mouse strides to it and walks into Blea Fell, no hesitation in her step. She doesn’t know if Jamie is right; that Martha came up here last summer and somehow found all of Bella’s diaries. Whether Bella had written about the betrayal of Mouse and Trent; had written about how she would revenge herself by killing them all in a final act of madness. And that having found them, Martha was now seeking her own revenge for the death of her sister. It sounded too far-fetched. Too extreme.

  Mouse looks through the door into the kitchen. There are candles on the refectory table. Big church candles and small tea lights. Mouse looks wide-eyed. There must be dozens of them.

  She steps through the doorway and into the house, looking around the ghost of the kitchen in awe. Her first estimation was low; there must have been a hundred candles lit, stuck and guttering to every surface. Not just the old refectory table, but in the hearth, and in the square that used to house the wooden playpen, and along the window settle.

  And on the stone steps that led to Bella’s room. Some of the candles are new, whilst others were burnt half down.

  Mouse looks up at the ceiling.

  Are you up there, Bella? she thinks. Was heaven too dull?

  Mouse feels like she is in a trance, separated from the real world. She takes a step towards the stone steps

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Jamie says, crashing in through the door and looking round. ‘It’s like a fucking horror film in here!’ He takes in all the candles, plus the metal canisters of petrol that are stacked against the wall, presumably used to ignite the trees outside.

  ‘She’s definitely taking the Wuthering Heights vibe to extremes,’ Trent agrees, following in behind him. ‘Bella would be proud. Where’s Martha, then?’

  Before anybody can answer him there is a thump above them, the noise reverberating through the ceiling, sending dust and dry moss motes down, sparkling in the candlelight. They look up, but most of the wood is still intact. Whatever banged from upstairs did not collapse the structure.

  ‘You didn’t do a very good job of burning the house down, did you?’ Jamie whispers. Mouse sees he is clutching a piece of wood that must have splintered off the door, holding it like a baseball bat.

  ‘What?’ he says, looking embarrassed. ‘Those burning trees were freaking me out. I thought she might have gone all Regan on us.’

  ‘I wasn’t trying to burn the house down,’ Trent says.

  ‘You know; from The Exorcist.’ Jamie looks up nervously.

  ‘What?’ Mouse says, looking away from Jamie and glaring at Trent. ‘But that’s what you did! When the ambulance came, you fucked off and left us! Bella dead and me unconscious. Left us to set fire to…’ she glances round, ‘…here.’

  ‘Burning the house down was a by-product. And, in point of fact, impossible, as most of the bloody thing’s stone.’

  ‘But you said…’ She looks at him in confusion, then raises her hands, as if she can divine the truth out of him. ‘You went to jail for it! You killed her father!’

  Before Trent can answer, music begins playing from above them. The first notes of Japan’s ‘Ghosts’ float down and Mouse lets out a gasp. It was the opening track on Bella’s suicide tape; the music mix she had got Mouse to put together. The mix she played in the car on their last drive.

  They all recognise it. Even Jamie, who although not in the car, had watched them leave, his face red and swollen from crying.

  ‘Bella,’ Mouse whispers, looking above her with a feeling she can’t identify at first. It’s only after a moment, she realises what it is: release. After all these years of guilt and loss and loneliness. It is release.

  She walks across the room and climbs the stone stairs.

  After a moment’s hesitation, the two men slowly follow her.

  66

  Bella’s Last Day

  ‘I showed Bella the photo,’ Jamie half shouted the words, the ambient noise in the disco ramped up as midnight approached.

  Trent was distracted; not really listening. He’d just come out of the toilet, his brain frozen by coke, and was looking for Mouse and Bella. He wanted to be with them when the bells came. Not to kiss them, or pose, or any of the things he normally hid behind; but just to… be with them. He was fairly certa
in he was going to end his act tonight. What Mouse had said to him in the alley had… clarified him. On one level it was a massive relief. He needed a new way to live.

  ‘What?’ he said, scanning the crowds, searching for their shapes.

  ‘The photo. Of you and Mouse. I showed it to Bella.’

  ‘Okay! We’re coming up to the top of the clock, folks! If you want to find someone to make face-babies with, now’s the time!’

  The DJ sounded thrilled with himself but Trent wasn’t listening. What Jamie had said finally sank in. Trent turned to look at him. The boy was grinning, the scar a livid mix of alternating colours in the disco lights.

  ‘You what?’ Trent shouted, disbelieving. The noise of revelry was so loud that nobody gave them a second glance. The drug-buzz in his head was making it hard to think, but a knot had formed in his stomach that had nothing to do with the coke.

  ‘I showed Bella the picture of you and Mouse. A few days ago.’

  Trent looked at Jamie, his eyes wild, not believing what he was hearing. ‘You did what?’

  ‘That picture; I showed it to Bella. I thought she should know.’

  Trent felt his brain scrape against his skull. Around them the crowd started gearing up as the DJ began the countdown; encouraging everybody to grab partners and friends. A drunken sea of linking arms and draping shoulders.

  ‘Why the fuck did you do that?’

  Jamie leant forward, so that he didn’t have to shout, placing his mouth next to Trent’s ear. He closed his eyes for a second and breathed in through his nose, consuming the boy’s smell. The scent of booze and drugs and cigarettes. Then he whispered in his ear.

  ‘I don’t think Mouse wants to fuck you anymore, Trent. I think she knows you’re damaged goods.’

  Trent recoiled like he’d been stung. Jamie’s face looked like cuckoo spit, the skin blank with no expression, but something hiding behind it, eating up whatever was behind the mask.

  ‘What the fuck do you mean?’

  ‘I heard you, Trent. I was outside the alley when she dumped you.’

  Trent’s face was blank for a moment, then recognition sparked in his eyes. His mouth tightened to a scar.

  ‘That was you? Throwing up on the wall?’

  Jamie nodded, smiling.

  ‘And I heard what you said about Bella. That you only went with her to get close to Mouse. It was always Mouse, wasn’t it? You were never Heathcliff at all. You were Rochester. Except the mad woman in the attic wasn’t your wife.’ Jamie smiled, exposing white teeth and blood red gums. ‘It was your father.’

  Around them the room exploded in cheering as the countdown finished, and people started kissing each other and singing in the new year.

  ‘I’m going to fucking kill you, Jamie! If you’ve said anything to Mouse about this–’

  ‘Calm down, Daddy’s boy, your secret’s safe with me. You’ve got enough explaining to do as it is.’ Jamie grinned at the horror on Trent’s face. They’d never talked about what happened in the hotel room all those years ago; what Jamie had witnessed. Trent took a step back, rocking on his feet. Jamie’s smile widened until the corners of his mouth looked like they were about to split open.

  Trent punched his finger into Jamie’s chest. ‘I never want to see you again, understand? If you fucking…’ Spittle flew from his mouth. ‘What I did to your face will seem like a scratch. I don’t want to see you. I don’t want to see you talking to Bella. Or Mouse. Or even fucking looking at them, do you understand?’

  Each time he spoke, he pushed his finger into Jamie’s chest, knocking him back, emphasising the points. Outside their bubble of hate, Julee Cruise’s hypnotic voice slithered out of the speakers like mist as she began singing about not getting hurt this time. Jamie just smiled at Trent.

  ‘Don’t worry. You’ll never see me again. I’m done with the lot of you. You can go and live out your fucked-up little ménage a trois until you drown in your own shit as far as I’m concerned.’ And then he leaned forward and stared into Trent’s eyes.

  ‘I would have done anything for you; do you know that? But you had to throw me away, just because I saw…’

  Before Trent can say anything, Jamie turned away, not letting him see the tears spilling from his eyes, burning down his cheeks and blurring his vision. He stumbled outside into the cold night and took in huge freezing breaths, his whole body shaking, until his heart slowed down and his thoughts settled into the cold familiar train-track of his hurt.

  And then he walked round the back of the hotel to his room.

  67

  Bella’s Room: Now

  The closing synth recedes as Mouse enters Bella’s room.

  Like downstairs, the space is illuminated with candlelight. Shadows dance on the walls and mottled ceiling, blurring perspective.

  The girl calling herself Athene is sitting on the floor in the corner of the room. She is wearing the same clothes she had on the day before, when she had walked into Mouse’s café like a living coda. It seems impossible that it was only a day ago, but in the flickering flames, with her head bowed, she looks so much like Bella it is as if somebody had set fire to time. The girl is illuminated in varying shades of grey and yellow, as if the light couldn’t quite reach her. Books are scattered around her; Bella’s diaries, sitting on the floor, spines bent, like dead butterflies. Mouse can see a hole where some of the boards of the wooden floor have been removed, in front of the candle-crammed fireplace.

  Bella’s secret hideaway, she realises. Where she kept her thoughts for years and years. The ones she didn’t share with me.

  ‘The game’s up, love. We know who you are.’ Jamie’s voice, harsh and a little too loud, is coming into the space behind her, cracking open the silence. His voice is a direct contrast to the dance of warm light. Mouse isn’t sure, but she thinks she sees the girl smile. The mournful guitar bass of Joy Division’s ‘Decades’ begins: Bella’s second suicide track.

  ‘Do you? And who’s that then, Jamie. Who do you think I am?’

  The familiar use of his name, as if he were an old friend, throws him.

  ‘You’re Martha.’ His voice comes out weak, as if part of it was left behind on its journey from brain to mouth; then adds, unnecessarily, ‘Bella’s sister. But your name was changed.’

  Mouse can definitely see the smile. Trent comes into the room, puffing slightly. When he catches sight of Athene she can actually feel the shock wave coming off him. He hasn’t seen the girl before.

  ‘Bella,’ she hears him whisper.

  ‘Am I?’ says the girl, and Mouse isn’t sure if she’s answering Jamie or Trent. ‘I guess you found my police ID then?’

  Jamie nods. ‘It was a shit hiding place.’

  ‘And did it say Martha?’

  Jamie shrugs.

  ‘Your name would have been changed.’

  ‘Who are you then?’ Mouse interrupts. The girl turns to look at her. Her eyes are black marbles in the candlelight.

  ‘Or maybe I am Martha, but they changed my name because there was no one left to look after me when my house was burnt down.’ She glances at Trent, then back to Mouse. ‘Don’t trust her; that’s what Bella wrote on your picture.’ She cocks her head sideways slightly, indicating other pictures, scattered on the floor like playing cards. ‘In fact she wrote it on a lot of pictures. Why was that, Mouse? You don’t mind if I call you Mouse, do you? Why shouldn’t she trust you? Did you have something to do with her death?’ Athene leans forward slightly. ‘What happened in that car, Mouse?’

  ‘This is mad,’ Trent says, still staring at Athene. ‘You look just like her!’

  ‘Because I slept with him,’ Mouse whispers. She can hear Trent take a sharp breath. She stays focused on Athene.

  ‘Who?’ Athene says, insisting. ‘Who did you sleep with?’

  ‘With Trent.’ Tears sting Mouse’s eyes as they fall. ‘But you already know that, don’t you?’ She points at the diaries. ‘Bella already told you.’

 
‘And is that why you killed her? To get rid of the competition? Is that why she’s dead and you two are still alive?’

  Mouse looks at her aghast, feeling the slap of her words. ‘What? No! I loved her. I thought she loved me. I would never hurt her. What I did with Trent has haunted me my whole adult life.’ Mouse wanted to shout it but there was nothing in her, she was wrung out.

  ‘No!’ Trent steps forward. ‘It wasn’t like that! Mouse was in the back of the car! She had nothing to do with it!’

  Athene turns and looks at him. Points at a sheet of paper on the floor. ‘The police report from that night. You were twice over the legal alcohol limit. A cocktail of drugs in your system. It’s a wonder you managed to get behind the wheel, let alone drive.’

  Trent looks at the sheet of paper. ‘Where did you get that?’

  ‘Didn’t Jamie tell you?’ Athene says, a look of amazement spread across her face. ‘I’m with the police.’

  ‘Bollocks. The police would never act like this,’ Jamie scoffs. He is still holding the piece of wood, hanging limply in his hand. He leans on it like a crutch.

  Athene looks at him.

  ‘And where did Trent get all those drugs, Jamie? The ones that contributed to him crashing the car?’

  Jamie suddenly looks wary. ‘What? I–’

  Athene points at another piece of paper. ‘Drug dealing. Torture porn. Spy cams in the bedrooms of your hotel. The local CID have quite a file on you, Jamie.’

  Jamie stares at the sheet on the floor, his face the colour of wet ash in the candlelight.

  ‘But it also turns out you were the go-to man back in the day too. Maybe you’re responsible for her death?’

  ‘No! Wait–’

  ‘Maybe if you hadn’t stuffed them all full of shit they might not have crashed.’