by S Williams
‘What pictures?’ Trent repeats the question, echoing Jamie.
Athene stops smiling. ‘All of them. All the ones he posted of his guests. From the cameras he’d hidden in the rooms. Of him having sex with them. I imagine he must have shown them the footage and blackmailed them; extorting money to stop him posting them to friends and relatives. Quite a nice little scam.’
‘I…’ Jamie began, but no other words came out, blocked as if there was a dam in his throat.
‘Except he posted them anyway. Shared them with like-minded people online. Traded them.’
‘What do you mean?’ Mouse whispers.
‘I mean like a club that collects people to abuse. They trade pictures and details like trophies.’
‘Jesus.’ Trent’s voice is papered with horror.
‘All of which is being investigated by the cyber-crime squad. Horrible, but nothing really to do with me. We only became involved because of the photograph of his wife.’
‘His wife? I don’t understand. What’s his wife got to do with anything?’
Athene looks at Mouse, then at Trent, then finally at Jamie. ‘Tell them how your wife died, Jamie.’
The silence seems to stretch, getting tighter and tighter. Jamie’s eyes bore into Athene’s, wide like he’s drowning and she was the final wave that would take him under. And then he sighs, blinking.
‘She died in a crash,’ he says finally, a small smile blossoming on his face like a tumour. ‘She lost control of her car and skidded off the road.’
‘What?’ Mouse says, a terrible sense of dread creeping over her. ‘I thought she–’
But she doesn’t get to say any more because Jamie swings the length of wood he had been leaning on into the side of Trent’s head with a sickening crunch.
74
Bella’s Room
Mouse watches in horror as the wood connects with Trent’s head. One second, Jamie is shaking his head, a small smile playing around his lips, the next he is swinging the splintered piece of wood he had been using as a crutch. Mouse actually felt the air shift as it swung, felt the impact as it connected with Trent’s head. Trent had been rising to his feet, but when the wood hit he fell down again as if he was on elastic, and began twitching.
Even as Mouse snaps out of the moment and reacts; reaching out, Jamie turns and kicks her in the stomach. As his boot sinks into her, Mouse doubles over, feeling the pain in her throat as the air explodes out, closely followed by vomit. The violence is stunning in its swiftness. As she bends, clutching her midriff, Jamie brings his knee up, cracking it into her jaw. An electric eel of white pain burrows into her brain, greying out her sight for a beat.
Why? is all she can think, but no answer comes. What comes is Jamie stepping over her and striding towards Athene.
‘You fucking bitch; you’re just like your mother; just like her little toy friend.’
Toy friend. Deep inside Mouse, she realises he is talking about her. That she is the toy friend.
Athene begins to rise, her arm pulled back, but Jamie steps forward and rams his elbow into her face, like he is trying to drive it through her and out the other side. Mouse hears Athene’s cheekbone snap as Jamie telegraphs down. The noise isn’t like a twig breaking; it’s like a chicken carcass being thrown against a wall. Athene falls hard against the wooden boards. Mouse tries to stand; to help, but she can’t move. Jamie punches Athene twice in the soft part of her temple, then he straightens, staring down at her. He raises his foot, and for one awful second Mouse thinks he is going to bring his boot down, crushing her head. Instead he takes a deep breath and lowers it again, as if the moment has passed.
The whole thing has taken only a few seconds. He looks down and spits on Athene then walks slowly back to Trent, who lies unconscious on the floor. He reaches down and rummages in the pockets of his jacket, pulling out the car keys. Then he picks up the Zippo that had fallen from Trent’s fingers when he had been struck. Weakly, Trent tries to grab his trouser leg.
‘Not so fucking nice being on the other side, is it?’ Jamie says, standing. Then he turns and looks at Mouse, watching as she dry-heaves pain onto the floor. He smiles. ‘This is for you,’ mimicking the words Trent had said all those years ago in the school corridor before scarring Jamie.
‘No!’ Even shouting the single word opens a blossom of pain around her jaw.
Jamie’s smile grows wider, then he stamps his foot down, breaking Trent’s fingers. Trent lets out a moan, too near unconsciousness to even scream.
Why? mouths Mouse, eyes wide, unable to look away.
When Jamie lifts his boot again, Trent’s hand looks like a squashed spider, his fingers pointing in strange, horrible angles. She still can’t speak; all that comes out is a small squeak. Jamie grins at her, his lips pulled back to expose his gums. He puts his hand up to his ear.
‘What’s that, Mouse?’ He looks sideways at her, tilting his head, then raises his hand as if something had just occurred to him. ‘You know, that’s the same squeaking you made that night, when we were jazzing it up against the pinball machine.’ He smiles and glances at Trent, semi-conscious and bleeding on the floor, then at Athene, who looks dazed from the punch, her cheek a broken flower. ‘Well, I’d love to stay and chat, but it sounds like I’m completely fucked, so I’m going to do what Trent failed to do. I’m going to burn this shit heap down to the ground.’
Jamie’s gaze lingers over her like she’s a meal, then he turns and walks out of the room. Just before he crosses the doorway he pauses, turns back slowly and studies them.
‘Although when I say fucked…’ He walks back into the room and stands over Athene. ‘You keep on saying “we”, but I don’t hear any backup. If this really was a legitimate police operation there’d be a dozen officers here by now.’
Jamie looks around theatrically. ‘Hello! Come and arrest me!’
He waits a few moments, then winks. ‘It’s just you, isn’t it? You looked into your mum’s death and thought you’d found something. Thought you’d come up here and check it out.’ He kneels down in front of Athene. ‘What? What did you think you’d found? Something about my wife?’
‘What’s going on, Jamie?’ Mouse asks. ‘For fuck’s sake! Why did you hit–’
‘Shut up.’
Mouse shuts up. Jamie’s voice sounds dead and dry and eaten up from the inside. There seems to be nothing left of the Jamie from only a few moments ago. Athene spits blood out onto the floor.
‘Died in a car crash,’ she mumbled.
Jamie nodded, his mouth turned down in a parody of sadness. ‘That’s right. It was terribly tragic, but accidents happen. Cars crash.’
‘Mechanical failure.’ The words come out in short bursts. Mouse thinks maybe a rib is broken. ‘Bolt sheared through on the steering column.’
‘Really?’ Jamie raises his eyebrows. ‘It was quite an old car. And as I told the police at the time, we weren’t very vigilant with the servicing and things. Always very busy with the pub and hotel.’
‘Like Trent’s car. Like Bella.’
The words are quiet, almost mushy from the swelling that is beginning to misshape Athene’s mouth, but they are clear, and break over the room like a wave.
Mouse stares at her. Athene’s head is sunk on her chest, with her hair hanging down, covering half her face.
‘Yes,’ says Jamie happily. ‘Just like that.’
Mouse can see Trent trying to get to his feet, but there’s something wrong with his co-ordination.
‘Wouldn’t have found out if you hadn’t posted...’ Athene hisses in another shallow breath and gobs out another marble of blood, ‘...on the dark web. Two pictures of the crashes. What you wrote. Made me look back into it. The report noted the sheared bolt in Trent’s car, but assumed it was when it crashed.’
Athene bares her teeth. Her gums are covered in blood, black in the low candlelight. Half the candles have already burnt down.
‘Not why it crashed.’
‘Wh
at did he write?’ Trent’s voice sounds like broken spanners. ‘About the crash?’
Jamie gave a little laugh that seemed to have got twisted somewhere inside.
‘Spot the difference. You know, like those pictures in the paper where they look identical but there are subtle changes?’ He smiles and reaches out a hand, stroking Athene’s face. ‘Except the difference here was minimal. They were both fucking bitches and they were both going to go to the police.’
Jamie stands.
‘That’s why they had to die. The difference was that in Bella’s case there was an extra bonus: you were all going to die too.’
75
Before the Bells
‘Fuck off, Jamie.’ Bella looked out into the night, smoking her cigarette. She felt calm and sane for the first time in days. It was as if the Waltzer had spun all the confusion out of her. The self-hatred she had felt about being raped. The guilt she had carried about how she had treated Trent and Mouse: all gone. It was as if a tidal wave had broken, leaving everything washed clean.
‘But she cheated on you, Bella. They both did!’
‘I don’t care.’ She blew out a tight vortex of smoke. Mingled with her breath hitting the cold air it was like she was a dragon. She grinned. She was a dragon and she was going to skip this shit with the princess and the prince. ‘In fact I don’t even blame them. If I was them I’d probably do the same.’
‘But the picture! And what he did to you!’
‘He didn’t do anything to me I didn’t deserve.’ Bella took another drag.
‘But I saw you! The cuts and the scars!’
Although the night was cold, and the area around the back of the pub was deserted, the temperature seemed to drop to absolute zero as Bella slowly turned to look at the boy.
‘What?’
‘I saw. When I was on the moor. I was looking for birds,’ he finished lamely, seeing the hardness in her eyes.
‘You were spying on me, Jamie? Like some fucking pervert?’
‘No!’ He took a step backward, banging up against the metal bin. ‘I was looking for birds! I just happened to…’ He blinked, then stuck out his lip. ‘It doesn’t matter. The point is I know, all right? I know he beats you up.’
‘You’re pathetic, Jamie, you know that?’ Bella’s eyes were two tunnels of dark road. ‘No wonder Trent dumped you as a friend. Creeping around. Taking your pictures. Trying to pull people apart. Well, I don’t care, okay? Me and Trent and Mouse are solid. There’s nothing you can do that will ever break that.’
Jamie looked like he was about to cry. His face seemed to blur with pain, but then settled, all emotion wiped clear. He slug-licked his lips.
‘I fucked her, you know. Your precious Mouse.’
If the air had been absolute zero before, now it had gone quantum-cold. The only heat was the tip of Bella’s cigarette, glowing like a fuse.
‘Sorry?’
‘Miss fucking perfect! I fucked her the night you left with your pissed dad! Me and her fucked like goats!’ Jamie smiled when he saw Bella flinch. He flicked a look at the mound of her breasts then leaned in. ‘She was so fucking dirty, as well.’
‘But she could barely stand up when I left,’ said Bella slowly. ‘She was going to call a taxi and go home. How could you…?’
Too late, Jamie realised his error. He took a step back. ‘Yeah well she came-to after we... had a livener.’
‘A livener?’ Now it was Bella’s turn to step in. Close.
Jamie could see the disbelief etched on her face.
‘What did you do, Jamie?’ she leaned forward, looking into his eyes. ‘Did you give her more drugs? What drugs?’
He tried to take another step back, but he was tight against the bin. ‘I didn’t! We… I mean it just happened. Between us.’
Something like horror swept across Bella’s features. Like horror, but much much worse. Realisation.
‘And I left her with you. I left her with you and went with…’ An awful smile split her face, scarring across her features. She smiled so hard that her lips went white against her teeth. It was the sort of smile that would normally be made with a knife.
‘You fucking bastard, Jamie. I wish Trent had cut your heart out.’
‘Bella, I didn’t–’
‘Save it for the police, you raping fuck,’ she spat, cutting him off. ‘If I were you I’d go and kill myself now, because by tomorrow I’ll have gotten out of Mouse whatever shit you told her happened and made her remember the truth, and then you’ll be fucked.’
Bella looked at him hard, nodded, then turned and walked back inside.
Jamie watched her go, feeling empty, as if he’d been spilled. He didn’t try to stop her, or persuade her it was different than how she had told it; what would be the point? He’d looked in her eyes. There was no coming back from her expression.
No coming back at all.
Only one choice left.
Jamie took a deep breath, wrapped his arms around himself, and went to see Trent for the last time.
76
Blea Fell
‘You know it’s really simple to mess with the steering column. Don’t believe all those films about cutting brake lines or any of that bollocks. All you need in those old cars is to take the steering wheel off and open up the connecting bolt on the shaft. A flathead screwdriver and a spanner will do it. Takes about two minutes. Then bang down on the bolt with the screwdriver and...’ He shrugged, smiling.
‘You killed her,’ Trent said, his words gaining strength. ‘It wasn’t skidding on the ice, it was you.’
‘If you do it right, the car will drive fine to begin with, then the steering wheel gets looser and looser as time goes on until…’ Jamie smiles. ‘Doesn’t matter how much you spin it, it just goes round and round.’
‘You killed Bella and your wife,’ says Athene flatly. A statement, not a question.
Jamie shrugs. ‘They were going to the police; what else would I do?’
‘And you were trying to kill us.’ Mouse’s voice is full of loathing.
‘Of course I fucking was. Trent had made it clear he never wanted to see me again, and you…’ Jamie’s smile switches on and off. ‘Well, you were probably going to start thinking I was some sort of monster.’
Trent tries to stand. Jamie walks over and brings his boot down on his scrambling leg. The snap is clearly audible just before the scream.
‘And now I can finish the job.’
Trent collapses back to the floor, clutching his shattered knee.
‘All three of you were in that car, although one of you was inside someone who was inside that car so it seems kind of right that you should all be in this room when I burn the place down.’
He stares at Athene, breathing heavily on the floor.
‘You know, I really hope it was this room your mum was raped in, cos it would have a nice circular feel about it all.’
He takes his phone out of his pocket and snaps off a photo.
‘One for the scrapbook,’ he says, grinning, then turns and leaves.
Stop him! Mouse tries to say, but the knee to her jaw had stolen her voice. She staggers upright, turning to the door. She can hear Jamie’s shoes echoing on the slate of the steps that lead down to the kitchen.
‘Don’t worry about him; check on Trent!’ Athene, her voice wet and mushy from the punch, has managed to stand. Trent is slowly shaking his head, moaning low in his throat. He isn’t standing. Looking at the unnatural angle his lower leg juts out, she doubts he’ll ever stand again without help. Not that that matters if they’re all dead. She turns to Athene.
‘We need to get out of here! Jamie said he was going to burn it down!’ She knows the house will not burn outright; too much stone and rain to be susceptible to being razed, but there is a lot of wood; a lot of moss and vegetation that has made Blea Fell their home over the decades. She thinks of the burning ghost forest outside; of the cans of petrol lined up against the wall in the kitchen.
She thinks about thick black smoke enveloping them, of dying without a breath. Of dying by the spark of a Zippo that seems to have been at every turn in her life.
‘Now!’
She tries to lift Trent, but he is too heavy, and too uncoordinated. She feels panic rising in her, threatening to swamp her.
‘It’s all right.’ Athene grabs Trent’s other arm and wrenches it across her shoulder, taking his weight.
‘Here, support his head; that blow might have damaged his neck.’ Athene is at her side, helping. Mouse nods, and together they lift Trent to his feet.
‘Acid,’ Trent mumbles, shaking his head. ‘I can smell acid.’
‘That’s not acid, it’s petrol,’ hisses Athene, using her body to turn them all to face the door. She is right. Mouse can smell the high note of petrol stripping the hairs in her nose. She feels sick with panic. In her mind she can see Jamie, splashing the liquid out of the metal cans onto the surfaces in the derelict kitchen, up the walls and onto the floor. She can actually hear him clumping around, hear the liquid sloshing in their metal containers. With a new feral urgency, she starts dragging Trent to the doorway.
‘It’s all right, really,’ Athene says.
Mouse looks at her incredulously. ‘What? We’re about to be burned alive!’
‘No. Nothing’s going to happen. It’s going to be all right,’ she repeats, grabbing hold of Mouse’s arm; holding her tight. Mouse looks into her eyes; sees the truth there.
‘How?’ she asks. ‘How is it going to be all right?’
Athene smiles, only one side of her face is moving because of her busted cheek. Below them there is a thunk, hard and sharp, followed by a scream.
‘Because there’s something Jamie’s forgotten.’
77
It takes several seconds for Mouse to unravel the scene as they stumble into Blea Fell’s derelict kitchen from the stairs, Trent leaning heavily on her shoulder.