The Regret

by Dan Malakin

  She approached the one closest to the sofa. There was something in the fitting. She reached behind the glass, detached it. A camera, the size of a five pence piece, thick as a button battery. A cable led to a squat black device pushed into the empty light socket.

  A sick feeling flowed into her blood, spreading along every vein and capillary, until it filled her.

  He’d been in her house. He’d violated her home. No wonder he knew about Konrad as soon as it happened. No wonder he knew about that photo of Becca – he saw it being taken. She pictured Griffin before a bank of security screens, each showing a different room, his doughy face lit up. Was he watching now, aroused at her distress? He was sicker than she thought possible.

  Rachel took the camera through to the kitchen, put it in a plastic container, and hid it at the back of the cupboard. Then she searched the house, checking light fittings, doorframes, radiators, plug sockets and skirting boards. She looked inside appliances, under furniture, examined every corner, nook, cranny and alcove. The kitchen shelves covered with trinkets and nick-nacks no longer seemed so heart-warming, not when they could conceal bugging devices. She inspected everything. The only room she couldn’t check was Lily’s, but she’d go through that in the morning. He couldn’t be so sick as to watch her sleeping daughter. Could he?

  She realised something else – her LinkedIn trap. She’d written him the message from the same spot on the sofa. No wonder he hadn’t replied. She’d been trying not to think about his lack of response, hoping, perversely, he was too caught up in terrorising her to get round to it, but now she saw the truth.

  He’d watched her do it.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Address

  Rachel came round to find herself lying on the sofa in the dark, staring at the TV. She sat up, wincing, hand to her head. Why did it feel like someone was kicking in the door to her brain? She looked around. And why was she downstairs? Had she slept? Had she taken something? She didn’t think so, but she felt so groggy that she couldn’t be certain. The broken pieces of yesterday were scattered across the floor of her mind and she couldn’t seem to put them back together.

  On the TV screen, a youngish couple, cute preppy types, had started a trial on Cake Wars, an obstacle course with a three-tier chocolate gateaux. The girl stumbled on a treadmill and got a face mask of mocha frosting. In the corner, the time said five fifty-seven. At least Lily wasn’t up yet.

  Coffee, stat.

  Rachel hoisted herself to her feet and took a heavy step towards the kitchen.

  A tapping behind her, the hollow sound of a ring on glass.

  She swore and jumped back. A shadow moved across the curtain. Who the hell was that?

  The letterbox rattled open. ‘Rach? I can hear the telly – you up? It’s bloody Baltic out here.’

  What was he doing here? She raced to the door and pulled it open. Standing on her front step, tanned and grinning against the predawn gloom, in a collarless black leather jacket and a tight yellow T-shirt with I’m in Mykonos, Bitch in hot pink across the front, was Spence.

  Spence peered into his coffee, the surface swirling with undissolved granules. ‘This time yesterday, I was sipping a gorgeous latte with the sand between my toes and a hot guy’s hand on my thigh.’

  ‘You should have called me first,’ Rachel replied.

  ‘So you could’ve talked me out of it?’

  ‘I wish you hadn’t come back.’

  From the living room came the discordant squeals and snorts of Peppa Pig. Lily was staying home from nursery today, and every day, until this nightmare was over.

  Spence sipped his drink and scowled at it as though it had wronged him in a previous life. ‘I called Linda. She told me everything. How sketchy you were acting – how you’d been suspended. So I booked the first flight I could, bloody Ryanair to Luton at midnight. I should never have gone to begin with. I saw how all over the place you were, but I was being selfish. I was more interested in getting my end away than in being there for a mate. And I’m sorry for that.’

  Rachel squeezed her eyes, but tears slipped out anyway. She seemed to have a never-ending supply these days. ‘Even Lily hates me. She told me yesterday she wanted to stay with her dad.’

  Spence leaned forward to give Rachel a hug. ‘We’re going down to that hospital today. I’m going to tell that Linda what’s what. You’re a brilliant nurse. Best one I’ve ever worked with.’

  She knew he was just being nice, but him saying that made her sob into his shoulder even harder. Why couldn’t Becca be this supportive? Because you’re a vampire. You drain the life from the people around you. She pulled away.

  ‘What?’ he asked. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Have I ruined things with Andreas?’

  ‘No, it’s great. So great I had to sit sideways on the plane.’

  Rachel cocked her head, squinting at him, then got the joke.

  ‘Spence!’ she cried, slapping his arm. It felt like it had been years since she’d laughed.

  He went to pick up his coffee, then took another look at the surface and nudged it further away. ‘Now, are you going to tell me what’s going on?’

  Before this week, she hadn’t told anyone what she’d done to put Griffin in prison. Was she really going to tell two people in the space of as many days? What next? Hire a bus and tour Oxford Circus with a megaphone. If the wrong person found out, despite everything Griffin was doing to her again, she would still be in a lot of trouble. But Spence had come all the way back from Greece to help her. And anyway, who else could she trust?

  ‘Buckle up,’ Rachel said. ‘I’m going to tell you everything.’

  ‘Yikes. Should I be looking for the emergency exit?’

  ‘If you find one, make sure you come and get me.’

  Spence listened to it all – the hacker, the planted photos, Griffin’s prison sentence, and everything he’d done to her since getting out – only interrupting to mutter Oh my god or to make a noise of disbelief. The one thing she left out was the photo of Becca. She didn’t want to risk making him feel guilty, even though he’d probably find it hilarious. When Rachel finished, he slumped back in his chair and wiped his forehead.

  ‘Well?’ she asked.

  ‘You’ve got to go to the police.’

  ‘What if they arrest Konrad?’

  ‘Are you going to wait for him to actually hurt you?’

  ‘I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘This may seem like a dumb question,’ Spence said, leaning forward. ‘But how do you know Griffin’s out of prison? He could be paying someone to do all this. You know, from inside.’

  ‘Wait here,’ Rachel said, and hurried into the living room. Lily was lying on the sofa, transfixed to Peppa splashing in muddy puddles. TV before breakfast – how could that be good for her? Why not go the whole way and feed her Haribo for dinner? Rachel sighed and grabbed her laptop from the coffee table.

  ‘You’re not showing me porn, are you?’ Spence asked. ‘It’s the only time I ever look at my laptop.’

  ‘Sorry to disappoint you,’ she replied, opening a web browser and typing www.paedo-hunter.net. She was still logged into the forum, and went straight to the thread for Alan Griffin. She scrolled to the bottom, looking for the post saying he’d been released.

  Spence touched her arm. ‘Everything okay? You’ve gone pale. Even paler, I mean. I’ve got two words for you – sun and bed.’

  ‘No way,’ she said, shaking her head.

  ‘What? What?’

  She pressed her finger to the screen. ‘Look.’

  A new user called JustForYou had posted an update last night, at eight o’clock. That was around the same time she’d found the camera. It contained a single line.

  18 Drayton Road, Norcot RG30 1EL

  Chapter Thirty

  Reunion

  Spence didn’t want her to go, not on her own, but she was sick of being the target. Griffin had stolen her money, her boyfriend, her job – and with that
hidden camera, her dignity. Enough. She wasn’t a five-stone nothing starving herself in a hospital bed. If she had to fight to keep him from kicking her life around, she would fight.

  ‘I hope it won’t come to that,’ Rachel said, demonstrating the block and punch she’d learned in a self-defence seminar. ‘Although I’d love to spend a few hours kneeing him in the groin.’

  Spence threw jabs at the fridge. He had a wiry welterweight physique honed from circuit classes at the gym. ‘At least let me come. I’ll wait outside.’

  ‘I need you here with Lily.’

  ‘It’s a trap.’

  ‘Or a lucky break. Someone usually posts the address within a couple of weeks.’

  Spence opened his hands to her. ‘Who’s this JustForYou? It was their first post.’

  ‘People open an account and post once, especially with an address. Could even be a copper.’

  ‘It’s too much to be a coincidence.’

  She gave him a look that said she didn’t want this discussion again. ‘Are you sure you’re okay looking after Lily?’

  ‘All my nieces say I’m the best uncle ever. But seeing as I’m their only uncle, that’s probably not saying much.’

  ‘Do you think I’m crazy for doing this?’

  Spence nodded. ‘Yes. I’ve told you that already, but you’re as stubborn as a week-old cum stain.’

  Rachel took his hand. ‘I’ll call before I go in. I’ll tell him there are people waiting to hear from me.’ She unlocked her phone and tapped through to the voice recorder. ‘I just want him to say the wrong thing, to incriminate himself. He may hate me, but he won’t want to go back inside. It’s time I called his bluff.’

  ‘What about… a weapon?’

  She’d thought about that – a knife in her bag, perhaps – but was worried that might invite violence. And that she’d slice off the tops of her fingers rooting around for a hair band. ‘I think it’s okay.’

  ‘Pepper spray?’

  ‘Don’t have any.’

  Spence grinned. ‘That is something I might be able to help you with.’

  While she showered, he filled the miniature plastic spray bottle she used to make paint silhouettes with Lily with a mixture of water, ground peppercorns, and Tabasco sauce. ‘Where’d you learn how to do that?’ she asked, back downstairs and ready to go.

  He handed over the bottle ceremonially. ‘Try having as many dodgy Grindr hook-ups as me.’

  Rachel took the quiet eleven fifteen from Paddington to Reading, and came out of the station to a line of taxis at the rank. Even though she’d planned the route to Griffin’s by bus, it would take another hour, and that was too much; she wanted to finish this. She still had twenty pounds cash, and had dug her emergency credit card from its hiding place at the back of the wardrobe, so she climbed in the back of a rusty blue Vauxhall with plastic-covered seats, driven by an unshaven man who nodded tiredly when she gave the address.

  She watched the high street roll past. Such a dismal place – damp, faintly smelling of fried chicken, with the same grim mix tape of Greggs, Boots and Costa Coffee as every other town. God, she hated this country sometimes. Australia. That’s where she needed to be. Glittering beaches, turquoise skies, summer nights sitting with fun, tanned friends outside some hip bar. As soon as she got home, she was looking into flights. Maybe even send Rowena a message.

  The buildings fell away to reveal the countryside. Wooden fences, meadows, the occasional sheep winsomely chewing the grass. She wound down the window and stretched her lungs with cool air. What if it was a trap? What if she stepped in his front door, got bashed over the head, and woke up strapped to a table in the basement? If she told him people knew she was here, would he let her go? But if he wanted to hurt her, he’d had plenty of chances already. Yesterday, for example, when she was flaked out on the sofa for the whole day. He must have been watching her sleep. How easy would it have been to–

  ‘Lady? Lady?’

  The taxi driver was talking to her. They were stopped outside a depressing semi-detached midway along a miserable street. She apologised, paid, and got out.

  Rachel ducked into the shadow of a scrawny elm and took in Griffin’s house. It was in worse condition that the ones next to it, with peeling paintwork, rotten window frames, and fissured pebble dash; chunks had come away near the door, showing the dull brown bricks behind. She called Spence.

  ‘Ten minutes, or I’m ringing the police,’ he said.

  ‘Make it twenty,’ she replied.

  After she hung up, she moved the tiny bottle of pepper spray to her back pocket, and crept up to the front door. She heard the television coming through the window, a game show, judging by the excited presenter and audience applause. Someone was in. She started the voice recorder on her phone and put it in the pocket on the front of her jacket, which she hoped was the best place to catch their conversation. Heart pounding, she pressed the bell. A sharp trill sounded. She held it for a second, and stepped back, hand midway to the pepper spray, like a gunslinger ready for a showdown. Nothing.

  He’d fooled her. He didn’t live here at all. He just wanted to lure her here so–

  So nothing. Perhaps he was on the toilet, or having a nap, or reckoned it was Jehovah’s Witnesses at the door and didn’t want to get into a big theological discussion about why evil shits like him got to terrorise young women. She pressed the bell again, keeping her finger on it, for three seconds, five seconds, ten.

  The door swung open. Staring out was a scrawny man in blue tracksuit bottoms and a stained England football shirt. Late fifties, maybe early sixties. Six weeks into stubble, hair thinning against his scalp, red eyes couched in saggy grey bags. He looked like a park bench drunk on his day off. From inside the house came a ding-ding-ding, cheers from the crowd, someone winning the jackpot.

  This couldn’t be Griffin. The well-fed well-heeled middle-aged man who’d followed her home from school bore little relation to this scraggy scrote in the doorway. Yet there was something recognisable in the shape of his eyes, the set of his mouth. It looked like his sick brother, perhaps six weeks into a course of chemotherapy.

  ‘Whatever it is,’ he growled, going to shut the door. ‘I don’t wa–’

  Rachel jammed her foot in the gap. ‘Wait.’

  She put her shoulder to the door and pushed. He tried to resist, but quickly relented, and Rachel stumbled into the dark hallway. It smelled of stale beer and damp clothes left in a heap.

  ‘Get out,’ he said, breathing hard, looking over his shoulders as he stepped backwards, like he expected someone to be coming from behind. ‘Leave me alone.’

  Now she was inside, even in the murky light, she knew it was him. It was the voice. After years of playing I am going to ruin your life on repeat in her mind, she’d recognise it anywhere. ‘What’s wrong, Griffin? Didn’t think I’d come?’

  He pulled the lounge door closed, muting the jangling theme music. ‘I know you.’ He shook his fingers by his head. ‘You’re…’

  Rachel widened her stance. She had at least three inches on him. He looked so weak, so wrecked. ‘Don’t play stupid.’

  Griffin nodded, his smile spreading. His once-white teeth were grey as dishwater. He started a laugh that became a cough, and wiped the flecks of spit from his lips with the shoulder of his shirt. ‘I got you now. Fuck my face. I never thought I’d see you again. What you doin’ here?’

  The smile. That’s what propelled her. He was destroying her life, all over again, this pathetic piece of… scum – and grinning about it! Like she was powerless. Like she could do nothing to stop him. He was wrong.

  Rachel rushed him, hooking him round his neck, and slamming him against the cupboard under the stairs. He staggered sideways. It felt good to hurt him, to see the shock of pain pass across his disgusting face. She grabbed his hair, the grease in it oozing between her fingers, his musty, unwashed stink in her nose, and yanked back.

  ‘Give me one good reason,’ she snarled. ‘Why I shouldn
’t snap your neck?’

  His smile faded, leaving his capillary-strewn eyes, his sour breath, the sad sink of his cheeks. She got an image of him waiting outside the school, clean-shaven, filling out his smart suit. How solid he’d looked back then. Impenetrable. He’d lost a third of his body weight. Scores of pale curling scars, white like maggots, writhed over his neck, going past the collar of his England top.

  ‘Death by a thousand cuts,’ he said. ‘They don’t much like paedos inside.’

  Rachel pushed him away. ‘You expecting sympathy?’

  ‘You want to talk like civilised people?’ he asked, rubbing the back of his head.

  She paused, adrenaline twitching her fingers, then nodded. He gestured to the lounge door.

  ‘After you,’ Rachel said.

  Griffin shrugged and pushed it open. ‘I’ve been shanked in the arse more times than a choirboy in the Vatican.’ He leaned towards her – she reared back. The look he gave her could almost be called earnest. ‘If you’re here to do something,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t bother me much.’

  Rachel let out a shaky breath, and followed him in. The lounge was even more desolate than the outside of the house. This was not what she’d expected. Aside from the armchair, a squat brown corduroy lump that wouldn’t look out of place poking from a skip, a beer crate for a footstool, and a small flat screen TV, the base of which seemed to have been built from duct tape, the room was bare. No photos, no ornaments, no niceties at all. Just cobwebs in the corners, bare plaster walls, and a dun green carpet, worn through to the underlay, scattered with cigarette butts and fungal take-out trays. Even the air was sad, like it had been made from lonely sighs. A space heater old enough to have been on an Apollo mission sat in the corner, though judging by the temperature in the room, it didn’t work.

  ‘Quite the reunion, eh?’ Griffin gestured to the chair. ‘Take the weight off.’