by Daniel Hurst
I’ve never been so happy to see the grey skies and red brick buildings that are common in this part of the world. It means that I am finally back where I belong. The only thing that could have made my arrival better would have been if Anna had been waiting for me at the airport when I landed. But it doesn’t matter that she wasn’t there. She hadn’t promised to be there, and I hadn’t been expecting to see her there either. It would have been nice, but it’s not the end of the world. All that matters is that I will see her as soon as this taxi driver delivers me to our flat on the edge of the city.
I’m nearly home.
I know things between Anna and I haven’t been great over these past twelve months while I have been away, but I also know that things are going to get much better now that I am back. The whole long-distance relationship thing was hard, much harder than I had expected it to be. But that distance is decreasing by the second, with every turn of this taxi driver’s wheel, and soon there will be no distance at all. Then my wife and I will be back in each other’s arms, and I have no doubt that we will be able to pick up where we left off before I went to snowy Switzerland.
“Just up here on the right,” I say to the driver when we get close enough to my home to warrant my interruption.
“No problem,” he replies, turning the wheel slightly and bringing the vehicle to a stop at the side of the road, directly outside the flat where Anna is waiting for me inside.
“Keep the change,” I say as I hand him a twenty and open my door, pulling my suitcase off the seat beside me as I exit the cab and step out onto the wet concrete.
“Cheers mate. Have a good night,” I hear the driver say, just before I close the door on him and give him a thumbs up.
As he drives away, I turn to look at the building that I haven’t seen for so long. It will be much better when Anna and I move out of our flat and get a house. But for now, this is better than nothing.
For now, it sure is good to be home.
Using my key fob to access the front door, I enter the stairwell and head for the staircase, possessing enough energy to head up to the eighth floor by foot instead of pressing the button for the lift and letting the building’s machinery do all the work for me.
Skipping up the steps, I feel the excitement that comes with knowing that I will be seeing my wife’s face in a moment, as well as a tinge of nervousness about how things will be in the initial moments when we are first reunited.
It might be awkward. It might be a little uncomfortable. But it will quickly pass. It won’t be long until we are lying in each other’s arms, having kissed and made up and looking forward to all the things that we are going to get to do now that we are back together again.
Reaching our front door, I take out my keys and slot the biggest one into the keyhole, turning it quickly and hearing it unlock just as it should do. Then I push the door open and go inside, knowing that I am now only seconds away from laying my eyes on my beautiful wife.
“Guess who’s home!” I call out into the dark hallway, before putting my suitcase down and fumbling around on the wall for the light switch. When I turn it on, I am able to see the interior of the flat much better. But I still can’t see my wife, so I walk further inside.
“Babe. I’m back!” I shout, checking in the front room and the kitchen for any sign of my partner but finding none.
“Anna?” I call, heading for the closed bedroom door which she surely must be behind.
Maybe she is waiting in bed for me.
Maybe she wants to kiss and make up straight away.
“Are you in here?” I say in a cheerful tone as I turn the door handle and enter the bedroom, but that will be the last time I feel upbeat for a while.
I finally see my wife, and she is lying on the bed.
But she isn’t moving, and I already know that she isn’t alive. An empty bottle of pills sit on the bedside table, along with her open diary.
I don’t yet know why, and I don’t yet know how, but I do know one thing.
My beautiful Anna is dead.
71
MEGAN
It’s harrowing to read a person’s final diary entry on the day that they died, especially when the cause of death was suicide. But it’s even more brutal when you see your name mentioned in that entry.
Anna took her own life on March 11th 2015. I know that because I had been on my way round to her flat when I saw the ambulance and police car parked outside her property. The sight of the flashing blue lights mixed in with the sombre faces of the emergency workers and the drizzly rain that had been falling that day made for a terrible cocktail of sadness.
I knew at the time that the person in the body bag was Anna. I hadn’t needed to ask any of the police officers on the scene, nor had I bothered to text Anna to double-check if she was actually okay. I knew it was her because she had confessed to me that she had been having dark thoughts in the days leading up to that fateful one when she had finally ended it.
Maybe there was something I could have done to stop her. Maybe I should have done more to help. But I was her best friend.
What more could I have done?
But I know why Craig sees me as the reason for her suicide now. It’s because Anna confessed to having feelings for me in her diary entries. She wrote about how she was conflicted and didn’t know whether to leave him after what had happened between her and me. She wrote about how she felt guilty for betraying him but confused about what she really wanted.
And she wrote my full name just before she wrote her last goodbye.
Now I know why Craig has done of all this to me. He blames me for Anna’s death. He sees me as the bad guy, which means he still somehow sees himself as the good guy. How can that be? He has lied to me ever since we met, and he has me locked away in a garage where I presume that he is eventually going to kill me.
I close the last diary, having now read every single word inside all of them. Placing it back inside the box, I am aware that it isn’t the only thing that has come to an end now. Craig and I have come to an end too. We’ve both read Anna’s diaries, and we both know the truth.
But only one of us is going to live to tell the tale.
I need to make sure that person is me.
72
CRAIG
Here it is. Megan’s last supper. It’s nothing too exciting, just some chicken, rice and a simple tomato-based sauce. She would get a better last meal on death row. But it is what it is. The important thing is that the rice is sprinkled with the powder of half a dozen sleeping pills, meaning that Megan will fall into a deep sleep shortly after consuming it. That will leave me free to enter the garage in the early hours of the morning and put an end to her miserable life. The belt that is currently around my waist will be the belt that is soon wrapped around her neck.
It won’t happen a moment too soon.
I’m sure she has finished reading Anna’s diaries by now, which means that she will know exactly why I have done all of this. Anna and Megan became close while I was in Switzerland. It was that relationship that resulted in my wife taking her own life.
Megan is to blame for Anna not being here anymore.
Megan is to blame for everything I have done since.
And Megan is to blame for everything that I will do today.
Picking up the plate of hot food and heading for the garage door, I am aware that ending the life of the woman on the other side of it will not bring back my first wife. Anna is gone for good, no matter what I have done to Megan since and no matter what I will do to her in the near future. Nothing is bringing her back. But at least I am punishing the person who caused her death.
An eye for an eye.
Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work?
Slotting the key into the door, I pull down on the handle and enter the garage, delivering the last meal that my prisoner will ever get to taste. I see Megan straight away. She is on the camp bed like she usually is. She rolls over and looks in my direction, but she says nothi
ng. She must know that it is far too late for words now.
“Here you go,” I say, placing the plate down on the exercise bench. “Get it while it’s hot.”
I wait for her to make a move towards the food, but she doesn’t. She obviously doesn’t want to give me the satisfaction of letting me see how hungry she has become. But I know she will rush for the plate as soon as I leave the room. That’s fine by me. I don’t have to watch her eat.
All that matters is that she does.
“Enjoy your meal,” I say, turning for the door. But just before I can make my exit...
“I’m sorry.”
I spin around, surprised by the words I have just heard Megan speak.
“What?”
“I’m sorry,” she repeats with a blank expression on her pale face.
“What for?” I ask, needing much more than that.
“For everything. For meeting Anna. For getting close to her. For contributing to her mental health issues.”
“She wasn’t mentally ill,” I say, cutting Megan off before she can say any more slanderous things about my ex-wife.
“Okay,” Megan says. “Whatever. I just wanted you to know that I’m sorry.”
I study my wife’s face, trying to tell if she means it or not. But her expression gives nothing away. No matter. I already know the answer.
“No you’re not,” I say, heading for the door again. “You’re not sorry at all.”
73
MEGAN
I’m not sorry. Of course I’m not. I have nothing to be sorry for. It’s not my fault that Anna cheated on her husband. It’s not my fault that he was out of the country for a year. It’s not my fault she felt so weak that she had to end it all. And it certainly isn’t my fault that the man she left behind turned out to be a psycho who has trapped me in a fucking garage.
I just said it to get a reaction out of Craig. I wanted to see if he believed me. But of course, he didn’t. He’s too smart for that. But that’s okay. It confirmed to me what I already know. He isn’t going to let me get out of this room alive. Bringing me a hot meal isn’t going to disguise that fact.
I haven’t touched the chicken and rice that he brought me yet. It’s still sitting there on the exercise bench across the garage. I will have to pick up the plate at some point.
I might as well get it over with now.
Getting up from the camp bed, I make my way slowly across the garage, careful not to trip over the box or the weights that sit on the ground nearby. Reaching the plate, I pick it up, getting a strong waft of the cooked food as I do. My stomach growls at the chance of a hot meal, and every part of my body is begging me to eat it as quickly as possible.
But I resist.
Instead, I carry the plate over to the box, open the lid and tip the contents inside. Then I return the empty plate to the exercise bench before going back to the camp bed and lying down again.
I don’t know for sure that Craig has been putting something in my food, but I’d say it’s a pretty fair assumption. The headaches. The drowsiness. The constant urge to close my eyes and drift into oblivion. I haven’t felt like this for a couple of years.
I haven’t felt like this since I stopped taking my sleeping pills.
He must be putting them in my meals. I still have a bottle from an old prescription in the kitchen cupboard. I started taking them after a brief period when I struggled to sleep. I think it was because that was the beginning of me starting to feel lonely here. But I stopped with the pills because they left me feeling like a zombie.
They left me feeling exactly like I do right now.
Craig obviously wants to put me to sleep. But I can’t afford to fall asleep now. Not when I am so close to getting out of here.
The hunger in my stomach will help keep me awake tonight, as will the motivation of knowing that I am finally going to get my revenge on my husband.
Anna didn’t deserve to die.
But Craig does.
And he is going to die very soon.
74
CRAIG
I creep through our dark home, resisting the urge to turn on the lights even though I am confident that my wife is sleeping soundly right now. I am also moving as quietly as I can, fearful of making a sound that might wake her from her deep slumber. But if I have got the dose right over the last few days, and I know that I have, then there isn’t much that could wake Megan now.
All those sleeping pills and the belt in my right hand mean that she is never going to wake up again.
Entering the kitchen, the moonlight streaming in through the window guides me to the garage door, where I pause and listen in for a second. I hear nothing but the sweet sounds of silence on the other side. I hadn’t been expecting to hear Megan snoring. She very rarely does, except when she has consumed a few too many glasses of wine. She is usually a sound sleeper, and it seems that that is how she is tonight.
Perfect.
Slowly putting the key into the lock, I turn it as cautiously as I can until I hear the faint clicking sound that tells me it has unlocked. Then I steadily pull down on the handle before opening the door and peering into the dark garage.
With no moonlight in here to help me find my way, I need a little assistance, so I take out my phone and turn on the torchlight. Careful not to flash it in Megan’s direction, I place it down on the exercise bench, allowing the beam to shine off the floor and provide me with enough light to see what I am doing in here.
The first thing that I notice is the empty plate. Megan has eaten all of her chicken and rice. Good girl. The second thing that I notice is Megan herself, lying on the camp bed with her back to me. She is asleep, but of course she is.
The meal she consumed has seen to that.
Switching my attention to the roof, I set my sights on the beam of wood that I intend to wrap my belt around. It’s the beam closest to the bed, meaning I won’t have too far to lift my wife to place her head inside the noose.
Keeping a tight grip on one end of the belt, I let the other end shoot over the top of the beam before hanging back down on the other side of it. Then I quickly fashion a noose with the belt buckle, something I can do quickly because I have been practising it for several minutes before coming down here.
With the noose in place, all that is left to do is pick up my sleeping wife and position her in her final resting place. But just before I put my arms under hers and lift her, I notice one of the dumbbells standing on its end across the garage. I would never have left it like that myself, which means that Megan must have done it. I’m surprised because I had considered the weights to be far too heavy for her to lift. But then again, she hasn’t lifted it. She has merely managed to get it on its end.
Switching my attention back to the job at hand, I put one of my arms carefully underneath Megan’s body while using the other one to reach over and lift her from her opposite side.
But that’s when I sense her moving beneath me.
Then everything goes black.
75
MEGAN
I’m finally out of the garage. In the end, it was easier than I thought. Craig came so close to me that I didn’t have to swing the dumbbell that far. Just enough to crack it against his skull and send him falling to the floor.
Now he’s out cold.
And I’m out of here.
Running for the front door, Anna’s last diary in my left hand, I turn the handle and expect to be met with my first taste of fresh air in weeks. But instead, I almost end up running into the door itself.
It’s locked.
Turning back into the hallway, I frantically look around for the set of keys that will help me get out of this house.
But I can’t see them.
Where has he left them?
Diving for Craig’s coat that is hung over the edge of the bannister, I fish through the pockets, hoping to find them inside there. But no luck. They are all empty. A quick check in his briefcase by the foot of the stairs bears no fruit either. I
didn’t see them in the kitchen when I ran through it, nor can I see them on the side table by the front door.
Maybe they’re in the bedroom.
Running up the staircase, taking it two steps at a time, I reach the upstairs landing and rush into the bedroom, tripping over the washing basket in my haste. Hitting the carpet hard, I lose my grip on the diary and feel a tinge of pain in my left wrist but ignore it and push myself back to my feet, aware that I don’t have any time for nursing an injury right now. I need to get out of here, and I need to do it fast.
So where are those damn keys?
Scooping up the diary, I frantically scramble across the bed towards Craig’s bedside table. I’m hoping to find the keys there amongst the men’s fitness magazines and thriller books that he never actually seemed to read. But the keys aren’t here. A quick check in the bathroom doesn’t get me any closer to them either.
That’s when I realise where they must be.
They must be with Craig.
The thought of returning to the dark garage that I have just escaped from fills me with dread, but what choice do I have? I need to get out of here, but I can’t do it without the keys.
Running back down the stairs, I race through the hallway and into the kitchen, my heart hammering in my chest as I go. All symptoms of fatigue and hunger have left me now, and the adrenaline coursing through my body is more than enough to keep me going. That’s a good thing because I’m going to need all the help that I can get to do this next part.
Standing in the garage doorway, I look inside and see Craig lying on the floor where I left him. He hasn’t moved, which is a good sign.
But that doesn’t mean he won’t move when I get closer to him.