by Shari King
‘Mirren, is there someone I can call? Tell me who you need.’
‘Just Chloe,’ she whispered, shivering now, despite the humid heat of the night. Acting instinctively, he climbed onto the sofa beside her, his arms around her, her head resting on his chest.
‘It’s so unfair, Zander,’ she said, her voice monotone, numb. ‘Why was it my girl? Why did God take Chloe and yet he let a bitch like Marilyn live?’
61.
Silent Scream
Glasgow, 1989
Davie’s back door was closed but unlocked as always – no one would break into a house on the same block as Jono Leith. Mirren burst into the kitchen, but it was empty. She searched upstairs, but no one was there either. There was music in the bathroom. His mum. She always took her transistor radio in there while she was having a bath.
Where was he? Where was he when she needed him? The hut.
Bolting outside, she ran to the end of the path, every bone in her body aching, blood dripping from her head, her nose, from between her legs.
When she burst through the door, Davie jumped up, thrust the cigarette in his hand behind his back, looking guilty. Eighteen years old, working down the local pub behind the bar, and he still hadn’t told his mother he smoked.
There was a momentary flash of relief. ‘Bugger, I thought you were my mum there. I nearly . . .’ The realization. The blood on her face. The torn clothes. The matted hair. The red streaks on her bare legs.
Another voice. Zander. Lying on the floor to her right. ‘What the fuck?’
He was on his feet now, but Davie got to her first. Her Davie.
‘What happened? Who did this?’
She buried her head in his shoulder.
‘Mirren, who? Who was it? I’ll fucking kill him. Who did it?’ He was screaming at her now, shocking her with his vehemence. Davie was the fun guy, the non-confrontational, easy-going one who didn’t have a temper, didn’t get angry, and now his eyes were blazing, face full of anguish.
‘It was Jono,’ Zander said, a statement, not a question.
‘Was it?’ Davie wailed, his eyes seeking answers in hers. ‘Was it Jono?’
The involuntary sob, a guttural cry from her throat was all the answer he needed, and suddenly he was gone, barging out of the hut, Zander running with him.
‘Leave it, Davie. I’ll get him. I’ll get him,’ Zander shouted. Davie didn’t stop, kept running, Mirren now tearing after them both.
This wasn’t what she meant to happen. Davie wouldn’t have the strength to go against Jono Leith, but Zander . . . Oh God, Zander did. This wasn’t what she’d wanted. Either Davie would end up dead or Zander would end up in jail and it would be all her fault.
‘Stop, please stop.’
Davie reached the door first, kicked it open with a force she never knew he possessed, but then reeled backwards as Zander caught his jumper, swung him round, pushing him down to the ground and running in first.
‘He’s mine, Davie. Go home. Go fucking home.’
Zander disappeared into the hallway, but Davie was back on his feet now, charging after him. Pain ripping her insides apart, Mirren was too slow to stop him. She could only follow as they stormed down the hall. At the end, she could see Zander burst open the kitchen door and then freeze. Jono must be there. Must be waiting for him. With what? A knife? A gun?
Oh God, she’d caused this. Whatever happened now would be all her fault.
In front of her, Davie reached Zander and mirrored his reaction. Sudden brake. Completely still. Running on pure adrenalin, it took a split second to reach them, another to push through where they were standing, another for her to make sense of the scene.
Sitting on a chair at the table, her mother. But it wasn’t a Marilyn she recognized. This one had black tramlines running down her face from her eyes to her jaw, her hair dishevelled, blonde tendrils escaping from the ponytail she always wore because Jono liked it. But it was the spatter that took Mirren’s breath away. Her mother sat there, not moving, face blank, covered in drops and dashes of red blood, all over her face, her hair, her neck and . . . Oh no. Mirren couldn’t bear to look, yet she couldn’t turn her head away. One shoelace-thin strap of her mother’s baby-doll had snapped, the fabric dropped to reveal a huge white breast, smeared with blood, her mother making no effort to cover it up, as if completely oblivious.
Mirren’s eyes followed Marilyn’s dead stare, downwards, to her right, where Jono Leith lay on the floor, a knife sticking out of his chest, a pool of deep red liquid still moving, spreading around him. His chest didn’t rise. It didn’t fall.
Mirren pushed past Davie and Zander and rushed towards her mother, but still staring at Jono, Marilyn wordlessly put a hand up to stop her.
‘Mum?’ Mirren gasped. No answer.
‘Mum?’ she tried again. Then, ignoring the lack of response, went on, her voice soft, tender, ‘I can’t believe you did that for me.’
Marilyn finally turned to look at her, eyes still dead, her actions almost robotic.
‘I didn’t do it for you,’ she said in a voice devoid of emotion. ‘I did it because he wanted you instead of me. I did it for me.’
‘No,’ Mirren wailed, tears falling. ‘No, Mum, say that’s not it. Say . . .’
Davie’s arms were around her now, and for the first time he spoke to Marilyn. ‘You fucking bitch,’ he spat.
Marilyn didn’t react. Zander did.
‘Look, what are we going to do here? We can’t leave him, can’t phone the police. This will kill my ma,’ he told them, the irony of his statement escaping him, before he suddenly realized the call wasn’t his to make and turning to his friend.
‘Mirren, I’m so sorry. Do you want us to phone the police? Whatever you want. Anything.’
‘No!’ Mirren knew instinctively that couldn’t happen, grasped the implications immediately. He’d raped her, but he was dead. The thought of her mother being taken away, of having to relive this every day in the eyes of other people, to have them pointing, talking. And then there would be a trial. Evidence.
No. She didn’t want any of that. All she wanted was to get away from here and to forget.
‘Davie, help me,’ she begged.
Davie was always the fastest thinker of them all, the sharpest, the one with the ideas, and he didn’t let her down.
‘Oh fuck, we’re going to get jailed for this. But, Mirren, you stay here and get this place cleaned up, get her in a bath,’ he said, gesturing to Marilyn. Then back to Mirren, ‘Are you OK? Do you think you can do this?’
‘I think so. I can do it.’ The second sentence was stronger than the first, like she’d made up her mind, found some inner resolve.
‘OK,’ he said, opening the under-sink cupboards and taking out kitchen roll, bleach, cleaning fluids, then grabbing a mop and bucket from the floor-to-ceiling boiler cupboard.
‘There you go – do what you can. Me and Zander will come back and help you.’
‘Where are you going?’
Davie was one step ahead.
‘Zander, you grab his feet. I’ll get his arms. Let’s get rid of this cunt.’
62.
‘Home’ – Michael Bublé
Glasgow, 2013
Sarah almost hoped he wasn’t home. She just needed time. Space to think. And somehow, fourteen hours, alone, on an aeroplane, just hadn’t been enough. Her brain felt numb, wasn’t kicking in when she really, really needed it to. How was she going to explain why she’d suddenly arrived back a day early? How was she going to explain it? Really sorry, I had sex with a movie star, then thought I’d better come home because my life has somehow become one big lie? Or hey, Simon, missed you so much – except for that pesky couple of hours that I was naked on top of a guy I travelled thousands of miles to investigate.
Oh, and yep, I did decimate both my personal and professional ethics in one fell swoop. Two for the price of one. Yay me.
How low did that make her feel? Of course she had to tell him abou
t Davie, and she would, just as soon as they had some time on their own together. But right now, she couldn’t bear to hurt him. He was in the middle of a huge case, and she knew that she had to wait until that finished. There was enough on her conscience – she couldn’t add risking a cataclysmic upheaval in a lawyer’s life that could possibly affect the outcome of someone’s trial. Bad enough that she’d risked everything they’d had together. Destroyed it.
The thought of not telling him, of carrying on like nothing had happened had crossed her mind, but she’d dismissed it. That wasn’t her. Sarah didn’t do lies – at least not in her personal life – and she didn’t do duplicity. Honesty was the only way. And if it cost her Simon, then that was her own fault.
Besides, in her heart she knew it was over. If she truly belonged with Simon, she’d never have cheated on him, never have let Davie touch her.
The thought made her wince. Davie. It made her stomach queasy every time she pictured his face. Hurt. Furious. He’d walked out without another word. Not that she blamed him. What a royal screw-up the whole LA thing had turned out to be. She was left thousands of pounds out of pocket and had come home with no evidence, no progress, just a broken relationship and a pain in her gut every time she thought back to how she’d behaved. That was karma for you.
The taxi pulled up outside the flat and she was suddenly desperate for her own bed, her own home, milk in her tea that tasted normal.
Looking up, she could see that there was a light on in Simon’s office. No surprise there. Perhaps if they’d dedicated as much time to each other as they did to their jobs, it wouldn’t have come to this. Not that this was in any way his fault. It was all on her.
As she opened the door, it struck her that this was like one of those clichéd scenes in a movie when someone arrives home early and catches their partner in bed with their lover. Not Simon’s style. Absolutely not. Simon was all about truth and justice and fairness. Cheating wasn’t in his personality. But then, until last week she’d have said the same about herself. Leaving her suitcase behind the front door, she wearily climbed the stairs, psyching herself up to be cheery and normal and the returning loving girlfriend. Just one night of sleep, she promised herself, then she’d face up to the situation.
The higher she got, the more snippets she could hear of Simon’s voice. He must be on the phone. Bit late, but it wasn’t unusual for him to talk to clients well into the night. If she was in luck, it would be a long call and she’d be asleep by the time he was done. Nausea swirled between her stomach and her throat. Oh God, this was awful. Awful. In a moment she realized she could back out, take a cab to a hotel. Why hadn’t she thought of that? It was exactly what she should have done. She could go now; he didn’t have to know that she’d even been . . .
What was that?
The tinkle of laughter? A woman’s voice.
They were in Simon’s study, so it must be someone from the office. His intern perhaps?
The door was open a few inches, and as she got closer, she could see the top of his head, sitting in his chair, facing his computer. It was so funny she almost laughed. He was on a conference call. No clichéd discovery. He wasn’t having an affair and she wasn’t about to walk in and see him having sex with his secretary, his intern or the next-door neighbour.
The thick gold carpet muffled the sound of the door opening, so much so that he didn’t even have a chance to turn round.
Which probably wasn’t a bad thing.
Because as Sarah entered the room, she realized he was absolutely alone. He was absolutely sitting in his office chair. And he absolutely had his trousers at his ankles and his dick in his hand.
‘Oh my God, Simon.’ The voice wasn’t hers.
It came from the screen, where Pippa, his best mate’s girlfriend, was on her knees, naked, and frozen, a large purple dildo vibrating like a jackhammer as she squeezed it between her tits.
‘Simon . . .’ Pippa repeated, her voice tight with horror.
‘Yes, darling. Yes.’
He was wanking faster now. Sarah couldn’t bear to look. Oh, the irony. Via the wonders of Facetime or Skype or whatever screen-to-screen service they were using for their mutual gratification, Pippa was probably miles away and was staring at Sarah, yet Simon was so close she could slap the back of his head and he had no idea.
‘Simon!’
The tone of Pippa’s voice finally registered in the part of his brain that recognized a potential problem, and he paused, mid-tug.
‘Look behind you,’ Pippa told him, dropping the dildo. It continued to vibrate.
In excruciating slow motion, Simon turned his head and saw her standing there.
‘Fuck.’
Sarah had no words. Instead she smiled. And waved.
‘Honey, I’m home,’ she told him deadpan, before turning and heading back to the door. Half an hour later, she checked into the Hotel du Vin on Great Western Road. More expensive than she could afford, but the newspaper had a corporate deal and she knew that Ed wouldn’t mind her using it.
Almost twenty-four hours later, she was still in bed. Fourteen hours of sleep, interspersed with several hours of thinking.
Pushing back the white duvet, she padded across the room and pulled a bottle of beer from the minibar. She didn’t bother with the glass. It drove Simon mad when she drank from the bottle. Past tense. She’d blocked his number, so she had no idea if he was trying to contact her, and no clue as to where he was. Right now, that was fine.
The fleeting anger was gone, pushed out of the way by the knowledge that to hold this against him would make her a hypocrite. If anything, she’d done worse. As far as she knew, he’d only fucked Pippa on screen – that had to rate below the exchange of bodily fluids. If there was an infidelity score sheet, she was currently top of the leader board.
There were decisions to be made. She’d have to move out, find a place of her own, sort out her life, but she wasn’t due back at work until tomorrow and right now she just needed to get past the jet lag and get her head back together.
She was so deep in thought she almost missed the buzz of her phone, only catching it a second before it would have switched to voicemail.
‘Sarah?’ Rob – Simon’s best friend – sounding, if she wasn’t mistaken, slightly pissed. ‘Sarah, is that you?’
Cancel the last guess – make that very pissed.
‘Hey, Rob, are you OK?’ she asked. Oh God, Rob. She should have checked on him, tried to find out if he knew about his girlfriend and his mate’s screen connection.
‘He’s been shagging Pippa. I’ve suspected for ages and she’s just confessed. Said it’s been going on for weeks. Fucking weeks.’
He knew. And suddenly Simon knocked her off top place on the infidelity chart. An ongoing fling definitely trumped a one-night stand.
‘I know, Rob. I’m sorry.’
‘Can I come over? I’m coming over.’
‘Rob, no. Don’t. Thanks. I’m not at the house. I’ll meet you at the weekend, but I just got back and—’
‘I’d kill the bastard but I’d never hack prison.’
‘I know, Rob.’
‘You know you should have gone out with me?’
Sarah laughed for the first time since she’d touched down in Scotland. ‘You’re right. But look, I have to go. Rob, I’ll call you.’
They both knew she wouldn’t.
After cracking the top off the beer bottle, she headed back to the bed, just her thigh-length white jumper and cream slouch socks protecting her from the chill.
She crawled back in, picked up the remote control and flicked to the hotel movie channels. Comedies. Thrillers. Family. Classics. Porn.
If she wanted the latter, she could just Skype home.
She went for Classics. There must be a movie in there that she wanted to see. It took a few moments to scroll through the hundreds of options beginning with A. Nothing. Then to the Bs. She was almost at the end when her finger jumped off the button.
/> The Brutal Circle (1991).
Their movie. Sarah had watched it back in college – maybe eight years ago – and remembered being absolutely gripped by it. But that was the last thing she needed right now. A dark, mildly terrifying thriller about . . . about . . . she couldn’t quite remember. Something about a young girl and an older man. Didn’t matter. This wasn’t the time for darkness and harrowing storylines. The part of her brain craving comfort ordered her to switch it off. Turn over to the Comedy Channel. There must be a Friends episode on somewhere.
Yet, somehow, the rest of her wasn’t responding. The titles rolled. Glasgow. A young Zander Leith – wow, he was young – swaggered across a concrete square of wasteland, surrounded by four rows of terraced houses. As he passes a house in the middle of the terrace, he spots a young girl, about fourteen, sitting on a bench outside the front door. In front of her, a young boy, around the same age, floppy hair, cute grin. Zander wanders over in time for him to hear Davie Johnston ask her, ‘So why are you out here, then?’
The girl took another puff on her cigarette, dead eyes looking downwards.
‘Because she’s in there with a bloke and I don’t like hearing them.’
This took Davie’s and Zander’s characters by surprise.
‘So every night you sit out here . . . ?’
‘In there with a bloke,’ the girl repeated.
Sarah couldn’t move, could barely breathe. The minutes passed; the light on the TV flickered as the images changed; her beer went flat in the bottle she gripped in her hands.