by Shaun Hutson
He didn’t hear her.
Over the past two weeks he’d been slipping in and out of consciousness more frequently. Sometimes it was the extra doses of morphine they gave him, at other times his body just seemed to give up, to surrender to the pain and seek release in the oblivion of sleep. Sue reached across and touched his hand. It felt like ice. He had only one blanket to cover him and this she hastily pulled up around his neck, easing both arms beneath it too.
As she leant over him she smelled the stale urine more strongly. As his condition had deteriorated they had fitted him with a catheter and now she glanced down to see that the bag was half full of dark urine. Sue swallowed hard, thinking how undignified they were. It was as if the bag was one of the final concrete illustrations that he was helpless, unable even to reach the toilet. He never left his bed now. When the illness had first struck he had been able to walk up and down the corridor, even take the odd trip into the hospital gardens but, as the cancer had taken a firmer hold, all he had been able to do was to lie there and let it devour him from the inside.
She stood by the bedside for a moment longer gazing at his face. The skin was tinged yellow, stretched so tightly over the bones it seemed they would tear through.
Tom Nolan had never been a big man even when he was in the best of health but now he looked like an escapee from Belsen. His eyes were little more than sunken pits, the lids slightly parted as if he were watching her. Watching but not seeing. She could hear his low rasping breaths, and only the almost imperceptible rise and fall of his chest, accompanied by those grating inhalations, told her he was still alive. His thinning white hair had been swept over to one side of his head, a couple of strands having fallen untidily onto his forehead.
Sue reached into the drawer in the bedside cabinet, took out a comb and carefully ran it through the flimsy hair. As she withdrew she found that her hands were shaking. She stood gazing at him for a moment longer then picked up the vase with the dead flowers and threw them into the waste bin nearby. She then washed the vase in the sink and arranged the flowers she’d bought on her way to the hospital.
As she was replacing the vase she noticed that there was an envelope on the top of the cabinet. Sue opened it and pulled out a card which bore the words ‘HOPE YOU’RE SOON FIGHTING FIT’.
Underneath was a picture of a boxer. She flipped it open, her teeth clamped together as if to fight back the pain. Sue didn’t recognise the name inside, didn’t know who’d written ‘Get well soon’.
She tore the card and the envelope up with almost angry jerks of her arm then tossed the remains into the bin with the dead flowers.
‘Get well soon,’ she repeated under her breath, her eyes fixed on the shrivelled, shrunken shape which was her father. She almost smiled at the irony. You didn’t ‘Get well soon’ when you had lung cancer, she thought. You didn’t get well at all. You did what her father was doing. You lay in bed and let the disease eat you away from the inside. You let it transform you into a human skeleton. You let it tear you apart with pain.
The tears came without her even realising.
Every night she saw him, sat by him and, every night she swore she wouldn’t cry but, again, the sight of him lying there waiting for death proved too much. She sat on the edge of the bed and pulled a handkerchief from her pocket, wiping her eyes.
Her own subdued whimperings momentarily eclipsed the low rasping sound coming from her father. She clenched her teeth hard together, until her jaws ached, then she blew her nose and sighed wearily. How much longer was this going to go on? How many more nights of waiting? There had been times, especially during the last couple of weeks, when she had felt like praying for his death. At least it would mean the end of his suffering. But when she had thoughts like that she swiftly rebuked herself. Life was so precious that it was something to be grasped, to be retained no matter what the indignities, no matter what the suffering. Life with pain was better than no life at all.
She wondered if her father thought the same.
Sue squeezed his hand through the thin material of the blanket and felt again how thin he was. It was like clutching the hand of a skeleton, hidden beneath the cover she could easily have imagined that no flesh covered the bones and that to exert too much pressure would crush the hand. She held him a second longer then wiped her eyes again, the initial outpouring of emotion now passed. All that was left was the feeling of helplessness, the feeling which always came after the tears. An awful weariness and, at the same time, bewilderment that, after so long watching him wither away before her, she still had tears to offer. Every night as she arrived at the hospital she told herself that she would not cry, that she had become used to his appearance, to the knowledge that she was marking time waiting for him to die. But, every night, when she saw those ravaged wasted features and realised again that he would soon be gone forever, the tears came.
She knew she was the only one who ever visited him. It had been the same when he’d been in his flat in Camden, prior to being struck down with the illness.
Sue had a sister a year older than herself who lived about forty miles outside London, less than an hour’s drive but she had visited the hospital only twice, at the beginning. Before the cancer took a real hold. Sue didn’t blame her for that. She knew that there were practical reasons which prevented more frequent visits. And, besides, over the last two or three weeks, she had come to feel that the nightly visits were almost a duty. She came out of love but also because she knew she had been the one her father had doted on when she’d been growing up. She was still his ‘little girl’. She had to be there for him.
She sniffed back more tears and clutched his hand again. He felt so cold, even when she took to rubbing his hand with her own, he still seemed frozen. It was almost as if he were sucking in the chill air and storing it in his waxen skin.
There had been none of this interminable waiting when her mother died. A stroke had taken her nine years earlier. The swiftness of it had been devastating but now, as Sue sat with her father she was beginning to wonder which was preferable. Although she, like everyone else, knew that there was no preferable way. Death brought pain and suffering, whichever guise it chose to arrive in. After her mother’s death, Sue had realised both the awful finality of it but also how empty it leaves the lives of those who remain. She had seen the devastating effect her mother’s death had wrought on her own father. The flat where they had lived for thirty years, where they had raised a family, had become a prison for him. A cell full of memories, each one of which held not joy but pain because he had known that memories were all he had. There was no future to look forward to, only the past to dwell on.
Sue knew that feeling now. There had been good times with her father but, once he was dead, there would be just memories and memories sometimes faded. Even the good ones.
This thought brought a fresh trickle of tears which she hurriedly wiped away with the back of her hand.
She touched his cheek with the back of her hand, stroking gently, feeling the prominent cheekbones, tracing the hollows which had formed in his features. This time no tears came, and she remained like that for the next fifty minutes, stroking his face and hair, clutching his hand.
Sue finally glanced at her watch, saw that visiting hours were over, and heard others leaving, making their way down the corridor outside. Slowly she got to her feet then pulled up the blanket again, tucking it around him to keep out the cold. Then she leant forward and kissed his forehead.
‘Goodnight, Dad,’ she whispered. ‘See you tomorrow.’
She turned and did not look back, pulling the door open and slipping out silently, as if not to disturb him.
Seven
He pulled on his shirt, tucking it into his jeans as he heard the sound of the shower from the bathroom. Through the open door he could make out the blurred silhouette of Nikki behind the frosted glass.
Hacket buttoned his shirt then pulled on his trainers and started tying them. He sat on the edge of the bed, g
lancing up as he heard the shower being turned off. A moment later, Nikki stepped from inside, her body glistening with water, and Hacket admired her figure for a few seconds before she wrapped herself in a towel. Her hair was hanging in long tendrils, dripping water onto her shoulders as she walked back into the bedroom. She crossed to Hacket and kissed him softly on the lips, some of the water from her wet hair dripping onto his shirt. She slid the bath towel from around herself and began drying her arms and legs. He watched her for a moment longer, still sitting on the edge of the bed.
His eyes were fixed on the gold chain which she wore around her neck and the small opal which dangled from it. Another of his gifts to her. If you’re going to have an affair then do it with style, he reminded himself. Buy her things. Show her that you care. Hacket almost laughed aloud at his own thoughts. Care.
What the hell did he know about caring? If he cared for anyone he’d be at home now, not preparing to leave the flat where his lover lived.
The self-recrimination didn’t strike home with quite the vehemence it was meant to. He exhaled deeply, reaching out to touch her leg as she raised it, placed her foot on the bed and started to pat away the water with the towel.
‘Do you have to go now?’ she asked him.
Hacket nodded.
‘Sue will be back from the hospital soon,’ he told Nikki. ‘I’d better make a move.’
‘Won’t she wonder where you’ve been?’
‘I told her I had a meeting.’
‘Is she trusting or just naive?’ There was a hint of sarcasm in Nikki’s voice which Hacket didn’t care for.
‘Do you really want to know? I thought you didn’t want to hear anything about my wife,’ he said, irritably.
‘I don’t. You mentioned her first.’ She finished drying herself and reached for her housecoat which she pulled on, then she began drying her hair. ‘Do you think about her when you’re with me?’
Hacket frowned.
‘What is this? Twenty questions?’ He rolled up the sleeves of his white shirt revealing thick forearms. They regarded each other silently for a moment then Nikki’s tone softened slightly.
‘Look, John, I didn’t mean to sound so bitchy,’ she said.
‘Well you made a bloody good job of it,’ he snapped.
‘I want you. I don’t want to know about your wife or your family and if that sounds callous then I’m sorry. You chose to have this affair, just like I did. If you’ve got second thoughts, if you feel guilty, then maybe you shouldn’t be here.’
‘Do you want me here?’ he demanded.
She leant forward and kissed him.
‘Of course I do. I want you whenever I can have you. But I’m no fool either. I know this affair won’t last. It can’t. And I’m not going to ask you to leave your wife for me. I just want to enjoy it while I can. There’s nothing wrong with that is there?’
Hacket smiled and shook his head. He got to his feet, enfolded her in his arms and kissed her, his tongue pushing past her lips and teeth, seeking the moistness beyond. She responded fiercely, the towel falling to the floor, her breasts pressing against his chest. When they parted she was breathing heavily, her face flushed. She looked at him questioningly and Hacket was held by the intensity of her stare.
‘What do you want, John?’ she asked him. ‘What do you get out of it? What am I? Just a quick fuck? A bit on the side?’ Her Irish accent had become more pronounced, something he always noticed when she was upset or angry.
‘You’re more than a bit on the side,’ he told her. ‘Christ, I hate that expression.’
‘What would you call me? A lover? Makes it sound more respectable doesn’t it? What about a Mistress?’
‘A mistress is an unpaid whore,’ he said, flatly. ‘What do names matter, Nikki? You ask too many questions.’ He stroked her gently beneath the chin with his index finger.
She caught the finger, raised it to her mouth and kissed it, flicking the tip with her tongue.
‘You spend your money on me,’ she said, touching the opal necklace. ‘Don’t hurt me, John, that’s all I ask.’
He frowned.
‘I’d never hurt you. Why do you say that?’
‘Because I’m scared. Scared of becoming involved, of starting to think too much of you. You might hurt me without even knowing it.’
‘It cuts both ways. I can’t turn my emotions on and off Nikki. I’m at as much risk as you. And I’ve got more to lose. If I fall in love with you I’ve got…’ He allowed the sentence to trail off.
‘Your wife and daughter,’ she continued.
‘Yeah, wife, daughter and mortgage to support,’ he said, smiling humourlessly.
‘So we carry on,’ she said, pulling him closer. ‘Like I said, I want you whenever I can have you. I just have to be careful.’ She kissed him.
Hacket looked at his watch then headed for the door. She wrapped the towel around her again and followed him out to the hall.
‘When will I see you?’ she asked.
He paused, one hand on the door knob.
‘Tomorrow at the school. We can walk past each other and pretend we’ve never met just like we always do,’ he said with a trace of bitterness in his voice.
‘You know what I mean. Will you call me?’
He nodded, smiled at her, then he was gone.
Hacket took the lift to the ground floor then walked across to his car. He slid behind the wheel of the Renault and sat there for long moments in the darkness then, he glanced behind him, towards the window of Nikki’s flat where the light still burned. He exhaled, banging the steering wheel angrily. He cursed under his breath then, with a vicious twist of his wrist, he started the car, stuck it in gear and drove off.
If the traffic was light, he should be home in less than forty minutes.
Eight
The first police car was parked up on the pavement close to the street entrance.
Susan Hacket drove past it, noticing the uniformed men inside it as she drew closer to her house. However, she was almost blinded by the profusion of red and blue lights which seemed to fill the night. On top of ambulances and police cars they turned silently and, with the men around them moving about in relative calm it looked like a scene from a silent film. Sue frowned, suddenly disturbed by the sight of so many official vehicles.
It took her only a second to realise that they were parked outside her own house.
‘Oh God,’ she whispered under her breath and brought the car to a halt. She clambered out from behind the wheel and hurried across to the pavement where a number of uniformed policemen were standing around in well-ordered groups, most, it appeared, guarding the gates of the other houses. Sue could see lights on in the front rooms of the other houses, could see faces or at least silhouettes peering out into the night, anxious to see what was happening.
Uncontrollable panic seized her as she saw two ambulancemen entering her house.
She broke into a run, pushing past a policeman who tried to bar her way.
Two more’ men moved to intercept her as she reached the front door.
‘What’s going on,’ she blurted, her passage blocked by a burly sergeant. ‘Please let me in. I live here. My daughter is inside.’
It was another man, a man in his mid-thirties, dressed in a brown jacket and grey trousers, who finally spoke. He appeared behind the sergeant, eyeing Sue up and down appraisingly as if trying to recognise her.
‘Mrs Hacket?’ he finally said.
‘Yes. What’s happening, please tell me?’
The sergeant stepped aside and Sue rushed into the hall.
The smell struck her immediately.
A pungent stench of excrement, mingling with a smell not unlike copper.
The man in the brown jacket now barred her way and, as she tried to push past him, he caught her arms and held her. His face was pale, his chin dark with stubble. Even in such a tense moment Sue noticed how piercing his eyes were. A flawless blue which seemed to bore into her very sou
l. They were sad eyes.
‘Please tell me what’s happening,’ she pleaded, trying to shake loose of his grip.
‘You are Mrs Susan Hacket?’ he asked.
‘Yes, please tell me what’s going on.’ She practically screamed it at him. ‘Where’s my daughter?’
It was then that the ambulancemen emerged from the sitting room and Sue became aware of the smell once more, stronger now.
On the stretcher they carried was a sheet which, she assumed had once been white. It was soaked crimson and Sue realised that the thick red stain was blood. Her eyes bulged madly and she moved towards the stretcher.
The man in the brown jacket tried to hold her back but she wrenched one arm free and tugged at the sheet, pulling it back a few inches.
‘No!’ she shrieked.
As the ambulancemen hurried to cover the bloodied body of Caroline Fearns, Sue felt the bile clawing its way up from her stomach. In that split second she had time to see that Caroline’s face had been slashed in a dozen different places, her lips clumsily hacked off so that only a hole remained where her mouth was. Her hair was matted with blood which had pumped from the wounds which had caused her death.
The man in the brown jacket tried to guide Sue into the kitchen away from the sight of Caroline’s body but she seemed to resist his efforts until he practically had to lift her bodily from the hall.
‘Where’s Lisa?’ she gasped, unable to swallow.
‘Mrs Hacket, I’m Detective Sergeant Spencer, I…’
Sue wasn’t interested in the policeman’s identity.
‘Where’s my daughter?’ she shrieked, tears beginning to form at her eye corners.
‘Your daughter’s dead,’ Spencer said, flatly, trying to inject some compassion into his words but knowing it was impossible.
He held on to Sue for a moment then she shook loose and stumbled back against the table. For a moment he thought she was going to faint but she clawed at one of the chairs and flopped down on it.
‘No,’ she murmured.