Splintered

by Laura J Harris

  ‘You do know that your brother is dead, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course I know it! That’s the reason that we’re here now dickhead! And we all know who is responsible for his murder.’ Kelly spat, vehemently, ‘I watched you take the life of my brother, now you can watch as I take the life of your sister.’

  ‘She’s really not a Prior, you know.’

  ‘Then, I suppose a step-sibling will have to do.’ Kelly said, pressing the knife into Shona’s throat until a line of dark red blood dribbled over her skin.

  ‘This is important.’ he said forcefully, stopping Kelly for the time being, ‘She’s not a Prior. Just as you are not a Simmons.’

  Kelly laughed a loud and brutal laugh.

  It was a cruel laugh that sounded so much like that laughter which had haunted his dreams for so many years; Like that of Jacob Matthew Simmons.

  For the first time he began to question what he believed. To question whether all that Christine had said might just be possible.

  ‘That’s a good one,’ Kelly said, pointing the knife at him, ‘So, what?

  Was I adopted? Is that it? Is that the big reveal? He was still my fucking brother, you bastard!’

  ‘No,’ Prior said, calmly, ‘No, you weren’t adopted. You were killed.’ Kelly stopped laughing. ‘You were killed on September twenty-fourth, nineteen-ninety-nine. You were murdered in the woods by the sixteen-year-old girl you’d planned on raping and killing yourself.’

  Kelly tightened her grip on Shona, shifting her weight from knee to knee.

  ‘Don’t be fucking stupid.’ she said, ‘That makes no fucking sense! You cunning bastard, you’re just try to confuse me.’

  ‘He’s not, Kelly. Please, you have to listen to him.’ Shona whispered, trying her best not to move for fear of her life.

  ‘Shut the fuck up.’ Kelly said and Shona became rigid once more. ‘Shut the fuck up! Now!’

  Christine made her way onto the stage from the prompt corner, downstage left.

  She noticed, absently, that she was leaning on her stick a lot less then she had been during the day, which was good as she had noticed that the handle was beginning to work its way loose.

  In her right hand she held the gun that the Kelly creature had handled in her left only minutes earlier. And she seemed prepared to use it.

  ‘You should listen to them, Kelly.’ she said, making a steady approach, ‘I know you’re still in there somewhere. I know you can fight him. You’ve done it before.’

  Leigh turned Shona, placing himself behind her so that neither Christine, nor Prior could take a decent shot at him without risking the dancer.

  ‘No. This is bollocks.’ he said, ‘All bollocks and trickery.’

  These were Leigh’s words, but when their eyes met, Christine could see that — for an instant — Kelly was home.

  Christine decided to keep the pressure on. ‘Do you remember the first night we met? We sat up on the balcony and talked about . . .’

  There was silence for a long time.

  Then, slowly, Kelly begin to make her answer. ‘We talked shit.’ she said, loosening her grip on Shona’s hair, ‘We flirted a lot. Discussed labels and social divide and I had a headache. I was going to see the show . . .’ Without warning, Kelly began to shake, her eyes rolling back in her head. Shona cried out as knife nicked her over and over adding to her rapidly mounting flesh wounds.

  ‘Don’t, don’t think about that, Kelly,’ Christine said, struggling to keep her accented tones as soft and soothing and light as possible, ‘Listen to my voice. Just listen. Stay with me. You bought me a drink that night. What was it?’

  ‘A Mojito.’ she said with a grin.

  Her eyes were half-closed and as she continued to speak the shaking subsided and she seemed to relax again. ‘Shona mixed it. I didn’t know what to order for you.’ she laughed, relaxing, still further. Shona was almost free. ‘She suggested a Sloe Comfortable Screw, but I didn’t know if that was a bit too forward as we’d only just met!’

  Christine kept the gun on Kelly as Shona wriggled slowly, inch by inch, from her grasp. Just as she seemed to break free, Kelly’s grip on her hair tightened once more, reining her back in.

  ‘Christine, shoot me!’ she screamed, pleading. ‘Please, I can’t hold him. I can’t control him. Please, don’t let me hurt anyone else. Kill me. Please. SHOOT ME!’

  Even as Kelly protested, Leigh brought the knife towards Shona’s throat.

  Prior took the shot.

  But the trigger mechanism caught.

  As his eyes dropped to inspect the weapon he heard a bloodcurdling scream and his heart sank.

  He looked back up just time to see Shona drive a screw through Kelly’s knife-hand.

  Everything that followed seemed to happen at a quarter of the speed as he slung the pointless weapon and ran towards the stage.

  Kelly released both Shona and the knife, staring at her hand in horror and disbelief as Shona dived to the floor. She twisted onto her back, grabbing for one of the small, rounded rocks that Prior had thought to be simple paper mache set dressings. But, as Kelly — Leigh — dove towards her with murder in her — his — eyes, Shona brought the rock up, smashing it into the thing-that-wasn’t-quite-Kelly’s face.

  It slumped to the ground, blood pouring from the upper left-hand side of its face.

  Prior was now on the stage and dragging Shona from underneath the unconscious body.

  He wrapped his arms around her, kissing her forehead over and over.

  ‘Is she dead?’ she whispered, ‘Did I . . . Did I kill her?’

  Prior shook his head. Hoping he was right only for Shona’s sake.

  ‘Can you stand?’ he asked. She nodded. ‘And walk, can you walk okay?’ Again she nodded. ‘How about climb?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then I want you head for the gallery level emergency exit,’ he said, pointing, ‘It’ll bring you out near the closest medical point. Go and get help. And wait for me there. Don’t come back.’

  Shona nodded, understanding his reasons for choosing her.

  She doubted that Christine would make the climb up the slick metal wall ladders and there was no way that Prior was about to leave either of them alone with Leigh. Or Kelly.

  Shona kissed him on the cheek and mouthed ‘Thank you’ as a trail of blood still trickled from her throat, adding a much more sombre colour to the spectrum that already littered her now-somewhat wrecked and ragged, slim-fit t-shirt.

  He watched until she reached the ladders and then turned to face Christine. ‘Are you ok?’ he asked, seeing her hands shaking, seeing that the colour had drained from her face.

  She gave a single nod and continued to stare at Kelly’s unconscious body.

  ‘I don’t believe you.’ he said and extended his arm towards her as he climbed up onto his knees, resting there for a moment.

  She smiled sadly as she made her way towards him, slowly.

  ‘What do you think happened to Marc?’ she asked, following Shona with her eyes as she emerged on the gallery platform.

  ‘I don’t know. I’ll go look for him once we’re — ’

  At that moment Kelly sprung back into life; as though she had simply been suspended, mid-animation all this time. Somehow she managed to sweep Prior’s legs from under him before he could stand, butting him in the face so that he toppled backwards.

  Then, whipping the gun from Christine’s hand, she shoved the psychologist backwards and turned to the gallery platform, taking a steady aim.

  Christine didn’t know what had happened until she felt her back slam painfully against the floor. Her head too went back and she cracked it hard, blinking through the pain as she tried to scramble back to her feet.

  Leigh now held the gun. And he had Shona in his sights.

  Just as Shona reached the emergency exit, the heavy door was flung open. The light cascaded in around a very dazed and confused Marc Davies, who stumbled this way and that, holding on to his head. />
  She heard Leigh laugh as he had before. Cold and cruel and calculated.

  ‘Perfect.’ he purred, as though it were one lengthy syllable, ‘Time to play.’

  Christine became aware that Prior too was struggling to find his feet; that he was trying to reach Leigh; to stop him.

  She knew that he simply wouldn’t make it in time.

  She lowered her eyes, feeling her cane in her hands. The handle had now twisted completely free of the shaft and she examined it, pulling it apart; though she had no real clue as to why she had decided to do such a thing.

  But as she sat in the fake snow of the winter scene — time halting all around her — Christine’s dark, chocolate eyes widened with the realisation of what she was holding; it was dagger.

  An incredibly sharp and very real, gold dagger that sparkled under the theatrical lighting.

  She couldn’t believe it.

  For a moment she imagined that she heard her sister’s voice, saying; Well, you never can tell . . .

  Then, as Leigh prepared to squeeze the trigger and Prior tried to stop him, she — forgotten amongst the chaos — the poor, pointless, crippled Christine drew herself up. She raised the dagger high above her head, flinging herself forwards to drive the blade deep into Kelly’s shoulder.

  Leigh fired the shot. But it went high.

  Marc Davies pulled a frightened Shona to safety.

  Prior pounced, retrieving the gun with ease and pinning the creature that wasn’t Kelly under the weapon’s close sight. Holding her there.

  As Christine slumped back into the delightfully warm and open arms of unconscious exhaustion she saw the chain that bore the tags of Jacob Matthew Simmons — the chain that had been a key weapon in so many of the murders and that had meant so much to Isaac Leigh — slip from Kelly’s pocket, landing just beyond reach of both the Kelly creature and Leigh himself.

  12:19

  Wednesday 18th May, 2011

  Heathrow Airport

  Christine escorted the cuffed and stitched Kelly Livingstone through the sea of reporters, trying her best to protect her. In every sense that she could.

  They had just touched down following their thirteen-hour flight from Miami.

  Kelly had been no trouble, really. No trouble at all.

  In fact, during the whole of the return trip, she had barely spoken a sentence. But then again, Christine had stabbed and disabled her only three days earlier.

  She had even been prepared to kill her in those final, testing moments. She knew that she had. And realised that Prior had been right all along.

  Anyone was capable of murder.

  It was the conditions which drove them that made the difference.

  She didn’t know how comfortable she felt with this knowledge. With knowing that she could have — and would have — taken the life of this woman, through whom her world had been turned upside down.

  ‘It’s okay. You’ll be fine.’ Prior had said, seeing her and Kelly — and their quartet of armed guards — to the waiting, blacked-out SUV, ‘These are the kind of things that either make us or break us.’

  He had meant to cheer her up, though, just how that statement was meant to make her feel any better about herself and her actions, she had no idea.

  She did, indeed, feel broken.

  Still, she had put on that same brave face that she always carried around with her and had embraced — in sequence — the trio of bandaged brigadiers that were Marc Davies, Shona Jacobs and finally Jonathan Prior.

  Shona appeared not to know quite how — and even whether — she should really say goodbye to Kelly and had hung back to the last, with tears in her eyes.

  Sensing her watching, Kelly had looked up and raised her hand to cover her own throat, staring sadly at the bandage around Shona’s in a silent apology. The dancer had nodded, but no more had passed between them.

  Then Kelly had been secured into the back of the SUV with a guard on each side as Christine had finalised plans with Prior. He had agreed to take control over the organising of having both Kelly’s and her own belongings packed up and sent on to her address.

  He had smiled, though his stunningly beautiful eyes were tinged with sadness as he had handed her the white and gold walking stick for the final time.

  ‘And who would have thought,’ he had said, ‘there was a time when you were afraid that this might break.’

  She had held his gaze, feeling the heat of tears building behind her eyes, ‘Perhaps it’s not as fragile as I once thought.’

  He had nodded, understanding.

  Then he had planted a farewell kiss on her cheek; his rough, stubbled face feeling like a welcome friend. And they had parted.

  Now, back in England, she had anticipated the media circus that would greet them and was prepared for it.

  She had anticipated yet another, long, escorted drive in yet another blacked-out SUV.

  What she hadn’t expected was the stirring mixture of emotions she apparently felt for the artist who was now world-famous for all the wrong reasons; Kelly Livingstone.

  Receiving their returned passports and replacing them in her bag, Christine spun around to speak to Kelly only to find that she had wandered off and — though still cuffed — appeared to be hassling an elderly gentleman, who was growing more agitated with her every word.

  Calling to the pointless guards that were supposed to be minding her, Christine arrived in time to hear the silver-haired fox spitting a torrent of abuse at Kelly before turning his back on her.

  ‘She’s fucking crazy!’ he had shouted and Christine had bit her tongue as she struggled to calm Kelly and usher her — under guard — out through the crowded foyer and into the waiting car.

  ‘What was that all about?’ she said, turning around in the front passenger seat to touch Kelly’s hand, rubbing it as she had done back in her suite.

  Kelly met her eyes. But said nothing.

  Epilogue

  From: C.Kane@KaneConsultancy.com

  To: JonPrior13@gmail.com

  Date: 17.12.2011 10:34

  Dear Jon

  I hope this email finds you well.

  I enjoyed speaking to you on Friday, even if it was for only a couple of minutes. Speaking of which, I now finally have a mobile that works as it’s supposed to (and does much more besides!). I treated myself to a Galaxy SII, though everyone is constantly raving about Iphone. Personally, I think that’s what puts me off. But, you know me!

  Work is good; the business is slowly developing a positive name for itself. Though, I think the (somewhat expected) media coverage of what happened on the Ianus back in May might have had more than just a little to do with that. But, I’m learning to cope with the media much better these days. Learning to harness them and use them to my advantage.

  My knee is much better too. I hardly ever need to use a stick these days. Besides, I had to have the one Janet bought for me encased in a glass display box. It was either that or hand it over to the local police knife amnesty!

  How is Shona doing?

  I had a three hour session with Kelly today. She was quite lucid, not like when we first arrived. Did I tell you about that? She was cuffed the entire flight and under supervision, but somehow managed to approach and fluster some old codger when we landed. He was a feisty old bugger and was shouting all kinds at us . . . particularly at Kelly.

  Still, it was her that the papers had a field day with!

  But, anyway . . . she was asking after both you and Shona today. And Marc too.

  It’s very rare that she suffers with her ‘Leigh’ episodes anymore. At times you’d hardly believe that he’d been there at all, but, then it’s also strange to think that there was a time when she was more ‘Leigh’ than ‘Kelly’ And then I remember . . . surviving it. And I know that it was real.

  And a remember those who weren’t so lucky.

  I don’t think she’ll ever be released.

  I know it’s a lot to ask, but if you could convince Shona to com
e and visit her I think it would do them both the world of good. I know it’s difficult. Emotionally as well as physically (with her being away now). But, I’d really appreciate if you would ask her again.

  Have you decided what it is that you want to do yet?

  Right, I’m off to do some Christmas shopping.

  Last Saturday before the holidays and all that!

  Keep in touch.

  With love

  Christine.

  From: JonPrior13@gmail.com

  To: C.Kane@KaneConsultancy.com

  Date: 17.12.2011 18:22

  Hi Christine

  What do you mean, the ‘last Saturday’? You’ve got Christmas Eve to shop!

  I’m good, thanks.

  No, I’ve still not decided what I want to do now that I’ve thrown off the shackles of Golden Star. Although they did offer me some consultant position within security, overseeing a standard across the fleet, but . . . it sounds like too much paperwork to me.

  Part of me would like to go back to the force, but, after everything that’s happened . . . the way I left, the things I’ve seen since then . . . I don’t know. Never say never, eh?

  With regards to Kelly; I’ll ask Shona. I can’t say fairer than that.

  Take care of yourself.

  Jon

  From: C.Kane@KaneConsultancy.com

  To: JonPrior13@gmail.com

  Date: 19.12.2011 15:12

  Hi Jon

  I take it you’re one of these crazy, last-minute shopper types then, are you?

  I can’t stand that, myself.

  This is just a quick email; I’m supposed to be working, but then again, I suppose that’s the beauty of being your own boss!