Keep Me Close : An utterly gripping psychological thriller with a shocking twist

by Jane Holland

  I remember the creaking floorboard just before we left the living room, and suspect that Ruby overheard the entire interview and is simply pretending to be shocked. No doubt she realises – quite rightly – I might be a wee bit pissed off with her if she admitted to listening at the keyhole while I’m being grilled by the police.

  ‘Well, I never.’ She inhales sharply. ‘Poor bloke. Though what’s that got to do with you?’

  ‘I haven’t a clue,’ I reply shortly. ‘Right now, I feel like I’m dying. I just want to apologise to my mum for saying she has to go into a home, and then I’m going straight back to bed.’

  I head down the hall towards my mother’s room.

  ‘Best place for you,’ Ruby calls after me in an approving tone, and disappears into the living room, the sewing box still under her arm.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  There’s a faintly unpleasant smell in Mum’s bedroom, which I must have failed to notice before. Cigarette smoke? Perhaps Ruby’s wrong and Logan really did sneak in here and slash Ciaran’s picture to pieces. That would explain the lingering smell. Though it hurts me to imagine him doing such a horrible thing, especially in front of my mother, who must have been terrified.

  I push open a window, despite the chill weather, and avoid looking at the painting on the wall opposite.

  David’s perfect, untouched face is already burnt on my retina though, and I feel his presence so strongly as I sink onto the edge of the bed, it’s almost as if he’s reaching across the divide from death to life, trying to find me.

  Mum is lying on her side, her head turned away. I touch her shoulder, and she flinches, giving a little anguished cry.

  My heart contracts with fierce guilt.

  She’s too scared even to look at me. And it’s my fault. I’ve done this to her.

  ‘Hey,’ I say softly, ‘it’s okay, it’s me, Kate.’

  She shifts then, and peers round at me, the covers pulled up to her chin. Her face looks drawn, her eyes damp.

  ‘Oh God, Mum, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it.’

  She looks at me blankly.

  ‘What I said before about you going into a residential home,’ I explain, and now she really does look frightened. ‘No, don’t worry. It’s not going to happen. I was angry, that’s all. I didn’t mean it.’

  ‘I… I don’t have to leave?’

  ‘Never.’ I shake my head, forcing myself to smile, though I feel more like weeping. ‘You were right. This is your home. And nobody has the right to make you leave. Least of all me, your own daughter.’ I lean over and give her a hug. ‘Please don’t cry anymore. I’m sorry.’

  I help her to sit up, and realise she’s still in her nightie. ‘Not dressed yet? I thought that’s what Ruby was doing in here. But maybe you didn’t feel like getting up today. I know how that feels…’ Her scrambled eggs on toast, which Ruby must have brought in on a tray earlier, is sitting untouched on the bedside table, the eggs congealed, her mug of tea cold now. ‘You haven’t eaten your breakfast either. Weren’t you hungry?’

  She doesn’t respond, staring at the ruined painting opposite with wide, horrified eyes as though she’s only just noticed it. Which maybe she truly thinks she has, her memory these days almost as destroyed and full of holes as the canvas on the wall.

  ‘Well, never mind. I can fetch you a fresh mug of tea. Are you peckish too? Maybe you could have some early lunch. In fact, I’m not working today, so we could eat together.’ I take her hand and squeeze it encouragingly. ‘Chicken soup?’

  She gives a sharp yelp of pain, and I frown. ‘Mum?’

  My mother withdraws her hand from mine, pouting in dismay, and then glances up at me accusingly.

  ‘I’m sorry, did I hurt you? I didn’t mean to; I obviously don’t know my own strength.’ Then I realise the skin on the back of her hand looks red, as though she’s been scratching it. ‘Here, let me see. That doesn’t look good.’ She shakes her head, trying to conceal her hand under the covers, but I insist. ‘Mum, please. I only want to help. Is your hand hurt?’

  Slowly, she extends her arm and I take her hand. The back of her hand is a dark red, blotchy in places, with raised weals.

  ‘Oh my God, this is awful. What is it? A rash?’ Maybe she’s developed some kind of allergy to the washing capsules we’ve been using. She did last year, and I had to change brand to a sensitive skin type. ‘Have you been scratching? You really mustn’t.’

  She snatches her hand back before I can examine it, her lip trembling as though she’s going to cry again.

  ‘It’s okay, it’s not your fault,’ I tell her gently. ‘I just wish Ruby had told me, that’s all. I could have gone out to the chemist’s for something to stop the itching.’

  That’s when I notice her arm is red too, on the little patch of skin peeking out from below the short sleeve of her nightie.

  ‘What on earth are you allergic to? How bad is this rash? Does it stretch right up your arm?’ I push up her sleeve, and gasp. ‘Oh, Mum!’

  A few inches above the elbow is a ring of fresh bruises, dark red and already beginning to purple in places. It looks like someone has gripped her by the upper arm, perhaps to hold her still and stop her from escaping while they did something to her. But what?

  I have to swallow several times before I can speak. ‘Mum? Who did this to you?’

  She cranes her neck to look down at her arm, and then gives a little moan, shaking her head. ‘Can’t, can’t.’

  ‘Can’t what? Can’t say or can’t remember?’ I realise I’m pressurising her, and soften my tone. ‘Mum, you can tell me. It’ll be our secret. Just you and me.’

  ‘A secret.’ She nods. ‘Yes.’

  ‘So who did this? Can you tell me their name? Man, woman?’

  But she only shakes her head, her expression scared now. Her gaze returns to the slashed canvas on the wall.

  Following her gaze, I ask carefully, ‘Did the same person who hurt you do that to the painting?’

  But I’ve lost her. She’s already turning inwards again, her gaze dropping to the hand she’s nursing in her lap, and all she mutters is, ‘Hungry.’ Her voice is so plaintive, it breaks my heart. ‘No breakfast.’

  ‘I’ll get you some soup. And a cup of tea.’

  She says nothing, her head still bent.

  I walk round to collect her breakfast tray, and use the opportunity to study her hand at a discreet distance. Is that nasty circular blotch just above her knuckles actually another cigarette burn? That smell of cigarette smoke when I walked into the room…

  Christ.

  My world explodes in red behind my eyes. What the hell has been going on in this house? And how have I only just started to notice it?

  Too busy worrying about my own problems, that’s why I missed this. Haunted by David’s suicide, flattered by Logan’s sexual interest, drowning in work and staggering under the weight of expectation surrounding Calum Morgan’s book.

  ‘Mum, did someone burn your hand?’

  She sits up with a start, worried again and shaking her head. ‘No, no. Can’t talk about it.’

  ‘Are you hurt anywhere else?’ I ask, trying not to frighten her. ‘You can show me. I won’t tell anyone.’

  Mum hesitates, then pushes back the covers and lifts her nightie. The side of her left thigh is a mass of weals. Someone has beaten her, I realise, speechless with horror.

  ‘Who did this to you?’ I put down the breakfast tray and embrace her, tears in my eyes. ‘Please tell me, Mum. I won’t let them hurt you again.’ I try to slow my breathing, to stay calm. ‘Was it Ruby?’ Her expression doesn’t change. ‘What about… Logan? My boyfriend. Was it him?’ Still, her face reveals nothing. ‘Mr Adeyemi?’ I run a hand through my hair, at my wits’ end. ‘When did they do this to you? Today? Yesterday? And how often? Please, Mum, I need to know.’

  But she refuses to speak, her lips closed stubbornly.

  She’s too scared.

  I’m not even sure she unde
rstands why she mustn’t speak, only that she has been threatened with some nameless fate if she talks and so dares not. God only knows what her torturer has said to get inside her head like this. But she’s so terrified she can’t even reach out to me, her child. And her memory issues have scrambled everything for her. Maybe she genuinely can’t remember who did it to her. But she’s afraid of what will happen if she discusses it.

  This is all my fault.

  I don’t know what evil monster did this to my mother, or why. But I’m going to put a stop to it forever. Today.

  With a supreme effort, I suppress my fury, and even try to sound cheerful when she glances up. ‘Chicken soup coming right up.’ I’m amazed that my voice doesn’t shake; inside, I feel incoherent with wrath, my heart thumping, my body flooded with unfettered adrenalin. ‘And two slices of bread and butter, cut into triangles. Just the way you like them.’

  I want to kill whoever’s been hurting and terrorising my mum. I want to throttle them until the light dies in their eyes. And right now I don’t care if that makes me a bad person.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  I make us both lunch in a kind of sick stupor, my brain working too fast for my weakened physical state, my body trembling and hungover.

  My first instinct was to call the police. But now I realise what that might mean for Mum.

  The police would take her away from me, for sure. They’ll suspect me as well as Ruby and Logan. We’re the people with the easiest access to her, so we’re the ones they’ll consider most likely to abuse her.

  Mum won’t understand it if social services take her away. To her, it will be a betrayal. As she said, this is her home.

  I’ve already let her down as badly as it’s possible to do.

  I can’t let her down again by bringing the authorities down on us before I can be sure who’s behind this.

  I know who I suspect most. But my suspicions are pointless without proof. I need to do this right, or the perpetrator may slip through my fingers before I can properly punish them. But there’s a further complication. My weary body has had enough today, and my brain isn’t far behind. I can’t think straight, my head a mess, my emotions all over the place. And I need to think.

  In desperation, I hunt through the medicine cupboard and pop a couple of out-of-date pills, which I had on prescription about eighteen months ago when I was still unable to control my anxiety in the aftermath of David’s death. They’re antipsychotics, basically.

  The little white pills immediately start to take the edge off, and I stop shaking, able to function.

  Ruby appears as I’m heading down the hall with the lunch tray. She sees two bowls of soup and smiles. ‘Having lunch with your mum? That’s a good idea. She’s not been herself for days.’

  I look at her, and wish I could be sure she’s not behind my mother’s bruises and cigarette burns.

  ‘Ruby, I’m worried about her. She’s got some new bruises. Her arm, her leg and the back of her hand… Well, I think that’s another cigarette burn.’ I focus on her face; I’m glad those pills have helped me rise above the panic raging through me. I still feel it, the stress and fear. But it’s no longer clouding my responses or controlling me. ‘What do you know about that?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she says.

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘Like I said.’ I hear a crackle in her voice, and decide not to press it. Not yet. ‘But maybe you’re right.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Maybe your mum didn’t destroy that portrait of your family. Maybe it was Logan. He was here when it happened, after all. He could have snuck into her room while I was busy elsewhere, slashed the picture and then hit your mother.’

  ‘Why would he do that?’

  She shrugs. ‘He might have hated that painting. Perhaps because your ex is in it. Some men don’t like that kind of thing.’

  ‘But why hit Mum?’

  ‘To frighten her, of course, and stop her from telling anyone it was him. Or maybe she called out for help, and he was shutting her up.’ She’s frowning, her eyes narrow on my face. ‘You look odd. Are you feeling okay? Have you taken something, Kate?’

  ‘No,’ I lie.

  ‘Let me carry that tray for you,’ Ruby says, and plucks it efficiently from my hands. ‘I think you should sit down.’

  I don’t deny that; my legs are feeling a bit unsteady.

  As soon as Ruby walks into the bedroom, my mother’s eyes widen, watching closely as she places the soup tray at the end of the bed. When Ruby asks in a friendly tone how she’s feeling, Mum says nothing but almost shrinks away from her.

  My mother is afraid of her own carer.

  It’s the first time I’ve even noticed her response, and I stare, unable to believe I’ve missed that before today. Have those pills sharpened my senses? Or is this a new kind of delusion brought on by the drugs I’ve taken?

  ‘Thanks,’ I tell Ruby, ‘I’ll take it from here.’

  She smiles and leaves the room without another word.

  My mother leans back against her pillows, seeming to breathe easier with just the two of us alone together.

  ‘Here you go, Mum.’ I position a tray with legs over her lap, and then put her soup in front of her, with a spoon and plate of bread and butter. ‘Chicken soup.’

  ‘Chicken soup is very good for you,’ she says sombrely.

  ‘That’s right.’ I sit with my own bowl on the edge of her bed and take a few spoonfuls, though I’m not hungry. But I want to keep her company while I think what to do.

  It would be easier to accept Ruby as the perpetrator than face my fear that Logan is the one who’s been hurting her.

  I brought him into our house, after all, without asking questions about whether he could be trusted, and it was around then that her condition seemed to deteriorate and bruises started to appear. He has a motive too, while what can Ruby gain from tormenting her own patient?

  And there’s still Mr Adeyemi. Perhaps I shouldn’t neglect him as a possible suspect. There’s that bequest he stands to get when she dies, and if she tried to resist him in some way, maybe even saying she wanted to change her will, he might have lost his temper with her.

  ‘Giorgios is dead,’ I say suddenly.

  My mother looks up from her soup, which she has been stirring slowly round her bowl. ‘Giorgios?’

  She already doesn’t remember him. That’s how far she’s gone. Once Giorgios was an almost daily fixture in this house, arriving armed with word puzzles and jigsaws, and she would look forward to his visits with a twinkle in her eye, always much brighter and livelier after he’d sat with her for a few hours.

  Giorgios was a good carer. He deeply, genuinely cared. Now he’s dead, and she doesn’t even know who he was.

  I start to cry. ‘Sorry,’ I mumble, and push aside my soup.

  Mum watches me in mild surprise but says nothing. Then she bends to her soup again, her noisy slurping and the scrape of her spoon against the bowl the only sounds in the room. It’s a messy business. She’s dropping more soup than she swallows.

  ‘Wait.’ Drying my tears, I sit next to her and take the spoon. ‘Let me help you.’ I scoop up some of the rapidly cooling chicken soup and convey it to her mouth; she opens up meekly, like a baby waiting for apple sauce, and swallows. When the bowl is almost empty, she shakes her head and refuses to open her mouth.

  ‘Can you manage the bread triangles on your own, Mum?’

  She takes one and nibbles on it thoughtfully.

  I take that as a yes.

  Her hand still looks red and painful. ‘I’ll take these bowls out and fetch you something for that.’

  But when I reach the kitchen, I stop dead, hearing someone walking about upstairs.

  It has to be Ruby. Except that her room isn’t above the kitchen. My room is, though, at least partially.

  What the hell is she doing in my bedroom?

  I stand listening to her footsteps moving back and forth overhead, and feel suddenly afraid
. I can’t explain it, but irrational or not, I have to fight the urge to grab Mum and run away. This is our house, for goodness’ sake. Not hers. Yet somehow I’m beginning to feel unwelcome here, like a stranger.

  My gaze lowers from the ceiling to the fridge. On the door, pinned into place by a red London bus fridge magnet, is the flier that came through the door, advertising Ruby’s services as a carer.

  I’ve left my phone on the kitchen counter. I snatch it up and hurry outside into the cold afternoon, carefully leaving the front door wide open so I can keep an ear out for Mum.

  Scrolling through the numbers on my contacts list, I find Stella from my yoga class.

  ‘Hello, stranger,’ Stella says breathlessly, obviously having read my name on the screen before answering. ‘Long time no see. You haven’t been to yoga in ages. Hang on, I’m just getting a cake out of the oven. Timing is so crucial.’ She disappears for a moment, then returns. ‘Okay, I’ve put you on speakerphone. How are you? And your mum? Did Ruby work out for you?’

  ‘Actually, that’s why I’m calling.’ I hesitate, not wanting to be too open about the reasons for my call. After all, I barely know Stella. But I will have to give her some explanation or she might become suspicious. ‘A friend of mine also needs a carer, and I want to recommend Ruby. But this friend of mine says she needs more information. Like, where Ruby did her training, who else she’s worked for. I don’t suppose you know any of that?’

  Stella sounds confused. ‘Why not just ask Ruby herself?’

  ‘Well… This friend might change her mind, and then I’d be really embarrassed. I mean, what if Ruby was offended by getting a pass?’

  ‘Yes, I perfectly see that. It could be awkward. Hmmm.’ Stella hesitates. ‘Not sure if I can help, actually. I’ve never hired Ruby myself, and I don’t know much about her. Except that she’s supposed to be amazing.’

  ‘But who told you that?’

  ‘Erm…’ Stella is silent for a moment, then says, ‘I have no idea. It was just something people were saying.’