Come A Little Closer

by Rachel Abbott

  Finally I have to face something I have suspected for a while. I have been so grateful for the oblivion that I have chosen to ignore the truth. It is time to accept that there are far more than a few harmless herbs in Thea’s infusions, and possibly in all the food that I have eaten since I have been in this house.

  For a moment I feel breathless and I fight to control the panic rising in me. I know very little about drugs, but by the look of the other two women I would guess they are on some kind of tranquilliser. I have been free from Thea’s food and drink for a few hours and the effects are fading, but now I crave more, desperate as I am to sink back into a stupor which masks the reality I am struggling to deal with.

  A bowl of soup is pushed towards me. ‘You have to eat this,’ Judith says.

  I start to shake my head, but I see her eyes dart sideways and upwards. I want to follow her gaze, but something tells me to be careful. I wait a moment and then casually glance around the small kitchen area, my attention not lingering on any particular spot. The room is poorly lit and the tops of the cupboards are in deep black shadow. In the gloom I spot a tiny pinprick of green light.

  They are watching us.

  In the end I ate the soup. I didn’t have much choice, given what I now know. I don’t want to be thrown out of the house, and I need Thea and Garrick’s protection, even if I don’t like the fact that they are spying on us, drugging us. Why are they doing this?

  I want to ask the other women why they are here, but neither of them have said anything. Judith doesn’t seem quite as institutionalised, and I get the feeling she is more aware that things are not quite right. Because they are not.

  Perhaps they are both simply cleaning staff. Maybe they are paid to work here – they know the code to get out and can come and go as they like. Thea is right: this house does take some looking after. Then I risk a quick glance up towards the tiny green light and I know that the others are no more free to leave than I am.

  As soon as we have eaten, I excuse myself and make my way to the bathroom, checking around, hoping that they wouldn’t stoop so low as to hide a camera in there. I turn off the light to look for a telltale glow, but there is nothing and nowhere to hide a camera. I kneel down by the toilet bowl. I have never done this before, and I’m not looking forward to it, but I close my eyes, count to ten and then push my fingers down my throat.

  It’s awful. It’s the most dreadful feeling, and the temptation to give in and let the soup perform its magic is massive. But I feel my stomach heave, and finally the contents of my meagre supper spew out of me, leaving my throat sore and burning with acid. God help me if I’m going to have to do this after every meal. I could have trusted the bread, I think, but that has all come back too. I rinse my mouth out, gargle with cold water and, feeling far worse than if I had left well alone, I stagger back to my room.

  There is a mug of tea by the bed, steam rising from it. Once more I cast my eyes around, searching every corner, but there is nowhere to hide a camera as far as I can tell. The one in the kitchen isn’t well disguised. It’s as if they want us to know that we are being watched. I sit down on the bed and rest my head in my hands.

  I don’t realise anyone has come into the room until I hear a small cough.

  ‘You need to drink your tea, Judith,’ a quiet voice says. It’s the same woman again, the one who says she is called Judith too.

  I look up. ‘Why do you call me Judith?’ I ask. I know I have never given her any name at all.

  ‘We’re all called Judith. It makes it easier.’

  ‘Who for?’ I say, my voice rising in shock at her words. She takes a step back, obviously uneasy at my refusal to conform.

  ‘Please, Judith, just drink your tea. Thea will be coming for you soon. She’s going to be angry if you’ve not drunk it, and she might blame me. I can’t afford to upset her. Please, Judith,’ she begs, tears filling her eyes.

  ‘What do you mean, she’ll be coming for me?’ I ask, my heart once more starting to pound uncomfortably.

  ‘You’re due a treatment with the doctor. Honestly, it will be much better for you if you’ve had your tea.’

  Before I can say another word, we hear the buzzer. The woman’s eyes go wide and she glances at my mug. She shakes her head frantically as she backs out of the room and scurries away, the door slamming behind her.

  So what do I do? Do I drink my tea and conform, or do I risk incurring Thea’s wrath? I can hear the thunk of the bolts sliding back on the door at the head of the stairs. I only have a moment to decide.

  38

  ‘Jack?’ There was a question in Tom’s voice, one he didn’t need to ask. He knew exactly who this was and he couldn’t help feeling a leap of pleasure at the unexpected sight. ‘You’ve grown a beard.’

  Jack laughed, his intense blue eyes dancing. ‘Is that all you’ve got to say?’

  The last time Tom had seen his brother, all hell had broken loose and a man had died. Jack had then tricked him and disappeared into the night before Tom had had the chance to talk to him about anything important. They had spoken just once since that day, and Tom had felt an overwhelming sense of frustration, knowing that his brother was out there somewhere – he had no idea where – but that he was unable to speak to him. His only method of communication was via notes left on his laptop. But it was no substitute for being in the same room with him, talking face to face.

  He had never had the chance in all these years to hug his brother and simply rejoice in the fact that he hadn’t died, so he walked across the kitchen, reached out his right hand and pulled Jack up off the chair towards him.

  ‘I guess that means I’m forgiven, then,’ Jack mumbled into Tom’s shoulder.

  ‘No, but it does mean I’m genuinely happy to see you. But why are you here? Isn’t it a huge risk?’

  ‘I’ll get to that.’ Jack looked over Tom’s shoulder. ‘Sorry about this. You must be Louisa. Tom’s told me about you. We’re not normally given to displays of brotherly affection, but it’s been a while.’

  Seeing Jack in his home had momentarily driven everything else from Tom’s mind, and he turned slowly to face Louisa, knowing that he had left it hours – minutes – too late to tell her about his brother. She had a faint smile on her face, but her eyes were troubled, and Tom didn’t know whether to kick himself or kick Jack for turning up without notice.

  ‘Louisa, I’m sorry for not introducing you. As you’ve probably gathered, this is Jack. My brother.’

  He waited for her response, fully expecting her to say, ‘You mean the brother you told me had died in a speedboat accident?’ But sarcasm wasn’t Louisa’s style. ‘Good to meet you, Jack.’ She paused. ‘Look, I think it’s best if I leave you guys alone so you can catch up. Tom, I’ll let myself out.’

  She turned towards the door, but not before Tom had seen the distress in her eyes. And so, it seemed, had Jack, who shot Tom a look of irritation.

  ‘Bloody hell, Tom, you’re an idiot,’ he said quietly. ‘Louisa, please don’t go,’ he called as she walked out of the kitchen. ‘I’ll disappear for a while and let you talk to Tom. Please. This is entirely my fault. Whether or not you’ve realised it yet, my kid brother always tries to do the right thing by everybody – everybody, that is, except himself. Can I ask you to listen to what he has to say? I know how much you mean to him.’

  Louisa turned back. ‘How do you know that?’

  Jack glanced at Tom. ‘I’ll let him explain that, and everything that’s led us to where we are today. He will underplay his role in events, but all I can tell you is that to keep me and three other people alive – two of them children – he took a huge gamble with his career and his freedom. So at least give him the chance to demonstrate that while he might be an idiot, he’s an honourable one.’

  Tom watched Louisa’s face. He could sense the indecision. He had lied to her – the one thing she said she couldn’t tolerate – and it hung in the balance whether she would stay or go right now.

 
Jack sauntered towards the door in that casual way he had. He pulled a key from his pocket and waved it in the air. ‘Okay if I keep your spare key for now?’

  Tom didn’t bother to ask how Jack had found it. A family tradition had been to keep a spare key in a polythene bag buried under a rosemary bush. And even if Tom had set the alarm before he and Louisa had gone out to dinner, he had little doubt Jack would have cracked the code.

  For now, though, he had to focus on Louisa. He had hurt her, something he had never intended to do, and he had to hope and pray that she would understand.

  Tom poured Louisa a glass of red wine and a whisky for himself.

  ‘Let’s go through to the sitting room,’ he said. ‘It’s a long story, and I want to be facing you as I tell it.’

  At least she seemed prepared to give him a chance to explain, but he could feel she had emotionally withdrawn. She wouldn’t shout and scream at him for lying to her, nor would she storm off in a temper. She would listen, and then she would decide. He needed to tell this story well.

  Louisa sat back against the overstuffed cushions of Tom’s sofa, and he took a seat opposite her, leaning forward with his forearms resting on his knees, clutching his whisky glass in both hands.

  ‘I think it’s best if I give you the abbreviated version of this story – get to the crux of it quickly – and then we can spend as long as you want on the details. Is that okay with you?’

  Louisa gave him a small nod.

  ‘Jack was involved with a criminal gang and got in over his head. It started when he was in his teens, and when he wanted to pull out not only was he threatened, but the whole family – his fiancée, me, Lucy, everyone who mattered to him – was in danger. The only way he could see to escape was to fake his own death and make sure nobody knew. Not even me. I mourned my brother for years. I didn’t lie to you about that. I was devastated. I knew nothing about the life he had been leading and the events that had driven him to make that decision. All I knew was that he was extremely wealthy as a result of his computer security company. He left most of his money to me.’

  Tom took a sip of his whisky. He had noticed Louisa’s slight frown when he said how devastated he had been, and hoped this meant that – even for a moment – she understood.

  ‘Jack was – and still is – brilliant. But he lost his way, and it was only when he learned that someone he cared deeply about was in terrible trouble that he came back – returned from the dead, if you like. He pulled off a stunt that saved a young child’s life but at the same time he put himself in danger. Everyone had believed he was dead – especially the criminals he was involved with – but he risked exposing the fact that he was alive, and there was every chance he would end up with a bullet in his head.’

  Tom looked at Louisa again to see if she appreciated how serious this was.

  ‘He got away, and only a handful of people – good people – knew he was alive. That wasn’t the end of it, though. We had to fake the deaths of a woman, a teenage girl and a baby. Jack set it up, and I helped.’

  Louisa’s eyes opened wide. She would understand the implications of Tom faking a death.

  ‘Jack got them away and I had to tell my superior officer what had happened, expecting her to throw the book at me. She didn’t. She covered for me.’

  ‘So if this came out, what would happen?’

  ‘If the enforcer of the gang Jack was involved with knew he was alive, he would use every person in his network to track him down and kill him.’

  ‘And you, Tom? What would happen to you?’

  ‘I would probably end up in prison. My boss, Philippa Stanley, would lose her job at the very least. Becky knows too, although we could probably hide that.’

  Tom didn’t want to say any more. He could fill in the gaps about what Jack had been doing and how he had been communicating with him some other time. But he wanted to make Louisa understand why he had kept this from her.

  He was about to speak when Louisa said, ‘You didn’t tell me because you thought if things didn’t work out for us, I would have some kind of hold over you. Is that it?’ He could hear the hurt in her voice.

  ‘Louisa, I never thought for one moment that you would use anything I told you against me. I don’t believe you have a malicious bone in your body. If it had been my secret and no one else was involved, I would have told you weeks ago. But it wasn’t. In the end, I couldn’t live with the fact that I was keeping something from you, and that’s why I decided to tell you tonight. It was the ultimate sign of my commitment to you.’

  Tom waited. He still wasn’t sure which way this was going to go. He was tempted to keep adding explanations, but he needed to give her space to think.

  Louisa leaned forward slightly and picked up her glass from the table. She put it down again without tasting the wine.

  ‘I understand why you didn’t tell me. You didn’t trust me enough.’ Tom opened his mouth to speak, but Louisa held up a hand to stop him. ‘It’s the truth. And I didn’t trust you enough to agree to move in with you. So in a way we’re equal, although bizarrely it feels as if the fact that you hid this from me vindicates my decision. If you had simply lied by omission, it would be one thing. But it was more than that, wasn’t it? I asked you how you felt about Jack’s death. I held you as you talked about the shock and how much you miss him. I cried, Tom, when I thought of how much you were hurting. I know your feelings were real when you thought Jack was dead, but when you told me about it and I comforted you, you knew he was alive.’

  She shook her head slightly and fixed her gaze on the empty space above Tom’s head. She might never believe that he had planned to tell her everything. She would think Jack’s untimely arrival had precipitated his honesty.

  ‘Here’s what I think,’ she said, after what seemed like far too long a pause. ‘We have a good time together. I believe we care about each other – no, that’s undervaluing what we have. I love you, Tom. That hasn’t changed. I absolutely understand why you thought you couldn’t tell me about Jack. But understanding is a logical acknowledgement of something that makes perfect sense. There’s an emotional response too – one that doesn’t seem to want to recognise reason, however hard I try to force it. I am struggling to forget those moments when I thought I was sharing your pain, and yet all the time you knew you were deceiving me.’

  Tom could sense where this was going, but he wasn’t going to put up a fight. He knew Louisa well enough to realise she would make her own decision and was just as likely to back away if she felt he was pressurising her.

  ‘Whatever you decide, I won’t argue with you. Nothing that’s happened has changed the way I feel about you,’ he said. ‘I know you have to decide if I’m the kind of man who has a shedload of skeletons lurking in his cupboard, and I can’t prove otherwise. I’m thrilled Jack is here, but I wish he’d left it a couple of hours before showing up. By then you would have known everything. All I can say is that I’m truly sorry. I didn’t fake the emotions. I remember clearly how I felt when I thought Jack was dead, and at the time we had that conversation I was really missing him. None of that was untrue. And I can’t help but be glad to see him.’

  Tom risked a smile, and Louisa responded.

  ‘I’m not running out on you,’ she said. ‘But you need to spend some time with your brother. And I need to sort my head out. Is that okay?’

  ‘Of course. I take it that means you want to go home tonight?’

  Louisa nodded slowly. ‘I’ll get a cab.’

  ‘No, you won’t. I’ll take you.’

  Louisa nodded at the whisky in his hand, the glass now almost empty. ‘Shit,’ he said. ‘Sorry.’

  She stood up and reached out a hand to pull him to his feet, wrapping her arms around his waist.

  ‘I know I’m probably being unfair, Tom, and I’m sorry.’

  ‘I need you to be happy,’ he said, drawing her closer. ‘I don’t want there to be a single barrier between us – no doubts, no hesitancy, no pretence.’


  She lifted her head and kissed him gently on the lips. ‘Me too.’

  39

  I’m not going to drink Thea’s tea. I want my wits about me. I need to understand what’s going on and what my options are, although I know they’re not great.

  Thea is an elderly woman. She’s going to be slow coming down the stairs, and my room is furthest from the kitchen, round a bend in the corridor. I grab the mug and race barefoot across to the bathroom. I can’t hear her slow steps plodding down the stairs in her soft velvet slippers, so I have no idea if she is getting close. The bathroom door is open, and I don’t hesitate. I throw the contents of the mug into the washbasin. I fly back to my room and fling myself on the bed.

  I realise I haven’t shut the door, although I know I’m supposed to when the buzzer sounds, but I can’t now – it’s too late. I try to control my breathing and lift the mug to my lips as if I am savouring the last few drops as Thea appears in the doorway.

  ‘This door should be closed,’ she says, her voice sharp. ‘You need to follow the rules.’

  I want to ask her why, but I’m supposed to be lethargic and amenable, so I nod my head and don’t meet her eyes. I mutter, ‘Sorry,’ under my breath and I hear her give a small sigh.

  ‘The doctor would like to see you,’ she says. ‘I’m sure you’ll find it helpful in coming to terms with what you’ve done.’

  I close my eyes for a second. Thea is right. I do need to accept my guilt, although I seem to remember her suggesting more than once that it might be better for everyone if Ian were dead. Of course, that was just a figure of speech. I’m sure she never meant it.

  ‘Come along,’ she says. ‘Follow me.’

  The other doors are shut, and I wonder what is going on in the heads of the women hiding behind them. Were they as confused as I am when they first arrived? I have no time to think as we reach the top of the stairs.