The Glass Tower

by Gregg Dunnett

  "He doesn't know what? He doesn't know what the book’s about?"

  "No. No one does. I wanted to show you first." She looked shyly at Julia, who was now toying with her knife, and actively suppressing the urge to plunge it into the girl's chest.

  Becky misread Julia's expression for something less pathologically violent.

  "I really don't think you need to worry, Julia. It's going to be fine." She smiled. "I just have to finish the book. And obviously the ending will be different to what’s happened, you know, between us."

  It was the first time Julia had heard her concede that the two stories were, up to this point, essentially the same. A thought struck Julia – would this meeting now find its way into the story? It was like one of those infinity mirrors you see on the silvered inside of lifts, the same image, reflecting itself, the same dilemma, endlessly replicated, one inside the other.

  "So I think it's all okay," Becky was saying. "Don't you?"

  Julia was silent. All the way down the motorway she had assumed the meeting would go better. That the sheer obvious logic of her argument would cut through. But the girl was stupid. A brilliant writer, yes, but also, somehow, just incredibly stupid. And now Julia understood that Becky would never see. She would never accept reality. She was too pig-headed. She was completely and totally delusional. Worse, Julia now realised that if she kept pushing, the only deviation from the current path would be that Becky would cut her – Julia – out. She would continue with the book, the threat it represented would remain, and Julia’s ability to keep tabs on it would be gone.

  So? You know what to do! Kill her. That’s how the story ends!

  The voice in her head spoke so clearly this time that Julia thought Becky must have heard it, but she hadn’t. She just sat opposite her, folding up her parcels of pizza and pushing them into her pretty mouth.

  Kill her right now!!!

  Julia stared at her. Perhaps she could simply steal the damn manuscript? She indulged herself for a moment, imagining herself as a cat burglar, breaking into their horrible little house. Beating Becky's laptop into a smashed pile of microchips with a house brick.

  She'll only write it again though, won't she?

  What?

  She'll only write it again. Take the brick and use it on her. Bash her brains out! Kill her!

  With a huge effort, Julia silenced the voices in her head.

  "Okay. Let's talk about something else, shall we?" Julia said.

  Becky glanced up as if in surprise. As far as she was concerned they had been sitting in silence for nearly a minute, so perhaps the comment seemed odd.

  "Okay," she said."Did I tell you we got those jobs?"

  Julia made herself interested. "What jobs?"

  "The ones I told you about. We're going to run the old lighthouse lodge on Hunsey Island."

  Julia's face crumpled into a deep frown. "What?"

  "I told you. They wanted a young couple to run it. It’s a kind of cross between a B&B and an artists’ retreat. Rob and I are going to manage it. It's nothing too challenging, just changing the bedding and cooking breakfasts and stuff." She smiled.

  Confusion reigned in Julia's head, and apparently on her face as well.

  “What?”

  "Didn’t I tell you? I thought I told you.”

  No you didn’t fucking tell me!

  "No, I don’t think you mentioned it."

  "Oh, I thought I did. Actually, it's kind of thanks to you really," Becky said, and for the first time she offered Julia a smile that looked genuine. "I don't think they would have even considered us, but we worked that night of your party, so they remembered who we were."

  "What about university?"

  "Julia! We’re finished!" Becky's face lit up in mirth, as if she couldn't believe how foolish Julia was being.

  "And it's thanks to you that we can take such an interesting job. Thanks to your bursary, we’re not stuck in debt like most of our friends."

  Becky slid a glance over at Julia, like she wasn't sure this was a safe subject. But Julia’s face was entirely without expression, which Becky took to be a better sign than it really was.

  "And it's great because we only need to work mornings. So I'll be able to work on the book every afternoon!"

  Julia’s smile thinned and she saw her future again. She saw it with crystal clarity.

  She was going to murder Rebecca Lawson.

  Thirty-Five

  Julia drove home without giving the road a moment of her conscious attention, a fresh and strong dose of Dramadol thumping through the synapses of her brain. Every single way she examined her predicament she came to the same, inevitable conclusion.

  If and when Becky sent her manuscript to publishers – and Julia knew without any doubt it was a case of when, not if – it would lead, inevitably and inexorably to Julia's total ruin. A professional and personal annihilation. She would be humiliated. Arrested. Thrown in jail. Her life would be over.

  But even if Becky didn’t send her manuscript – say, for example, Julia had been able to persuade her of the folly in doing so – it would not have prevented this conclusion, only deferred it. Why? Because Becky and Rob held between them the means to destroy her. And with that in place, it was only a matter of how, and when, the knowledge they had came out. It might be that Rob would release his photographs. It might be he would get drunk and tell his story to someone in a bar. It might be Becky’s damn novel, or perhaps she would become overwhelmed by guilt at her involvement – it hardly mattered. The point was it would come out. It was inevitable.

  It might not happen right away. It might be years that they held the threat over her before using it. They might step up their blackmail – demanding even more money than she had already given them. Or they might reveal her secret by accident – in a row, like the drama over Rob’s pornographic interests.

  They might even, Julia realised, wait until after her death to tell their ‘truth’ about the real Julia Ottley – trashing and destroying her legacy.

  The point was their story would not, and could not end until the truth had come out. It was simply a basic fact of storytelling. And sooner or later, Becky would see that.

  Yet it wasn’t the only possible ending. There was another way. With the elimination of Rob and Becky. With their deaths.

  It was brutal. It was sad. It was not a little scary to face up to what she had to do. But it was this very inevitability that made it necessary, and logical and therefore reasonable. And the more that Julia thought about that, she began to see something else. It was all so logically, beautifully clear, that sooner or later, Becky must eventually come to the exact same conclusion as Julia had. There simply was no other ending to their story, and therefore no other ending to the story that Becky was writing.

  Julia Ottley was going to murder Rebecca Lawson and her boyfriend Robert Dee. The only question that remained was: How?

  Thirty-Six

  "Yeah. Typical mainlander error that is," the barman said as he pulled Rob's pint, a dark ale with a creamy head. He and Becky were in the Hunsey Inn, the tavern which stood in the centre of the village, and appeared to have done so for centuries. It had low ceilings, and its flagstone floor was worn from the tread of generations of drinkers.

  "We felt such idiots." Becky continued telling him their story. "We were so busy packing and getting ready to come here that we totally forgot you can't get across at high tide. We had to wait for the tide to fall." She smiled at her own foolishness but the man – who looked to be almost as old as the pub – simply nodded.

  "That's £5.50 please," he told her, his island accent coming through strong. Becky paid with her card and the barman nodded his thanks and walked away.

  Becky smiled at Rob, then raised her glass and chinked it against the rim of his pint.

  "Well, here we are! The new keepers of Hunsey lighthouse! And in our new local too!" She paused, then went on. "He didn't seem all that friendly, did he?" She frowned and took a sip of her own
drink.

  "It'll probably take a while," Rob replied. "You know, before the locals get to recognise we're actually working here and not just tourists." He smiled reassuringly then looked around. The walls were lined with black and white photos, showing the men folk from the island holding forth large fishing catches or building stone walls. In most of the shots the lighthouse was there, an inevitable backdrop. Back in those days it warned ships of dangerous rocks and the currents that swirl to the south of Hunsey Island.

  After a while the barman came back. He picked up a glass and began to dry it with a cloth.

  "So you're this young couple then? Looking after the new lighthouse?"

  "That's right," Rob replied. "We just arrived on the island a few days ago." He glanced at Becky. "After a bit of a delay for the tide."

  Again, the barman was uninterested in this part of their story.

  "I heard it was opening soon."

  "Yep. That's right," Rob said again. "Actually we've got our first guests coming tomorrow." Rob tried to smile confidently, but Becky could see this still made him nervous.

  "That right? I've not been up there myself, but I hear they've done a good job of it." The barman frowned, and Becky couldn't stop herself from joining in.

  "You haven’t been up the lighthouse? Oh, it's amazing. The view from the top is incredible. You can see the whole island, and the hills on the mainland, and for miles out to sea."

  He seemed to contemplate this for a while, as if it was a shame it was something he himself would never experience.

  "Well. It's good to have it back in use,” he said, then added,"I suppose," as if it might have been better to let it fall further into ruin.

  "So, you got many bookings have you?"

  "A few. We've got a couple coming tomorrow," Rob answered him. "And then a couple more next week. You know it’s owned by a charity, the Hunsey Lighthouse Trust? They reckon it'll take a while before people hear about it. You know, through word of mouth. But they're not worried. It'll give us time to get the hang of running the place."

  The barman put down his glass and picked up another.

  "And it's just the six rooms you've got up there?"

  "That's right. They’re trying to make it a kind of coastal retreat. For bird watchers, artists and so on. You know, people who want to really get away from it all," Rob continued.

  "But the actual lantern room of the lighthouse is incredible," Becky interrupted. "It's like a communal area for anyone staying in the lodge. We could show you if you like?"

  “No thank you, Miss,” he said, then polished another glass. Becky frowned at Rob, growing frustrated. But then the barman went on.

  “You do know what happened up there?” he said, and looked at them both through hooded eyes. “In the war?”

  It was Rob who answered. “Yeah, we heard. The lighthouse keeper went mad and killed his wife.”

  “Threw her from the top is what,” the barman went on, adding darkly, “right down on to the rocks below.”

  “But it was a long time ago,” Rob argued, smiling at Becky to reassure her. The barman frowned as if he didn’t agree with that.

  "Anyhow,” he said. “What are you doing out there? You just give 'em breakfast and that?"

  "Yeah," Rob said. "And we do a packed lunch if they want it."

  "But not evening meals?"

  Rob shook his head. "No. We thought we'd probably be sending most of them over here."

  "Not sure where else they're gonna go," the barman agreed quickly. "Nowhere else on the island, and when the tide's in they're not going nowhere else anyway."

  This wasn't strictly true, Becky knew. Hunsey also had a café which stayed open to do evening meals – she and Rob had eaten there the night before – but she didn't say this now.

  Suddenly the barman stretched out his hand.

  "You can call me Ted," he said.

  Rob smiled for real now. "I'm Rob," he said. "And this is my girlfriend, Becky."

  "Nice to meet you," Becky jumped in.

  "Ah well, we'll see," Ted said, as if he wasn't convinced by that last comment. "But it’ll be nice to have some younger folk around," he went on. "Hunsey needs a bit of fresh blood."

  They stayed for a couple of drinks before heading back – aware of needing to be up early the next day for their first guests. They had walked the half-mile from the lighthouse complex to the village and now, strolling back, the only light came from the moon and stars. The road ran down the raised spine of the island, and fell away on either side until jagged cliff met restless sea. Bats flitted around them, chasing the last of the summer bugs. They passed the small museum – where Julia's party had been held – and continued onto the next building, the newly-reconstructed lodging house which sat by the base of the lighthouse itself. In the semi-darkness it loomed above them; its sheer size still impressed Becky. A security light clicked on, throwing a pool of yellow rays over the lodge's entrance. Rob pulled out his new set of keys.

  The door opened onto the lodge's small dining area, with six tables, as yet unused for real, paying guests. They had cooked a test breakfast the day before – for the builders who remained, tidying up the loose ends of the project, and the woman from the charity who had been showing them how the booking system worked. It had gone well, everyone had been fed, everyone had seemed satisfied. But the next time they had to do it would be for real. And on their own. Rob turned on the lights and stood still. Becky knew he was thinking the same as her.

  "First guests tomorrow then," Rob said. He puffed out his cheeks.

  "We'll be okay," Becky told him. "After a few days we’ll be old hands. We can do it."

  For a long time Rob didn't answer, but then he took her hand. "Yeah, I know.”

  She was only partly right. Their first week passed in a blur. They began working as the sun hauled itself out of the ocean to the east of the island, and were still busy long after it had set to the west. A thousand things went wrong. In truth, the rooms weren’t quite ready. Rob worked into the evening with borrowed tools and other times headed to the mainland to source materials. But day-by-day, they began to make sense of it. They would finish serving breakfast at 10 a.m., with packed lunches already prepared for those that had pre-ordered them. Then, while Becky cleaned the rooms that were due to be changed, Rob would check the booking system on the computer and ensure they were stocked and ready for the next day.

  Before too long, their daily routine allowed them time in the day to do what they wanted. Rob would go out in the afternoons, exploring the cliffs and rocky crevasses that led down to the water. He would take his camera to capture images of whirling sea birds, curious seals, and other wildlife. Becky, when the opportunity presented itself, preferred to collect her laptop and head up to the very top of the lighthouse – to the former lantern room.

  Whilst in service, a giant lens had rotated inside there, sending a million-candle message of danger far out to sea. Two bright flashes every twenty seconds. Stay clear. The rocks of Hunsey Island are a dangerous place. The light was turned off during the Second World War, to avoid it being used by German aircraft as a means of locating themselves and lining up to attack London or the cities on the south coast. And due to the events that followed, never switched on again. Those events, the violent death of the last lighthouse keeper’s wife, had never been fully explained. He claimed to have caught her up in the lantern room, sending out signals to the Nazis, but many locals believed otherwise, that he was overtaken by madness. What was known was they fought, and she was tipped to her death. These days it was just a story; a grizzly mystery to entertain visitors to the Dorchester museum, where the lighthouse’s original lens and track were now on display.

  Now the room had been transformed, with curved sofas and a round table in the centre, where the light had once stood. And if the 360-degree view from inside wasn’t enough to thrill the guests, those with a head for heights could open a small door and walk all the way round an external balcony, forty metre
s above the rocks and roaring surf below.

  Becky had plastered images of and from the lantern room on both her, and the lodge’s Facebook page – both to try and attract more guests and just for her friends. But she wasn’t too disappointed that as yet they weren’t busy, because it was a truly incredible room to write in.

  Or it would have been, had she been able to write. For her creativity had stalled since beginning the work running the lodge. Even though she tried to write whenever she had the opportunity – she would climb the long, twisting spiral right the way to the top of the lighthouse, push open the funny-shaped door and set herself up in front of her laptop – it wasn’t happening. Even though she was inside the very tower that had inspired the great Julia Ottley, with its dizzying view of the ocean, somehow the words which had flowed so easily, suddenly wouldn’t come.

  Thirty-Seven

  Julia wasn’t writing either. In fact, she had temporarily stopped all work on her new novel and instead refocused her attention on one single task: working out how to murder Becky and Rob. But though she was now convinced of both the necessity and the inevitability of this outcome, the question of how to get there was proving slippery.

  For nearly a week she applied herself to the task, filling notebooks with ideas and then examining them for any faults that might result in the plan failing, or her being caught. The problem was there was always a fault, usually lots of them. She realised that the task she had set herself was genuinely difficult. Julia was under no illusions that she was anything other than a middle-aged woman whose idea of exercise was an occasional walk in the country, usually taking in a cream tea along the way. Whereas her proposed victims were both young, and clearly fit. And there were two of them. Furthermore, it wouldn’t do to only murder one, since whichever one survived would be certain to point to her as a possible suspect.

  For six days and nights she wrestled with the problem, making little or no progress. But on the seventh day a new problem presented itself. A problem that was nearly enough to drive Julia over the edge.