by Niki Mackay
‘You were in contact with Ruth?’ My voice is sludgy again, slow. I’m having a hard time getting words out. A hard time staying awake. But I must.
He smiles again now and somehow it’s worse than the twisted look of anger. He’s low on the floor, his face near mine once more. ‘Oh, yes. I used to write her letters. I gave her many chances but she wouldn’t play.’
‘Oh God.’
He laughs and I wonder how I failed so completely to see that he is insane.
Oliver comes back into the room with Martha in his arms. ‘Where do you want her?’
Dean stands. ‘She can go on the sofa, since sis here has made space.’
He puts her down gently. She’s half asleep. Dean slaps her face and her eyes spring open. ‘Look who’s still visiting.’
Martha looks down at me, tears escaping silently down her cheeks. I try to stretch a hand to her but it doesn’t work. My poor sister. Who knows what she’s been through. My anger towards her evaporates.
Dean heads to the garden. ‘Oliver, come.’ And he goes off obediently. Everyone so obedient.
I am overwhelmed. Thinking about Ruth. My mother. Thinking about Martha who I watch lying on the sofa staring blankly out of glassy eyes. It’s all too much. I’m trapped again. There’s no point fighting and I think about shutting my eyes and letting go, accepting my fate, when a thin figure slides in from the kitchen. It’s Anthea Andrews. She has a large knife in her hand. She puts a finger to her lips. I try to struggle into a sitting position; I look at Martha who has shut her eyes again. Anthea shakes her head at me and I lean back down. It’s not me she’s after. The room spins. I struggle to stay awake. I try saying song lyrics, ‘Amazing Grace’, and I try hard to picture Ruth singing it. My voice is a slurry whisper but it’s there, I can hear it: ‘. . . how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me . . .’.
Anthea is waiting behind the open living room door now. The two men head back into the room, carrying large garden sacks. I don’t let my head think about what they will put in them. Suddenly everything explodes – Anthea is there and her arms are flailing madly; Oli steps back open-mouthed. I watch from the floor as Dean raises his arms but the knife has already struck him more than once. Dean shouts, ‘Oliver!’ And to my utter dismay Oliver picks up the little woman, who may have rage on her side but is still barely nine stone.
I keep going: ‘. . . I once was lost, but now I am found . . .’ Dean is wounded but still laughs, it’s an awful sound. ‘. . . was blind but now I see . . .’
He drags himself to me and puts his face near mine. ‘Oh, sister. Did you think that oafish Horfield boy would come to your rescue? He has a wife to protect from the truth. He found some sad cow willing to marry him.’ My eyes close and open again. I reach out a hand to strike him but it falls before it rises. Dean is laughing. ‘Oliver is as pathetic as his bitch mother.’ And suddenly Dean stops speaking. He jerks forward and I wonder if he is going to body slam me and why he’d bother. Then I realise that a hand has swiped across his neck. A hand holding a large knife and the hand is not his. Anthea’s calm face peeks out from behind his head as a wave of red pours from Dean’s throat. It spills onto me and drips down to Martha. Anthea holds him firmly in place, moving closer to him, gently wrapping her legs around his waist, one hand gripping his face. I see a small twitch at the corner of her mouth.
Dean gurgles: ‘Oliver.’
My voice continues, ‘. . . twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved . . .’
Oliver is just standing, watching, horrified. The hands that held Anthea, that must finally have had enough and let her go, are now hanging limply by his sides. Dean sinks to the floor and Anthea keeps her grip on him. They are both red and covered. Her legs stay astride him and she leans down. It gives the odd effect of lovers, of intimacy. Dean makes a sound like a sigh and then he is silent. Anthea slides backwards, dropping the knife. Kneeling beside him now, resting a hand on his wrist, and she smiles slightly.
Then Madison is there with the policeman. He rushes to Oliver who promptly bursts into tears. Then there are police and people. I am pulled up from the floor and I wonder if I am dying. Either way I’m so very, very tired.
57.
Anthea Andrews
I am talkative today. I feel light and floaty. I even laugh when Damian does an impression of his boss, and he looks surprised. I reach out a hand to him; I’m back, I hope it says. I’m here. We are clearing out Naomi’s room, boxing things up. They will go in the loft – getting rid of them would be too much. Damian agreed with me on that.
I know that my husband is wary of me but he’ll come round. He has his wife back after all and that is what he wanted. Me smiling again, laughing and doing. And I’ve got away with murder, well, attempted murder anyway. Everyone agrees that I was justified. Self-defence. Both witnesses have testified as much. I don’t think Damian buys it though. To be honest I don’t care one way or another whether he does. When he asked me how I felt I told him I’m just sorry Dean lived and that I’d checked his pulse and was quite sure I’d felt nothing.
Dean has stuck to his story that I attacked him in cold blood. Said I was deranged, which would be more convincing coming from someone else. Damian has found out that I had been following Kate for days. I confessed to him that I’d worked out who Dean was. I’d also realised that Kate didn’t know he was linked to Naomi and nor did the police or he wouldn’t have been allowed to counsel Kate. This had made me quite certain he had had something to do with my daughter’s death. The day I hid in his kitchen had confirmed it.
Damian is looking at me sideways again, he is uncomfortable and I am sorry for that. He thinks I’m a vigilante though he won’t say it. I keep pointing out that I saved Kate’s life, actually, and probably Martha’s. I think it’s the only thing that will bring him back to me. I come up behind him and circle him with my arms. He squeezes back, then untangles himself, glancing at his watch. ‘I’m off to see Marilyn then.’
‘Okay.’ I smile.
‘Sure you won’t come?’
I smile wider, head leaning to one side. ‘Darling, I’ve explained to you that I can’t see the point of a therapist any more. It’s done and dusted, isn’t it?’
‘Dean will be out one day.’
‘He’s criminally insane. I doubt he’ll ever be free.’
‘But what if he is?’
I shrug. ‘Then we’ll deal with it.’ The thought almost gives me something to look forward to.
58.
Kate Reynolds
I steal glances at Martha. She has put on weight. Not much, she’ll never be fat, but she looks healthy. So do I. I think it every time I catch sight of myself in a shop window, or in the bathroom. I still don’t look in the mirror much but it’s not because I can’t meet my own eyes any more. I just have so many other, important things to do. Martha and I are sitting at Heathrow and soon we will board a plane to take us to Australia. We are going to travel the world. She is as desperate to see everything as I am. As keen to make up for lost time. Our father has given us our inheritance from Ruth and said there’s always more if we need it. He’s tried to instigate some kind of relationship with us both but his efforts are half-hearted and I don’t know about my sister but I doubt I will ever fully trust him. Or forgive him. I forgave Martha that day at Dean’s when I suddenly felt with force all that she had been through.
Dad should have protected us both and he didn’t. We were denied a mother and while I’m sad about Ruth I can see how damaged she must have been, how confused. She genuinely thought she was protecting us. Dad was just after a quiet life. He and Marcus are at the house we grew up in now, and as far as I’m concerned they are welcome to each other.
Martha is almost jumping out of her seat and grinning. ‘Flights been called.’ She’s like a new person. No longer under a chemical cosh. No longer living in fear. S
he looks different, sounds different.
She takes my hand and we almost run towards the boarding gate. Eventually I make her slow down or we’re going to knock someone over. When we arrive at the gate the plane isn’t ready to board, but she’s too excited to sit down and I find so am I. I take out my new fancy smartphone. I’ve got used to the million things it does and I quite like it now. I put my arm around Martha and take a picture of us both. I send it to Claudia via WhatsApp and seconds later my phone pings with a picture of her at her new desk. I say how brilliant it looks and it does. She says get pictures for Bethany and I know I will. She won’t be a Reynolds soon and I don’t blame her but she’ll always be family to me.
The plane is finally ready and we climb aboard. Martha looks out of the window, pulls at the tray and grins at everyone. As we start to take off I feel the weight of the past drop away. We lift into the air and I know that the future looks different, better, real, and I can hardly contain my excitement.
59.
Madison Attallee
Emma is tapping away at her keyboard. Claudia is filing. I’ve taken her on temporarily. We’ve been swamped since the Reynolds case hit all the front pages and her legal knowledge is proving to be very useful already. She and Emma make an unlikely couple. Claudia, beautiful and glamorous without any effort. Emma, matronly and sensible with her short hair and brogues, and yet they’ve hit it off well. Claudia is in Kate’s old flat, which is in Marcus’s name but it will be Claudia’s soon enough. It’s all she’s asked for from the divorce and since Kate has said she doesn’t want it I suspect she’ll get it. She could get plenty more too, but I think she’s just glad to be free. I answer the phone to the reporter from the Comet again. Kate’s already given them a few comments. They are suddenly her biggest champions, as though years of inflammatory reporting never happened. It’s not just them either, all the nationals are in on it. I’m pleased she’s not here to see it. Kate seemed optimistic when I saw her last and I’m glad that Martha also seems to have a new zest for life. She sent me a ‘thank you’ card. Written in shaky silver letters, it just said, ‘for helping free the Reynolds girls’. It had a picture of an aeroplane on the front.
The focus of the press now is Dean. A maniac working within our legal system. His testimony has been key in many convictions over the years. An investigation has begun into how he had been missed. No one can prove that he killed Ruth. No charges can be brought on Martha’s behalf, but he has been convicted of killing Naomi. Anthea Andrews has pretty much got away with a charge of self-defence. Dubious at best, since it turns out had she not been stalking Kate she wouldn’t have been at the scene at all. But Oliver’s backed her up and so has Kate. Martha has said she was drugged and out of it and refused to comment either way. I wonder if this has been at Claudia’s advice but I haven’t asked. Marcus is living with James. They see Bethany every other weekend.
When the girls leave I pack up the office and for once I’m out of there at six on the dot. This is a new thing but something I do happily now. Because tomorrow Molly will arrive in the morning and we will have forty-eight blissful hours together.
The doorbell rings. Before I have the chance to open it Peter does and sweeps Molly up. She squeals in delight and immediately starts up with stories of the morning so far. They go in search of the cat. Both are equally delighted with my feline nemesis and I have to admit she’s cuteness and light around both of them. But she still tries to kill me when it’s just the two of us. Peter says she’s after attention. I take this as meaning I don’t give her enough and try and lavish strokes on the little bugger whenever Peter is around to see it, which is becoming increasingly more often.
We head to the playground. Molly runs around like a lunatic. Peter and I chase her. Then I get bored and stand smiling and waving. I say I need to nip to the car, and smoke two cigarettes in the car park and then head back. We eat a disgusting, overpriced meal in Bill’s and then go home and watch a loud film about a little girl and a secret society of monsters. Molly passes out on the sofa at seven o’clock and I tuck her up in her bedroom. (Her bedroom!) I must doze off shortly afterwards. Peter covers me over before he leaves and I wake up the following morning to Mimi gently scratching my face. It’s only fucking five a.m. I smoke a cigarette on the balcony and down coffee before Molly gets up at six. She starts talking as soon as her eyes open and pauses only when she’s eating. I hug her too close and she laughs and says I’m needy like the cat. I don’t let go though I tell her I love her and when she says it back everything feels a little bit brighter.
Acknowledgements
Firstly, thanks to my agent Jo Hayes at The Blair Partnership, my editor at Orion, Francesca Pathak, and assistant editor, Bethan Jones, for making this book better than I could alone. Thanks to Orion for publishing me and all that entails.
I have always read a lot, a laughable understatement. I don’t suppose I would do this if I didn’t. So a massive thanks to all the writers who can tell a good tale, and the readers who keep them going.
Thanks also to my mum, Kathy, and Diane for keeping a well-stocked bookshelf during my formative years. Mum, also thanks for reading me not just the classics, but some weirder stuff too. To my dad, Tom, for endless trips to Dillons and Waterstones, and a library card.
To my sons, Elliot and Eddie, who make me a better person in all kinds of ways.
Rachel for being there always. Madison for being the fiercest girl I know and letting me nick your name.
Kay for reading, support, pep-talks, encouragement and just being, great, and lovely you.
Gemma for taking me through a different kind of book, one that changed my life. I’m glad we trudge together.
Wise-women, Gillian, Val and Edel for the support, advice and all the many chats. Val, Edel, Shan, Brenda, and Sharon, also a huge thanks for reading this in its early version.
Graham for Wednesday morning musings and coffee. My weeks suffer when these are missed.
Another great woman, who doesn’t wish to be named, for giving me valuable info on the police and how investigations work, and for bearing with me when I forgot to bring a pad. Thanks to Grant Parker for some advice on family law.
A huge gratitude to all friends of Bill W. We must be in the millions and I’d be screwed without you.
When I started to write Madison (a grumpy metaller who swears incessantly), I realised the person she is most like in temperament is my husband, Andrew. So as well as the pedantic editing, the support, the laughs, and the love, thanks for the inspiration too, my mew.
Copyright
AN ORION EBOOK
First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Orion Books
Ebook first published in 2018 by Orion Books
Copyright © N J Mackay 2018
The right of N J Mackay to be identified as the author
of this work has been asserted in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All the characters in this book are fictitious,
and any resemblance to actual persons, living
or dead, is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978 1 4091 7462 2
The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
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Niki Mackay, I, Witness