by Amy Bird
Chapter 8
I don’t know if DC Huhne has heard, but I can’t think about now. She is out, I am in, and there are screams from the kitchen. Adam needs my help.
I run back along the corridor, into the kitchen. Nicole has managed to tip her chair back, and is screaming for DC Huhne. Her top is raised up, and her stomach is bleeding slightly, but only a skin wound. Adam is clambering out from under the table, while fumbling around in his pocket.
‘Shut her up!’ he shouts at me, pulling out his mobile phone.
I go over to Nicole and put my hand over her mouth. She bites it, hard, so I press harder.
Adam talks into his mobile ‘Jimmy? DC Huhne, inbound. Sort her out.’ He hangs up. My struggle with Nicole’s teeth continues. This is what it would have been like with Adam, without the chloroform. With Ally, without the ice-cream and the scarves. I would have no hands left – totally bitten off.
Adam holds the knife out to me from under the table.
‘Quick, in case Jimmy can’t sort it!’ he urges.
He wants me to take the knife and kill Nicole.
This means he wants me.
I take the handle of the knife and hold it tight in my spare hand. The neck, I suppose, at the front, is the place to do it.
Still with one hand over Nicole’s mouth, her biting at me even more, I move the knife to Nicole’s neck and hold it just above her skin. I should pierce it. I understand that. I should slit her throat, penetrate the jugular, watch the blood stream out, blooding the altar of Adam. I should do it for Him.
The knife remains raised above Nicole’s skin.
‘Come on!’ shouts Adam. ‘Do it!’
It’s the common room all over again.
I lower it slightly, so that this time it rests against her neck. Its pressure makes a line of whiteness on her neck amidst the scalded red of the tea. But I don’t add any new red. The skin stays intact.
Perhaps I should do it as Luke?
Perhaps it should be:
Luke pushed at her with vigour, forcing himself into her until she bled, his maleness as a knife inside her. His steel would pierce her, penetrate her, bring him inside her as he had always wanted to. And if there was blood, that was her body’s celebration of the moment – an orgasm of red.
I look at Nicole’s neck.
It is still intact.
Luke and I are too much the same now. He cannot do it. I cannot do it. Nicole lives. Even for Adam, we cannot make that sacrifice.
Now out from under the table, Adam stands. He grabs the blade back from me. Without hesitation, he stabs her, in the neck, in the chest, over and over. I hear the knife enter her, the squelch of flesh impaled by steel. I feel sick. I see the ooze of the blood through the clothes, now the spurt. He hits a lung, I think, because she is gasping now, heaving. I back away, but I cannot escape the blood, which is everywhere. My floor, my chair, my clothes, my hands, all blooded. And she is still living, I think, breathing. And the small Adam in her stomach must be still – and then Adam ends the misery. He slits her throat. The spray, trickle, spurt, everything of blood, reddens the world, then silences it. No more Nicole. No more risk of her sharing my secrets. Just me and Adam. It is the time, surely he told me to wait for? This will be our forever closeness, that I was promised?
I turn to him. He is covered in blood. I will need to wipe him down, to cleanse him. The gloves will not protect him now. We will need to bathe, together, become clean. But will he stay? Or will he just go back to Hampstead, as if nothing has happened? Or will we be on the run now, together, forever?
‘I’ve just one question,’ says Adam. ‘Had you planned to rape her, too?’
Chapter 9
Oh what? Oh, Christ. He knows.
‘Oh, Adam,’ I start.
Oh, God. To say, what to say, how can I say explain? Can I hug him? Can I kiss
Him? Do I kill him?
‘It wasn’t rape,’ I say, or I think, I’m not sure, I prostrate myself, I kneel before him, I see my hands clasped for forgiveness. But then my brain says, He might not mean him. He might mean Ally. Did I rape Ally? Did Luke rape Ally? Or did we have consensual sex, right up until when Luke killed her?
‘Ally?’ I beg, from my place on the floor.
‘What, that’s your sex name for me, is it? You give me a girl’s name? You really need to emasculate me that much?’
No, no, he knows about me and about him.
And I try to hug him, his legs, but he kicks me off, so I cannot even cling there.
I knew, I knew, I knew that she had called Adam.
‘Liar, liar!’ I shout at dead Nicole. ‘You called him, you called him.’
She doesn’t deny it.
‘What, you think I just found out?’ asks Adam.
He brings his head close to mine. ‘You think I’m so stupid that I know I have a friend who “loves” me and is a bit fucking odd; in fact so fucking odd he writes a book about loving me, has a key to my house, suddenly has a sick aunt, and that I can’t even figure out that he’s the one who raped me?’
‘But, then, you must have known for years, Adam. You’ve known and forgiven me. I love you. You’ve forgiven me and you love me.’
‘For years? Do you think I would have tolerated you in my home, in my life, if I’d known for years?’
‘You love me, you love me and you’ve forgiven me.’
‘I’ve read your book now, Dan. The one you gave me at the wedding rehearsal. I finally thought, Well, I’d better read Dan’s book, he’s a mate, he’s a friend, I’ll read what he’s got to say. Knew it would take me a while to decipher your crazy handwriting but, little by little I’d get there.’
‘I love you, that’s what I say, Adam. I kiss your feet, I kiss your feet.’ I try to kiss his feet, to bathe them in my sweat, but he is wearing thick black boots. I scrabble at them, I try to untie them, but he kicks me off.
‘Even then, Dan, it didn’t occur to me, at first, when I started reading. I thought, Oh how sad, how sweet, how pathetic, this guy who has been hanging round me for years, the unshakeable Dan, he loves me. Then at dinner that time, in Soho, you spiked me with a fork. At that moment, I thought: It could be true. Then I finished the book. Without a doubt, it was you.’
I must explain to him, he must understand the why. He must read book three, he will see the love that motivated it, the sensitivity with which it was done. I can do an author reading, I will fetch it, Nicole, for once, will not interrupt. I move to my feet, I move to the door.
But then Adam pulls the knife back out of Nicole. And points it at me.
Chapter 10
I look from the knife to Adam. He cannot mean to kill me. All I did was love him. Maybe I hurt him, but I did not fatally de-man him, in that way.
‘Adam?’ I ask.
He takes a step towards me.
Yes, he does mean to kill me.
Shall I let him? Am I a sacrifice, will he love me in death, is it recompense? Will I be understood, posthumously? Will the words in my books be judged kindly? Read by all and preached, even, as the poor man who was misunderstood by all? Will Adam, even, regret rejecting me, turning his face from the one who loved him best?
But I am Luke and I have a story on earth to tell. I will fight, I trained to fight. I have no mask, but I have my sabre.
I pick it up from the table.
But maybe he doesn’t mean to kill me. Maybe he just wants to frighten me, show me again that he has power.
Adam thrusts the knife towards me.
I dart back.
He does, he does; he means to kill me.
En garde, then. Focus on the tip of the knife. Always focus on the tip.
Parry, our two swords cross.
Lunge. Hit. I hit! I hit! Is he hurt? No. A hit of bad character, not strong enough. He shrugs me off. Yes, yes, he is right, disengage.
Parry.
Circle.
Lunge backwards, backwards, backwards. Circle. Step, step, lunge. One arm
back behind me, always.
Hit! But no blood, just a raised knife, closer and closer. Lunge backwards, backwards, and I’m at the edge of the kitchen work surface. The hand behind my back strikes the kettle, and the still hot water pours out over me.
He is so close, with the knife. Can I parry, can I block?
Oh, he’s going to score!
But not the torso – my wrist.
‘No points, no points! Out of zone!’
But hit, hit, hit, he goes, still at my wrist. I drop my sabre.
Now, disengage, Adam. Disengage!
‘Adam? Disengage?’
He pulls my other arm from behind my back.
‘Bad play, bad play!’ I tell him, but he does not listen.
He seizes my wrist.
Hit, hit, hit. Slice, slice, slice.
Blood, blood, blood.
Why doesn’t he disengage?
I slide to the floor, and his face over me is everything, everywhere. Both the light and blocking out the light.
Still, he doesn’t disengage. Still, the knife goes in. Still, the hot water dribbles down from the worktop.
And then I understand.
Or perhaps I’ve always known.
I am the lobster.
Chapter 11
Adam so close now. Leaning over me. Blood pouring from my veins.
‘Do you know, Dan, what it will look like?’ he asks.
What is ‘it’?
Heaven? Hell? Gush, gush goes the blood.
‘It will look, Dan, like you killed Helen.’
Oh, that ‘it’. But wait, I don’t understand. I shake my head.
‘I’ve always remembered, Dan, that you were willing to take the rap for me. Now you must do it again.’
He speaks in tongues, in parallels. I don’t understand.
‘You’ve given them all the evidence, Dan. Your “love” for me, in that notebook. A sure-fire motive – jealousy.’
Adam needs me. He is wrong. He doesn’t have the facts.
‘I don’t drive,’ I manage, because it’s true.
He maybe smirks, I think. All blurs.
‘Sure, you don’t have a licence. But all those cars you hired out for me, you and Jimmy, in the name Jeremy Bond? With your motive, that suddenly looks a whole lot different. Who’s to say you weren’t driving them yourself? Establishing an innocent pattern, before one night – crash! That’s what the police will think, with my suggestion.’
‘But your parents …’ I wheeze.
‘Did you really think I was using that car to visit them? Well, of course you did – that’s what I told you. While I made you my little scapegoat, in case I needed one. Nobody saw me in that car, Dan, except you and Jimmy. And no one saw Jimmy in it, that night. That’s why he got the Maserati. But they can imagine you in it. Plus, do you want to know what I found, Dan, in one of your rucksacks? I found a map. A map of the street on which my Helen had her class. And on that map, with the same ink of the pen you have loved for years – your special red-ink pen – There is a line running a long the street, and then an ‘X’ just where Helen died.’
I don’t have a map. I had an aunt. I had other priorities, when she was dying. I had my Adam bliss just gone. He knows this. He has lost his grip of reality.
‘And of course,’ Adam continues, ‘we know now you’re a killer, because of the girl in the flat.’
His words whirl. He is the bestower of truth, the Word, but he doesn’t know the truth.
‘It was for you, the girl,’ I tell him. ‘Practice. For Nicole. Be where you have been. Closeness.’
‘Yes, Dan. It was for me. A big help,’ He says. You see, he understands. ‘And Nic, too – that was for me.’ Yes, yes, it was, to be close to him. ‘That’s why you killed her.’
No, you see he is wrong. I didn’t kill her. He did. Couldn’t, Luke and I, though we wanted to.
I try to tell him but my lips are dry. I wish he would moisten them, perhaps with a sponge, but I don’t think he wants me speaking now. This is his time.
‘Yes, Dan – you killed her. And then you killed yourself. Slit your wrists. Then, because you are a coward, and cannot stand the pain, you set the house on fire.’
Did I? Is that what I did? Don’t remember doing that.
‘And don’t get me wrong, Dan. I’ll be sad. I’m brilliant at grief, remember? When they find your two, charred bodies, when they tell me my best friend has murdered both my wives out of love for me, I’ll be devastated.’
I am still his best friend. That is good. God Adam is good.
‘But I’ll pity you, too. I can think of the press statement now: “I always thought of Dan as my one loyal friend who would do anything for me. It’s true, he did. I pity him for the misplaced love he felt for me. But that doesn’t make what he did right. In fact, here’s a special place for him, in hell. Now, I just want to try to get on with my life, the best I can.” That’s what I’ll say, Dan, and I’ll raise a glass to you when I’m on my sofa, comfortable at home.’
I see. I see. Clever Adam. Three steps ahead, always. First Helen. Then Nicole. And now me. He wants me to sacrifice my life’s meaning to him. To stay here, to bleed, to burn, in amber flames.
‘You always wanted to take the rap for me, Dan,’ he says, leaning over close, so close that I can almost count his eyelashes. ‘Now’s your chance. Because that’s what happens, when you betray me.’
Chapter 12
Vengeful, when there was no wrong. His wrath, upon me.
Love! I say. All just love, for you.
Going, he says.
Breathe.
No! This is our together time, Nicole gone. Long game over, I say. Our time, Adam, our time! This I have waited for!
Going, he says again.
Breathe.
Kiss goodbye, then, at least, my Adam? No. No love, from him.
So much blood. On floor, not in me. But job unfinished. Has not seen it the end. Why go now? Stay! Just moments longer, would be something.
Breathe.
But listen, he speaks. It will be finished. He will give me peace. Because gas. Gas turned on now, by him. Gas and candle and boom! Will burn. Ha ha! says he, then goes, out the backdoor, away.
Eyelids close. Dark.
Eyelids open. Dark with pretence of light.
Breathe?
His knife he’s left by my side, his wife on the altar.
Candle, there, still burns. Soon, when there’s enough gas, it will be very suddenly warm.
Could rise, could blow it out.
Could slide, on belly, through the door.
Could escape through trail of blood.
But no. Adam knows. He knows I am His loyal servant, that I will do this for Him.
One last thing my Adam wants of me. I must serve him his love. Why defy Him? Why not make final sacrifice? He knows all.
Yes, breathe.
Cannot be closer now.
Must quicken His desires.
Must breathe to die more soon.
Breathe, breathe, breathe. Gas inhale!
And will I not then know, in dying, what no other author knows? I will be the first chronicler of life’s greatest mystery. If I can write, in my mind, what no other man has known? Why tire Luke with love and lust when always it’s been true, life’s best secret is death? He who can write death can write all life, according to Luke. I will write on the paper of my brain. I will be authentic. And we will rise above, Luke and I, transcend genre, our work be read on high! It will be beautiful, beautiful, beautiful! Adam will find my mind after I am dead and He will know the artistic heights to which I’ve risen.
And also I will serve Him, my Adam God. Direct, obedient servant. Have my name, use me … Why tears, then, in my eyes?
Tears are the enemy of fire. Must not be weak, now, at this final moment. Must go beyond what He asks – must do more. Ignition, here above me. Can click with a crack and spark will boom! And He, Adam, will know, then, I have truly sacrificed myself for H
im here. The truest disciple.
So now: the triumph of my method. The ultimate piece of research. The final effort. Behold as I with my last strength scribble the paper of my mind!
Chapter 13
He hoists himself to his knees.
He cannot lift his arms. They are drained of power, now.
Instead, he hovers his chin above the spark ignition.
Imagines the bang, imagines the flames, imagines the heat. The crisp to which hair and skin will burn, the flesh inside will scream, skeleton made outer-most when they come to find him. And now, for what is here, they will find him truly. The books may burn in paper but they will live on, too, like him.
Soon, he will know these things, and you will know them too, for here they will appear, on page of mind, mind of page, always to be. Judge, judge, my knowledge, and use it well.
And all for Adam will have helped, all for you, all for me. He died to live, he lived to die, he died to write. So close, we are, will be. And so close will he now be to life everlasting, our own paradise garden, for to play again with Adam, our eternal Father, no knowledge of anything or anyone else.
But here is the knowledge I will give to the people left behind. All will know how we end, for it will be written here. All is good. Love is good. What follows is honest Man. Emancipation of artistic talent, posthumously to be hailed amongst the greatest living works of anyone who died. A great and full and lengthy account, pages and pages of mind-writing, of the experience of death. Take note, all, of how we end.
So now, in this momentous act, this mighty act, given to him by Him, for to serve the muse, he presses the ignition with a click.
And –
Loved Three Steps Behind You? Then turn the page for an exclusive extract from Amy Bird’s first psychological thriller:
Yours is Mine
Chapter 1
The day the invitation appeared in her email inbox, Kate Dixon was ready to give up.
Cards congratulating her on the success of her dad’s funeral the previous week were still pouring through the letterbox of his Kielder cottage. ‘I thought it went well, all things considered,’ they said, or, ‘He would have been very pleased.’ Kate knew the blue silk inside the coffin had been fetching, but she still thought Dad would have preferred to be alive. They could be going for a jog, even now, in the Kielder National Park surrounding his cottage, like they used to.