Blood Bonds: A psychological thriller

by Alex Matthews

  “Philip, he told me he did it. He told me why, he told me how. Max murdered Bernard.”

  “Then he’s lying. It’s a game he’s playing with you. That’s Max all over…”

  “I’d love that to be true, Philip, but he’s done more.”

  I didn’t want to hear any of this, because I still loved him, Max was a part of me and I didn’t want to learn whether that special chunk of me was rotten to the core, twisted and demented; I wanted him to stay as he was, good or bad, but not evil. “You’re making it all up, Ruby. Why? Why are you spinning me this ridiculous story?” I was angry at her, at myself.

  She rose to her feet and went to the window. “Look around you, Philip. Is this a story? Is this a fairy tale?”

  I groaned, feeling physically sick, my face covered by my hands, my body rocking slightly. “What else has he done?” I submitted softly.

  “Remember old man Walton?”

  I frowned. “Yes of course.” I couldn’t see where this was going or what my old teacher had to do with anything.

  “Remember how he died?”

  I thought for a moment. “House fire, wasn’t it? It’s so long ago. Didn’t they say he smoked in bed and that…?” My words ran out of steam. I eyed her, afraid she might confirm what I was thinking.

  “Cast your mind back to dinner on your first night here. Remember what you were talking about?”

  “I creased my forehead in thought. “Walton and the bird table, the half coconut. That’s right, isn’t it?”

  “And what did Max say at the end? Remember?”

  I shrugged. “I can’t see the relevance of all this, Ruby.”

  “Do you smell burning? Those were his very words. Do you smell burning?”

  “Max killed Walton too? Max set him alight?”

  “He admitted he did. Both Walton and Bernard had behaved violently towards Max. In Max’s mind this was a sure sign of their ultimate intentions. He said it was easy, a matter of waiting for the old man to leave a window open one night and then he simply climbed in, struck a match and let it fall onto Walton’s bedspread. Drugged to high heaven with sleeping tablets as he was Walton was in no position to put up any kind of fight or save himself. And that’s why I can’t be permitted to leave. I know everything.”

  “If what you say is true, Ruby, we’ve got to get out of here. We’ve got to tell someone. I’m going to confront him.”

  Ruby left the window, swept back over to me and cupped my chin in her hands, looking me straight in the eyes. “Philip, you’re in extreme danger here. You’re next. He wants you dead. What better way than to get you over here and then…”

  “He won’t be able to get away with it, surely!” I said. “There are others that know I’m here.”

  “Who?”

  “People at work. It’s a holiday. I’m here on holiday.” I thought of the irony of it.

  “So?”

  “Well they know where I was going. I’ll be missed.”

  “And so Max tells everyone you had an accident, went out in a boat fishing when you shouldn’t have, went swimming maybe and the weather turned foul, you got drowned, your body washed away and never found. You’ve seen the seas around here, that sort of thing could easily happen.”

  “There’s you…”

  “I’m ill, remember? Who’s going to listen to me? He’s been hatching this plan for months, years maybe. I have a nurse, I have a psychiatrist. They’ll all confirm what Max wants them to confirm. Tell me you didn’t believe him? Go ahead, tell me.”

  Shamefacedly I agreed with her. I had believed him.

  Falling into stunned silence I turned my head, the sound of the worsening weather seemingly echoing Ruby’s sentiments, as if rearing up ready to devour us and fully justify her fears. She sat beside me and we held onto each other in the dark, the beam from the torch on the floor gradually getting weaker as the batteries ran down. Our heads came together and I kissed her cool forehead.

  “I love you,” I said. “I never stopped loving you. And I never stopped hating myself for what doing what I did to you. It was me that caused all this. If only…”

  “It’s no use saying that. You can’t change things. It happened.”

  The next instant our lips met, slowly, as if they were drawn to each other by a force outside of us. We were in the bedroom at Mrs Radunski’s again. The years had been stripped away and I was young, and hope momentarily seemed to crowd in on me like a drug. I could smell the goulash and taste it bitter on my tongue. In spite of the cruel elements outside clamouring for our souls we made love to each other, unhurried, without fire, in silence. Ruby breathed out her satisfaction in a series of rapid sighs. And I wept.

  We could have lain so for hours, wrapped around each other. I even began to feel sleepy, the smell of Ruby’s hair and sweat-filmed body lulling me into a false sense of security. I pulled the blankets around us, the crazy thought, intruding as I lay on my back gazing at the dark ceiling, that I was in my bedroom back at home and we were in danger of mother bursting in on us. I tried to smile at the thought, and envisaged her shocked reaction, but I was too distressed, too fatigued. I wanted to close my eyes and never wake, or to wake and find it all a dream. I kissed Ruby’s hair and promised silently that I’d love her come what may.

  Then Max burst into the room, and I pushed Ruby away in fear and shame.

  * * * *

  36

  Carl

  The thought excited him. So much so he found it increasingly difficult to concentrate. In an effort to still the beating of his heart he dusted the furniture and then vacuumed the carpet. Going into his library he readjusted the armchair (the same that Miller had occupied) for the umpteenth time, till he felt it was in the right place to gain the desired dramatic effect. He sat in it to gain an impression of what she’d see when she came, and then he went to the front, pretending that she was already sitting in it, already being primed for the big one. “Murder!” he said aloud accompanied by an accusatory finger. It sounded so good, and he gave a little squeal of glee. Just like an Agatha Christie novel. And that pleased him even more. He’d always fancied himself as Poirot.

  The sound of the door chimes ate into his reverie. He paused, forcing himself to remain unhurried. Let her wait. Adds to the tension. All good crime novels created tension.

  He waited until the chimes sounded again, and this time he made his leisurely way down the hall to the door, pausing again before he opened it. She was standing there dressed in a long black coat, her eyes cold and marble-like beneath the hat she wore.

  “Do come in, Mrs Randolf. Do come in!” he greeted.

  She didn’t reply and stepped into the hall. Carl closed the door after her. “Cold, Mrs Randolf?”

  She shook her head, removing her hat and held it in her hand. He asked if he should take her hat and coat but she declined the offer. You’re frosty and aloof now, he thought, but I’ll soon have you eating out of my hand.

  “Shall we go through? Let me show you my library.”

  Mrs Randolf’s expression remained impassive, and without complaining at all she followed him to where he kept his precious books. He would have preferred irritation like Miller, or a little fear now that he’d already confronted her with the shocking truth that the two of them sought to keep from everyone for so long. But he could handle her any which way she decided to act. He held the door wide open for her. This was going to be a cinch, he thought.

  “The place used to belong to my parents…” he began.

  * * * *

  37

  Tuesday

  Even as I write this I can still feel the shock of it hitting my stomach, screwing it up. Like a loud alarm clock jolting you from deep sleep into rude wakefulness.

  In a moment there was pandemonium. The lights went on and a film of blazing white glazed my eyes. I immediately raised my hand to cover them, the room filling with the sound of many voices – angry, raised voices – and Ruby’s was amongst them, high and sitting pe
culiarly on top of them all, unintelligible but pleading and cursing at the same time. I added my own to them, but what I actually said I can’t recall now. I think it might have been, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” but who I was aiming it at – Max, Ruby or myself – I don’t rightly know.

  Through my temporary blindness I made out figures pouring into the room. Blue shirts, two of them. The guards. And Max. I recognised his figure in the doorway and he was shaking his fist, then tugging at his hair. I was grabbed firmly on the arm by one of the guards, bundled out of bed and dragged to the floor as easily as a fish being tossed to the deck of a boat. And like a fish I lay on the floor wriggling, partially hampered by the blanket which had curled around my legs, wanting to rise to my feet and cover my nakedness. Heavy hands pushed me back down. I saw Ruby being hauled away by another of the guards, her white naked body looking thin and inconsequential against his bulk. She was struggling, her fists clenched, her legs kicking furiously, her face red with rage as she swore and spat in her efforts to break free.

  “Leave her alone!” I yelled, attempting to rise again, but caught from behind by the guard who locked his arm around my throat and piled on the pressure. Any further protestation was squeezed mercilessly out of me, and I gasped, clutching helplessly at the material of his shirt as I choked, feeling the hardness of the muscles beneath and knowing that to break out of his steely arm lock was near impossible. I kicked my legs in fear and the vice tightened and I felt his buttons and belt buckle dig into my exposed back.

  Max was yelling something, I didn’t hear what exactly, but he was greatly agitated, his face a livid mask of hate. My eyes cleared in time to see him snatch away one of the long black batons carried by the guards, and he came at me in a flurry of flailing arms, raising the shining pole over his head, his teeth gritted and his words coming out slurred and meaningless in a series of growls and grunts, like a cornered wounded animal setting about its attackers.

  I thought he was going to kill me there and then, I really did. The baton hovered in the air for what seemed ages, and I gazed wide-eyed at it, expecting to feel it crashing against my skull. It came down in a blur and I heard the wooden footboard of the bed shatter, a piece of the veneered wood zipping off to strike me on the arm. I flinched, squeezing my eyes tight, hearing Max’s curses batter against my lids like the gale that battered the walls outside. He continued to beat at the board, mashing it to a pulp, and when he was spent he threw the baton against a wall.

  “You bastard!” he screamed at me, inches away from my face. “You fucking bastard! She’s my wife! Ruby’s my wife!”

  I mumbled something, maybe an apology, who knows, but it came out choked, a gasp. I was beginning to black out. Through tears I saw Ruby being dragged bodily through the doorway, her fingers hooking briefly around the doorframe, shouting as she went. Her voice trailed off into the distance, but that could have been the fact that I was short of oxygen, on the brink of fainting.

  “Leave him! Leave him!” Max shouted at the guard. When he didn’t obey immediately, Max struck out with a fist at the guard’s arm.

  My head sprang forward as the guard released me and I coughed and spluttered, clutching my neck, my eyes bulging. A few seconds later I drew the blanket up over me to try to cover my groin.

  “Get out of here!” Max yelled at the guard, waving his hand towards the open door. The guard hesitated, perhaps under the impression that this naked man on the floor, half choked, still represented a threat. “Now!” Max yelled, spittle spraying from his mouth, and the guard lumbered obediently away. Max closed the door after him, but remained turned away from me. I could see his back heaving as he drew in calming breaths.

  “Is it true?” I asked eventually, when I could take no more of the tense silence that was building up like something electric and oppressive.

  “She’s my wife, Collie,” he murmured. “Ruby is my wife now.”

  “Ruby is a prisoner, Max. Why? Why all this?” I edged my hand out and pulled my trousers towards me that lay on the floor in a crumpled heap. “And where are you taking her? If you harm her…”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “None of my business?” I said incredulously. “Look at this room – you don’t call this my business? Max, what’s going on?”

  He turned round, eyes aflame. I’d seen it so many times before. “You know full well what’s going on, Collie. Don’t try to pretend that you don’t. You all knew, you all thought I wouldn’t see through it, but I did. I did.”

  “Is it true about Bernard, about Mr Walton? Did you – did you really do those things?”

  “And do you really believe Ruby? She’s not right in the head you know. She’s ill.”

  “You don’t get me with that one, Max. I’ve seen and heard so much lately. It’s all making sense to me now. Things that go back a long time.” I slipped my legs into my trousers and stood up so that I could pull them on properly.

  “Don’t even think of trying anything, Collie. He’s just outside remember.”

  “You need help, Max,” I said, reaching for my shirt. “I can get you help.”

  He laughed and shook his head. “You can help me? That’s a rare one. I rather think it’s the other way round, don’t you? You’re the one in need of assistance. And I don’t see anyone around who can provide it, do you?” He put his hands behind his back, stared at the ceiling. “I liked you once, know that? In spite of who you are and what you did to my life, I really began to like you. I could have finished you off a long time ago. I needn’t have saved you from the canal. Remember that? I was the one who fished you out; Ruby couldn’t swim. You’d have been dead.”

  “So why did you save me?”

  He shrugged. “Never been able to figure it out.”

  “Tell me it isn’t true about Bernard and Mr Walton.”

  “Starting to mistrust Ruby now, eh? Still not certain?”

  I breathed out a long sigh, fingering my eyes. Looking towards the window I realised it was getting light, the sky a dull pewter colour. “I want to know the truth.” I admitted.

  “And Ruby wasn’t telling the truth?”

  “Stop playing games with me!” I said loudly, anger lending me confidence.

  His brows dropped. “Get dressed. You disgust me. You both do.” With that he walked out of the room, and the guard stepped in to block the doorway. “When he’s finished getting dressed,” he said to the guard, “bring him to me.”

  “This is illegal,” I said to the guy who one day I’d nickname Morecambe and who one day would give me the chewing gum for which I’d be extremely grateful.

  He merely blinked at me and shrugged, folding his arms as if to present a barrier. “So what? This is an island. Shout for a solicitor if you want.”

  Once I was dressed he escorted me to a room in which Ruby was waiting. It was a small reading room, with leather-bound books lining numerous bookcases and a solitary but large window looking out onto the sweeping grounds. Ruby was standing fully dressed by a marble fireplace, the ashes in the grate cold and grey and dead. She rushed to me when I walked in, the door closing behind me. We both looked to dull sound.

  “Are you OK?” she asked. “I was afraid something terrible might happen to you.”

  I assured her I was fine. “This is a crazy situation,” I said. “This isn’t happening.” I went to the door and tried the handle. It was locked. “We’ve got to get out of here,” I said, though I could not furnish one possible answer to ease our predicament. “What do you think he’s going to do to us?”

  “I don’t know. I really don’t. We’re completely isolated here, how on earth can we get help? I’ve tried for over a year, but he has complete and sole access to radios, mobiles, computer – everything. We’re on our own. I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see what he comes up with.”

  “Maybe I can reason with him,” I suggested hopefully.

  “I’ve tried, Philip. Might as well reason with the weather ou
tside.”

  I went over to the rain-lashed window and tried to open it, but that too was locked. I grunted my dismay.

  “And what if we do get out, where then?” she said sullenly.

  We each sat resignedly in an armchair, and after we’d exhausted all conversation gazed blankly at the walls, at the books and fireplace, each lost to our own sombre thoughts. An hour and a half must have passed before we heard the door being unlocked. Max entered the room. He glanced purposefully at us, first Ruby, and then at me. “You’re free to leave,” he said evenly. When we didn’t move, he added, “You have approximately…” and here he studied his wristwatch “…three hours. By which time the boat will be here to pick you up.”

  “Do you expect us to believe that?” Ruby snarled, the contempt she was feeling for him very much in evidence. “Don’t trust him, Philip.”

  “You can always stay here of course. There is that option. But something tells me it’s not an option you’d like to take up.”

  “You’re just letting us go?”

  “Ah,” he said, and cocked his head, “there is one small catch.”

  “Bastard,” Ruby breathed.

  “A fighter to the last,” he smiled grimly. “The boat is on its way. Only the pickup point is Gowan Torr Bay. You remember it, Collie; we went there only yesterday.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “Why there?” Ruby asked. “Why not at the south landing, as usual?”

  “Three hours, then the boat will be here. Either you’re on it or you’re not. It’s up to you.”

  “And the catch?” I asked.

  “You’ve got to get there first.” He turned to leave.

  “Wait, what do you mean by that?”

  “Simply that, Collie. You get there and you get to go home to the mainland.”

  “What’s to stop us?”

  His face remained impassive. “Me, of course. Remember The Mount, Collie?”

  We stood staring at each other. “That was a game, Max, a childish game.”