Book Read Free

Obsession: A shocking psychological thriller where love affairs turn deadly

Page 11

by Amanda Robson


  ‘You’ve never been interested in staff demographics before,’ I comment gently.

  At first she doesn’t reply. She sits looking thunderous. After a while she leans forwards and twists her mouth to say,

  ‘I want you to retract the offer.’

  The ecstatic look on Jenni’s face when I told her she had the job is seared deep in my unconscious. It rises to the surface.

  ‘I can’t.’

  Carly’s voice slices towards me.

  ‘Legally binding, is it?’ she asks.

  ‘I can’t – on a personal level.’

  ‘On a personal level?’ She pauses. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Come on, Carly. She’s your friend. That’s how we know her in the first place.’

  I sit looking at Carly, at the look on her face, and want to know what happened to the good fun, kindly girl I married. She puts her head back and laughs.

  ‘Your precious Jenni’s gone off the boil a bit since she left Craig.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you in those circumstances?’

  Carly doesn’t answer that. She’s too busy weaving across the sitting room to the drinks cupboard. One bottle down. One to go. I walk across the room and put my hand on her arm.

  ‘Carly,’ I say. ‘Don’t you think you’ve had enough?’

  She turns her head towards me. Sharp blue eyes hiss into mine.

  ‘Believe me, I’ve hardly even started. Leave me alone, Rob.’

  For a second I wish I could. But then I think of Pippa and the boys, and my heart explodes with love.

  ‘I can’t leave you alone. You’re my wife. My responsibility. You’ve had enough, I’m telling you. Please don’t drink any more tonight.’

  Her acidic breath pushes against my cheek. She shakes my hand from her arm. Her arm moves back. Her fingers widen. I see her hand move, slowly, slowly, towards me. She slaps me hard on the cheek. My eyes water. Pain burns across my face. I step back as she fumbles for another bottle of wine, struggles to open it. I don’t offer to help as she breaks the cork in half and has to push the bottle opener in again. She eventually fills her glass and returns to her favourite position on the sofa. I retreat to the armchair, face still smarting.

  ‘You need help, Carly.’

  ‘Stop spending time with your bitch-whore and give me some, then.’

  ~ Rob ~

  Back home from a big day out. Chessington World of Adventures is exhausting, I’m not sure I can face going there again on my own with our offspring. Three children to one adult is one too many to supervise properly; after all, I only have two hands. If it wasn’t for the fact that Pippa is so sensible I’m not sure I would have coped.

  The children, high on sugar and roller coasters, bounce around on the front path while I rummage through my pockets for the front door key. I have rung the bell twice but Carly hasn’t heard. At last the keys are in my hands and the lock is turning. At last we are bumbling through the doorway, keen to tell Carly about our day. But Carly still hasn’t heard us; she must be upstairs.

  ‘Carly,’ I shout.

  No reply.

  ‘Mummy,’ Pippa shouts.

  Still no reply.

  ‘Perhaps she’s gone out or she’s having a shower. I’ll go upstairs and look. Pippa, can you get the boys a drink, and pop them in front of the TV?’

  ‘Sure.’

  Pippa takes her brothers to the kitchen and I dash up the stairs two at a time, winding myself, for I am worried now. I open the bedroom door and she is there, fast asleep in bed.

  I walk over to look at her. Her face is bloated with sleep. She lies on her back, mouth open, air catching in her chest as she inhales and exhales. With a start I see that my medical bag is upended and open on the far side of the bed, pills spewed around it. I shake her shoulders to rouse her, trying to bury my panic.

  ‘Carly! Are you all right? What happened?’

  She opens her eyes and looks at me.

  ‘Hello, Rob,’ she whispers.

  ‘What is it, Carly? What have you taken?’

  ‘Zopiclone,’ she mutters. Her eyes are closing.

  I shake her shoulders again, harder this time.

  ‘How many?’

  No reply.

  ‘How many?’ My voice rises to a shout.

  With her eyes still closed, she lifts her right hand towards me, two fingers extended and bunched together.

  ‘Two? Is that all? Are you sure?’

  She nods her head.

  ‘Sure I’m sure,’ she whispers.

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Wine. Wine. Wine.’

  An empty bottle of red wine by the bedside table. It looks as if she didn’t even bother with a glass.

  ‘Anything else?’

  I shake her shoulders, trying not to panic. Panic never helps.

  No reply.

  ‘Anything else?’ I pause. ‘Carly. I really need to know what you have taken. If you’ve taken anything else, please tell me now.’

  ‘Wine and two zopiclone,’ she mutters. ‘I couldn’t get any E.’

  E. Please God, don’t let her start messing with recreational drugs as well.

  Her head turns to the side and she slips back to sleep. I gather the scatterings of my medical bag. Two zopiclone are indeed the only things missing. Everything else can be accounted for. And no remnants of anything dubious like MDMA lying around, nothing unmarked, suspiciously frondy, or homemade powder-ish. Relieved, I sigh inside. After inspecting our bathroom cabinet to check that everything is in order in there too, I sit on the bed, watching her chest rise and fall, staring at her pale face surrounded by golden curls. In sleep she looks so innocent. So vulnerable. I have been a doctor for so long that I’m usually numb to situations like this. Immune. But this is different. This is my wife. If she was a patient I would call an ambulance. To be sure. To cover myself. But this is my wife. The person I have vowed to look after in sickness and in health. Please God. Let me look after her myself.

  I lift her and prop her back up with pillows. She stirs a little and opens her eyes. Holding her head back, I push a dose of emetic through her lips with a spoon. She winces at its taste. In twenty minutes or so she will vomit to clear her stomach contents – a bit old fashioned but it works. I sit in our bedroom armchair by the window, watching her drift in and out of sleep. Every so often she opens her eyes and smiles at me. Aware that I am here.

  The vomit finally comes. She rushes towards the bathroom, holding her stomach. She leans over the toilet bowl and spews ruby red liquid. When she has purged herself, I settle her back into bed. I leave her to sleep.

  Downstairs Pippa is in charge. Pippa, nearly eight years old now and innovative. She has made a picnic with bags of crisps and biscuits; I can tell from the debris. And she’s found some coke from the treats cupboard. After a day at Chessington World of Adventures I’m not sure anyone needed any more coke. Now as if in compensation she is trying to make the boys eat fruit. She has her head on one side, and is lecturing them about five-a-day. They are looking at her wide-eyed. As soon as she sees me she runs towards me and hugs my legs.

  ‘Daddy, Daddy, is Mummy all right?’

  ‘She’s fine. Just sleeping.’

  ‘Can I go and see her?’

  ‘No. Not yet. You might wake her. You can tell her all about your day out in the morning. Come on. Let’s get you all to bed.’

  The normality of putting the children to bed is a release. Pretending everything is all right for a while. But it isn’t all right, is it? Sometimes it feels as if it will never be all right again.

  ~ Jenni ~

  My first day as a receptionist at Stansfield’s Riverside Surgery. I arrive at 8:15 a.m., not feeling very confident. It has been four and a half years since I’ve been in any sort of paid employment, and I’ve been worrying about everything. Worry, tunnelling through society, leaving our foundations weak. Worry, weaving warren-like passageways through our minds, allowing us to silently destroy ourselves. I
am always worrying. About my dad looking after the boys and the puppy, even though he seemed quite excited about it; the flame he had in his eyes when my mother was alive beginning to flicker back. Worrying about what to wear today. In the end I chose a white blouse and a brown A-line skirt. Just the sort of thing to blend into the background. For that’s what I find easiest at the moment. To blend into the background. What do I mean, at the moment? I’ve always been a bit like that.

  Four doctors, one of whom is Rob, are already here, in their consulting rooms getting ready for surgery. Sharon, the eagle-eyed practice manager, a portly middle-aged woman with shoulder-length grey hair and a northern accent, is taking me under her wing. Showing me how to answer the phone. How to allocate appointments on the computer system. Giving me a long lecture on which patients should be given priority and why. Nearly everyone seems to be given priority in this surgery. Kindness lives here; nestled comfortably between the telephones and the filing cabinets. Sharon is the woman who Carly always used to describe as her mentor, helping her to settle in when she first came to work as a nurse in the surgery. Sharon. Carly’s second mother apparently.

  So far today no sign of Carly.

  Sharon hovers over me as I take my first phone call – a man so elderly that his voice has become scratchy, suffering from piles. He seems to enjoy describing them to me. Carly finally arrives, wearing her garish raincoat, the one she was wearing at the church fete. Red plastic. Matching hat, wellington boots and perfectly applied lip gloss. A fifties screen goddess. Over the top. As she dashes past I expect her to stop, open her raincoat to display a sequined leotard and tap dance across the waiting room. But no, she has gone past, without even looking at me, no acknowledgement, not even half a smile, leaving me to make the scratchy old man’s appointment. I look out of the window. It isn’t even raining.

  As the morning progresses I begin to feel more relaxed. So far the patients have been at ease talking to me, happy with the appointments I have arranged for them. Twice I’ve checked with Sharon to make sure I’ve logged everything correctly. Both times I had. And so, by lunchtime as I leave the surgery to go and buy a sandwich, I am hopeful that I will be able to do this job.

  The sandwich bar across the road from the surgery is overcrowded, hissing with steam from the cappuccino machine. I queue for ages for coffee and an egg and cress sandwich, and then can’t find a place to sit. I walk up and down the narrow aisle between the tables, looking for someone to share with. A red raincoat on the back of a chair.

  Carly.

  ‘Do you mind if I join you?’ I ask.

  ‘Feel free,’ she says, without looking up from the newspaper she is reading.

  I sit opposite her, undo my fawn raincoat, and start to eat my sandwich. The bread is soggy. I will bring a packed lunch tomorrow. I take a sip of coffee and scald my tongue. Carly looks up. She fixes her powder blue eyes on me.

  ‘Oh. It’s you.’

  ‘Yes. It’s me. Hello. I started at the surgery this morning,’ I say. ‘I wasn’t sure whether you’d seen me.’

  ‘I always notice you, Jenni.’

  Another bite of my soggy sandwich. Another sip of my coffee. It is still too hot.

  ‘Is it going all right?’ Carly asks with acid eyes.

  ‘Sharon has been very helpful. I’ve answered a few phone calls.’

  Acid eyes darken.

  ‘I’m sure you’ll do very well, as long as you stay off my territory.’

  Do you really want to get territorial about this? Carly, I know what you did.

  ‘What territory do you mean?’ I ask.

  She leans forwards and whispers the words.

  ‘My husband. Stop trying to play with him.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘What can I do to prove it?’

  ‘Don’t work at the surgery.’

  ‘But, Carly, I need this job. With Craig and I living separately, I need more money.’

  ‘I warned you that you would.’ She shrugs her shoulders. ‘Find another job. You’re exploiting your friendship with us.’

  ‘Is friendship exploitation?’

  ‘Don’t play with words, Jenni. You know what I mean. We were friends until you tried to steal Rob.’

  The Lord is inside me, helping my confidence to grow.

  I stand up to let her know I am going. I lean forwards to make sure that she can hear me, catching her eyes in mine.

  ‘I’ll stay to get the experience I need. And I’ll leave as soon as I’ve built my CV up. That’s the best offer you’re getting, Carly.’

  ‘If I were you, I wouldn’t stick around too long,’ she replies, but her voice is weak, and her watery blue eyes are dissolving in the strength of mine.

  You do not scare me, Carly. You’ve become a bully. Bullies will have their comeuppance in the eyes of the Lord.

  ~ Carly ~

  My dream world is clearer than my real world. It is in my dream world that I can see. Really see. Watching Jenni as she sits in her flat, praying in the lotus position. A bag of bones dressed in red, wearing Christian fish earrings. Planning to steal Rob and my children. Laying her final plans. She has written them down and hidden them in a journal she bought at Paperchase. A journal she keeps in her handbag, wrapped in wide red plastic bands. She takes the journal with her everywhere so that no one can steal it. She consolidates her plans when the children are in bed, puppy at her feet, listening to Enya and burning joss sticks. For everybody knows, Jenni is seriously weird.

  Jenni is intending to live with Rob, and all our children, Pippa and the Gospels, in a house near the church. Her flat is too small for them all and she is looking for somewhere bigger at the moment. I know she is.

  In the clarity of my dream world, the faces are so sharp they look as if they have been chiselled with a knife. Fluffy white clouds look like metallic pan-scrubs. In my dream world, Rob is arriving at Jenni’s flat. It must be Saturday because he is wearing jeans and his old college rugby shirt. She welcomes him into her living room with a smile and closes the door behind him. He moves towards her in a slow motion montage, arms stretched, mouth opening. The volume of the music ever increasing. They meet and clamp together. Enya is chanting. They are smooching. Smooching and kissing, lips bound together. They move towards the sofa and collapse onto it. She is tearing his clothes off. He is sitting on the sofa naked and she is bending her head over his crotch to give him a blowjob, chestnut hair splayed across his thighs. I cannot take my eyes away from his face. His head lolls back and he closes his eyes. His pleasure builds. His face becomes contorted with ecstasy. When she has finished she sits next to him on the sofa, holding his hand and admiring him; doe-eyed.

  The more I watch, the more I scream and scream silently. I scream and scream until the scream becomes a sound. I wake hearing my own scream. In Rob’s arms. In my own bed. Wet with sweat, dampness pooling behind my knees, in the small of my back. His voice comes into focus.

  ‘Carly, Carly, are you all right? You were having a terrible nightmare.’

  I breathe out. ‘I’m all right now that you’re here.’

  ‘I’ve been here all the time.’

  ~ Jenni ~

  I am returning from lunch when I bump into Carly leaving the surgery, our paths crossing in the car park.

  Carly. Lemon delicious.

  Golden hair shining in sharp winter sunlight, her yellow figure-hugging dress and black jacket clinging to her like sugar coating. Over the top for popping into the surgery. And her perfume. Well, I think she must have spilt it.

  ‘Feeling better?’ I ask.

  ‘Much. Thanks. I’ve just been in to check a few things.’

  ‘Rob said you were taking the day off.’

  ‘Did he?’ There is a pause. ‘When did you speak to him?’

  ‘First thing. When he was on the way in.’

  ‘And what did my husband say about my medical condition?’

  ‘That you were unwell and t
aking the day off.’

  ‘Next time you have a tête-à-tête, perhaps you could update him on the improvement in my symptoms.’

  ‘He was just informing the office. I didn’t speak to him personally.’

  ‘Thank you for clearing that up.’

  A lemon sugar smile.

  She walks away.

  Not understanding what she’s doing here when she’s supposed to be resting, I push my way back into the surgery, negotiating the elaborate press button door system for wheelchair users. There’s a locum standing in for her, she has no need to come in. I’m grateful that she’s on her way home. Grateful to be away from her. The smell of her vanilla perfume is everywhere. As I move towards my desk in reception, Sharon looks up from her filing and says,

  ‘Carly popped in to leave you a message. Left it by your computer.’

  ‘That’s funny. I just met her in the car park and she didn’t say anything.’

  Sharon shrugs.

  ‘Well, you know Carly. Mind of her own. That’s what we all love about her.’

  I look across at Sharon to see if she is joking, but her eyes and mouth are flatlining.

  There is no message by my computer. I try to click it back on with my mouse, but it won’t come on. So I have to switch off and restart. When I finally get back into my area of the computer system, my data input from this morning is missing; all of it. I try and try to retrieve it but I can’t. Deleted by an intruder. Thank you, Carly.

  Message received loud and clear.

  ~ Carly ~

  You’re so bad at your job, bitch-whore, I can’t wait for Rob to sack you. Yesterday I was off work with a migraine. When I returned this morning all the patient records were in chaos. You had deleted half of our patient notes from the computer by pressing the wrong button. The rest of the records are alphabetically jumbled, so we can’t retrieve them either. A formatting error, so to speak. Congratulations, bitch-whore, I don’t know why Rob employed you in the first place. You’ve never been trained as a receptionist.

 

‹ Prev