by CM Thompson
He puts the bottles in a box and carries them down, panting drunkenly as he ferries the meagre collection consisting of three bags of clothes, fours bags of random impulse buys and a box of alcohol. That’s all that is left to remind the world of Anne-Marie Mills. He struggles down with the last two boxes, one containing their wedding album and stray photos, the other a box of paperwork. He is muttering over and over to himself, trying to reassure himself that it doesn’t matter now, it is over now. He can finally leave this house, the baby, Anne-Marie behind. He closes the empty attic door behind him.
How little they both have. He thinks of what remains now in the house, his own things would probably amount to another bag, maybe two, plus the TV, that’s all he has left now. That and some worn out kitchenware and furniture. Maybe he should just bag it up now and end it all. Take the stuff to charity and himself to the cemetery. He can’t see a reason not to.
He moves all the bags containing Anne-Marie’s stuff into the hallway. The rubbish bags go straight into his car, he thinks about driving to the rubbish dump now, get it over with, he is not that drunk … he is that drunk, he can’t give the police an excuse, he never wants to go back to the police station again. He locks the front door and sits in the living room with the boxes of paperwork and the pictures. He opens another bottle and begins to flick through their wedding album, wanting to remind himself of happier times. Had he been happy at their wedding? It had been a small, rushed affair. They had nearly cancelled. He had been drunk that day, so had she. He stops in disbelief, and slowly flicks over a page and then another. Someone had already gone through this album, with a marker pen, scribbling out the faces, defacing every page. Another fuck you Daniel, courtesy of Anne-Marie. Daniel gives a howl of pure rage, his hands trembling.
She got what she deserved. He wants to scream that now but chokes it back, she got what she fucking deserved! He takes a long drink. He has spent every day since the day she died looking for a sign that she loved him, something to show that it had been an accident not a suicide, that she didn’t mean to leave him. And what did he find? Nothing but Fuck You Daniel. Well, fuck you right back, Anne-Marie. Hell, she probably jumped out of malice, knowing what pain she would cause him, her ultimate fuck you.
Drunkenly he stumbles outside into the garden, ignoring the forgotten polka dot covers still waiting for him. He dumps the wrecked album on top of the rusty BBQ, pours on a little alcohol and then throws a match. Burn, baby, burn, he giggles, throwing on the rest of the photos, the paperwork, watching their past melt away into chunks of burning love.
Chapter Eighteen
The smash screams through the night, shattering Ludmilla Bryski’s sweet dream. It’s that awful woman again, she thinks, her heart thumping, waiting for another sound, for another long night of screaming, smashing and swearing to begin. But she hears only the sound of Paul’s snores, he is oblivious as usual.
What has that woman done now? Should she call the police? Why won’t that awful woman go away? It is only after a few minutes of careful listening that Ludmilla remembers that the awful woman did go away, permanently. Something else made that noise. Someone else maybe. Probably the same person who made the awful woman go away, the same person she heard shouting weird accusations to an empty house. Ludmilla tries to hide under the blankets. She is more scared of Daniel Mills now than she ever was of Anne-Marie. Ludmilla remembers with a shudder, tears trembling down her cheeks, how he opened the door with a crocodile smile. He had been waiting for them; long before they even decided to visit, he had been waiting with anticipation. They had gone there to try and subtly talk to him about moving, but she had been useless, scared from the moment he had smiled at them. She had wanted to flee before they had even sat down. She forced herself to stay, only because she couldn’t leave Laura alone with a murderer. They never should have agreed to go in the first place. It was a stupid idea. Their other stupid plans aren’t working either and she doesn’t know what else to do. They need to do something else, something more.
Daniel had been burning something earlier. Ludmilla had smelt the smoke and gone to check, worrying that the garden was on fire. She had seen Daniel huddled over the flames, heard him drunkenly singing something about Anne-Marie being the name of the latest flame. She had hid quickly, not wanting Daniel to know she had seen him. He must have been burning something incriminating and if he knew she had seen him, then she would be next. She wasn’t safe whilst Daniel Mills still lived next door. How many nights had she stayed awake, forced awake, wishing Anne-Marie would go away, praying, begging for something to take her away, to make her be quiet and now she is starting all over again with Daniel. She can’t go through all this again, she can’t. Daniel has to go, they have to get him to go or she doesn’t know what she will do.
Chapter Nineteen
They had almost missed the skin. The three little chunks of flesh under Anne-Marie Mills’ finger nails. They had expected it to belong to Daniel Mills but sent it for testing anyway. Just in case something went to trial. Just in case they needed something to mark the difference between falling and being pushed. The DNA testing gathered from the two dead women at the flower bed scenes had taken priority over Mrs Mills. Taken over the minds of most of the police force too, including Grimm and Colvin.
Even now, Colvin is only skim-reading the results, expecting it to say male, matching to etcetera. She is anxious to get back to that other case and this report means she can finally let this stupid case go. She reads and rereads it, and rereads it again. Surely there has been a mistake? A contamination perhaps?
“What’s wrong?” Grimm asks from behind his own stack of paperwork.
“Do you remember the Anne-Marie Mills case?”
“Yeah?” Who could forget? That mess? That mother? Those neighbours!
“Do you remember the three pieces of skin we found under Anne-Marie’s nails?”
“Yeah.”
“One of the pieces of skin belongs to Daniel. The other two pieces belong to an unknown female, no match to Anne-Marie.” Colvin remembers with a sinking feeling Sherri Fowler’s affair accusations. Her insistence that her daughter had been murdered, combined with her own feelings that they were missing something big. She had ignored Sherri’s repeated demands that they find the guilty woman, dismissing it as quickly as she dismissed Sherri from the investigation. Colvin doesn’t want to have to admit to Sherri that she may have been right.
They watch the corner shop surveillance for the eleventh time, thinking perhaps Anne-Marie Mills had scratched Margie, the corner shop assistant, but no, Margie always carefully kept her distance from Anne-Marie. A lesson well learnt from a previous encounter. They keep watching, going past the moment, making sure that Margie doesn’t close the shop for a convenient break. Nothing. It is time to do another round of interviewing, this time with swabs. Colvin wants to start with Gloria Hutchinson.
Chapter Twenty
“It’s not my fault … Anne-Marie …” Daniel whines, oblivious to Peter moving behind him, a rope held tight in his hands. Peter enjoys the sheer satisfaction of pulling the rope tight around his flabby neck, cutting off his air supply mid-whine.
“This is for my sister,” he whispers whilst Daniel is still conscious enough to hear, listening to Daniel’s final gasps for air, with a quiet satisfaction. Then he suspends Daniel’s body from … from … this is where the fantasy breaks down, what could he suspend Daniel from? There are no rafters, no ceiling beams. How would he even lift Daniel’s weight? Where would he even get a rope from? Inconveniently, Daniel did not keep pieces of rope in the house for hanging purposes and it would look suspicious if he went out to buy one now. What if they found a piece of his skin in the rope? His DNA in something. What if the rope broke under Daniel’s weight and Daniel survived? No, hanging is out, it’s not as easy as it looks.
What other options were there? He could get Daniel drunk, to the point of passing out, then carefully slice his wrists, but what if the pain woke Daniel u
p? What if he screamed for help? Anne-Marie has made Peter well aware that blood gets everywhere, so it was too big a risk, having a drop of Daniel’s blood on his clothes. Also, how long does it take for someone to bleed to death? He didn’t have time to wait around to make sure the job was done. No, whatever he did, it needed to be fast. It would have been nice to see Daniel suffer slowly for what he did. To let him know who had killed him and why. He could even get some things off his chest and Daniel would be forced to finally listen to him. Peter could finally tell him just how boring both he and Anne-Marie were, always whining. “Oh he doesn’t love me!” “She don’t love me!” “Why don’t they love me any more?” Always demanding attention but neither of them attempting to reconcile or even talk to each other, or even listen to Peter’s advice! Just the same old whining loop playing endlessly.
“Neither of you are perfect,” he wanted to yell. “Either live with it or leave. I don’t care. Just stop whining at me!” He had to listen to all their shit over and over, and did they ever listen to him? Or even care about him? Did they ever ask, ‘how are you? How’s your work going?’ No, it was just me, me me, whine, whine, whine.
Peter mused over feeding Daniel sleeping pills, diluted in whiskey, but where would he get the pills? Wouldn’t Daniel taste them in the drink? What if he vomited? What if the police found his fingerprints on the bottle? He never realised before how hard it is to kill someone.
Did he really want to kill Daniel? It was fun to fantasise about it but deep down, Peter knows he has no real interest in killing Daniel. Too much effort required and Daniel wasn’t worth it. Daniel wasn’t worth spending his life in prison for, if things went wrong. He is not going to murder someone just to make his mother happy, not even Daniel deserved that.
Daniel wasn’t completely to blame for his sister’s miserable life and death, he was just the easiest person to blame. It wasn’t like he was having the time of his life without Anne-Marie either. It would a mercy to put Daniel down, and Daniel didn’t deserve mercy. Besides, it is only a matter of time before Daniel ate himself to death. Just like it was only a matter of time before his sister drank herself to death. Good things come to those who wait.
Peter rubs his face tiredly; here he is, caught up in his mother’s drama and goading again. Every time he swore he wouldn’t let himself be drawn in and every time she got him baying for blood. Damn his mother. Peter knows she is only using Anne-Marie’s death as an excuse to get angry and bully new people, her two favourite activities. Look what she was goading him into doing now – going to the house, taking all of Anne-Marie’s stuff. She was always doing things like this to his father, using threats and fake pregnancies. Every time he threatened to leave, she would use anything she could to force him to stay. Which is why their father left late one night, whilst everyone was asleep, and was never heard from again. He was the smart one. Peter is trying to do the same now, he is trying to move on with his own life. He has been applying for new jobs in different cities, even one in a different country, just to get away from it all. He wants to move on, but his mother is so insistent. He needs something to shut her up, something to untangle him from her claws long enough to escape.
Why didn’t he tell her the truth about January? Told her the truth about what happened when Peter had visited Anne-Marie alone in the hospital. He had asked her what happened, only out of obligation, though, and not expecting an honest answer. She only protested that she had had an accident.
“You were drunk again, weren’t you?”
She wouldn’t look him in the eye.
“I am worried about you. You are really going to hurt yourself soon.”
Anne-Marie had only laughed a self-depreciating laugh and said, “Daniel would never be that lucky.”
“What happened?” he asked again.
“I was just enjoying a little drink and I noticed the bottle was empty. The next thing I know is that I needed a plaster.” She had looked him straight in the eye then, with a mysterious smile, she then said: “I should tell Mum that Daniel pushed me.”
His mother wanted so badly to believe it was murder, not an accident. She wouldn’t listen to anything that suggested otherwise. She wouldn’t listen when he told her that all this drink was killing Anne-Marie, insisting loudly that she didn’t have a problem, ignoring all warnings that she should stop supplying Anne-Marie with more alcohol. Sherri would never admit that she was to blame for anything. Sherri would never acknowledge that sometimes Anne-Marie did some really stupid things, that the fall in January was just a stupid accident, that Anne-Marie’s death was just another stupid accident. The big accident, the one they all knew was coming.
Peter knows that Anne-Marie’s death was an accident, that she had fallen in a drunken stupor, that no one was to blame. He had suspected at first that she had jumped, not to kill herself but to hurt herself. She had done similar things when they were children. Stunts to attract attention, stunts to make people forget how naughty she could be. Sherri had taught her that and Sherri had fallen for it every time. It had gone wrong this time, that’s all, she had made a stupid mistake, no one could blame her. They all did stupid things sometimes. Especially his family.
Just get Anne-Marie’s things, he tells himself, take them straight to Sherri. Don’t get caught up in this any more. Let his mother find all the “evidence” she likes.
He pulls into the cul-de-sac, remembering with a shiver what he was met with the last time he came to this house, on that hot July day. This is the last time you will have to come here, he promises himself. He pauses to admire the damage done to Daniel’s car. Daniel will be fuming. Peter wonders idly if his mother or one of her friends are to blame. Don’t get caught in the cross-fire, he urges himself, let the police handle this, that’s what he will tell Daniel if he starts whining.
Dried egg stains cover Daniel’s front door. He knocks gingerly, trying to avoid the splatters. He feels sorry for Daniel, although not quite sorry enough to help him. To his surprise, Daniel doesn’t answer the door. Another feeling, disturbingly close to worry, sparks inside of him. He tries the door handle, and to his astonishment it’s unlocked.
He swings open the door, half-expecting to see Daniel in front of him, waiting just like Anne-Marie. No one, just some bags waiting by the front door. Anne-Marie’s possessions presumably. An open invitation to get her stuff and get out perhaps. Peter peers inside a bag to confirm that they are indeed Anne-Marie’s belongings and then slowly carries the bags out to his car, still waiting for Daniel to appear, but the house remains silent.
He tries to convince himself that everything is OK, that Daniel wasn’t as stupid as Anne-Marie, that he was probably just eating or something.
But still.
Resignedly, he locks his car and waits outside for a few moments for any tell-tale signs of life. He stares at Daniel’s broken windscreen, the indentations, that word written in lipstick on his bonnet, written in a shade similar to his mother’s. What if Daniel had already seen this? What if he had already gone charging over to confront Sherri? No, he would have heard the sirens.
Peter treads slowly back into the house, still expecting to see Daniel, still even half-expecting to see Anne-Marie. It smells like she is here, that whiff of spilt vodka and frustrated tears.
He checks the living room, nothing but a few empties. Upstairs, nothing, Anne-Marie’s old room strangely empty, the cleanest he has ever seen it, Daniel’s room mostly empty, the bed not looking like it has been made in weeks. Peter checks back downstairs again, his phone in his hand, ready to call the police.
The back door is open and a faint smell of smoke wafts through the gap. With trepidation, Peter steps outside.
For many nights, when Anne-Marie was still alive, Peter stayed awake at night, trying to figure out a contingency plan for the day when Anne-Marie finally pushed Daniel too far. What he will do, what he will say, where he will send his sister? Peter, in all of his planning, never thought that his sister would manage to acc
omplish this from beyond the grave.
But then Anne-Marie had always been a special kind of person.
Peter takes in the burnt remains of the defaced wedding album, fluttering from their funeral pyre. His sister had cried genuine tears when she told him what she had done, begged him for any photos he had so she could fix it. She was supposed to replace the album before Daniel found out, not that Daniel would have been fooled by a new album with slightly different pictures, but it may have helped with her apology.
And here is Daniel, lying passed out on the grass, looking like he has been there all night. He looks like he is barely breathing and for a brief moment Peter considers just leaving him out here to his fate. How happy that would make his mother. No one has to know he came out into the garden: “The house was empty, officer, I swear.”
Something would go wrong, it always does. He can’t let someone die just to make his mother happy. It’s just not right. Finally he calls the ambulance. Then he decides he might as well call the police too.
Chapter Twenty-One
“I do not feel safe living here anymore!”