by Daniel Hurst
‘How did he unlock it?’
‘I don’t know, but how else could he have got your number?’
Chloe can’t offer any suggestion, but that’s not my most pressing concern right now. The fact this man wants to sleep with my daughter takes precedent over the minor details.
‘Well, obviously, it’s not going to happen,’ I say, feeling a rage burning up inside of me that I haven’t felt in a long time.
I haven’t felt it since the night Tim died.
‘I don’t get why he’s doing this,’ Chloe says. ‘I thought all he wanted was for you to sleep with him.’
‘That’s what he told me. But he was obviously lying.’
‘So what do we do now?’
‘I’ll call him,’ I say, handing my daughter’s phone back to her before going in search of my own.
Retrieving it from where it lies on the bed, I find his number and make the call.
I let it ring as long as possible, but there’s no answer.
Why isn’t he picking up?
‘He’s not answering,’ I say, my heart thudding in my chest as I continue to grow angrier at the message he sent to my child.
‘Wait, he’s just texted me!’ Chloe cries, and I rush over to her to read it.
Tell your mum that I have spent enough time talking with her. Now I will only deal with you.
The message from Jimmy makes it clear that Chloe has to be the one to call or text him now. He’s trying to cut me out of the equation. But I’m not going to let that happen.
‘Call him,’ I say to Chloe.
‘But I don’t want to speak to him!’
‘I’ll speak to him! We just need him to answer!’
Chloe reluctantly does as I say, putting the call on speakerphone as it rings.
‘Hi, Chloe.’
Jimmy’s voice comes down the line loud and clear.
I grab the phone from my daughter and put it to my ear.
‘What are you doing? We had a deal!’ I cry, and I notice Chloe’s reaction at how desperate my voice sounds.
I wait for Jimmy’s response, but there is none. Just silence.
‘Jimmy! Answer me!’ I try again, but still nothing.
Then the line goes dead.
‘What happened?’ Chloe asks.
‘I don’t know,’ I reply, looking at the phone in confusion as to how the call cut off. That’s when I see a text message come through.
I will only deal with Chloe now.
That’s when I realise why he didn’t answer me. He really does want me out of the equation.
‘You’re going to have to speak to him,’ I tell my daughter, handing her the phone.
‘What am I going to say?’
‘Tell him that you won’t do it. Tell him that I will meet him again, but you’re not getting involved.’
Chloe nods, and I watch as she makes the call on speakerphone once again.
‘Hi, Chloe,’ Jimmy answers.
My daughter says nothing at first until I give her a nudge.
‘Hi,’ she eventually replies.
‘I take it you got my request,’ Jimmy says.
‘Yeah.’
‘And?’
Chloe looks at me as if needing help, so I shake my head and mouth the word “no.”
‘I won’t do it,’ she tells him. ‘This wasn’t the deal.’
The sound of Jimmy chuckling to himself does nothing for my mood, and it takes all my restraint not to grab the phone back from my daughter and give him a piece of my mind. But I know he will only hang up again if I do that.
‘May I remind you that I am the only thing keeping you and your mother out of prison,’ Jimmy says.
Chloe looks at me again for answers, but it’s difficult for me to formulate one when I’m so angry. I can’t believe I put myself through that experience in the hotel room, only for Jimmy to essentially render it meaningless. The whole point of me sleeping with him was because it was supposed to put a stop to his threats of speaking to the police and thus keep Chloe and I safe. But now he wants something else, and it’s not just what he wants that is causing me so much concern but the fact that I don’t know if this is where it will end.
What is stopping him from making another demand after this one? How many things could he make Chloe and I do while dangling the threat of prison over our heads? He’s already using sex, but there’s no limit to what he could move on to from there. He said he wasn’t interested in money, but that could have just been another lie. He may even want us to engage in further criminal activity for his gain after that. This could never end, and part of the reason I’m so furious now is not just with Jimmy.
It’s because I failed to see this scenario happening.
I was so consumed with meeting his demand and getting it over with in that hotel room because I thought it would keep us safe that I didn’t even stop to consider that he might not be telling the truth with his conditions. I should have realised that he could just keep coming back for more, increasing the stakes, forcing Chloe and I into doing things that only got worse over time. Because of what he saw that night, he has all the power. No matter what we do for him, he will always have that control over us.
Unless...
I can’t believe the thought has even crossed my mind. Was it not enough to bury two bodies in my life?
Am I really considering making it a hat-trick?
‘Talk to me, Chloe.’
Jimmy’s voice is a reminder that we have left him hanging as he waits for a response and Chloe looks at me as if to say she needs help with what to go back with next. At that moment, I have an answer for her to give. She isn’t going to like it, but Jimmy will, and that is the whole point.
‘Tell him you will do it,’ I say, as Chloe looks at me in shock. ‘Tell him you will sleep with him.’
32
CHLOE
I’ve just finished telling the despicable man on the other end of the call that I am willing to sleep with him. I also had to listen to his smug voice telling me that he would send me the details of where and when it would take place shortly.
I’m confused, scared and disgusted, and not just because of what I must do, but because it is Mum who is telling me to do it.
How can she expect me to sleep with this man?
How can she offer up her child like this?
This doesn’t make any sense. Then I notice Mum shaking her head at me again, and that means she is going to make me say something else now.
Hasn’t she already put enough words in my mouth?
‘Tell him that you will only sleep with him if you can set the time and place,’ Mum whispers to me, ensuring that Jimmy has no chance of hearing her. But I’m still reeling from the fact that she thinks it is a good idea for me to sleep with him at all, which means I’m not in the right frame of mind to do as she asks.
‘Tell him,’ Mum says again but with more urgency this time, and I find myself doing as I am told even though I don’t understand the thinking behind it.
There’s a pause on the other end of the line before Jimmy replies again, and he was obviously surprised to hear that I am now the one making a demand of him. Less surprising is that he doesn’t agree with it.
‘I make the rules,’ he says forcefully. ‘So I will set the time and place.’
All I want to do is hang up and get as far away from my phone as I can because then I don’t have to listen to this horrible man, but I know that’s not an option right now. If I end this call then he could take that as non-compliance and that might mean he tells the police what he saw in the park that night.
Then I notice that Mum is shaking her head again.
‘Tell him it has to be here, or you won’t do it,’ she whispers to me.
‘I’m not doing it!’ I whisper back, but I fear that Jimmy might have heard that because he speaks again.
‘Stop speaking to your mother. This is between you and me,’ he tells me, confirming my fears.
I’m j
ust about to tell him that I will not do what he asks of me when Mum snatches the phone from my hand and tries her luck with him again.
‘Jimmy. This is Heather. I can convince Chloe to do what you want her to do, but you’re going to have to speak to me. She is too upset to be on the phone right now.’
I have no idea what my mum is doing, but I don’t like it, whatever it is. She is treating me like I’m not even a part of this sordid exchange, which of course, I am because it’s my body they are talking about.
I try to grab my phone back from her, but she ducks out of my reach before I hear her speak again.
‘Have some understanding. She’s seventeen years old. This would be her first time.’
Mum avoids making eye contact with me as she speaks, so she must know that she has no right talking about me in this way. But I’ve given up on trying to get my phone off her, and instead, I’m just about to storm out. It doesn’t matter what kind of plan she makes with Jimmy on this call, I don’t have to go along with it. She can’t force me to.
‘It has to be here, or it doesn’t happen, and I guess we’ll just have to take our chances with the police in that case,’ Mum says, and I pause in the bedroom doorway. ‘Tomorrow night?’
Mum looks at me standing across the room from her, and I wonder if she is only now going to ask me for my input in this decision that affects me. But I was wrong.
‘Tomorrow is fine. Seven o’clock. I’ll make sure she is ready.’
Then she hangs up.
I storm out of the room, disgusted at my mother and too angry to even have it out with her at this time.
‘Chloe!’ she calls after me, and I hear her following me into the hallway, but I race into my room and slam the door shut before she can get in behind me.
‘Chloe! Open the door!’ she cries, and I can feel her trying the handle, but I keep a tight grip on it, preventing her from entering.
‘Go away! I tell her, my body leaning into the door as a backup in case she overpowers me on the handle. But then I feel the tension release on it and figure she must have let go of it from the other side.
‘Okay, I’m sorry,’ she says, but I keep the pressure on the door just in case she is tricking me and is going to try it again as soon as I move. ‘If you would just let me explain?’
‘What is there to explain? You told him that I would have sex with him! What kind of mother are you?’
I’m aware it’s a harsh question to ask but screw it, I’ve said it now, and I hope it hurt. It certainly hurt me when I had to listen to her talking about me like that with him on the phone.
‘Chloe, please! Just open this door! You don’t understand!’
‘I understand that you don’t give a damn about me! You’re just trying to protect yourself!’
‘How can you say that? I buried a body for you!’
Mum has a point, but I don’t acknowledge it.
‘I’m not going to sleep with him!’ I call back.
‘You don’t have to!’
‘You told him that I would!’
‘I was lying to him!’
‘Why?’
‘Because I just need to get him to the house?’
‘What for?’
‘Because I’m going to kill him!’
I release my grip on the handle and step away from the door.
Did I just hear her right?
Did she just say she was going to kill Jimmy?
Mum must have sensed that her statement would have caught me off guard because she tries the door again, and it opens this time.
Stepping into my room, I see her in the doorway, but she looks different now.
She looks determined.
‘I’m going to kill him,’ she repeats, her voice much lower. ‘I just needed a way of getting him here, so I told him that you would have sex with him, like he asked. But you don’t have to do it. I’ll make sure of it.’
‘What the hell are you talking about? You can’t kill him.’
‘I don’t have a choice,’ Mum says, and she looks like she really means it. ‘I’d hoped that if I did what he asked of me in that hotel, then that would be the end of it. But it’s clear now that this will never be over unless we do something. He won’t stop with the demands. He has all the power. Unless we take it from him.’
‘You can’t be serious,’ I reply, taking a seat on the edge of my bed. ‘You can’t honestly think that you could get away with killing him and hiding his body.’
‘Why not?’ Mum asks, coming over to join me on the bed. ‘We almost got away with hiding Rupert’s body. All I have to do is the same thing again but this time, make sure there are no witnesses.’
‘But this is different. Rupert was already dead. Jimmy isn’t.’
‘I know,’ Mum says, still with that determined look on her face. ‘And I’ll need to make a plan. But this is the only way. What else can we do? Jimmy won’t stop tormenting us unless we make him stop.’
As much as it sounds like madness to even think it, Mum is right. The only way we could ever guarantee that Jimmy wouldn’t just keep coming back with more demands is if we eliminate him. But that’s easier said than done.
‘You really think we can do it?’ I ask, my voice quiet, and my hands shaking.
‘If we work together, then yes,’ Mum replies, almost convincing in her confidence. ‘All you need to do is make him think that you are going to give him what he wants. Then I’ll take care of the rest.’
33
HEATHER
I never thought I’d see the day when I would have to convince my daughter to help me kill someone, but that’s just what I’ve spent the last ten minutes doing.
But maybe that’s not the craziest part.
The craziest part might be that she has agreed to go along with it.
Her initial disgust at what she had perceived as me offering her up to our blackmailer on a silver platter has now made way for a quiet understanding of what it is that I am hoping to achieve. Jimmy needs to go; there is no doubt about it. As long as he is out there, then we will never be safe. He could call us at any time with another demand, and we would be powerless to say no. At least this way, we are taking back the power, although any peace of mind we might have gained by Jimmy no longer being able to blackmail us will be traded off for the worry that will come from if anybody ever finds out what we have done to him.
I did briefly consider leaving, moving town and putting some distance between him and us, but that wouldn’t get us very far. There would be nothing stopping Jimmy just talking to the police, and even if he couldn’t track us down again, I’m sure they could.
I am not going on the run.
Therefore, I have no choice but to stay and fight.
My initial plan was a simple one. I just wanted to get Jimmy to the house, on the pretence that Chloe will be ready and waiting for him to meet his needs when he arrives. But no sooner would he be here then I would strike, nullifying his threat just like I nullified Tim’s threat ten years ago, although I wouldn’t be using the jagged shards of a broken wine bottle this time.
I’d probably go for a kitchen knife instead.
But then Chloe highlighted the risk involved in essentially jumping Jimmy as soon as he came through the door. While I might have the element of surprise in that situation, it runs the risk of my initial blow not killing him instantly, meaning he might have a chance of escape. What Chloe suggested we do is get him further into the house, to a place where we could ensure that even if he survived my first attack, he wouldn’t be able to get far before I finished the job.
That was when she suggested that we allow the plan to play out as far as Jimmy entering her bedroom and leave it to the last possible moment before he has sex with her before I move in. That way, he really would be unprepared for it and be completely distracted, as opposed to having his guard up when he first enters the house earlier in the night.
While I didn’t like the idea of leaving it late, I have to admit th
at Chloe makes a good point. I think there is more chance of this working if we can get him into her bedroom.
It’s a long way for him to run to the front door then.
So the plan is set. Jimmy will come here tomorrow evening at seven o’clock, and he will be expecting to be intimate with my daughter. Chloe and I will play along with that charade right up until the moment when he is in her room alone with her. Then I will enter and put a stop to this nightmare once and for all.
For someone who has not only killed before, but hidden a body, I might have thought that all that experience could have at least given me a little confidence going into tomorrow. But it doesn’t seem to be the case, and I’m already considering going out for another bottle of wine to help get me off to sleep tonight. I suppose that while I have committed crimes before, they were under very different circumstances to this next one. The first one with Tim was completely unplanned, an act of passion essentially, in which I was acting after the shock of discovering who he really was and in the fear that he might harm Chloe if I didn’t stop him. And with Rupert, he was already dead, so I was basically just part of the clean-up operation. But this time is very different.
This time, my crimes will be pre-meditated.
There is little defence for what I did to Rupert, and there isn’t much of one with what I plan to do to Jimmy. Unlike Tim, I had a choice in these cases. I didn’t have to hide Rupert, and I don’t have to kill Jimmy.
I’m choosing to.
What kind of person does that make me?
Everything that I’ve ever done wrong in my life has always been compartmentalised and placed under the category of ‘for my daughter’s safety.’ I wouldn’t have killed Tim if she hadn’t been sleeping upstairs when I discovered who he was. I wouldn’t have buried Rupert if she wouldn’t have had her life ruined by the infamy of the tragedy. And I wouldn’t be plotting to kill Jimmy if Chloe wasn’t at risk of spending a large part of her life behind bars. But at what point can I stop justifying my actions by telling myself that I am just trying to do the best thing for my child? At what point do I have to consider that there is no good excuse or reasoning behind my actions and that I’m nothing more than a killer with a cold streak?