In The Dying Minutes: an absolutely gripping psychological thriller

by J. A. Baker

  Leah,

  I write this in the hope you understand what it is we’re trying to say. Please don’t make us call the police because we will do it if this stalking behaviour doesn’t cease. We are asking you to stop following Jacob and me around. We saw you earlier standing outside the window staring up at us. It is unnerving and unnecessary. Jacob has made it clear for many months now that he wants nothing to do with you. We hoped you moving away would solve the problem but that hasn’t worked. If anything, you seem more determined to watch us. Your behaviour is obsessive bordering on dangerous and we really think you need to get some help.

  Don’t be angry when you read this. That sort of reaction won’t help. We’re trying to be patient with you but you have to do your bit as well. We realise you’re lonely and initially wanted some company but following people around and refusing to leave them alone isn’t the way to go about making friends.

  Have you thought about seeing a doctor? Perhaps you should bear this in mind. And please don’t think we’re bluffing when we talk about calling the police because our safety is important to us. Having somebody standing outside watching us for hours on end is unsettling and actually rather frightening.

  Please think about what we’re asking. Stop stalking us or you will end up with a police officer knocking on your door.

  Chloe

  A rage burns inside her as she scans the letter, reading and digesting each word, skimming over every line again and again. A switch has been flicked somewhere deep in her gut, churning everything up, starting a furnace that is spreading through her veins.

  How dare she? How fucking dare she?

  Leah perches on the edge of the bed, gripping at the pain that slices over her abdomen. It rips through her sternum, pulsing up her neck and filling her mouth with bile until she feels unable to breathe properly. She switches from cold to hot. Sweat stands out on her forehead, tiny iridescent beads of frustration and hatred. She wipes them away with the back of her hand, looks up to the ceiling, her eyes dry, her temper building. She has never been the crying type. What good does it do? It won’t change anything and it won’t make this awful letter disappear. The unthinkable has happened. Chloe has done it. She has succeeded in her attempts to snare Jacob permanently and has now wormed her way into his affections. She is well and truly ensconced in his life and by the sounds of it, his heart. Leah shivers at the thought, an unwanted sob lodging at the back of her throat like a jagged rock.

  A picture of the two of them blooms in her thoughts. She banishes it to the back of her mind. Too sickening to contemplate; Chloe and Jacob wrapped in one another’s arms, lying next to each other in his bed, possibly even planning a secure future together, a permanent one. It’s all so unfair. Jacob was hers until Chloe came along and now she has Jacob and Leah has nothing. She cannot allow this. She won’t allow it.

  It has to be stopped.

  She picks up the porcelain shell ornament she has had since she was a teenager and hurls it at the nearest wall, watching mesmerised as it shatters into a thousand tiny pieces. Hopefully, Grainne will be out and Innes, even if he is in, will undoubtedly have his head immersed in some book or other, too deep in his thoughts to hear the smash. The sound as it hits the wall makes Leah’s chest swell with excitement. Her pulse quickens and her heart thumps around her ribcage. Then she sees the mess and thinks about how long it will take to clear it all up. As if this room isn’t enough of a dump as it is. Why does everything have a downside to it? Why the hell is everything so fucking difficult? She can’t even manage to be angry properly.

  Leah wonders how it all came to this. How did she let the love of her life slip away into another woman’s arms? Careless doesn’t even cover it. Perhaps Jacob was right all along and she was too controlling, too possessive. But then how was she supposed to react to his endless flirtations and wandering eye? He made it so difficult for her to remain calm, seeming to bring out the worst in her every single day. She did try to approach things differently, play the waiting game, hoping his latest fancy was a passing phase and that he would return to her, mired in regret and begging for forgiveness, but it became so much more difficult once Chloe came on the scene. She changed things. She changed Jacob.

  They had been together for a few months when Chloe came dancing into their lives. Apparently, she was a colleague, a peer, which was a change from Jacob’s usual trick of flirting relentlessly with students who had developed a mad crush on their young good-looking teacher. This was a step up for him. And an unwelcome one at that.

  That particular evening, Leah had planned on the two of them spending time together but Jacob had informed her that he was going to see friends and colleagues. Leah knew immediately what that meant. She had listened to him talking about Chloe, seen the way he looked at her if they happened to bump into her when they were out in town. And they bumped into her a lot.

  That was when it dawned on her. Chloe was following them, trailing after them, making sure she was seen as she stood at the bar, draping herself over it, nodding and smiling at the barman, fluttering her long dark eyelashes and laughing loudly at his jokes. It was sickening to watch, knowing what her ulterior motive was. Jacob. He was her target. That was all she wanted. And by stealth, she finally managed it. She snared him. Chloe stole Jacob from under her nose and now they are an item; a tag team sending her notes warning her off. Accusing her of being a stalker for God’s sake. Such a ridiculous notion.

  Her stomach tightens as she recalls that evening. The evening Leah lost Jacob for good. She had followed him into town, ducking behind road signs and hedges, dipping into doorways every time he glanced around or crossed the road. That was what he had reduced her to – a jealous snooping partner who followed her boyfriend around town to keep tabs on him. It was Jacob’s fault, lying to her, forcing her into a corner where she had no option other than to do such things. None of it was her fault. If only he had remained faithful and not lied to her.

  If only he hadn’t gone out to that restaurant with Chloe. But he did.

  That evening was the worst of times. A low point.

  She had watched as they ate together while she stood outside in the rain, water dripping over her face, clinging to her eyelashes like drops of dew, falling on her face and running down her neck, saturating her clothes and soaking her skin. A terrible memory and such an awful cliché. Such complete sadness that no matter how hard she tries, cannot be erased.

  At one point, Jacob had leaned over the table and kissed Chloe before filling both of their glasses with red wine and raising a toast. And all the while, Leah had stood there, soaking, freezing, despondent and completely powerless. That was when she made a promise to herself to get him back, to keep Chloe away from her boyfriend. Jacob she could forgive, Chloe she could not. He was a chatty charming guy with oodles of charisma and the swarthy looks that sent most women into a swoon. There was no denying that Chloe was a glamorous woman with her own appeal and charisma, but the fact she had stepped in and taken somebody else’s partner made her tinged with something dark, something brooding; an aura of wickedness that Jacob was blind to. She was a siren luring him to the rocks and he had fallen for it, casting Leah aside like an old sock.

  The letter flutters in her hand, the slight tremble in her body now a violent shudder as she struggles to contain her anger and misery. Even thinking about it after all these months brings it back to her so clearly. It’s as if it happened only yesterday, the memory punishingly lucid in her mind, never leaving her, reminding her of how unhappy she is, how desperate she is. How lonely she is.

  She sits, close to tears, aware that she will do anything to get him back.

  Anything at all.

  Solitude is a cold and unforgiving place. An eerily silent and despairing place. She doesn’t like it and doesn’t want to be here. What she does want is her life back to how it was. The life she had with Jacob. Her perfect life, the one she admittedly took for granted before Chloe came along and ruined it.

  Dr
opping to her knees, she gingerly gathers up the fragments of the porcelain shell, placing the small shards in her cupped hand one by one. A stinging sensation whips over her skin. Leah looks down to see a pool of crimson gathering in her palm. She lets out a small cry, blinks, and looks again to see nothing. All she can see is the pile of sharp fragments heaped up in her palm like a tiny mound of rubble. No blood. No cuts to her skin. Nothing.

  She breathes heavily and stands up, small pieces of the shattered ornament crunching underfoot, sending a small ripple of revulsion though her. It reminds her of the time when as a child she stood on a snail, the tiny crack of its shell causing her to stop and shriek until her father assured her it was an accident. He didn’t really understand why she was upset. It wasn’t the thought of killing the snail that repulsed her; it was the actual feel of the crunch and pop of its shell as she stood on it that made her skin crawl. It was only later when she was tucked up in bed that she thought of that snail and how it had ceased to exist because of her. The very idea of wielding such power sent a thrill of excitement through her, flames tingling in her veins and diffusing inside her. That was the first time she had experienced supremacy. It fired up her senses, made her feel alive. No longer was she a small inconsequential child. She was somebody who could control who lived and who died. It was a pivotal moment and the memory of that raw surge of power has never left her.

  Leah shuts her eyes, her palm still stuffed with the broken pieces, sharp serrated edges cutting into her soft unprotected flesh as she closes her hand over them and presses down. She wonders how she was able to experience that feeling of control as a child but as an adult, finds herself incapable of exerting any influence over the important things, like winning Jacob back. Perhaps she’s just not trying hard enough. Perhaps she needs to be more attentive to what is required and find a way around this thing instead of making a fool of herself by standing outside his house like an unwanted guest.

  She lets out a yelp as a piece of the porcelain cuts into her skin. The pain is a release, freeing her of the pent-up anger and frustration that eats at her. This time there is blood. Real blood. She feels it as it covers her palm, its warm stickiness a reminder that she is still alive, that she is still here and able to do something about the shit that is thrown her way.

  Opening her hand and unfurling her fingers, she lets go of the shards, watching as they drop to the floor, spreading far and wide, smeared with her sticky scarlet blood, a metaphor for her life.

  That is who she is now. This is her life – she is broken and bleeding like an exposed vein.

  But not for much longer. Not if she has her way. She has plans to get Jacob back. Whether Chloe likes it or not, she and Jacob are destined to be together, so that woman had better be prepared because Leah is not about to give up without a fight.

  Stripping off her clothes, she stands in the shower, watching as a thin ruby river trails its way down her legs, feathery swirls of pink circling around her feet and down the drain. The water is soothing, silky and calming against her skin. She stands, enjoying the sensation, relishing the smells, inhaling the light floral scent that billows out into the steamy air. The smell of summer. For a short while, she forgets.

  Her eyes are heavy as she turns off the tap, steps out and dries herself.

  Tomorrow is another day. For now, she will sleep. She will conserve her strength, be the stronger person and not allow herself to be dented by their threats.

  Empty threats, that’s all they are. Empty threats that they wouldn’t make if they really knew her. If they knew what lengths she is prepared to go to, to get Jacob back.

  6

  Summer 2005

  The funeral is just the beginning, signifying the horrors that lie ahead. Sitting at the back, refusing to be close to his family, the teenage lad keeps his head low, his eyes fixed on his lap. All around him mourners hold handkerchiefs to their faces, their eyes swollen from the tears they have shed, their faces pallid and wan.

  His jaw is clamped firmly together. It wasn’t his fault. None of this is his fault. Not that his pleas and repeated requests to be believed actually mean anything. After that day on the cliff, after that awful fucking day when little Lucy’s body lay battered and broken at the foot of the craggy cliff face and fear and raw terror reigned supreme, his life has gone into free fall, his emotions spiralling downwards faster than a hammer drill gouging through wet mud. And the worst part is that nobody seems to notice or care. They are all too wrapped up in their own personal grief, a huge mantle of misery pressing down on them all, obliterating everything else. Obliterating reason and compassion and logic.

  ‘Of course we believe you,’ his father has said time and time again, whenever he protests his innocence, when he tells them that he didn’t fight with Lucy or push her, either deliberately or by mistake, but his father’s eyes tell a different story. The damage is already done. His sister’s words have bored a hole in everybody’s thoughts, forcing them to question his credibility, his integrity and sanity. Is he capable of such an act?

  He has had a few incidents at school – nothing major, just a lack of interest in schoolwork and an unwillingness to engage with lessons – but is now thought of as a nuisance by certain teachers. He is labelled and neatly categorised and now everybody doubts him. The die is cast. But getting into scrapes at school and being less than eager to engage with English lessons is in a different league to pushing small children to their deaths. He is innocent. There is no question about it. But his sister’s words have sowed the seed of doubt in everybody’s minds and now the damage is done.

  He hadn’t even wanted to go with them that day. He was fifteen years old – too old for picnics at the seaside with family and friends. Too old to be stuck on a clifftop with his sister and mum and dad and their friends and young daughter who was both cute and annoying at the same time. She was six for God’s sake. All six-year-olds possess those traits. And yes, he had complained that she was getting on his nerves but that didn’t mean he wanted to kill her. Everybody was getting on his frigging nerves that particular afternoon. His mother, his father, his sister, Johnny and Petra – his parents’ friends – and little Lucy. Having been told that he wasn’t allowed to stay home alone as some sort of warped punishment for not doing his homework, he had been dragged along, sulking and full of hell like a petulant child. He can’t even remember what happened as Lucy fell. All day long, he had been busy checking his phone, hoping for a return text from Lauren Bixby that never came – another reason to feel completely fucking miserable.

  All he remembered was a scuffle, then a scream – that scream – then he and his sister crashing into each other in a confused, hysterical frenzy. And next the utter terror, that gut-sinking feeling as the enormity of what had just happened dawned on him. His mind slowed down, struggled to process it all. His skin had turned cold while his blood ran hot through his veins.

  And then his sister’s wild and unsubstantiated accusation. Those words. Those fucking stupid senseless words that cut him in half, reaching in to his very core; cold hands grasping at his heart, ripping it out of his chest, holding it aloft for all the world to see, his dying pulsing heart that since that day has felt completely out of sync, never quite beating in time and feeling as if it is slowly rotting inside his body.

  He hasn’t spoken to his sister since her mad unwarranted accusation. He can’t bring himself to. He can barely look at her or be in the same room as her. She knows it wasn’t him, has always known it. She was just pissed off with him. That is her default emotion; permanently pissed off with a whacking great chip on her shoulder. He is older by two years. They may be close in age but as far as any sort of bond goes, they are poles apart. It’s as if they aren’t really related at all. But that’s how she has been for most of her life; aloof, dispassionate. Different.

  Lucy’s aunt stalks past him down the aisle, an uncharacteristic swagger to her walk, her eyes dark and condemnatory. He wonders if that look is meant for him, a way of t
rying to punish him. That’s how it’s been since the accident, second guessing everything, presuming every negative word is aimed at him, every black look, every single hissed accusation about Lucy’s unexplained death, all intended to frame him and make him appear guilty.

  Johnny and Petra spoke to the police after the accident, as did his parents. He has no idea what was said. His parents assured him it was just a formality and that nothing would come of it. The police also spoke to him and his sister who, much to his surprise, said nothing about her earlier accusations. She obviously thought better of it, knowing her account wouldn’t stand up under close scrutiny. But mud sticks. Johnny and Petra haven’t said anything to him directly but their looks and body language tell him everything he needs to know.

  ‘I saved your arse,’ his sister said after their police interviews. ‘I didn’t tell them what you did. I kept quiet but that doesn’t matter because everybody already knows anyway.’

  He had felt his innards writhe and twist at her words. He has no idea why she told everyone he pushed little Lucy, no idea at all. What irks and baffles him the most is why she is the way she is. She has had a good life, the best. They have decent caring parents – hardworking and compassionate. They have been given unconditional love. He and his sister may have grown up together but when it comes down to it, he doesn’t really know her at all. She is a stranger to him. She is a stranger to all of them.

  The eulogy delivered by Alice, Lucy’s aunt, is without doubt one of the most moving heart-rending speeches he has ever heard. Despite trying to stop them, his tears flow freely every time that little girl’s name is spoken, the lump in his throat boulder sized, his eyes sore and gritty.

  He leaves the church feeling wrung out, thinking that if this is how he feels for little Lucy, then how desperate must Johnny and Petra feel? How hurt and despondent must they be? He has no idea how they are still able to function, to attend their own daughter’s funeral, sitting close by the coffin that contains her tiny battered and broken body.