When I recover from the surprise, I’m glad of it. Bring it on.
‘Hello, Martha.’
Her fabulous green eyes look like a viper’s. ‘Hello, Lisa.’
‘Martha, I’ve been meaning to ask you a question.’
‘Really?’
‘How did you know who I was?’
She looks like an old hag. Or do I just think this woman is an old hag, so now she looks like one?
‘You’re wrong, I don’t know who you are.’
‘Doctor Peters’ daughter.’
‘Oh, I see.’ She looks at me for a long time. ‘You don’t look well. It’s probably all that worrying about Doctor Peters, Doctor Wilson, your father and mother, writing on the wall. It’s enough to drive a girl crazy. And you were pretty crazy to start with, weren’t you? Let’s face it.’
The blood drains from my face, leaving me cold.
‘Yes, I heard all about that from Doctor Wilson himself. You’d think after the way I treated him, he’d slam the door in my face when I paid him a visit to find out what you were up to. But no, he couldn’t wait to give me all the salacious details. Another one of my ex-lovers who couldn’t kick the habit. I broke him the same way I broke Doctor Peters. That’s what I do to amuse myself. Break men.’ She looks into my eyes. ‘And talking of habits, Lisa, you’re not on the stuff again like the other night? That’s very unwise for a girl in your fragile mental condition.’
She’s confessing to something. I try to put a list of questions together to ask her but I can’t put them in any sort of order or get them to make any sense. So, I give up and head for the stairs.
She grabs my hand, her nails digging into my palm. ‘Careful, you might fall. Let me help.’
Her hot hand slides up my arm as she gets up. I want to break the contact but I can’t. ‘Where do you want to go? What do you want to know?’
It occurs to me that she might try and kill me on the stairs and I start to struggle. But at the same time, I’m glad she’s there because she’s right. I’ve lost all sense of time and space and I really might fall.
I listlessly tell her, ‘You’re a murderer.’
Her perfect teeth resemble freshly washed gravestones as she tosses her head back and laughs. ‘Me? Oh dear, you’re not much of a detective, are you? I’ve never killed anyone.’ She holds me close and whispers. ‘It was your father, Lisa. He’s the killer. Read his suicide notes. You found one of them on that first day. I saw it on your desk when you went skipping off to work.’
Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! Why didn’t you put the letter away? Hide it?
Her breath is poisonous against my face. ‘Your father admitted it. He was the killer. He murdered your mother and your brother and sister and he tried to kill you too. And why? Because although I was his lover, I wouldn’t run away with him and it drove him mad. The same way this has driven you mad. Imagine, killing your own family all because the woman you love won’t run off with you?’
I’m terrified. I need all my wits about me but my wits are shot. I need to trust my eyes, ears and all my senses but I can’t. They’ve disappeared into a hall of mirrors where nothing is real. I need to trust this woman who knows what happened that day but she’s spinning a web of truths, half-truths and lies to finally finish the job she started when she spiked my water bottle. I’m desperate to go back and pour that water down the sink. Or even further back, to that dismal but joyous day that I first saw the mason’s mark on the wall of this house and cried ‘I’ve found it!’ Or even back to my fifth birthday when I could have cried ‘Someone’s going to kill us all! Let’s run!’
I want out. But there is no out. This will unroll all the way to the end but I don’t know where that will be.
Somehow we’re in the hallway, stuck to each other like two lovers. How did we get here? My confused mind tries to process it.
I hear a voice behind me but I don’t look round. ‘What’s the matter with her?’
It’s Jack. Martha turns. Her response is blank. ‘She’s doing acid again. I’m just helping her walk it off and making sure she doesn’t do anything stupid. Don’t worry; she’ll be back in hospital tomorrow.’
Jack doesn’t sound convinced. ‘Really? Where did she get the acid from then?’
‘How the hell would I know? You’re the expert.’
Jack says nothing. I’m screaming at him to help, but the sound’s locked inside my frantic mind. He comes around in front of us. He lifts my eyelids and examines my pupils and pinches my cheek. He doesn’t believe her. He’s suspicious. Not only can I see he’s suspicious, I can read it in his over-bright eyes.
‘She needs a doctor.’
‘Good idea. You call one, and call a good lawyer while you’re at it. You’ll need one when questions start getting asked.’ Her voice is nasty, full of taunting disrespect.
‘I know a doctor who’s discreet.’ He peers at me. ‘Are you alright?’
Martha steps in. ‘She’s fine. Why don’t you piss off and watch the telly?’
Deep inside, I’m saying, She’s a murderer. She’s going to kill me.
Then I realise I’ve said it out loud.
Martha taps the side of her head with a finger and rolls her eyes to indicate that I’m off it. ‘I’ve told you to go and watch the fucking football,’ she viciously orders Jack like she has all the power over him.
He looks at me and then very slowly slinks off to the front room. Martha is suddenly a woman in a hurry. She escorts me into the dining room.
‘This is where it happened. Your father told me. You, your mum and your brother and sister were here having a little party for your fifth birthday. Your father was late because he was making love to me in a hotel room.’
Stop! Please make her stop!
She won’t.
‘While we were lying in bed afterwards, he begged me to run away with him and said he couldn’t live without me. Of course, I said no. He had family responsibilities. And anyway, I was your mother’s best friend, did you know that?’
Stop it! Stop it!
‘Just imagine when your mother was wailing about your father never coming home and suspecting that he was having an affair; it was actually me she was confiding in. She felt I was the only person she could rely on. She even invited me to your fifth birthday party. Just imagine! Her husband’s lover who she thought was the only person she could trust, her closest and beloved friend.
‘Pathetic, isn’t it? She was virtually an honorary man, your mother. So, I couldn’t run off with your father. I couldn’t do that, even though he adored me like Doctor Wilson and all the rest of them. Of course, I should have let him down gently but I’m a cruel woman who likes breaking men. And when he walked out of that hotel room, a broken man, he had murder in his eyes.’
I look around the dining room. It’s silent and motionless. The chairs and the cabinet are still.
Martha’s siren call won’t let me go. ‘And when he came through the front door, he gave you your present and then he reached for the cake knife and he stabbed your mother to death before your eyes and chased the rest of you upstairs, waving his knife. Do you remember?’
I do remember. She’s right. In this silent room, I remember. Martha’s arm around me reminds me of that other woman who had her arm around me that day. Singing ‘One, two, buckle my shoe’ as she put my party clothes on. My loving mother who was celebrating my fifth birthday. I remember the children, those faceless children, who were my older brother and sister. I remember the cake knife and I remember being chased down. I remember the blood and the children’s screams. I remember the terror. And I remember hiding under the bed. It’s all just as Martha says.
Except in one respect.
‘No, that’s not what happened. You came to the door that day, Martha. A woman screamed and you don’t scream, do you? You didn’t come here to scream. You came here to say something to my mum on my fifth birthday. I heard a woman screaming.’ The awful, terrible truth spills out. ‘And after you’d
said it, and you’d left, she came in here and tried to kill us. She chased us upstairs and that’s when the children were screaming. That was us. Me. And then she killed herself… and then my dad came home later and he screamed too when he saw what had taken place. That’s what happened.’
I nod like I’m drunk, about to topple over. ‘That’s what happened. What did you say to my mum that made her want to kill us all? What things did you say to her? About you and my dad on my fifth birthday? When you came to our house from the hotel where you were having sex with him? Is that what you told her? About that? You knew she was fragile. Did you try and stop her or did you just walk out on your beloved friend, your evil work done?’
Martha says nothing. She doesn’t say I’m right. But she doesn’t say I’m wrong either. I feel disorientated but it doesn’t feel drug induced now. Perhaps there wasn’t enough LSD in the water to properly send me flying.
Martha sighs. ‘Why don’t you ask them?’
‘Ask who?’
‘Doctor Peters, his pathetic deranged wife or your siblings? Why don’t you ask them?’
I look at her, stunned. This woman is insane. ‘They’re dead, that’s why.’
‘You’re dead too. You’ve been dead ever since that day. You’re a child out of time. It’s what your father used to say when I let him stay in that room in his own house: “I should have died with the others and Lisa should have too, then everything would have been settled”.’
I don’t believe her. No. It’s not true.
She grips my waist firmly and marches me out of the dining room. I go willingly down the hallway and up the two flights of stairs to my room. I look on impassively as she pulls the bedside cabinet across the room, climbs on it and throws open the dormer window. She pulls herself up and out onto the ledge outside where Bette died. In my head, I’m somewhere else but I don’t know where. I think she’s going to kill herself but I don’t care. I don’t care about death anymore; I’ve had enough of it. She offers me her hand through the window. She’s going to kill the pair of us or maybe just me. But I don’t care. I climb out of the window.
‘Before he dumped you with Edward and Barbara, your father told you that your mum and siblings had gone to heaven to be with the stars.’ She points upwards at the black sky. ‘Go on, go and ask them. Go and ask them what happened. Why don’t you be the man your father never was? Go and ask them. Don’t be weak. Weakness disgusts me. There’s nothing left for you now anyway, except to go and be with them.’
Of course, she’s right. I peer over the edge of the ledge and into the darkness. But now I know the truth, I want to live. I don’t want the darkness anymore.
I look behind me. I’m thinking of going back in. She won’t kill me, I know that. But when I do, I see Jack staring up at me.
He’s talking to Martha. ‘What the hell are you doing? Get back in here now.’
Martha sneers, ‘Fuck off you idiot boy. She thinks she can fly. Do you want me to leave her out here on her own?’
‘No, I want you both to come back in here.’ He reaches out and grabs my hand and tries to pull me inside.
There’s a three-way struggle. But I can’t tell who’s pulling at who or why. Martha is holding my arm; is she trying to pull me out or push me in? With Jack’s hand firmly grasping mine, I try to hold on to Martha’s hand in turn. Or am I pushing or pulling her instead?
Our faces are close and I can see there’s fear in her beautiful green eyes. Jack gives me a violent tug and in turn Martha falls and slips away down the roof. For a moment her foot catches the ledge and her face is frozen in time for a moment. Then she’s gone.
Jack pulls me inside. He’s shaking. He jumps up again and looks out of the window. He climbs outside and gingerly makes his way across the roof and looks over the edge. He mutters something savagely under his breath before making his way back up to the window and climbing back in.
He grabs me by the shoulders and shakes me. ‘Right.’ He draws breath. ‘She’s dead for certain. We’ll have to call the cops. But when they get here, leave me to do the talking. Do you understand?’ He shakes me. ‘I said do you understand?’
But I say nothing. Because there’s nothing left except the truth.
Chapter 38
I’m shattered. I lie with my head cushioned against Alex’s shoulder as we sit inside Patsy’s front room. Davis lies on the carpet next to us, as if sensing my distress.
There’s a knock at the front door. I immediately tense. Hope it’s not the police again. I’ve already given a statement to them about what happened and don’t have the strength to give them more. I’ll let Jack do the talking. A tale about his wife jumping from the window. She’d been so troubled lately… Doctor Wilson had arrived at the police station to back this up; his patient Martha Palmer had been a very troubled woman indeed.
Martha’s dead. I don’t know how I feel. The end of a human life is never something to rejoice about, but she was evil. Evil doesn’t have the right to live among us.
‘I’ll get it,’ Patsy calls from the kitchen.
She’s been an absolute love, making tea, producing sandwiches and cakes and, more importantly, not throwing questions at me.
Her head peeps around the front room doorway. She’s pensive. ‘There’s a man and woman at the door who say they’re your parents.’
An outraged Alex answers for me. ‘Tell them to sling their hook. They should be locked up behind bars for what they’ve put Lisa through.’
Mum and Dad had turned up almost at the same time as the police outside Martha and Jack’s house. They had been beside themselves wanting to speak to me. I refused. Now I knew the truth I was frightened what I might say to them.
‘It’s OK, Alex.’ I raise my head and turn to Patsy. ‘Tell them to come in.’
I feel stronger now. There’s still part of the story missing and I suspect they are the only ones who can fill me in.
Both my parents are a sorry sight. Dad seems to have aged ten years and Mum’s head is bowed, her face ravaged; she can’t meet my eyes.
Dad coughs. ‘Lisa, we understand if you don’t want to speak with us. But we would like to be given the opportunity to.’
I can sense Alex is itching to tell them to piss off. I lay a hand on his thigh. ‘Can you give us some time, Alex?’
He reluctantly gets up. ‘If you need me—’
I smile wearily. ‘I know.’
He refuses to look at my parents as he leaves the room. I get up and move to the armchair. Davis accompanies me.
I wave at the sofa. ‘Please.’ I keep my tone civil and in control.
Dad starts to talk as soon as they are sat. ‘Lisa, I—’
‘No.’ I’m fierce in my need for control. ‘I’m not going to yell, scream or shout. I might one day soon. But that’s not important to me now. What is important is you telling me exactly what happened on my fifth birthday. I know some of what happened because John Peters wrote his story on the wall of my room.’
‘What?’ flies like a missile out of Dad.
Mum makes this strange keening sound and starts rocking. I can’t deal with her pain now; I only have time for my own.
‘I want to start by reading you the final part of his story,’ I tell them. From my pocket I take out Alex’s translation and in a firm, steady voice, I say: ‘His writings always start the same, with a line of poetry from a Russian poet called Etienne Solanov. Each and every line chosen has been such an accurate starting point for each piece of writing. This one is no different. It says: “When I laid the others to rest, I laid myself to rest as well. But there was no rest for me”.’
I fight to keep my voice steady as I continue to read…
Chapter 39
Before: 1998
He was late. Again. When he put the key in the door, he wondered how much of that had been deliberate. How much of it was because he didn’t like going home anymore. No matter what his reasons, he felt guilt-ridden. No father should be late to celebrate h
is child’s new milestone in life. His beautiful Marissa was celebrating turning five. Under his arm was a carefully wrapped present and in the other was his medical bag. As soon as he came through the door, he knew something was terribly wrong.
The house was hushed, unnaturally so. It should be filled with loud raise-the-roof laughter and merriment at Marissa’s birthday celebrations. Marissa had so wanted a proper party with invitations for her friends, but Alice had decided that she only wanted her family gathered together. A time for them to close the door and shut out the rest of the world. The world could intrude tomorrow; today was for them alone.
He knew his wife and children were there because the front door wasn’t double locked as it always was when they went out. Surely, they wouldn’t have gone out without telling him? Especially on Marissa’s birthday.
‘Hello? Where’s my birthday girl?’ His happy-happy voice sounded strange in the silence of the house.
No answer. His heart started galloping; something was badly wrong here. He urgently strode through to the dining room. His breath slashes against the inside of his throat. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. A scene of utter bedlam. Party cups and plates smashed. Fruit juice and fizzy drinks splashed and in puddles on the floor and across the furniture. Chairs tipped over. Blown-up balloons aimlessly abandoned on the ground. ‘Happy 5th birthday’ banners half hanging off the walls.
In the midst of the ugly scene, as if in the wrong place, stood the birthday cake. Untouched, resting on the table as if begging to be cut. Alice had ordered it with such care. A large sponge cake in the image of Bob the Builder, from Marissa’s favourite TV show.
Then he saw what was on the wall. Red marks, smears, uneven drips and obscene patterns. Blood. He knew blood when he saw it. It had become almost an unwanted best friend during his job as a trauma surgeon. His apprehension twisted into full-blown fear. His daughter’s gift slipped from his hand and crashed to the floor. He felt as if he was going to have a heart attack.
Spare Room: a twisty dark psychological thriller Page 25