Spare Room: a twisty dark psychological thriller

by Dreda Say Mitchell

  Where’s my family? Where’s my family? What if intruders…?

  Sickened to his soul and terrified, he flew into the kitchen. The back door was locked and secured just like the front door. He started panting, shaking all over, trying desperately to figure it out. Alice would defend her children with her life against an attacker. That must have been what had happened.

  He ran from the kitchen to the morning room to the lounge. All empty. He stopped in the heart of the house on the red and black rug, looking up the stairs. His bones felt like they were shaking. Whatever had happened here, he knew it awaited him up those stairs. He bent over with a cry. He didn’t want to go. Couldn’t face it. He didn’t feel strong enough for this.

  He straightened one vertebra at a time as he sucked back the threatening tears. He saw trauma almost every day; he could deal with this. He had to deal with this. His steps were heavy against the stairs as he clung on for dear life to the bannister. He nearly fell backwards when he saw the arm hanging over the top of the first landing. He wanted to howl. Wouldn’t let himself. He saw trauma all of the time. Broken bodies and shattered lives. The only way he could get through his own shattered life – and there was no doubt it was smashed to pieces – was to don the impersonal white coat of the surgeon he was. He made his way to the top and surveyed the scene.

  The arm belonged to his beautiful wife, Alice. Her still, pale body was lying across the landing. Across her wrists were two bloody slits where the life had drained out of her. This would have ended her life in short order from blood loss. Both hands were collapsed under the knife protruding for her heart.

  He knew at once what he was seeing. The slashes on the wrists and the knife wound were self-inflicted. His adored Alice, who he had married on a perfect, summer’s day in June, had taken her own life. Killed herself. It would take the police and their forensics team a few minutes to conclude that.

  Despite the unbelievable grief clawing him raw inside, he refused to cry. Not yet. There was more to come. So much more.

  Near the entrance to the bathroom lay his son, Leo. Dead. He’d been the victim of a frenzied attack, his body slashed and cut too many times to count. The two fatal knife wounds were to his back.

  He walked calmly through the middle floor and found his oldest daughter, Tina, in a bedroom, by the window. The net curtains were blowing in the breeze over her dead body. She looked as if she had been trying to escape to the outside but hadn’t made it. Her wounds were the same as Leo’s except there was only one fatal blow this time, through the chest.

  Still, with a professional eye he allowed himself to make a prognosis of what had happened here. His wife had flipped. She’d murdered her children while the balance of her mind was disturbed before she turned the knife on herself. That was what the coroner was going to say and that was what the papers were going to go to town with.

  He jammed his hand over his mouth and began to scream behind it as if his lungs would break. His mind was going, he was sure. His children were dead. Dead. Dead. Christ Almighty, help me. Leo, Tina and…

  He hand dropped, with the weight of the dead, from him mouth. Where was Marissa? He was a mad man as he ran from the top of the house, but his youngest was nowhere to be seen. There were trails of blood running along carpets that he hadn’t noticed earlier but they didn’t seem to lead to anywhere. And then he began to think perhaps she had escaped onto the street where a stranger had rescued her and took her to hospital, but she was too shocked to tell anyone what had happened. He wanted to hope that but at the same time he was filled with fear at the prospect that she was safe somewhere. Because he didn’t want any witnesses to what his wife had done.

  Finally, he found her under the bed he and Alice had made love in until a year ago. Marissa was curled into a ball, her birthday dress soaked with blood and, good God, the soles of both feet slashed over and over again. He imagined the dreadful scene. Marissa running for her life, away from her attacking mother, who wielded her lethal knife to slice into her youngest child’s skin. But his birthday girl had been brave, as she’d kept on running until she found a hiding place under the bed. Alice hadn’t been able to force her out; the only part of Marissa’s body she’d been able to get was under her feet. Once Alice knew the job was done, she’d gone to the landing and taken her own life.

  He went down on his knees and pressed his back against the wall. His life was over. Destroyed.

  ‘Daddy?’

  His head jerked back to the bed. He scrambled over. Marissa. She stared at him with huge, pain- and tear-filled eyes. His daughter was alive. Laughter rumbled in his chest.

  ‘It’s me, baby. Daddy’s here. Daddy will make you all better.’

  He slithered under the bed on his belly and carefully pulled his gasping daughter towards him. He took her gently into his arms. The only thing left under the bed was a dead mouse with large dead eyes.

  Chapter 40

  Ifinish reading. Mum’s weeping openly, a forlorn, mournful beat in the room. Dad is frozen, wearing a ghostly expression as if someone is walking on his grave. I suppose someone is. John Peters, my blood father. And the rest of my family, who were slaughtered in the house next door.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ I ask quietly. I don’t have the time or stamina for anger anymore.

  He’s grief-stricken. ‘How could I tell you that your mother, the woman who carried you for nine months, killed your brother and sister and tried to kill you too? I couldn’t tell you that.’ His voice is raspy, barely above a whisper. ‘Your mum – Barbara – never knew what had happened. I told her we were looking after a friend’s child for a while. Then it turned into years. You became ours.’

  ‘Did you help my blood father cover this up?’

  Dad takes a while to answer. ‘We all met in medical school – your dad, me and Tommy Wilson. We clicked instantly. Other students nicknamed us the Three Medical Musketeers.’ A small smile flickers across his lips at the memory.

  ‘That was my dad in the photo you took off the wall. The one with Doctor Wilson?’

  I don’t need my dad’s single nod for confirmation. ‘We all chose different disciplines, with John training long and hard to be a trauma surgeon. He was the best there was.’ His tone is fiercely proud at my blood father’s achievements. ‘We remained close, which was why when he called me in such a desperate state I had to help him. When I got to the house…’ He shakes his head, his face stark. ‘It was the most hellish scene I’d ever witnessed. He gave me the option of not getting involved because if the police found out I could end up in prison. But John hadn’t done a thing. It wasn’t fair. He was only thinking of your mother’s reputation. If it got into the papers she would be destroyed.’

  ‘Tell me about my mum,’ I interrupt softly.

  ‘I don’t know where they met. She’d had a tough background. Grown up in the care system. I don’t know how she got there but she didn’t have any family. She was such a beautiful woman, so striking.’ He pauses. ‘But there was something fragile about her, like it wouldn’t take much for her to fall off the edge—’

  ‘Which leads me to why such a beautiful woman, with a loving husband, would kill her children.’ God, it hurts to say it aloud.

  Dad looks down for a time. Then raises his gaze to me. ‘Maybe it wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for Martha. Martha Palmer was one of the most bewitching and narcissistic people I have ever known. Tommy went into the field of psychiatry and very stupidly started going out with one of his patients.’

  Mum speaks for the first time, her eyes reflecting scorn. ‘I met her once at one of Tommy’s parties. She did her best to make him jealous by flirting with so many of the men there. She was gorgeous, I’ll give her that, but it was clear as the nose on my face she had a heart that was rotten to the core.’

  ‘I heard they split up.’ Dad takes up the story. ‘Only later did I realise that happened because all of a sudden she was Alice’s best friend. Then she made a beeline for John. She
must’ve dazzled him because they ended up having an affair. He was besotted with her, totally under her control.’ Just like Jack. ‘I told him to end it. It wasn’t fair to Alice and the kids. But he didn’t. In fact, he was going to leave his family for her.’

  I fill in the rest of the story. ‘She came to the house on my birthday. Why would she do that?’

  Dad says, ‘Martha Palmer was a spiteful and evil woman. She couldn’t stand the fact that John came home to Alice and his family every night. So, she went to his house. Alice invited her in, innocently, as her best friend, and she told Alice about the affair. And ripped her world apart.’

  I hear the screaming in the front room. Rub my temple to make it stop.

  He continues. ‘She waltzed out after she’d done her evil, leaving Alice with her world crumbling beneath her feet.’

  ‘But to murder her children, Edward, to kill herself.’ Mum’s shocked voice shudders.

  ‘I know. I know,’ Dad whispers. ‘Not only was she betrayed by her husband but also by her so-called best friend. That was too big a burden for her to carry. I think she just snapped.’

  There’s an awful silence. Then I ask, ‘How did you help him?’

  ‘I counselled him to go to the police, but he wouldn’t. What he wanted me to do was to take you away for a time, which I agreed to do.’

  I see young me staring out of the car window, my gaze on the mason’s mark on the house, watching it grow smaller until it is gone.

  ‘He gave you one thing that belonged to your mother. Something she wore a lot. We gave it to you on your fifteenth birthday,’ Dad says softly.

  ‘My scarf.’

  How ironic is that? The scarf that has kept me safe at night belonged to the woman who tried to murder me. My own mother. And I understand something else: Martha must have recognised Alice’s scarf, as she was her best friend. That night she saw it when she guided me back to my room after the awake-sleeping. No wonder she’d asked me who it belonged to. And when I told her my mum… I remember how she’d left it on my bed, tangled in knot after knot after knot.

  ‘What happened to their bodies?’

  Dad shakes his head again. ‘I don’t know. In our business we have access to all types of people, including undertakers who have crematoriums. Or he may have buried them. I don’t know.’

  In that instant I know I will never find the resting place of my family.

  ‘Enough innocent people have been hurt already.’ That’s what was in the farewell letter. Too many innocent people.

  ‘Why did he come back to stay at the house with Martha and Jack?’

  My dad lets out a humourless laugh. ‘That she-devil had twisted her claws into him. He couldn’t let her go. Tommy told me how she operated. He said her big thing was taking things away from lovers after the relationship ended.’ I think of Bette’s name tag. ‘What she wanted to take away from your father was his home. She will have tormented him for years with other men, and with what happened to his wife, his children. Blamed him. I suspect eventually she would have brought a younger man back, this man being Jack, and banished John to the room at the top of the house.’

  ‘It must have got too much for him because he killed himself recently. I found his suicide note.’

  ‘Good God,’ Mum cries, her gaze wild.

  ‘I know,’ Dad says.

  ‘What?’ My back straightens. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I was there.’

  Chapter 41

  ‘What are you saying, Edward?’ Mum shouts.

  ‘Martha called me. Told me John was behaving erratically.’ He turns desperate eyes to her. ‘What did you want me to do? Leave Lisa’s father with that woman? No.’ His voice is hard. ‘I went round there and saw him. He reassured me he was alright. I left him to speak to that woman and we ended up arguing downstairs. By the time I came back up he was hanging there.’ The horror of it makes him cover his mouth. Sweat is gleaming on his forehead. ‘I took John away. Took him to an undertaker I trusted and gave him a decent burial.’ There are floods of tears streaming down his face. ‘My friend didn’t deserve what happened to him. The least I could do was make sure he was laid to rest. Me and Tommy were the only people at his grave.’

  ‘What about Jack?’ I want to cry too, but won’t allow myself to. I have to hear this story to the end.

  ‘He wasn’t there. Off on a work job up north. When he came back we agreed she would tell him that John had left. She would tell Jack never to mention John’s name again to her. Pretend he hadn’t existed.’

  So that’s why Jack had insisted there was no previous tenant. He hadn’t been involved, simply following Martha’s instruction like a puppy does for its owner.

  Dad starts to sob horribly. My strong, stoic father who I know has only tried his best for me. I can’t do it, sit there and watch him fall apart. I hurry over and take his body, racked with wretched sobs, in my arms.

  ‘It’s alright, Dad. It’s alright.’

  He raises his wet face to look at me. ‘When I found out you were living under the same roof as that sick, immoral woman I thought I was losing my mind. I had to get you out of there. Tommy agreed to help me.’

  ‘Trying to drive me mad was not the way to do it, Dad.’

  ‘I know. But I was desperate. Martha told me she found John’s suicide letter on your desk in the room.’

  ‘Is that when she figured out I was John’s daughter?’

  ‘No. It was only after she found out from her husband that you had your own home that her suspicions were raised. She traced you through the electoral roll.’ Just as Alex had done with the house. My enemy used my own trick against me. ‘As soon as she connected you to me, she told me to get you out or else… That’s why I turned up with your mother to persuade you to leave. I know it was a terrible thing to do to section you the time I came with Tommy, but I’d have done anything – anything – to get you away from her. She was going to hurt you. Alice’s last child.’

  My mum puts her hand on my shoulder and we remain locked together in the shape of the tight-knit family we so want to be.

  Eventually I lean back on my heels and pull out John Peters’ story again. Funny. He doesn’t feel like my dad. He’ll always be John Peters to me.

  ‘Now we’ve spoken I feel strong enough to read the rest of the story to you. It’s hard for me to read because it has given me such bad nightmares for such a long time. I don’t understand how he could have done this to me.’

  Chapter 42

  Before: 1998

  His injured daughter burst into agonising tears, her little chest rasping as she desperately tried to fill her lungs as he laid her with the softest care on the bed. He couldn’t bear the pain she was in. All because of him and the reckless choices he’d made. In that moment he made a decision. Right or wrong, it was what he’d decided to do.

  He smiled as he ran his hand over her blood-free hair. ‘Daddy’s a doctor; he knows how to mend little girls who’ve been in accidents.’

  He kissed her softly on the forehead. Then inspected her injuries. The slashes on the arms and legs were savage, but not too deep. The one on her small belly was much deeper, done with the intent to kill. How could Alice have done this? The slashes under his daughter’s feet would mend with time. He wasn’t sure if they would fade; the skin on the feet could have a mind all of its own. So many nerve endings run to the feet; these wounds must be hurting his darling baby like crazy.

  As he turned for the door, Marissa cried out in a weak, terrified voice, ‘Don’t leave me, Daddy. Please don’t leave me.’

  He quickly returned and soothed her with another kiss. ‘I’ll just be gone for a bit. Daddy will make you better.’

  He came back, with the doctor’s bag he kept in the house. He always had an extra set of instruments at home ready to go in case of an emergency. He gave Marissa all the pain medication he had, and it soon became apparent it wasn’t enough. As he laboured over his youngest and only living child for the next th
ree hours, she screamed out in pain, even biting down on the towel he gave her. He hated himself. But what could he do? If he took her to the hospital questions would be asked. He couldn’t have his beautiful Alice demonised in the press as a mother who murdered her children. God forgive him, but his beloved daughter would have to endure more tremendous pain to save his wife. This was all his fault. He was to blame.

  The secrets of this house must remain buried forever.

  Chapter 43

  Now

  ‘Ican feel the needle and the awful pain going through me when I dream,’ I tell my stunned parents. ‘It hurts so much. I could never understand how a knife could turn into a needle. How could he do that to me?’

  Dad pulls me close. ‘He blamed himself for what happened. I suspect, knowing John, he wanted only his loving hands to heal you.’

  ‘I don’t understand why I didn’t remember any of this. How could I forget?’

  It’s Mum who speaks. ‘No child wants to remember their mother trying to kill them and killing their brother and sister. What a terrible thing to have to live with.’

  Dad adds, ‘It was so traumatic your mind couldn’t deal with it. Although Barbara didn’t know what happened we both decided to invent the farm accident as a way for you to cope. If we gave you a real-life incident to hang on to then maybe you would come to terms with it in time.’

  ‘Except I didn’t.’

  ‘Do you feel more at peace now?’

  I think on it as I hold a palm against my heart. ‘I’m not sure. I do know that finding out the truth is important to me. I don’t feel like I’m going mad.’

  I fix my gaze only on Dad. ‘Will you take me to John Peters’ grave?’

  John

  Father

  Husband

  Friend