Do Her No Harm

by Naomi Joy

Now

  I cower next to the car. It’s the same one, I’m sure of it, from the CCTV photos.

  My mind plays something that Kay had once said to me: If there was a way of getting into Rick’s home, I know there’d be something. Even something small. Killers, or kidnappers, always leave mementos, little trophies reminding them of what they’ve done and of how clever they’ve been. Mark my words: there’ll be something in that house.

  She hadn’t been wrong; I’d just been looking in the wrong house, or garden, for that matter.

  I am stuck in the dark of the grass, the insects getting used to my presence now, woodlice and spiders scurrying across my hands and feet, and I feel them occasionally – or imagine them – climbing up my trouser legs. I can’t move until Kay leaves and, at the turn of the next hour, thankfully, that’s exactly what she does. The kitchen lights disappear, and I hear the tell-tale thuds of her front door slamming, a lock twisting into place behind.

  I wait for a few minutes longer, just in case it’s a trap, eyeing up one of the ground-floor windows. It’s open a crack, but it’s small, no bigger than my head, and I assume it backs off a bathroom. Moving from the grass awakens a cacophony of shooting pains and pins-and-needles fizz at my feet as I stand. When I get to the window, I tiptoe up and push my hand through the gap. From here, I’m able to turn the main window’s lock open and push it wide, the space just big enough to squeeze through. My coat catches on the latch as I pull myself into the bathroom, a single feather attached to the mechanism as I turn back to check the damage. I pluck it off, push it into my pocket, and observe where I’ve just landed.

  The bathroom is predictably worn, the grout between the beige tiles murky-brown, giving the impression that muck keeps them together rather than cement. Black mould furs around the shower cubicle and the toilet churns out a constant trickle of water, stagnant paper wedged in the bowl. I avert my stare: I don’t want to look any closer. I pull my sleeve to my mouth, terrified to take a full breath in. I decide not to explore the downstairs – I’ve seen these rooms before – and instead head up, climbing the carpeted stairs that wind upwards.

  I daren’t turn on the lights, cream wallpaper just light enough that I can see where I’m going, my eyes adjusting to the dark. The first door peeks into a bedroom. I step in, it’s colder than outside, a thin slither of a window open in the corner. Kay’s bedroom floor is covered in clothes, the bed a jumble of sheets and bare pillows, yellow stains on the surface. I press on, find another bathroom – equally as grotty – then a spare bedroom, though it’s more of a storage room – they all are – a single bed buried somewhere beneath the stacks of rubbish that sit on top. The air is dense and dusty, my lungs tightening the deeper I go.

  Behind the penultimate door, my breathing ceases and my hand drops to my side. Behind it, photographs are splattered on each wall, runs of thread connecting pieces of paper, maps, smaller photographs, scribbled notes. The place is teeming with investigation and, as I move inside, I find the entire back wall is covered in Tabby. Her face provides the central point from which the threads tentacle out, my own face at the top, a picture I took for Pure You’s website. On the opposite wall there’s the face of a girl I don’t recognise, her name splashed below. Orla Robero, 1999-2015. I step closer, look into the details, and quickly piece the puzzle together. I trace back, memories of Kay talking about a teenager daughter fizzing at the back of my mind – but I’d never met her. This is why.

  Kay Robero’s teenage daughter is dead. Tabby must have had something to do with it.

  Kay

  Five Years Ago

  ‘You want some?’ I ask Tabitha as we speed along, nodding towards the bottle of water between us.

  ‘Is that OK?’ she replies. ‘I’m really thirsty. You don’t mind sharing?’

  ‘No, no, you go ahead,’ I encourage.

  ‘Not a germaphobe then?’ Tabitha asks, giggling to herself as though it’s a private joke. When she sees me raise my eyebrows she elaborates. ‘I have a friend who struggles with it,’ she says, bringing the bottle to her lips. ‘Where are we going, anyway?’

  She sips, a circle of moisture ringing the her cupid’s bow.

  ‘I’m taking you to my house, I figure you can stay the night, then make your way home tomorrow.’

  There’s just a flicker in my eyes, a hint of menace, my plan of attack packaged as an invitation, hanging between us, trying its best to stay in character.

  ‘Oh no,’ she coos. ‘You don’t have to do that, you’ve been kind enough as it is.’

  She slots the water bottle back into the drink’s holder, just a dribble left, and a plan forms as the moonlight glows against my face. I open my mouth to smile, blackness within, eyes ahead, and I feel the anger bubble in me, ready to launch, my fingers tight to the steering wheel.

  I slam the brakes. The sudden stop propels us forward, our bodies continuing at sixty miles per hour, the sound of rubber on tarmac screeching hyena-like into the night.

  My dark hair balloons around me as we fly, just before we’re caught by our seatbelts. My body clenches as it stops, my lungs robbed of air, my chest compressed, then lands hard into the seat, my spine cracked into its shape, the car spinning to the side – uneven brakes – straddling both lanes as it comes to a stop, a sitting duck.

  ‘What did you do that for?’ pants Tabitha, and she groans with the shock, twisting her seatbelt in her hands, trying to free herself, a trickle of sweat on her forehead.

  We’re both still for a moment, only the fast gasps of our breath between us. From frantic, ear-splitting action to complete silence in a matter of moments. And, though I know I’m probably in shock, I don’t feel it: I feel electric, invigorated, and my eyes glow as I tell her.

  ‘If you don’t want my help you can get out.’

  I smile again in that same, perturbing, way I know everybody hates. I remember mine and Tomasz’s wedding photographer saying, Relax, don’t try so hard! Think of something funny! Say cheese!

  Tabby laughs nervously.

  ‘No need to be like that,’ she says, trying to placate me. She thinks I’m a lunatic, so still she has me wrong. I notice her hand crawling towards the door handle and, a second later, she tries to open it, the empty thwonk as the lock initiates loud as a gunshot.

  ‘It’s locked,’ I remind her calmly, and she closes her eyes and nods her head, moisture pooling her eyes. I press the accelerator, smoke from the tyres still hazing the air outside, the smell of burning rubber trickling through the gaps in the car’s exterior.

  If she hadn’t done that, if she’d fought me, she might well have got away. I’m a thinker not a fighter. If she’d grabbed my hair and pulled it from my scalp, whacked my head into the steering wheel, then lunged across my lap for the central locking, things might have been different.

  But Tabitha Rice isn’t a fighter either. She whimpers in the passenger seat and wraps her arms round her legs, brings them up to her chest and rocks.

  ‘What was in it?’ she asks me, head nodding towards the water bottle.

  ‘Just some sleeping pills,’ I reply, reaching for her handbag so she can’t call for help.

  She doesn’t even try to stop me.

  *

  Outside, it’s cold. Clear-night cold, the wind howling, and we don’t pass a single vehicle on that road. It doesn’t take long until Tabby’s eyes are rolling into the back of her head and her breathing is slowing. There were about six tablets in the water and I’d been lucky she’d drunk so much. If she hadn’t, I’d have had to persuade her a little more, befriend her, drop the scary-act and convince her to stay with words only.

  My house arrives an hour or so later. I loathe and crave my house in equal measure, an oddball on the street with a huge female mural on one side, each room stuffed with junk I’ve never been able to throw away. I know why, I don’t need an expert to tell me: it’s the direct result of losing my daughter and not being able to throw anything away from her past – but, despite all that,
the place is worth almost a million. The fact that I live here would probably inflate its value. People like a story. People like a house with personality. Even one as horrible as mine.

  I drive up to the space outside my front door and send a message to Tomasz.

  Can you come outside?

  There’s no way I can shift this woman from car to house on my own and there’s always the chance, of course, that she’s bluffing, that she’s waiting for me to unlock the car so she can run. I fold my body over hers, hold back her eyelids, her pupils like pins, and reason this isn’t an act. Tomasz appears at the front door and approaches cautiously, I eyeball every window on either side of the street, check for lookouts, for witnesses, and find nothing but the night reflected in each. I unlock the doors, get out, close it again, feather-quiet, then pace round to the sleeping woman on the other side. The yellow flash of our Polish number plate strikes me; I must tell Tomasz to hide his car as soon as possible. He brings her up out of the vehicle, then pulls her right arm round his shoulders, leaving me to take her left. We manoeuvre her towards the house together, her body sleep-drugged but not entirely unresponsive, her fingers cold, clutched to my neck. For a fleeting second, I think it’s sweet that she’s holding on so tight.

  The smell of cooking oil and decay hit me as we open the front door – opening the windows only does so much, so the smell can’t be helped. I need everything in this place, I cannot function without it – and we drag Tabitha upstairs.

  I watch Tom tie her to the chair in the room at the back of the house, looping rope round her wrists and ankles in silent acceptance that this is the right thing to do. She drove his daughter to her death. I prop the window open in the corner – I want her to be cold – and light a cigarette. The yellow walls in here are ancient, old wallpaper peeling from top and bottom, the tassel-edged Victorian lightshade in the middle of the ceiling marked with giant rings of brown. The things I store in here – saws, knives, rope, clamps – most of them are rusted and overused, a few are newer, shinier. Sharper. But what Tabitha Rice doesn’t know about me yet is that I don’t intend to kill her with these things, these props are merely here to frighten her into staying put.

  ‘Are you sure you want to do this, Kay?’ asks Tomasz, his steady hand on my shoulder. ‘She’s younger than I thought she’d be.’

  I turn sharply. ‘You can’t be serious?’

  ‘I’d imagined her differently.’

  ‘Yes, well, looks can be deceiving,’ I counter. ‘And think about what she did. Hold that in your mind: do you think she thought about Orla, about the rest of her life, about her future, when she injected her? No. She was focused on money and profit and greed and… that’s why she’s here.’

  ‘I’m going out,’ he tells me and, honestly, that’s OK. I have more than enough brain and more than enough brawn for the both of us. I will do what needs to be done. Tomasz understands.

  *

  The room is musty when I return with the botulinum toxin and I notice Tabitha’s feet have turned a strange purple colour, zombie-like. She cries when I come in, terrified of me. She shouldn’t be. In a way, I’m freeing her. She won’t have to worry about anything anymore, won’t have to crawl into work tomorrow and stare at another saggy face, wondering if she’ll ever escape the monotony. I’m freeing her from her husband, from the day when he’ll come to her and ask for a divorce. I’m freeing her from the credit card bills she’s run up and won’t be able to pay off. In a way, I’m freeing him, too, so he can start over again with the woman he’s been seeing behind her back, do it right this time. She won’t have to worry about her best friend Annabella either, about the day when the guilt finally consumes her and she has to admit to using Annabella’s pictures and credentials to ensnare victims and men online, the disappointment on Annabella’s face as she slashes their bond in two. Annabella’s kind face tilted away, I’m sorry, Tabby, I just can’t trust you anymore.

  It will be my job, instead, to tell her story. I’ll begin by painting her as a victim. If you want to bring someone down in the media, you have to start by building them up.

  I lean over Tabitha with the needle and snap a pair of latex gloves onto my hands.

  ‘I’m going to make you famous,’ I tell her, and her eyes bubble with horror.

  But, before she can speak, I push the needle into the crease of her forehead, and whatever she was going to say to me to make me change my mind evaporates.

  ‘Everyone’s going to know your name,’ I whisper in her ear, two gold studs in each.

  Her eyes are baby-blue, child-like fear trapped within them. Her eye make-up long melted, flecks of black dotted like gunpowder residue across the purple-tinged skin above and below each eye. Her lips sit like two dead slugs, artificial, and, rather than shake in flesh-like ripples, bounce with trampoline-jump movements. I lean into her once again, pressing down with the needle, letting the poison take hold. She twists her neck to get away this time, and the needle scrapes her skin, a gem of blood appearing, stopping me for a moment.

  I do not like blood, so I let go, I wait in the corner of the room to see if what I have done is enough and then, when I am sure the toxin has paralysed her heart, caught it in its clutch mid-beat, I cross my arms and breathe out, properly, for the first time since I was told my daughter had taken her life.

  Annabella

  Now

  ‘Annabella,’ Kay calls from behind me, her furry eyebrows crossed. She’s holding the wooden plank I’d pulled from her garden fence and her mouth bobs open when I turn to face her. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I heard the recording,’ I tell her. ‘Listened to Mandy reveal the truth about me.’ I pause. ‘Then I found the car, the one you used to abduct Tabby. Then I found this room.’ My mind flits briefly to Tom, her husband, but he isn’t in the house. I wonder how deeply he’s involved in all of this.

  Kay leans casually against the doorframe, belligerent.

  ‘I feel badly for you, AB, I really do,’ she tells me, finally. ‘This series could have ended so many ways. Rick being guilty: that was the obvious ending. Then I’d have put out a bonus episode that suggested Tabby took her own life and framed Rick for all of it. But this is much more interesting… Tabby’s been living as you this whole time and you’ve been dead for years! And wasn’t Mandy convincing? She really thinks she’s figured it all out and, to be honest, people have latched onto it. It has everything: assumed identities, betrayal, rivals, lovers, secrets, surgery… and I’m happy because Tabby still gets what she deserves. It’s just unfortunate, I suppose, that you got caught in the cross hairs.’

  ‘It won’t stick, Kay, people won’t believe it. Plastic surgery can only change so much.’

  She looks at me through hooded eyes and that’s when I realise: she’s not going to let me leave here to prove my innocence. She’s going to kill me too, this time for the sake of a good ending.

  Kay doesn’t move, remains diagonal in the doorframe.

  ‘Why did you do it?’ I ask.

  ‘Tabby killed my daughter.’

  My face pales. ‘How?’

  Kay blows out.

  ‘Orla.’ She points to the wall behind me. ‘Killed herself after Tabitha Rice mutilated her face and lips with black market Botox and cut-price dermal filler.’

  My mouth sags open.

  ‘Tabby was pretending to be you, she used your credentials to trick unsuspecting teenagers into parting with their pocket money.’ My breath catches in my windpipe. ‘Judging by your reaction, I’m guessing you didn’t know she was doing that.’

  I shake my head.

  ‘Well, at least you know the real Tabby now too.’

  I’ve spent years trying to get to the bottom of this mystery and, now I finally know, a huge part of me wishes I didn’t.

  ‘What happened that night, Kay?’

  ‘I offered her a lift in my car after the doctor stood her up.’

  I cut in. ‘Were you the doctor, too?’

  �
��Orla got in touch with Tabby online. Orla trusted Tabby and Tabby let her down. I thought it was only fitting for Tabby to know what that felt like.’

  ‘She got stood up and then just accepted a lift from a stranger?’

  ‘She was drunk. I’d arranged our meeting miles away from the nearest train station. She saw I was a woman and trusted me to look after her – just as my daughter had.’

  Kay runs her fingers over a picture of Orla as she speaks. ‘I drove Tabby back here and Tom guarded her. She told me everything about her life on the way over – it’s funny what some people are prepared to tell a perfect stranger. She filled me in on her hopeless young mother Marie, who’d given her up for adoption, an evil foster mother, a grotty grandfather. She told me about Rick’s affair, about her relationship with you, and how gutted she was that she’d broken your trust on so many occasions.’

  ‘But, if you’re to blame… Why are you investigating? You could be found out. Why would you risk it?’

  Kay sighs as though it won’t be easy for me to understand. ‘Because killing Tabby was one thing. An eye for an eye. But her story captured my imagination. If it had been banal and boring, I would have left it there… but I couldn’t.’

  I crawl with unease, I itch with it. I have an awful vision of Tabby fighting with Kay, of Kay’s furious frame pinning my best friend here against her will.

  ‘How did you do it?’ I ask feverishly. ‘How did you kill her?’

  ‘Botulinum toxin,’ Kay answers.

  ‘You killed her with Botox?’

  ‘Well, it made sense,’ Kay continues, matter of fact. ‘It’s one of the deadliest toxins on the planet.’

  ‘How did you get it?’

  ‘I ordered one vial of pure botulinum A neurotoxin, to be delivered to a pick-up point in a corner shop with no cameras and a relaxed attitude to signing for packages. It was destined for a laboratory, so the preparation was incredibly potent. Tabby ordered this stuff directly too, she had it delivered to Pure You and intercepted the packages – against all regulations – then diluted it herself at home. Isn’t that horrendous? It’s not even that unheard of. Did you know a couple of teaspoons of the stuff could kill everyone in the UK? And yet Tabby used it every day, pumped it into people’s faces as though it was as innocuous as saline solution.’