by Daisy Pearce
‘I intercepted her on her way to meet you,’ William says in a low voice, as if she were merely asleep. ‘Good job I found your phone when I did, otherwise I’d never have known where to find you.’
‘What have you done to her?’
‘I made her pull over and get out the car by pretending I was hurt. I flagged her down just two miles up the road. She didn’t know it was me at first. I guess I’ve grown up a lot since the last time she saw me. You know she carries a knife? She pulled it on me once, in the graveyard.’
‘You have to let her go. What is she even doing here? It’s kidnap, William.’
‘Kidnap. Listen to yourself. You’re always so dramatic.’
I take a step towards her and William holds me back firmly. There is a black patch on the back of Samantha’s head. From here, in the dim light, it looks like dark regrowth of roots. I don’t think that’s what it is, though. I think of the blood on William’s sleeve and something in my chest cracks open, leaking cold, cold water.
‘What did you hit her with?’
‘I was careful. I only used enough force to knock her out. At worst she’ll have a concussion. Just hope she can get to the hospital in time. It can be fatal if it’s untreated.’
‘William, you have to let me help her. I don’t know what you’re doing, but this isn’t – it’s not right!’
‘Help her? You have been helping her. You’ve been helping her with this continuing delusion that somewhere out there her daughter is still alive. You’ve stirred it all up for her again. Now look what’s happened.’
‘How do you know?’
‘How do I know what?’
‘That her daughter isn’t alive? You called it a delusion, which would mean you know something to the contrary.’
‘All right, Miss Marple, I think we’re done here.’
He’s been holding me by the wrist, and now he tugs at me insistently. When I resist he pulls me so hard my shoulder seems to pop. I yell out. William just continues to look at me in that same blank way. His eyes, already dark, are almost muddy, his pupils swollen and black. He drags me down the corridor, holding my wrist so tight I can feel the bones grind together. I clamp my teeth against the pain, so sharp it is almost sweet. William motions for me to be quiet before rapping on the closed door further down the hall that leads to Mimi’s recovery room.
I hear her voice, her weak-sounding ‘Come in.’
William opens the door a slice, just enough to poke his head around.
I say, ‘William, plea—’ and he gives my wrist one hard, sharp twist. My knees buckle. I have to hang on to the wall to stop myself crumpling to the ground. Hot breath catches in my throat, silencing me. His voice when he speaks to his mother is calm and gentle, the man I recognise, the man I know the bones of.
‘I’m just heading out, Mum.’
‘Okay, sweetheart. Are you all right? You look a little peaky.’
‘I’m fine. Just a bit of a headache.’
‘It’s the weather,’ she says, and I gasp loudly as my wrist sends out bright spikes of pain shooting up my arm. William’s hand tightens.
‘What was that?’ Mimi says. ‘Is someone there with you?’
‘Nope. Just me. I’ll see you later.’
‘Be good. And if you can’t be good—’
‘I’ll be careful. I know, Mum. Love you.’
He closes the door quietly and kneels down next to me in the darkened hall. I wish someone would walk in – Alex, maybe, on his way back from the greenhouse, or Samantha, groggy from her blow to the head. Anyone. I’m so frightened of this man. I feel like I’m going to die.
‘Come on, on your feet. We’re going for a little walk, you and me.’
We head outside into the bright sunshine. The air is very hot and still and heavy. I switch my head left and right for Alex. No sign. William has let go of my wrist now and I massage it against my chest. He opens the passenger door for me and I look at him flatly.
‘I’m not getting into the car with you. You’re crazy.’
‘No, Frances, I’m not. I’m just tired of having to look after you, get you out of scrapes. It’s like having a kid. You wonder why I’ve avoided having one? It’s because I know who’ll end up looking after it. Me. You can barely look after yourself.’
‘That’s not fair—’
‘Look at Samantha. Look at how she fucked it up. She didn’t know what her own kid was doing half the time. Edie was into all kinds of shit – drugs and black magic and she was something of a known slut, if you get my drift. You think you’ve got what it takes to bring up a kid? Look at what harm you can do if you don’t get it right. Look at how you end up.’
I stare at him, open-mouthed.
‘I’d rather bring up a lively, interesting kid than someone like you.’
His face darkens, but I can’t help myself. It’s always been my problem. Spoiling for trouble.
‘Don’t, Frances.’
‘You’re a repressed, dull man with nothing to show for all his years on earth except his bank balance and a stack of dirty photos. Your mother sh—’
Crack! I hear it before I feel the sting of the slap, right across my cheekbone. It’s hard enough to make my skull shake. I look at him in horror, one hand covering my face. His lips are pressed tightly together, eyebrows drawn. He looks furious, but when he speaks his voice still has that same, flat tone.
‘Get in the car, Frances. I won’t ask you again.’
I stare at him. I could run, I think. Maybe I could outrun him. I’ve always thought of William as a desk slob, someone weak-muscled and unfit, but when he gripped my wrist earlier I felt a lean, wiry strength there that belied his physical appearance. But if I could – and it’s a very big if – where would I run? William grew up here; he knows this area like the back of his hand. I’ve no money and my phone is still in there in the kitchen, plugged in and lying on the counter. So what do you do, Frances? the voice in my head asks me. Just what are you going to do?
‘I need to pee,’ I tell him.
He stares at me. I bend a little at the waist, my hands folded into my crotch. It’s a lie, of course, but now I’ve said it the urge has suddenly become very real.
I stare at him with round eyes. ‘Please. I have to go!’
‘Jesus, Frances,’ he says with undisguised disgust, and he drags me a little way down the drive to where the hydrangea bushes line the pathway. He points. ‘Go on then. Do it on the grass. Like a dog.’
‘You’re going to stand here and watch me?’
‘Believe me, Frances, I’ve seen you do a lot worse over the years.’
My cheeks flush as I unbuckle my belt. He doesn’t trust you, that voice says again. Can you blame him? He watches me, unblinking, as I relieve myself into the earth, shuffling to avoid getting any on my shoes. I don’t look up at him again until I’m done, and when I finally lift my gaze I’m horrified to see he is holding something in his right hand. It’s a hammer. A claw-head. It’s dropped down from his sleeve like a magic trick and now it swings slightly in his hand like a pendulum slowing down. I can’t speak. I can’t take my eyes off it. My reaction is so strong I wonder if I will be sick, bile rising in my throat.
William talks to me kindly, squatting down beside me on the grass, careful to avoid the dampness beneath me. ‘It’s all right, Frances. I’m not going to use it. I just need you to do as you’re told. So no more diversions, okay? Come on. Let’s go.’
He helps me to my feet and I walk beside him slowly back to the car. In my dreams the figure chasing me with the claw hammer always changed, but the weapon remained exactly the same: a red handle wrapped around the middle with straps of black gaffer tape. Just like the one William is holding.
Samantha – Now
There is a sound like a chainsaw, something buzzing through the ridges of my skull. A deep throbbing pain in the back of my neck. If I open my eyes everything seems to slide away, like a ride at the fairground, so I keep them closed. It hurts l
ess that way. I’m being moved in the dark. Bumped around. Something against my chest, a weight. I don’t fight. I lean into it. Tight bands restricting my breathing. God, my head. I fade in and out. A woman’s voice that I recognise, but only a little.
‘Put her over there so I can see her.’
Hello? My voice doesn’t work. I fade out. In. Out. Like my breath. A hand against the shelf of my neck. Ow.
‘There’s a pulse. You think I should throw cold water over her?’
‘Only if you want to clear up the mess it’ll make, young man.’
That woman again, so familiar. Who is it? In. Out. I’m trying to repair my memory. What happened? I was driving. I had sunglasses on, because the sun was right in my eyes. So blinding that I almost missed him. Who? The man standing by the side of the road. Who? The man in the grey sweatshirt. He was clutching his chest like he was having a heart attack. His car was skewed across the road. I was driving to – to meet someone. Who? Frances Thorn. William’s wife. William. William. I got out of my car, sliding my sunglasses up to the top of my head. I was saying are you hurt, should I call an ambulance? The sun was in my eyes, making it hard to see his features. I wasn’t looking at the way he was holding his arm behind his back. I was only looking at the way his hand was massaging his heart.
‘Help me,’ I say weakly, turning my head just a little, so the pain is muted. I wait. The chair creaks as I shift position. I prise my eyes open. Everything is a blur, prisming, smeared colours without form. Then I hear a man’s voice say, very quietly, ‘She’s awake, Mum.’
‘Help me,’ William said as I raced forward. Both our cars were blocking the road now. The lane was baking in the heat. Dragonflies rose and fell in the air. I was reaching for my phone, the other reaching out to steady him, when he struck. First the back of my head, producing a loud ringing noise in my ears that made my whole head shiver, then my shoulder. I heard something crunch beneath the impact of that, with a roaring pain that shot up my neck and across my skull. I looked up at him as black spots swam across my vision, pitching me into a hole, a blackness. A deep well.
In. Out. It’s difficult to lift my head without discomfort but the sickening see-sawing of my vision has stopped and I can see a little better now. There is a deep, angry throbbing in my shoulder and a dark stain has spread on the fabric of my T-shirt. The floor beneath my feet is deep, cream carpet. It lifts towards me and then falls away. I tilt my head and look to my left, where there are long windows, sunlight filtered by gauzy net curtains. The agony in my head recedes a little and I want to lift a hand up to the wound and feel for the damage there. I know there is blood because I can smell it, rich and coppery, tangled in my hair.
Instead I keep my head down and slide my glance sideways. The pain in my head recedes like a low tide but my ears still buzz, my skull filled with worker bees building a hive. Worker bees, Sam? a voice in my head says, gently. Honey, be careful. You were knocked out. This is a concussion. You’re going to need help.
I see the clawed feet of a bed, a day bed, one of those vintage French ones with flaking white paint and rattling supports. There is a pale paisley coverlet draped over a skinny form, like a bundle of sticks. I can hear a television playing softly, a laughter track. An old show, one I haven’t heard of in years.
‘Do you mean a bloodhound, Katie Marigold?’
‘No, sir! My daddy calls him a bloody hound, sir, ’specially when he’s mad.’
I hear a woman laugh softly, in the room with me. I risk lifting my head a little higher, hoping her attention is firmly fixed on the television where the old show is playing. I see a pale face floating above the covers, cocooned with white, wispy hair to the shoulders. Her pale eyes aren’t looking at me, and she is chewing something slowly, thoughtfully.
I know her. I know her.
‘Mimi?’ I can’t help it. It slips out my mouth. A spark of pain flares between my ears as I sit upright. For a second I see flashing white stars. The woman, Mimi Thorn, I’m sure it is her, lowers the apple she is eating and looks at me curiously. With her other hand she feels for the remote in the bed and mutes the television.
‘Looks like we’re twins,’ she says finally, pointing to her own scalp. I can see a part of her hair has been clipped away to reveal a long wound criss-crossed with ugly black stitches. ‘Please don’t bleed all over my new carpet. I’ve only recently had it done.’
She takes another bite of her apple, still chewing, still staring at me. I wonder if I am dreaming. A hallucination, conjured up by my shocked brain. I twist against the ropes. They are very tight, wrapped around my chest and the back of the chair. If I could walk, maybe I could stand and limp with the chair attached to my back, tortoise-like. If I made it as far as the door, however, it’s doubtful I would fit through. If I made it that far. My legs feel weak and shaky. I don’t think they could carry me all that way. The woman in the bed places the apple core, very carefully, into a dish on the table beside her. I don’t see a weapon, but she looks at me with the calm confidence of someone who is holding one.
‘You’re Mimi Thorn. Edie’s teacher. What am I doing here?’
She continues to look at me flatly, her expression unreadable. I feel panic clutch my chest.
‘You don’t need to tie me up. I’m hurt. I need help.’
‘There was a knife in your pocket. I think under the circumstances tying you up was the only appropriate course of action.’
I feel a rush of anger and have to clamp my teeth together. I push against my bindings, trying to ignore the pounding in my head, the warm trickle of blood oozing down the back of my neck. She watches me with that same bland curiosity. I’m a pinned insect.
‘I’m meant to meet someone,’ I gasp, twisting against the ropes. ‘They’ll be wondering where I am.’
‘If you mean Frances, she’s with William.’
‘She’s not safe with William.’
‘Oh?’
I slump into the chair, exhausted, head pounding, a metallic taste bright against my palate. The rope hasn’t slackened an inch. If anything, it’s burrowed deeper. I can see purple welts on my arms where it has burrowed into my skin.
‘He hit me.’
‘You were coming at him with a knife – and not for the first time, I might add.’
I stare at her. She is sitting upright, straight as an arrow against the pillows. The day bed has been inched away from the wall at an angle so that she can see through the French windows into the long garden. When I first noticed the bed I presumed I was in one of the bedrooms upstairs, but now I realise we are on the ground floor in a room that has been converted, just for her. There is a trolley with wheels that serves as a lap tray on which sit a bowl and a fat round teapot in olive green. There is a pile of magazines on the bedside table, next to a jug of water. A bowl of fruit sits to her other side, where a chair is positioned, drawn up right next to the bed. She is like a little empress sitting high on her plump white pillows.
‘You remember that, do you? William was sixteen years old. You threatened him in a graveyard. You’re lucky we didn’t have you charged.’
My head throbs. The pain is sparked kindling, blown embers. I remember the sound of William’s voice: Mrs Hudson, please! Please! The way the frost crunched under my boots, the smell of woodsmoke and snow, almost metallic.
Mimi leans over and plucks a grape from the fruit bowl. She rolls it between her thumb and forefinger thoughtfully. ‘We don’t blame you, you know. No one would.’
‘Blame me for what?’
‘For what you did to Edie.’
I have been trying to shrug the ropes up my body instead of twisting out from under them, working them over my chest in small, caterpillar movements. Now I stop, lift my aching head. Mimi is smiling.
‘I didn’t do anything to her.’
She slides the grape into her mouth and bites down on it hard between her teeth. It makes an audible popping sound. I wince.
‘Are you sure? Are you quite, quite s
ure? Because William has seen you in quite a temper on more than one occasion, hasn’t he? All his interactions with you were stained with your anger. That night you caught the two of them together, Edie had wanted to leave with him. She practically begged him. Maybe she was scared of what you might do to her behind closed doors?’
‘That’s crazy.’
‘Is it? William said it doesn’t take much for you to fly off the handle. It’s not such a stretch to imagine you went over the top one night in a fit of rage. After all, he saw you assault her.’
‘I didn’t assault her – Jesus.’
‘You didn’t grab her arm? Push her through the door?’
I blink. Mimi takes another grape, bites it clean in half. I’m trying to think but my head is full of clanging bells. I remember finding William and Edie together on the sofa, the way she called me a bitch. The word came out of her mouth glowing hot, hateful. I grabbed her arm. I wasn’t rough. I didn’t hurt her. At least I hadn’t meant to.
‘I was angry.’
‘I know. Like I said, no one blames you. She put you through a lot. It can’t have been easy for you, being on your own.’
‘It wasn’t. It was really, really hard.’
‘I know. I know that, Samantha.’
‘I loved her, though. I loved her so much. I would never have hurt her.’
‘But you did, didn’t you? You killed her.’
Another grape. Her eyes flick back to the television, then over to me again. I think I can hear footsteps on the gravel path outside, but perhaps it is just my imagination.
‘Can I ask you, Samantha, why you carry a weapon in your pocket?’
‘Protection,’ I say immediately. The vision in my left eye is blurred, casting everything in a shimmering aura. For the first time I wonder if this head injury is more serious than I first thought.
‘From whom?’
‘Edie.’
‘She was violent, wasn’t she?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you were frightened of her, weren’t you?’