by Jack Jordan
She gritted her teeth and looked away. He wouldn’t understand.
‘If I was at the doctor’s house, how would I have had time to do this? You can hate me for one or the other, but not both.’
‘I’m calling the police.’
‘Don’t,’ she said quickly. ‘They might be responsible for this.’
‘Christ, listen to yourself!’
‘You don’t know what they’ve done,’ she said. ‘You have to believe me, Christian. If only you’d listen—’
‘Don’t you care what happens to Lily? What if she had been home?’
‘But she wasn’t. She’s never home. Neither of you are. It’s just me in the great big fucking house!’
Anger clotted in her throat. She could feel that her face was as flushed as his.
‘Violet’s dead,’ he shouted. ‘You hear me? Violet’s dead, but Lily’s still here!’
He stepped closer, the veins in his neck swelling, the pulse visibly beating at his temples. Even with his face contorted with anger, his lips pressed into a thin line, she wanted all of him, every breath, word and inch. If she touched him now, she wondered if he would take her right there on the floor beneath the rubble in a fit of rage, or swat her away, sickened by the thought. She wasn’t sure if her heart could take either possibility.
‘But she hates me – you both hate me. What can I do? What can I possibly do to make her love me?’
He looked away, disdain etched into his brow.
‘No, please, Christian. Enlighten me. Tell me what to do that I haven’t already tried.’
‘I’m calling the police.’ He strode out of the room and snatched the phone from its cradle.
‘You can’t.’ She chased behind him and snatched his arm. ‘You don’t know what they’ve done!’
He yanked his arm from her grasp and headed down the hall, took the stairs two at a time. He had to be as far away from her as possible.
She returned to the door and looked back at the paintings, years of work and pain torn to pieces.
Either the killer did this searching for the journal, or the police wanted her to know that this was a fight they planned to win. Whoever the culprit, they had wanted to scare her, know that they could invade every part of her life. But what should have scared her into silence only made her more eager for the truth. They had wanted to silence her, but instead they had ignited a fire that she wouldn’t let die. They had made it personal.
The three police officers stood in the kitchen, each with their arms crossed and fluorescent coats reflecting the spotlights in the ceiling. Leech, Watts, Benson. Detective Clark’s hounds sent to do his dirty work, to cover up crimes they themselves might have committed. But she didn’t shout, she didn’t scream, she remained silent. If they were responsible, they had to believe their tactics had worked. Only when they got off her back could she move freely again. She couldn’t get justice for Finn and the others with the police following her everywhere she went. Christian had to believe she was sane, and the police had to believe she was finished. Only the killer needed to know that she was coming for him.
Photographs had been taken of the mess, statements conducted in separate rooms. If Christian thought she was mad, mad enough to trash her own home and smash the window to make it look like the work of a suspect in her investigation, he would tell the police exactly what they wanted to hear: she was mad, and everything she said and did was invalid. They would have it down on paper, and from her own husband, no less. It didn’t matter what she found in the investigation; if she were considered mad, the whole force would laugh her out of the station.
She stood in the corner of the room near the study, occasionally looking inside and catching the sight of Violet’s sinister glare, slashes where her eyes had been.
‘You’re aware that your behaviour may have triggered this,’ Leech said. ‘Digging up other people’s pasts, getting beneath their skin.’
‘She’s aware,’ Christian said from the other side of the room. He looked at her for the first time in hours. ‘Aren’t you, Rose?’
She had never noticed how he spoke to her like a child. Maybe he had only started to do so because he thought she was mad. Or maybe it was because she had started to think for herself.
‘Yes,’ she said croakily.
Watts spoke next. ‘You need to think of your family’s safety now, Rose.’
Stop what you’re doing, and all of this goes away. She remembered Leech’s words as he stalked alongside her in the police car as she headed to the bus stop, the intensity of his glare, the sly, sideways grin. He performed well. He stood in the kitchen and appeared forlorn, but when she met his eye, she saw the shimmer of enjoyment in it. She wanted it gone, wiped out for good.
‘Yes,’ she repeated.
‘So you’ll stop this?’ Christian asked.
‘Yes.’
She looked at each of the men who had worked so hard to silence her, thinking they had won.
‘We’ll be in touch,’ Watts said, and headed for the hall. Christian followed behind him. Leech and Rose remained in the room, their eyes meeting.
‘You’ll end all this?’ he asked.
‘If I do, it’ll all go away, right?’
‘Right.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’ll stop.’
He looked at her for the longest time, searching her eyes for the truth. He exhaled in a laugh.
‘Liar.’
He left the room for the hall and listened to them speak before the door shut. She stepped forward and looked down the hall. Christian had left too.
Her phone rang in her pocket. She took it in her hand and saw her father’s name flashing on the screen. Just seeing it brought her comfort, something she never would have foreseen.
‘Hi,’ she said.
‘Hi. Look, I found something. Something we didn’t look at earlier.’
Fear shivered in his voice, crackled in the silence that followed.
‘You need to see this,’ he said.
‘I’ll be there as quickly as I can.’
She ended the call and tapped the cab driver’s number again, hoping he was still on shift for the night.
By the tone of her father’s voice, she knew she wouldn’t like what she was going to see.
FINN’S JOURNAL
6th March 2018
I’d vomited three times that morning.
Every time I thought of seeing my tormentor, my stomach would twist into knots, send me lurching to the nearest toilet.
I looked up at the police station and stumbled to the nearest bush, retching into the dirt.
He had broken me. He hadn’t physically hurt me, and yet he had instilled a fear so deep that I no longer remembered who I’d been before he appeared. I didn’t recognise myself in the mirror. My hair was thinning, my skin a pasty white and thin on my bones. My thoughts and dreams were so dark, filled with a reel of blood and murder, because I cannot think of another way this will end. I dreamt of my death every night, still do as I write this at three in the morning, after a dream so vivid that the moment I woke up I felt the skin above my heart for the wound his knife had made.
I got up from the dirt and clapped my hands together to dust off the filth. Once I faced him, it would all be over. Everyone in the room would see what he had done to me. The truth of my trauma could not be covered with another man’s lie.
I made my way inside the station, introduced myself at the reception in no more than a whisper. I barely had time to get comfortable in my seat in the waiting area before the officers emerged.
Lycett took one look at me and said, ‘You’ll be okay.’
I couldn’t nod. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t even meet his eye. I stared at his feet, longing for it to be over, to have my life back.
I couldn’t remember standing from the seat or following them through the station. One minute I was looking at his shoes, wondering how he kept them so clean, focusing on anything but the event that awaited me. The next I was s
tanding before a door, waiting to be led inside.
‘You’ll be okay,’ he repeated.
Officer Byrne opened the door.
I froze to the spot. Every airway sealed shut. My lungs shrank in my chest. I stumbled back into the wall of the corridor.
‘No.’
‘You can do this, Finn,’ Lycett said. ‘We’ll be with you the entire time.’
I couldn’t breathe. Why couldn’t I breathe? I snatched my neck, clawed at it with my nails until there were red marks streaked down my throat.
‘Close your eyes,’ Officer Lycett said. ‘Take a deep breath, and hold it for five seconds.’
I tried. The breath spluttered out. I heaved for air, and exhaled with a sob. I was suffocating, drowning in my fear, and no one could do a thing to stop it. My head felt light. My vision seemed to blur. I was dying.
‘Finn, listen to me. Breathe in through your nose, hold it for five seconds, and then breathe out through your mouth.’
I heard him doing it with me. I mimicked his breaths, inhaling the scent of his aftershave and the stale air of the station. Slowly, my heart calmed. Air returned to my lungs with each growing breath. I relaxed against the wall, reluctant to open my eyes.
‘You’ve got this,’ he said. ‘Come on.’
Officer Lycett led me inside. I was too weak to fight him. Officer Byrne followed behind me. I wondered if he thought this was funny too.
It was a conference room with a long table and fourteen chairs. Large windows overlooked the roofs of the town, treetops moving with the breeze.
Sitting at the table was a man I didn’t recognise. He wore a brown suit and a sour expression on his face, lines deeply etched into his forehead and the corners of his eyes. It would be my stalker’s lawyer. I wondered when he would arrive. Officer Lycett ushered me into the nearest seat, my back to the door. He would enter the room behind my back. I felt my chest tighten again, my pulse quicken.
Officer Lycett sat next to me. Officer Byrne sat beside the man I didn’t know.
‘Thank you for both attending today,’ Officer Lycett said.
‘Shouldn’t we wait?’ I asked.
‘For what?’
‘For Michael.’
The officers looked at each other.
‘This. . . this is Michael King.’
The man looked at me, his eyes searing with contempt. He was around the same age as my stalker, but they were completely different men. This one had longer hair, tanned skin and darker eyes.
The man who was harassing me had lied.
I bowed my head. Of course he had lied. Why would he give me his real name?
‘This isn’t him,’ I said into my lap.
‘Great,’ the real Michael King said. ‘So I can go?’
‘This isn’t the man who has been harassing you?’ Officer Lycett asked. ‘You’re sure?’
‘I’m sure,’ I whispered.
Lycett nodded to his colleague. The real Michael King was escorted out of the room, muttering under his breath. When the door clicked shut, I let the tears fall. I hid my face in my hands.
‘You said his name was Michael King.’
‘Because that’s what he told me. He must have given me a false name.’
Silence fell upon the room, and I buried my face in my hands again. At that moment, I knew this would never end. My stalker, whoever he was, would continue to hunt me undetected, closing in until he had the perfect time to strike. My phone vibrated in my pocket. After several attempts to unlock it with shaking hands, I opened the message.
Nice try.
THIRTY-FIVE
Rose stared inside the shoebox, flinched when the stench hit her. If her father hadn’t been holding it, she would have dropped it to the floor.
‘I found it in the box you brought the letters in. I thought the boiler was playing up, but it was the sound of the flies.’
No one could refute her case now, not even the police. The rat was almost as large as the box, its eyes closed and mouth open. The needle had penetrated straight through its chest and into its heart, blood dried onto the metal. Maggots crawled around inside the box and along the rat’s matted fur. She turned away with a shaking hand over her lips.
‘We should stop,’ Tony said.
‘We can’t,’ she said, turning back. She watched him put the lid back on the box and place it on the coffee table. Even with the lid closed, she could still smell death contaminating the air.
‘This is a threat,’ he said.
‘Because we’re getting close to the truth.’
He sat down on the sofa, his eyes never leaving the box.
‘Are you willing to risk your life for this? Mine? Lily’s?’
‘I’ll work alone,’ she said.
‘That’s not what I’m suggesting.’
‘I know what you’re suggesting. You think that I should stop this, but I can’t. If I don’t find out the truth, we will have failed Finn just like the police have. We will be as bad as them.’
She bit her lip and paced. The anger rose again. It seemed she felt nothing but fury now, as if she was becoming a new woman, forever raging, the weak woman she had once been shed like old skin.
‘Every time I ask for help I’m told to stop. You, Christian, the police. Hell, for all I know the police could have sent this.’
She sank onto the opposite sofa. Every time she got closer to the truth, someone stood in her way. She didn’t want to do this alone; she had spent too many years with her own thoughts and memories. Tears stung her eyes. She crossed the room and knelt before him.
‘Please. Please don’t make me do this alone. I know I’m asking for a lot. I’m asking you to put yourself in danger, but. . . I can’t do this on my own.’
He went to speak. She spoke over him.
‘If not for me, then for Jay. We failed him, but we don’t have to fail the other men. We can do something about it this time. . . together.’
She took his hand and stared up at him. He met her eye, watering at the sound of his son’s name, and looked away.
‘I’m not worried about my safety,’ Tony said hoarsely. ‘I’m worried about yours. Let me take over. I’ve lived my life. It doesn’t matter if something happens to me. But you. . .’
‘I got you into this. I can’t stop now. I don’t want to stop.’
He sighed and rubbed his eyes until they were a furious red.
‘Then we’ll do it together.’
She sighed with relief. ‘Thank you.’
She let go of his hand and returned to the other sofa. Silence hung over them except for the quiet wriggle of the maggots against the walls of the box.
‘How are things with Christian?’ he asked.
‘He thinks I’m insane.’
‘And Lily?’
‘I wouldn’t know, she’s never home. Sometimes I feel like they’ve both died, that I’m mourning both of my daughters.’
Silence fell upon them. Her eyes drifted to the shoebox. She breathed in the deathly stench.
‘You can stay here tonight, if you like.’
She thought of her home torn apart. She had tried to tidy up the mess before leaving for her father’s, but the memory would always be there. Someone had been inside their home. There was a different air about it now – it had been claimed by another. If she returned home, she wouldn’t sleep a wink.
‘Thank you.’
‘When was the last time you slept? Properly?’
‘I can’t remember.’
‘Come,’ he said.
He heaved himself up from the sofa with a groan, and she followed him into the kitchen and sat at the table. He took milk from the fridge and a saucepan from the drawer. He was making her hot milk, just like her mother used to do for her and Jay. A notch formed in her throat.
‘Do you still think of her?’ she asked.
‘Every day.’
She had spent so long resenting him for what he’d done, that she had failed to think of how her mother’s de
ath had affected him. He had been the one to stick it out. He was the one who stayed and watched her die.
‘How was it, when she. . .?’
She couldn’t bring herself to watch her mother reach the end of the line. She had witnessed her wither away for years, until it was like greeting a stranger every morning. Her eyes had lost any sign of the woman she had been before. She hardly ate, only drank tea and smoked cigarettes as she stared mindlessly at the television, clearly thinking of nothing but Jay. By the time Rose had packed her bags to leave, her mother wouldn’t even get out of bed. The last time they saw each other, she had changed the sheets with her mother still in the bed, rolling her from one side and then the other, shimmying the sheet beneath her light frame. She had said goodbye through tears, but her mother showed no sign that she’d even heard.
‘Her mind was dead already,’ he said, as he set the stove to a simmer and stirred the milk. ‘I don’t even think she knew she had cancer; with her, words never really sank in. Her mind was filled with him and him alone. The woman we knew and loved was gone; it was just her body in that hospital bed. It wasn’t her.’
The house looked exactly as it had when she was a child. The table was the very same surface where she had eaten her breakfast before school, where her mother and father would sit once she and Jay had gone to bed. When Rose turned eleven, she made a habit of sitting at the top of the stairs and listening to their conversations. It was at that age when their relationship had started to sour; a new friction sat between them, stifling them all. They argued over Jay.
‘I want you to know,’ he said, turning to face her, ‘I regret every hateful word I said to him. I loathe myself for pushing him away because he was different.’ He shook his head. ‘Not abnormal, that’s not what I mean. I know it’s normal now, but back then, he was different to what I expected a boy to be, the idea I had been raised to believe. I pushed my own son away for nothing, and I regret it every day.’
The milk hissed. He turned back to the stove and turned down the gas.
She couldn’t tell him he was forgiven. His epiphany was years too late. Jay would never know that he was loved or missed, that the man whose love he had craved had finally shed his prejudices. But she wouldn’t make him feel worse.