The Heatwave

by Katerina Diamond

  ‘So why didn’t you stop? All those women. How could you do that?’

  ‘I don’t know how to explain it to you. It’s something I need to do to survive.’

  ‘Why those girls?’ Jasmine asked. ‘Is that the only reason we went abroad? Was it all just a front for your sick and twisted shit?’

  ‘Your mother wanted to travel and help people, and I saw it as a perfect opportunity to do what I needed to do. One girl went missing in each place, a place where lots of pretty young women go missing every year. No one suspected me. I realised after the first few times how easy it was.’

  ‘You’re talking about it like it’s a hobby. You’re so messed up.’ Jasmine could feel her breath shortening as the tears sprang from her eyes. She wondered if he had ever considered hurting her, or if he ever thought about her when he was hurting those other girls.

  ‘It’s a compulsion.’ Frank shrugged. ‘The only way to stop myself from hurting more people was by allowing myself that one thing every year.’

  ‘Not a “thing”, Dad, a woman, a girl, not much older than me. How would you feel if someone did that to me?’

  ‘I’m not saying I’m right, I’m just saying this is how I am.’

  A thought occurred to Jasmine that she could barely entertain. ‘What about Mum? Does she know?’

  ‘Your mother has nothing to do with this. If you were to tell her …’ He left the threat unspoken but Jasmine could see the fear on his face. For the first time he seemed to be displaying some actual emotion. So he did genuinely care about her mum. Then how could he do this to her? Oh God, her poor mother. Finding this out would destroy her.

  ‘I’ll get help, Jasmine, just don’t do anything stupid.’

  ‘You’re going to go and tell the police everything you did. Or I will.’

  ‘No. Your mother would go to prison, too. They won’t believe that she had nothing to do with it. You think the attention you got when that teacher kissed you was bad? Try having a serial killer for a father. They won’t leave you alone, not ever. But if you stay quiet, I’ll stop, I’ll get help.’

  ‘What about Tim? He won’t go away until you pay for what you did,’ she said, stalling, trying to keep him busy to distract him from realising that Felicity was still in the house.

  ‘I called him just now. All he wants is money. I transferred our savings into his bank account. He’s going to leave us alone. Everyone has a price, especially someone like Tim.’

  Jasmine found it hard to believe that all Tim wanted was money. She heard footsteps on the stairs. Felicity was coming down. Jasmine looked at the knife block, wondering if she had enough time to get to one, wondering if she had enough courage to use it. She couldn’t let him hurt Felicity.

  ‘Flick,’ Jasmine muttered.

  ‘Keep her out of the kitchen. Keep her out or I’ll have no choice!’ Frank hissed and Jasmine knew what he meant.

  Jasmine left the kitchen and grabbed Felicity just as she reached the bottom of the stairs, making sure she couldn’t go in the kitchen. She didn’t want Felicity to see her mother like that; she might well be dead.

  ‘Are you going to tell me what’s going on?’ she asked, trying to shake Jasmine off.

  ‘I will. But we need to get in the car.’

  What would she tell Felicity? And what should Jasmine tell her mother? Could she really lie to her about this? There was too much for her to deal with. She just had to get through the next few moments, then she would worry about the moments that followed. Jasmine and Felicity rushed past the kitchen door and outside to her dad’s car. He must have seen them. They didn’t have much time.

  Jasmine got into the driver’s seat. To her relief, the keys were still in the ignition, where her dad often left them.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Felicity asked, bewildered.

  ‘I don’t know, just get in.’

  Felicity jumped into the passenger seat and Jasmine started the car, grateful that her mother had insisted on getting an automatic.

  Jasmine put the car into drive and slammed her foot down on the accelerator. Felicity continued to ask her questions, but Jasmine couldn’t think. It felt as if the worst had already happened, but there was no way that this day was going to end without more death. Jasmine heard and felt a thud against the side of the car.

  ‘Oh my God!’ Felicity shouted. ‘Stop the car! I think you hit the dog.’

  ‘I can’t stop. We’ve got to go!’ Jasmine shouted back.

  As she pulled out of the driveway Felicity grabbed hold of the wheel, trying to wrestle control from Jasmine.

  ‘You’re not making any sense. What the hell are we doing? What aren’t you telling me?’

  ‘We can talk about this later. We just need to get as far away as possible.’

  With a quick, forceful tug Felicity pulled the steering wheel so hard that it propelled the car into the wall at the end of the drive. Jolting them both forwards. Unable to move, Jasmine shifted the gear stick so that the car could reverse, but Felicity was now getting hysterical in the seat next to her.

  ‘Will you just listen to me?’ Jasmine snapped. ‘We have got to go. Now.’

  ‘Not until you tell me what’s going on!’

  Jasmine looked back at the house. The front door was wide open. Panic set in. Had she just hit her father? She thought of him lying on the ground under the car and was ashamed at the relief that swept over her. Her car door was jammed against the wall, so she couldn’t open it enough to get out. At that moment the back door of the car opened on Felicity’s side and Frank got in. She was too late.

  ‘Jasmine, you have just made this a whole lot harder than it had to be.’

  He deftly whipped his belt over Felicity’s head and pulled her back, quickly fastening the buckle and tightening it so that Felicity was struggling to breathe.

  ‘Dad, please!’ Jasmine said between sobs. Calling him that felt strange given what he was doing, and what she had just seen him do inside the house. She wanted to appeal to his better nature but she didn’t think he had one. He didn’t care about her, he didn’t care about anyone. Everything he did was self-preservation, so he could carry on with his sick proclivities.

  Felicity’s breathing was short and erratic, when she could catch a breath. She clawed at her throat and Jasmine thought of Carol doing that very same thing, and now she was lying on the kitchen floor, possibly dead. Felicity grabbed frantically at the back of the seat, trying to find the buckle to release herself. Frank yanked on it whenever she got close. Jasmine thought she could almost see a smile on his face.

  ‘Turn the engine off and come with me,’ he instructed Jasmine. ‘I need you to help me.’

  ‘There is no way I am helping you,’ she spat.

  ‘Fine, then give me the car keys or I finish your friend off here and now. I don’t trust you.’

  Jasmine looked at Felicity, her black eyeliner streaming down her face as she lethargically tugged at the leather strap around her neck. She slowly handed over the car keys. Her father got out of the car and ran towards the house. She could see he wasn’t moving as fast as he would have before the surgery he’d had before the summer. He was favouring his left side a little. She reached over to Felicity and loosened the belt two notches before Frank got back. At least she would have a little room to breathe.

  She looked around to see if there was any way out of this, just as the windows behind them started to glow. She realised her father had started a fire. It had taken hold of the living room before he’d even returned.

  He got back in the car and gave the keys to Jasmine. She started the car and reversed away from the wall, the metal screeching as it scraped along the brickwork.

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘Just drive, I’ll tell you where to go.’

  Jasmine drove the car and with her father’s instructions they left the town. The roads were empty anyway; there was no one to report her erratic driving. Her dad had let her drive around the big supermarket car park when it
was empty, so this wasn’t her first time driving this car.

  He told her when to stop the car. Felicity was passed out in the passenger seat. Frank unbuckled the belt from around her neck and she slumped forward.

  ‘Where are we?’ Jasmine asked, looking around. All she could see was dark green under the moonlight. Frank got out of the car and dragged Felicity out. He struggled to lift her but she offered no resistance. Jasmine couldn’t be sure if she was even still alive. How was this happening?

  ‘If I let her live, then it’s all over for us,’ Frank told her. ‘I’ll go to prison and your mother will most likely get taken away, too. You’re over sixteen so you wouldn’t go into care. You would just be on your own. Are you ready for that? To just be completely alone?’

  ‘It’s already over,’ Jasmine whispered. ‘I can’t bury this. She’s my best friend! How do you think I could ever forgive you for any of this?’

  ‘After this I’ll stop. I promise I will never hurt anyone again,’ he said, his mouth saying one thing, but his eyes saying something different.

  She desperately wanted to believe him. ‘I don’t think you’re even capable of telling the truth.’

  Frank moved towards the cliff’s edge as quickly as he could, clearly in pain now as he carried Felicity, desperate to put her down, his stagger uneven and laborious, the physical exertion taking its toll. He wasn’t supposed to be moving around this way, the doctors had told him to take it easy. Jasmine rushed forwards as she realised what he was about to do. But she was too late.

  She watched in horror as Frank tossed Felicity over the side, as though she were nothing. Jasmine reached the edge just in time to see Felicity’s body tumble into the sea.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Now

  The lights inside the house are off but when I press down on the handle of the back door, it creaks open. The house smells musty; the kitchen is half missing, doors gone from cupboards, blown floorboards and smears of dirt on the walls. The years have not been kind to this house; decay and abandonment seep from every crack in the walls. I feel responsible for this, too. If I had stayed then maybe it would have been different. I know I would have been different.

  Coming inside has released me from the choke-hold of the past. Was this all I needed to do? Did I just need to be here? To face it head on? A circle has been completed by me returning to this place, the ghosts of my past all in one place ready to be dispatched. I hear a noise, the sound of a chair scraping against floorboards.

  ‘Who’s there?’ a voice comes from upstairs.

  I brace myself. They can’t hurt me anymore.

  ‘Jasmine? Is that you?’ The voice calls out my name. My secret is out. I am discovered.

  ‘Yes,’ I say reluctantly. ‘I’m home.’

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Then

  Before she had time to think or even feel anything, her father’s hands were on her shoulders.

  ‘Please, Jasmine. You need to forget this ever happened. Otherwise people will find out; your mother will find out, and then I can’t be held responsible for what I’ll have to do to keep my family together.’

  Was he genuinely expecting her to agree to this? What would he do if she said no? Would he push her? The certainty with which she had defended him to Tim was gone now, and that Jasmine was gone now, too. Whatever happened, there was no going back to the life she’d had before. She just had to decide how many lies she could live with.

  ‘OK,’ she said, her voice breaking. ‘You win. Let’s go home.’

  Her father pulled her into an embrace, squashing her arms by her sides like he used to do when she was little. He kissed her on her wet cheek.

  ‘I love you,’ he said, looking into her eyes. Where Jasmine had once seen love, now she could see nothing but relief and maybe even a little excitement. He had lived to kill another day. She hugged him back, the comforting embrace of her father, a million memories coming flooding back of hugs like this between them, as far back as she could recall. He was always her comfort, strong and dependable, logical but funny too. She realised now, in these last few moments, that the man she remembered was never real; he was the mask her father had used to cover the monster.

  She squeezeed him tightly one final time before twisting and pushing him as hard as she could. Her father stumbled backwards, unable to control his footing, clutching at his side and looking at her with a mixture of fear and surprise. She closed her eyes when he ran out of ground and went over the edge, the sound of his cry getting further away as he got closer to the sea, until it stopped and there was silence.

  Jasmine was alone.

  She looked back at the car pulled over on the verge. She had to go home. How could she face her mother after everything that had happened tonight? How could she tell her what she had done; what Frank had done? Jasmine took a couple of steps before the weight of the last hour hit her and she fell to the ground, all energy and adrenaline gone. She just wanted to lie here for ever. Sobbing, she finally clambered to her feet and made it to the car, the cliff’s edge firmly in her rear-view mirror as she drove away.

  Chapter Fifty

  Now

  The house that I have feared for so long is whispering to me. This is the first time I have been inside it since that night.

  I didn’t have the courage to tell my mother what had happened on the cliff, or what Tim had discovered about my father. I had parked the car on the drive and looked through the window at my mother leaning over the sink, a concerned look on her face. She looked so vulnerable and I just couldn’t face her and tell her what I had done. She was alone, waiting for my father to come home, waiting for me to come home. But we never did.

  My guilt about what happened that summer is too much for me to bear. I have suppressed it for years but now, looking at the front door, I can feel it as strongly as I did back then.

  I hear the sound of stairs creaking and even the footsteps sound familiar, as though everyone comes down the stairs in their own way and this way was my mother’s.

  ‘Jasmine?’ she says, as she is standing in front of me, blinking back tears. I can tell she wants to hug me, but I don’t want that. She looks behind me to check I am alone.

  ‘Hello, Mother,’ I reply, balking at the sound of my own name. A name I haven’t used for more than half of my life.

  ‘I didn’t know if I would ever see you again.’

  ‘Well, here I am.’ It comes out more harshly than I’d intended. I’m not as happy to see her as I should be. Just being here makes me feel sixteen again, makes me feel like that girl who was told lie upon lie upon lie. The girl I had to bury, and the friend I never got to.

  ‘Look at you. Look at your hair,’ she says, reaching forward to touch it. I pull back before she can. I hadn’t realised before now how angry I would be with her. I can feel my heart thumping, and what I mistook for fear as I approached my old home has now shown itself as rage. I wish this house didn’t exist anymore. I look at my mother and wish there was nothing left of my old life. Nothing. She looks old. She is wearing clothes that I remember, faded and tatty but still quintessentially her. Her hair is grey and unkempt. Her skin has lost that glow it used to have and now looks off-colour in some way. It’s like everything stopped when I left, like my mother stopped living. I want to feel guilt, but I can’t. A part of me is glad that she has suffered, still angry at her for marrying my father, for making me a part of this awful family.

  ‘Did you send me the note?’ I ask.

  She nods. ‘By pure luck I saw you when I was out shopping one morning in town. I didn’t know how to approach you after all of this time had passed and so I went to the hotel and gave them a note to pass on to you. I had hoped you might come and see me sooner.’

  ‘Why did you want to see me?’

  ‘I’m not well, Jasmine,’ she tells me, her eyes filling with tears. ‘The doctor said I need a new liver.’

  Something about the way she speaks to me seems false. I don’t believe
her story about just spotting me in town; I look completely different in my Felicity disguise. The years apart have made me more objective, I don’t look at anyone with the same naive filter that I used to. I have my parents to thank for that.

  ‘Well, you can’t have mine.’ Again, I sound harder than I’d meant to. She’s just an elderly woman who has lost everything – but somehow I don’t forgive her. ‘I came back to find out what happened to the missing girl, to Mandy Green. When I saw that news report I thought maybe Tim was back – or Dad.’

  ‘What happened on that day?’ my mother says.

  I’m not an easy person to manipulate anymore. It’s like I can see the machinations, I am always looking for them. It was one of the things that drew me to Chris: his lack of ulterior motive. These past sixteen years I have felt so guilty for what I did but now, back here, I look at my mother’s forlorn face and I can’t help feeling it’s just a mask.

  ‘First, tell me what happened to Tim,’ I say, looking for a reaction. ‘Why do you have his car?’

  ‘Your father called me when you were at Felicity’s house that night. He told me that you and that Tim had a relationship, that he had been with you right under our noses, grooming you. I was beside myself; after what happened with your teacher how could we let it happen again? We offered Tim money to leave you alone. A lot of money. He didn’t need that car anymore.’ She started sobbing.

  I pause, looking at my mother. She looks so lost, so sad. But I know better.

  ‘You’re lying, I see it now. Why have you been following me?’ I say.

  She flinches and takes a step back.

  ‘All this time I thought you were the innocent bystander, the ignorant wife. But then they found Tim’s body in the woods and I knew that you had a bigger part in this than Dad ever told me. How did he get there?’

  I see my mother considering her options. She seems confused and trying to work out how to play this. She has aged so much in the last sixteen years, a shadow of her former self. I see the exact moment she decides to give me more information as it crosses her face, as if there is still some way out of this for her that might win me back.