The Killer Inside

by cass green

  He’d woken up inside a shipping container, his passport and five hundred pounds next to him in a carrier bag. The thought that people had broken into his house to get the passport – where his mum might have walked in – made him feel even sicker, once he was able to process it. It was so … clinical. And how long would that money last?

  There was a plastic trench that became his toilet in one corner, and multi-packs of water and, bizarrely it seemed at the time, boxes of crisps and peanuts in another. To this day he could no longer eat processed, salty snacks without feeling the absolute terror he’d felt in the back of that metal coffin.

  It felt like a lifetime but he now knows (easy to find online) it would have been two days later that he arrived in Rotterdam. Here, he was wordlessly bundled into another van and deposited at the airport.

  Yes, maybe he’d had a choice at that point. The threat to his family had felt real, though.

  For a long time he’d told himself that was his sole reason for staying away. But the truth was, he was glad he had a reason not to go back home. How could he be in that house, hearing the train announcements and the ding-ding-ding of the crossing gate without reliving the horror of that night, over and over again?

  At first, not contacting home had been hard. But he knew that if he spoke to his mother, he would feel so guilty that he would be on the first flight back. As time moved on, and he went from lying with a needle in his arm in that filthy room in Koh Pha-Ngan, to the life he had now, with Pimchan, it got easier to simply stay away.

  But now that there is a chance that he might be a father himself, it sheds a whole new light on what might have been.

  As the car shudders with the effect of a huge lorry overtaking him, he feels a pang of pain at the thought of Pimchan. Hard to know when he is going to see her again. Now that they are married, he shouldn’t have trouble getting back into the country, but he has no idea what repercussions may flow from him going to the police. He didn’t cause that poor woman – Alice Adebayo – to be obliterated by that train, but he had been there and was pretty certain that Anastasia would be able to get the most expensive legal representation behind her to twist the truth.

  Reading about Michael’s death in a syndicated Kent local news story online was the tipping point that had brought him home at last. His mother was alone now. She needed him. He hadn’t known for sure whether he intended to go to the police at that point, but then his mother had told him what she told him, and it had all come together in his mind.

  His brother hadn’t in fact committed suicide, as he had believed; it was all about Anastasia. That evil bitch had turned up, like broken glass in his skin again after all these years. Liam had had to resist the temptation to smash a fist into the old coffee table, which still bore the marks from when he crashed his trike into it twenty-nine years ago.

  His mother had begged him not to get involved, and he had managed to convince her that he would do nothing. But when she went to bed, he had rooted through all the drawers in the dresser for anything that might lead him where he needed to go.

  There had been a sheet of paper, what looked like a private investigator’s report in there, which gave him a curious mixture of pride and sadness at the ingenuity his brother had showed that led him to his death.

  Liam had slipped out early this morning, still jet-lagged and unable to sleep properly, leaving a note that stated he would most definitely be home later that day and that she wasn’t to worry. Then he had gone into town and hired a car, thankful that he was able to use his Thai licence because his UK one had long expired, and got on the road to Kent.

  It wasn’t hard to find the house, using his smartphone GPS.

  Nice little place, which reminded him of holidays they’d had in Hunstanton as a kid. Not exactly where he’d imagined her ending up, that was for sure. In his head, he had pictured her living in some riverside apartment over the Thames, or in a massive pile in the country.

  When he was informed he had arrived at his destination, Liam sat in the car, listening to the cooling tick of the engine, thinking about what he was going to do.

  His hands shook a little and he squeezed them into fists and then flexed them.

  Getting out of the car, he stretched his stiff back and began to walk towards number 15.

  Liam stood at the gate and hesitated. He could see into a sitting room, where a woman – yes, it was her – was holding a baby to her shoulder and patting its back a bit robotically. She looked like crap, he was gratified to see, although still beautiful.

  That’s what had fooled him the first time though. He had swallowed the childhood fairy tale lie that monsters were always ugly.

  ELLIOTT

  ‘I got croissants and pain-au-chocolat,’ I called out, ‘so I hope you’re hungry, although it’s possible I may have eaten some of them on the way back.’

  I could hear unhappy cries from upstairs now I was properly inside. My heart seemed to fall in my chest at the thought of a Saturday morning so different from the one I had been hoping for.

  My plan was to try and behave normally, to make Anya feel as safe as she possibly could with everything that was happening. But now I had visions of her and the baby both in tears upstairs. So it was a surprise when I heard her call out, ‘In here,’ from the kitchen. We didn’t usually leave Livi to cry.

  She came into view first, standing over by the sink, an expression on her face that I couldn’t read. I gave a start when I saw we weren’t alone in the room.

  Maybe on some strange level I knew who it was. I can’t really say, because my memory of that day is an odd, fickle thing. There are some moments that are scarred upon my mind for ever more, and I have to live through them in increments that feel even slower than seconds. Other parts, well, they are less clear.

  I know that I stared at him, this wiry, bearded man sitting at our kitchen table, and he stared at me, for several seconds, before anyone spoke.

  Then Anya said, ‘This is Liam.’

  Liam gave a bitter laugh, shaking his head slowly then looking from her to me again.

  He stood up and completely surprised me by holding out a tanned, knobbly-knuckled hand in greeting. I almost took it, before stopping myself.

  Anya snorted and angled her body away to stare out of the kitchen window.

  ‘I know this is a bit weird,’ he said in a quiet, deep voice. ‘But I’m not here to actively hurt anyone. I just wanted to speak to Anastasia. It’s part of my recovery, you see. I know that I didn’t behave as I should have back then. I wanted to say sorry.’

  Anger flared, bright and bitter; the same horrible thrill scaring Lee Bennett had prompted twitching inside me. This man had almost ruined my wife’s life and I hated him right then. Wanted to hurt him.

  I looked at her narrow shoulders, hunched in as she stood at the sink, and knew I would do anything to protect her and our daughter.

  ‘Anyway,’ he said a little hesitantly, perhaps guessing the direction of my thoughts. ‘I’ve finally had enough and I’m doing what I should have done all those years ago.’

  ‘You’re going to tell the police?’ I said, trying to sound calm. Maybe his confession would help the current situation in some way? I had no idea.

  He nodded. His eyes were an unusual light bright brown and it struck me, unpleasantly, they were oddly like Anya’s. They had similar colouring in general: the dark red hair, the pale skin. They could have been related. Was that an attraction, originally? It wasn’t something I wanted to dwell upon. My mouth was dry and I picked up a glass of half-drunk water that was sitting on the kitchen worktop. I didn’t know how long it had been there and it tasted stale. Still, I drank it down.

  I had absolutely no idea what to do here.

  Anya (so strange to hear him calling her Anastasia) and Liam were staring at each other, in silence. It felt weirdly like they were coiled, waiting to see what the other did first before springing into some sort of physical action.

  ‘So,’ I said finally, ‘
you’re actually going to confess what you did to that woman?’

  Liam turned his gaze to me, a look of amusement on his face now.

  ‘Ah, right,’ he said, with a sharp laugh. ‘I shouldn’t be surprised that’s the story she concocted. The trouble is … Elliott, is it?’

  I nodded.

  ‘The trouble is, Elliott, that you have been played for a fool.’

  ‘What the fuck are you—’

  ‘Don’t listen to him, Elliott,’ said Anya loudly, turning back to look at me, ‘he’s absolutely full of shit. Of course he’s going to deny it.’

  ‘Okay, then,’ said Liam. ‘Shall I tell you why I haven’t seen my family, why I missed my own father’s funeral, and then my brother’s?’ His tone started out even but now his voice was rising and I saw that he was holding back emotion with a visible will. He had tanned, sinewy arms with lots of leather and cloth bracelets on his wrists and he kept clenching and unclenching his fists. I was bigger than him, but he had an energy about him and a wiry strength that meant I wasn’t confident about overpowering him if the need arose.

  He wiped his hands on his canvas trousers. Nervous sweat? I instinctively moved a little closer to Anya.

  ‘So since the afternoon when her father,’ he tipped a thumb at Anya, whose jaw was set, her eyes cold now ‘… beat the shit out of me with a golf club then threatened my family, it felt wise for me to stay away. D’you understand what I’m saying?’

  He was breathing heavily. I think I had my mouth open now. Patrick had done that? Patrick? Or was it all lies?

  Livi had gone quiet upstairs, thank God. I didn’t want her anywhere near this.

  ‘So why,’ he went on, his eyes swimming now, ‘why would he have gone to all that trouble if it had been me who pushed that poor woman under a train?’

  He roughly wiped his nose with the back of his hand, his composure crumbling. When he spoke again, his voice cracked.

  ‘I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been over it in my mind,’ he said in a rush, breathing heavily. ‘I nearly killed myself with the guilt of it all, that I didn’t stop you …’

  ‘Liam—’ said Anya in a loud voice but he shouted over her.

  ‘No!’ he said. ‘You killed her in cold blood and it’s time you paid for it!’

  Something was beginning to crumble, so painfully, inside my mind.

  I turned to look at Anya. Every single atom of my being was resisting what I was hearing. It couldn’t be true, it couldn’t. It was too horrible. My wife, who I had always believed to be so much better a human being than I could ever be, a double murderer? It couldn’t be true, it couldn’t be true, it couldn’t be …

  And yet …

  I knew it, deep in the marrow of my bones.

  I knew, finally, that she was capable of this.

  When you have lived so long in the dark, the light is a searing, painful thing. I wished I didn’t know.

  Now is the moment that I have gone over, again and again, in the broken, splintered time since.

  She could read what I was thinking. Her expression collapsed, a tremor of grief passing over her face, then she somehow smoothed it back into an impassive mask.

  Liam stood up and cleared his throat.

  ‘Okay,’ he said, sounding flat and weary now. ‘I just wanted to come here and look you in the eye. I wanted to say I am sorry that I didn’t do the right thing or try and help you to do it. I can only say that when you end up in a prison cell – where you belong – you’ll have plenty of time to think about what you have done to two families.’

  He stopped and looked at me, his eyes full of pain and regret. ‘No, wait,’ he said. ‘Make that three. Because there’s your own, too.’

  All I could do was stare, wordlessly, as he moved to the door.

  Then Anya cried, ‘Wait, Liam!’ and came towards him quickly. I thought for a moment she was embracing him, which seemed weird and wrong. But then he made a horrible gasping sound and looked down at himself, his eyes wide.

  Anya stood back, panting audibly, and it was only as Liam said, ‘Fuck!’ and crumpled in half, that I could see the bread knife, slick with blood, she was still holding in her hand.

  ‘Shit! Anya!’ I yelled. ‘What the hell have you done?’

  Liam was now lying on his side on the tiles, gasping and holding onto his abdomen, his T-shirt dark with the spreading stain. Anya just stared down at him. I grabbed a tea towel and got down on my knees to press it against his stomach.

  ‘Call an ambulance!’ I shouted. Then, to Liam, ‘Keep that pressed as hard as you can. You’ll be alright, mate, you’ll be alright.’ I had no idea if this was true.

  Anya barked, ‘Elliott!’ at me and I looked up to see her standing over me.

  She was holding the knife, handle first, her expression unreadable again.

  ‘I need you now,’ she said.

  ‘I know!’ I said. ‘We’ll work this out, but ring 999 now!’

  ‘No,’ she said quietly. ‘You said I should have come to you before. Well now I am coming to you! Finish it. For me.’

  I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t take in what she was asking me to do. I stared at the bloodied knife blade clutched in her fist. It must have been cutting her hand; her blood mixing with Liam’s. The wooden handle shook as she thrust it towards me again. Liam was making a horrible gurgling sound and staring at me with terrified, wide eyes.

  Did I think about doing it, in that moment, even for one second?

  Was I my father’s son after all?

  ‘Take it!’ she shrieked.

  I grabbed it from her hand, jumped to my feet and then threw the blood-slippery knife into the sink.

  Because, no.

  It turned out that it wasn’t true, you see, that I would do anything for Anya.

  I didn’t have it in me after all. Whatever dark place she had somehow held inside for so long, I couldn’t join her there.

  I was crying now.

  ‘I love you so much,’ I said. ‘But it’s over, sweetie, don’t you see?’

  I ripped another towel off the counter behind me and got down on my knees next to Liam again. His face was ashen, and he was breathing in small gasps. I began to press it into the wound, scared I was making it worse because he cried out, pitifully quiet.

  All I heard was, ‘I’m so sorry, my darling,’ before something slammed into the side of my head and my existence became just a starburst of pain.

  You probably think I am a monster. Or at least, a coward. I still don’t know if I did the right thing in tipping off the police. It felt so sordid.

  But now she knows I am dying, I have seen with my own eyes that she has lost interest in Olivia. She tells me she won’t be able to cope, that she can’t live in the world without me and Patrick side by side, to support and understand her.

  People used to comment with envy at what a tight family unit we are. But I wonder whether we got it wrong, whether we made it impossible for Anya to face the world properly on her own.

  I don’t want to go to my death knowing what I know or leaving my daughter in charge of her own child. It is better that Elliott and Olivia make a new start.

  Yes, I know I sound callous. But it is for the best reasons.

  And now she is here. Crying and covered in blood. She says, ‘I’m sorry but I can’t do it any more.’

  And I think, not again. Not again.

  ELLIOTT

  I can’t have been out for that long but there was a period of time that was just a hazy hinterland between the two states of being unconscious and being awake. I was almost comfortable, stuck in this not-knowing place.

  Sometimes, on the longest days, I wish I could go back there.

  It was the feeling of the cold tile against my cheek that first began to feel all wrong, and then the knowledge of what had happened zapped through me like the shock of a Tasering. I scrambled onto my knees, the side of my head throbbing and tender when I gently touched it. I wasn’t bleeding, though, and I wa
sn’t very dizzy once the initial swoop of nausea passed.

  Liam was lying just behind me, panting very softly, a dark pool of blood spreading across the pale tiles beneath him. I swore and leaned over him and his eyes flicked to me with an animal look of fear in them. He whimpered.

  ‘It’s okay, mate,’ I said, ‘I’m going to get help.’ I was scared to touch him, but at that moment there was a thunderous banging on the front door, followed quickly by a splintering, smashing sound and then the kitchen was filled with people in various uniforms.

  Radios crackled and two paramedics immediately bent to Liam as I leaned against the sink and held my aching head.

  They started throwing around words I’d heard only on television hospital dramas before, about ‘resp rates’ and ‘systolic’ and ‘cannulating’ before they were putting a needle into Liam’s arm and an oxygen mask over his face.

  A policewoman – DS Jin from yesterday – was suddenly right there and she came to me now.

  ‘Elliott,’ she said, ‘do you need medical attention?’ Then, ‘Where is she?’

  I’m still ashamed about this part, despite everything, because it was only then that I thought about Livi.

  I ran out of the room, almost pushing past one of the paramedics and a uniformed male officer who called out, ‘Hey!’ as I took the stairs two at a time.

  I knew Anya wouldn’t hurt Livi but I couldn’t bear to think she had been screaming, alone and scared up there. But when I approached the cot and looked down, I saw her peacefully asleep, her little cheeks red and damp. My chest flooded with hot, protective love and I lifted her up in the delicate yellow blanket that Julia had crocheted.

  ‘Elliott,’ said a sharp voice, and I turned to see the male uniform. Everything was too strange and confused to make sense of but it’s only now that I know they didn’t suspect me of having stabbed Liam because Liam had been able to gasp out what happened into the phone in his hand. Anya’s phone.

  I like to think she put it there before she fled. That maybe she didn’t really want that third death on her conscience. I don’t want to think that she simply dropped it in the panic of everything that was happening.