The Good Samaritan

by John Marrs

  ‘Have you ever thought afterwards that you might have got it wrong with someone? Have you helped them and thought later that maybe they should have just held on for that bit longer?’

  ‘No,’ she replied without a pause. ‘Everyone who comes to me is a volunteer, like you are. I don’t seek people out, they seek me. I have never – and will never – regret anything I do.’

  I had a feeling Laura would soon be changing her mind.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  SEVEN MONTHS, ONE WEEK AFTER CHARLOTTE

  Steven’s day of reckoning had arrived.

  It was early afternoon when I trampled across the overgrown lawn to face the house I’d bought as a surprise for my wife.

  An estate agent’s white-and-blue ‘Sold’ board was still hammered into the ground, so I yanked it out and threw it behind some bushes. Paint was flaking from the original window frames. Patches of cement between the brickwork were cracked and needed repointing. Some of the grey slate tiles were off-kilter and would need replacing or straightening before the roof leaked. The seven months of neglect I’d shown, on top of the four and a half years it had already been empty, meant two-feet-high thistles and stinging nettles in the borders met with the dandelions hiding the gravel path.

  My parents had given me a £30,000 loan to put down as a deposit, and a mortgage took care of the rest. Charlotte and I had some savings to pay for the urgent repairs and the rest I’d thought we’d do in due course. It was a win/win situation – my dad loved his DIY, and with nothing left to alter in his own house, he was itching for a new project to sink his teeth into. He was set to save us a fortune in workmen’s bills.

  But the house that had promised so much was never given the chance to deliver, because Charlotte killed herself the day I got the keys. Since then, I hadn’t been able to face even driving past it, let alone going inside.

  ‘Are you thinking of buying it?’ asked a woman with a headscarf and a tiny rat-like dog on a pink lead as she walked past.

  I shook my head. ‘No.’

  ‘That’s a shame,’ she continued before shuffling off. ‘It’d make a lovely family home again.’ Her casual observation choked me. I’m sure it would, one day. But not tonight. Tonight I needed it to deal with Laura Morris.

  Back at the car, I removed a rope, a lightbulb, three cardboard folders stuffed with photographs of her and her family, and two rolls of tape, and carried them to the front door. Hesitantly I unlocked it and pushed it open. I’d already paid to have the electricity turned back on, so I flicked the light switch and the hallway slowly illuminated. A few pieces of old furniture and ornaments thick with dust had been left behind by the previous occupant, but the place was largely bare.

  I set to work covering every available inch of the bedroom wall with pictures until there was no space left. I screwed in a low-watt lightbulb so she wouldn’t spot them immediately and, step by step, memorised which stairs creaked and how to avoid them. Then I spent twenty minutes tying and retying the noose until it was exactly how she expected it to be, before hanging it from the wooden beams. What I had planned for Laura she deserved, I had no doubt about that. But I wasn’t going to kill her. I wanted her to admit what she’d done to Charlotte and then terrify her by making her think she wouldn’t be leaving that room alive. I would let her go – but I wanted her to know that her actions had consequences. Maybe then she would stop.

  I sat on the floor of the bedroom and at our prearranged time she called the pay-as-you-go mobile phone I’d bought, to find out where I lived.

  ‘There’s definitely not going to be anyone who might just turn up unexpectedly?’ she asked. For the first time since I’d unmasked the Freer of Lost Souls, I sensed real fear.

  ‘No – nobody,’ I replied in my usual pensive tone.

  ‘And you’ll remember to keep the front door open and the lights on?’

  ‘Yes. Don’t you trust me?’

  ‘Of course I do. But you are a human being and, by design, human beings let you down. I need to be as sure as I possibly can that you have listened to everything I’ve told you, so that there are no surprises or complications. Now, run me through the procedure again.’

  ‘You’ll get here for eight p.m. sharp. If you see anything suspicious or you’re not comfortable, you’ll drive away. I will be on my own, in my bedroom, which is the second on the left at the top of the landing. The rope will be affixed to the beams and the knot will be padded and tied correctly as you’ve told me. You’ll then watch as I climb on a chair and take one step off it. When you’re sure I’m dead, you’ll leave.’

  ‘Good. And Steven, I know I haven’t said this to you before, but thank you for asking me to be there with you. I have enjoyed talking to you these last couple of months. If you have any doubts, just keep reminding yourself why you came looking for me in the first place. Together, we explored every avenue before you decided this is the only route that makes sense. You are moving on and allowing everyone else you love to do the same. And I admire that so much.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I replied. Her speech sounded rehearsed and I wondered if Charlotte had heard these exact same words.

  It was just before eight o’clock and getting dark when I saw her from where I was standing behind the overgrown conifers in the front garden. She couldn’t see me. I held my breath and watched as her car pulled over to the kerb. My eyes were drawn to her fingers as they gripped the steering wheel. She waited, unsure whether to follow her heart and enter the house ahead, or listen to her head and get out of there. She turned around a handful of times in as many seconds to examine the house from every angle her position would allow.

  She’s here. She’s actually here. Laura Morris is here because she wants to watch me die.

  I clenched my fists as I willed her to go inside. After looking around one last time, she opened the door I’d left ajar, then returned seconds later to prop it open with a chair. My stomach was in knots, as if I desperately needed the toilet.

  I gave her time to make her way up the stairs to our meeting place before I followed, careful to avoid the noisy steps. I watched from the darkness of the corridor as she frantically pulled at the photographs on the wall. I moved silently into the room and when I spoke, she spun around, her eyes wide at the sound of my voice. I stepped forward and she retreated.

  ‘What . . . what do you want from me?’ she asked, in a tone I’d never heard her speak in before. She didn’t even try to disguise her fear.

  I moved towards her again to intimidate her further, telling her I wanted to know why she did what she did to vulnerable people. She responded by pulling out what looked like a kitchen knife from her coat pocket, waving it weakly in front of her. She didn’t have the balls to use it, and I told her so.

  Suddenly came the unmistakeable smell of urine and I realised she had pissed herself in her panic. Guilt briefly hit me, before I remembered what she had driven Charlotte to do and why she was here – to watch me die. I edged closer to her.

  ‘You see that rope?’ I asked. Of course she had. ‘It’s not me who’s going to be hanging from the beams tonight. It’s you.’

  For a moment, her shaking hand and that knife were the only things in the room to move until I broke the deadlock. I reached over to grab her wrist, then spun her around and got her in an armlock. As she howled in pain, the knife fell to the floor and I frogmarched her across the room towards the rope.

  I planned to tie it around her neck, then once she begged for her life and was at the most pitiful and apologetic a person could ever be, I’d let her go. Tomorrow, I’d hand over the recordings of our phone conversations to her manager at End of the Line and let them and the police deal with her.

  Only I hadn’t thought about how I would get the rope over her neck. As I released my grip on her arm, she took advantage of my hesitancy and elbowed me in the balls and kicked me hard in the shinbone. It was an automatic reaction for me to ease my grip on her, but that gave her the opportunity to free herself, pi
ck up the knife from the floor and plunge it into my stomach.

  It was a lucky shot – for her, anyway. I felt the pressure of the blade at first but not the pain; that only came after I put my hand on the wound and felt blood dripping down the waistband of my jeans. I felt a small whoosh of air when Laura bent down and pulled the knife out of me, and as I fell to my side I heard her footsteps disappear through the house, then a loud crash of something heavy on the staircase like she’d fallen. I paused to listen, hoping to God she hadn’t broken her neck, and then panicked over what I’d do with her dead body. Suddenly she began moving again, and I heard her leave the house and a car pull away.

  I lay in the room, alone, surrounded by pictures of her on the wall and those she’d torn down and left strewn across the floor.

  We had underestimated each other, and she had beaten me. For now, anyway.

  PART TWO

  CHAPTER ONE

  LAURA

  I inhaled deeply to get the scent of sandalwood emerging from the bubble bath, and inched my body a little further down until the warm soapy water covered my breasts, stopping just short of my chin.

  Seven vanilla-scented candles were arranged around the bath top, and every now and again the silence of the room was interrupted by a sharp crackle of the burning wick and wax.

  I began my mindfulness exercises and focused on how the water felt against my skin, how my toes felt as I raised my feet and they came into contact with the bubbles on the surface, and the pressure of the tub against my back. I focused on my breathing and allowed it to become slower and deeper, letting my tummy rise and fall instead of my back and shoulders. Then, as I was at my most relaxed, I pushed my bum forward, opened my mouth, slipped my head underwater and took the biggest gulp of water I could until it flooded my lungs.

  My brain’s immediate reaction was to force myself to the surface and cough the water out, but I fought hard against it and remained underneath, thrashing about like a fish caught in a net. I felt the muscles around my larynx contract and let the countdown begin on the remaining oxygen in my blood. My eyes stung but remained open, and I could make out the blurred blue of the towels on the radiator. It took all my strength but I held myself down a little longer until I couldn’t take the burning anymore. Light-headed, I pulled myself up and leaned over the side of the bath, violently vomiting water and bile onto the tiled bathroom floor. I was sure I’d remained underwater a little longer than last time.

  I pulled myself together and made my way to the bathroom mirror, wiping the steam from it with a flannel. I stared at my reflection. Six weeks after the night of my confrontation with Steven and my fall down his stairs, my black eyes, split lip, grazed ear, and bruised cheeks, neck and arms were healing too quickly for my liking. I applied my make-up sparingly, so any scabs were still noticeable, and I pinched hard at my bruises so they retained their colour.

  I was ready to return to work a hero.

  Inventing my assault soon after I escaped from Steven’s house might have been a desperate, spur-of-the-moment decision, but it was a bloody good one. It had given me an alibi and brought me closer to my husband.

  At first, I didn’t even try to process that I’d just stabbed a man. I was in shock and needed to get back home where it was safe and familiar. My arms and head were already starting to feel the pain of falling down the stairs, but I tried to put it out of my mind as I sped along the road. Then cold shivers ran across my shoulders, and down through my arms and legs until there was no part of my body that didn’t feel like ice. How had I been so stupid as not to have considered that I was being set up? Steven had known so much about me, and God knows how long he’d been following me.

  I didn’t notice the red traffic lights until another car blew its horn long and hard. I slammed on my brakes and skidded across the junction as the driver swerved to avoid me and mounted the pavement. I didn’t wait to see their reaction or apologise; instead, I drove even faster.

  I took a sharp left onto a side road and came to a halt in front of a row of tired-looking terraced houses, desperately trying to regulate my panting breath and tell myself that everything was going to be okay.

  But it’s not, is it? warned my inner voice. You’ve just stabbed a man. What if he’s dead? That makes you a killer.

  It wasn’t that I might have been responsible for a man’s death that concerned me. It was that if I’d killed him, there would be evidence in the house that could link the two of us. I’d begun tearing down photographs of myself from the walls until his sudden appearance had stopped me in my tracks. Many had remained.

  Suddenly it struck me – the only way out of this was to become the victim, not the perpetrator.

  Night had fallen by the time I left my car outside End of the Line, then I hurried along the streets, thinking clearly for just long enough to make sure there were no CCTV cameras above me. I made my way towards the Racecourse, a 120-acre rectangular park with only the occasional streetlight. Once in a darkened, secluded spot, I stared at the time on my phone and remained motionless, waiting for five minutes to pass. A sharp, searing pain burned my face like acid and my ear was ringing. I wanted to collapse to the ground in tears from the pain.

  ‘Don’t give in to it,’ I muttered under my breath, and gritted my teeth. Then, when five minutes had passed, I took a deep breath and ran back into the open on paths by busy roads, past shops and lamp posts with mounted cameras.

  ‘I’ve been attacked!’ I sobbed to the duty officer at Campbell Square Police Station. I didn’t need to encourage my body to tremble, and he could see by my bleeding face and hand that I’d been through the mill. He called for a colleague, and a young woman in uniform ushered me towards a chair.

  ‘Are you in need of any urgent treatment?’ she asked gently.

  I shook my head. ‘No, he didn’t . . . rape . . . me. I escaped before he did that.’

  She led me into an interview room at the back of the station and the next two hours of my life went by in a blur. It was as if I had allowed someone else to control my body, my brain and my conversation. I became a spectator listening to myself conjure up lie after lie.

  I explained how I’d been walking home from End of the Line through the park when I was pushed to the ground from behind. It was too dark to see his face when he rolled me over and kept hitting me in the face and then grabbed me hard by the shoulders and arms. I saw a knife in his hand, but somehow I’d managed to knee him in the groin, disable him and flee.

  While officers were dispatched to the scene, the crime was recorded and my statement and photographs of my injuries were taken. I was hesitant when they asked me to remove my clothes for processing, especially as I’d be forced to wear an unflattering forensic suit.

  I was now the victim of a crime. And should I ever be linked to what happened in the house, I’d have an alibi as to where I was. If that failed, I’d tell them Steven was a caller I’d grown fond of and who’d lured me to his home with desperate threats to kill himself. While it was unprofessional of me, I was concerned for his well-being. Then I’d tell them he attacked me and his death was self-defence. I had all my bases covered.

  But the hours spent inside the station also had another purpose, as it brought Tony to me. In the early hours and following a call from the duty officer, my worried husband appeared. The moment his eyes fell upon his injured, vulnerable wife, over a year’s worth of animosity melted away.

  ‘Are you okay?’ he asked, and placed his arm around my shoulders, instinctively kissing my crown. His lips were as soft as raspberries but I recoiled, as any physical contact hurt following my fall down the stairs. ‘What happened?’

  I mustered up the right amount of effort to burst into tears again, and placed my nose against his neck, breathing him in deeply. There was a faint scent of the previous day’s aftershave and moisturiser left on his skin. The police officer explained to Tony what had happened to me.

  ‘Can you take me home, please?’ I begged.

  We l
eft with a crime number and orders to see my GP the following day if my injuries worsened. Within a quarter of an hour, Tony’s car was pulling into our drive.

  ‘Do the girls know what happened?’ I asked.

  ‘No, I didn’t want to wake them and worry them. I left Effie a note in case she woke up and said I’d explain it to her in the morning. Where’s your car? It’s not on the drive.’

  ‘I left it at the office,’ I said.

  ‘Why were you walking home when you’re doing night shifts?’ he asked as if he was frustrated with me, but fell short of telling me off.

  ‘Are you saying this is my fault?’

  ‘No, no, that’s not what I meant. Let’s get you inside.’

  Tony helped me from the car and put his arm around my waist, gently assisting me up the driveway until we crossed the threshold. His touch felt magical. Tony’s eyes were diverted to the walls and he stared at each of them before looking at me. I knew what he was thinking.

  ‘I just want to sleep,’ I said quietly, and turned away.

  He helped me upstairs where I changed into my pyjamas and crawled into bed.

  ‘Will you stay with me tonight?’ I asked.

  Tony looked at me awkwardly. ‘Laura . . .’ he began.

  ‘Just for tonight,’ I said. ‘I’m scared and I need you to make me feel safe.’

  He nodded, and I pulled the duvet from his side of the bed to invite him in. He turned on the bedside lamp but sank into an armchair in the corner of the room instead. It was progress; at least we’d be sleeping in the same room. Despite my physical pain, knowing he was in touching distance helped me to drift off into a satisfactory sleep.

  By the time I awoke late in the morning, Tony had left me to face the day on my own. He texted to say he’d walked to End of the Line to pick up my car and it was parked on the driveway and that he’d return at teatime. That left me alone for seven hours. Only I wasn’t alone, because Steven was ever-present in my thoughts. Was he still alive and in that house, slowly bleeding to death, or had he died moments after I’d plunged my knife into his stomach? I had to know the truth.