The Good Samaritan

by John Marrs

  ‘Effie?’ he shouted and I followed him upstairs. ‘Effie!’ he yelled again. He opened a bedroom, and the curtains were closed even though it was only late afternoon. In the dim light, we both stopped in our tracks and stared at our daughter – her eyes firmly shut, body motionless and her arm dangling limply over the side of the bed with her fingers pointing to the floor.

  I rushed towards her, throwing her duvet back, grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her. Her eyes shot open and she screamed before she recognised me.

  ‘Mum! What the fuck?’ she began as she ripped a pair of headphones from her ears and sat bolt upright. I kept my hand over my mouth while Tony remained where he was. ‘What are you doing here?’ Effie asked, confused by my unexpected appearance.

  ‘We were so worried about you,’ I replied. Her eyes were red, much more so than if she’d just been asleep.

  ‘What’s going on?’ a young voice came from behind us. I turned to look at Alice, still in her school uniform and with her bag draped over her shoulder. A broad grin spread across her face.

  New memories were starting to come and go, this time of me walking a much younger Alice to school hand in hand; then more recently, me doing the school run alone. I could see myself standing at the gates, waiting to catch a glimpse of her from afar as she played with her friends, hoping she might spot me. Hoping that she hadn’t started to forget what I looked like or how I sounded. I couldn’t remember my mother’s face or her voice anymore.

  ‘Mummy?’ she squealed. ‘Are you back?’ She ran towards me and wrapped herself tightly around my legs and waist. I began to cry happy tears as I held her tightly. ‘Come and see my bedroom,’ Alice said and reached for my hand. I looked at Tony before I took it. He nodded hesitantly and I followed her out of the room and onto the landing. Her hand felt soft and small and I didn’t realise how unappreciative of it I’d been when I’d rejected it so frequently in the past.

  As we walked a short distance, another open door caught my attention. The coat I’d bought Tony the last birthday we’d spent together lay across his bed next to a gaudy orange cushion. But as I got closer, I realised it wasn’t a cushion, it was a handbag.

  An orange handbag.

  Janine’s orange handbag.

  Janine’s orange handbag with its Chinese dragon design was on my husband’s bed.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  RYAN

  I clenched my fists. A soft glow of light came from a crack under the front door to my flat.

  When I’d pulled up in the car park moments earlier, I was still on a high from coming face-to-face with Laura again. But I had a feeling that whatever lay beyond the threshold was about to bring me back down to earth with a bang. I hesitated, then slowly turned the handle. It was unlocked. I’d not had a fight since my schooldays and I couldn’t imagine a punch from me would do much damage to whoever was inside.

  I moved silently into the hallway and grabbed the heavy glass orb that was on the table. Then I inched my way towards the living room, where I could hear a rustling sound and drawers being opened and closed. I edged closer until I could get a better view of what I was up against.

  ‘Jesus!’ I yelled.

  Johnny spun around, every bit as surprised as me.

  ‘You scared the shit out of me,’ I said. ‘What are you doing here? How did you get in?’

  ‘I still have my key.’ His voice was deadpan.

  It was only then that I noticed the doors to the sideboard were open, along with the bureau where I kept my bills and paperwork. Scattered across the top were photographs of Laura’s family that I’d taped to the walls of the house and the rope I’d fashioned into a noose.

  Days after my first confrontation with Laura in the house and with my stab wound still aching, I’d been back to rid the place of any traces of that night, including wiping the floorboards clean of my blood. I’d dumped everything in a black recycling bin. Only now, four months later, did I remember that I hadn’t put the bin out to be collected; I’d left it in the back garden where it had remained ever since.

  ‘Are you going through my stuff ?’ I asked. He ignored my question.

  ‘Whose house were you parked outside for hours on Wednesday night?’

  ‘What, are you following me now?’

  ‘That’s neither here nor there. It’s what you were doing outside that house that matters to me.’

  My first reaction was to feel shame at being caught. Every so often, I’d drive slowly past Laura’s home, occasionally parking by the side of the road, wondering what she was doing inside. Sometimes I’d stay for five minutes; other times, hours passed before I’d noticed. But it wasn’t as if I had anywhere else to be.

  My second reaction was to fly off the handle.

  ‘You’re snooping around my home?’ I asked in a raised voice.

  ‘Damn right I am. Who’s this woman and why are there literally hundreds of photographs of her? And what about the rope? That night you stabbed yourself, you were planning to kill yourself, weren’t you? What was the noose for? A back-up plan in case the knife failed?’

  My rage threatened to boil over. ‘Get out, Johnny, or you and I are going to really fall out.’

  ‘Not until you tell me the truth.’

  ‘Johnny, I said get out!’

  ‘And I said no. I’m not leaving until you tell me what this is all about.’

  His stubbornness left me incensed. I went to grab his arm, but he moved it away quickly and shoved me hard in the chest. His swiftness took me by surprise and I lost my balance and sprawled across the armchair, making my healing wound ache. I rose to my feet and launched myself at him a second time, only he was more solid than I remembered. He grabbed my collar and pushed me backwards until I was pinned to the wall and his face was inches from mine, his forearm under my chin.

  ‘Get this through your thick fucking head!’ he shouted. ‘I am your brother, but I am not leaving this flat until you tell me what you’ve done.’

  I breathed hard and fast, trying to conjure up alternative reasons to explain my behaviour, but I couldn’t think of anything fast enough. Then as quick as a heartbeat, everything came to a head – losing Charlotte, discovering what Laura had done, tracking her down, the stabbing, what I’d done to Effie and our face-to-face confrontation earlier in the day. Every emotion under the sun came to a head and there was nothing I could do to stop them from gushing out of me. My body grew heavy and Johnny’s arms weren’t strong enough to stop me from collapsing to my knees. He joined me there and didn’t say a word as I cried like a baby.

  Later that night, we sat at opposite ends of the dining room table, four empty bottles of beer between us. I was unable to look him in the eye while he digested everything I told him, from the moments I was proud of to those I felt a secret shame for. I was honest with him about everything. Johnny didn’t interrupt me; his face didn’t move. Only when he was sure I’d finished did he reply.

  ‘What’s your endgame, Ry?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘What’s the point to all of this? Where’s it going to lead? What do you want to get out of it?’

  ‘I want to make Laura understand what she’s done – that she can’t play God with people’s lives.’

  ‘And you think scaring her and screwing with her daughter’s head is going to achieve that?’

  ‘Yes . . . No . . . I’m not sure. I don’t know. But what else am I supposed to do? Do nothing and let the same thing happen to the next Charlotte?’

  ‘Do you understand what you did to that teenage girl – your pupil – is just as bad as what her mother did to Charlotte?’

  ‘It’s not the same thing because I’ve not tried to talk anyone into killing themselves.’

  ‘How do you know that when Laura and her husband got home they didn’t find their daughter had hurt herself?’

  ‘Because I know the kind of girl Effie is. A few hurt feelings, a bruised ego, that’s all. She’ll get over it.’

&n
bsp; ‘Listen to yourself, bro. If you’re being really honest with yourself, you have no idea of the lasting damage you’ve done to her. You chose to bring her into this. She’s just a pawn in the game you’re playing with her mum. And the worst thing is, you don’t care.’

  I shook my head. ‘You haven’t met Effie. You don’t know what she was like before I started this.’

  ‘And you know what? I don’t care. Because she is a teenage girl. This is what teenage girls are like. What you did to her is so, so wrong, and on so many levels. You should feel ashamed of yourself.’

  I felt my face turn red. I rubbed my scratchy eyes with the palms of my hands. When I stared at Johnny, for a moment I recognised the man I could have been had I never found Charlotte’s hidden files and read about the Freer of Lost Souls. Once, my younger brother and I had looked so much alike. Now when I looked at him, a much older, darker version of me was reflected in his eyes. I knew that everything he was saying to me was true, but I didn’t want to admit it.

  ‘So if you have all the answers, you tell me what I should’ve done, then,’ I said.

  ‘I’d have gone to the police with the recordings of your phone conversations and told them what I think Laura did.’

  ‘What I think? You mean what I know. But I don’t have enough evidence, Johnny. She’d walk free.’

  ‘She told you she’d encouraged others to die.’

  ‘But she didn’t give me any names, did she? She didn’t mention Charlotte. She could just claim she was playing along with some fantasy we had going. And what proof do I have that she was ever at the house or stabbed me?’

  ‘Then I’d have made an appointment with whoever is in charge of End of the Line and alerted them to her. Even if they can’t do anything about it, at least Laura will be on their radar. But I wouldn’t tell them everything, like the Effie stuff, or they’ll think you’re a danger.’

  ‘And what about you? Do you think I’m a danger?’

  He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. ‘I think you’ve reacted to Charlotte’s death in a way that’s putting yourself at risk. What you did to that girl . . . how you led her on . . . it’s the first time I have ever been ashamed of you. Now it’s time to stop blaming Laura for your actions and start taking some of the responsibility. Neither she nor Charlotte have put you where you are right now. You have. Charlotte chose to die and you chose to respond to it in a way a rational person wouldn’t have.’

  He prised the tops from two more bottles of beer and slid one towards me.

  ‘Obsessing about this woman has become your whole life, hasn’t it?’ he continued. I nodded. ‘When did you last read a book or watch a series on Netflix? Have you got your washing machine repaired yet? When did you last go to the house? That hammer’s been on the sideboard for months waiting for you to put that picture back up on the wall. You need to start getting on with real life. You’re never going to move on if you don’t.’

  ‘How do I even start moving on?’

  ‘Begin by drawing a line under things tonight. And then we’ll take it from there, you and me.’

  For the first time since the police had turned up at the flat to tell me of Charlotte’s death, I felt the knot in my stomach loosen a little. Not much, but enough to help me breathe.

  CHAPTER NINE

  LAURA

  It was all too much for me to take in at once. I didn’t know how to even begin processing the day’s events.

  Ryan and Janine. Both hidden enemies conspiring to tear me to pieces, and both completely independent of one another. I sat cloaked in the darkness of the house that I now understood to be empty of my family. It had been like that for almost two years, according to Tony. Subconsciously my brain had refused to accept that he and the girls had left, and I’d convinced myself we might be living separate lives but at least we were all under the same roof. Now I knew the truth of the situation and I felt desperately lonely. I kept forcing myself to think about Henry but he still couldn’t anchor me. The more tired I became, the more confused I was about what was real and what I’d imagined.

  There were two things I could be sure of, however. Ryan wasn’t just toying with me anymore; he was also toying with my daughter. And I couldn’t let that continue.

  Janine was doing exactly the same thing, but in her own twisted little way. She’d been playing a behind-the-scenes role in my life that I hadn’t been aware of. Her affair with my husband explained the constant disdain she showed me, why she watched me from her office and took every opportunity to belittle me in front of the other volunteers. Now, like a cuckoo, she’d made a home in my nest, but instead of ousting my eggs to make room for her own, she was ensuring there was no room left for me when I returned. She was the reason why Tony and the girls weren’t upstairs in their bedrooms right now, not me.

  What has Tony told her about me? What does she know that she has no right to? What can’t I remember that made everyone leave me?

  I stepped into the back garden for another cigarette. I’d given up monitoring how many I’d smoked since I’d returned from Tony’s. I replayed certain moments in my head, like when we were hurrying through the school car park and he was discreetly trying to text someone. He must have been asking Janine to leave the house because I was coming. I bet she left her bag there on purpose for me to see. Or perhaps she was hiding somewhere in a different room, laughing at me. While I was worrying about our daughter’s safety, Tony had known all along that Janine had been there with Effie.

  I couldn’t tell him why I feared for my girl and he couldn’t tell me why I had no reason to. He was too afraid to admit the truth about what had been going on behind my back.

  How could you, Tony? How could you do this to us?

  For much of my life I’d been a survivor, but it was only now I realised that somewhere along the line, the role of victim had taken precedence. I desperately needed the strong, confident Laura I used to know to take charge. I inhaled one last long drag from my cigarette and then stamped on it. Ryan and Janine, Janine and Ryan. They didn’t have the first clue who they’d taken on.

  But who should I target first? My heart told me Janine, my head told me Ryan. Yes, it had to be Ryan because I knew the least about him and he was the biggest threat to my stability. He’d met with my husband, targeted my daughter, knew where I lived and visited my son. Now it was my turn to discover who the enemy was and to make him suffer like he had me. And I knew who to ask first.

  I gazed across the playground, searching for Alice before the school bell sounded the start of her new day.

  In these daily snapshots of her life each weekday morning, I’d see just how tall she was becoming, that her hair was getting longer and her body more agile. She was growing up, five minutes every morning at a time. I couldn’t recall what her last memory of me was, but from what Tony had suggested, it hadn’t been a good one. Once my enemies were out of the way, the rest of the pieces would all fit into place and I’d be walking her to school every day again.

  Suddenly, Alice spotted me and her face lit up. I let out a sigh of relief. She still loved me. She began to run towards me just as the school bell sounded. ‘It’s okay,’ I mouthed, and pointed towards the door, telling her to go inside. ‘I’ll see you soon.’ She waved and skipped into the building and out of sight.

  I saw Kate Griffiths before she turned her head and noticed me, not that she had the faintest clue who I was. She’d either gone to bed wearing a full face of make-up or she’d set her alarm for the crack of dawn, because no parent looked like that on the school run without a lot of preparation.

  I’d see her most days at the school gates with her son but hadn’t realised until she passed Tony and me as we left Effie’s school that she also had a child there. I noted that she wore a sticker with her name handwritten across it and the words ‘Parent–Teacher Association’ underneath.

  ‘Hello,’ I began as she opened the door to her SUV. She turned sharply and gave me a cursory glance up and down. ‘I’
m Laura. My daughter’s in the same class as your son.’ I lied about the last part.

  ‘Oh, of course,’ she replied, but her fake smile couldn’t disguise her lack of interest.

  ‘I saw you at St Giles Upper School last night. I didn’t realise you had a child there too.’

  ‘That’s nice,’ she replied, but offered nothing by way of conversation. I was a dark cloud in her blue sky and she couldn’t wait for the wind to blow me away. By the unnatural smoothness of her skin, I guessed she’d had more fillers injected into her than cream in a choux pastry.

  ‘How’s your daughter getting on in Year Ten?’

  ‘Very well, thank you. She’s going to be taking some of her GCSEs early. How about your . . .’ She couldn’t finish her sentence so I did it for her.

  ‘My Effie? She’s getting along well. She transferred there coming up for two years ago now.’

  ‘It’s a good school with amazing OFSTED reports,’ Kate replied. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be rude but I’ve really got to dash . . .’

  She tried to climb into her car but I ignored how desperate she was to nip our communication in the bud.

  ‘We’ve been lucky that Effie’s teacher Mr Smith has taken such a shine to her,’ I said. ‘I met him recently for the first time. Is he new to the school? I don’t recall seeing him before.’

  ‘He’s been there about a year and a half now, if memory serves, and he recently became acting head of Year Ten. But before that, he took some personal time off after that whole sorry business with his wife.’

  ‘His wife?’

  This is why I’d chosen to speak to Kate. I’d recognised her type immediately. I’d seen it so many times before in mothers who became overly involved in their children’s school lives. They have their fingers in many pies to make up for the fact they have little else going on in their own world. And the one thing they love more than listening to gossip is being the first to spread it to others.

  ‘Did you not read about it?’ Kate continued. ‘It was quite horrible. Suicide. She jumped off a cliff. Can you believe it? What an awful way to go.’