by John Marrs
‘No, I don’t think we should do that just yet. You know how overprotective he is over you and he might do something rash. Leave this to me – I’ll sort it out. But I need to know how far you want me to take this.’
She paused for a moment, then looked at me with a steely determination I’d not seen in her before. ‘I want him to feel as shit as he made me feel.’
‘Okay. But I’m going to need your help to make sure he never grooms or humiliates any girl ever again.’
‘Thanks, Mum,’ she replied, and I held her close to my chest and stroked her hair. It felt surprisingly good to have my elder daughter back.
I glanced around the coffee shop and lowered my voice. ‘You know an accusation like this could ruin a teacher’s career, don’t you?’
She nodded, and gave me a smile that told me she was on board with anything I might suggest.
‘Good girl,’ I replied. ‘Good girl.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
RYAN
‘Someone’s been in Granddad’s room,’ Johnny began on the phone. He sounded perplexed and anxious.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I don’t want to freak you out, but you know that wedding photo of you and Charlotte on the shelf? Charlotte’s face has been scribbled out with a pen. I only noticed it as I was leaving.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course I am. I took it with me when he fell asleep so he wouldn’t see it. Who would do something like that?’
‘Laura,’ I exhaled. ‘Fuck.’
‘What? You think it was her?’
‘It could only be her.’
I fell silent. She must have somehow discovered Granddad was staying at the same facility as her son. And during their many conversations, Charlotte had clearly told Laura she’d scribbled out Britney Spears’s face from pictures with Charlotte’s crush Justin Timberlake. Laura was giving me a clear warning that, like me, she could do her homework.
I didn’t want to believe she was responsible, because that meant she was stepping out from the shadows and telling me she wasn’t afraid anymore, while I’d promised Johnny I’d let her go.
‘Jesus Christ, Ryan! If it is her then you’ve got to do something about this, Ry, before it goes any further,’ Johnny replied sternly. ‘If she’s as fucked up as you say she is, she could have done anything to Granddad when she was alone with him.’
‘I know, I know,’ I replied. ‘I’m so sorry.’
He hung up, and I held the phone to my chest and regretted taking pictures of her disabled son in the care home where my granddad also lived.
‘Shit, shit, shit,’ I said aloud, and dropped the phone onto the sofa. I was at a loss as to how to respond. Maybe now I’d made Laura’s boss aware of what she was capable of, I’d just need to remain patient and wait for Laura to mess up. However, until that happened, if Laura was gunning for me, I’d need to be prepared.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
LAURA
‘Hello, my dear, are you back in the land of the living?’
Mary gave me one of her all-encompassing hugs, the kind where she thrust her body into yours and which made you want to change your clothes immediately.
‘Yes, it was a particularly nasty tummy bug. The girls had it too,’ I lied.
Following my confrontation at Effie’s school with Ryan, and the discovery that Janine was screwing my husband, I’d bought some time away from the office by faking the norovirus. I hadn’t yet mustered up the strength to confront Janine without wanting to pour a kettle of boiling water over her head.
‘Taking a few days off gave me time to whip up a batch of these.’
I eased the lid from a cake tin crammed with the contents of three boxes of clotted cream shortbread I’d bought a day earlier. ‘Don’t worry, I wasn’t contagious when I made them,’ I joked as Mary’s wrinkled hand dipped inside. I took a moment to glance around the rest of the office. Full of enthusiasm and always with other people’s best interests above their own, my colleagues were genuine, good people. But they were also incredibly blind. None of them could see what was right under their noses. None of them knew who I really was.
‘Don’t get too comfortable,’ Kevin warned as I made my way to my desk. ‘Janine’s put you down for a one-to-one drop-in, in about half an hour.’
I rolled my eyes. Janine knew I wasn’t comfortable with face-to-face callers, yet the spiteful cow had still appointed me one. Now I’d have to go and see her, and make up an excuse as to why I couldn’t do it.
‘She’s not in,’ continued Kevin, pre-empting my response. ‘She’s taken a couple of days off. She said she’s going away with her new fella.’
I stopped in my tracks.
‘New fella?’ I repeated, almost spitting out the words.
‘Yes, she’s been seeing some bloke for a while now. It sounds pretty serious from what she’s been telling Zoe.’
‘Well, it just goes to prove there’s someone for everyone. Even someone with Janine’s unique appearance.’
I stepped into her office to fume alone. I wanted to put Tony and Janine and their grubby little liaison to the back of my mind, but it was easier said than done. Instead I was picturing them, arms entwined, walking along a beachfront. I could see them enjoying a picnic in the countryside, kissing under the sun. I could imagine him holding his jacket over their heads to keep them dry in a sudden downpour. Everything he should have been doing with me, he was doing with her.
I flicked through the appointments book and questioned how – of all the people my handsome husband could have replaced me with – he’d chosen that thing. That frumpy, weasel-faced shit of a woman, cuddling up to my Tony and playing mother to my children. It beggared belief.
I’d thought that he and I had grown closer after my attack, and now I was even starting to build a relationship with Effie and Alice again. We should have been on the same page, with the aim of us all living together under one roof. And in time, maybe Tony might have even accepted Henry back into our lives. All five of us, like it was supposed to be. Not them with her; not them with Janine.
It had been my plan to deal with Ryan first and then Janine, but as my rage rose like lava bubbling at the rim of a volcano, they now shared equal billing.
I took a deep, calming breath, but the smell of Janine’s cheap supermarket perfume lingered in the air and caught the back of my throat, making me cough. I found the name of my drop-in caller in the appointments book and paused when I spotted Janine’s diary peeking out from an open desk drawer. I made sure I wasn’t being watched as I flicked from page to page. Today she’d scheduled the start of a long weekend. She’d written ‘Iceland’ with three exclamation marks; the ‘i’ was lower case and a heart used instead of a dot. Tony was aware I’d always wanted to see the Northern Lights but he’d refused to go with me because he hated the cold. Now he’d taken Janine there. I hoped the lights were so bright they blinded her.
Tony and I had taken many long-weekend city breaks. His parents looked after the kids and we’d spend Friday to Sunday in cities like Bruges and Barcelona. I hated that he was replicating our life with Janine.
I skipped back a few pages and noted she’d scribbled something out. She’d pressed pretty heavily on the page because it left an impression on the next. What was she trying to hide? Curious, I held the paper up to the strip light and the name became clear.
4.15 p.m., Ryan Smith, it read.
I glared at the name for a time, allowing my brain to absorb it and what it meant. I blinked hard and looked again and his name was still there. The only two people on my hit list were working together.
A knock on the door made me jump out of my skin, and I covered the diary with a ring binder.
‘Laura, your appointment is here.’ Zoe smiled. ‘I’ll start monitoring the cameras.’
Downstairs, a man with a pinched face and the stench of stale tobacco began grumbling about how dreadful his life had been since his wife walked out on him. Knowing we were bei
ng watched, I nodded at the appropriate times and gave enough sympathetic smiles where suitable. Even when he told me he thought he’d be better off dead than alone, I didn’t bite. I didn’t need a candidate right now. All I could think about was Janine and Ryan meeting under this roof and in this room. Not knowing what they had discussed was killing me.
Later, when the client left, seemingly satisfied that someone in the world now understood his woes, I went back upstairs and thanked Zoe for keeping an eye on me from the camera room. I waited for her to return to her desk, then went into the room and closed the door. She hadn’t logged out from the computer, so I accessed a file containing saved footage of past drop-in callers. Each clip was labelled with their name, date, the interviewer and the camera monitor. However, none of the MPEGs had Ryan’s name attached. I folded my arms, frustrated. Then I clicked the mouse on the trash can symbol. Among the deleted Word documents was a file titled ‘R.S.’
‘Ryan Smith,’ I said out loud.
With no other names attached to it, I assumed Janine had recorded it herself then deleted it, but forgotten to empty the virtual rubbish bin.
I slipped on the headphones and pressed play. Eventually, Ryan entered the room followed by Janine. He drummed his fingers against his leg and tapped his foot on the floor nervously while he waited for her to return with a glass. This was a very different Ryan from the smug one taunting me at Effie’s school.
I listened intently as he told Janine about his wife Charlotte’s death and how he’d read online about the Freer of Lost Souls, and he recalled the effort he’d put into discovering if I were real. Then he recounted in detail our many conversations – how I’d encouraged him to die and how I’d accepted his invitation to watch as it happened. My heart raced. I kept staring at Janine’s face, but it remained emotionless despite the accusations.
Listening to Ryan talk in-depth about the loss he’d felt after his wife’s death humanised him a little. Until that moment, he’d been an unpredictable force bent on tormenting me. But watching this video, he became a real person, a man who’d suffered; who was fractured and lonely. He was nothing like the formidable opponent I’d spent months hiding from in my house.
It made me want to break him even more.
Suddenly he handed her what looked like a Dictaphone. She glanced at the camera, then pulled out headphones from her bag and spent the next five minutes listening without saying a word. I hunched forward, literally on the edge of my seat, wondering what the hell was on that recording. Finally, she spoke.
‘You need to know that Laura is a popular member of the team and a big fundraiser for us,’ she said. ‘If it wasn’t for her, we’d be struggling to stay open.’
Janine’s appreciation of my hard work wasn’t the response I’d expected, as she’d never shown me anything close to gratitude before. And I began to feel a little relieved when a frustrated Ryan stood up to leave. It was his word against mine – a stranger wracked with grief and desperate to find someone other than himself to blame for his wife’s death, versus me, a people person, a woman whose middle name was charity. Janine might not have liked me, but at least I had her support.
I began to slip the headphones from my ears, but continued to watch the screen as Ryan made his way towards the door. Suddenly, Janine stood up and stopped him. She looked straight into the video camera and whispered into his ear. I couldn’t make out what she was saying, so I replayed it. Again, it was too muffled. Only when I turned up the volume to maximum could I understand a few words.
‘I believe . . . saying,’ she told him. ‘. . . suspicions . . . number of suicidal calls . . . higher . . . other branches . . . I promise . . . me a little time . . . kicked out of here . . . police investigation. This place . . . I’ll take it away from her . . .’
I slumped in my seat, watching both figures leave the room until eventually the computer screen turned black.
Oh, Janine, why did you have to say that?
Everyone was too busy on calls to spot me rifling through her drawers, filing cabinet and the cupboard behind her desk, frantically searching for that damning Dictaphone. But it was nowhere to be found.
I gave up for now and deleted the video file – permanently this time – and it felt like a light switch in my head had just been flicked on. Now I could see everything much more clearly: the present and the future. I didn’t need to compartmentalise Ryan and Janine. I could use them to cancel each other out. Two birds, and me holding the stone.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
RYAN
My mum and dad sat on the opposite side of the kitchen table to me, their expressions serious, like when I was a kid and they were about to tell me off.
When they began talking, I knew they had rehearsed beforehand by the way they took it in turns – a sentence each, like a couple of breakfast TV presenters reading from a teleprompter. They’d even printed off their bank statements and highlighted their outgoings to prove their point.
‘We just can’t afford it any longer,’ Mum continued, and took a sip from a glass of Prosecco. ‘If we keep going like this, we’ll have to cash in our pensions to keep paying for it.’
I nodded. ‘You’re right and I’m sorry. I didn’t think about it. You should have said something sooner.’
They’d asked me to their home to discuss the two mortgages I had in my name. While I was paying for the flat, they’d been stepping in to pay for the empty house. A teacher’s income wasn’t a bottomless pit of money, and neither were their savings.
‘I appreciate why you’re reluctant to let either of them go,’ Dad said, ‘but you’re going to need to make a decision soon. You can’t keep both.’
I briefly weighed up the pros and cons of each home. I no longer had any love for the flat since Charlotte died. So making my home in a place she hadn’t set foot in would be the sensible choice.
‘I’ll sell the flat.’
‘Are you sure?’ Mum asked. ‘Do you want more time to think about it?’
‘No, I need to start moving forward and in new directions.’
These were the buzzwords I’d picked up from the self-help websites Johnny kept emailing me links to. Over the Christmas period, curiosity got the better of me and I’d opened them, but it was only recently that their words were starting to resonate. Then I’d made it my New Year’s resolution to start afresh.
When Johnny had confronted me at the flat and asked me what my endgame with Laura was, I didn’t really have an answer. For months I’d thought of very little else except how I could make her life as miserable as mine. Since my brother had pointed out my actions were on a par with hers, I realised the attention I’d focused on Laura was a delaying tactic to stop myself from getting on with the rest of my life.
I’d told End of the Line’s manager about Laura and she’d believed me. Now it was up to Janine to bring Laura down with the evidence I’d given her. I wondered when she might get in touch to update me.
Laura and I were over. I hoped that her defacing Charlotte’s photo in Granddad Pete’s bedroom was just a parting shot.
‘One of Johnny’s old school mates is an estate agent at Corner Stones,’ I said. ‘I’ll ask him to give me a valuation and then I’ll put it on the market.’
Mum placed her hand on mine.
‘I know it’s not easy, but you’re doing the right thing.’
She was right, of course, as parents often are. But there was one more ‘right thing’ I needed to do before I could put all this behind me.
Effie had kept a low profile in school since I’d given her a lift home and turned down her advances. There’d been no detentions and no class disruptions. But come the first term of the new year, she still couldn’t bring herself to look me in the eye. She chose to shrink behind her desk, as if she hoped the ground might swallow her up.
I gradually began increasing her grades until they were around the mark they had been before I’d interfered. But each time I looked at Effie, I saw a girl that I’d broken,
and I felt as guilty as hell about it.
‘Effie, have you got a minute?’
She looked startled when I asked her to stay behind as the bell rang for lunch.
Her hand fumbled in her pocket and she looked all around me but not at me. What I’d done to her was unforgivable.
‘About what happened that afternoon,’ I began. ‘It was completely inappropriate and I want to apologise.’
Her eyes lifted from the floor.
‘I shouldn’t have given you a lift. I shouldn’t have said the things I did and I – well, we both took things too far. I’m your teacher and I should have known better. I blame myself for giving you the wrong signals. I won’t put either of us in that position again, I promise.’
She nodded.
‘Have you told anyone else?’
‘No.’
‘So we can keep it between ourselves?’
She nodded.
‘Have you noticed your grades have improved?’
‘Is that your way of shutting me up, Mr Smith? Giving me better marks so I’ll keep quiet about what you did?’
I didn’t reply.
‘Thought so. Can I go now?’
‘Yes.’
As Effie hurried from the room, I thought I could now start putting everything behind me and think about the future, just like the self-help websites told me to. It was time to start my life again, only without Charlotte or Laura.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
LAURA
The estate agent was already parked outside the block of flats in a car emblazoned with his firm’s colourful logo when I arrived dead on time.
With his brown chinos, white jacket and red hair he resembled a raspberry ice cream. He greeted me with a smile.
‘How are things, darlin’? Nice to meet you. I’m Andy Webber.’
He was overfamiliar, behaviour that never sat comfortably with me. I didn’t like his silly topknot or beard either.
‘I’m wonderful, thank you,’ I replied, and threw my bag over my shoulder. It weighed a ton.
