by John Marrs
As Tony remained in custody overnight, the police brought our scared and perplexed daughters back to the family home for the first time in almost two and a half years. I gently explained the abridged version of what had happened and how brave their father had been.
Alice bought into it immediately and sought my reassurance our family was now safe. Effie knew when something didn’t add up. However, she was wise enough not to question me. She hadn’t admitted to seeking out Johnny after his brother’s funeral and spilling my secrets to him, and I wasn’t going to reveal that I knew. I let her wind herself up wondering instead. But if she ever brought up her gut-wrenching betrayal, I’d make it clear that along with her teacher’s blood, she now had his brother’s on her hands.
On Tony’s release the next evening, his explanation mirrored mine and I watched with quiet delight as the high regard Effie held him in crumbled. For the first time in her life, she knew he’d lied to her. Now Tony and I shared a level playing field where our daughters were concerned.
‘What did you tell the police?’ I asked him when the girls had gone to their newly decorated bedrooms, leaving us alone. He’d become a shadow, sitting in the near darkness of the dining room.
‘What you told me to say, that I was trying to protect you.’
‘And did they believe you?’
‘My solicitor says they’ll probably accept it wasn’t murder, but they’re investigating whether I used unreasonable force. I could still face a manslaughter charge.’
I regarded my broken husband and wondered how long it might take before I could repair him. He turned his head to look at me, but I couldn’t see his eyes. His voice was emotionless and detached.
‘Why did you want me to kill an innocent man?’
I shook my head. ‘I don’t know what—’
‘No,’ Tony interrupted. ‘Don’t do that. Treat me with respect.’
‘How much respect did you show me when you told Ryan about that social services psychiatric report?’ He didn’t reply. ‘Johnny was by no means innocent,’ I continued, ‘and he was trying to make me admit to things I didn’t do. He was as hateful as his brother.’
‘What did he want you to admit to?’
‘It doesn’t matter now.’
‘You made me a murderer. I have the right to know why.’
I considered unspooling like a reel of cotton until I was laid bare across the floor, admitting everything he wanted to know and more. I contemplated telling him how I’d encouraged Charlotte and many others to die, how I’d set up Ryan with the help of Effie, and even that I’d killed Janine. But the thought vanished as quickly as it appeared.
I turned towards the kitchen and flicked on the spotlights to illuminate the worktops. ‘Right, you must be hungry. Let’s see what I can rustle up, shall we?’
I removed a shrink-wrapped sirloin steak from the fridge and put some microwaveable potato wedges into a bowl.
‘Do you know why I think I was confused about you moving out?’ I continued. ‘Because you kept coming back to the house when I wasn’t here. I’d find a coffee mug I hadn’t used in the dishwasher, a pile of mail that I’d left in order of size that had been shifted around, and the bedroom doors closed. If you didn’t love me or want our life anymore, then you wouldn’t have kept returning. So I think I must have told myself you and the girls weren’t really gone. It’s funny how the brain can play tricks on you, isn’t it?’
‘I was returning to find the evidence you have of the End of the Line donations that we used to set up the business. I didn’t want you holding that over me anymore. You know I paid it back in donations of my own once we started making money.’
‘Well, that doesn’t matter now, does it, because we’re all back together.’
Behind me, the legs of Tony’s chair slid backwards. His tone was deliberate and measured.
‘If you think I’m going to spend a second longer under this roof with you, then you are deluded, Laura. I’m taking the girls and we’re leaving.’
I shook my head. ‘No, you’re not, Tony. We’re back together now as a family – as we should be – and none of you are leaving this house.’
He gave a forced laugh. ‘And what would ever make me want to stay here?’
‘How about this? Because when you beat the wrong man to death, he was trying to video-record a confession from me. And when his phone fell to the ground, it continued to record until after you ended his life and I pressed stop. I now have that phone in my possession with footage that proves you weren’t just trying to protect us, you’d lost control and thought you were getting revenge on a man who molested our daughter and duped you into spilling my secrets. When you heard that recording of Effie and him online, you were angry and ashamed of yourself. So if you leave me again or try to take the girls away from me – I will hate myself for it, but I will hand that phone to the police. There will be no doubt in their minds that you used unreasonable force and you will go to prison. And even if your daughters still want anything to do with you, they’ll only be able to visit for an hour every two weeks – provided I give them permission, which I doubt I’ll do. The rest of the time, they’ll spend here with me. Just me. Effie is already ruined, and the same will happen to Alice once her friends find out their father is a murderer. Is that what you want, Tony? Because I don’t think it is. So I am asking you not to make me do this.’
He paled and blinked hard as his brain registered my words. Suddenly he lurched towards me from across the room; my arms covered my face and chest to protect myself and he pinned me to the fridge. He wrapped his hands around my throat and pushed into my windpipe. I struggled to breathe, like Janine when I’d hit her in the throat. At that moment, she’d been terrified of me, only I wasn’t terrified of Tony. They say you only hurt the ones you love, so he must still have feelings for me. I didn’t put up any fight.
‘Go on then,’ I urged, my voice a rasp. ‘Kill me with your daughters upstairs. You’ve seen what being in care did to me, and that’s just what’ll happen to them.’
I could feel the heat of his breath on my cheeks, but despite what he wanted to do to me, he couldn’t bring himself to carry it out. His satisfaction at the thought of killing me wasn’t as great as his love for his girls.
I gritted my teeth and my heart was racing. He let go and stepped backwards while I clutched my neck and pulled myself together.
‘So,’ I continued eventually, ‘is steak and chips okay? I’ve got a packet of peppercorn sauce somewhere.’
He shrank back to his chair in the dining room, a beaten man.
Later, I decided to give Tony a grace period of a couple of weeks before suggesting it might be in his best interests to move out of the spare room and back into my bed. But even sleeping next to each other didn’t bring us closer.
Over the next two months I did everything in my power to make our transition into a proper family a successful one. Fortunately, Alice wasn’t old enough to know the sort of person her mother really was, and appeared oblivious to the hostility Effie was showing towards me. I sensed Effie’s frustration at not being able to admit the truth to her sister or her dad without dropping herself in it. Likewise, Tony couldn’t admit to anyone that he’d murdered a man in a blind rage. I was the keeper of all their secrets. I had plenty of my own, including the spot in the field behind the house where I’d buried a sealed Tupperware box containing Johnny’s phone and Tony’s gloves and running shoes, the ones I’d worn when I’d bludgeoned Janine. I hoped never to need them, but an insurance policy did no harm.
In the search for a new normality, I instigated Sunday as ‘family day’. We’d begin by visiting Henry in the morning, followed by a drive to a countryside pub for a roast beef and Yorkshire pudding lunch. The afternoon would be spent sprawled out across the sofas watching a DVD.
At first it didn’t matter that Alice and I were the only ones outwardly enjoying this time, but gradually it began to grate on me. My husband was still far from being the T
ony of old I loved. The Crown Prosecution Service had yet to decide whether to press any charges against Tony and it played heavily on his mind. He no longer worked overtime or went to the gym, and when he returned home from work each night, he barely let the girls out of his sight. It was as if he feared something – or someone – might influence them in a way he didn’t approve of if they weren’t under his supervision.
‘You can trust me,’ I told him. ‘You know I’d never do anything to hurt them.’ He responded with silence.
Now, as Alice unpacked groceries in the kitchen, I watched Tony in the garden alone, a haunted man pinching his eyes and shaking his head. I observed for the first time how much weight he’d lost. His once-broad shoulders were rounded and his muscular frame more angular. Seeing my strong, energetic husband so weak and unattractive frustrated me. I’d been waiting so long for his return, but my patience wasn’t infinite. He was becoming as meaningless as my father after my mother’s death.
If things aren’t going to get any better for him, I might need to reassess our situation.
The thought came out of the blue. I wanted to dismiss it, even told myself off for thinking it. But then, like thoughts do, it expanded to another until it spiralled into a full-on conversation in my head.
There is always a way out of his suffering. Who better to help him than you?
Tony was the last thing I wanted to lose from my life, but he wasn’t the man I’d married.
Don’t rush into a decision yet. Just know that the next candidate might be closer to you than you thought.
I was beginning to wonder if I’d always be the one to suffer, so other people didn’t have to.
I was about to join Tony in the garden when my phone vibrated. An email icon appeared on the screen. There was nothing in the subject line, but the address gave me a chill. [email protected]
I hurried into the garage for privacy and opened the message. Only three words had been typed.
More to follow, it said.
‘More to follow?’ I said out loud. What did that even mean? I was about to delete it when I noticed the email had an attachment, a sound file.
The fluorescent lightbulb above me began to flicker like a Morse-code light show. I waited anxiously for the file to download, wondering what on earth it could be. Nothing could have prepared me for the answer.
‘I’ll do it,’ I heard a recording of my voice say. ‘If you are serious about wanting to end your life, then I will be with you in person when you do it. I will be on your side from the beginning to the end of this process, but this is a business relationship. We both have our parts to play, Steven. Yours is to tell me who you are and mine is to ensure your transition is a smooth one.’
The phone slipped from my grasp and fell to the floor. The protective plastic case prevented the screen from cracking, and I scrambled to pick it up and listen to it again. Were my ears playing tricks on me? Was I imagining this? I pressed play again. No, it was for real.
Blood filled my head and made me woozy. I felt as if I were rocking back and forth, but my body wasn’t moving. I feared I might collapse, so I grabbed hold of a shelf too hard, pulling it from its wall brackets and sending it crashing to the floor. Paint spilled across the concrete like lava, splashing my shoes and bare legs. I needed to calm myself, but I couldn’t. This clip had the potential to destroy everything I had spent so long working towards.
I had deleted every file from that Dictaphone, so where in God’s name had this come from? And why today, five months later?
Think, Laura, think. There must be a way out of this.
Only there wasn’t.
In the blink of an eye, somebody else had taken control of me.
What do you want? I replied, and pressed the send button. Ten anxious minutes passed and still there was no response. I struggled to breathe, as if I were having a panic attack.
Anchor, Laura, I told myself. Think of your anchor.
I closed my eyes as tightly as I could and pictured Henry’s face, but not even he could keep me tethered this time. I held my hands over my mouth, bent double and screamed until my throat was raw.
EPILOGUE
EFFIE
I watched upstairs from behind the blind in my bedroom window as Dad stood at the end of the garden, alone and lost in thought.
Once again, he was staring aimlessly across the playing fields, like he wanted to be anywhere but trapped in this prison we were supposed to accept as our home. I couldn’t remember the last time he’d given us one of his big beaming smiles that made everyone around him feel warm and fuzzy. Nowadays he looked as miserable as I felt. Mum had done this to him. She had turned him into a ghost I scarcely recognised.
I couldn’t bear to see him like this any longer. It was time to set the wheels in motion and put an end to this, before she killed him. I attached the file stored in my Cloud to the email and hit the send button.
I lay back on my bed, slipped my noise-cancelling headphones on and picked a Best of R & B playlist on Spotify to listen to. What I really wanted to do was creep downstairs and watch Mum completely freak out over why a dead woman was emailing her clips of a conversation she’d had months ago with a dead man. I wanted to see how long she could hold it together before she cracked. It had happened before, when she went schiz over Henry. I hoped she wouldn’t fall apart immediately, though – I wanted her to suffer. I wanted to make her life as hellish as mine and Dad’s.
I missed living with just Dad and Alice. Everything had been so much easier without Mum in the picture. It hadn’t always been that way. In fact, at the start, it had been hard to accept, especially for Alice. Before Mum’s sudden reappearance, the last we’d seen of her was Dad holding her back as two paramedics resuscitated my unconscious brother on a trolley. Mum was hysterical, screaming and with spit flying from her mouth like little white bullets.
‘I’ve killed him! I’ve killed my baby!’ she kept repeating, and made deep, horrible moaning noises I’d never heard anyone make before. I guess that’s the kind of shit that happens when you almost burn your son alive. Anyway, in the end she was sedated and driven away in an ambulance.
Alice and I stayed the night with an elderly couple across the road. They kept offering us drinks and snacks, as if that would make everything okay. They put up two camp beds in their spare room, but at some point during the night, Alice crept under my covers and welded herself to me.
‘Are we going to die in a fire, too?’ she asked, but I couldn’t truthfully tell her that we weren’t.
Over the next few days, Dad’s eyes became redder and redder, and while Mum remained in a psychiatric evaluation unit, Henry came out of his coma and we were told it was unlikely he’d ever be the brother we remembered. At Dad’s suggestion, Alice and I didn’t visit Henry or Mum.
To give him credit, Dad treated us like adults and levelled with us about what Mum had done. He explained that she’d confessed to starting the fire because she blamed the house for all the arguments they’d been having. But she didn’t know Henry was upstairs and Dad had yet to tell the police.
I was much more of a daddy’s girl than a mummy’s girl, but I still hated the thought of Mum going to prison for what had been an accident – albeit a pretty fucking major one. Eventually we agreed it was best if Dad lied to the police and said Henry had a fascination with matches. In return, Dad didn’t want us to go anywhere near Mum, and we agreed not to have anything to do with her until we were older.
Everything changed after that. We moved house and I moved schools. We changed phone numbers and left behind everything and everyone that was smoke-damaged.
I think I missed the idea of having a mum more than her actual presence. She was never one of those hands-on parents like Dad was, so Alice and I learned pretty early on not to expect a lot from her. Sometimes she looked at us as if she wasn’t quite sure how we’d landed in her world. Not Henry, though. She worshipped him. I loved him, too. He was sweet and funny and he was always trying
to make me and Alice laugh with a silly dance or funny face. Now, by all accounts, he was little more than a vegetable.
We adapted from being a family of five to a family of three fairly well. In my last school, I’d seen how Farzana Singh had been relentlessly picked on when her mum came off her bipolar meds and started dancing Bollywood-style during parents’ evening. I wasn’t going to let that happen to me in my new school. So from day one I went in there all guns blazing, cocky and confident, and I surrounded myself with like-minded bitches. I told them Mum had remarried and moved to Australia, but all the time that I ruled those corridors, I was just waiting to be unmasked.
I wasn’t sure about Janine when Dad started seeing her. I’d heard so many horror stories from my friends about how their parents’ new partners totally messed with the family dynamic, and I didn’t want Janine doing that to us. But she didn’t try to fill Mum’s shoes and she actually wanted to spend time with us, which is more than Mum ever did. I knew Janine volunteered with Mum at End of the Line, but not once did Alice or I ask how she was. We rarely even spoke of her between ourselves. Janine tried to bring her up a few times, but she changed the subject when it became obvious we weren’t comfortable with the conversation. I overheard Dad talking to Janine about Mum a couple of times, and a small part of me was curious whether Mum was better or had gone full-on Looney Tunes. But in the end, it was easier not to think about her than to remember what she’d done to Henry.
Then, after a two-year absence, Mum came crashing back into our lives without warning. I’ll give her credit, she timed it well. I’d fallen pretty hard for my English teacher, Mr Smith, and I was sure the feeling was mutual, but then he did a one-eighty and totally blew me off. I was gutted and had no one to talk to – I’d lost so many friends when Matt spread it around I’d sent his naked selfie to his family and boss and he’d lost his job because of it. Then my grades suddenly turned to crap and I stopped caring.
I was cautious at first, because the mum I remembered wouldn’t really have cared about what had happened with Mr Smith and me. But this all-improved, brand-new version of Mum was desperate to know everything that was going on in my life. I figured I should be able to trust her with anything.
