by John Marrs
I took a chance and told her what a fool I’d made of myself over my teacher. I thought she might tell me I’d probably got the wrong end of the stick and imagined he was interested in me, but she believed every word I said. She was convinced he was a paedo and had been grooming me. I didn’t think he was, but I was so angry with him I played along and started exaggerating what had happened. I thought it was what she wanted to hear.
It surprised me how much I enjoyed having a mum in my life again and on my side, so when she came up with a plan to get back at Mr Smith, I was more than willing to go along with it. Then, gradually, I saw her change. It was as if, rather than just teaching Mr Smith a lesson, she got a thrill out of ruining his life. It was like revenge mattered more than I did. That didn’t stop me from doing what she asked. I didn’t even question her when she told me to steal a dead piglet from the school science freezer.
Then she gave me a memory stick and told me to transfer its files onto Mr Smith’s work computer. That’s when I started to get scared. Mum had told me not to open it, but curiosity got the better of me. There were dozens of pictures of young girls in school uniform on it, some with their tops off and others showing everything else. I knew in my gut that Mum had taken it to extremes and I should end it, there and then. But I didn’t. I didn’t want to disappoint her.
When Mum told me Mr Smith had been arrested for breaking into her house and threatening to kill her, I had a sick feeling in my stomach. Then, after we played Mr Atkinson the recording of Mr Smith apologising to me and he was kicked out, I knew this had all gone way too far. Mr Smith became the talk of the school, but nobody knew why he’d gone until the police turned up and took away his computer. Then the rumours started that he was a paedophile.
Had he molested someone at school? That’s what everyone wanted to know. My name came up a few times. It was known I’d had one-on-one meetings with him about my falling marks. I denied it and, because of my reputation for taking no shit, they knew not to push me too far and left me alone.
Meanwhile, after their initial meeting, Dad agreed to let Alice stay in touch with Mum. At first just by text, and then finally he allowed them to spend an afternoon together. That was the day when, early in the evening, I caught Alice going through Janine’s handbag while Janine was in the bath.
‘Are you stealing?’ I asked.
Alice glared at me, red-faced. ‘No.’
‘Then what are you doing?’
‘I can’t tell anyone. It’s a secret.’
‘Well, you’d better tell me or I’m telling Dad.’
‘Mummy wants to borrow something from Janine,’ Alice said reluctantly. ‘This recording thing.’
She held up a Dictaphone.
‘What does she want with it?’
‘I don’t know. I think she wants to play a trick on Janine. I’m going to give it to her at school in the morning, then she’s going to give it back to me at lunchtime. I can put it back when I get home. Am I in trouble?’
‘Not if you give it to me first.’
In my bedroom, I pressed play on the Dictaphone. I couldn’t see why someone had recorded Mum talking on the phone at End of the Line. Then I realised who she was speaking to – it was Mr Smith, although he was calling himself Steven. I looked at the display: it had been recorded about ten months ago. And then I understood why Mum wanted to get her hands on it.
She was trying to talk him into dying.
I listened, part fascinated and part horrified by the things she said. Conversation after conversation: she agreed to watch him die, then began listing the best ways to do it . . . It was sickening. She was totally fucked up. I gradually understood that there’d been some kind of game between Mum and Mr Smith and they had both used me to get at each other.
I Bluetoothed all the files onto my laptop then handed Alice the Dictaphone to give to Mum. I told her not to listen to it and not to tell Mum I’d found her going through Janine’s handbag. She promised. She’s a good girl. An honest girl. My innocent little sister had no idea how important this recording was.
At first, I didn’t know what to do with these recorded conversations now they were in my possession. I could only guess that Mr Smith had given them to Janine. She obviously knew what was on them, so maybe Dad did, too. I couldn’t be sure.
But before I got the chance to ask him, Mum hung me out to dry: she posted all over social media my recording of Mr Smith apologising to me. By lunchtime, every kid at school thought I’d had sex with my English teacher. They started yelling words like ‘slag’, ‘slut’ and ‘teacher’s whore’ at me in the corridor. I did my best to ignore it. Then, on the way home, a gang of boys from Year 11 cornered me in the park. They started grabbing my breasts and bum, saying I was ‘easy’. I was terrified they were going to rape me. I broke free and ran home. I called Mum, screaming at her down the phone and crying, but she didn’t even apologise. In fact, when I threatened to tell Dad what we’d done to Mr Smith, she warned me what would happen if I did. I nearly told her about the Dictaphone, but I bit my tongue. I was going to fight fire with fire. I vowed to ruin her like she’d ruined me.
Then, just when I thought that day couldn’t get any worse, Dad came home early from work, tears streaming down his face. He was sobbing and it was a while before he could tell me what had happened. Janine had been killed at End of the Line and the police were hunting for Mr Smith.
I immediately had a horrible, gut-twisting feeling that Mum had played a role in this. And if she had, then so had I. I ran to the bathroom and couldn’t stop being sick in the toilet. A day later, when Mr Smith killed himself, I had another death on my conscience.
I couldn’t live with the guilt. I lost my appetite, I barely slept, I locked myself in my bedroom and wouldn’t speak to anyone but Alice and Dad – certainly not to my bitch of a mother. I had no one to confide in. Mum and Mr Smith had used me, but I didn’t think he was capable of murder. Mum, on the other hand, was capable of anything. I had to tell someone what I knew.
I remembered Mr Smith had a brother. I’d seen his photo on his phone when he gave me a lift home. So, after his funeral, I approached Johnny Smith on Facebook and a few days later we met. Mr Smith had told him what he’d done to me, so Johnny wasn’t as angry as I thought he’d be when I admitted, shamefully, the part I’d played in his brother’s death. He asked me loads of questions about Mum and I told him everything, apart from about the Dictaphone conversations. I might need those myself. Once I’d given him enough background information on her and what she’d done to our family, I sat back and waited. Only I never heard from him again.
As time went on, I mellowed out a little and even thought about putting it all behind me. Mum was back out of our lives again, we’d moved house once more, I had a private tutor and Alice changed schools. We were no longer living in Mum’s shadow.
But it all changed when the police arrived to tell us her and Dad had been involved in an incident at Henry’s care home and someone had died. They were being questioned. The police let Mum go first, so she took us to our old house to stay with her.
Mum told us what had happened. Dad had been protecting her and Henry from Mr Smith’s brother. She said Johnny had threatened to hurt Henry. It had all got out of hand, and in self-defence Dad had killed Johnny. Mum kept telling us Dad was a hero, but I knew there was more to her story than she was letting on. There always is.
Poor Alice couldn’t get her head around what was happening and I held her hand as she cried. I swallowed hard to stop myself showing Mum any emotion and waited until Dad was released on police bail. I knew he would tell us the truth. Only he lied to us as well. I could tell, because he couldn’t look either of us in the eye when he spoke, and his version was virtually word for word what Mum had said.
Later that night I sat on the landing at the top of the stairs, listening to them argue. Dad wanted to take Alice and me home, but Mum wouldn’t let him. And she had video evidence that would ensure he’d end up in prison f
or what he’d done, even though she’d manipulated him into doing it. From the sound of it, he went to attack her, and I willed him with all my heart to kill her. But he wasn’t like her. He had no choice but to stay and protect us from her.
Mum and Alice seemed happy we were all living back under one roof, but we were far from being a family. She was more maternal towards Alice than she’d ever been with me, but I wasn’t stupid. She was only sinking her claws into my sister to get to me.
Over the weeks, I watched as Dad slowly disintegrated before my eyes, and it was all because of Mum. I fucking hated her. For a long time I believed Mr Smith, Johnny and Janine were dead because of me. But eventually I realised it wasn’t my fault – it was the woman who called herself my mother who was to blame. She manipulated us all, but she wasn’t the only one who could make someone’s life hell. Today was as good a day as any to start wiping that smug, satisfied look from her face.
I slipped off my headphones and checked the inbox of the email account I’d created. Mum had already replied to Janine Thomson’s email asking what she wanted. The fun had only just begun.
I thought about replying, but hesitated. Instead, it would be more entertaining to drag this out for as long as possible. I was going to play with her like those killer whales you see in YouTube clips, tossing a seal into the air, catching it in its jaws, then spitting it out and doing it all over again before finally going in for the kill.
I’d send her another clip a few days from now, then another in a week or so. Maybe I’d start withholding my phone number and calling her, playing excerpts of her conversation with Ryan down the line.
I hoped her sanity would be the first thing to go, because then maybe she’d be locked up in that loony bin again and we’d be able to get out of this house. But if that didn’t work, I’d make the recordings public and ruin her.
‘You have to remember, Effie, you and I are cut from the same cloth,’ she told me once. ‘You are your mother’s daughter. There is so much you can learn from me.’
She was right. I had learned from her.
And now it was time to start putting all those lessons into practice.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First and foremost, thank you to John Russell for all your support during the writing of this and my other books. Your understanding and patience make this book business so much easier! And thank you for sitting guard outside the office to prevent me from being distracted too often. Thanks also to my mum, Pamela Marrs, for your constant encouragement.
I’d like to offer my appreciation to Chris James, who gave me the seed of an idea that became this book. Thank you for allowing me to pick your brains about what it means to be a helpline volunteer. Your input was invaluable.
Thanks to my early readers, Jim Ryan and Andrew Webber, and to the Queen of Grammar Kath Middleton for preventing me from making a fool of myself with draft one! Thanks to Rhian Molloy for your help with school-related formalities and to Rachael Molloy for preventing me from sounding like an old man when I was trying to write like a teenager. Also to Nicole Carmichael for your advice and support.
Thank you to Carole Watson for making me aware of the point at which this story could begin. I hope you enjoy what I did with the rest of it.
Thank you to Tracy Fenton for your support – and for your name – and all the thousand members of Facebook’s THE Book Club. Your ongoing support continues to amaze and delight me and I look forward to continuing this journey with you all.
My gratitude also goes towards Jane Snelgrove at Thomas & Mercer for bringing me into the fold, to Jack Butler for his support and to Ian Pindar for his invaluable assistance in making Laura that little bit nastier.
Thanks to Margaret McCulloch-Keeble for assisting me in my journey around a mortuary, and Karen-Lee Roberts for her assistance with police procedural work. And also to my friend Lyndsay Wiles for helping me to understand how it feels being a parent to a child with special needs. You have no idea how much I admire you.
Laura is a work of fiction. But this book is dedicated to the millions of kind-hearted, good, good people around the world who dedicate their spare time to helping others – be it in person, via a telephone conversation or through an online messageboard. You are unsung heroes.
Finally, thank you to whoever you are, for purchasing this book. Whether you’ve been with me from the start or have only just found me, you have my utmost appreciation.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
There are more than 400 organisations across the world made up of voluntary members who offer their time to talk to people with suicidal feelings. For details of your nearest organisation, please visit www.befrienders.org.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo © 2017 Robert Gershinson
John Marrs is a freelance journalist based in London and Northampton. He has spent the past twenty-five years interviewing celebrities from the worlds of television, film and music for numerous national newspapers and magazines. The Good Samaritan is his fourth novel. Follow him on Twitter @johnmarrs1, on Instagram @johnmarrs.author and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/johnmarrsauthor.
