by Dan Malakin
A cork popped in the kitchen. Spence returned with two flutes of sparkling white. Some celebration. Not even Becca would be pleased to see a glass of fizz right now. He paused by the chair, then stepped deliberately towards her and held out a glass.
The muscles in her forearm twitched. He was close enough to grab, to get his balls and give them a twist.
You still have your daughter at home. I’d hate for something else to happen to her.
No, it wasn’t the right time. It would be too easy for him to pull away. Also, even if she did somehow overpower him, how would she get out of her restraints?
Rachel reached for the glass. As she took it, he resisted, laying his finger over the back of her hand. A sharp jolt at the physical touch raced up her arm. He looked in her eyes, and let go. She felt shaken, violated, as she sat back. Stay calm. Don’t give anything away.
Spence got the tray from the dresser, put it on the bed, and drew the chair closer. A circle of garlic butter oysters, served in half shells and sprinkled with parsley, lay on a bed of crushed white crystals in a silver dish. He’d cooked and presented them identical to that night. How did he know that? Had she told him about them? Or had he been spying through the restaurant window? Despite everything, she couldn’t help but be impressed by his attention to detail. No wonder he was able to pass himself off as a nurse.
He lifted his drink. ‘What should we toast?’
Your slow and agonising death?
‘How about… to the truth?’ she replied, touching her glass to his.
‘I like that. The truth.’
Rachel made an appreciative noise, even though the wine was as sharp and uncomfortable as needles in her gut, and put her glass on the bedside table. ‘These oysters look amazing,’ she said, trying to stop her hand from trembling as she reached for one.
‘I prefer them raw,’ he replied, smiling suggestively. ‘No lemon, no garnish at all. Just the fresh taste of the sea in my mouth, grit and all. They say Casanova ate fifty like that every morning.’
‘I’ll start with one.’
He lifted his oyster to her like a salute. ‘Everything has to start somewhere.’
She tipped the shell into her mouth, not wanting to like it, but the taste of the butter, touched with pepper, and the soft, almost creamy, texture of the oyster, lit sparklers on her tongue. They were exactly the same as in the restaurant, if not better. She wanted to slug them all, faster than tequila shots at a hen party. Instead, she put the shell next to her glass, face scrunched like the food had got stuck on the way down.
‘No good?’ he asked.
‘They’re amazing,’ she said. ‘I’m just… It’s hard to…’
He leaned forward and put his hand over hers. ‘Hey, it’s okay. As much or as little as you want. No judgement. Not here.’
Forgive me, Lily.
‘Can I tell you something,’ Rachel said, speaking quietly, as though revealing a secret to an empty room. He nodded, shifting his body forward, keeping his hand on hers. ‘You’ve heard me moan, right? Working full-time, then coming home and being a parent. I love my daughter. You know I do. But it’s hard. Every day is a battle. And – and I’m just so tired. All the time.’ Her chin quivered, and she took a breath. ‘My mother was the same. She loved me, of course she did, but she couldn’t cope, not after my dad left. If I hadn’t watched her waste away, I wouldn’t have seen how to do it myself.’ She choked out a sob. ‘I’m so scared I’ll pass it onto Lily next.’
‘It’s okay,’ Spence said. ‘I understand.’
‘I’m going to tell you something I’ve never told anyone. Something I… I struggle to admit to myself.’
He sat back, his smile deepening. ‘Go on.’
‘The first time my eating got really bad, with the whole Griffin thing, they sent me to the psych ward. You know, with the real nutters.’ She tried to swallow and lick her lips, but her mouth was too dry to do either. Spence was watching her, motionless, like a cobra waiting to see if the mouse in its sights was about to make a sudden move. ‘You’d think I would’ve hated it there, but… I didn’t. I liked it. Life was so easy. Sometimes I even wish I was back there. No job, no bills, no kid. No responsibilities at all. Just watching telly, resting – as much rest as I want. And reading too. I loved reading, but I’ve not picked up a book since, well, I don’t know since when. And not having to worry about what I ate, because I could eat what I wanted, when I wanted, even if that was nothing. And if the doctors weren’t thrilled about it, they could just feed me through my stomach and leave me alone! That was… That was the happiest time of my life.’
Spence had been nodding as she spoke, and he carried on for another few beats after she stopped. He sat back and blew out his cheeks, looking unsure, like he was trying to work out the moral of the story.
‘This last week, being here, it’s the happiest I’ve been since then,’ she went on. ‘I didn’t want to leave. It was duty making me want to go. And if you tell me it’s okay not to feel like that, that I can just be here and live the life I want, then I… I believe you. Is that crazy?’
He took a sip of wine. ‘It’s not crazy.’
‘Are you sure, because it sounds crazy to me.’
He grinned, going for another oyster, but paused and instead offered the dish to her. ‘Maybe we can be crazy together?’
She reached for a shell. ‘Maybe we can.’
Chapter Forty-Three
CCTV
‘God, I wish it was closer,’ Mark said, zooming in on the image. ‘There’s another camera that’s much nearer, but it’s been out of service since last year.’
Konrad rubbed his eyes and focused again on the screen, where grainy footage showed a couple, blown up to blocky pixels, getting in what looked like a black cab. ‘And you think that’s them,’ he asked.
‘I do. I really do.’ Mark tabbed to the rightmost screen, and pressed start. ‘Look. This is Sussex Way, five forty-seven. I know it’s dark, and they’re bent over, but look at their heights and tell me that couldn’t be them.’ He went back to the first screen, wound it back. ‘And they’re the same ones who come out… here, at the top of Tollington. Four minutes later. How many people are rushing through the back streets of Holloway at that time of the morning? It’s got to be them.’
‘So they got a taxi? So what? We can’t see the number plate.’
‘Sure, but if we can find the driver, then it would be possible to check the GPS history.’
Konrad grinned and slapped him on the back. ‘You genius! How many black cabs are there in London? There can’t be that many. We need to get it in the papers, maybe today’s Evening Standard. Should I call them?’
‘Might not be the best idea. Hacking into the council’s CCTV is definitely on the illegal side of the law.’ Mark retrieved a scuffed laptop the size of a hardback book from a desk drawer. He opened the lid and typed straight onto the screen. ‘There’s a whistleblower’s dropbox on the dark web. I can leave the footage there.’
‘Is that safer?’
Mark gave him a grim smile. ‘It is for you.’
Chapter Forty-Four
Real
Rachel palmed the oyster obviously, but hopefully not so much that Spence realised it was staged, into the handkerchief he’d given her earlier in the day, then watched him finish the rest. After he tidied, he pulled his chair round to beside her bed and turned on the television. Secret Millionaire, which he endured with noticeably less interest than before, even towards the end, wondering aloud how she could sit through this rubbish. They followed that with the first episode of Breaking Bad, Konrad’s favourite show. Spence thought it was a classic series they could enjoy together.
Midway through it, twenty minutes after popping a couple of Sendorax in her mouth, Rachel slid down the mattress, placed her hands under her pillow, and faked falling asleep. Spence continued to watch for a while, then clicked off the telly. She heard his breaths getting nearer, could feel the warmth of his body as he le
aned close to her, and wondered if she should lash out, go for his eyes, but then he was pulling away, light-stepping to the door. She waited until she heard the quiet click of the lock, then spat out the pills, putting them with the others under the mattress, and forced down the cold chewed remains of her second oyster.
Through the night, she nibbled on chocolates, wanting to eat them quicker, the hunger was tormenting, her stomach snarling, but anxiety made her throat feel as if someone was gripping it like a rope over a bear pit. She was weak. She could feel it. All the work she’d done to rebuild her body, and it felt just as shot as before, her flesh like the layer of quilting on a cheap hotel mattress, her bones sharp as springs. She’d dropped a stone and a half, maybe more.
Without knowing the time, the night seemed to go on forever. It became a moment-by-moment struggle not to take the painkillers. The thing that shocked Rachel most was how much she wanted to live. Forget the imagined funerals of her childhood, the remorseful eulogies, the finessed scenarios where her father burst through the mourners, dropped to his knees by her dirt-splattered casket, and begged the world to spin back around, so he could see his daughter one more time. Nothing could be further from how she felt. She was going to get out of here, get back to Lily. Be the mum her own one should have been.
But how? How? She reached beside the bed, very carefully patted the floor, and came back with the euthanasia tray. When he was clearing dinner, she’d asked him to take it, its presence creeped her out, but he’d thought about it, looking from her to the tray and back, then said it was for the best if they kept it there.
‘You’re free to leave any time,’ he’d said.
She picked up the needle. What if she hid it under the duvet, facing away, feigning death? The tray could be spilled on the floor. When he came close, to check if she was dead, she could wait for him to lean in and stab him in the neck with the potassium chloride. But what if she missed? If her reactions were too slow? What if he was waiting for her to mess up so he could do something horrible to Lily, leaving Rachel to live with the guilt that it was her fault, as though she were a subject in his psycho thesis on regret?
She put the tray back on the floor and massaged her thighs.
What the fuck was she going to do?
By morning, Rachel felt as haggard as she was supposedly pretending to be. When Spence came in around eight to see if she wanted a coffee, or something to eat, her grunt to be left alone from under the duvet wasn’t an act. She’d started to doze at sun up, and was desperate to hold onto the sleep. What else was she going to do? Sit in bed and watch television like she’d sneaked a sick day from work?
Eventually, Spence dragged the curtains open, filling the room with murky light. ‘You’d hibernate like a bear if I let you.’
‘Oh, hey,’ she said, coming around.
Even though he was again dressed like Konrad, this time in the black polo neck/beige linen trouser combination from their three-month-iversary, when they had smoked salmon blinis and chilled white wine in bed, Spence’s demeanour was all wrong. The roll on his polo neck was skewed, his hair came up in little crests where it should have been flat, but it was more in the way he was holding himself, as though he could sense someone standing behind him.
Then she realised. He was flustered.
What had happened? Had he seen something on the news?
Rachel cleared her throat, unsure whether to ask him what was wrong. To buy time, she poured herself a glass of water from the jug on her nightstand. The painkillers. They were gone from beside her bed. She pulled open the drawer.
‘You can have them back after,’ he said. There was an edge to his voice, an urgency. ‘I don’t want you falling asleep on me this time.’
This time. That didn’t sound good. In fact, his whole manner was worrying. Last night, she thought she had a handle on him, but now he seemed harried, unpredictable. She needed to find a way to cool him down, get him back to the same mood as before.
He drummed his fingers on the iron bed frame. ‘Food? You want? Or should we not bother? You’re not going to eat it anyway, right?’ He nodded, like he was agreeing with the voice in his head. ‘Okay, let’s just get to it.’
Rachel tried to pull her legs to her chest, whimpering when she realised she couldn’t. ‘Food is good. Can we have some food? Please?’
Spence sucked his teeth, regarding her. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Why not, eh? We’ve kept it going this long already.’
She didn’t like this. How he was talking, how he was acting, like she was a chore that had to be dealt with. In the kitchen, plates clattered, cutlery crashed, cupboard doors banged shut. Whatever it meant, it wasn’t good. The silent seducer from last night was gone. What had happened? Some new development in the investigation? Were the police closing in? Was Spence in such a rush because they’d almost tracked him down, and he wanted to get out of here?
But not before he’d finished with her.
When he returned, he handed Rachel a plate of crude smoked salmon blinis, the fish so rough around the edges it looked torn by hand, and opened a screw top bottle of white wine.
‘You need a glass?’ he asked, tipping the neck to her, as if they were winos sharing it in a bus stop.
‘Might be nice.’
‘Fine.’
He handed her the bottle.
A slammed cupboard later, he returned with two glasses, snatched the wine, and poured both near to the brim.
‘Cheers,’ he said and downed his glass in one. ‘Well, I’m ready.’
This was happening too fast. She had to slow it down. ‘Please, sit. You said last night this would be nice. You said–’
‘Okay, okay. I’m sitting.’ He plonked himself onto the chair. ‘Happy?’
‘I thought we could talk for a bit,’ she said, lifting one of the blinis. ‘There’s so much I want to know.’
‘To know? What do you need to know?’
‘Some of the stuff you did to me. I’d like–’
‘What does it matter?’
She scrabbled around her brain for reasons. ‘Because… I’m impressed with how you managed to do it all. I mean the Snapchat thing, sending the photo from my account. Becca said that was impossible. That you couldn’t log into Snap from–’
‘Oh yeah, Becca. That fountain of computing wisdom. She wouldn’t know a UDP connection from a kick in the cunt. I just copied the user file from the install folder on your phone, put it in mine, then logged in with your password. Too easy.’
‘Okay, okay. But what about the forum? That user, JustForYou, was logged in on my laptop when Griffin’s address was posted. But that’s impossible because I was logged on as me.’
He shoved a blini into his mouth whole, and continued talking as he chewed. ‘The login time on your profile page. Where does that come from? It’s data, that’s all it is. So I changed it.’
‘But it was a secure site.’
‘Pur-lease, a tap-dancing monkey with a keyboard could clickety-clack its way through that website’s idea of cyber security and no-one would notice a thing.’
‘What about the NHS? They must have had–’
‘Whatever. I mean seriously, why does it matter? You’re mine. End of story.’
‘But I–’
‘But you nothing.’
‘I – I want to know the real you.’
‘The what?’
She shrank back on the bed. ‘I thought…’
‘Who cares what you think? Who cares what any of you think?’
‘Please, Spence, don’t be like this.’
He gestured to the window, expansively, like an emperor about to address his kingdom. ‘And one of you… lacklustre, unimpressive people thinks you can do what I do? You can do what I do?’
‘Stop it,’ Rachel wailed. ‘You’re scaring me.’
Spence looked at her, eyes cold as machinery. ‘You should be scared of me.’
He pushed off the chair, coming at her. Rachel held up her hands, pleading.
‘Wait, please, not like this. Please don’t do it like this.’ He grabbed her wrist, pulling her arm aside, his strength surprising. ‘You said it would be nice, Spence,’ she said. ‘You promised it would be nice.’
He pushed her back on the bed, pinning her wrists each side of the pillow. His eyes drifted down her body.
‘It can be still good,’ she pleaded. ‘I can make it good for you. It’s what you want, isn’t it? For it to be good, you know? For it to be real.’
His eyes came back to meet hers. She searched them for the smallest glimmer of compassion.
‘Please,’ she whispered.
Spence pushed off from her. He cleared his throat, straightening his jumper and smoothing his hair. He shifted his torso one way then the other, like he was imagining a dance move, lengthened his spine, positioned his hands behind his back, and, in an instant, became the Spence from last night.
‘All I ever want,’ he said, smiling casually, as though the last few minutes had only happened in her mind, ‘is to make you happy.’
‘And I’m ready to make you happy,’ she replied. This was her chance, her one chance. ‘I just need you to do one thing for me.’
Chapter Forty-Five
Key
‘I got you the bed pan,’ Spence snapped. ‘That’s what it’s there for.’
‘I’ve tried so many times,’ Rachel moaned. ‘I can’t get comfortable on it. It’s hard enough when I’m this… blocked. I need to sit on a toilet. Please.’
She hadn’t wanted to ask when he was in this mood. Guarded, suspicious. She wanted the Spence from yesterday, the one who talked about being in love. But what choice did she have? It was clear now that once they’d slept together, as he would no doubt describe the rape to himself, he was leaving, getting out, before the police traced him here. She needed to do something.
