The shutter is still at half-mast, but the shop is open. Ellie Goulding's version of Your Song plays in the background. The young, female assistant leans over the counter. She smiles when I enter, but quickly returns to her phone. Nobody else is in the shop. I look down at the polished, tiled floor. I unintentionally catch my reflection in the mirror. It doesn't mock or taunt me, like it used to. Pulling back my hair often plumps my face, but now it merely emphasises the weight I've lost. The rosy glow from the exercise isn't blotchy; it looks healthy. I allow myself a smile.
My fingers flutter across the clothes, but this time my eyes don't follow. I'm not looking to make a purchase this morning. You could say I'm window shopping, but not for anything they're selling. Casually, I make my way to the back of the shop, so my back is to the far wall and I'm facing the assistant. I pull across the plastic hangers. Pull them back.
Somebody else enters the shop.
The young girl's smile is wider this time; she holds her look for longer. She says hello. I catch her eyes wandering as the man passes. His denim jeans are loose at the heel but tight at the thigh. The short-sleeved white tee-shirt strains at the biceps. My eyes don't rise any higher.
I know who it is.
My eyes fixate on the dress in my hand, even though I'm clueless to the size, or to the colour. He pauses at the carousel at the front of the shop. I look up at the assistant. Her interest has wavered. Once again, she is mesmerised by her phone. I glance at his growing shadow. He moves closer, step by step, until I can tell that he stands next to me. His hand brushes against the garment of clothing just inches from me. I stare straight ahead.
The girl looks up now. I hold her eye as the man's thigh presses close against me. He smells like he just jumped out of the shower after a hard workout. The girl's jaw drops. So does my hand, but this is hidden from her view. She doesn't know that the other shopper - this stranger - grows and hardens in my open hand. She doesn't know that his own hand massages my hips underneath my tee-shirt. She does know that his body nestles close to me, though, and she does have an imagination. Her lips flicker as his hand slips inside my loose joggers...
I gently slap the hand away. My smile tells him I'm far from upset. I don't look in his face, but I briskly turn so he can hear me.
"I'll see you at the barn dance," I whisper.
All he can see is the back of my head as I head towards the exit. The background music switches to Sweet Child O' Mine. I turn to the young assistant and beam. I'm sure her cheeks are more flushed than when I entered.
"Have a nice day," I say.
Sheena
This has become our cafe. Best friends forever. I feel a tinge of guilt towards Apinya. Would she feel a sense of betrayal?
Apparently she played a blinder with the detectives. She had to. Bernard has this easy charm, a natural aura of kindness. Spend thirty minutes in a room with him and you'll be convinced he could not possibly harm a fly. Apinya walked into the room and threw everything into doubt. Of course, the female detective was straight onto the black eye. DI Hunter can switch between good cop and bad cop with the flick of her finger. I've no doubt she became Mother Teresa when my dear, meek little friend joined them. I've taught Apinya so well. She told them that Bernard did it, that he had a terrible temper (as Robert Campbell discovered). Bernard, bless him, was probably too dazed and befuddled to protest. She didn't want to press charges, though. She said she loved him too much to throw him in jail. Not only did she become the victim, but she became the martyr, too.
Now the detectives suspect both of them.
Tess is fifty yards or so up ahead, on the other side of the bridge, swinging her cream leather handbag at her side. The water ripples twenty feet or so beneath me. Of course, the bag is a fake, bought from the market. Her social media posts depict a young mother taking on the world. In reality, she signs on every fortnight and tops this up with cash in hand wherever she can get it. She is a rodent sniffing in the long grass for scraps. She lies, and she schemes. She questioned whether it was right to take the money from me. She had a young kid to feed, to be fair, and she didn't know what she was getting herself into. What isn't fake, though, is her bubbly energy and her concern for others. In a way, she is the most natural person I know. Part of my resentment stems from the nagging knowledge that I could never be like her.
The black heels, scuffed with mud, add two inches to her height (which is just as well, because she isn't the tallest). My quickening pace gains some yards, until I'm able to take in the unhealthy white flesh coating her hips, and the strain of her calves against the skinny blue jeans. I know some men lust over her soft, curvy body. She is even rounder and bouncier from the front. I'm sure she isn't short of admirers. Raising her wrist, she realises she is a few minutes early for me. She doesn't want to be loitering on her own, walking around in circles that just keep getting bigger. She doesn't realise that she'll always be a few minutes early for me. Her strides shrink. Her pace slows.
She turns right, onto the high street, just as I reach her side of the bridge. A lot of things are happening on this high street, but most people remain oblivious.
Despite her issues and her limitations, Tess lives for the moment. Without realising it, she probably puts Mindfulness into practice. I'm sure she doesn't waste time regretting her mistakes or pondering her bleak future. Whilst others lie awake over-thinking, tossing and turning, Tess barely thinks at all.
Just as well, in the circumstances.
My eyes flicker to the hanging baskets above the shop doorways, to the offers chalked on blackboards. Tess remains about twenty feet ahead, walking on the balls of her feet, straining those substantial calf muscles, edging closer to the cafe, to where she expects to meet me.
Of course, she doesn't reach the cafe.
Tess stumbles backwards, her toes upturned and her heels digging into the pavement. She lifts both hands in the air, arches her body back. Was that a shriek? Heads turn, stunned by the sudden frantic movement.
What happened?
Raising my knees, my walk turns into a jog and my jog turns into a sprint.
The heads turn to me now, glad that somebody else is taking action; I am the lifeguard in red trunks and a halo over my head running to the sea. Somebody bumped into her, didn't they? Knocked her back on her feet. Gave her a terrible fright. This happens all the time, of course; people are always distracted, on their phones or wearing headphones. In this God awful country, though, we always hold our hands up in surrender and apologise even when it isn't our fault. Good manners? We're all just zombies. We apologise at the scene and then curse behind their backs. Us Brits are just dishonest.
This is what makes the pedestrians blink, what makes them look again. The bulky, hooded figure keeps his head low. He does not raise his hands. He does not utter an apology. Instead, the hands remain bunched in the jacket pockets. The strides are dainty and quick. He disappears off the high street, down the lane where the drunks urinate late at night.
Tess's painted smile straightens. She puts her hand to her belly. Her dazed expression turns to bemusement.
Why is her blouse damp? Why is it tainted red? Why is the redness expanding?
"Tess!"
The shoppers turn from Tess back to me. Their mouths open at the speed of my steps, at the loudness of my shout. Tess's knees buckle and she bends at the waist. My outstretched hand grabs hold of her waist just in time to ease her fall to the pavement.
With the back of her head flat against the concrete, the whites of her eyes expand. She blinks as she looks up at me, staring down at her. She squeezes my hand.
"Sheena?" she says. "What happened?"
I'm aware of the gathering crowd circling us, blocking out the light. My knee presses against the floor. I turn around.
"Will somebody please call an ambulance!"
This is the one thing they all can do. Nobody wants to feel useless in these situations, but ultimately, we nearly all do. The group all dig into their pockets, stab the three digits into
their phone.
999.
I lean forward. My lips are close enough to her ear to stick my tongue inside. I whisper my words so nobody but Tess can hear.
"You've been stabbed, Tess," I say. "Let's just hope you believe in God."
Saturday 10th August 2019
Katherine
Sheena walks up and down at the front of the room, both hands on her slim hips; she is like a pop star psyching herself to open a concert at Wembley Stadium. I don't bother looking around the room and counting heads anymore. Nobody misses a meeting. Any newcomer has to follow an induction routine. The same number of women attend this meeting as the last meeting.
She repeatedly talks about us being a family. I recall one of the last moments all of my family were still alive. It was late at night. I couldn't sleep. My thoughts raced. From my bedroom, I could hear my parents talking downstairs. I longed to know what they were talking about. My heart skipped a few beats as I crept downstairs. The door remained slightly ajar. I glanced through the gap. My parents were quite animated. My jaw dropped. My cheeks flushed. They were talking about Ben.
They knew.
"We're going to following a slightly different format this meeting, ladies," Sheena says. Her beaming smile indicates that this is a good thing. Everybody stops talking. Everybody turns and looks to the front of the room. "Kat, are you okay to come to the front? As we discussed? As we arranged?"
Synchronised heads turn now to me at the back of the room. Taking a deep breath and planting my hands flat against my thighs, I stand up. All of the women smile encouragingly. Are my ankles tied with lead? Am I walking through water? At the front of the room, Sheena stretches out her arms, pulls me close to her. She whispers in my ear.
"This is so brave, Kat."
All eyes fix on me. I may as well be a blue whale performing at Sea World. They say a good way of calming the nerves is to imagine the audience naked. With this particular crowd, that might just put me off. I clear my mind and imagine I'm talking to an empty room, that I'm talking to myself.
"Do you remember the young girl, Tess, who attended one of our meetings? It was way back before Christmas last year. She said she was sexually assaulted when she was drunk."
All of the women nod. A few of them say that she was such a sweet girl. A few others say it was terrible what happened to her.
"Well, I have reason to believe that one of those men who assaulted her was my husband."
Gasps fill the room. Looking up, a few shake their head. A few more put their hand to their mouth. None of the women question why I suspect my husband is one of the assaulters. None of the women ask what evidence I have to support this. Right now, I think they'd assume their own husbands were guilty with no questions asked.
"You poor woman," Moira says. "Living with a brute."
"They're all like that," Sheena says. "It's just that this one got caught."
The women heartily agree.
I raise my eyes. "The thing is, last week Tess got stabbed. Right in the middle of town. In the middle of the day. It was in the newspapers."
"Oh my God! That was her? Is she okay?"
"Luckily she wasn't seriously injured," I say. "A few inches in a different direction and she'd be dead. Nobody has been convicted of this horrendous crime. I have no proof of anything, so I can't call the police. But..."
"Go on, Kat..."
"Well, I've had a heart-to-heart with Sheena about this. She's encouraged me to open up, to be brave. My natural instinct is to brush it under the carpet, to deny everything. I'm not going to do that anymore. I need to face up to the truth. I suspect that my husband, and the other man who sexually assaulted Tess, may have been behind this stabbing, too. By all accounts, they didn't mean to seriously hurt her. It was just a warning. To keep her quiet."
With my head bowed and my face flushed, I head back to my seat at the rear of the room. Twisting heads follow my movements. Sitting down, I bury my head into my open hands.
"Don't you think Kat's immense bravery - not to mention her incredible honesty - deserves a round of applause, ladies?"
The sound of clapping hands deafens my ears. Looking up, I'm greeted by smiling faces. The broadest - and the whitest - is Sheena's, at the front of the room.
"I've been mingling with Kat's husband, Ray, and his mates in the pub. I do this for the good of the group, ladies. It is vital to know what threat they pose-"
"And...?"
"They're definitely conspiring. Ray didn't commit this heinous crime on his own. I'm certain that his friends are behind it, too..."
The outraged guffaws echo around the room. I look down, at the floor. This is surreal. This is my husband they're talking about. None of it feels real.
"That is only the first of our staggering announcements this morning, ladies," Sheena says, interrupting the bedlam. "Apinya, are you okay to come to the front of the room?"
Apinya doesn't have weights tied to her ankles. She dances to the front of the room with the agility of a ballerina. I imagine a spotlight shining down on her from the ceiling. Apinya circles her right eye with her fingertips.
"Can you see this bruise?" she asks.
We all push our necks forward. The bruise has faded. Her eye does look a little purple. A few of the older dears say they can't see anything. I fear this negates the impact of what she was hoping to achieve somewhat.
"My husband did this to me. My husband hit me."
"Bernard? I can't believe it!"
Not many women in the room know Ray. Plenty of women know sweet, jovial Bernard. Besides, Apinya has discussed him regularly in the group.
"Yes, my darling Bernard did this to me. Just like Kat, I've never been strong enough to admit the truth before. But you ladies make me strong. He has abused me for years, both physically and mentally."
Amongst the gasps and the sighs, one of the women rises from her seat to give Apinya a hug. I narrow my reddened eyes. Bernard is an abuser?
"Do you know what I did in return? I had an affair. Maybe that wasn't right. But don't I deserve some happiness?"
"We all deserve happiness," Moira says.
I stifle a laugh. Moira would say that, wouldn't she? She found her happiness by sleeping with her brother-in law at her own wedding reception.
"But this happiness ended when Bernard found out. And you know what he did?"
Not surprisingly, nobody knows what Bernard did.
"He beat my lover, too."
Apinya lowers her hands to silence the gasps. She is like a comedian asking the audience to stop laughing so that she can proceed with her next joke. Apinya dabs at her bloodshot eye.
"That isn't the worst of it. I was forced to split with this kind, loving man. And you know what happened to him? The poor man was so distraught by the turn of events that they found him floating in the river last week..."
Every woman has heard about Rob's death. The whole town, and most of the neighbouring ones, know of his passing. I heard that DI Hunter was knocking on doors asking questions. She hounded me when my parents died, looking for something, for anything. She couldn't find anything then and she couldn't find anything now. Sheena told me that she was looking to open a murder enquiry into Rob's death, but the autopsy revealed no suspicious circumstances. Why would they? Most likely, Apinya drove him to the brink.
A sobbing Apinya returns to the shelter of her chair. The noise rattles around the room like a football stadium on match day. None of the women notice Sheena taking Apinya's place at the front. She doesn't try to silence them. She just stands completely motionless with her arms folded across her chest until the excitement fades.
"How horrific are these stories, ladies?"
The women in the room let Sheena know in no uncertain terms that these stories are more than horrific.
"Do you agree that we need to get some revenge?"
The room roars its approval.
"On their husbands?" one of the ladies asks.
"I need my husband!"
>
The heads turn to Apinya. Her startled eyes show genuine fear. "I mean, I need him for now," she says. "I'm rebuilding my life. I have to find somewhere else to live. Get a job. I'm planning my revenge on that bastard-"
"I'm planning my own sweet revenge on my shit of a husband," I say.
"We need to play it clever. We can't draw attention to ourselves. Kat and Apinya will be the first suspects they'll look at if they take revenge on their husbands," Sheena says. "We have another man in our sights to begin with. Kat has been working hard to bring him to justice. The question is, will you support us?"
"Of course we will!"
"Whatever happens?" Sheena asks.
"Absolutely!"
Sheena eyes each woman in turn. She wants to make sure she has no doubters, no potential weak links. Her furrowed brow straightens.
"Good," she says. "I'm confident we have total, unconditional trust here. We're a family. A unit."
Sheena rubs her hands together. She leans forward at the waist. "Right, we are going to execute our plan this Saturday 17th August, at the barn dance..."
Monday 12th August 2019
Ray
It was Saturday afternoon when things started clicking together, when I actually started using my brain and working things out.
Kat returned from her Saturday morning meeting in a bleak mood. Clearly, she had so many things on her mind. Sometimes she is overly reflective of her life. I'm convinced that now and then she ponders what her world would have been like had I not become part of it. She sat cross-legged on the sofa, mesmerised by the television screen. Black, terrifying clouds had visited her world. It was best to give her some time. She barely acknowledged my existence when I told her I was popping out. I just needed some space. To get away.
Outside, I blinked the drizzle from my eyes. I didn't head out in any particular direction. My sole purpose was to clear my mind. I just went wherever my sturdy size eleven's took me. Clearly, I must have walked in automatic pilot mode, because when I looked up, the leisure centre stood in front of me, adjacent to the playing fields. There isn't much to it - mainly just a small, claustrophobic gym and a 20-metre swimming pool. Stick up some metal goals and the badminton courts transform into a 6-a-side football pitch. Mr Brittas would not be impressed. I found myself walking across the rugby pitch, following my feet again. The wet, overgrown grass dampened my trainers, seeped through to my socks. What lured me to the leisure centre? Maybe it was the cheap chicken soup served in plastic cups out of the machine? No. I didn't think so.
I AM HERE TO KILL YOU Page 22
