Behind the Facade

by Rebecca Heap

  She couldn’t respond at first, the emotions grappling inside her were simply too immense. They swelled and rose in her throat, forming a wild cacophonous sea choking her. Had she got over everything only for it to drown her in madness just at the moment when she thought she’d found some happiness?

  Cold reality suddenly crashed down upon her like an inexorable wave, liberating her. She dropped her hands and ran at him, her face twisted in agony. “No!” she screamed, raining blows down upon him, “No!”

  She had no more impact on him than if she had been hitting a wall of granite. He grabbed her flailing hands and forced her back against the wall to more easily contain her. He waited, smiling at her contemptuously. She twisted like a rabid animal in his iron grasp, spitting and screeching, trying desperately to hurt him but only hurting herself.

  She finally wore herself out and released one last, heart-stricken cry. Her legs lost all strength and she would have collapsed but he caught her arms and held her up.

  “Why?” she implored weakly. “Why have you come back to persecute me? Why couldn’t you just leave me alone?”

  He pinned her against the wall, feeling her body shaking through his fingers. He stared at her agonised, tear-swollen face. His hand touched her cheek but she cringed away. He scowled and jerked her head back round viciously. “You weren’t so fuckin’ frigid earlier,” he hissed.

  He traced the outlines of her face with his finger. She endured it trembling, her eyes filled with revulsion. The pain of loss shot through him like a brief electric shock but he clamped down on it savagely.

  “What gave me away?” he asked.

  “You talk in your sleep,” she answered quietly, seeing no point in concealing this.

  He frowned but then his brow cleared. “Ah,” he conceded. “You dislike my Irish accent? A pity I had to ditch it. Most women find it endearingly sexy but never mind.” He bent to whisper in her ear, “I still managed to get a good few fucks out of you, didn’t I?”

  She retched. A myriad of pitiful emotions washed over her expressive face. Hatred, gaining ascendency, flew into her eyes.

  “You bastard!” she spat.

  “What’s the matter? Don’t you love me anymore? What was it you said?” He mimicked her previous protestations, “Whoever you have been, whatever you have done in the past, none of it matters.”

  “You knew you were making a fool out of me. How could you?” she rasped, her voice cracking.

  “I’ve done nothing that you didn’t want,” he replied coldly. “Didn’t I give you every chance to walk away? I warned you, but you wouldn’t listen!”

  “I never would have knowingly wanted you. Never!” she averred, vehemently. She didn’t notice the almost imperceptible tightening of his mouth at her caustic words.

  “This isn’t about you, it never was,” he said dismissively and turned away, stinging from the surprising pain her renunciation had caused him.

  “Who is it about then?” she challenged. “Brenna?”

  He turned sharply back, his face distorted by the violence of his emotion. He grabbed her arms and shook her fiercely. “How do you know that name? What do you know about my sister?!” he shouted. If she hadn’t known better, Kate would have sworn that his eyes glistened with a thin sheen of tears.

  She gaped at him. “I..I...,” she stuttered.

  He glared at her, his fingers digging cruelly into her flesh.

  “That was what you said,” she eventually choked out. “That’s the name you say in your sleep!”

  His expression changed to one of shocked bemusement and he released her. He had assumed it was merely his accent that had betrayed his identity.

  He rubbed his face briskly and when he looked at her again he had regained his composure, his face once again a stony mask. He turned to the dressing table and picked up the gun. Kate watched in growing dismay as he turned it over thoughtfully in his hands.

  He suddenly pointed the gun at her, his bright eyes as metallic and pitiless as the weapon.

  Her face drained of colour.

  “My sister was tortured and murdered,” he said, his conversational tone belying the enormity of his words. “Your father was responsible. Isn’t it only fair that he be robbed of someone close to him too?”

  Her eyes widened in horror. “No!" she gasped, repudiating both the threat of the gun and the allegation against her father.

  “You’re also a liability now,” he said. “You know my new persona. There’s no other option.” His mouth was set in a grim unyielding line.

  He moved closer to her, the gun barrel a looming black orifice of death. She backed against the wall, her face a petrified mask. Her lips moved but no sound emerged. Terror had paralysed her vocal cords. Her heart screamed denial. Her confused and terrified mind found a focus in the maelstrom of panic-stricken thoughts and clung to it. She closed her eyes and offered a fervent prayer to God.

  Instinct urged her to just keep her eyes shut and accept the inevitable, but her spirit was suddenly electrified. If he was going to kill her, she would not make it easy for him. She opened her eyes wide in defiance, only betraying herself with a solitary tear. She saw the moment when he resolved to do it and sensed him tense, as his grip tightened on the trigger. Then his gaze met hers and she saw something strangely like remorse flicker in his eyes.

  “I'm sorry,” he whispered, and pulled the trigger.

  *

  Sean sat in his car, his laptop on his knees, thrumming quietly as it fired up. He could feel his whole body shaking. Tiny spherules of sweat broke out on his forehead and he squeezed his eyes shut momentarily, willing himself to calm down, trying to block the image of Kate’s pale, lifeless face from his mind. He had had no choice. He had done what needed to be done.

  He forced the image of his dead sister to the forefront of his mind instead. His hands tightened into fists, his nails biting into his palms. “Your death will be fully avenged,” he whispered. “I failed you, but I will not fail you now. The man who abused you is dead. Now your deceivers...your killers...will know what it is to be betrayed, will know what it is to suffer a terrible, wretched end.”

  He opened his eyes, their silver stare as glittering and determined as steel. He pulled a memory stick from his pocket and plugged it into the laptop. His fingers moved rapidly over the keyboard. He was soon finished and he sat back and exhaled, wiping the moisture from his face with his sleeve. The file was sent, sooner than he’d wanted. The information saved in it had been automatically encrypted and he hadn’t had time to try and break the code. He would just have to hope their techies were clever enough to crack it themselves.

  He shut the notebook computer down and dumped it on the passenger seat. He started the car and began to pull away from the kerb, but he was unable to resist one last lingering glance up towards Kate’s flat. If life had been simple for him. If they had met under any other circumstances.

  He wrenched his eyes away and gritted his teeth, ruthlessly sweeping all thoughts of her from his mind. Life never conformed to an ideal and never would. He now had but one mission and if his life had to be sacrificed for the realisation of that mission so be it.

  CHAPTER 21

  Life before had been full, if not fulfilling. He had concentrated on satisfying himself with many vain and frivolous things. His sister had simply been another part of his heart he had locked away so it couldn’t hurt him. He kept in regular contact with her and not having her with him was something he had conditioned himself to accept. When the news of her death reached him, it had torn a hole in the carefully constructed shield he had built around himself. It was a fatal blow to his old egocentric self. The wreckage of this buried his heart beyond rescue, but it also left a burning shard within it. This was the desire for justice, upon which he fixed his whole reason for living. The irony was that he would never succeed because the one person he held most responsible for her death was himself. He might have been young when his sister was taken from him but he had allowed
his obsession with a married woman to take precedence. He had fought to get Brenna back but had soon given up, convincing himself that she was better off with their mother anyway. He should have known better. She’d even broken the news of his sister’s death to him like another weapon with which to wound him.

  The ringing of the phone had pierced his head like a knife. He should have known it was going to be bad at such an hour. He’d over indulged as he did on most weekends in both booze and sex and his mood was not pretty when he grabbed the receiver. He threw aside his latest bed–mate’s arm and answered the phone with a gruff, “Who is it? It better be bloody worth disturbing me at this bloody hour.”

  When he heard his mother’s voice on the other end it hit him immediately, like a shot of adrenalin. He forgot his banging head and sat up, fully alert. There was only one reason his mother would be ringing him and it wouldn’t be to exchange pleasantries. She never called. Something was wrong with Brenna. His mother’s words bristled with recrimination. Whatever had happened, it was his fault of course. He tried to break through the torrent of abuse. “Mother! Just tell me what the hell has happened? Where is Brenna?”

  “She’s dead!” his mother screamed back at him. “You killed her! Giving her fancy ideas about herself. Making her think she could be better than she was! She ran away from me and now she’s dead!”

  Sean dropped the phone as if it was on fire. He didn’t need to hear any more. He just had to get there. There must be some mistake and he had to rectify it. The girl beside him was awake by this time. Her tousled head emerged from the bed clothes and she turned languorous brown eyes on him. “What’s the matter, babe? Are you leaving?”

  “Yes,” he bit out. “Go back to sleep.”

  Pulling on clothes, he shoved underwear and other essentials in a bag and headed out, flagging a taxi to the airport as soon as his feet hit the sidewalk. He’d taken the next flight to London, heedless of cost. Sitting on the airplane, he’d pulled his phone from his pocket, anxious to distract himself from the sickening dread that was pulling his nerves to pieces. He could at least arrange a hire car at the other end and in doing so propel himself more quickly to his destination. Before he could turn it on, the flight attendant, having noticed his state of agitation, offered him a drink. He gladly accepted, especially as he was keen to silence not only his restless mind but the screaming hangover that had begun to reassert itself. He downed the whisky in one and another quickly followed. The rest of the flight passed in an anaesthetised haze.

  Reality stepped in before long and gave him a vicious kick. The moment he saw his mother’s accusing face, he knew there could be no mistake, but still he had to see her. He had to see Brenna. He demanded it, cutting through his mother’s continuing vituperation. Shocked by this, she started to berate his unfeeling attitude towards her. He’d ignored her as soon as he had the information he wanted, making straight for the police morgue.

  When they pulled back the sheet and he saw her lovely face, bereft of the vitality and luminosity that had so defined it, it was then that he broke down. Even the morgue attendant, who was used to displays of extreme emotion, had felt his skin prickle when he heard the anguished sounds coming from the man he had just admitted. He couldn’t help backing up a step when he went to escort the girl’s brother from the room and was faced with a desolate, yet fulgid, stare, the ferocity of which he had never encountered before. In the end it had taken soft persuasion to move him, as force had proved futile.

  When a police detective informed him that they were confident they knew who his sister’s murderer was, he was ready to break down every obstacle to get to the bastard. Learning that the man had committed suicide and had thus escaped his vengeance, the knowledge had almost unhinged him. With no outlet for his emotions and no object for his hate and anger but himself, he’d considered ending his own life. Only for him it would not have been the coward’s way out but rather a fitting punishment. The only thing that stopped him was the funeral. His sister deserved to be honoured by someone who had truly loved her, no matter how undeserving that person might be. He didn’t speak to his mother at the wake and Brenna’s friends were too scared to approach the tall, stony faced brother who brushed off every tentative expression of sympathy.

  CHAPTER 22

  He watched the single, perfect white rose, fall onto her coffin and saw, rather than felt, the single tear that followed it. He swiped at his eye angrily. He had no right to tears. Not when she must have shed so many and in her darkest hour cried out to him without answer. This thought suddenly stimulated him into action. What if she had, literally, tried to call him? Digging his phone out of his pocket, which he’d purposely left off to avoid any business calls or distractions, he turned from the grave. He listened through the numerous voicemail messages that had been left for him. When he heard someone who mentioned Brenna’s name, his face drained of blood. Why hadn’t he thought of checking his phone before? She’d needed him and he’d let her down. Again. God damn him! What had the caller said again?

  He listened carefully to the re-play. It gave him a jolt to hear the man state his name. It was Charlie Hughes. The murdering son of a bitch had even introduced himself! His voice had been nervous but he’d sounded ridiculously sincere. Why the hell would he call him? And what was this company he’d mentioned? Bespoke Cars? He seemed to be accusing this company of “selling” Brenna to someone? Damn it, the message had been cut off before the piece of shit had properly explained himself. He’d have to take this to the police.

  There was a tap on his car window just as he was about to leave the cemetery for the police station. He’d successfully avoided all attempts to detain him as he’d marched from the grave-site. He looked up. It was no-one he knew. This was all he needed. Letting down the window, intending to get rid of the fellow as quickly as he could, he barked, “Sorry, I can’t stop. I have to be somewhere urgently.”

  The man put his hand on the top of the window to prevent him from closing it. He had long blond, almost white, hair and fair skin, which was reddened and blotchy. He had obviously been crying, as his eyelids were swollen and his eyes were still bright with tears. “I won’t keep you, I promise,” he said. “I can’t get my head around any of this. I’m so sorry about your sister but please know that my Charlie could not, would not have murdered her.”

  Sean was anxious to be off but this man’s words prodded him in a place that was too newly sensitive. So this guy had known the bastard and couldn’t see that he was guilty? It was funny how the closest people to such monsters never recognised them for what they really were. In anger and impatience, he pushed the door open and grabbed him.

  Pushing him up against the side of the car, he spat into his face. “Friend of his were you? Do you know what he did to my sister? He didn’t deserve to die. Death was too good for him. I hope he burns in hell! Now get out of my sight before I decide to send you after him.” With that he released him.

  The man buckled but held his ground and snatched at Sean’s arm as he made to re-enter his vehicle. “Please,” he pleaded, “you don’t understand. I was more than his friend. We were lovers. Charlie cannot have done all the things they say were done to her. Aside from being the gentlest person I knew, he wasn’t even interested in girls.”

  “So he managed to fool you as well as my sister,” Sean responded, dismissively. He barged past him and slammed the car door in his face, as he regained his seat. Gunning the engine savagely, he drove away, gravel spitting angrily out from beneath the tyres.

  Sean had just finished speaking on the phone to the police. He had been to the station and had told them about the voice message. He had even left his mobile with them. The constable he had just spoken to had thanked him for the information but they had investigated further and could now confirm that they were not looking for anyone else in connection with his sister’s homicide. Since the caller had been Charles Hughes, the man they already blamed for her death, his message had simply served to corroborate
their original conclusions. The time of the call had come close to the time she was admitted to hospital. He had likely regretted his actions and obtained Sean’s number from Brenna in some belated bid to make amends. The fact he’d mentioned Bespoke Cars must just be a mistake. Perhaps he’d been confused or it was an elaborate attempt to pin the blame elsewhere? The evidence against Charles was just too overwhelming to justify wasting precious time and resources on what they believed was a false lead. The police knew that she had been incarcerated somewhere other than Charles flat, as there had been no evidence of her having been in his home, and they still had no clues about where that may have been but, as far as they were concerned, the case was wrapped up. Charles had not topped himself for nothing. They’d found her blood all over his car. He was the obvious culprit and they had other far more pressing, unsolved cases requiring their attention.

  Sean had been far from satisfied. There were too many unanswered questions. In a backhanded slap at him, rather than with any intention of helping, his mother had revealed that Brenna had left home over three months before her death. She’d had some notion of becoming a model. His mother blamed him, not only for giving her nonsensical ideas like this but for Brenna’s clearly stated desire to earn enough money to follow him to America. It troubled him that she’d made no mention of this to him. Her emails had always been full of news about college but she was a teenager and all teenagers had secrets. Had she decided to run off with some boyfriend and the modelling had just been her cover story?

  He was asking around her college about boyfriends and whether anyone had heard her mention Charles Hughes or Bespoke Cars, when a girl called Stacey had approached him. Stacey was fairly sure that Brenna hadn’t had any serious boyfriends. Clearly still distressed about Brenna’s death, she’d got choked up talking about the last time she’d seen her, blaming herself for not sticking with her. When she’d mentioned a modelling interview she’d accompanied her to, this had verified his mother’s story. With Stacey’s help, he’d returned to the place where she was interviewed but it was just an empty office, available for temporary rentals. This discovery sent an inexplicable trickle of dread slithering through his guts. Anyone could have rented it and, unfortunately, Stacey couldn’t remember the name of the agency. He then trawled every modelling agency he could find, but no-one knew of her. He’d reached a dead end but was not prepared to give up now. He suspected that this strangely untraceable modelling job was somehow key. She’d crossed paths with Charles Hughes at some point, so he started to look at him more closely.