by Lisa Jewell
‘No,’ she said, sitting down again, ‘it’s fine.’
And then suddenly, and without much in the way of a preamble, he leaned across and he kissed her on the mouth.
She pulled away and looked at him. ‘Tom. I—’ She wasn’t sure what she was going to say. Something like, We don’t have to do this if you’re tired. Or, We could just talk. But his mouth was back against hers before she had a chance to form a syllable. She attempted to give herself into him. She wanted so much for her body to follow her brain’s train of thought: that this was what she’d wanted, that yes, maybe she’d had doubts, and yes, maybe he was having doubts too, but that maybe if they just kept kissing for long enough, somehow or other the spark would be reignited.
They kissed for a few minutes, but her body did not follow her brain and in fact she did not enjoy the kiss. It was cumbersome and slightly sour. He had come straight from work, from a day of tea and coffee and lunch at his desk. He hadn’t brushed his teeth. She tried again to lull her body into wanting what was happening to it. She moved closer and pressed her breasts against him, pulled the fabric of his shirt away from his waistband and placed her hands against the bare skin of his back. She remembered that day on the bus when his jumper had lifted and she’d seen his flesh, the power of it. This stirred her for long enough to unbutton his shirt and pull it open. But then suddenly he was pulling away from her. She looked at him and his eyes were full of something she’d never seen there before.
‘What?’ she said. ‘Are you—?’ And then she stopped when she saw the marks on his body. Scratches. Bruises. Bite marks. The indents of actual teeth. ‘Oh my God. Tom …’
He pulled his shirt closed but she pulled it open again.
‘What is all this?’
‘It’s nothing. Just … breaking up a fight in the playground. You know.’
‘But Tom – those are teeth marks.’
‘Yes, yes they are.’
‘Who bit you, Tom? Who did this?’
He sat back. His head dropped into his chest and the soft paunch of his stomach collapsed into two rings of flesh over his waistband. He looked tired; he looked broken. ‘It’s Nicola. She gets, I don’t know, overly emotional. She gets very jealous. She carries a lot of anger inside her. And most of the time she contains it. But sometimes she can’t … and she takes it out on me.’
‘She attacks you?’
Tom nodded.
‘And you let her?’
‘Most of the time I let her. Yes.’
Joey paused for a moment to absorb the awfulness of what he was telling her. ‘But – how? Where?’
‘At home. In our room. At night. She’ll say it’s something I said or something I did. This’ – he looked down at the marks on his body – ‘this was because she saw me talking to one of my students in the village. We talked for all of thirty seconds. But Nicola was convinced there was more to it. I mean, the girl was fifteen, for crying out loud! Fifteen!’
‘And coming here tonight? Was this deliberate? A cry for help? I mean, you must have known I’d see all this.’ She gestured at his marked body. ‘You must have known I’d ask?’
His head dropped forward again and she stared into the crown of his hair, into the place where the pink of his scalp showed through. She put out her hand and she touched it.
‘Yes.’ He nodded heavily. ‘Yes. I guess. It’s just been this thing, this awful dysfunction I’ve carried around for fifteen years. This twisted, wrong thing. It’s like she hates me as much as she loves me, but that the hate is where she gets her passion. It’s the hate that makes her feel, and when she feels she wants to hurt me. And when she hurts me I want to hurt her. And it’s this rotten, awful cycle and I’ve had enough, Joey. I’ve had enough.’
‘Do you hurt her too?’
‘Sometimes …’ He looked up at Joey with desperate eyes. ‘But you have to believe me, it’s never out of control. It’s self-defence. I don’t do this to her.’ He gestured at the marks on his body. ‘It’s all so wrong and my poor boy, my Freddie, I know he knows something’s not right. I know he does. He’s nearly fifteen. He’s just starting to look at the world and see what’s going on. Ask questions. And now she’s started being cruel to him too. She hurt him yesterday. She pushed him over and called him a little shit. My lovely boy. My amazing lovely boy. And I just … I don’t want to do it any more. She’s cruel and she’s dark and you – you’re the opposite! From the moment I saw you that day in the bar at the Melville, when you knocked over those leaflets, I could just tell; you were so good and so bright and so pure. Everything that Nicola isn’t. And I wanted you so much, more than I ever wanted anything in my whole life.’
He’d begun to cry and Joey put her arms around his neck and pulled his head against her shoulder and stroked his hair and she felt a terrible realisation that Tom Fitzwilliam had not brought her here to scratch an itch. He’d brought her here to rescue him.
‘Do you love her, Tom?’
She felt his head shake. ‘No,’ he murmured into the soft jersey of her dress. ‘No. I’ve never loved Nicola. Sometimes I think I hate her.’
‘Then why …?’
‘I don’t know. She was just always … she was there.’
‘There?’
‘Yes. From the moment she came up to me on the bus that day when she was nineteen years old and said, Hello, Mr Fitzwilliam. And then suddenly she was pregnant. Only weeks after we met. And I was thirty-five and it seemed – I don’t know, the right time to be settling down, I suppose.’ His face fell into a wry smile. ‘You know, she told me that she fell in love with me when I was a teacher at her school. When she was fourteen years old. She told me that she decided then and there that she was going to marry me one day. And that nothing was going to stop her. And yet, I don’t even remember her. She was invisible to me. If anything should have been a warning, it was that.’
‘Tom, you can’t go on like this. It’s … it’s mental!’
‘I know,’ he said. ‘I know I can’t. But how? How do I escape? If I leave her it will all come out. She’d tell the world about the sickness between us. I know she would. And then Freddie would know and the school would know and the world would know – and then what? Then what would happen? Everything would be over for me. Everything I’ve worked for. Everything I care about. I’m trapped, Josephine. I’m completely trapped.’
‘I can’t save you, Tom,’ Joey whispered. ‘You do know that? I cannot save you. You’re going to have to save yourself.’
‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘I know you’re right. And I will. I will save myself. I’ll find a way. I’m sure I will.’
She held him for a little while longer and then he said, ‘I should probably go home. I don’t know what I was thinking. Using a beautiful young woman like you to try and fix my own stupid mess. I’m so sorry.’
‘No. Tom. Please. Don’t be sorry. I was using you too. To fix my own mess. Go home. We’ll finish this conversation another time.’
She watched him button up his shirt, tuck it back into his trousers.
‘Please don’t think badly of me.’
‘I don’t, Tom, trust me – I am not in a position to think badly of anyone.’
Joey watched him go. He looked smaller somehow, and older.
She lay for a while after he went and she closed her eyes. Immediately her head filled with images of Nicola, her teeth in Tom’s flesh, her fingernails raking through his skin, her sharp little face knotted with anger. Then she thought of Tom saying, I will save myself. I’m sure I will.
She sat upright, her breath catching in the back of her throat. Then she quickly collected her possessions, threw them into her handbag and ran from the hotel.
61
Freddie felt like Charles in The Rachel Papers when he finally gets Rachel into bed. Not that he’d got Romola into bed. Not that he had any intention of getting Romola into bed. But he felt magnificent and triumphant. They’d danced together. Probably quite badly. And her bitch
y friends had looked on in appalled disgust and made faces at each other and then Romola had said she was finding it all too stimulating, that she was experiencing sensory overload and that she wanted to be somewhere quiet. So they’d left. They’d sat for a while on a bench, Romola wearing his suit jacket slung over her shoulders. And he hadn’t touched her. She seemed to be a little uncomfortable with touching. She said it was her Asperger’s. He’d said he had no problem with touching, that he liked hugs and affection. She’d said, We’re all different.
And then he’d walked her home, to the mews on the edge of the city, and the tiny dog had barked a lot, and she’d dashed in the door without saying goodbye, but that was fine because it was part of her Asperger’s not because she was rude.
And he’d called his dad, hoping for a lift. But his dad hadn’t answered his phone so he’d started walking and just kept walking until he’d reached the village and then he’d walked up the hill to Melville Heights and he’d let himself into his house and he’d followed the sound of movement into the kitchen and there he’d seen his dad, and his mum.
And his mum was on the floor.
And there was blood, lots of blood.
And his brain, his big, brilliant brain, had not been able to translate what he was seeing, not for quite some time.
And when it did he screamed.
RECORDED INTERVIEW
Date: 25/03/2017
Location: Trinity Road Police Station, Bristol BS2 0NW
Conducted by: Officers from Somerset & Avon Police
POLICE: So, Mrs Tripp, talk us through what happened after you arrived in Melville Heights on Friday evening.
FT: Well, for a while I sat outside Tom Fitzwilliam’s house.
POLICE: Outside?
FT: Yes. There’s a small shrubby area opposite the houses. I had a fold-up chair and a camera. The woman in Mold told me the meeting was starting at 7 p.m. So I got there at six forty-five. I saw the boy leaving the house at about six forty-eight.
POLICE: The ‘boy’ being?
FT: Their teenage son. He’s one of them too. He sits up there in his room, watching me all the …
POLICE: Mrs Tripp. If you could just describe what you saw?
FT: Well. He was all dressed up in a suit and tie.
POLICE: And did he see you?
FT: No. It was getting dark by then and I was well hidden.
POLICE: Then what did you see?
FT: Well, nothing, for ages. Seven p.m. came and went, then seven thirty. Then at eight the blonde woman came.
POLICE: Could you identify the blonde woman?
FT: I don’t know her name. But I know she lives two doors down. Number 14. With the heart surgeon and his wife.
POLICE: Is this her? For the sake of the recording we are showing Mrs Tripp a photograph of Josephine Mullen.
FT: Yes. That’s the one.
POLICE: Could you tell us what she was wearing?
FT: Well, I can show you what she was wearing. I have photos.
POLICE: For the sake of the recording could you describe in your own words what Ms Mullen was wearing?
FT: Yes. She was wearing a black leather jacket, a big scarf and a tight dress. And boots. Coloured boots. With heels.
POLICE: Was there any form of decoration on the boots?
FT: Yes. There was. A kind of tassel.
POLICE: Thank you, Mrs Tripp. So, you saw Ms Mullen outside the Fitzwilliams’ house at 8 p.m. Can you describe what you witnessed?
FT: Yes. She’d got out of a taxi in the village. She was breathless. She’d been walking up the hill, very fast. Almost running. She stopped outside her own house and turned, seemed to be looking for something on the other side of the road. Then she slowed down, walked towards Tom Fitzwilliam’s house and stood for a minute with her hand near the bell. Then she took her phone out of her bag and looked at it. It looked as though she was thinking of calling someone but thought better of it. She looked up at Tom Fitzwilliam’s windows and then she turned round and went back to her own house. I immediately realised of course that she was one of them. She’d obviously been invited to the meeting but for some reason she changed her mind about knocking on the door. Maybe she realised that Tom Fitzwilliam’s car wasn’t there and decided to wait.
POLICE: So, Tom Fitzwilliam’s car was not there at 8 p.m.?
FT: No. It wasn’t. So, I waited a few minutes for him to arrive. The blonde woman had clearly been expecting him to be there. And then I remembered: when I was a child I had a friend who lived up in Melville Heights. She lived at number 3, the pink house. I’d go over to play quite a lot and there was a kind of secret garden behind her house. A little woodland. All the houses had access to it from their back gates. And I remembered that there was a footpath to it from the bottom of the hill, just behind the phone box there. And I suddenly realised, you know, if they’re all getting together they’re hardly going to be walking in through the front door, bold as you like. And I thought, I’ll bet you that’s what the blonde girl’s going to do. She’s going to go through her house and round the back. So I took my camera and I walked down to the entrance to the woodland and by now it was really very dark. I couldn’t see much. But I did see a figure, ahead of me, someone leaving the back of one of the houses. I ducked into the shadows so they wouldn’t see me.
POLICE: And did you see which house this person came out of?
FT: It was the yellow house. It was Tom Fitzwilliam’s house.
POLICE: And where did this person go after leaving Tom Fitzwilliam’s house?
FT: They walked two doors down. Into the back of the blue house. The heart surgeon’s house.
POLICE: Did you recognise this person at all?
FT: Well, it was the blonde woman. The one you just showed me a photo of. Who else would it have been?
POLICE: And you say you had your camera with you. Did you happen to get a photo of this person?
FT: Yes. I did. Just the one. And it’s terribly blurred, I’m afraid. Would you like to see it?
POLICE: Yes, Mrs Tripp, we would.
62
24 March
The kitchen floor was covered in blood. Freddie’s mum was lying on her front covered in blood. Freddie’s dad was sitting in the blood, crying and rocking and moaning.
‘Freddie,’ he said, in a strange, thick voice. ‘Your mum! She’s …’
He got to his feet. His hands had blood all over them. His clothes were sticky with it. He had streaks of blood down his cheeks with channels where his tears had run through.
‘Dad,’ said Freddie softly. ‘What have you done?’
‘God, Freddie, it wasn’t me! I didn’t do this! Someone else did this!’ His dad ran the back of his hand underneath his nose, leaving yet another stripe of blood on his face.
‘Is she dead? Is Mum dead?’ His stomach was clenched hard. He wanted to be sick. He wanted to scream. He wanted his mum to wake up and stop being dead.
‘Yes.’ His dad gulped back a huge cry and sounded as though he was being strangled. ‘Yes, she is. And look!’ He held a sheaf of paper in his hand, large paper printouts of photographs. ‘These were left on her body. I don’t understand!’
Freddie stared at them for a moment or two before he realised what he was looking at. They were his photos. Of Jenna. And Bess. He hadn’t looked at them for so long and blown up to this size they looked obscene, crude, twisted.
‘They’re mine,’ he said, his voice small and weak.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, I took those photos. They were on my computer.’
‘On your …?’ His dad looked confused. ‘You took them?’
He nodded. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘It was just a log I used to keep. It was called The Melville Papers. About the neighbourhood. It was just something to do. It wasn’t meant to be—’
‘Fred,’ his dad cut in. ‘We have to get rid of these. I need to call the police. And I can’t call the police until all of these are gone. Shredd
ed. Do you understand?’
He nodded.
‘And you’ll need to do it because you don’t have blood on your hands and I do. OK?’
For ten minutes Freddie fed the paper prints into the shredder, systematically, without talking.
‘Good boy,’ his dad said. ‘Good boy.’
It was almost as if his mum wasn’t there. As if she wasn’t dead, on the floor, in a big kidney-shaped pool of blood. It was like his brain had just sliced that bit of reality out for him. And then, after he’d fed all the girls into the shredder, his dad looked round the kitchen again. He was sweating; his hair was stuck to his forehead. He said, ‘Right, I’m going to call the police now. And whatever happens, when they come, say nothing about the photos. OK?’
He nodded. He was making sense of things now. Someone had killed his mum. And whoever it was, was the same person who’d hacked into his files. But hadn’t he thought it was Dad who’d hacked into his files? And in that case did that mean his dad had killed his mum? He might have. He really might. The girl who killed herself. The noises from his parents’ room. The bruises.
His dad might have killed his mum.
They sat in the hallway to wait for the police. It still smelled of fresh paint. He thought of his mum, just a fortnight ago, laughing in the kitchen with Alfie Butter. Was it Alfie Butter who’d killed her? For a moment he wished more than anything that it would be Alfie Butter who’d killed his mum. Or maybe it was Joey. Red Boots. Yes, he thought. Yes. It must have been her. Not his dad. She was always hanging around. She’d tried to kiss his dad when she was drunk. She’d come over and taken photos of their house. She’d done it on purpose so she’d know how to get into the house. She was obsessed with his dad and she wanted Mum dead so that she could have him. Of course. It was obvious. There was no way his dad had killed his mum, just no way at all.
He ran from his dad. His dad said, ‘Where are you going?’
‘Nowhere,’ he said. ‘To wee.’
‘Don’t touch anything. Whatever you do. This is a crime scene. Please don’t touch anything.’
