by Nigel May
Creeping as quietly as the forest would allow, the figure moved off, a smile painted across their face. Amy had come.
* * *
The first thing that hit Amy as she pushed open the door was the smell of the cottage. It seemed musty. It had always seemed so fresh before. During her summer visits there with Riley, the windows had always been open, a light breeze allowing itself to waft through the small abode, the scent of freshly cut wild flowers adding to its magic. Today it seemed devoid of life, a film of gloom coating the air.
She pushed her case out of the way and flicked on the light switch by the side of the front door. Nothing. Even in the dim light she could see that there was no bulb in the overhead light fitting. Her brain fogged with confusion. If Riley was here then surely he would have fixed that. Made ‘their place’ a home. Were there any signs of life?
Amy’s question was quickly answered as she scanned her eyes through the open door off the living area and into the bedroom. There, lying on the bed, was a set of clothes, all strategically laid out. A jacket, shirt, trousers, all arranged in the shape of a body, as if someone was weighing up their options of whether an outfit looked good before wearing it for that special occasion. It was what Riley always used to do. So proud of his appearance, he would place his clothes in front of him, deciding if a ‘look’ was quite right. The irony was that he looked good in anything.
Walking through to the bedroom, she stared down at the clothes. She recognised the outfit as one of Riley’s. A classic fitting Prince Of Wales check wool suit and a crisp white shirt. The suit was one of his favourites. Pure Savile Row. Hadn’t she given it the charity shop when she’d cleared out Riley’s clothes after the shooting? She was almost certain she had. But obviously not, there it was, right before her eyes. The whole period after the shootings at the Kitty Kat was such a smudged blur that she wasn’t really sure of anything anymore.
Amy’s eyes drifted from the suit to a folded slip of paper placed on the small wooden table at the side of the bed. Even in the dim light she could see the name written on it. It was her own. The writing was as distinguishable as ever. It belonged to Riley.
Just two words. That was all that was written on the note. It took Amy less time to read it than it did to unfold the sheet of paper. ‘At waterfall’. Followed by a kiss. That was all.
75
Now, 2015
* * *
At first Amy didn’t spot anyone. All she could see as she walked into the seclusion of the clearing around the waterfall was the bubbling of the water as it tumbled the thirty or so feet from the top of the falls down into the lagoon of water below.
The water was darker than she’d ever seen it before, almost black in appearance, the only disturbance on its surface coming from the semi-circular lines of bubbles marching forth from the tumbling of the falls as they reached their destination. The air was otherwise silent, not even a bird daring to make a sound.
Then it came. A shout from above, at the top of the falls. Amy looked up. A silhouette, bulky and hard to distinguish, was standing there. With the nebulous backdrop of the winter forest behind it, it was impossible for Amy to work out who it was.
The thought of seeing Riley again, of him finally being so close to her once more, coursed through Amy’s body like a drug. A wave of nauseating dizziness smothered her. For a moment she thought she was going to be sick, her stomach twisting itself into knots. Shouldn’t she be feeling some kind of euphoria? Her husband was alive.
The figure waved down at her. Amy narrowed her eyes, attempting some degree of recognition. In the dim light of the forest she was too far away to see clearly.
She was being beckoned, her journey not yet complete. She was being called to the top of the falls. Ignoring the ever-tightening lasso of dread and apprehension wrapping itself around her nerves, Amy began to climb the dirty and precarious set of steps laid out by the side of the falls. Each step was marked with a small piece of wood, spaced between the undergrowth. In summer, either side was festooned with a garnish of riotously coloured flowers. Now the steps were edged with just a few decayed weeds.
The ground was hard beneath Amy’s feet, making the climb, short though it was, a tiring one. She’d climbed it countless times before, normally she and Riley together, her squeals of delight ringing through the trees as Riley playfully chased after her, the ground seemingly springy underfoot. When the weather was warm there was nothing more satisfying than the pair of them play fighting in the shallow waters at the edge of the falls. It was a sanctuary of fun, locked away from the world. Was that why Riley had chosen to meet her there, why he was waiting at the top of the falls?
But now, in the biting cold of the December air, the whole place possessed a different feel – one of desolation and foreboding. Something wasn’t right. Why would Riley put her through all of this? Why bring her to a place that used to bring laughter after all this misery?
Amy reached the clearing at the top of the falls. Her breathing was fast and disjointed. The sickening feeling of dread within her stomach hadn’t quelled. No more than five feet ahead of her, with their back turned to her stood the figure, wearing a long black coat with a hood pulled up over their head.
Now was the time. ‘I’m here. Riley?’
The figure turned to face her and pulled down the hood, revealing their face. ‘Afraid not. It’s me.’
It was then that the lasso became too tight inside her. That was the moment when Amy bent double in fear and felt herself vomit. At the moment when she looked into the face of Grant Wilson.
76
Now, 2015
* * *
Wiping away the traces of vomit from her lips, Amy stared back into the face of Grant Wilson. He was grinning. But this was not the cheeky, roguishly handsome, boy-next-door grin that had won him armies of female admirers nationwide. This wasn’t the caring, hand-holding Grant who had spooned Amy in his arms just a few short days before, and this certainly wasn’t the dashing medical hero of Ward 44, ready to effortlessly save another life teetering on the edge of destruction. No, this was a Grant Wilson that Amy had never seen before. One whose eyes were snake-like and piercing, strangely cold yet burning with hatred, somehow darker than a midnight sky. This was a Grant who had nothing but contempt for the woman standing in front of him.
Terror coursed through Amy as she focussed on the man who had kissed her so tenderly on the cheek in his hotel room. She automatically brought her hand to her cheek at the thought.
‘You? What are you doing here?' Like she needed to ask. 'I thought you cared about me, Grant. You kissed me?’
‘Never heard of a Judas Kiss, Amy? Classic Oscar Wilde scandal? The David Hare play a bit highbrow for you? No surprise there, I suppose. Let me quote from Wikipedia, I learnt it specially … A Judas Kiss is an act appearing to be an act of friendship, which is in fact harmful to the recipient.’
He was playing with her. ‘I needed you to believe in me. I’ve needed you to be on my side all the way along, or else I would never have been able to arrive at this point. I needed you to believe everything that was required.’ There was a vile sneer as he spoke, a bravado at finally being able to play out his ultimate role, that of the bad guy in the script of Amy’s life over the last six months.
‘But I don’t understand? This is my special place with Riley. Or it was ...’ Amy’s voice was streaked with fear, her words breaking with each and every syllable. ‘How did you even know that this place existed?’
‘All in good time, Amy. You can’t tell me you’re disappointed that Riley isn’t really here. Did you really believe for one second that he was still alive? He had his face blown off for fuck's sake, you saw it with your own fucking eyes.’
‘But the letters ... we saw him ... you were stabbed? His clothes at the cottage ...’ Questions slammed into every corner of Amy’s shell-shocked mind, her brain action-replaying everything that had occurred that fateful night at The Kitty Kat Club and all that had happened since.
‘You were there when the letter was delivered to me in London.’
A pause. One of enjoyment from Grant. This was his moment. His spotlight. He was centre stage and in no rush. ‘I’ve been there all along, Amy. I was there the night Riley and poor Laura died. I was there at the beginning because I was the one who shot them, and I’ll be here at the end when I do the same to you.’
Grant pulled out a gun and pointed it directly towards Amy. ‘This takes me back,’ he sneered, his finger on the trigger. ‘This is how it was supposed to finish in the first place. You’re the one who was supposed to receive the bullet ...’
A crush of confusion gripped Amy's brain. ‘But why me?’ What have I ever done to you?’ she trembled, attempting to understand.
‘You married that cunt of a man. Isn't that enough? You signed your own death warrant the moment he waltzed you up the wedding aisle.’
Nothing made sense to her. ‘But why kill me if it’s Riley you hated? If I’m about to die then surely I have a right to know.’
Grant nodded with an almost jubilant smugness. There was a madness in his eyes. It was the speech that he’d had been waiting months to deliver. The moment when he could really let Amy know the truth ...
77
Now, 2015
* * *
Grant began to speak, his words as cold as the winter air. ‘It all started with Lottie Webber, you know that. Riley crucified me with his humiliation of me at school. I’d never hated anyone as much as I hated him. But I let it pass, bided my time. He stole my first love, but I wasn’t going to let him crush me for good. I knew that one day I would gain my revenge.’ The gun wobbled in his hand as he spoke, a demonic mask covering his face. He was relishing the theatricality of the moment.
‘For years my hatred just kept gently brewing on a backburner in my brain. I got on with my life, Riley got on with his. I became a massive success in my field and so did he in his. Little did I know what his fucking shifty line of work was, though. I should have guessed – the prick never had an honest bone in his body. He was never a decent man, he could have ruined me.’
'How?' It was a simple question. 'Your worlds never collided, did they?'
'He knew too much about me. About my life, about things I'd done. He could have toppled everything I'd built up with one push.' There was a wobble in Grant's voice as he spoke. 'I made one mistake and suddenly he was the one holding all the aces. But now that's dead too, just like Riley.'
'What mistake?' If Amy was to die she wanted as many facts as possible to take to her grave.
'When I left school I struggled a bit with my acting. I couldn't get a break. It happens to all the big names, ask anyone in Hollywood. Makes you what you are. I needed money. My parents weren't backing me – they were putting me down again, so I made a film. A seedy, dirty romp filmed in some flea-ridden hotel room. It paid well and only took a day. Me, some other bloke and couple of cheap tarts taking it from every angle ...'
'A porn flick?'
'Yes, a skin flick. Me and this other fella degrading two women. Lots of sex and even more violence. Specialist market for Eastern Europe I was told, hence the decent pay. I regretted it as soon as I'd filmed it but what could I do? I just prayed it would vanish off to some far-flung country. I never saw it and hoped I never would. And as luck would have it, it did vanish – it never got released.’
'So, what does that have to do with—' queried Amy.
Grant cut her words off, mid-sentence, his voice angered. 'To do with Riley? Turned out the other guy in the film ended up working for your late husband years later and when Riley mentioned that he'd known me and hated me, the stupid prick told him about the movie. He'd asked for a copy and kept it. Seems he was actually pretty proud of his handiwork. Riley seized the opportunity to spread his poison and bought it off him.'
'How do you know?'
'Because he was trying to fucking blackmail me with it. I’d made it big, he needed more money. He had a copy and said he'd leak it somehow. My career could take a sex scandal maybe, but the violence in that flick ... that's something else. I'd never survive that. Riley needed to suffer. To know he couldn't mess with me.’
'So you decided to kill me? Over some sadistic bit of filth that could ruin your career. Why me?'
'To make him hurt even more. But that wasn't the only reason.' Grant continued, delighting in the unravelling of his tale. ‘I started going out with Laura. Yep, your Laura, the girl who was your best friend. I met her at a bar. Such a fun time girl – the ultimate star fucker, we were so alike. She couldn’t get enough of me and I lapped it up. She loved it when she found out I was a successful actor and tipped as the next big thing. That was a major turn-on. Reckon she had me down as her fast ticket to a land of celebrity. Still, she was dynamite in bed, I’ll give her that ...’
Tears began to flow down Amy’s cheeks at the mention of Laura’s name, but it was more than just sadness that caused them. ‘You and Laura were together? I don’t believe you, she’d have told me. We shared everything,’ she said. Suddenly Amy doubted herself. She and Laura were complete opposites in many ways. Did she know everything about her best friend? Maybe not.
‘But you didn’t. She played you for a fool. You probably didn’t know about half the men Laura went with.’
There was a pause, sheer melodrama from the actor, before he delivered his verbal killer punch.
‘You didn’t know about her and Riley.’
Amy heard the words but they didn’t compute. All she heard was the sound of betrayal as her memories of her friendship with Laura Cash burst into a million painful pieces.
78
Now, 2015
* * *
‘You didn’t know about her affair with him, did you?’ Grant sneered, keen to watch the reaction on Amy’s face as his most brutal blow of revelation so far took hold. The most hurtful. He was crushing the life out of her like a boa constrictor around its prey.
Amy felt like she had been punched in the stomach. Of all the disclosures she’d heard about her late husband, this was the hardest pill to swallow.
She could believe it of Riley, it was merely adding another name to the ever-increasing list of infidelities that Amy had discovered. But Laura? That was something horrifically different. Her one supposed true friend? The woman who had been there alongside her throughout all of her adult life. They’d shared laughter and tears, euphoria and rejection. But sharing Riley? No, that just couldn’t be. She wouldn’t have. She may have sampled the delights of many different men, but surely Riley was off-limits? The two people who had been at her side when she had buried her parents, the two people who had calmed her nerves about the opening of The Kitty Kat Club and the two people who she loved most in the world, how could those two people betray her so badly?
Suddenly a lifetime of images collaged her brain. Times she had been left alone while Laura ventured off with yet another rich and influential shag. Men before mates, as ever. Moments she had left Laura with Riley – at the club, sorting out her parents’ affairs after their deaths … how many times had Riley nipped to Laura’s Northern Quarter flat behind Amy’s back? It was all feasible and horribly likely now Amy considered the clues. And Riley was Laura’s type, rich, influential and given what she now knew about her late husband, as fickle as she was.
‘I can’t believe it, that’s bullshit.’ Her voice betrayed her words.
‘Stupid, stupid, stupid girl! You really should have seen it coming!’ Grant shouted, his voice somehow more amplified within the confines of the forest. The repetition of the same word gave him an increased air of demonic madness.
‘Why would I make it up? She left me to be with him. Laura and I were together for a long time. Riley stole her from me. As always he wanted to make me suffer and figured out how to woo her. It wasn’t hard. Laura was hardly the settling down type was she? It was easy for him to make her believe that some filthy little bunk-up with him would be more exciting than with a life with me. She wanted excit
ement and danger and I guess being screwed by the charismatic Riley Hart ticked the boxes. They’d been at it for years behind your back. Yet again, Riley gets one over on me. And he knew it. He planned it. He did it with Lottie, he did it with Genevieve too, it seems, and he decided to do it with Laura. To deliver yet another petty blow. He couldn’t wait to try and rub it in at every opportunity. How he was better than me yet again.’
Amy wiped the tears away from her cheeks, they felt cold against her skin. ‘But you hadn’t seen Riley for ages, not before coming to The Kitty Kat—’
Grant cut her short. ‘Wrong yet again! Foolish, gullible girl. It’s pretty easy to find out where I’m filming Ward 44 or which party or awards ceremony I might be appearing at. Pick up any gossip magazine or go onto any celebrity website and there’s good old me staring out from the screen. Riley constantly hounded me, threatening me with the porn film and belittling me about his affair with Laura. Handwritten notes telling me how great things were with her, how he was the best man she’d ever had. The greatest lover she’d ever known. He was a bully and he needed to be punished.’
‘You could have told me ... I would have been able to stop it ...’
‘You? Would you have believed me? Some bloke off the telly who your husband once went to school with and hated turns up and says that the two people you trust most in life are fucking each other. Who would you have believed, Amy? Not me, that’s for sure. Plus he said that if I blabbed anything to you then the porn video would hit the internet.’
