Henderson Manor

by Emma L. Clapperton

  “I’ve come to see if you’re ok?” I replied. “You’ve not been around much.”

  Sarah looked at me with sadness in her eyes, “I suppose you heard all of that.”

  I smiled gently. “Yes, are you ok?”

  “No, I’m not. He won’t listen. He thinks that I’ve been stalking him and his friend Jenny,” she said.

  I frowned. “How can you stalk your own boyfriend?”

  Sarah was beginning to pace the floor; she was becoming anxious. Her eyes were a picture of crazed devastation. “You tell me how I can stalk my own boyfriend. Jesus, I wouldn’t know where to bloody start.”

  I watched her as she paced back and forth, her brow glistened with sweat and I swear I could hear her heart banging around inside her chest. She stopped suddenly and looked in my direction. “How did you get in here?”

  I hadn’t thought of this one. Shit!

  “I asked you a question.”

  I remained calm, “The door was open. I did knock but there was no answer so I tried the door and it opened. I just assumed you were in. I didn’t think that you’d leave a house this size open for all and sundry to waltz in.”

  “Like you did you mean?”

  I couldn’t risk her finding out what I had been doing so I had to try to sway the subject back to Sam being unreasonable in thinking Sarah had been stalking him.

  “You think maybe that it was Jenny? Maybe she was jealous of you and Sam?”

  She didn’t reply to my suggestion. She was quiet. Too quiet; she was thinking.

  “What is it, Sarah?” I asked but still she remained silent.

  I watched her as she sat on the edge of her bed and I could see that her brain was working overtime. I was frozen, rooted to the spot. It was like time had been paused and the only people exempt from it were her and I.

  After what felt like a lifetime, she looked at me with caution. She rose from the foot of her bed; I was still standing at the window. Her voice was almost a whisper.

  “Oh my God, I can’t believe that I haven’t worked it out before now.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked, curiously.

  “It’s you. You’re the one who’s been stalking him.”

  “Don’t be so bloody ridiculous!” I spat.

  She walked towards me slowly, eyeing me from head to toe. “It’s not ridiculous. It makes perfect sense.”

  I laughed. “And how the hell do you work that one out?”

  “When I told you who I was going out with, you couldn’t have been more critical. You said things like, He’s only after one thing. He’ll drop you for some theatre star. He’s not that perfect and he’ll break your heart. And when I told you that I thought I had fallen for him, you couldn’t even look at me.”

  My heart began to pound and my head began to throb. My palms had become clammy and all I wanted was to slap her in the face and get out of there but my instinct told me to remain cool and deal with what was coming.

  Sarah began to smile and her eyes sparkled with the tears that were beginning to fill them yet again. “You’re the one who has been sending the notes and photographs. You’re clever, I’ll give you that. I don’t know how you’ve done it but you have.”

  She began clapping sarcastically. I was beginning to feel angry and I couldn’t tell if it was with her or the fact that she had rumbled me. She had figured out what I had been doing and in all honesty, I hated the fact that she was being so smug and proud about it. I felt a burning desire in my stomach; it rose to my chest and then to my throat, like I would explode. But I pushed deep down, back to its pit. I wanted to launch myself at her, kill her right there and then. But I just couldn’t bring myself to move. So all I said was, “So what if it was me?”

  She shook her head. She couldn’t take her eyes off mine, as if she was searching for answers, for the friend she once knew. Then she asked, “Why didn’t you just tell me how you felt?”

  I was stunned. Sarah sounded sad, not at all smug as I had initially thought. What could I say? Why had I done this? Even I wasn’t sure how to explain it.

  “Because I could.” The words were out of my mouth before I had even thought of them.

  Sarah walked to the door. My emotions were through the roof — I couldn’t decide if I felt guilty, sad or pissed off.

  “I still don’t get why you’re here?”

  “I wanted to hear him tell you to get out of his life!” I snarled. I was surprising myself at how nasty I had become.

  Sarah suddenly lost it; she began screaming through gritted teeth. She ran at me quickly as I stood at the window and grabbed me by the arm. “Get the fuck out my house before I phone the police and have you done for harassment!”

  I pulled my arm from her grip and slapped her across the face. the stupid bitch had no idea what was about to happen and neither did I.

  “Listen Sarah, you do anything of the sort and I will kill you, understood?” I hissed.

  Sarah took no notice and grabbed my arm again, this time with more force and began to drag me out to the top landing of the hallway, all the while laying blows down on my head and shoulders. “I said out!” she screamed again. “You were supposed to be my friend and this is how you treat me. You’re a psycho!”

  I managed to shake her off and pushed her away. I hadn’t meant to push her down the stairs; I just couldn’t see where we were positioned on the landing because I was trying to protect myself from the raining blows to my head. I hadn’t even seen her begin to fall; I only heard it. She thumped down, gravity pulling at her all the way to the bottom. No sounds or pleas came from her throat. I only looked up when my conscience told me something was wrong. When I did, I was horrified at what I saw. A twisted neck, a badly broken leg (I only knew it was broken from the angle in which it positioned itself once the body was still) and open eyes.

  For a few moments I was thinking, Shit! I have just killed her.

  And then as I looked on at the badly positioned corpse I thought, Hang on, this is what I wanted, her out of the way.

  My advantage was that nobody had seen me enter the house, so straight away I am not able to be placed here visually. Second advantage is that I had stashed everything in a box under her bed. The hate mail, the notes, photographs of Jenny and photographs of Sam. A list of dates, times and places where Jenny had been with Sam, all of which were beautifully crafted by me, someone who had never met these people in person and the mobile phone used to send the messages. I had taken their numbers from Sarah’s phone one evening when she had first started seeing Sam. I knew that they would suspect her and that Sarah would suspect Jenny. I was careful of my ways. I obviously couldn’t have handwritten the notes, as that may have caused me problems. I made sure that all of those were typed on a computer that couldn’t be traced back to me. Third advantage; I had made damn sure that I would not leave any prints behind, so I wore the black leather gloves that Sam had given Sarah as a gift, which she had raved about. Oh well, looks like they came in use for something other than winter. I’d stolen them from her on the night that I had taken Sam and Jenny’s numbers from Sarah’s phone. I needed something he had touched, something that would smell of him and would allow me to feel a little closer to him.

  I decided that this was a blessing in disguise and that what had been done couldn’t be changed. So, I slowly made my way down the stairway. I stepped over her body and took a last look before I made my way to the back door. She looked uncomfortable once she was dead. Her frame all twisted and out of shape; she must’ve bounced off every stair and piece of banister on her descent to have been looking like she was once she reached the bottom.

  I know that it was not possible, but she looked through with those dead eyes. I hadn’t thought about it before, what it would feel like to be stood over the body of the person I had killed. Well, like I said before, I didn’t mean to push her down the stairs, I just meant to push her away from me and then she accidentally fell down the stairs. Either way, I had to leave. I coul
dn’t risk being here a minute longer.

  I bent down to have a closer look at her face, I guess you could say that curiosity got the better of me. I had never been that close to a corpse before. Her eyes were glazed over, however there was a look of terror on her face. She must have known that she was going to die as she tumbled down.

  I thought I would do the decent thing and provide Sarah with the smallest amount of dignity and close her eyes, of course ensuring that I kept the gloves on.

  I had the most horrid thought that she would jump up and finish me off and it almost stopped me from doing it. Of course she didn’t, although I did have an unnerving feeling. Yes, I know I had just killed someone but I couldn’t help but feel the hairs on my neck prick up when I touched her face. It was almost as if she was telling me that she was still there. My irrational thoughts quickly dispersed as I realised I would never have to deal with that woman again as long as I lived. And neither would Sam.

  As I stood up, I looked around for any evidence that would have indicated my presence but couldn’t point anything out, so I took a deep breath and made my way to the back door.

  I slipped out unseen and made my way home. Sam’s nightmare, as far as he was concerned, was over. He had ended things with Sarah and then I killed her. But no one would know about that; no one could ever know about that.

  My brain was in over drive as I walked home. Everything that I had done in the last few months was because of my desire to split Sam and Sarah up. She asked me why I didn’t just tell her how I felt. I had to be honest with myself and admit that I just couldn’t answer that question. I really didn’t know why I hadn’t told her. It could’ve been the fear of rejection on her part or the fear of embarrassment. Whatever the hidden reason, it just didn’t matter now because Sarah was lying at the bottom of the stairs in that huge house as dead as I was alive and for some strange reason I felt nothing. Nothing for Sarah but absolutely every feeling that is possible for a human to feel, towards Sam.

  It’s true, I am in love with Sam and I always have been, ever since Sarah met him. It was a crush at first from all of his TV and theatre work. I could always handle my feelings when it was just a crush, when he was just some actor on the stage. But when I found out that he was going out with my lovely friend Sarah, something inside me changed. I instantly changed the way I felt about my friendship with Sarah and I just couldn’t stop the overwhelming feeling of wanting to see her suffer.

  I know that my love is stronger than any other kind out there, as I have never heard anyone talk about their feelings the way I know my own. At first, I really did try to suppress these feelings because I knew in my heart and in my head that they were not healthy. But as time went on and my feelings for Sam grew, they began to burst out of me. I couldn’t tell anyone; I didn’t think that anyone would understand it.

  If my feelings had been visible to the human eye, I’d imagined that they would look like a huge rainbow rising from my chest. As time went on, some of those beautiful rainbow colours which I imagined pouring out of me turned to a dark, not so pleasant shade. A shade which made me understand that my feelings were beyond love. I had become unhealthy in my feelings for Sam. You may go as far to say that I had become obsessed.

  I am not proud of what I did to Sarah, but I am certainly not ashamed either. I was only doing what was best for the good of my heart. My heart was aching to see him with a potential future partner that wasn’t me, even if it was my best friend. And she was my best friend for a while but I had to do something to scare her away.

  You see, I hadn’t ever planned to kill anyone. All I wanted was for Sam to notice me and perhaps fall for me the way I had fallen for him. I wanted him to be happy, but I just couldn’t bear the thought of him being with anyone else.

  I could never let that happen.

  So now you’ll understand what happened to Claire Prowse.

  32

  I put the key in the door of Sam and Jenny’s flat and paused before I turned it. What if that stupid psychic had started putting ideas in Sam’s head? What if he had begun to suspect me?

  “Don’t be so ridiculous,” I whispered to myself as I turned the key and opened the door.

  I entered an empty flat; how comforting it was to know he was still with the psychic. I switched on the light and almost jumped out of my skin when I saw my own reflection in the mirror on the bottom wall facing the door. All this psychic talk was freaking me out. I dumped my handbag in Sam’s room and went into the kitchen to switch the kettle on. I saw a bottle of wine sitting in the wine rack and decided that it looked more appealing than a mug of hot water with a tea bag floating around inside it. I reached up to retrieve a wine glass when I heard the front door open.

  “Hello?” Sam’s voice was smooth as silk as it floated through to the kitchen.

  “Hi, do you fancy a glass of wine?” I called back.

  I looked up to see his anguished face in the doorway. He nodded in reply.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  Sam pulled me into his arms and held me close, so close in fact that I felt like I was going to pop. “I went to Patrick’s house.”

  I pulled away and looked up at the beautiful face which was tormented by his dead ex-girlfriend. How could she still be in my way when she was dead?

  “And?” was all I could manage but with a positive tone behind it.

  “Did I mention that he has bought Sarah’s old house?”

  His eyes searched mine, though I am not so sure what for.

  “Small world, eh?” Shit! Of all the houses in Glasgow, the psychic had to buy fucking Henderson Manor.

  “He’s pretty sure that he can figure out what’s going on in this flat and he is certain that it is something to do with Sarah.”

  He released me from his embrace and opened the bottle of wine. “You having one?”

  I just nodded. I listened to the glugging sound from the bottle and when he finished pouring mine, I gulped a large mouthful down.

  “Deborah, it’s not going out of fashion.” He laughed as he watched me.

  I smiled. Why couldn’t I speak? He was going to start getting suspicious. I had to change the subject. “Let’s put the telly on and get more comfortable with that wine.”

  He smiled and followed me into the lounge. I felt his strong presence behind me and wished that everything and everyone could just disappear. I switched on the television and the news was just starting. We settled down on the couch and Sam draped his arm over me. I began to settle a little more now.

  A recap of the recent headlines: it is thought that the woman’s body recently discovered in the West End is the product of murder. She was found to have one knife wound to the neck and was discovered by a young teenage dog walker at around six o’clock yesterday morning. She has now been named as twenty-five year old Claire Prowse. Police are appealing for witnesses.

  “Isn’t that the girl who works in that café around the corner?” I heard Sam’s voice distantly.

  “I don’t know. They’ve not shown a picture,” I said, trying to hide the dryness in my voice.

  Just as the words were out of my mouth, there it was filling the screen: Claire Prowse’s face.

  “I thought it was her. Jesus Christ, that’s a shocker.”

  I watched as the reporter went on to give more detail about the circumstances surrounding her death but I didn’t hear anything. It was as if I had suddenly gone deaf.

  “How could someone do something so callous?” I said, with as much emotion as I could push into the words.

  “I know, it’s awful; to think that she served us food not so long ago. She was really friendly,” Sam said.

  I know, I thought to myself. I remember just how friendly she was and how cocky she had been when we were in the bathroom of that restaurant; hence the reason she’s bloody dead.

  We heard the front door open and the sound of Jenny’s high heels tottering down the hall.

  “Hey! Ooh, wine,” her eyes widened
and so did her smile as soon as she saw our glasses.

  “The bottle is in the kitchen,” I said, welcoming the distraction.

  “Hey, Jenny; you remember that Claire girl from the café around the corner?” Sam called after her.

  My stomach was lurching and I felt my head begin to throb. This just wasn’t happening. I couldn’t keep up the pretense much longer. I was pretending to be someone else to keep hold of my man. What the hell was I doing?

  “Yeah; why?” Jenny was suddenly in the lounge clutching at a large glass of wine.

  “She was murdered yesterday.”

  Jenny looked at the television and then back to Sam. “What the hell happened?”

  “A knife wound to the neck apparently,” I added. I didn’t want to seem too quiet or they would get suspicious. I would be suspicious of me. What was I thinking about? Of course this would be on the news. But it’s ok, because I wore protection. I wore the same gloves I was wearing when I killed Sarah. So my prints wouldn’t be accounted for. It was strange for me to think about how I had killed Sarah and I had been wearing a pair of gloves which Sam had given to her as a gift.

  “What the hell is the world coming too, when a girl can’t walk down the street for fear of being stabbed in the neck? I know I wasn’t the nicest person in the world to her, but no one deserves that,” Jenny said, shaking her head in disgust before sipping at her wine.

  We watched the rest of the news in silence and I tried to stop my shoulders from tensing up. I couldn’t believe that we were sitting together, watching the news of a girl who had been murdered by me and my boyfriend and my friend were none the wiser.

  Yes, Jenny and I had become friends as I had spent so much of my time at their flat. The more time I’d spent there, the more I had come to realise that Jenny was no threat. Of course, I knew she wasn’t a threat; I was the one who had created that illusion, but with Sam having become so precious to me, I couldn’t help but worry that someone, anyone, could have snatched him away at any point. I would go as far as to say that she was one of my closest friends. But I knew that all of this was a lie, all of it. The only truth was my absolute unconditional love for Sam. I don’t think there is anything on this earth that he could do that would make me second guess my love for him. If he told me that he had murdered someone in cold blood, I genuinely think I would be ok to move past it. But I know that there is no way he would feel the same. If he knew what I had done, what I have done to be with him, then he would cut all ties with me.