by Darren Wills
“Where is it?”
“Well, this might or might not be good news. I don’t know really. It was found in a short stay car park at Manchester Airport. It looks to us like she went away under her own volition.”
Christ, so she wasn’t even in the UK anymore. “Can you tell me which flight she boarded?”
“I’m sorry, but we don’t have that information, as there’s no evidence that anything illegal has occurred.”
“I see. What happens to the car now?”
“It has been impounded but is available for collection when convenient. It looks like your wife’s been a tad irresponsible. I’m afraid there’s a charge.”
That night Jamie drove me to pick up Laura’s car. Clearly, Laura had left the country, but to go where? I had been impatient to get there, knowing that there was that telling piece of paper on that seat, a piece of paper that might disappoint and deflate, or which might raise questions and some kind of contradiction. I couldn’t imagine what. It was like greeting an old friend when I got there. The red Audi looked exactly as I had last seen it, and I touched it affectionately before going straight to the passenger side.
Frustratingly, there was nothing there. Before I drove it home, three hundred pounds poorer for my trouble, I searched it for any evidence of anything. I searched the glove compartment, which contained wheel nuts, an old red lipstick and some shop discount vouchers. There was nothing of any note, with the car being immaculately tidy, as usual, and there was nothing that shouldn’t have been there, nothing out of place. It felt very strange driving Laura’s car home, almost surreal. As I parked up, I knew in my heart this would probably mark an end to me looking out of the window to see if she had returned. What was the point of that?
Malevolence
Pet people love their pets. People keep a beloved animal, they give it a life it would not have in the wild. They often show devotion and give up plenty of time to looking after these creatures and try to give them a life worth living. So many humans show so much care. I never understood it.
That’s not me.
However, today I have departed from my normal ways. I have acquired a pet. My pet isn’t so happy belonging to me, but my pet she is. She sits there, without a choice. Like many pets, she wants to go out and escape being my pet for a while but that isn’t going to happen. My pet and I are creating a story and it is going to have the happiest of endings. Well for one of us anyway.
She is going to make me happy. Obviously, I have to make her totally mine, bend her to my will. That has always been the idea and it was always going to take some work. It won’t take forever. She will weaken. Silly bitches like her are made to weaken. I don’t expect to have to put her through too much before she does things right, makes the right noises and gives me everything I want. Of course, in time I will end her pain. Well, at some point.
Horribly, there is a strong unpleasant smell emanating from my captive companion, and I get a sense of being like a nurse in an old people’s residence, and I know plenty about that. House-training may take a while. Ultimately, however, she will do whatever I want, make the noises I need her to make, think everything that I need her to think.
I am in control. It is necessary. She does need those toilet visits, but she has to earn them.
The room in which my pet lives is perfect. I spent some money, but I made it so brilliant – ideal for a captive. It is so safe. It is not totally soundproof, but not far away. Any cries or yelps won’t have any impact, since sounds of panic or distress won’t be heard. This is a case of welcome to my world, bitch.
The email should buy me some time.
Solitude
I took a drive. The four walls were closing in, to coin a cliché, so I just picked up the car keys and decided to head out. I just needed to be away from the buildings, away from the painful reminders for a short while. I drove out of the city, and passed a sign for Chesterfield, Dore and Totley. I wasn’t going as far as any of those places. I just needed a moment of sanity. Here would do.
I pulled up next to a long metal railing. This was Millhouses Park, arguably the prettiest and most well-maintained park in Sheffield. On a number of occasions, my mother had taken my older sister Kate and me on two buses to enjoy this park, which had a river flowing through it, as well as a boating lake and a pleasant café.
I got out and walked for a while. I took in the details of this peaceful environment. I could see hills on most sides and hundreds of houses that would all have views of the city and I wondered how many of the people in those houses had problems like mine.
Then I just let go. I had been tense and miserable throughout this ordeal and now needed to release those emotions, barbed wire in my mind. I immediately regretted this moment of weakness, so I rubbed my face impatiently, hoping that nobody nearby would notice. I was uncomfortable being visibly upset, and wanted to be much tougher.
The emotion wore off. I seized back my backbone. I actually felt strengthened by this release of tension and felt a sense that this was something necessary and advisable.
I unwrapped a packet of Silk Cut. I hadn’t smoked for nearly ten years but this seemed to be highly appropriate right now. I normally despised the habit and criticized others for indulging in it but tonight health wasn’t so much a priority? As I sat there inhaling clumsily and tipping the ash out of the window onto the grass alongside, I was thinking how life was going to go on.
Laura was gone. I decided there and then, as I watched a plane fly noisily overhead, that life had to continue. I wasn’t going to be pathetic, yearning for the past or anything ridiculous like that. At the end of the day, I was far too selfish not to pick myself up and carry on. No, I had to still be a part of the human race, not only accepting what had happened but managing to put all of this behind me and somehow find some kind of strength.
Laura had left me. She had fucked up and had fucked me up. Now it was time to leave her.
Malevolence
She’s not really my type. The women I tend to sleep with are a bit more formidable, a bit less full of themselves and not quite so pitifully weak. It’s no fun for me trying to dominate a woman who thinks she is something special but isn’t really, and this one clearly thinks she is something special indeed. I am showing her what special really means.
When I question her, the answers are just not coming out quickly enough so then I have to play rough. I don’t mind playing rough, if that is how it has to be. She still has that look of extreme shock on her face whenever she looks at me and that amuses. I laugh out loud on numerous occasions every day. She has that small pitiful rabbit caught-in-the-headlights look on her face almost perpetually and when I remove the obstacle to her speaking she does nothing but squeal and shout, so then the gag goes on and the pain starts again. She looks at me with such understandable intensity and that look never alters, except in the few hours where I allow her to sleep.
I do need her talking normally, so I have nice moments that make her more relaxed and trusting. She asks questions, but I need answers. I get her to tell me about her life, her ambitions, her fears, take her away from her situation temporarily. I like to hear her speak, making note of the words and phrases she uses and how she says them. I record these moments and watch her closely. OK, so she isn’t able to do too much by way of body language. She is secured after all, but I don’t see that as a problem.
When she becomes awkward, when she has silly notions of having a choice in any matter at all, or when she thinks she can issue threat or warnings, I enjoy giving her pain. It is all I really have to give her, let’s face it.
Disturbingly, that smell of piss coming from her seems to be getting worse and will only get worse. I guess I will clean her up soon, but it’s just not my way of thinking at the moment. I’m doing nothing until she totally co-operates, and regardless, her life only continues while I allow her heart to beat. The more she purrs and the less she
bleats, the less I despise her. She is going to give, and her giving will keep on giving.
Stumbling
I sat there on a sunny Saturday morning cradling my cup of coffee like it was an important and valuable possession, looking out of the living room window at the flowers and the lawn. The grass had not been mowed this summer, so was in need of attention. I hoped to get around to that at some point. The flowers were interesting. Back in March, I had planted an assortment of bulbs, without any real sense of what I was doing because I was a total ignoramus as far as gardening was concerned. However, at random spots in the flower beds, I noticed splashes of colour and thought I’d not done badly.
Sitting on the sofa behind me, Jamie was looking through one of the travel brochures Laura had brought home what seemed like an age ago.
He was a surprisingly welcome presence. He had rung me to arrange something to get me out of the house and to distract me from the situation. I was in, although any arrangement would have to fit in with his adventuring on the dating sites. I was glad to hear from him, having been just about to contact him myself. It felt good telling him that I was feeling normal and that my life was going to roll on.
“You stay where you are, mate. I’m coming right round.”
“But…” Too late. He had hung up.
He greeted me with a half-smile, wearing a new leather jacket that looked expensive and a copy of ‘The Guardian’ in his hand. “Hey you. Fancy doing breakfast. Wetherspoons is open!”
Now, some friends are useful and beneficial because they can show a real empathy and sensitivity, perhaps even offering an idea that can somehow help the situation. I did not expect that from Jamie Clover and, in all fairness, perhaps that was the best thing for me now I was trying to toughen up.
Within twenty minutes, we were sitting in a low-lit part of our local Wetherspoons pub away from the windows. I wasn’t really that hungry, but had opted for beans on toast anyway, if only to be sociable.
Jamie was all questions. “Did you know she was going to America?”
“I knew she was going, but not till August. It was part of her job. To be honest, I’m not a hundred per cent certain that she has gone to the U.S. It just fits.”
“What did that bloke at her work say?”
“Max knew nothing about her going early. In fact, she hasn’t contacted him to say she was going, so it begins to look like she is playing fast and loose with her job, not just us. She’s obviously gone early to clear her head or get clear of things, whichever way you want to see it. I guess she had to get clear of work.”
“Will she lose her job, then?”
“No. Her boss is a sweet guy and I laid it on pretty thick about how she must have suffered some kind of breakdown. He’ll support her, I’m sure. If she’s gone to America, no doubt she will be in touch with him anyway.”
“You’re a sweet guy. I’d have let her rot. Let her lose her damned job.”
“She probably will in the end.” I felt better being with my best mate, like the old days, and two heads are better than one in most situations. We sat there for a couple of minutes without words. I felt myself becoming more like him by the second.
Eventually, he broke the silence. “Well, my old mate, what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. Get on with stuff. What do you think I should do?”
“I think you should live, mate. She’s gone, and she’s let you know why.”
I still had some lack of acceptance in my mind, despite my determination to have a life. “OK, but the last thing I want to say on the matter. Deep down, this is not her. She wouldn’t do it this way. If this is her, I never knew the woman.”
“But she did, mate, and you probably didn’t know her as well as you thought. She’s gone. Maybe she will be back or maybe she won’t. Time to get real.”
“Either way, I’m out of it. When are we going out? Tonight good for you?”
There was little point us talking in any other way about my marriage and Laura really, since I knew that Jamie had never been in a situation like the one I was in. Apart from his two marriages, the deepest relationship he had ever had was with a bottle of double malt I had bought him as a present one Christmas. He had given that more long term serious affection than he had ever shown to any female.
He grinned. “Don’t be daft. I’ve got two dates this evening.”
“More recipients of the Trojan charm, I presume.”
Kate
Jamie hadn’t been gone long when the doorbell rang. When I opened the door, George and Lillian, both grim-faced, were there. “We need to talk.”
Behind them was my sister, Kate.
This was something of a shock. We hadn’t spoken for years, Kate and I. Totally unlike each other in just about every aspect of attitude and personality, I immediately wondered if her turning up here in her uniform, might be significant in our negative brother-sister relationship. I thought again. The half-smile she had displayed was her working expression, the demeanour of somebody who felt in some way superior, an aspect of her personality that had caused countless arguments between us as we had grown up and eventually gone our separate ways with minimal contact. As I looked out, it was apparent that they had all come in a police car, which was now parked on the front. She looked older than when I had last seen her, four years ago in a restaurant, where we had said brief hellos but that was all. I braced myself for a difficult conversation.
I had phoned them the night before to tell them about Laura’s car being found. They had been reassured by this, as for them, like the police, it seemed to suggest that she had flown somewhere. We had spent several minutes considering where she might have flown when I had suddenly remembered about the forthcoming America trip.
“The thing is, I’m not happy about what you’re saying.” George chose not to sit down while I had already perched myself on the settee.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I have a daughter who is no longer here, god knows where she is, and you’re here sitting pretty.”
“Sitting pretty? What are you on about?” I wasn’t a violent man, but utterances like these were not helpful. I clenched my hands together behind my back.
“Oh, you say that. Listen, I watch detective shows. I see what can happen with things like this.”
I shook my head, disbelieving. I could see from the expressions on the faces of the two women, that he was going rogue here. “They said on one show that in the case of somebody who goes missing fatally, in a very high percentage of the cases, the partner is responsible. How do I know that what you’re saying is the truth?”
“What the fuck are you suggesting? That I killed her? Don’t be ridiculous.”
“But is it ridiculous? You could have dropped the car off in Manchester.”
“Of course it’s ridiculous.”
Kate wasn’t saying anything and just sat there at the other end of the sofa. Was she here as a witness, or as some kind of expert prosecutor in my home-based trial as Laura’s assumed kidnapper or killer? “What do you think about this?” We weren’t friends, never mind brother and sister, had been even more diametrically opposed since the death of my mother, as Kate always thought my behavior made an unforgivable contribution to that loss.
“I don’t know, Dominic. George and Lillian contacted me at work and they’re anxious. I just want to help. I want to help you any way I can.” She reached out and put her hand on mine as she said this. She had never done that and it was just plain weird. I had presumed she had come to back up George’s accusations. To connect with me in some way was not even in my imagination
She hadn’t come to my wedding. Perhaps she was thinking she might make my funeral.
“I need to ask you something, and I need to look into your eyes when you answer.” George was standing in front of me, looking down at me. This was something I did not need. �
��Have you anything to do with my daughter’s disappearance? My wife thinks you’re genuine, but she’s always been soft and I’m not. You turned Laura over for sex with that slag. Now I want to know what’s happened to Laura.”
Kate sighed. Clearly, she hadn’t been expecting this and I guess it may have come as a real shock. She knew more than many that I could be a twat at times, so it should have been no surprise really.
Lillian had her hand on his arm in some feeble attempt at restraint. He turned to her. “I have to say this, Lillian. It’s on my mind. He could have dropped Laura’s car off at the airport himself.”
“I think you would find that CCTV cameras there, and I imagine there are loads, would pick it up and identify the driver. Check that one out.”
He hesitated before continuing. “And another thing. I’ve been on the phone to the airport for most of this morning. Laura didn’t board any of the flights to America. If she’s flown anywhere, it’s not there, so you can stop presuming that. Her boss hasn’t heard from her and neither have we.”
This was something different. I thought before replying. “Perhaps she didn’t go there, then. Maybe she flew somewhere else. Did you think about that? You just don’t get it.” I stood up and went face to face with the man. “I’m trying to cope with the fact that your precious daughter has fucked off. She’s left me to sort everything out. You might be surprised to learn this while you are so busy treating me like some kind of dog, but life for me is no bed of roses without Laura. See this?” I pointed at my mouth with both fingers. “This is the brave face I put on for myself, you and the rest of the world.”
At this point Kate gave me another surprise and moved up next to me and gave me the kind of hug I could never remember having received from her before. This was a bit emotional for me. Perhaps blood was suddenly becoming thicker than the water it had been for the past twenty years.
