The Birthday Girl

by Sue Fortin

  ‘Stand on the chair,’ she orders.

  I do as I’m told. I have no option. Momentarily the pressure around my neck is once again released, but no sooner am I standing on the chair than Zoe starts pulling on the rope again, making it shorter. I lose contact with the chair as Zoe ties the rope off around one of the spindles in a series of knots.

  My feet flail in mid-air as I try to find something to take my weight. I make contact with the arm of the carver, my tiptoes just touching it.

  Zoe stands admiring me for a moment. She folds her arms and smiles. ‘You look rather like a ballerina there,’ she says.

  I pull the tape from my mouth, which burns my skin as it is forced away. ‘For God’s sake, Zoe, stop this. Please don’t do this.’ I’m crying and gasping for air all at the same time. ‘Stop now before it goes too far.’

  ‘Where’s the phone?’ she asks, fixing me with her dead soulless eyes. ‘Alfie’s phone. The one you took from the croft. Where is it?’

  As Zoe mentions the phone, another piece of the puzzle slots into place. ‘It was you who texted Alfie. Not Tris,’ I say.

  ‘Oh dear, have you only just realised that?’ says Zoe. ‘Of course it was me.’

  ‘The police said Tris was Alfie’s counsellor. I thought he had got to Alfie somehow, but it wasn’t him at all. It was you. How?’

  ‘Honestly, Carys, you’re as bad as Tris and the rest of them. You know I should get an Oscar for my performance. You all thought I was a dizzy blonde who always thought the best of everyone, didn’t you?’

  ‘You played us,’ I say.

  ‘Totally. The funniest bit was up at the croft when you came back and found Tris there. You know, when I did the big goggly eyes and told you to run!’ She recreates the face she made at the croft and mouths the words run and get help, before laughing to herself. ‘It was hilarious. You totally believed me.’

  ‘You and Tris were in on it together?’

  ‘Oh, please, I wouldn’t take that loser with me.’ She inspects her fingernail and then looks up at me. ‘The trouble with Tris is that he’s all cock and no brain when it comes to women. Pay him a few compliments, bolster his macho image – yeah, I played up to that and I played him.’ There’s a look of satisfaction on Zoe’s face. ‘I let him believe he was helping to shift the suspicion from me to you. I told him that the affair would come out and if there was any suspicion that I was involved with Joanne’s death, then he would be in the frame too. If we made it look like you’d gone nuts and killed Joanne, we’d both be in the clear.’

  ‘You used him?’

  ‘He was a means to an end, the same as Joanne was.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I genuinely want to understand Zoe’s thought process, not least because keeping her talking is buying me time. I have no idea how I’m going to get out of this, but my survival instinct is in the driving seat.

  ‘I’m sure you’ve worked it out by now,’ says Zoe, picking up the student profile picture she’d taken from my room. ‘Leah Hewitt was my daughter. I had her when I was very young – her dad buggered off as soon as he knew I was pregnant and I was left to bring her up on my own.’

  ‘Was? Leah Hewitt was your daughter?’

  A flash of pain briefly crosses her face. She looks at the photograph of her daughter before she speaks, ignoring my question. ‘Your husband took advantage of Leah. She was a vulnerable student, searching for a father figure.’

  She folds the student profile in half and places it in her bag. ‘When Hammerton College told me Darren had left, I went to a lot of trouble to track him down. To find out where he lived. I watched him for quite a few weeks. I watched you too. And Alfie.’ Zoe stands in front of me with her arms folded. ‘I wanted to know what sort of pervert your husband was. I was going to confront him. Make him own up to what he’d done. Force him into admitting what sort of scum-bag he was.’

  I wonder how many times Zoe had watched me and my family go about our daily routines. It’s unsettling to think that she had been stalking us and we were totally oblivious. Or at least, I was. ‘Did you confront him?’

  ‘No. I didn’t get the chance. The coward hanged himself.’

  ‘Didn’t that make you feel better, like there had been some sort of justice?’

  ‘Like I said, he was a coward but I might have been tempted to leave it there if it wasn’t for Leah.’ Zoe gulps and again I see the flash of pain cross her face. ‘My Leah, my beautiful daughter, she couldn’t cope with his death. She was heartbroken. She was still under some silly illusion that he’d eventually leave you for her.’ Zoe holds her hands over her face and takes a deep breath before lowering them. ‘She hanged herself two days later. It was like some bad Romeo and Juliet story. She was so besotted with him, she couldn’t live without him.’

  I let out a gasp. ‘Oh, Zoe. I’m so sorry.’

  Zoe slams her fist against the bookcase. ‘I don’t want your apologies!’ she shouts. ‘What good are they? They’re meaningless. They won’t bring my daughter back.’

  ‘But neither will all this.’

  ‘Someone has to pay.’ Her voice is cold and heartless. She paces up and down the hall several times, before coming to a halt in front of me. ‘I decided you owed me. You must have known what was going on or at least had an inkling. I can’t forgive you for standing by and doing nothing.’

  ‘Zoe, I promise you, I had no idea.’

  ‘Shut up. I’m not interested in your lies.’ Zoe gives the chair a nudge with her foot, causing it to judder and the rope to bite into my skin. ‘After Leah passed, every night I went to bed and cried myself to sleep, wishing I could have done something to help her. Been more insistent at the college. Confronted Darren. Then one day I woke up and saw an article in the newspaper about this man whose daughter had been attacked. He’d gone out and beaten the man up who’d done it. Beat him to within an inch of his life. The judge took pity on him. Said it was a crime of passion. I remember thinking what a good father he was to defend his daughter like that, to show his daughter how much she meant to him. He was quoted as saying if he’d done nothing, he would have been letting her down. I knew then, I may not be able to bring Leah back, but I wouldn’t let her down either.’

  ‘And that’s when you decided to come after me?’

  ‘You’re catching on,’ says Zoe. ‘I had to be careful though. Take my time. I befriended Joanne at the gym. I’d seen you with her several times. I’d seen her at the school with you. It was easy to make friends with Joanne and to make extra sure I was allowed into your special friendship circle. I even fucking moved here.’

  ‘All that time and I never suspected a thing.’

  ‘When I found out that Joanne’s daughter had been in Darren’s class, I thanked the gods for such luck. It was being handed to me on a plate.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  Zoe lets out a sigh of impatience. ‘I haven’t got much time, but I’ll tell you anyway.’ She smiles, preening herself about how clever she’s been. ‘Joanne confided in me once about Ruby and her crush on Darren. She told me how you had stood by him. She told me everything. I saw in Joanne the same feeling of helplessness that I had experienced. It doesn’t go away. It festers inside. That and the fact that you stood by your husband, despite his habitual penchant for female students.’

  ‘That’s a lie.’

  ‘Come, come, Carys. We all know it’s not. Darren Montgomery had done it before. That’s why he had to leave Hammerton. I’ve no doubt my daughter wasn’t his first conquest, although Ruby appears to be his last.’

  ‘Shut up!’

  ‘Sorry if you don’t like what you hear.’ Zoe smiles and cocks her head in a faux sympathetic way. ‘Right, where was I? Oh, yes. In my eyes, you were as guilty as your husband. So I fed Joanne’s obsession, encouraging her to out you, show you up for what you are. All the while, I was biding my time, waiting for the moment to strike. When she told me about her plans for the weekend, I knew it would be the perfect opport
unity to let you feel the pain and misery I have felt.’

  ‘You bitch,’ I mutter.

  Zoe grabs the arms of the chair and gives it a shake, throwing me off balance as I try to regain my tiptoe footing. ‘I’m not the bitch. You are! You stood by that sleazy husband of yours.’

  ‘Why didn’t you go to the police?’

  ‘They wouldn’t believe me. My own daughter didn’t want to give evidence against Darren. You know, she loved him.’ I see the anger leave her body as her shoulders drop and her grip eases on the chair. ‘Even after he killed himself, she still loved him.’

  ‘I know,’ I say softly. ‘I’ve only just realised that I saw her at the funeral. I mistook her sadness for that of a young student shocked about her tutor’s death. I was wrong, she was a young woman grieving for someone she loved. I am so sorry, Zoe. I didn’t know.’

  ‘You should have done,’ she snaps at me, her mood changing like a sail tacking against the wind.

  ‘Zoe, please. Let me down. We can talk about this properly.’ I am pleading with her. Surely, she isn’t planning to carry out this lynching. She only wants to scare me.

  Zoe’s next mood swing veers from conciliatory to attack. She grips the chair and looks at me menacingly. ‘The phone, Carys. Where’s the mobile that Alfie had at the croft?’

  ‘My pocket.’ The words croak out as my legs wobble and the rope bites tighter into my skin, constricting my airways.

  Zoe pats the pockets of my fleece and locating the mobile, takes it out. ‘Thank you,’ she says, dropping it into her bag. ‘You know, you fooled me for a while up there in Scotland. At the riverbank, replying to my text messages.’

  ‘I thought you were Tris,’ I say, watching her features to try to gauge her mood.

  ‘Alfie was supposed to text me so I knew it would be OK to raise the alarm. I wanted to wait at the croft, but Tris was insistent that we go and report you missing. In the end, I had to send the text message. So, very good, Carys. Go to the top of the class, you fooled me there.’

  My calf muscles are aching from being in this precarious position, all the time having to make tiny adjustments to maintain my balance. I wish Mum had got here on time; perhaps then things wouldn’t have got to this point. On the other hand, maybe Zoe would have tried to harm Mum in some way. I decide if I see Mum coming up the path, I’m going to scream with every ounce of energy I have left to warn her. Maybe she’ll be able to call the police before it’s too late. In the meantime, I need to keep Zoe talking. ‘How did you get Alfie involved in all this?’

  ‘Oh, that was the easy bit. I knew from Joanne that Alfie was having counselling with Tris …’ She lets the sentence hang alongside me in the air.

  ‘You knew?’ Dismay fills me and I feel the familiar thread of jealousy that once again, Joanne knew more about my son than I did.

  ‘Soon as I knew that, it wasn’t hard to … how shall I put it? To distract Tris and then, while he was showering, to nose around in his briefcase. You should have seen me, I was like an MI5 agent, firing up his laptop and copying the files on to a memory stick!’ Zoe’s face is full of glee as she recounts her actions. ‘That way, I could read all about Alfie at my leisure. After that it was simply a case of gaining his trust and taking my time to plant the idea that he could get his revenge and even the score.’

  ‘And you did all this without Tris knowing?’

  ‘Absolutely. I thought the weekend would be a good place to counter Joanne’s surprise with my own. As it happened, things turned out much better than I could ever have anticipated. Your private tête-à-tête with Joanne gave me the perfect opportunity to confront her. Shame it ended the way it did. I didn’t mean to hurt her. One minute she was calling me a whore for sleeping with her husband and the next thing I knew, I had whacked her with a log. I didn’t even realise I’d picked it up, I must have got carried away in the heat of the moment.’

  ‘You killed Joanne.’

  ‘It was an accident, but I couldn’t take the risk of being charged with murder or manslaughter. As it happened, you managed to put yourself in the frame. No one is even looking at me. It’s perfect.’

  ‘You’re sick, you know that, don’t you? You fooled us all.’

  ‘Like I said, I deserve an Oscar. It was so easy, all I needed was to lure you, Joanne and Andrea into a false sense of security, so none of you would think I was any kind of threat. But, you know what, it’s a shame. I think you and I could have been great friends. I see a lot of me in you.’

  ‘Don’t flatter yourself,’ I say, my anger getting the better of me.

  ‘We both have blood on our hands,’ she says, her top lip curling. ‘I killed Joanne after you had spoken to her. I admit that. You need to admit you killed Darren.’

  ‘Shut up! You know nothing!’

  ‘I know everything. I read the notes Tris made, the transcripts from his sessions with your son. Alfie heard you and Darren arguing in the kitchen the morning of his death.’

  ‘Stop it,’ I whimper. ‘Please.’ But Zoe’s enjoying herself too much to stop.

  ‘Darren told you he felt like killing himself, that his life was over without you. And you told him that he would be doing everyone a favour if he went ahead and did it.’

  ‘I didn’t mean it,’ I say, as the tears fall freely down my face.

  ‘You said that the sooner he did it, the better.’

  ‘I was angry. I thought he was attention-seeking. He’d threatened me with that so many times before.’ My nose is running and I momentarily let go of the rope around my neck with one hand, to cuff the snot away.

  ‘Alfie heard every single word. Now do you understand why he hates you so much? He blames you – and he has every reason to.’

  I cry silently, unable to dispute what Zoe has said. Every word is true. I never knew Alfie had heard me say what I did that morning. I hadn’t meant it, but Darren had punished me in the one way he knew how to hurt me. He wanted me to suffer for the rest of my life. So far, he’s succeeded. Suddenly, dying doesn’t seem like a bad option. All I would need to do would be to tip the chair over with my toes. I could do that easily.

  Zoe is talking again and the sound of her voice brings me back to reality. I don’t want to die. ‘Please stop this, Zoe,’ I beg.

  ‘It is far too late to stop now. Even if I wanted to, I can’t,’ she says. ‘I’ve been waiting for this day for a long time. Why would I want to stop now, just when I’m about to make my dream finally come true?’

  ‘Zoe, we can talk about it. I promise you, I didn’t know anything about what happened at Hammerton. I swear on Alfie’s life I didn’t.’

  ‘If you didn’t know anything, why are you mentioning it?’ says Zoe, sitting cross-legged on the hall floor looking up at me. ‘Why have you got these souvenirs?’ She waves the picture of Leah in her hand.

  ‘I only made the connection earlier and I’m not even sure I understand it all yet.’

  ‘Let’s play a game. In honour of Joanne – we all know how she loved games.’ Zoe rests her hands together under her chin. ‘You tell me what you think you know and you’ll get rewarded or punished depending on what you get right.’

  ‘Zoe, this is ridiculous. Please, let’s talk.’

  Zoe checks her watch. ‘I haven’t got much time, so let’s not debate this any further. Come on, tell me the first fact. Tick-tock.’

  I take a few gulps of air and try to keep as still as possible. With every jolt the rope bites into my neck. ‘OK, have it your way. Darren used to teach English at Hammerton College where Leah Hewitt was a student.’

  ‘Keep going. I need more than that for a reward.’

  ‘They became very good friends.’ I pause, waiting for Zoe’s reaction. She purses her lips and makes a hurry-up gesture with her hand. ‘They were very close.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake, Carys, stop beating about the bush.’ Zoe jumps to her feet and pushes the chair out from under me. My feet frantically paddle thin air. My bodyweight is draggin
g me down and I can feel my airways being squeezed. Then, as suddenly as the chair was taken away, Zoe restores it to its original position under my feet and I wheeze thankfully as I’m able to hold myself up again. ‘That’s the punishment for getting it wrong. You need to say it out loud, so I can hear you, otherwise this is going to be a very short game.’

  I don’t doubt for one moment she means it. I force the words from my mouth. ‘Darren and Leah had a relationship.’ I see the spark of anger flare in Zoe’s eyes and quickly add, ‘They had an affair. Darren and Leah Hewitt were lovers.’ Self-preservation has no qualms about voicing my darkest thoughts, but I inwardly flinch all the same.

  ‘That’s better.’ Zoe is walking backwards and forwards in front of me. ‘Carry on.’

  ‘I’m not sure what happened, why it stopped, but Darren left Hammerton College. He said he had been passed over for promotion and the management had changed. He wanted a new job nearer home.’

  ‘Interesting,’ says Zoe. ‘The college never elaborated on Darren’s departure, only that it had been by mutual agreement.’ She stops right in front of me. ‘You must have known you were married to a perv. Don’t tell me you never suspected.’

  ‘I didn’t!’ I protest with a raspy voice. ‘I honestly didn’t. He never ever gave me any reason to suspect. He abused his position of trust, I know, but Leah was twenty. She wasn’t a child.’

  ‘She was MY child!’ Zoe’s voice leaps several decibels. ‘Leah Hewitt was my child. Your husband took advantage of her. He promised her all the wonders of the world.’ Her voice is calmer now.

  I find it hard to believe. Or have I always been in denial? Even to myself. I knew he was a charmer, loved women, said he loved everything about them, but I had always thought it was a respectful admiration. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t have a clue. You have to believe me.’