As I gulped down the glass of red, I wondered what I had actually wanted to achieve by meeting him up there, on the top of that building. I refilled my glass again, looking for solace in the dry oaky taste as I sipped it, this time, reflecting. I knew exactly what had happened that night and until now I had been afraid of confronting the truth. Jake and I had never spoken about what happened, but I wondered how prepared he would be to open old wounds again, two months later. With the ghost of Daniel hanging around now, I really felt we had no choice. I grabbed the bottle and headed upstairs to my bedroom, content with a liquid dinner for the evening, hoping a little bit of intoxication may help me get clarity on everything, or at least, sedate me for the night.
***
The next morning I felt slightly more resolved, albeit my head was cloudy from the red wine. I had to take back the control, with or without Jake. Whether or not Jake wanted to face what had happened, I had to force him so that we could move on. Perhaps that was what Daniel needed too?
I decided that finally I would pack-up Daniel’s things, give them to charity, perhaps save a few pieces for young Damien when he grows older. Regardless, I needed them out of this house. Not even bothering to shower, I brewed myself a strong coffee and set to work. I pulled down some old suitcases and bags from the loft and started with the wardrobe. All of Daniel’s clothes should be donated, I decided. He had some very odd tastes and I couldn’t see anyone really wanting to buy them, but they were in good condition and I was sure they would be gratefully received by someone out there.
Filling up two entire suitcases I squeezed closed the zipper and piled them both into the spare bedroom. Next, I went into his sacred office. I hadn’t entered this room since well before the accident. Daniel liked to keep this space private and I’d had no issue with that at the time. It was stuffy inside, filled with many journals and books. None of these would fit into my remaining bags, so I decided I would call a library or the University to arrange for their collection. Going through his desk I started to divide his items into piles of throw away, charity, or keepsakes for Damien. I hadn’t found anything so far that I wanted to keep for myself.
I then started to clear out the drawers, which were mostly filled with notes and knick-knacks. I was shocked to pull out a framed picture I had never seen before. It was a photo of Becky, in the hospital, with her new-born son, Damien and to her left was my husband looking dotingly on his new, little boy. It was as though someone had punched me in the stomach as I stared at this picture. To anyone else it would look like a happy young family, but to me it felt like a further deceit, as he had clearly been there for that moment of birth, something I had denied him. I wanted to throw the framed photo across the room, smash it into little pieces with jealousy, but instead, I placed it into Damien’s keepsake box along with the other items I knew he would treasure. I brushed off my sense of fair-play as just wanting to avoid loud noises due to my wine-induced headache that was still lingering. Still, something inside me questioned why I was being so reasonable about the entire situation with Becky.
With everything now emptied into one of the three boxes, it was only Daniel’s laptop that remained. I wasn’t sure what to do with it, to be honest. I couldn’t see it being of much use to anyone except, perhaps, the University. Exhausted from my efforts I sat down at his desk and opened up the laptop flippantly. Daniel had set a password, but it only took me three goes to guess that it was one of his favourite movies, Terminator. So predictable, I thought, smiling.
I’m not sure what made me click on his email folder, but I did. Aside from reading his texts when I found his phone open, I had never really invaded Daniel’s privacy before. Even now, with Daniel dead, I felt my actions were wrong. Nevertheless, I clicked into the inbox and scanned through the myriad of spam and University emails. One message, in particular, caught my eye. It had been sent from our insurance company just a week before Daniel’s death. As I read through the contents I felt physically sick and horrified. Daniel had changed my life insurance policy! In fact, he had tripled the sum insured! The email confirmed the change in the policy with the date effective immediately. My emotions started getting the better of me as I contemplated what this might have meant. Questions filled my head as I reflected back to that night and suddenly it all started to make sense to me. Daniel had wanted me dead! Alas, I thought, he had ended up taking the fall himself that night, but yet that still didn’t make me feel any better. I sobbed, as I closed his computer and packed it away in the destruction box. It was just another part of Daniel I now wanted rid of, for good.
It was early evening and I hadn’t even changed from my bed clothes the night earlier. I was a mess, dusty and dirty from the packing and I knew my face was tired and blotchy from crying. Finding that email had been just one further deceit from the husband I never really knew. I scoured the kitchen for another bottle of something. I hadn’t eaten all day and I still wasn’t hungry. Not usually a drinker, I wanted to feel the bliss again of the wine I had devoured the night before. Finding an old vintage bottle of red I opened it and grabbed a large goblet before wandering back upstairs to my bedroom. It was possibly quite expensive, but I didn’t care. This could become a habit, I thought sadly.
Sitting in my bed, gulping down my first glass of wine, I pulled out my laptop and decided to torture myself by reminiscing over the past, clicking through the photos of Jake, Daniel and myself over the years. Granted, I had never been the best wife, but Daniel had taken his deception one step too far. It made me wonder, as I stared at the photos, how much Jake had been aware of his intentions and whether, possibly, Jake himself had wanted me dead too? I felt myself start to well up with tears again when a strange noise took me by surprise. I looked up and almost dropped my wine all over my keyboard as I saw Daniel standing there at the end of my bed. It was him, in his full life-like form, as if he had never died.
“D-D-Daniel! W-w-what! Wha...” I stuttered. I was quite tipsy from the wine and possibly the lack of food, feeling my head spin as I tried to comprehend what I was seeing. The apparition standing in front of me merely smirked and walked casually around to my side. I was too shocked to move as I watched him take a peek at my laptop.
He looked at me again, and eyebrow raised he asked, “Something wrong honey?” I wasn’t sure how to react, but I wanted him away from me, far away from me! Was he here to kill me? Could he kill me? I pushed myself away from him, unsure of what to say or do. He was clearly enjoying watching my fear as he shrugged his shoulders and said, “Ah well, never mind sweetie, I just came to deliver my RSVP in person.”
So he had got the message from Jake? I speculated. I now wasn’t sure that my idea to meet on that building was such a good idea, in fact, I was now scared of what could actually happen on the top of that building if he did show up. My voice still quavered with uncertainty as I asked, “W-w-what the fuck do you want Daniel?” I willed myself to stare at him defiantly. Clearly he had a plan to be there, but to what end? I didn’t want to show him any more fear, after all, he was dead and I was still alive and well... so far, anyway.
“Ahhhh... just to see you again honey and to let you know I think your two-monthsary reunion idea is just an absolutely spiffing one.” He smiled broadly as he started to walk away from me. “Don’t worry my dear. I’ll be there, with bells on. Wouldn’t miss it for the world. See you next week.”
His superior demeanour turned my fear into anger, as I muttered under my breath, “You always were an arrogant bastard, Daniel.”
I watched him walk away, waving his hand, laughing. His last comment, however, threw me for six. “Language sweetie. Oh by the way honey, you may want to know, Lucy is dead, so Jake is now free again... well, sort of, anyway.” With that Daniel simply disappeared, as if he had never been here, leaving me blinking with astonishment. He was here, I assured myself that I was not crazy. Yes, that just happened! I just had a conversation with my dead husband! I took another large gulp of my red wine, making my head spi
n further. I didn’t care.
It was his last comment that had me spinning even more so than his threat of being there when I met with Jake. Lucy? Dead? What the hell was going on, and how? I grabbed my mobile and quickly texted Jake.
‘Daniel was here! I can’t explain it, but he said that Lucy was dead? Please tell me you are ok?’
I wasn’t even sure I would get a response and to anyone else that text would sound absolutely crazy, but I was sure now that Jake had also seen Daniel, or, at least, would understand. My phone buzzed about twenty seconds later. A text from Jake.
‘Daniel killed her.’
“Fuck!” I blurted out loud. How the hell could a ghost kill a living human being and if he could do that to Lucy, what was he planning for me? I had to go to that meeting prepared, ready for anything. I wasn’t sure what Daniel was capable of in his current state, but I knew one thing, he wasn’t planning on going down empty handed.
I refilled my glass as I sat back against my pillow, gazing absently down at my laptop. Poor Lucy, I thought. Yes, I’ll admit she was a druggie whore and I‘d certainly had something to do with her demise in the last few years. She had hated me and had every right to do so, but it wasn’t just that article I had written several years ago, it was much more than that. I flicked through the photos again, scanning back to a time when I had just finished school.
I clicked on one photo that I hadn’t thought of for many years now and smiled whimsically. It was Lucy and me at Brighton beach one summer. We had taken off on the long train journey for the weekend, drinking loads of those mini wine bottles on the way. Summer had well and truly arrived and by the time we got there the beach was absolutely crowded. We didn’t care, we stripped down to our bikinis and devoured the cool water of the Brighton shoreside. I remembered that night so well. It was the first time Lucy and I had ever made love, real love. Oh, we had kissed and flirted before that, but somehow, in Brighton, that weekend, all of our inhibitions escaped us and we were free to love each other as we pleased. That was a time when Lucy was beautiful and free of the drugs that would capture her, so completely, in later life. This was a weekend where we didn’t care what people thought.
I sighed sadly, as I thought of our friendship, our love and now of poor Lucy, dead. She had every right to hate me as she went to her grave. From that weekend on I had done nothing but disappoint her and let her down. I had been too ashamed to allow our evening of lust to be anything more than a fling and I had rejected any further attentions from her when we returned from Brighton. She was hurt and dejected and she turned to a crowd that led her to her own destruction. All because I couldn’t admit that I loved her, more than I’d loved any man in my life. Closing my laptop, a renewed determination suddenly came alive inside of me.
Daniel had to pay for Lucy’s death! I wasn’t sure how but I would certainly die trying if need be!
* * *
Chapter 29 – Jake
For a while, everything felt like a haze. I sat there, just looking up at my balcony from where Lucy had fallen or was pushed by Daniel. There were still people around the scene, complete strangers, asking if I was okay. Lucy had been taken away in the ambulance, with what appeared to be an uncaring lack of urgency. There were no blue flashing lights for Lucy, no medical team waiting to save her life, she was gone. My Lucy was gone!
I didn’t go in the ambulance with her, what was the point? She was already dead. She was a whore with a drug addiction and they die every day don’t they? Who’s going care about Lucy? No one now, and no one ever, at least, not until I meet her in the next world, anyway.
I was helped to my feet by a policewoman. I hadn’t moved from my position since they had taken her away. Only minutes earlier I had been cradling Lucy’s head in my lap, watching her as she bled out profusely and her life ebbed away. I wanted someone close in my life at that moment, someone to comfort me and to tell that me things would be okay, but no one came. All I had was a male and female police officer who both escorted me to my apartment for questioning.
This was the second time in two months I had been questioned regarding a death of a person I loved. I could only tell them what happened, that I had left Lucy, to check on the casserole and when I came back out of the kitchen I had seen her standing on the balcony edge and that’s when I saw her fall. Of course, I didn’t tell them that Daniel, a ghost, had pushed her, that he had murdered the girl I was about to marry. I wondered, could he have hated Lucy that much ? Does he hate me enough to want to destroy my life?
I desperately wanted to ask the police those questions as they interrogated me, but I knew they would almost certainly have taken me away if I had. As I reflected on everything, I wondered if that wasn’t perhaps the best thing they could have done, to have locked me up and thrown away the key.
It was nine-thirty by the time they left. I could see the suspicion written all over their faces as they told me they would be in touch again. I was now regarded as a suspect in two unsolved deaths. Once they had left and I had closed the front door, the room became eerily silent. I walked over and closed my balcony doors too, as I wasn’t sure if I could ever sit out there again. I sat on the sofa and picked up the vodka and coke I had poured for Lucy, still untouched. I closed my eyes tightly to try to picture what exactly had happened.
I had opened the door and I had kissed her lips as I looked into her drug-fuelled eyes. I recalled recognising something in her eyes in that moment of reflection, yet at the time I hadn’t paid attention. There had been a deep pain inside of her, crying out to me. Solemnly, I drank her vodka in two gulps and picked up the full glass of Famous Grouse beside it to follow. Finishing both, I walked into the kitchen for another refill and caught my reflection in the mirror on the wall. Her blood, Lucy’s blood, was still all over me. It had soaked into my shirt and was smeared on my chin and neck. I ripped off my shirt and poured another whisky, tossing the shirt in the bin. I needed solace right now and my solace was my whisky.
I sat myself down on the sofa with both the bottle and glass in front of me and lit up a cigarette, something I had never done inside my apartment before. The room soon filled with a smoky haze. I had to give Lucy a good send off. I knew she would mostly likely be laid in a pauper’s grave, with not so many mourners. I wept for her. Despite everything, she didn’t deserve a pauper’s funeral, she was the mother of my child and the woman I was about to marry. I drifted into a drunken sleep thinking of the only three people I’ve ever really loved, Molly, Lucy, and Daniel. Two had been taken away from me and until now I had blamed Molly for everything. It was just before I hit that comatose drunken stupor that I realised who was really to blame... me! If Daniel hadn’t fallen to his death, none of this would have ever happened.
***
I woke with the hangover from hell, my limbs stiff from the way I had fallen asleep on the sofa. I looked at the nearly empty bottle of Famous Grouse and couldn’t believe I had consumed so much. For a split second I looked around the living room expecting Daniel, Lucy or even Molly to be crashed out in an armchair, having shared that bottle with me, but of course, there was no one. The room was empty and cold and I was alone. I gingerly stood up and walked to the kitchen to turn the kettle on, raiding my drawers for some Paracetamol. Armed with coffee and pain killers, I headed towards the balcony for my morning smoke, only to freeze at the sight of the closed balcony doors. My mind flashed back to Lucy falling. I still couldn’t go out there and opted to smoke my cigarette where I had slept on the sofa, still convincing myself that I must have shared that bottle of whisky with someone.
Two coffees, three cigarettes, a receding headache, and an aching heart later, I finally decided I needed to get things done. I had no idea where to start but I had a funeral to arrange. On a whim, I phoned Becky, who had already heard the news about Lucy. She was devastated and shocked and she willingly obliged when I asked if she could help me arrange the funeral. It felt better to have her support. I wanted to ring Molly but I wasn’t sure h
ow she would react. When I thought about our upcoming “reunion”, I wondered if either of us would even get to attend Lucy’s funeral. I stood up once again catching a glance of myself in the mirror; bare-chested, the blood on my chin, now caked and darkened. I looked like the Devil’s child. I needed to shower and dress, so I staggered into the bathroom, immediately recognising Lucy’s replica Louis Vuitton cosmetic’s bag with all its contents spilt all over the floor. I froze as I noticed a message that had been handwritten in her lipstick on my cabinet mirror.
‘Your daughter with Lucy lives at
89 Albion Street, Preston
Her adoptive parents are called Wilson,
they are very nice.
Lucy has seen her and she sends her love
and says she’s sorry.
Maryann is a beautiful little girl Jakey.
Love D’
I really wasn’t sure how much more I could take at that stage. Only yesterday, Lucy had been murdered and now her murderer is telling me that she has seen our daughter and that she’s sorry! Does that mean Lucy and Daniel were together in some crazy way? My heart was pounding and I felt completely confused. The turmoil of the last couple of months was starting to make me feel as if my head was going to explode. I stood staring at the message for what seemed an eternity. Preston was only an hour’s drive away. I had to go and see for myself, didn’t I?
Tortured Minds Page 19
