The One You Love (Emma Holden suspense mystery trilogy)

by Paul Pilkington

  ‘It’s so great to see you,’ Mrs Myers said, smiling, revealing stained teeth. She moved off the doorstep and towards Emma. Before she could react, Emma found herself being smothered by a hug. ‘Stephen will be so happy.’

  Emma recoiled internally at Mrs Myers’ pungent body odour. She fought the urge to push her away and instead surrendered to her embrace.

  ***

  ‘You both take sugar?’ Mrs Myers shouted from the kitchen.

  ‘None for me, thank you,’ Lizzy replied.

  Emma didn’t answer.

  ‘Or for Emma,’ Lizzy added, noticing that her friend didn’t seem to have heard the question.

  Emma looked across at Lizzy, who was sitting in a scruffy single chair on the opposite side of the lounge. The room was unbelievably dark and dingy, the carpet sticky, and damp patches spread across the ceiling. But it was the overpowering smell that made the experience most uncomfortable. Emma couldn’t quite put her finger on what the nauseating stench reminded her of, but it was familiar.

  ‘Here you go,’ Mrs Myers said, bringing in a tray with three cups of tea and a packet of opened biscuits.

  ‘Thanks,’ Lizzy said, looking with concern at Emma who appeared to be in deep thought.

  ‘It’s such a lovely surprise to see you,’ Mrs Myers said, handing Emma a cup of tea. ‘After all this time.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Emma said.

  ‘I’ve heard so much about you, and of course I’ve seen you on the television. But to meet you in person is something I’ve wanted to happen for a long time. But you know Stephen, he likes his privacy and I didn’t like to push it with him.’

  Emma exchanged concerned glances with Lizzy.

  ‘You know,’ Mrs Myers continued, looming over Emma, ‘you’re much more beautiful in person. Stephen is such a lucky boy to have a girl like you – beautiful, and a talented actress. I told Stephen, make sure you never let her go – never let her go.’

  ‘Mrs Myers,’ Emma began, ‘you know Stephen and I never…’

  But then she stopped. Maybe this wasn’t the best time to talk about this. She had to keep in mind what she wanted from this visit. To deviate from her aim could be a big mistake. It could ruin everything.

  ‘We came to see Stephen,’ she said, trying to sound nonchalant. ‘Is he here?’

  Mrs Myers looked perplexed.

  Emma tried again. ‘Is Stephen here with you?’

  ‘No,’ said Mrs Myers, her face collapsing with shock, as if she had just received the most devastating news imaginable. ‘I thought he was with you.’

  ‘He’s not with me, Mrs Myers.’

  ‘I… I don’t know where he is,’ she said, putting a hand to her mouth and taking a step back, as if struck by an unseen blow.

  ‘Do you know where he’s been in the last week or so?’ Emma pressed. ‘Has Stephen been to London?’

  ‘London? He’s never been to that place.’ Her voice hardened into anger. ‘I’ve told him, don’t go to that disgusting place. It’s so horrible and dirty.’ She jabbed a finger at Emma. ‘He would never have gone there. What are you saying, young lady?’

  Emma wanted to stand up – she felt exposed, and she didn’t like where this conversation was heading or the way Mrs Myers was behaving. But she decided to stay where she was and try to turn down the heat. ‘I’m not saying anything, Mrs Myers. I just thought you might know where Stephen is.’

  ‘Well, I don’t. Please, drink your tea, before it gets cold.’

  Emma did as requested, trying to hide the grimace when she realised that the milk in the tea was badly off. She watched as Mrs Myers took a sip of her tea and didn’t register any kind of discomfort. She looked across at Lizzy, whose face revealed that she had already tasted the vile drink. Emma tried desperately to think of another avenue of investigation, but struggled to find a way ahead. She wondered how Inspector Gasnier might have approached it.

  ‘Would you like to see Stephen’s room?’ Mrs Myers said.

  Emma gave up drinking her tea. ‘Yes, that would be nice.’

  ‘Just one minute,’ said Mrs Myers, ‘I need to check something first.’ She exited the lounge and went upstairs.

  ‘She thinks you’re seeing Stephen,’ Lizzy whispered. ‘She’s not well, is she?’

  ‘Something’s wrong,’ Emma said, her ears pricking up as she heard Mrs Myers talking to someone upstairs, although it wasn’t loud enough to hear what she was saying. Lizzy heard too, and her face fell.

  ‘You don’t think –?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Emma said. ‘But you’re right; she’s not well at all.’

  ‘You can come up now, girls,’ Mrs Myers shouted. She sounded happy again, and Emma wondered whether she was suffering from some kind of manic-depressive disorder. It would explain the cave-like, gloomy house, the unkempt lounge and kitchen.

  ‘Come on,’ Emma said to Lizzy as she rose from the sofa. ‘I’ll go first.’

  ‘I don’t like this,’ Lizzy said.

  ‘Neither do I. I don’t like any of it.’

  ‘In here,’ Mrs Myers said, beckoning them towards the room at the far side of the landing. ‘Sorry to keep you waiting – I just wanted to make sure that everything was in order.’

  Emma edged across the landing, floorboards creaking under her, past two closed doors. She wondered whether the person who Mrs Myers had been talking to was lurking behind one of them. It could be Mr Myers, or it could be Stephen himself. She kept one eye on Lizzy who was following close behind.

  ‘Come on in,’ Mrs Myers said, her face bright and welcoming.

  Come in to my parlour, said the spider to the fly.

  Mrs Myers stepped back and let Emma into the room. The scene took Emma’s breath away. The walls of the bedroom were covered with photographs – overlapping photos, three or four deep. There were so many you could only see the wallpaper behind at the very corners of the room.

  ‘I knew you’d like the photographs,’ Mrs Myers said, as Emma glanced from one photo to another – they were all of her. It was a scrapbook of four years of her life – photos outside the television studio, in the main streets of Manchester, outside her flat, even through the window of her home, talking to Stuart.

  But one photo in particular stood out.

  It was a close-up, zoom-lens image of her. She recognised some of the shops in the background – it had been taken just outside Lizzy’s flat.

  Stephen Myers had followed her to London.

  21

  ‘Do you think she’s talking to herself?’ Lizzy said, as they sat in the lounge listening to Mrs Myers muttering upstairs.

  Emma looked up towards the ceiling. ‘I think so – unless there’s someone up in one of the other rooms.’

  ‘I think I’d rather believe that she’s talking to herself.’

  Emma smiled nervously at Lizzy. ‘Me too.’

  ‘I couldn’t believe his bedroom,’ Lizzy said. ‘It really gave me the creeps – like something you see in the movies. This whole house gives me the creeps.’

  ‘I know.’ Emma thought back to Stephen’s room. She couldn’t get the image out of her head, the wall plastered with photos of her, shrine-like. A sinister catalogue of her life, compiled by a delusional man who thought he loved her. And then the revelation contained in that one particular photograph – the photograph that could be the key to finding Dan.

  ‘It must have been a real shock,’ Lizzy said, ‘seeing them all like that. It’s really freaky. The guy must still be obsessed with you, to have all those things still on the wall after all those years.’

  ‘Stephen followed me to London.’

  ‘What? How do you know?’

  ‘I found this on the wall upstairs.’ Emma handed the photograph to Lizzy.

  ‘My God, it’s outside my flat.’ Lizzy looked at Emma, her eyes wide. ‘Em, we’ve got to get out of here, now, while we can. What if he comes back while we’re still here? What if he’s actually upstairs now, hiding in one of the other rooms?’
>
  Emma hesitated, fighting the natural inclination to agree with her friend.

  ‘What? C’mon, Em. What if he comes back? He could do anything, and it’s not like she’s going to stop him.’ Lizzy gestured towards the ceiling. ‘She’s as crazy as he is. Plus nobody knows we’re here; no-one can help us if something bad happens.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ said Emma, pushing aside her fears of what Stephen might or might not do. ‘About what that smell reminds me of.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Every Saturday I used to go to dance classes in the town centre, and I had to walk past a butcher’s on the way from the bus stop. Down the side of the shop was an alley where bits of meat used to drop and the cats and dogs would eat it. The alley used to stink. That’s where I remember the smell. Lizzy, the smell in this house, it smells like rotting meat.’

  Lizzy shook her head. ‘You don’t think…?’

  Just contemplating the thought was horrifying in itself, but Emma felt sure she had identified the smell – something was rotting in the house. ‘I have to check it out.’

  ‘But we don’t know where the smell is coming from,’ Lizzy protested. ‘And Mrs Myers will be back down any minute. What if she catches you?’

  ‘Keep a look out,’ said Emma, standing up and moving towards the kitchen. ‘Let me know as soon as you hear her coming down the stairs.’

  ‘Em, I don’t like this.’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘Okay,’ Lizzy conceded, but she looked less than happy.

  Emma investigated the kitchen, but although the smell was stronger there, there was nothing to suggest anything sinister – although the place was a food hygiene disaster area, with sponge-like mould growing in the numerous cups, plates and saucers littered around the room. She wondered whether the cups they had been given also held mould at the bottom. The thought made her feel sick. She opened the cupboards one by one, each time wondering whether something horrible was lurking inside. Most of the cupboards were empty, save for a few cans of food, most past their sell-by date. Just as she was about to return to the lounge, wondering whether the smell was perhaps coming from outside, she saw the door in the corner.

  ‘Have you found anything?’ Lizzy called quietly from the lounge.

  ‘I’ll just be a minute.’ Emma opened the door and grimaced as the foul pungent smell hit her like a tidal wave, rolling up from the bottom of the stairs in the dark abyss. ‘It’s a basement. The smell’s coming from down there.’

  ‘Be careful,’ Lizzy insisted.

  Emma stood at the top of the stairs, looking down into the darkness. She looked to her right and found the light switch, but the bulb had blown. She would have to go down there in the dark, or give up. Never a fan of the dark, and having seen too many horror films to feel comfortable in basements, she didn’t relish going down there. But something drove her on to do it.

  ‘Are you okay, Em?’

  Emma progressed gingerly down the stairs, brushing against cobwebs, not daring to answer Lizzy in the fear that any noise would send something careering out at her from the darkness. With only the dim light from the kitchen providing any guidance, it felt as if the darkness was swallowing her up. At last she reached the basement’s concrete floor, where the rotting meat smell was so strong she began to feel nauseous.

  Shadows danced across the cellar, which stretched back farther than she could see. It was impossible to tell where exactly the stench was coming from, but there was no doubt that the source was down here. What the source was, she didn’t like to think.

  A number of cardboard boxes littered the floor, and she began looking through them. The boxes contained a variety of ordinary household junk material. No rotting meat. No body parts.

  But the smell was coming from somewhere.

  She moved deeper into the cellar. Feeling around in the darkness, coughing from the overpowering smell, she stumbled over a stray box that was so heavy it refused to budge even with her running into it. The smell seemed stronger than ever. She ripped at the brown tape that snaked across the top of the box. Its sides seemed damp.

  ‘Em!’ Lizzy shouted from the top of the stairs.

  Emma continued to pull at the tape. It was difficult to see here, in the very back of the cellar. She turned to let some of the light from the kitchen reach the box.

  ‘Em! We’ve got to get out of here! Quick!’

  Finally Emma managed to open the box, and she instinctively recoiled. The smell rolled around her as she held her breath and peered inside. The box contained raw chicken, still in the supermarket packets. It was in the latter stages of decay, but she didn’t stop to look at it too closely.

  She turned, coughing and spluttering, and headed back towards the stairs. There was no time to investigate further. It hadn’t been a pleasant experience, but at least her worst fears hadn’t been realised – that a body had been down there: Dan’s body.

  Lizzy was waiting for her at the top of the stairs. Her face was anguished. ‘Thank goodness you’re all right. C’mon!’ She pulled at Emma’s sleeve. ‘We’ve got to go, now!’

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Emma closed the basement door, feeling panicked. Lizzy looked terrified.

  ‘It’s Mrs Myers. She’s screaming Stephen’s name. It sounds like she’s having some kind of a breakdown up there. Please, can we go?’

  ‘Of course! Let’s get out of here.’

  They passed through the lounge into the hallway, counting the seconds until they could escape from this house of horrors and emerge into the real world. But the sight of a crying, bread-knife-wielding Mrs Myers blocking the exit brought them to a sudden halt.

  ‘You can’t leave,’ said Mrs Myers, holding the shaking blade towards them, tears spilling down her cheeks. ‘Not until you tell me where my Stephen is.’

  22

  ‘You were going to leave, without even saying goodbye, just like he did,’ said Mrs Myers, taking a tiny, faltering step towards them. Emma mirrored her movement and held up her hands, while gesturing for Lizzy to retreat into the lounge.

  ‘I’m sorry, we were just going for a walk,’ Emma lied. Now was the time to tell Mrs Myers whatever she wanted to hear.

  Tell her anything to get out alive.

  ‘No.’ Mrs Myers shook her head and took another zombie-like step forward. Emma used those milliseconds to evaluate what she might do to get the knife off her. But it was difficult: the corridor was narrow, with little room to manoeuvre.

  ‘Let’s sit down and talk about it in the other room,’ Emma offered, trying out a smile.

  There would be more of a chance if she brought Mrs Myers into the lounge. Taking the knife by force, however, would be a last resort – her karate instructor had always stressed that talking, along with body language, was often the most effective weapon in a dangerous situation.

  ‘I love my son so much,’ said Mrs Myers, her face contorted with grief. She was grasping the knife so tightly that her knuckles were ivory white, contrasting against the dirt of the rest of her hands. ‘I miss him.’

  ‘I’m sure you do,’ Emma said, keeping her eye on the blade and stepping back again. Mrs Myers followed her into the lounge, step by step, as if they were linked together.

  Lizzy was standing at the back of the room and Emma shot her a comforting glance.

  ‘We’re going to talk about this,’ Emma said, to both Lizzy and Mrs Myers. ‘Do you want to give me the knife?’ Mrs Myers was looking around the living room, bug-eyed, as if it was the first time she’d ever been there.

  Emma watched the woman’s face for any sign of acceptance. ‘Can you give me the knife?’

  ‘When he called me a few weeks ago, I was so happy. He told me he was coming to see me – that he hadn’t meant to go away like that. He was looking forward to seeing his mother.’

  ‘Did Stephen say where he was?’

  ‘I thought he was with you. He said he was with you.’

  ‘He wasn’t with me, Mrs Myers,’ Emma said,
‘I promise.’

  The knife began to lower as Mrs Myers’ head started to droop, as if her neck muscles had started to fail.

  ‘Do you know what it’s like to lose someone you love?’ she asked, staring at the carpet. ‘It feels like your insides have been ripped out – your heart stamped on.’ Now she was fighting tears.

  ‘I understand,’ Emma said. ‘My mother died.’ She understood all too well what it was like to lose someone who you loved so much that it physically hurt to think about them not being there anymore.

  Mrs Myers raised her head and looked Emma directly in the eyes. Then she stepped forward. Emma stood her ground as she approached.

  ‘Em,’ Lizzy said, concerned.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Emma said, bringing an arm out towards the knife, which was now held loosely. But before she could get it, Mrs Myers released her grip completely and the knife fell onto the carpet, narrowly missing Emma’s foot.

  ‘C’mon,’ Emma said, leading Mrs Myers to the sofa and sitting her down. ‘Just sit down for a while.’

  As she did this, Lizzy picked up the knife.

  ‘What shall I do with this?’ Lizzy said, holding the knife by its very end as if it was contaminated.

  ‘Better keep hold of it for now,’ Emma said.

  Lizzy pulled a painful face. ‘Shall we call… you know?’

  ‘Please, don’t.’

  Emma and Lizzy started with shock as a bearded man stood in the doorway.

  ‘Please, don’t call anyone,’ he said, stepping into the lounge. ‘She has a mental health nurse. I’ll call her.’

  ‘Are you Mr Myers?’ asked Emma, standing up.

  ‘I am, but please, call me Peter.’ He held out his hand. ‘It’s nice to meet you, Emma. Well, I can’t pretend I don’t know who you are,’ he said, noticing her surprise. ‘Not with all those photographs up in that bloody bedroom.’

  ‘Nice to meet you too.’ Emma took his hand. It was weird having strangers recognising her. That was what real fame would be like, and she wasn’t sure she liked it.