She burst out of the wardrobe. ‘Leave her be!’ she yelled
Powered by pure rage, Boo slapped Mitch’s face hard, but he caught her wrist in a vice-like grip, twisting it painfully. ‘I’m doing this for your own good, my love,’ he said. ‘Think about what you’re doing, Boo. You go psycho on me and we’ll have to get you professional help. They might never let you see Hope again, for her own safety.’
‘You wouldn’t,’ Boo said, aware of the milk seeping beyond the confines of her breast pads to drench her top.
‘I’m only thinking of my daughter’s best interests.’
CHAPTER 30
The Wolf
Standing in the garden, under cover of darkness, The Wolf feels confident that the whirr and whine of the camera’s zoom lens will go unnoticed ; drowned out by a noisy soirée that is taking place two doors down. The chattering neighbours won’t see him either. Their garden is ambiently lit by fairy lights strung from tree to tree. Their glow won’t penetrate the pitch black shadows of the summer house.
Beverley Saunders had shut her bedroom curtains earlier, but now she has drawn one aside to allow her to open the patio door. She stands only ten metres away, smoking a cigarette that she clearly doesn’t know how to hold correctly. She doesn’t inhale, but The Wolf notices with glee that her hands are shaking. He is getting to her. The endgame is near, and she is in no way prepared for the torment that he is planning next.
As she casts nervous glances into the impenetrable dark of the long garden, it excites him to think that he could rush her right now. Crack her head open on those flagstones and leave her to bleed out. He is the patient crocodile, entirely camouflaged ; waiting to sate his hunger and slake his thirst for blood. She is the unsuspecting deer at the water’s edge, unaware that a born predator stalks her every move.
Whine. Click, click. He snaps her again at close range.
No change in her movements. Good. The Wolf takes this as proof that she cannot hear him, though she is peering into the darkness in earnest, now. Perhaps she senses his presence. No doubt the knowledge that she has been followed and that her private space has been encroached upon has got her jumpy. Yes. Now she has stubbed her cigarette out beneath a slipper-shod foot, he sees her snatch up a lacrosse stick after she has closed and locked the door and before she draws the curtains again. If she is carrying it around with her, she is clearly beside herself with fear.
Imagining that he can smell the cortisol on the summery night air, he grows hard. In a feat of daring, he moves towards the house, just short of the point at which the security lights will be triggered. He takes out his erect penis. Urgently, violently, The Wolf masturbates in Beverley Saunders’ direction, imagining that they are rutting in the garden, him mounting her from behind as any alpha would in the wild. Digging his sharp teeth into her flesh, he imagines that she tastes of salty sweat and smells of stale perfume. He is both repelled and aroused by her propensity to fuck anything that moves when she is under extreme stress. Except now, he remembers again the time when he had come across her at a sex party, clad in only a mask but still recognisable with those pendulous breasts and the light smattering of stretch marks that show she has borne a child, long ago. He remembers how she had failed to recognise him but had rejected him, there in that tawdry gilt and stucco room, where strangers fucked each other indiscriminately. Not her, though. She had the cheek to say no.
Only moderately irritated by the remembered slight, it merely fuels his wrath at the ultimate injustice she has committed against him. He fantasises about squeezing the life out of her. Remembers the Russian whore, Tatjana. Savours the memory of how her diminutive teenage body had grown limp beneath him as he ushered in the end of her days.
He comes with a grunt, spilling his wolfish seed on the perfectly manicured lawn. Beverley Saunders has much to regret in her dysfunctional life and she will regret her treatment of him, and her flagrant lies, bitterly, just before he kills her.
First, however, she must know shame.
Retreating to his den, The Wolf considers the progress of his project and deems that it can now go live. He uploads the photos he has just taken to a folder on his computer, accompanying others he has taken of her in her bedroom – sleeping fitfully ; eating like a slob as she watches porn on her laptop ; making origami models at her desk with scissors, a ruler and those careful fingers ; pleasuring herself on that unmade bed. He even has several of her having sex with men she sneaked into the shared house. She has not been careful to draw those curtains . . . until now.
Once he has Photoshopped some images of genuine porn stars, engaging in acts of bestiality and anal sex, he transposes Beverley’s head onto the actresses’ shoulders. Then he scans through the legal documents he has acquired. With no small degree of glee, he reads again the grounds for divorce that her solicitor had listed – for these are none other than her divorce papers. It seems ironic that this bitch, who champions the cause of downtrodden, abused women who have been swindled, beaten and cheated upon, should have been such a hapless, helpless victim herself for so many years. Soon, the embarrassment and disgrace she faced less than twelve months ago, when she was ousted from her high-flying job with her name blackened and bridges comprehensively burned . . . soon that cringeworthy experience of being the laughing stock, branded untrustworthy and considered a failure will seem like child’s play compared to the exposé he is planning.
‘You’ll be begging for the end,’ he says to the official photo he has clipped from an old annual report printed by her previous employer, BelNutrive. He places it carefully on a flatbed scanner, next to a newspaper clipping that is sure to hurt like a boot in the ribs. ‘Your past is coming back to haunt you, Beverley Saunders. The whole world is going to know your dirtiest, darkest secrets. You’ll never regain your dignity. You’ll never get your daughter back. I am The Wolf and I am going to rip out your heart.’
CHAPTER 31
Bev
‘Crank it up to 70 per cent,’ the spin instructor shouted at a pitch just high enough to hurt Bev’s ears. ‘Come on. Out of the saddle.’
Bev pedalled in time to the pop track that boomed through the spin studio’s speakers, feeling the burn in her thighs. She had two hours before she met her new client. It was just enough time to melt away a few hundred calories and nip to Tesco for some fruit. She’d found nothing more on the internet about Tatjana. Her freelance contract for Graham’s charity allowed her to take on at least one other PI client, if not two. Though she’d determined to keep hunting for the truth about Tatjana if a lead presented itself, it was time to acknowledge that she had to move on professionally and take better care of herself. New job. New flat. New start. At least, that’s what she hoped for as she chugged her way up a manufactured hill, grinding through the gears until she was pedalling at 90 per cent of her ability. Feet stinging ; muscles in her bottom screaming in complaint.
‘All the way up to your maximum!’ was the order, barked over the sound system.
Surveying her fellow spinners, Bev wondered if she hadn’t imagined the hot pursuit of Mr Grey on the train. Perhaps he had been the product of an over-tired over-stressed mind. Reflected in the wall of mirrors opposite the two rows of bikes, she studied the man beside her. Even in the semi-darkness, lit only by whirling disco lights, she could see his face was almost aubergine from exertion ; his turquoise T-shirt darkened around the chest and pits where he was sweating profusely. He didn’t seem in the least bit interested in her.
Behind her, in the second row, the mirror-wall revealed nothing but super-fit gym bunnies, rising and falling above their saddles in unison. The cheap and cheerful local leisure centre was only down the road from Sophie’s, yet despite the wish to get fitter and the availability of pay-as-you-go sessions, she’d been only three times, so their faces were hardly familiar. Would she spot an interloper?
Stop it, you silly cow. This is a crappy budget spin class. What are the odds of some spy-stalker paying to watch your fat arse bobbing
up and down for forty five minutes? Stop looking for excuses to stay unfit! Exercise is good for managing stress, and if you don’t de-stress, you’re going to explode. She pedalled on, trying to find the rhythm. Except Bev felt eyes on her.
The man in the corner wearing the glasses. Had he been watching her? Was it possible that he’d turned his attention from her reflection to the instructor the moment she had looked at him?
A sickly pop song with lyrics about blurry-boundaried women wanting it, even when they’d said no, boomed through the speakers. Bev focused on pedalling in a standing position, feeling that her heart might give out at any moment. Half wondering if she should get off her bike in protest at the terrible rapey song. Half surreptitiously observing the corner of the room to see if she could catch the man with the glasses out. He was facing forwards. Pedalling, pedalling.
Now, they were all doing press-ups, pushing against their handlebars, elbows out. The reek of onions and testosterone in the room became even more pungent with all those armpits on show. Like the others, the man bent double over his handlebars but looked straight at her through the mirror while everyone else faced the floor in choreographed unity.
Should she confront him? Bev stared at the sweat-stained floor, feeling suddenly cold, though her sweat-soaked body was roaring hot in this sauna of a studio. Should she just get off her bike and march over to him, kicking him in his Achilles tendon as his feet slowed? No. What if he had just been idly checking her out as a new face among the regulars?
Glancing at him again, he was focused only on cranking up his gear knob.
You’re imagining things, you weirdo, she chided herself. Pack it in. The case is over. You took the hint and you’ve backed off. Hopefully, that will be that. Focus on salvaging your life and getting your daughter back.
In the supermarket, Bev stood on the travellator, rising slowly towards the elevated store level. There, she counselled herself that nobody was interested in a sweaty woman with dishevelled hair and grubby trainers. But she clutched her anorak tightly closed, feeling exposed in that open space.
Hearing footsteps pounding up behind her, she turned around to see a man hastening in her direction. Pushing past old ladies who stood to attention on the left, gripping their shopping trolleys like Zimmer frames as they waited to be ushered to the top. Mr Hasty was staring straight at her ; gaining on her second by second. At the same time, Bev glimpsed another man, descending on the other travellator, oddly standing on the wrong side so that they would shortly pass within inches of one another. Bev was sandwiched in mid-air between two strange guys, both looking intently at her. Coincidence or an ambush?
Searching out the security guard at the top, she grabbed her handbag, prepared to wield it as a weapon, and sprinted upwards. Gasping for breath, she had a decision to make. Should she ask the security guard for protection from these men, potentially making a fool of herself if it turned out to be a false alarm? Or should she disappear among the cramped carousels and racks of the clothing department, relying on Florence and Fred to conceal her with their acrylic offerings? She opted to hang around by the security guard, pretending to try on unsuitable children’s frames in the adjacent optician’s department.
Spying the men over the top of her borrowed frames, she exhaled heavily as the descending man disappeared out of the store into the car park beyond. Mr Hasty, who had been coming up fast behind her, gave her not so much as a second glance before he reached the top. He loped in the direction of the café, perhaps late for a date of lukewarm chips and beans with his sister, or perhaps a sexually incontinent mother of three, looking for clandestine, deep-fried kicks in Tesco’s eaterie of a mid-morning.
‘Are you all right, love?’ the security guard asked her.
‘I thought some blokes were staring at me funny,’ Bev said. ‘Following me, like. You know?’
The security guard pointed to her face. ‘That why they’re staring, maybe?’
Bev took the children’s glasses off and studied her reflection in the mirror. Her skin was an alarming shade of red, thanks to her efforts at the gym. She smiled, feeling relief seep from her open pores. ‘Jesus, I look like I’ve been in a fire. So much for keeping fit.’
But the guard was no longer listening. She was just some crazy woman in Tesco with a complexion like tomato puree.
Picking up a basket, she made for the milk aisle and plucked a two litre bottle of semi-skimmed from the cheesy-smelling display. The overhead lights seemed so bright, she felt as though she were being picked out by a searchlight and stripped bare of her suburban post-gym camouflage. Anxiety dogged her every footstep as she made her way round the store, collecting baked beans and tinned tuna, all the while thinking of her tampered-with origami collection and those open patio doors, framed by ghostly billowing curtains.
‘Hello.’
As she peered into the meat reductions cabinet at yellow-stickered chicken breasts, the voice at her side took her by surprise. It was the man from the spin class who had been sneaking glances at her. He was standing so close, she could feel the heat of his breath on her cheek ; could see the broken veins on his blob of a nose.
‘You!’
‘I was watching you earlier.’
Snatching a tin of baked beans out of her basket, she brandished it like a cosh, whacking him squarely in the chin so that his head snapped back.
‘Bastard!’ Bev yelled. ‘Help! Help me, somebody!’ Again, she treated him to a good baked-beaning, this time on his upper arm.
‘Jesus! Ow!’ he yelped. ‘What the hell’s wrong with you? I was only trying to be nice.’ He grabbed her wrist to stem the blows of a Heinz variety, forcing her to drop the tin.
Bev swung around, ninja-like fearlessness suffusing her body like a shot of triple espresso – the result of weeks of being on edge. She grabbed at a large yellow-stickered chicken and clonked gym-guy squarely on the side of the head with it. Dropped her shopping on his foot and ran.
An hour later, she sat in Mo’s consulting room, hugging herself tightly and rocking in his easy chair. Finally acknowledging that missing two group therapy sessions had led her to this point where she needed one-on-one attention if she was going to avoid meltdown.
‘I’ve just got this terrible feeling all the time,’ she said.
Mo crossed his legs and laced his fingers together over his right knee. His face, impassive, as usual. ‘Oh? A terrible feeling about what?’
‘That something bad’s gonna happen. That I’m being followed. That death is waiting for me, just around the corner. Know what I mean?’
Raising an eyebrow, Mo’s nostrils flared. He cocked his head to the side, thoughtfully. ‘Beverley, are you sleeping?’
She shook her head. ‘Not really. Not very well. Broken sleep. I don’t feel safe in my own place.’
‘Have you been indulging in origami again? Sex with strangers?’
‘I told you I didn’t want to discuss that in therapy group. It’s off limits.’
‘We’re not in therapy group, Beverley. There’s just me and you, and this is a problem area you definitely need to work on. It impacts on your suitability—’
‘No! No! No! OK? No sex with strangers.’ She blushed. She knew he’d realise she was lying.
‘Any other compulsive fail-safes that you rely on when you’re stressed?’
‘No!’ Bev said, deliberately omitting to mention the origami dinosaur that she’d sat up folding until 3 a.m. in a bid to calm her overwrought mind and racing pulse. ‘Look! I finished the job I was working on, so I’m going to have good money coming in very soon. I’m meeting a new client after this. But . . .’
‘You’ve filled out your form, putting a three next to “Are you worried that something terrible might happen?”’ Mo cast an eye over the questionnaire she’d filled in on arrival, where she declared how crackers she was feeling that week on a scale of one to three. ‘All of your levels are up.’
Bev thumped the arm of the easy chair. ‘But I’m gett
ing better, not worse. This is nothing to do with my mental state. You wouldn’t believe how stressful and dangerous my last job was. I’m talking threats from powerful men, being followed, someone turning my place over . . . That’s why I’m here! That’s why my anxiety’s through the roof. And I want my daughter back. I’ve done everything that was asked of me to make the judge happy. I got my own place. I’ve set up in gainful self-employment.’
‘And yet, you’re here in one-on-one therapy with me, Beverley. You’ve taken a step backwards from the group sessions. You’re becoming more anxious, more paranoid and you’ve been lying about your addictions.’
She threw her hands in the air. ‘Bloody origami and the odd one-night stand. It doesn’t make me an irresponsible mother. That piece of crap, Rob, won’t even let me have my supervised visit this month. He’s given me some cock and bull story about Hope having chickenpox and feeling rough.’
‘It sounds fair to cancel a visit if she’s got chickenpox.’
‘She had it already! She had it when she was five. He’s a liar. A dirty, rotten liar.’
Mo was writing in his notebook. She hated it when he did this, falling silent so that she didn’t have any inkling as to what he thought of her or anything she said. Was she digging herself in deeper?
Finally, he stopped scribbling and studied her face, as if trying to see the quality of her soul and the true state of her mind, beyond her skin and sinew and bone. ‘I’ve known you for a very long time, Beverley. Don’t forget, I conducted your couples counselling when you and Rob first got married ; when you finally took Hope back from his family and started to parent her yourself. I understand your predicament. I do. I can see the toll that your life, your losses and your choices have taken on you. It’s OK.’
‘Don’t patronise me, Mo! I want you to sign me off. I want Hope back. I’m only here because . . .’ She searched for an explanation as to why she was there. She’d requested these extra sessions because the perils of the Fitzwilliam case and her X-S club relapse had put her chances of getting custody of Hope in jeopardy. A chaotic lifestyle, coupled with her anxiety and obsessive compulsions spinning out of control, would never cut it with a judge. Additional therapy had seemed like a good idea at the time. Now, she looked at Mo’s smooth, inscrutable face and the slick front he put on with his crisp shirts, open at the neck, and the expensive watch and cool designer jeans. She wondered if his professional supportiveness and soft encouraging voice wasn’t all a front. Was he really helping her here? Thinking about it, he’d always seemed more sympathetic of Rob during their couples’ therapy in the past. Was there some boys’ club collusion in play? ‘Are you sabotaging me?’ she asked, shuffling forward on the chair. ‘Are you deliberately making it look like I’m regressing so Rob can keep Hope indefinitely?’
Tightrope Page 21
