“Leave me alone,” I cry to Alice. I go to grab her, to shove her away from me, but my hands go straight through her.
She smiles at me. “Hold tight, sweetheart, you may feel a little sting.”
She comes towards me, head on, and I stagger backwards, into the ever-waiting bulk that is Shane, who holds me steady as Alice enters me.
In horror, I gaze at my reflection in the fireplace mirror, visible from the waist up. I stare at myself, hard, one moment seeing Alice, the next seeing me.
I remember how good it had felt when I was Alice, when I could look at my reflection and be happy that I was a beautiful, perfect sex goddess. I remember the supreme confidence I felt when I was her, how nobody or nothing controlled me, and I could do anything or have anyone I wanted. When I looked in the mirror, I only ever saw what I wanted to see. And I always knew the truth of Alice and I deep down – it was why I was never that alarmed about her sudden presence in my life.
Yes it had felt so good to be Alice.
But how can something that feels so good, be so wrong?
“You’ve denied me for so long,” Alice says, but she’s inside me now, not a physical manifestation of my mind, she is my thoughts. She is me.
Not since the most evil set of foster parents in the world tragically died in the housefire, have I seen my old friend, Alice. Because it was Alice that thumbed the lighter into life before she left me.
And I haven’t seen her again since I started the affair with Jack.
I know I should feel revulsion at all the bad things Alice has done – that I have done – yet I don’t. This dissociation, this barrier I cultivated in defence against my true self is finally coming crashing down.
I can’t deny who I really am any longer. And. Mostly, I don’t want to.
That’s right, Alice says inside my mind. Don’t fight it. We are not two separate entities, we are one. Let my thoughts be yours.
“But I don’t know how,” I say to my reflection.
It is me, rather than Alice, staring back at me.
Just let it happen, Alice replies in my mind. Think of Jack. Of Kirsty, Shane and Jemima. We need to work together. More than that, we need to work as one mind.
I think of what Alice did to Jack last night – of what I did to him.
Dimly, I am aware of Shane still directly behind me, gripping me by my shoulders as he speaks.
“What don’t you know how to do?” he is saying. “Jesus, Tess, stop talking in riddles.”
You need to give him your present, if you think he deserves it, Alice says in my mind.
But now it feels more like my thoughts, rather than the thoughts of a person separate from myself. Alice and I are no longer divided into ego and id, like Jekyll and Hyde, we are merged. We are one, fully-rounded individual, warts and all.
Because no one’s perfect, least of all me.
Internally at least, everything snaps into sharp focus. It’s time to give Shane my full attention.
It’s time to end this.
“You know what?” I say silkily, as if a switch has been flicked in my mind, and I am a different person. Which technically I suppose, I am. “Why don’t you go into the kitchen and make that coffee? I’ll be right behind you. I have a surprise for you.”
I turn around in his arms, and he is so stunned by my sudden change in disposition that his hands loosen in shock on my upper arms. I wrap my arms around his waist, like any woman in love might do to the object of her affections.
“Tess? What’s going on with you?”
He doesn’t sound angry, just exhausted, hungover, and more than anything, deeply confused.
“I’m sorry,” I say, staring beseechingly into his eyes that are ringed with dark circles. “I’ll explain everything in a short while, I promise. But trust me on this, we are going to need coffee.”
Shane looks as if he is about to argue, then seems to think better of it. The hangover and the need for caffeine eventually trumps all else and he nods.
“Okay, you win.”
“I’ll be right behind you,” I tell him.
Because I will.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
TESS AND ALICE
As soon as Shane is out the room, I lunge for my mobile on the white lid of the Baby Grand. I remember all-too-clearly what I told the stripper to do – seduce my husband, take photographic evidence of the encounter and send those pictures to me at exactly nine a.m. on Thursday morning.
Which would be now.
“Have you been a good boy, Shane?” I mutter to myself as I jump through the hoops to get into my texts.
Sure enough, I received one picture from a withheld number. That’s it – no accompanying text, no more pictures, nothing.
I click on that one solitary picture and it fills the oblong screen, chilling my blood.
No, it transpires that Shane hasn’t been a good boy. Not in the slightest.
I stare at the dark, blurry picture, taken in a dimly-lit pub or club. I presume the location is Broadgate’s Buzz Nightclub, but I couldn’t say that with one-hundred percent certainty. I don’t suppose the location matters – what is happening in the picture is the only thing that concerns me.
The photo may be dark, but there is no question that the drunken man in the picture is none other than my husband.
My stomach twists into a tight ball of angst as I stare at the picture. I am disgusted at him, yet not so surprised, deep down. It is what I have been expecting, hence I had paid the stripper called Candice to seduce him in the first place.
Candice has one arm flung around his neck, her hand entwined in his hair, as if she is forcibly tugging his head down towards her upturned face to meet her lips.
The other hand – the one nearest the photographer – rests proprietarily on his hip, her fingers splayed and possessive. Shane, by contrast, is arch-backed, as if trying not to let his body touch hers. Either that, or he is about to pull her tight against him.
His hand – the one nearest the camera – is a blur of movement in the air next to her arm, as if he is about to either pull her close or push her away. His other hand is hidden from view.
I think how good they look together, him so tall, dark and handsome, her so short, blonde, and pretty, and my heart twists painfully in a fresh stab of jealousy.
Oh, Shane, how could you do this to me? I think sadly, my thoughts not Alice’s, but my own.
Inserting the phone into the back pocket of my jeans, I stride over towards the tree and bend down to pick up the red-and-gold-wrapped box. It is heavier than it looks, which is hardly surprising.
I exit the room, clutching Shane’s gift.
*
Shane gestures to a freshly-made expresso on the kitchen table as soon as I enter the kitchen.
“What’s in there?” he asks me, eyeing the red and gold parcel.
I smile sweetly at him. “You’ll see.” Then I pull out my phone. “But first, there’s something I want to ask you. Can you explain this?”
He shuffles over to me and peers at the screen of my phone. Carefully I watch his face – whatever spilt-second of emotion he portrays before he sufficiently gathers himself together will perhaps be the best indicator of his true feelings.
And Shane looks shocked. But whether that shock is due to the fact I have caught him cheating, or he’s shocked that a photo even exists of a random girl accosting him without his consent, I couldn’t say.
“Tess,” he says slowly. “Who in God’s name sent you this photo?”
My eyes never leave his face as he stares at the phone. I can’t make out what is driving his shock, but the emotion itself feels genuine enough to me.
“I don’t see how that matters,” I reply calmly. “And don’t you think that I should be the one asking the questions, here?”
“My God, Tess.” Finally he looks at me, his gaze beseeching. “I swear, I don’t know that girl. I was having a pint with Andrew at the bar of Buzz when that girl just came up to me. I w
as polite enough to start with, but she just would not leave me alone. I literally had to say, look, I’m not interested, and then she just kind of chucked herself at me. I wasn’t expecting it, you know? It caught me completely off-guard, and I shoved her off me as soon as it happened, but obviously not quick enough.” He pauses, and runs his hands through his dishevelled dark hair. “Jesus, Tess, who sent you this? Baby, I swear it’s not what you think.”
I watch him, unsure quite what to believe. He certainly seems like he’s telling the truth, but then, don’t all the best liars? And he isn’t angry, which is possibly in his favour, because guilty people tend to get angry when confronted with their lies. And there is just one picture, when all is said and done. Almost like the photographer was forced to give up because there were no more pictures left to take…
“Tess? Please, say something.”
I move around to the other side of the kitchen table and take a seat on one of the white, plastic chairs. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“That you believe me? I swear, I don’t know this girl, she just came up to me. And I pushed her off me straight away, I absolutely promise on my life. Ask Andrew if you don’t believe me, he saw the whole thing.”
I roll my eyes at that one. “Of course Andrew’s going to take your side. Boys will stick together, won’t they?”
“No, Tess, it wasn’t like that.”
He looks so pitiful, standing there in his undershorts and t-shirt, so blatantly begging me, mind, body and soul to believe him. I suddenly realise that we could potentially go round in circles like this for hours. Even if he is lying, he will never admit it, not in a million years.
I have to make my decision.
“And what about Isla?” I ask him.
He looks at me blankly. “Isla?”
Now he’s really starting to irritate me, because of course he bloody knows who I’m talking about.
“Yes Shane,” I say slowly. “Isla Green, your little work mate who texts you all the time.”
He still looks blank. “Isla from work?” he repeats dumbly. “My God, I barely speak to her outside of the office.”
I can feel the rage, bubbling up beneath the surface. “That’s a lie, Shane, you know it is.”
And just like that, I’ve had enough. Enough of him, and men in general. They’re liars and cheaters, the lot of them. I am going to go with my gut, and my gut says fuck him.
“Baby, where has all this come from? I love you; I would never cheat on you. We’re trying to start a family, why the hell would I jeopardise that? You are everything to me. I want children with you so much.”
“Yeah. And you can’t give me that, can you?”
He visibly flinches at my harsh words and I experience a warm glow of satisfaction.
“You don’t mean that. Is that what this is all about? The reason you’ve been acting so strangely lately? The fact you blame me for all the failed treatments and the miscarriage?”
Men. They are such simpletons.
“Not exactly. And I don’t want to talk about it anymore. I think it’s time you opened your present.”
“Tess…”
“Don’t call me that,” I say sharply. “My name is Alice.”
“What?”
Now he looks so confused, it’s almost laughable. He looks like a little boy who’s just been told that Father Christmas doesn’t exist.
“I was born Alice, and I changed it to Tess not long before I met you. It’s quite a simple concept. But when Alice started appearing to me again, I didn’t know who she was. When she first started coming to me, when I was a teenager, I called her Teressa. You know, as in Mother Teressa. Because she was pretty much the opposite of all that was wholesome and good.”
I think it’s safe to say that no, Shane doesn’t know. He doesn’t know that after I got myself straight, I changed my name to Tess, effectively burying my past and my traumatic memories, as well as dissociating myself from my medical files. Except this time when I became Tess, I was good. The bad part of me was buried. I so wanted to be like a normal person, with a normal family.
It’s not my fault if Shane ruined that for me.
But there is no escaping the past – it always catches up with you, one way or the other.
“What’s going on? Is this some kind of joke? You’re really starting to scare me now.”
I smile at that. We haven’t even started with the scary stuff, yet. “Just open your present, baby. Then you’ll understand. You’ll understand everything.”
At that precise second, the doorbell goes.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
TESS AND ALICE
Shane looks at me miserably, just standing there and slouching, arms dangling at his sides, his beloved coffee cooling on the countertop behind him, entirely forgotten.
“Is that you piano lesson?” he ask in a flat, defeated voice. “Can you cancel them? We’ll pay them to go away, we have more important things to talk about.”
But it’s not that kid here for his piano lesson, seeing as that kid doesn’t exist, and I dreamed up the whole email exchange, because this was the morning that I wanted Alice and I to properly have our little chat.
A sense of apprehension twists in my guts, because it’s only just gone nine on the morning. Who could be banging on our door so early? Whoever it is, now is not the time.
“Let’s just ignore it,” I say. “It’s probably just the postman or something.”
“I’m going to get it,” Shane says.
I don’t make a move to stop him. I want Shane to open his present in peace, without any interruptions, and whoever is at the door needs to be shooed along their merry way, pretty sharpish.
He turns his back to me, and without another word, he strides out into the hallway.
*
A few minutes later, he returns with my sister-in-law.
“Kirsty,” I gasp when she enters the kitchen in a typical, Kirsty-esque flurry of self-importance.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I know it’s early, but as it turns out, Mum is absolutely fine. Well, not fine-fine, obviously, but she only had a bruised knee, and as I have a whole heap of stuff I need to do at the surgery this afternoon, I drove back first thing this morning. Thought I would pop in to see you two before I go home.”
I think of the surprise waiting for her at the kitchen table when she does, eventually, go home.
Or, at least, that had been my original plan. I didn’t think anyone would discover Jack’s body until later today. Kirsty was supposed to be staying with her mother still, and Jemima was going straight to school from her friend’s house, and not due home ‘til half past four.
But. You know what they say about the best laid plans. It was supposed to happen that Shane would fly into a rage after my supposed affair with Jack. An affair that didn’t really happen, of course, but Shane was such a jealous, controlling husband…
Shane left work early yesterday and went to Jack’s, knowing that his sister wasn’t there. He murdered his brother-in-law in a jealous rage before going out on his stag night. After that, he fell into bed drunk, and in the morning confronted his sickly, vulnerable wife about her alleged affair. He tried to kill her too in another jealous fury, but he was hungover and slow, his reflexes dulled. By some miracle, the stabbed woman managed to wrestle the knife out of his hand and stab her husband in self-defence.
She got lucky, managing to get him directly in his heart. After this, she crawled to the phone and dialled the police. Poor, damaged woman, in every sense, for she suffered years of abuse at the hands of her monstrous husband…
At least, that was what was supposed to happen.
And it might well have gone down that way, had my stupid, prod-nosed sister-in-law not unexpectedly turned up.
“Hello Kirsty,” I say sweetly, my sugar-coated words belying my rapidly beating heart. “How lovely to see you. Are you going straight to the surgery from here, or are you going home first?”
&nbs
p; She pauses at the kitchen chair she has reached, one hand resting on the back of it. Not for the first time, I think how tired she looks. How overweight and frumpy. Considering the wage bracket she falls under, one would think she would invest a bit more money on clothes, and not wear ill-fitting trouser suits that come from supermarkets, and a size too small to boot.
Also, I feel a fraction of the sympathy I used to feel for her. But then, I suppose this is proportionate, as back then I suppose that I was technically half the woman I am now.
Let’s be honest here – it’s not my fault that she let herself go, that she doesn’t know how to keep a man’s interest.
Still. At least that’s not something she has to worry about anymore.
“Why should it matter where I go first?” she asks me, a shade too sharply for my liking.
I think of all the times I used to sneak out the through the balcony door in the spare room to see her husband. Of the side section in the large wardrobe, containing all my Alice clothes. When I was suffering from such bad migraines. The headaches were very much real to me at the time, but they soon dispersed so I was able to do what I really wanted to be doing. Be that fucking or murdering Jack, or going to Pink Flamingos, it’s all irrelevant.
At least I have a little more self-awareness now.
But the question is, what am I going to do about Kirsty?
I sigh heavily, causing both of them to look at me. I hadn’t wanted to put Plan B into action, but it looks like I have no choice.
“Back in a minute,” I say to both of them, and then I speak to Shane, and Shane alone. “Don’t you dare open that present without me.”
With that, I leave the kitchen.
*
Up in the attic, Isla is exactly as I left her. Her wrists and ankles are lashed with rope, and she is lying on her side, against the wall at the lowest point of the ceiling.
It isn’t Shane’s money that I am after. Certainly not the money in his bank account, anyway – I was never in this for the money. I have enough to get by on now, and that’s all that matters. Shane kept forty-five grand in cash in the house, and that is currently residing in my handbag. He doesn’t know that I knew about his stash at the back of his side of the wardrobe, behind a loose panel. But I found it. I feel insulted, that he didn’t trust his own wife enough to tell her about it.
In Spite: A terrifying psychological thriller with a shocking twist you won't see coming Page 16
