I reached around the wall and flicked on the kitchen light. There was no one there. After seeing Ernie I had made the decision not to call out Richard’s name anymore. I wasn’t sure what was going on, but it didn’t feel right.
The blood led to one of the kitchen drawers. My heart went from a trot to a canter. It was the cutlery drawer.
I knew now what had given him the extra energy after my phone call. I had told him about the journal. That it was written in French and that I was getting it translated. He would have known what that could mean. It would all come out. The way he treated my mother. The way he was around young girls. She must have confronted him with these things. He would have known that she suspected him. I wondered if she questioned him about the missing girls. If she had asked him about the wound on his leg. She must have done. Janice said she was a brave woman.
I looked around me. Glanced into the living-room again, just to make sure there was no one behind me. I trod slowly across the kitchen floor to the open drawer. I pulled out the largest knife there. A small vegetable parer. No more than four inches in length. I checked the back door, but that was locked. Completely against what I had decided just a few moments earlier I hummed his name again.
‘Richard?’
A creak. It came from upstairs. Canter to gallop. I gripped the knife and walked to the bottom of the stairs. If he could hear me, why wasn’t he answering? I couldn’t come up with a reassuring answer. I flicked the kitchen light off again. A dim light shone from upstairs. Right at the top of the stairs. From the loft.
I stopped myself from calling out again. Stepping up the stairs one at a time, I was grateful that none of them creaked. My eyes remained fixed on the loft opening. The metal ladder was down. I wondered if Richard had gone up there to destroy evidence, to get rid of all his patient records.
I reached the top of the stairs and stood, motionless, for a minute or so. The house was so quiet that all I could hear was the blood pulsing through my ear. Although my heart was pumping at breakneck speed, it made no noise. Nothing to disturb the silence. I held the tiny knife in front of me and stepped over to the ladder. In the low light from above I made out a dark stain on the bottom step. Blood?
I took hold of the ladder and stood up on the first step. It rattled. The noise seemed deafening, as though I would hear nothing over the top of such a clatter. I shot a look behind me. Only darkness and shadows. I moved slowly up the ladder. As I reached the upper steps I realised I was hunching my body, making myself smaller, delaying the moment when my head would be vulnerable, poking through the loft opening.
I decided that fast was going to be better than slow. Whatever was waiting for me, it wouldn’t do any good to prevaricate. Get straight in there and face it. He had killed those innocent girls. He had killed my mother. He was a frail old man just recovering from a heart attack. I had nothing to fear from him. He deserved to feel my rage.
I put both feet on the next step, gripped the vegetable knife and pushed myself up.
The loft was a mess. Everything had been thrown around. Huge holes and dents in the boxes, presumably from kicks and punches. Slash marks too. I flicked my head around as quickly as I could, taking in everything before me. I couldn’t see my father. He may be hiding behind the mess of boxes, but I didn’t think so.
My mother’s bicycle was bent out of shape. The gramophone box broken in two. Records smashed on the floor. Dust hanging in the air, having been disturbed by the whirlwind of destruction.
My rage intensified. I moved my right foot up to climb into the loft and put my hands either side of the hatch for support.
From below a steel hand gripped my left ankle. My heart stopped.
I looked down and saw him there, looking up at me. His eyes still as dark as when he had been in the hospital, but his face had gained colour. Even in the dim light from the loft I could see his red cheeks. I kicked my left leg but his grip squeezed tighter. I didn’t bother with whispering now. I was happy with full on vocals.
‘What are you doing?’ I screamed.
He smiled.
‘Richard?’
He pulled hard on my leg. I scrabbled around, trying to keep my balance. The metal ladder rattled and shook and I tried to grab hold of the top step.
But I couldn’t hold on. I felt myself slipping. Instinctively I put my arm up to my face as I smacked against the wooden edge of the loft opening. My teeth dug into my arm and I squeezed my eyes shut. Up to that point I had managed to keep hold of the tiny knife, but now I heard it clink against the ladder steps as it fell.
I fell too. Cutting my arms and face on the metal steps, scraping my legs as he pulled me down. Then a slash against the back of my leg. A warm, burning sensation. He must have cut me with a knife. It felt much more dangerous than my vegetable parer.
He still held my ankle as I hit the floor face-down. The breath was knocked out of me and I choked. I managed to turn to face him but it was difficult to see in the dim light from the loft.
A flash of silver as he slashed his knife towards me. I could see it was large. I tried to suck air into my lungs, but the pain in my stomach prevented it. I felt like I was drowning. I fought to spit some words out.
‘Why did you do it?’ I said. ‘Why did you kill them?’
For a moment he stopped, as though I had punched him. He let go of my ankle. But he recovered quickly and slashed at me again. At last I pulled some air into my chest. I kicked out with both legs, tried to keep him away from me. I shuffled backwards towards the top of the stairs. He leaned against the loft ladder and caught his breath.
‘You bastard,’ I said. ‘You evil fucking bastard.’
This got him moving again. But now I was climbing to my feet. As he launched against me I got my hands up to his wrists. Held them as tight as I could, tried to push him away. I could smell his hospital breath in my face. Feel the heat of it. I kicked one of his shins and he went down. I grabbed his knife hand and twisted his wrist.
He kicked my leg away and I fell towards the knife. I turned my head away but the blade caught the side of my face, cutting my cheek. His elbow slammed against the side of my head, rolling me away from him and onto my back. Despite the pain I struggled to my feet, but I was completely disorientated. My ears buzzed from the impact and I couldn’t focus my eyes at all. Richard had become a dark shape. It came towards me. Another flash of silver and I put my hands up. I screamed as loud and as long as I could. Gave it everything, put the last of my strength into it.
Something ploughed into the other side of my head. A blinding light flashed through my eyes, as intense as the pain that came with it. The world gave way beneath me and all light was gone.
‘Christine?’
They are too far away for me to hear clearly.
‘Christine?’
A hand holding mine. The rustle of jackets. A crackle on a radio.
‘Chris?’
Neil?
I try to open my eyes, but only one works. And that hurts like hell.
‘Don’t move,’ another voice. ‘Just stay where you are for the moment.’
I remember Richard, and start. But a hand restrains me.
‘Chris, it’s me.’
It is Neil.
‘It’s all OK. We’re here. Everything is OK.’
I manage to force the other eye open. Two paramedics, Neil and someone else. Thelma.
I turn my head to the side. Richard lies on the floor a few feet from me. His eyes wide open. His face stretched in pain. There is no life in him.
‘They think he had another heart attack,’ Neil said. ‘He would have killed you.’
How was Neil there? Surely he hadn’t heard my scream?
‘How?’ I said.
Neil smiled.
‘Cathy did the translation,’ he said. ‘She said you needed to see it urgently. I couldn’t get hold of you on your mobile. I read the translation. I saw what he had done. How dangerous he was. And then there was a message to say that he had discharged hims
elf from hospital. I knew that you had told him you found the journal. And I knew straight away that he would want to stop you from telling anyone. I tried and tried to get hold of you, but your mobile just went straight to answer-phone.’
The paramedic put a hand on my forehead.
‘I decided to drive down here,’ Neil said. ‘I was outside when I heard you scream. I slammed on the door but no one came. Then the lady from next door came out. I told her I had heard you scream and she got her key. As soon as we came in we saw the cat. We heard a noise upstairs and I ran up. He was already dead. Just lying there, just where he is now.’
The paramedic moved his hand away and I shook my head.
‘He killed them,’ I said. ‘He killed those two girls.’
‘I know,’ Neil said. ‘The police will be here any moment.’
I raised my eyes to the loft hatch.
‘Up there,’ I said. ‘The records of the girls that died. They were both patients of his.’
Neil nodded.
‘It’s all in the journal,’ he said. ‘She suspected him of trying to use drugs from the dental surgery to numb them. To try to put them to sleep. Your mother wrote about it all. She thinks he tried it out on her first, then when she passed out he pretended she had got drunk. She was so scared of him.’
I shut my eyes and tried to breath as normally as I could. My ribs hurt along with every other part of me.
‘Michael and Rose?’ I said.
‘With your mum and dad,’ Neil said.
I smiled.
‘I’m not mad,’ I said. ‘Everything is OK. I’m not mad.’
Neil squeezed my hand.
‘Didn’t I always tell you that?’ he said.
I opened my eyes and looked up at his face.
He raised his eyebrows.
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