Night By Night

by Jack Jordan

  ‘Who? Who have you lost? What’s going on?’

  ‘Lily. I’ll never get her back. They’ve left for good. I. . .’

  She couldn’t bear to repeat the words. The moment she spoke them, they wouldn’t just be inside her head; they would solidify, become something she could never take back.

  ‘The day of the accident, after Lily and I got out of the water, I. . .’ She bit her tongue, blinked away the tears. ‘I thought something disgusting, something evil, and I found out that I didn’t think it at all. But I said it aloud.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  Another sob burst from her. Tony waited patiently on the other end of the line.

  ‘I wished. . . I wished I had saved Violet instead.’

  ‘Oh, Rose. . .’

  What had she expected him to say? What could anyone possibly say to ease the guilt?

  ‘She will never forgive me, but. . . I can’t lose her. I can’t accept that I’ve lost her too.’

  She cried for a while, comforted by listening to him on the other end of the line. After two full days of being alone with her thoughts, it felt good to be near someone, even if it was just the sound of them.

  ‘How did you do it?’ she asked.

  He had to have felt the same pain she was feeling now: the responsibility of killing one child and losing another. For years, Rose had feared she would turn into her mother, overcome by grief, but in the end she had become her father.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘But somehow I did. I can’t tell you how, only that it’s possible. All you can do is hope that one day they will forgive you.’

  ‘You waited over two decades,’ she said.

  ‘You may have to as well,’ he said softly.

  ‘But what if I can’t wait that long? What if I can’t live without her?’

  ‘I’m sorry, my darling. That isn’t up to you.’

  She thought of Lily as a baby, holding her in her arms, stroking the soft skin on her plump cheeks, eyeing the moist bow of her lips, the long auburn lashes that were blonde at the tips. Her love for her, and the pain of losing her, rivalled no other. People say burning alive is the worst way to die, but they’re wrong. Killing one’s child and then losing another is the longest, most agonising death a person could be dealt.

  ‘Do you want to come and stay here? So you’re not alone?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not yet. I just need. . .’ She looked out at the bridge, further memories filling her head, then closed her eyes and sank back into the seat. ‘Time. I just need time.’

  ‘Okay.’

  She ended the call. Silence rang back into the room.

  She got up from the seat and almost doubled over. The pain in her bladder screamed. Her legs burnt as blood rushed back into each limb. She hobbled to the bathroom to relieve herself and then took a bottle of wine from the kitchen cupboard. She would sleep upstairs in her own bed, the bed she used to share with her husband. Could she still call him that? Husband. The law still recognised them as a married couple, but it felt wrong. They were more like strangers.

  She headed for the stairs, listening to the satisfying slosh of the liquid in the bottle, and walked along the dark landing. She screamed as she was thrust into the wall.

  A heavy body pressed into her back, slamming her face against the plaster. Stale breaths blasted the back of her head and whipped her hair against her cheek. Her arm was twisted behind her with a sudden thrust. She screamed, the pain causing her to drop the bottle to the carpet and her legs to buckle beneath her until she was a heap on the ground. She untangled herself in a manic hurry and looked up. The silhouette of a man towered over her in the dark.

  The journal was in his hand.

  She had left it in her bag on the island unit in the kitchen. He must have been in the house while she slept and was forced to run upstairs when she woke.

  She reached out to snatch it from his grasp. He turned to leave.

  ‘No!’

  She latched her arms around both of his ankles and braced herself. The floor shuddered with the impact. She clambered over him for the journal, tugging at the cover. He twisted beneath her in one violent thrust and knocked her against the wall with a bang. All the air left her chest.

  She put her hands out to steady herself and felt the cool glass of the bottle beneath her fingertips. She swung it by the neck with all her might. Glass exploded with an ear-ringing shatter, ricocheted off him and onto her. He cried out and thrust her into the wall again, her head cracking against it. She fell limp and slumped to the carpet, with small bits of glass pressing against her cheek.

  The man staggered to his feet and down the hall, swaying as if he had drunk from the bottle. Her eyes flickered shut to the creak of the stairs. The front door opened and closed.

  The journal was gone.

  ZACH

  3rd December 2013

  Run.

  The woodland floor had sliced up the soles of his feet, but he could barely feel the pain through his fear. The night air had scorched his lungs and throat until each breath tasted of blood. The thud of footsteps not far behind him masked the sound of his own.

  Just keep running.

  His legs shook. Tears continually streamed down his cheeks, slanting with the wind. If he stopped he’d be dead, but he couldn’t run for ever. The wilderness seemed never-ending, and however fast he ran, the man behind him only seemed to get faster. Zach could hear the man’s trouser legs brushing against each other with his strides, his quick breaths, the power of his footsteps as they snapped twigs and turned dead leaves into dust. Each time he bellowed his name, fear exploded in Zach’s chest and spread through him like a current.

  And then he saw it: a small dot of light flickering between the trees.

  He sobbed without stopping. More lights flickering silently, like fireflies in the dark.

  He raced towards them, dodging the trees in his path, vaulting over a fallen trunk, until he passed through two trunks and was out in the open, falling. He stumbled down the verge, running too fast to stop so suddenly, and fell to the muddy bank. The Rearwood river bustled before him; moonlight shimmered on the chopping surface, forming quick flickers of light before the ripples in the water changed. Those were the lights he had seen, not headlights passing on a motorway or a row of houses. He was still alone with him in the dark.

  The bridge was just in sight. Zach scrambled to his feet and made to run in the same direction. He could flag down a car, stand in the middle of the road and force a driver to stop.

  A hand snatched his hair.

  A yelp ripped from his mouth.

  He pulled forwards and into a sprint. Fresh pain pricked his scalp where hair had once been. The river roared beside him.

  ‘Zach!’

  Fear bled through him. The mud was soft and sucked at his soles. The man was so close that Zach could smell the sweat on him, feel the swipe of his hand through the air as he tried to grab him.

  The bridge was close. He watched a car moving along it, its headlights illuminating the metal structure from one end to the other until it was gone.

  He set his eyes on the slope of the bank leading up to the bridge. It would only take him another minute to reach the road and flag down a car. He would be safe. He would live.

  Zach landed on the bank with a deafening thud. His head slammed against it and his senses spun. Hands were on him, pinning him down at the nape of his neck and the small of his back. He tried to breathe and inhaled dirt.

  ‘You did this,’ he spat at Zach’s back. ‘This is your doing!’

  Another car drove along the bridge, so close that he could hear the distant sound of music playing on the radio, and yet the driver had no idea what was happening below. He screamed for help, but the word was cut short. His face was forced into the ground until he felt the gritty earth between his teeth.

  ‘Quiet!’ he hissed.

  Zach lay still on the bank, listening to the car pass them on the bridge. Mud stuck to the te
ars on his cheeks. He wondered how long it would take for the man to kill him if he screamed. He listened to his escape pass him by until the sound died and they were alone again.

  He was going to die.

  Strong hands snatched him up to his feet and led him forwards. He tried to blink away the dirt, cough it up from his lungs. He saw the water just before he was thrust face first beneath the surface.

  The water was so cold it felt like needles stabbing his skin and eyes. It numbed his teeth down to the roots, forced its way into his lungs when they mechanically drew for breath. He thrashed beneath the man’s hold. His feet kicked against the bank until dirt flew into the air in clumps as he thrashed his arms through the water, desperately trying to find the surface for leverage.

  Play dead.

  It took every ounce of concentration for his body to fall still beneath the man’s grasp. His heart was racing, his chest was filled with water, but he stayed still for second after second, waiting.

  His grip weakened, and after a few seconds, he turned Zach over in the water until he was floating on his back.

  Sounds exploded in his ears as they breached the surface. The night air cooled the water on his face. He heard the bustle of the river, the sway of the trees in the breeze, the man’s sobs above him. He took small, controlled breaths through his nostrils, begging his lungs not to take over and force him to gasp for air.

  The man took hold of his arms and held him to his chest, sobbing into his neck.

  He must feel my heart. I’m trembling. He must know I’m alive.

  But the sobbing continued, hot and wet.

  Zach opened his eyes, stinging from the breeze, and sank his teeth into the man’s neck, turning his sobs into screams. Blood pooled on his tongue, spewed out when the man’s fist flew into his gut and unhinged his jaw.

  He clambered on top of Zach and pinned him down. All Zach could do was watch helplessly as the man covered his mouth with one hand and pinched his nostrils closed with the other. They stared into each other’s eyes, tears falling, bodies squirming for control.

  ‘You did this,’ he whispered. ‘You did this.’

  Zach closed his eyes.

  THIRTY-NINE

  Rose lay in bed looking up at the same ceiling she had stared at sleeplessly for years, only this time she lay in the bed alone.

  It was as if the attack in her home had woken her from a slumber, one in which she was stuck in a revolving nightmare and unable to escape. She had been overcome by grief, thinking of Lily and nothing more, but having the intruder’s presence in her house made her remember why it all began: Finn.

  Christian and Lily had left. The man who had harmed Finn had entered her home and taken the journal with him. Her life had been decimated, but she couldn’t let it end like this. She had come so far, sacrificed so much. All of her losses couldn’t be for nothing.

  The police wouldn’t help; the force had worked against her from the beginning, except for Montgomery who seemed to be working to keep the peace, whether for her or himself. The only people who had helped her along the way was a man who had fled the town for his own safety and a detective who had refused to help further. She thought of Shane trying to start over again, Anna working in the same building as the corrupt officers, and fought the urge to bury herself beneath the duvet and forget. She sat on the edge of the bed and rested her face in her hands.

  There was only one person she could potentially win over, one person who didn’t see her as a madwoman: Montgomery. But he was tied up amongst the mess, part of the same force who had tried to silence her.

  Rose showered for the first time in days, washing away the sweat and tears, and scraped her hair in a messy, wet bun. She stepped out onto the landing.

  The house was cold, silent, as though having just her inside wasn’t enough to warm it and make it a home. This was her future: just her and the incessant silence ringing in her ears, the sound she was sure would turn her mad. Glass still covered the carpet, and dark splashes of wine stained the walls.

  When she told Montgomery of the attack in her home, he would have to act. All she had to do was get to him without being followed.

  She thought about how she was going to do it. It would be too risky to go to the police station when Dr Hunter had branded her as insane, the same man who seemed to be in Seb Clark’s pocket. Montgomery had told her he lived on the farm on the edge of town; she could go there and wait for him to return. She took her phone from her pocket and called a local taxi firm as she headed downstairs, wandering into the living room with her phone to her ear. The operator spoke just as she reached the window.

  ‘Lion Town Cars.’

  She continued to stare out the window, her eyes locked on the police car parked on the opposite side of the street. Watts and Leech were inside. They were waiting for her.

  ‘Is anyone there?’

  There was only one other option.

  ‘Hello?’

  She ended the call and strode through the house to the back door.

  This time, she would make sure she wasn’t followed.

  By the time Rose arrived at Montgomery’s farm, the sun had almost set. Her mouth and throat were so dry that her tongue kept sticking against the roof of her mouth. She had passed puddles on her journey and had to stop herself from falling to her hands and knees and lapping up the murky water. Her bladder was burning, longing to be released, but each time she had tried to relieve herself, bobbed down in the treeline of the fields, it wouldn’t come. Her whole body was tight like a fist, too tense to unfurl. Ever since leaving the house, she had been on high alert, flinching at the slightest sound.

  She had kept to the backstreets, walking fast with her head down until she reached the fields where she could finally breathe with ease. But she felt as though she was on borrowed time, forever looking over her shoulder, listening out for the call of sirens, the sound of thudding footsteps coming up behind her. Leech and Watts would come looking the moment they knew she had left the house. It wasn’t a matter of if, but when.

  She had thought to call a cab from a backstreet so many times, but each time she stopped, she felt too exposed, and pictured the police car coming round the corner the second she dared to lower her guard. Each time, she kept on walking. She had tried to trust people before this, and her world had fallen apart. The only person she could rely on now was herself.

  It was the only house for miles, lost amongst acres of sprawling fields. The windows reflected the sky, mimicking fire.

  Everything hurt. Just when she thought she couldn’t take another step, she forced one foot in front of the other.

  She walked up the path to the front door, panting and coated in sweat. Her knock on the door was barely audible. She clenched her fist as tight as she could and put the last of her strength into it, banging on the wood until it shuddered in its frame.

  Nothing.

  She pressed her forehead against the door, her hot breaths bouncing back at her. All those miles, and Montgomery wasn’t home. She had expected he would have returned from work by now, but as the sun set behind her, doubt crept in like a chill.

  No. I won’t let all of this be for nothing.

  She straightened her spine and banged on the door again. Birds burst from the trees and took to the sky. She leaned down and opened the letterbox, squinted to see through the semi-darkness.

  ‘Detective Montgomery? It’s Rose Shaw.’

  Years of mud were trodden into the carpet. The wallpaper dated back to the seventies, psychedelic patterns faded with age, strips of it peeling in yellowing curls. With so much land to care for, the house must be their last concern.

  The farm. Perhaps his wife was working out the back.

  She followed the house around and spotted a decaying barn a few hundred feet from the house. The metal skeleton of a tractor was stationed outside the barn’s tall doors, brown with rust.

  She turned to the house again and peered through the glass in the back door. The room was dark
with dusk, but she could just see the glint of the steel kitchen tap beneath one of the windows, shining in the last of the sun.

  If she could have salivated at the thought of water, she would have, but her mouth had been leeched dry. If she could just get inside and have a glass of water, the wait wouldn’t be so unbearable. She spotted an outside tap and practically ran to it. The tap had rusted and refused to budge.

  Small pots filled with overgrown weeds lined the back of the house. She thought of her own garden and how she used to keep a spare key beneath one of the pots in case of emergencies. She checked under each one, disturbed insects running in all directions. No key. She plunged her hand in the pot nearest the door in case it had been hidden out of sight. The nettles stung at her hands and dirt dug beneath her fingernails. She stopped the moment she felt cold metal and yanked it free, mud littering her trousers, and rubbed the key until it shone.

  This is insane, she told herself as she stood. You can’t do this. It’s wrong.

  She eyed the tap through the glass again and licked her cracked lips. The key was stiff in the lock but it turned. She wove around the breakfast table for the sink, ignoring the slop encrusted in the bowl, the limescale coated around the base of the tap and framing its spout. She turned it on and lapped up water until it ran down her cheek and wet locks of her hair.

  When she was done, she rested against the counter to catch her breath, water dripping from her chin. It was only then that she took in the room.

  The place wasn’t just neglected – it was abused. Her palms stuck to the edge of the counter from years of stains. The slate-tiled floor was encrusted with flakes of dirt and grime. Unopened post littered the round breakfast table with a bowl of blackened, rotting fruit in its centre, surrounded by a cloud of flies. Wherever she looked, the dirtier the place seemed. Ashtrays filled to the brim were dotted on every surface, the smell lingering in the air.

  The sun had almost set. She moved across the room and flicked on the light. Dust on every surface; spiderwebs had been spun in each corner. The flies buzzed in a frenzy, zinging this way and that.