Honest (15 page)

Chapter
Twenty–Two

When I came
to, the sky was so dark outside that the kitchen window appeared at first to me
as a great, black void, until everything came into focus. My knee throbbed, as
did my hands, though I could hardly figure out what had happened until I saw
him. Before me the slumped, curled, hours–old corpse of David Peirce looked
back at me.

And all at
once I remembered. All at once I realized that I, Peter or no Peter, had killed
him.

The kitchen
was dark, and despite my confusion I found it easy to crawl into the hallway
and help myself into my wheelchair. It gave me something to focus on while I
recalled everything; his tongue on my cheek, the fright in his eyes, all that
energy swelling up inside me.

 Then I
remembered the knife, cool and swift, slicing into David’s torso at a clean,
straight angle, engulfing me in a euphoric lust to just twist it, just
twist
it a little further...

I wheeled into
the kitchen and, meandering around the pool of blood swelling around David’s
body, fast drying, I pulled the blinds down over the window. After that, I
turned on the light and gave his body a proper look.

I was amazed,
initially, at how fast he had deteriorated. His skin looked waxen, yet
underneath it blushed a bloody purple. The breath caught in my throat. I didn’t
blink; didn’t dare, in case the body disappeared in that split second. Tears
dripped from my eyes not from sadness, but from savouring the image.

Did this make
me a murderer? Well, I’d always considered myself one, but this was different.
More justified, even, because after all I hadn’t done it all alone. Peter had
been inside me, helping me, lifting the burden of taking on David by myself.

Yes, I
realized, that was the truth of it. Peter might have hated me enough to throw
me down the stairs and even from my window, but if he hated me, he clearly
loved me just as fiercely. Even in death he was suspended in the limbo between
the two; baiting me, taking over me, and yet adamant to keep me all for
himself.

I sneered at
the corpse, leaning forward in my wheelchair. ‘You know what that means don’t
you?’ I said to the sweet stench in the air, addressing David’s drooping face.
‘It means you
lose
. He chose me, didn’t he? Not
you
.’

It dawned on
me quite suddenly that, if Peter’s...spirit, let’s say, was in this house and
entering me, then what had become of David’s? Did everybody have a spirit, or a
soul, and possessed the abilities that Peter had?

Perhaps it was
unique to Peter, because he’d always had so much fight in him. Still, I began
to shake and look about the place, glancing around myself with prickling skin,
afraid of what might be lurking.

It wasn’t the
body that scared me, but what came after; the stuff that was lighter than
flesh.

I gasped when
a key turned in the lock, cool air rushing in, and Dad appeared in the doorway
wearing his work coat. He was carrying a shopping bag. He dropped it when he
saw me, pale and flecked with blood, surveying my kill on the kitchen floor.
His face paled, beads of sweat collecting on his forehead.

‘I can
explain,’ I said softly, looking up at him between two strands of hair
stiffened by clotted blood. ‘Please don’t panic.’

His lips
opened and closed, mouthing the words that he had neither the energy nor voice
to say. Then he smacked the kitchen door with his fist and screamed, straining
the tendons in his stubbly neck. He clawed the hair back from his face, his
eyes pale and wild, his boots treading dry mud all over the floor.

‘Oh no, oh no,
oh no,’ he said repeatedly, shaking his head.

‘Dad. For
Christ’s sake,
Dad
! Remember what we discussed, all right? Look, I can
explain everything. Just sit down, will you? Please?’

His face
frozen in stunned bewilderment, dad obediently pulled a seat out from the table
and sat down, facing me. His lips remained parted, slack and lost for words.
While he remained silent I explained everything, detailing my fear when he
threatened to rape me, describing my lack of control as I, in
defence
,
turned the knife on him.

I didn’t
mention the skin wrapped up in his blood–stained pocket.

At that last
part, he nodded slowly, his eyes still wide and unblinking, staring off into
the hallway. Between us David’s corpse waited.

‘Dennis killed
a man once in a robbery, back in Liverpool,’ said Dad, his voice slow and
drawling like a zombie. ‘He got off on grounds of self defence. He never
regretted a thing.’

‘See!’ I said,
reaching out and grabbing his hand. He pulled it away, letting it fall slack by
his side. ‘Dad, it’ll be the same for me.’

‘Look at the
state of it, Ellen. Nobody will understand that.’ He shook his head again and
started to breathe quickly, as if the air was running out.

‘Well what are
we going to do?’ I said, looking at David’s body like the trash we had to take
out. Then it struck me. ‘Let’s wrap him in bin bags, right? We can wrap him up
tight and hide him while we decide what to do. Or we could...I don’t know, do
what they do in those shows, you know? We could put each limb in a bag and dump
it in the sea.’

‘Where did you
learn to talk like that?’ Dad asked, finally looking in my eyes. His was a look
of utter disbelief. ‘
How
do you talk like that?’

‘Dad, we don’t
have time for all this. I’m trying to be smart about it.’

‘
Smart
?!’
Dad got up abruptly and pointed at the body, his expression wild. ‘Is that what
you think this is, smart? Logical, is it? Make bloody sense to
you
, does
it?’

‘It doesn’t
make sense to get irrational,’ I said.

‘There’s
something wrong with you,’ he said. ‘You’re not well. Just look at this...just
look at this
mess
.’

‘So help me
clean it up,’ I said. I thought rapidly, figuring out where we could stow him
until we thought of somewhere better for the body to go. ‘The loft, Dad. We can
put him in the bin bangs, nice and tight, then wrap him in a sheet, or duvet,
maybe? Then take him to the loft until we can think of somewhere else. Then we
take the van—’

‘No,’ said
Dad. ‘He came here and never left. We’ll be caught. It’s all over.’

‘It
isn’t
.’
I urged through gritted teeth. ‘We can do this.’

‘There’s no
way we can get rid of this evidence, not unless we torched the whole place.’

We both paused
in thought. ‘No, Dad,’ I said. ‘Not the cottage.’

‘Yes,’ he
said. ‘We can do that. We could...we could light the fire in the living room, and...I’ve
got it. We’ll make it look like an accident in the fireplace.’

‘But that
brings
people to the body,’ I said. ‘They’ll find his...remains.’

‘If they do
they’ll think it’s one of us, so long as we do it properly. We could fake our
own deaths. We’ll have to abandon the van, our things, everything.’

Something
didn’t feel right about Dad’s proposal. He wasn’t that adventurous. I would
have believed he’d turn himself in for the crime and take the blame, rather
than put on a stunt like that.

‘Dad, this doesn’t
sound like something you’d say.’

‘No, no, I’m
not,’ said Dad. ‘I’m thinking clearly. This could be our clean break, couldn’t
it? It’s fate, this is. Now you aren’t the only one who can use the police as a
threat. I could do just the same to you.’

My heart
thudded faster. ‘What?’

‘Oh yes,’ said
Dad, laughing and rubbing his hands together. ‘Yes, this makes sense. Now we’re
equals — we’re both ugly criminals.’

My skin
prickled to hear that, but there was nothing I could say. He was right. All I
knew was that we needed to get rid of this evidence somehow, and I could only
hope that during that time I would think of some way to get out of this.

‘What are we
going to do about all the blood on the floor?’ I asked.

He took a deep
breath. ‘We’ll soak it up with towels and put them in bags too. In the loft
there’s a roll of lino that I could replace it with, same design, same
roll...That’ll be fine on first appearances. After the fire, it might look
normal...’

There was no
way out of this, and it was too late to change anything now. In truth, I was
just relieved that dad hadn’t gone totally nuts yet. As things stood, he was
still partially under my control.

We got to
work. I laid the towels down and soaked up all the blood, the taste of iron
filling my mouth as the thick air settled on my tongue. I didn’t squirm or even
feel nauseous, but the sight of it all, drying against the lino, would be the
stain on my mind forever.

Dad took the
knife out and grimaced as a thick, dark liquid oozed from the dead tissue. He
washed it up and then wrapped the body in black bin bags and tied it tight with
lengths of string from the van. After that he mopped the plastic down with wet
cloths and towels to get rid of all the residual blood he’d smeared about in
the process.

By the time
we’d bagged the towels and scrubbed the lino, the stain had sunk in deep.
‘We’ll get that lino from the loft,’ said Dad. ‘But first I’ll get him up
there.’

I winced.
‘Don’t call it him,’ I said. ‘Say
the body
.’

‘All right,’
said Dad. ‘The body.’

It was almost,
almost funny to me when dad revealed how he intended to get the long, weighty
body up those stairs. But as we watched the shiny black sack slowly hoisted up
the stairs in my very own lift, I found I could only — for once— admire dad’s
foresight. It had proven a very useful investment after all.

Dad was laying
the new lino at around midnight when the knock on the door came. I’d had a soak
in the bath and a change of clothes, and I’d even mopped down my wheelchair,
paying particular detail to the ridges on the wheels. When I realised it wasn’t
the police knocking, I decided it was best to ignore it.

Whoever it was
kept on hammering on the door, though, and after a fashion they even opened the
letterbox and called through. The voice was alien to me, but when I realised
who it was I almost laughed. It was the very girl we’d been arguing about; the
one who’d led to all this trouble.

‘Tell her
David came hours ago and then left to go to the pub.’ Dad hissed, on his hands
and knees in the kitchen. ‘Tell her it’s late and you want to go to bed.’

‘She’ll know.’
I hissed back.

‘Just get rid
of her.’ Dad snapped. ‘Or she’ll go and get the police.’

When I plucked
up the courage to open the door, I found Lauren still standing on the doorstep,
huddled in an oversized plaid coat — probably David’s— reeking of alcohol. Her
mascara was smudged and her hair backcombed and tangled. She looked like she’d
been drowning her sorrows all evening.

‘I’m not here
to start a fight,’ she said, holding her hands up in their large cuffs. ‘I just
want my boyfriend. My ex, or whatever.’ She slurred, her mouth slack and lips
glistening like jelly.

‘He isn’t
here,’ I said. ‘He came here hours and hours ago, but he left to—’

‘Hey.’ Lauren
interrupted me, squinting, looking me up and down. ‘You changed your hair.
That’s funny.’

I kept my
wheelchair wedged tightly between the opening and the door, just in case she
decided to make a run past me and went upstairs. ‘Why is it funny?’ I asked.

Lauren
shrugged, swaying slightly. ‘Because David really likes blondes,’ she said.

Chapter
Twenty–Three

I held the
door tight against the wheel of my chair, blocking Lauren’s view into the house
as much as I could. I found I was paranoid about the smell of the house. Would
she be able to smell that much blood from the doorstep? Perhaps the brine of
the sea was strong enough to cover it, just to bide us more time.

Lauren hugged
herself in the oversized coat. ‘I just need to say something to you,’ she said,
her black–outlined eyes narrowing.

‘What is it?’
I said.

‘I’ve felt
sorry for you before, you know, especially when I met you that time when you
were soaked in that frumpy dress. Dave told me you’d always been a bit psycho
because your mum dumped you as a kid, but I always gave you the benefit of the
doubt, if you get me. Dave’s told me loads about Pete as well. When he told me
you were with him when he died, I felt even
more
sorry for you.’ She
shook her head. Her eyes became curious slits as she studied my face. It was as
if, even at that moment, she was still trying to figure me out.

‘But after you
started saying things about my boyfriend, that was it. I just can’t hack people
like you.’

Hack
.
That was such an ugly word it made my skin crawl. I writhed in the seat of my
chair, sure that my skin had come alive with maggots. It was a kind of palpable
word, evoking strange noises in my head...a quick dull thud, followed by a
juicy, slick sound. Like a spoon hollowing out a fruit.

David’s split
flesh, oozing out dark blood, came to mind. I could almost feel him now, his
ear pressed against the attic floor, listening through all the layers of black
plastic we’d wrapped him in.

‘What are you
doing? Why are you moving like that?’ she grimaced, watching me wipe furiously
at the skin of my arms.

She didn’t
realise how dirty I felt. I’d always felt dirty, but now it was like the grime
had gotten thicker, like all that browning blood was coated all over me. But
how could she know that, when she’d never had a life like mine?

‘I’m just not
feeling well,’ I said, trying to shake David from my mind. It was awful,
knowing he was up there, while she was down here.

‘You’re not
feeling well? I’ve dumped my boyfriend because of you, always sticking your
nose in, trying to get attention by making up lies.’

‘What lies?’ I
said.

She tossed her
head back and laughed, even clapping her hands with their chipped black nail
polish. The alcohol on her breath came over me in short, warm waves. ‘Oh good
one. How about telling that counsellor of yours that Dave was coming onto you?
Calling him your boyfriend? What about that?’

I frowned,
thinking hard. Why
had
I said those things? I couldn’t remember.

Besides, it
wasn’t untrue anymore. David had acted just like my father, and probably every
other man on the whole planet except my Peter, who I’d given myself to
completely and willingly.

‘He did come
on to me,’ I said, looking her in the eyes. ‘He tried to rape me.’

The colour
drained from her face, her plump mouth hanging open. ‘You liar. When? Come on,
if it happened, then when?’

‘Earlier
today.’

‘Shut up!’ she
cried. In the kitchen, I heard a pause in dad’s movements. He was listening.

‘It’s true,’ I
whispered, eager to keep the conversation just between us. I saw the tears in
Lauren’s eyes, and the way her hands quivered and fumbled for one another under
her large cuffs, searching for comfort.

That
look
in her eyes grew darker, more fearful, but with an undercurrent of denial.
Their sparkle was still there, twinkling inside her tears. ‘You shut up. You
think you’re so special, don’t you? A real charity case, that’s all you are.’

I’d rumbled
her deep down, I could tell. I just wasn’t so sure why she was so willing to
believe me, if she despised me this much.
You think you’re so special
,
she’d said.

‘What’s
special about rape?’ I hissed, keeping my voice extra low so Dad couldn’t hear
us. ‘You tell me.’

‘He wouldn’t
do it. You’re horrible, you know that? And as for that thing you sent to my
house—’

‘What’s so
special about rape?’ I repeated, watching a tear tumble over the lip of her eye
and stream down one cheek. ‘Is that what he saves just for you, eh?’

‘No!’ She
snapped. ‘That’s disgusting.’

‘Is it really
so disgusting? I’ve got it, haven’t I? David was a weedy little bully all his
life, and now he gets off on bullying you. How did you get the guts to leave
him, Lauren? What with him making you feel so
special
it must have been
hard to break away.’

My small,
skeletal body rattled under the skin, but I made myself say those words. I
found my hand inching towards my breast plate, reaching for my heart, just
because a little part of it was beating in unison with hers. Perhaps we weren’t
so different. We were both
special girls
to someone.

But Lauren had
the power to break away, where I only had as much power as I could throw from
my wheelchair.

‘My dad
doesn’t think I should be messing around with someone who brings me trouble,
like you. He says I’m too good for David as well.’ She smoothed the hair back
from her face and let it hang stiffly over her shoulders, dry with bleach.

‘Then if you
agree with him, why are you here?’

She blinked.
‘Because I still love him. We love each other. You can’t just switch that off.
You know what? You’d better tell me where he is, because if he really was here
earlier than you’d know.’

He’s
upstairs in a plastic bag.

‘I’ve got no
idea. But if you want my advice, I wouldn’t go running after him. He’ll only
drag you down with him.’

Lauren stepped
down from the doorstep, her hair catching in the wind. ‘There’s something weird
about you. There’s something weird about the whole fucking bunch of you. Just
stay away from me, all right? Just stay away from my house.’

She huddled up
in her coat and made for the road, but I found myself screaming for her to come
back, mindless of my father who listened from the kitchen. She stopped, looking
back at me with her kohl–smudged eyes.

‘What?’ her
lips mouthed, though the wind carried her voice away.

I was pumped
with sudden adrenaline; felt suddenly, fiercely adamant that she couldn’t
escape and leave me all alone. I was afraid, like a woman trapped inside a
well, desperately peering at the single shard of light visible through the
cracks.

I didn’t know
what to say, or where to start. There was a corpse upstairs, and I was sure
that soon there’d be one in this chair, one way or another. I’d felt the
compulsion to escape before. But lately, now that I’d begun to accept my
relationship with my father as a partnership of sorts, that compulsion had died
and left a mute acceptance.

But now, with
hope just meters in front of me, like the last burst of adrenaline before the
body gives up its life, that compulsion awoke in me for one last shot.

My fingers
grasped the collar of my T–shirt and tugged, revealing my knobbly breast plate,
bruised and sore from all the knocks I’d taken. I pleaded with my eyes, hoping
she’d understand; just praying she’d get the message.

My father
mightn’t have caused these physical wounds, but that didn’t make them less
present inside. She could do something, surely,
anything
. We could be
like those victims on This Morning, reaching out to each other, telling each
other’s stories as if it were our own...

Her eyes
focused on my chapped lips as I mouthed the only words that came to mind.
Help
me.

They glazed
over, the moisture glistening under the street light, but I couldn’t be sure
she’d understood me. I mouthed the words again, and I saw that flash of light
in them once more. She dipped her head and hurried out of sight, leaving me
shivering in the doorway. There was a creaking sound as my father rose from his
chair in the kitchen.

In my mind a
collapsed lid creaked, prized open by the head of a shovel.

‘I thought you
were going to get rid of her quickly?’ Dad said behind me, placing an icy hand
on my shoulder. I gave the door a shove and let it slam closed, shutting out
the wind and all beyond it. If Peter’s shadow was still walking up that hill, I
couldn’t see it from here.

‘She’s gone
now,’ I said, my heart sinking, my eyes fixed on the closed front door. I
clawed at my bleached hair and shrugged his hand away.

They’re all
gone. Everybody is gone because of me.

‘Hey! Hey,’
said dad, coming around the front of my chair to look at me. He gripped the
arms and crouched down low. He smelled of coppery old blood shrouded in a guise
of disinfectant, and around his bitten–down nails I spied traces of the stuff
embedded between the cracks. ‘Don’t shrug me off. We’re in this together,
remember? She’s gone now. Now it’s just the two of us, the way it should be.’

I looked at
his pale, gaunt face and his sagging blue eyes. ‘I’m a murderer, aren’t I dad?’

He stroked my
cheek, bringing the unbearable smells closer to my nose. I winced and closed my
eyes, blocking it all out. In my mind the coffin lid creaked open again.

‘No, no,’ he
said, soothing, keeping his voice light and calm. ‘You just did what you had to
do. And now, like any good dad would do for his little girl, I’m tidying the
mess up for you. Hm? Doesn’t that make sense?’

It was
hopeless thinking otherwise. My last hope had just gone down the road in her
dead ex–boyfriend’s coat.

‘Yes,’ I said.
It
was
a little comforting, and true. I’d only done what any woman in my
position would do — defend herself any way she could. And besides, I’d read
about these situations all the time in my magazines; fathers always looked out
for their daughters. A maxed—out credit card, an unpaid loan, a bad
boyfriend...

Dad had always
treated me like his special little girl, and I’d always resented it. I supposed
it was inevitable that there would come a day, like today, when I’d need him to
help me. We were equals now, like he’d said; both adults, as well as father and
daughter. We were just two people living our lives now. It was everybody else
who spoiled it.

I waited in
the living room until dad had finished re–laying the flooring, and once he was
done he made me a brimming hot chocolate, which I left to stew on the coffee
table until it grew a slimy skin on top.

Around 1am, he
laid blankets and sheets on the sofa — I refused to sleep upstairs— and I lay
awake for hours while he sat in the armchair and watched me through the
darkness. He didn’t want to be upstairs either.

By 1:30am, the
Police were hammering on our door.

Bleary–eyed, I
leaned on an elbow and peered out into the hallway where dad was already
positioned, hanging out of the kitchen door, before ducking back inside when
the letterbox flapped open.

‘It’s the
police. Let us in or we’ll let ourselves in. Come on and cooperate.’ the
letterbox flapped closed and the hammering on the door continued. I could make
out two, maybe three high–vis jackets through the slim lengths of frosted
glass.

I swallowed a
burning shot of bile as it came up my throat. Who had called them here? Lauren?

Rapidly, I
recapped everything that had happened earlier. I told her David had been here,
and that he’d tried to rape me, and then I’d shown her my bruises.

Then I’d said,
help me
.

And so she’d
called the police. Suddenly I realised how stupid I’d been. She wasn’t
interested in what had happened between myself and my own father — she was
preoccupied with David. She thought he was still here, hiding, doing damage.

She
knew
he was still here, more like. But had she guessed that I wasn’t the only
damaged one?

Did she
suspect he’d been worse off? Perhaps she thought that my father, my
creepy
father, wouldn’t have let David leave the house if he’d known that he was going
to rape me.

And now the
police had that conclusion too. They had a missing person and I’d led them
right here — practically opened the door for them.

I knew there
was some part of me that wanted an escape, no matter what the cost; just like
three years ago when my haste had cost Peter his life. I’d needed a way out,
and now it was here in policemen’s uniforms.

But what use
was it? I’d wanted Lauren’s help, not theirs. I’d just wanted a friend.

None of it
seemed like a good idea now, escape or no. I couldn’t trust the police when I
couldn’t even trust myself.

‘Dad,’ I
hissed.

‘Sshh,’ he
said.

‘What are we
going to do?’

Dad crouched
down low, avoiding the light that fell through the frosted glass from the
orange street lamp outside. He crawled on his hands and knees towards me, and
flinched repeatedly as a policeman banged his fist against the door.

‘They must
suspect,’ he said. ‘It’s too late. We should’ve hidden the evidence. We
should’ve burned this place down.’

‘We can do
this, dad,
please
,’ I said, shaking all over, my feet still tangled in
the sheets. ‘Just go to the door and tell them...tell them...’

‘That my
little girl is a murderer?’

I sucked in a
sharp breath. ‘But you said—’

‘I know what I
said.’ Dad’s eyes narrowed and penetrated the darkness of the living room, the
whites of his eyes almost glowing. ‘And I also remember a time when you were
just my little girl, no trouble, no fuss—’

‘No
voice
.’
I hitched myself up and stared back at him. ‘I remember when I had a mother and
a father, not a runaway slut and a child molester.’