The Dare, page 22
But Catherine is just standing there, arms folded.
‘For God’s sake, Catherine. Can’t you see what’s happening? I need to get to hospital. I need your help.’
An expression of distaste slides across her face. Then, in a sudden but entirely controlled movement, she walks over to the window and closes the curtains. ‘Sometimes these things are meant to be,’ she says. ‘They’re nature’s way of telling you that something’s wrong.’
‘What are you talking about? I’m four and a half months pregnant. I need to get to a hospital. What’s wrong with you? Where’s the fucking phone?’
My whole body is shaking. ‘Please, Catherine. You’ve got to help me. I’m high-risk, you know I am. This shouldn’t be happening.’
I feel dizzy and weak, so I sit down again. I need to keep calm and still. I need to rest. I need to be in a hospital!
She nods, slowly. ‘Yes, you’re quite right.’
My hopes soar. She isn’t a monster, after all. She’s going to help me. She has to help me.
‘It shouldn’t be happening,’ she says. There’s a glassy indifference in her eyes that scares me. ‘You should never have got pregnant in the first place.’ Her face hardens. ‘And neither should your mother. If Ross had done the job properly, you wouldn’t even be here.’
My heart is racing so fast it hurts. I cross the palms of my hands on to my chest and press them down. Once again, my mind struggles to make sense of her words. ‘What do you mean? What are you saying?’
‘He was meant to push her harder, to send her flying, but the little fool messed it up.’ She sneers. ‘I should have done it myself.’
It takes several seconds for her words to sink in. When they do, a wave of revulsion almost knocks me back. ‘You mean … You mean Ross was the child my mum tripped over? You mean that was deliberate?’
She nods. ‘I dared him to do it, and he did. Now you’re going to lose your baby and I’m going to watch it happen.’
Sweat pours from my head. I was wrong. She is a monster. They both are.
My brain is a jumble of thoughts that slowly start to arrange themselves. So Ross was one of the ‘noisy urchins’ my dad used to complain about. My parents were an older, childless couple when they lived on Riley Road. No wonder they were irritated by all the kids on the estate. Mum and Sheena’s friendship was already on its last legs when Mum tried to talk to her about Catherine’s feral behaviour. Meanwhile, Sheena was getting close to the woman next door. Ross’s Aunt Jessie. So when she found out about Mum and Mick, I can only imagine what the fallout was like and the sort of things the young Catherine and Ross might have heard.
Catherine leans over me. ‘I only ever wanted the truth about how Alice died. And then I wanted Ross to break your heart in two, like you broke mine. And my mum’s.’ She points to the beads of blood soaking into the carpet between my feet. ‘All this is a bonus,’ she says. ‘You might have Ross, but you’re not going to have this baby. Soon you’ll know what it’s like to lose someone precious. Not that it’ll come anywhere near the pain you’ve caused me. I had thirteen years with Alice.’
I want to punch her in the face. I want to pull her hair out and claw at her eyes, but that tearing sensation is back. I double over in pain.
‘Call a fucking ambulance!’ I scream, but she just laughs. A vile, hateful laugh.
‘You think that little twinge is bad. You wait till the big ones start rolling in.’
Oh dear God. She’s unhinged. She must be. Something Mum said comes back to me. She said Sheena was always blowing hot and cold and that it wasn’t her fault – she was ill. What if she was ill long before Mum betrayed her? What if her demons came from something a lot more serious than heartbreak? The betrayal would have been devastating, of course it would, but surely her depression wouldn’t have lasted all those years? Did she have some kind of personality disorder, too?
Does Catherine suffer from the same thing? My brain frantically searches for the right words to reason with her. The words that will make her help me.
‘But this is Ross’s baby, too,’ I say. ‘You might hate me, but you love him, don’t you?’
‘He’s made his choice,’ she says. ‘And it wasn’t me.’ Her voice almost breaks. Is this the chink in her armour?
Her shoulders slump. All that righteous anger she’s been holding in her body, all that venom, has drained away as if a valve has been opened. She wrings her hands and sways backwards and forwards on the balls of her feet.
‘But you said he only wants me because of the baby. It’s you he loves, Catherine. You he’s always loved. He’s just doing what he thinks is the right thing.’
She gives me a suspicious look. ‘You’re just saying that because you want me to help you.’ She laughs through her nose. A dismissive exhalation. ‘Believe me, it’ll be better for everyone if you lose this baby. You’re not fit to be a mother. No child would be safe with you. You’ve said as much yourself.’
I blink back the tears. She knows my deepest fears, because I, like the trusting fool I was, shared them with her. All the advice she gave me, the encouragement. It was all just more of her bullshit.
Well, two can play at that game.
‘Ross doesn’t love me,’ I say. ‘I’ve always known that, deep down. I always knew he was out of my league. In normal circumstances, he’d never have looked twice at someone like me. Don’t you think I know that? I’ve seen the way he looks at you.’
A faint smile plays on her lips. She likes what she’s hearing. She’s a narcissist.
‘He kept making excuses for not making love to me. Saying he was too tired. That he wasn’t in the mood. It’s a miracle I got pregnant at all.’
‘You can hardly blame him for that, can you?’ she says.
I shake my head, sadly. ‘No, I can’t. Not when he had someone like you. You’re so …’ I clench my toes. ‘You’re so lovely. I bet he wishes this was your baby. Yours and his.’ The words stick in my throat, but I force them out. To my ears, they sound flimsy and fake, but I have to try. ‘He called out for you sometimes, when he was sleeping.’
The lie hangs between us and, for a second, I wonder if I’ve gone too far. She holds my gaze. Her expression doesn’t change, but the quality of the silence does. Emboldened, I carry on.
‘You’re my sister, Catherine. My flesh and blood.’
She bristles at the words. That was a mistake. I shouldn’t have said that. I quickly change tack. ‘Ross’s baby is part of you, too. This baby will be your niece.’
There’s a pause. Something unreadable flickers in her eyes.
‘I’m so sorry Alice died,’ I say. ‘And you’re right. I was jealous of her. Because she was everything I knew I’d never be. Just like you’re everything I can never be. And I was shouting at her that day. But I didn’t push her, Catherine. I didn’t push her under that train. I promise you. I had a seizure, and when I woke up … when I woke up, she was gone.’
Catherine’s eyes are wet with tears, only this time, I’m pretty sure they’re the real thing. I’ve only one card left to play.
‘This baby is part of Alice, too.’
Her forehead pleats into a frown. She looks troubled by this.
Another drop of blood rolls down my inner thigh. ‘Please, Catherine, I’m begging you. Help me save her.’
She contemplates me through narrowed eyes. ‘I’ve never thought of you as family,’ she says. ‘I never wanted to acknowledge your existence. I blamed you for everything. You and your mother.’
It’s on the tip of my tongue to ask her why she never blamed her father, but I stop myself just in time. I don’t want to aggravate her, not now I’ve come this far. She’s wavering and I don’t want to give her any reason to turn on me again.
‘I wonder what Alice would say, if she were here now?’
She looks up, sharply, as if she’s never considered this before. Something in the atmosphere has shifted.
I need to choose my words carefully. My baby’s life may depend upon them. Mine, too. I think of the bible I found in her room. The one she’s kept all these years. The inscription on the inside cover. It’s worth a try, isn’t it?
‘And what about your Nanny Dot? She’d want you to help me, Catherine. I know she would. She’d want you to save this baby.’ My voice falters. ‘Save your niece.’
She blinks, uncertainty in her eyes. I watch her throat move as she swallows, see the frown give way to something unexpectedly tender. Then the tenderness turns to panic and suddenly she’s reaching for my wrist and checking my pulse. She’s helping me to my feet. Terror and relief collide in my head like two opposing currents. She might be deranged, but she’s a trained nurse, and right now I need her.
A car door slams outside. I hear feet running up the path to the front door. A key turning in the lock.
‘Lizzie? Lizzie, where are you?’
It’s Ross! I thought he’d be 30,000 feet in the air by now, but he’s here, in the house. He bursts into the room, breathless and agitated. He stops dead in his tracks. His face pales as he takes in the blood dripping slowly on to my feet and into the carpet, Catherine still clutching my wrists.
His fists clench at his sides. I’ve never seen him like this. He is livid. White with rage.
‘What have you done to her?’
‘It’s okay, Ross,’ I say, flashing him a warning look. ‘She’s helping me. She’s taking me to hospital.’
But he isn’t looking at me. He isn’t listening. He strides across the room and yanks Catherine’s hands from my arms. He grabs hold of her by the shoulders and pushes her against the wall, pins her there, his arms outstretched, the muscles taut through the sleeves of his shirt.
‘Ross, what are you doing? We need to go to hospital. Just drive me there now and we can sort this out later.’
‘Get in the car, Lizzie,’ he snaps. ‘Get in the car and we’ll go.’
But he’s still pressing her shoulder blades flat against the wall, his face barely inches from hers. Now his hands are round her neck.
‘I can’t do this any more, do you hear me? I’ve had enough of all these stupid mind games. You can’t control me any more.’
His fingers tighten round her neck. Her eyes widen like a startled deer’s. She tries to push him away, to claw at his hands, but he’s too strong for her. She can’t get away from him. The muscles on his arms bulge as he gouges his thumbs into the cavity between her collarbones. Her eyes are wild and unfocussed as she struggles to escape.
I pull at his arms, try to wrench them off her, but it’s hopeless. He’s like a man possessed. I grab handfuls of his hair and tug as hard as I can. It’s the only thing I can do.
‘Ross! No! Stop it! Stop it now! She’s my sister, for Christ’s sake. She’s ill. She needs help.’
All this time, I’ve thought of myself as vulnerable. Not a victim of my epilepsy – never that – more tormented by it. But Catherine is tormented by something far, far worse. I see that now.
At last, he releases his grip on her neck, and she gasps for breath. I stagger backwards, then sink to my knees, blood pounding in my ears. If I had any strength left in my legs I’d run, screaming, into the street. But I’m weak and woozy. I’m going to faint.
I watch through partially closed eyelids as he cradles her face with his hands and kisses her on the mouth, caresses her neck where he’s hurt her. What in God’s name …? Is he really doing this? Is he really doing this now, while I’m bleeding on the carpet, about to lose our baby? Jesus Christ. He’s as twisted and evil as she is. He tried to hurt my mother. He tried to kill me while I was still in the womb!
But he isn’t kissing her any more. He’s sobbing. Sobbing like a little boy. I’ve never seen a man cry before. Not like this. His whole body is heaving and shaking. Catherine looks over his shoulder at me, her face triumphant. Bile rises at the back of my throat.
Then Catherine’s face changes. His hands are round her neck again, and this time I know he won’t stop. Oh God, no. Please no.
I scramble to get up off the floor, but it’s no use. My brain is closing down, like a blind being pulled against the light. Hot tears stream down my face. I’m dissolving into nothingness.
The last thing I see is Catherine sliding down the wall and crumpling on to the floor like a rag doll.
55
I come round in the car, dizzy and bewildered. I’m strapped into the back seat, wrapped in a large bath towel. I don’t have any shoes on and there are blood stains on my feet. My knickers are wet and there’s a dull ache in my pelvis. A heavy weight pressing me down into the seat.
I shut my eyes against the sun. Dreadful images swirl in the blackness. Catherine’s startled eyes. Thumbs gouging into a neck.
I jolt forwards, then slump back.
Ross sees me in the rear-view mirror. ‘Don’t panic, darling. We’re almost there,’ he says. ‘You fainted.’
Our eyes meet in the glass. He’s just strangled someone to death before my eyes. Ross has just killed Catherine.
I’m numb with shock.
When we arrive at A & E, Ross carries me through the entrance. He speaks to the person on reception.
I keep opening my mouth to tell them what’s happened, but the words won’t form. I’m like a fish, drowning in air. I feel detached from reality, as if I’m floating above myself, watching the action unfold from afar. It’s all happening to someone else, not me. Everyone’s voices sound distant and muffled, as if my ears are blocked, as if the walls and floors of the hospital are made of cotton wool.
I’m taken straight through to the triage nurse and, from there, into a cubicle, where Ross lays me gently on a bed and covers me with a blanket. He hovers over me. The picture of love and concern. The doting fiancé who arrived in the nick of time. And I hover over the two of us: a watchful, disembodied presence, unable to break through.
The nurse asks me questions and, somehow, I manage to answer him: hoarse, monosyllabic responses confirming my name and age, my dates. My voice belongs to someone else. It’s the voice of a robot.
I think of Catherine, still crumpled, lifeless, on the living-room floor, the bruises from Ross’s fingertips a purple choker at her neck. I’d talked her round. It was going to be all right. She’d have got the help she needed. He didn’t have to do it.
He didn’t have to do it.
An obstetrician checks me over. She is kind and efficient and my eyes will her to see all the words I can’t say, but I’m not getting through to her because Ross is doing all the talking for me. Now I’m having my bloods taken. I’m being wheeled away for a scan. I’m being taken to the ante-natal ward.
Someone brings me a cup of tea and some biscuits. Ross strokes my hair with the same hands he used to strangle Catherine, and still I can’t speak. He kisses my forehead and whispers apologies in my ear and tells me he is free at last and that he’s never felt happier and more hopeful in his entire life and that, between us, we’ll get through this. He will sort things out, he says, as calmly as if he is telling me what he intends to cook us for dinner. I just need to trust him, he says.
Trust him. Oh my God. The enormity of what he’s done crashes about in my head. Who is this man? Do I know him at all?
At last, when the curtains are drawn around us and we are left on our own, a sentence begins to form in my mouth. ‘But what—’
He puts his forefinger to his lips and tells me to hush. Then he holds my hands in his and starts to speak. His hands are warm and dry. His voice is controlled and calm. It’s the sort of voice a doctor might use with his patients. Ross is a doctor. Authoritative, but gentle. No hint of unnecessary emotion.
‘She’s the most vindictive person you can imagine,’ he says.
All I can do is blink at him. Why is he talking about her in the present tense when he knows she’s dead? I moisten my lips. He must think I’m going to say something, because he puts his forefinger on my lips now, pressing them gently shut.
‘She’d never have let me go. Never. She’d have ruined everything, don’t you see? She’d have accused me of inappropriate behaviour at work. Or worse. Much worse. She’s threatened to do it before. She’d have said I raped her. And they’d have believed her, wouldn’t they? Because that’s what she’s like. She’ll convince anyone of anything. It’s what she does. She’s controlled me from the start. Made me do things …’
He releases my hands and rakes his hair with his fingers. It’s the first sign that he’s in any way perturbed by what’s happened. I think of him sobbing on to her neck, then gripping it with his fingers, squeezing the life out of her. My pulse begins to race.
‘I’d have been suspended at first. Then I’d have been arrested and it would have gone to trial and I’d have been sent to prison. I’d never have been able to practise as a GP again.’
What in God’s name is the matter with him? Doesn’t he realize that all these things are going to happen anyway? He’s just killed a woman in cold blood.
I nod, as if what he’s saying makes perfect sense. As if I understand and am on his side. It’s quite clear from what he’s saying that his overriding concern in all of this is himself. I listen to him speak, listen to his insane justification for murder, and I don’t interrupt him any more, because, really, what’s the point? He’s as sick as she is. As she was.
Finally, he gets ready to leave. He’s reluctant to go, but he has no choice in the matter. Visiting hours are over and the nurse is adamant that I need to rest. Besides, as Ross himself says when she goes away, there are certain things at home that he needs to ‘sort out’. We look at each other for the longest time when he says this. I don’t respond, but I make a small movement with my mouth. Not quite a smile, but it’s enough to reassure him.
The phrase and its implications chill me. All he’s thinking about are the practicalities of the situation. He really does think he can ‘sort this out’. As if Catherine’s dead body is merely a problem to be solved. What does he think he’s going to do with her?
