My Sister's Bones(82)

‘She’s sorry, Hannah,’ he repeats my words mockingly. ‘Did you hear that? Mummy’s sorry. Isn’t that nice?’

Hannah cowers as he speaks and I want to comfort her but the knife held firmly to her throat keeps me back.

‘And then one night we crossed the line, didn’t we, sweetheart?’ He prods Hannah in the side. ‘Didn’t we? Shall we tell your lovely mother where you seduced me?’

Hannah keeps her head down but I can see that she’s crying; her shoulders are shaking. I can’t bear this.

‘Gone shy, have we?’ he says, putting his face into hers. ‘Okay then, I’ll tell her.’

I hate this man more than I have ever hated any human being in my life. He’s a monster and I let him into our home. How could I have been so stupid?

I put my hands over my ears and start humming in an attempt to drown out his voice but he sees me and jumps up, dragging Hannah across the floor towards me.

‘Take your f*cking hands off your ears or I’ll kill her,’ he snarls. ‘You’re going to listen to what I have to tell you, okay? Try to cover your ears one more time and I swear I’ll kill her, slowly, right here under your nose. Understand?’

‘Yes,’ I whisper. ‘I understand.’

‘Right,’ he says, returning to his spot by the wall. ‘Where was I? Oh, yeah, that was it. Summer 2009. She had just turned sixteen. Sweet sixteen. Been flirting with me for months, hadn’t you?’

He yanks at the end of Hannah’s hair.

‘I said hadn’t you?’

She whimpers and nods her head.

‘You’d been having a go at her about trying to find her dad,’ he says. ‘Night after night I came home to the sound of your screaming and yelling. Like a bloody fishwife you were, never letting up. And then there was that incident with the watch. That was it for poor Hannah; the final straw.’

A chill runs through my body.

‘Thought you’d kept that secret, didn’t you?’ he says, shaking his head. ‘Thought I wouldn’t find out that you’d attacked your own daughter. But Hannah told me about it when I came home that night. She told me how you’d gone at her like a mad woman and broken her watch. She was shaking like a leaf. You’d really scared the poor girl. But, see, it was a pivotal moment, Sal. It was the moment I found out just how dangerous you could be.’

‘Dangerous?’ I stutter. ‘I . . . I’m not dangerous. Hannah knows that.’

‘Hannah was f*cking terrified of you,’ he shouts. ‘And so was I. When she told me about that watch I knew I’d have to step up to the plate; be a responsible adult. That’s when I started making plans to get Hannah out.’

‘Responsible adult?’ I yell. ‘You’re a psychopath.’

He nods his head, an evil smile creeping across his face.

‘Takes one to know one,’ he says. ‘I tell you what, Sally, you were a lousy wife but you were an even lousier mother.’

‘I just wanted her to be happy,’ I say, my voice catching in my throat. ‘I didn’t want her to get her heart broken. I wanted her to get out and have a better life than me.’

‘Well, that wouldn’t be hard, would it?’ he says, his eyes boring into me.

My heart hurts because he still looks the same: he’s still Paul, the kind man I fell in love with, but it’s like he’s been possessed.

‘It wouldn’t be hard to do better than you,’ he says, his voice thick with bitterness. ‘I mean, the girl didn’t really have much in the way of a role model, did she? A drunken lush and a dotty old woman.’

‘She had her aunt Kate,’ I reply. ‘She got out. Hannah could have too.’

‘Oh yes, Kate,’ he says, shaking his head. ‘I wondered when we’d get back to her. Kate got out of this shit-hole town because she couldn’t stand you. That’s why she never came home. You think she wanted all her posh London friends to know about you, her drunken mess of a sister? You were an embarrassment. She told me herself . . . just after I f*cked her.’

‘What?’ I gasp. ‘No. You’re a liar.’

But then I remember what he told me about the night Kate broke into the neighbours’ shed. He was with her.

‘Shut up,’ he says, snaking his arm round Hannah’s throat. ‘I don’t want to talk about your dead whore of a sister. That was easy. No, I want you to hear how your daughter enticed me into her bed.’

He twists the knife in his hands. It is so close to her throat that any slip could end it all. I will him to keep it still but he carries on twisting it back and forth, back and forth. I can’t stand it.

‘You were out,’ he says. ‘God knows where, probably on another bender. I got home from work, tired and hungry, but there was no food in the house. I went upstairs and there she was, slinking around the bedroom in her underwear. And I stood in the doorway and looked at her and I thought, “Here’s what I’ve been waiting for, here’s my reward and she’s handing it to me on a plate.” I deserved it, after suffering for years, having to carry you home from stinking pubs, having to clean you up, having to smell your rancid booze breath in my face, having to f*ck your flabby body. So I went inside and I took her hand and I pressed her up against the wall.’