Cross Her Heart(88)

‘You remember what I made you remember. Gullible Charlotte. Always a victim. You were so out of it. You think I was too, but I wasn’t. I’ve never liked being out of control. Anyone can do anything to you when you’re out of control, Charlotte.’

‘No,’ I mutter. ‘I killed him. I know I did. There were all those thoughts in my head …’

‘I was the voice in your head, Charlotte. Those words were mine. You put your hands on his throat for barely a second before laughing it off as a joke even though we’d sworn to do it, and you’d brought him along. You were all We didn’t mean it, did we Katie? He’s only a bairn. We can’t really kill anyone. Can you imagine how you made me feel? You were weak. But it wasn’t what was best for you. It wasn’t what was best for us. I forgave you, Charlotte, but I had to put it right. We had a plan. We’d made a deal.’

She’s pacing now, the memory or whatever this is either irritating or enlivening her, I can’t decide which. I don’t care much either. I can barely think straight with what she’s saying. My whole life is unravelling and somehow it terrifies me.

‘You changed your mind and I played along until you were out of it,’ she continues. ‘I pretended to pass out while you were still aware of what was around you, and then as you slumped into your stupor, when I knew you couldn’t tell real from false, I was the voice in your head. Prompting, cajoling. But still, you wouldn’t do it. You chose him over me. Do you know how much that hurt? How much pride I had to swallow to overlook it? After everything you’d said, everything we’d planned, and suddenly you didn’t want to go through with it?’

She stares at me. Mad. Quite, quite mad. ‘I knew you couldn’t mean it.’ She shrugs. ‘So I did it for you. He was sleepy and scared. He didn’t like the drink. He was worried about you. It was easy to get him to come to me. And that was that. Afterwards, I squeezed your hands around his throat again, and then I picked up the brick and made sure it was done. I whispered some more into your ear, planted all those seeds of what you’d done, made sure you’d gripped the brick hard enough to leave marks, and then faked being asleep until you woke up.’

All the threads of who I am, unravelling. I didn’t kill Daniel. Can it be true? Can I dare to think it? Is this just some drunken, drugged-up hallucination? Am I more out of it than I realise?

‘And after all that,’ she snarls through gritted teeth, ‘you still let me down.’

I didn’t kill Daniel. I didn’t. I don’t know how to process this. I don’t know if I can.

‘Let Ava go,’ I say. ‘You don’t need her.’

‘Ah, but I do!’ Her face lights up again and my stomach sinks. What game now, Katie, you crazy cunt? What have you planned now?

‘You’re going to do it again, Charlotte.’ She smiles at me as she grabs my hair and tips another slug of vodka into me. ‘Just like before. Poor Charlotte Nevill, cracked and killed her ex then killed her daughter exactly as she did her little brother all those years ago. It’ll be Broadmoor for you, forever. You can say whatever you like about me, no one will believe you. Katie Batten is dead. You’re the crazed child-killer. I think it’s the justice you deserve for what you did to me, don’t you? Left me with my mother. All those fucking years.’

My eyes are blurring now and the world spins and it panics me. I may be used to the pills, but my alcohol tolerance is non-existent. I can’t pass out. I can’t.

‘And you know the best bit?’ she whispers. ‘Ava’s pregnant. And you do, after all, owe me a mother. I get to kill two birds with one stone.’

My eyes close and my mouth drops open slightly. ‘Are you still with me, Charlotte?’ she asks. ‘You go to sleep if you need to. I can take it from here. It’s time to get started. We’re going to need your fingerprints on her neck, of course. The devil is in the detail.’ She digs a key out of her pocket and starts to unlock one of my cuffs.

I didn’t kill Daniel. I didn’t kill Daniel. Slowly, slowly the truth of it is sinking in. My whole sorry life has been wrapped around a lie. Oh yes, Katie, I think, as my anger tightens into a ball of fire in my gut, but I force myself to go limp. It’s time to get started.





77


MARILYN

Think, think, think. I’m running from room to room, looking for anything I may have missed. I find what looks like a trapdoor in the hallway floor, but there’s no leverage for opening it and it feels solid under my feet. Does it lead to the secret room? Is it part of another trick? How the fuck am I supposed to open it? I try every light switch to see if one of those is a hidden lever, but nothing happens. No electricity. No lights, no opening door.

It opens from the inside, is the only conclusion I can draw. This isn’t the way down. I try the cellar again, but that’s too obvious. Time is ticking away. Lisa and Ava’s time. Maybe they’re dead already. I don’t entertain the thought. I don’t think it’s true, just my panicking mind leading me to the darkest of places. If they were dead, Katie would be out of here, cleaning the place up and gone. And if they were dead, she’d want their bodies found. Displayed. She’s set a stage and this is the big performance. She’s an illusionist of a different, deadlier kind than her grandfather, but this is a set piece all the same. She wouldn’t want them somewhere hard to find. She wants the world to see whatever fucked-up shit she has planned.