How to Kill Men and Get Away With It(69)

As agreed with the hospital, I also have twice-weekly therapy sessions. My therapist is a guy called Peter who was recommended to me by Tor’s mum. I guess Tor is keeping Dr Paul very much to herself. He’s what Hen would call a DILF, which make the hourlong sessions slightly more bearable. We talk a lot about my childhood and my dad. Peter seems to think I’m suffering from a deep-set trauma from all the stuff I saw as a kid.

‘It’s not healthy to see that much death at such a young age,’ he tells me during one session. ‘It can desensitise you. I would say your recent breakdown is a repressed reaction to what you witnessed as a child.’ I would say my recent breakdown is probably more to do with accidentally murdering an innocent man and leaving him bleeding to death when I could have saved him. But what do I know?

As I open up more to Peter, I find myself opening up to Charlie too. I tell him about my parents’ twisted relationship and how I don’t miss my father.

‘I don’t grieve for him,’ I say one night as we’re sat on the floor eating Japanese takeaway. (NB: I’ve put back all the weight I lost during my ‘episode’.)

‘Well, you don’t know if he’s dead,’ Charlie says between mouthfuls of food. ‘You’re in a kind of limbo in that respect. No wonder things are so tough for you.’

I cringe at my blunder. ‘Yeah, but there’s still a grieving process to go through when someone leaves your life. Dead or missing or just leave you.’

Charlie puts his arms around me. ‘I know. I kind of feel the same way about my old man. And he’s not missing or dead.’

‘You don’t miss him?’ I ask, surprised. Since his depression confession, Charlie hasn’t spoken much about his family.

He shrugs. ‘Sometimes. It’s hard because Harry still has a relationship with him. But I don’t want someone in my life who can’t support me. What’s that meme? If you can’t handle me at my worst, you don’t deserve me at my best.’ He pretends to flick his hair. ‘None of us are perfect, Kits, we’re all human, trying to do our best at life. But we all make mistakes too. We need to learn to forgive ourselves for those mistakes. We’re our own worst judge and jury.’

He smiles that dimply-smile and I wonder if I can tell him about Ruben. A huge, devastating mistake, but a mistake, nonetheless.

I think I’ll keep that to myself for now.

As I watch him, eating and talking, I realise that this is it.

This is my person.

And I will do anything to keep it that way. That means no more killing. It stops now. If I can make such a massive mistake once, I could do it again. I don’t even know if I’m in the clear yet.





59


KITTY’S APARTMENT, CHELSEA

The inevitable knock comes a few days after Charlie brought me home. I’m wrapped up on the sofa in my favourite blanket, watching a show about a serial killer in the Seventies.

‘Are we expecting anyone?’ Charlie asks and I feel a little frisson of pleasure buzz through me at the word ‘we’. I’m no longer just me. I belong to someone. Well, you know, in the most feminist sense of the word.

‘Not that I know of,’ I say.

We look at each other puzzled for a few seconds, thinking the same thing. No one just drops round anymore, do they? The knock comes again, and it makes us both jump.

‘I’ll go.’ Charlie lifts my feet from his lap where they’ve been resting, tucking them under the blanket, before heading towards the door. I can feel my hands trembling as the muffled sound of voices echoes down the hall.

Then they’re there. Two of them. Not uniformed. A woman and a man. The woman must be around my age. She’s pretty and I wonder why she’s a police officer when there are a hundred other less traumatising things she’d be able to do with her looks. The man is in his thirties, nondescript. I can already tell from their body language that he is in love with her, despite the gold band on his finger. I may be on a cocktail of drugs that make my head feel swimmy, but I can still spot these things. I wonder if they’re actually fucking. Or if it’s an unrequited love. That’s the tipping point, isn’t it? We’ve all got the potential to do very bad things; it’s whether we can control those urges that make us what we are. Would he cheat on his partner? Christ, I’m high.

Charlie’s chatting away as he leads them through to me. He’s talking too fast and it’s making me agitated.

‘Kits, these guys want to talk to you about the night Ruben Reynolds was killed. Are you up to it? I’ve told them you’ve not been well and have been in hospital. I don’t know, maybe they could come back later—’

‘No,’ the woman says, cutting him off. ‘We’d rather get it done now. It’s just some questions. I’m sure Miss Collins can cope.’ She smiles at me. It reaches her eyes and I can see exactly how she gets people to trust her. It’s something I do myself.

‘Sure, it’s fine. Please sit down.’

The officers sit on the other sofa. There’s an awkward moment as someone on screen is violently hacked to death. The noise of an axe ripping through flesh fills the room. I scrabble to find the remote and turn it off. I give the lady officer a winning smile of my own.

‘Sorry about that. Just been catching up on some TV. Would you like a drink? Tea? Coffee?’