The Visitors(80)

‘No. I’m not in any trouble.’ My stomach contracts. ‘Why do you always assume the worst, Mother?’

‘Because you’ve been acting very oddly recently. You keep going out and… Are you going to see that girl next door?’ She spits out the words as if they’re responsible for a nasty taste in her mouth.

If I am, it’s nothing to do with her. I’ve let her control my life for far too long.

‘Your mother asked you where you’re going.’ Brian swaggers towards me as if he’s still a fit thirty-year-old builder instead of a fat mess. ‘You live off your mother like you’re still a ten-year-old, so you’ll be treated like one.’

As I turn to him, the air around me explodes into colours of the rainbow.

I register that Mother is wailing, but that’s fine. I am focused.

I grab Brian by the shoulders and push him as hard as I can. He slips on the kitchen tiles in his sock feet and keels over like a great hog. His head smashes into the wall and I watch, fascinated, as his cracked skull leaves a trail of red down the paintwork.

He doesn’t move. His coarse dirty mouth stays closed and silent. But Mother is screeching in the background like Maria Callas.

I don’t look at her. I just say, ‘I’ll be back soon.’

I step outside into the cool, cleansing air and close the door behind me.

I might be acting fairly calm but my heart is racing and I feel a bit nauseous. But Holly needs my help.

I walk up the side path between the two houses and look directly up at her room. She has the wrong idea about me, thinking I can help her.

I feel disingenuous. Pretending to be something I’m not.

I knock, and Holly comes to the door.

‘Thanks for popping over, David,’ she says, her face pale.

‘Who is it, dear?’ I hear Mrs Barrett call.

Holly rolls her eyes and speaks in a low voice. ‘She’s been a bit confused today. I need to talk to you, in private. Shall we go for a walk or something?’

My chest suddenly feels tight. Perhaps the incident with Brian has unnerved me more than I thought.

‘It’s quite cool out here, and there are a lot of people out and about, so…’

She nods slowly. ‘OK, well you’d better come upstairs then.’

‘Upstairs?’

‘We can’t talk down here. Cora will be interrupting us every few seconds.’ She hesitates and her eyes glisten. ‘And I really need to speak to you, David.’

‘Fine.’ I step inside. ‘Lead the way.’

En route, I pop my head round the living room door.

‘Hello, Mrs Barrett.’

‘David! Come in, sit down, dear. I wanted to ask you if—’

‘David is just going up to measure my room for some shelves, Cora,’ Holly says kindly. ‘We’ll be down soon and then you two can chat.’

Mrs Barrett begins to object, but Holly pulls my arm and guides me towards the stairs.





Chapter Sixty-Five





David





In Holly’s bedroom, the heat channels up the middle of my body and into my face and neck with a vengeance.

‘I’m sorry,’ she says, noticing my high colour. ‘The last thing I want is to make you feel uncomfortable.’

‘It’s fine,’ I say quickly. ‘What seems to be the problem?’

She walks into the room and snatches something up from her bedside table.

‘This.’ She holds up a white envelope. ‘This is the problem, David.’

She hands me the envelope. On the front, written in neat block capitals and underlined, is her name: HOLLY NEWMAN.

I turn it over and look at the unsealed flap.

‘Go ahead,’ she says. ‘Open it.’

I slip out a single sheet of folded paper.

‘Read it out loud,’ Holly directs. She sits on the bed and fixes her gaze on me.

I clear my throat.

‘“I am watching you. And when you least expect it, I will come for you.”’

The words aren’t particularly threatening or violent in themselves, but together they add up to something more. A very sinister intention.

I read through the message silently again. Something about it sounds familiar, and I push thoughts of Mr Brown from my mind.

Silence descends on the room for a few moments, and then a rushing noise starts in my ears. Holly shifts and a bed spring creaks, and the sounds inside my head fade.

I turn over the paper to check that it’s blank on the other side. ‘Do you know who sent this?’

‘No,’ she says. ‘But I’ve got a good idea. There’s someone in Manchester who hates me. She’d do anything to hurt me. I think… I think she might even send someone after me.’

I look at her tense face. ‘Is this the first note you’ve had?’

She sighs. ‘Yes, but I think someone was in the garden the other night. I woke up because there was a strange noise. I looked out of the window and there was a man… I think it was a man. Standing at the bottom of the garden, staring up here.’

The CCTV image of Brian at the bottom of our garden, staring towards the houses, flashes into my mind, and I shiver.

Holly’s narrow chest rises and falls like a small, dazed bird that has flown into glass and is trying to recover before next door’s cat comes along. She looks very afraid, vulnerable. Just like Della did.