The Visitors(81)

I wonder if she wishes I could protect her somehow. Perhaps she’d like us to be more than friends.

‘David… are you feeling OK?’

‘I think I might have killed Brian,’ I tell her.

She laughs without mirth. ‘This is no time for jokes. I’m scared that someone is watching me.’

‘I have a good view of your garden from my bedroom window,’ I say faintly, thinking about Brian’s blood running down the kitchen wall. ‘I could keep an eye on things if you wanted me to.’

‘But what if someone comes in the middle of the night again?’ Her breath catches in her throat and she coughs. ‘You can’t help me then, can you?’

I can’t tell her about my monitoring equipment, the cameras. Without a lengthy explanation, it could make me look a little odd.

‘I don’t mind getting up a few times during the night for the next couple of days,’ I tell her. ‘To make sure nobody is out there messing about, I mean.’

‘Would you honestly do that for me?’ She shakes her head slightly as if she can’t believe my offer. It makes me wonder how much actual kindness she’s had in her life.

‘It’s no trouble.’

She makes me feel strong, capable.

‘Thank you, David.’ She stands up and walks over to me, taking the letter and brushing my hand as she does so. ‘I really am grateful. With you around I don’t feel nearly so alone.’

I feel a rushing sensation in my chest, like someone just opened the floodgates to a great backlog of pent-up emotion.

I grasp her hand and squeeze but I don’t say anything. There seems to be no need for words. There’s a sort of knowing between us.

Holly squeezes my hand back, then begins to retract, but I hold onto her fingers. I don’t want to let go of this feeling.

‘David,’ she says softly. ‘We’d better go downstairs. Cora will be waiting.’

I come to my senses and release her hand.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I didn’t mean to…’

‘It’s fine.’ She smiles. ‘Honestly, it is.’

I feel hot all over. I wipe both hands on the sides of my trousers.

Holly clears her throat. ‘What will you do? I mean, if you catch someone in the garden?’

I think for a moment and realise I don’t know what I’ll do.

‘I’ll ring the police,’ I say.

‘The police?’

A trickle of sweat runs down from my temple. I wipe it away quickly, but I think she sees it anyway. I’d better not ring the police.

‘I’ll chase him away,’ I say.

‘I thought you didn’t like going outside after dark?’

I stare at her.

‘David?’ I focus again and see that Holly is looking at me with concern. ‘I’m not sure you’re feeling quite yourself. You look… confused.’

Who’s been telling her things… embarrassing things?

‘Are you coming down soon?’

As soon as I hear Mrs Barrett’s voice call up, I know it’s her. She’s been blabbing about what happened to me in the past.

The anger backs up in my throat but I swallow it down. If I let it out, it might never stop.

I must start taking my tablets again tomorrow. The world is too dark a place without them.





Chapter Sixty-Six





Holly





Thinking back to Manchester, to waking up feeling so ill, Holly couldn’t begin to hazard a guess at how long she’d been in the bedroom.

She’d been too ill to question what had happened or to think logically about the situation.

‘You got drunk and acted like a slut,’ Geraldine had told her repeatedly. ‘Brendan is a hot-blooded man, not a saint. I went to bed early and you threw yourself at him, wouldn’t take no for an answer. He told me you threatened to tell me he’d raped you.’

‘I’m sorry… I can’t remember.’ Holly had hated herself, had shaken her head and repeated the same line again and again.

And then Geraldine had suggested she carry out a pregnancy test.

When the blue line appeared, Holly couldn’t believe that Geraldine didn’t throw her out of the house.

‘We’ll help you look after the child,’ she had said. ‘And when you’re completely well, we’ll set you up in your own place.’

There was a doctor who came to the house several times a week. One day, Holly peered through the crack in her door to see Brendan paying him in cash before he left the house.

When Brendan was home, Holly now stayed upstairs. Geraldine seemed to be interacting with her husband perfectly normally.

One day, she’d crept onto the landing and listened to them talking at the bottom of the stairs.

‘Why has it taken her so long to recover?’ Geraldine had hissed.

‘The doctor said some people have a particularly adverse reaction to Rohypnol,’ Brendan had replied. ‘I told him someone spiked her drink when she was out. Good job we never gave her any Ecstasy as we’d planned.’

When Patricia came into her bedroom to vacuum, Holly closed the door behind her. Patricia eyed her suspiciously.

‘Am I the first girl to come here?’ Holly asked, keeping her voice as level as she could. ‘Or have there been others?’