The Therapist(91)

I watch in the mirror as he walks over to where Lorna is standing. He bends down, then straightens up, a look of confusion on his face, which he quickly hides.

‘I think you might be right,’ he says, feigning nonchalance.

Lorna bursts into tears. ‘We need an ambulance,’ she sobs. ‘Please, John.’

‘Why, if he’s dead?’ His voice is harsh.

He comes back to where I’m sitting, powerless in the face of his suppressed anger at his father’s death. I want to comfort Lorna, get her away from Thomas. But tied to a chair, I can’t do either of those things. I can’t do anything. For the first time, it hits me. I am going to die.

‘They moved here to get away from me.’ He starts to chop at my hair again but his heart has gone out of it. He might have been prepared for my death, but not his father’s. ‘They didn’t tell me they were leaving Bournemouth. When I came back from Paris, after I killed Marion, I had to hire a private investigator to track them down – which is where I got my idea for you.’ He pauses, drops another length of hair onto my lap. ‘You came along at just the right time. My sights were set on Tamsin, I had her lined up, ready to go. I knew from Nina that she was looking for a therapist but she didn’t want to share me with anyone.’ He laughs again. ‘I was her little secret, just like I was yours. I knew Tamsin would need a therapist even more once Nina had died, so it was perfect. But then she cut her hair.’

‘You came here, to The Circle, after killing Marion?’ I say, backtracking, needing to keep the conversation going, because as long as we’re talking, I’m alive.

‘Yes. It was ironic, really. My parents chose London, thinking it would reduce them to needles in a haystack, plus a gated community, thinking they’d be able to keep me out. But it proved the perfect hiding place for me.’

‘He wouldn’t let us go anywhere, he kept us prisoner,’ Lorna says, her voice stronger now. She moves nearer, coming into my vision. ‘He locked us in here during the day, in our bedroom at night. There wasn’t anything we could do, he was too strong for us. We were only allowed to put the bins out, or do a bit of gardening at the front of the house, so that people would see us from time to time and not worry about us. But never together, he always kept one of us hostage. When Edward went to hospital with his heart attack, John told him he would kill me if he said anything to the doctors. He wouldn’t let me visit Edward, I had to pretend to the hospital that I was too frail to make the journey.’

‘But you’re not frail, are you, Lorna?’ I say, trying to catch her eye in the mirror, needing her to understand that if we’re going to get out of this, she has to be strong. But she’s too deep in her own story.

‘He made me lie to the police. I had to pretend I’d heard Oliver and Nina arguing, pretend that she’d admitted to me that she was having an affair. I had to say that I’d seen Oliver go straight into the house the night she was murdered.’ She clutches her pearls, a lifebuoy in the tumult of her emotions. ‘He must have seen Oliver go into the square and took his chance to go and kill Nina. I didn’t know, I didn’t know what he’d done, not until he came back and told me exactly what I had to say to the police if they came knocking. He threatened to kill Edward if I didn’t, he was always threatening to kill us.’ The tears come back. ‘Oliver and Nina never argued. They loved each other.’

Thomas shakes his head angrily. ‘No. Nina did not love him, she loved me. She couldn’t see it, that’s all. Just like those other two bitches. But you were different, Alice. If only you’d given me a little more time. We were so close.’

‘What do you mean?’

He stoops, bringing his face up against mine. ‘Admit it, Alice,’ he says softly. ‘You were beginning to fall in love with me.’

I look at our reflections in the mirror, captured within its ornate frame. We could be a photograph.

‘Lorna,’ I say, my voice firm.

Her eyes lock with mine and I look towards the scissors, still in Thomas’s hand but within her grasp, hoping she’ll get the message. But Thomas sees and with an almost childish laugh, raises them high above his head.

‘She’s not going to help you, Alice. I’m her son.’

He’s right, I know that. Lorna is no match for his strength anyway. She wouldn’t be able to wrestle the scissors out of his hand, let alone use them against him.

‘Did she turn me in to the police after I killed Justine, after I killed Marion?’ Thomas goes on. ‘No, she didn’t. Did she cover up for me after I killed Nina? Yes, she did. Blood is thicker than water, Alice. Justine, Marion and Nina were just that – water.’

‘But Edward wasn’t,’ I say. ‘Edward was blood. And you killed him.’

I’ve struck a chord. ‘I didn’t kill him!’ he shouts.

‘Well, technically, you did.’

Lorna screams then, not a scream of fear, or of suffering, but a scream of white-hot anger that goes on and on and on. It comes from deep inside her, cancelling out a mother’s innate desire to protect her child, no matter what they do. And Thomas, sensing that something has changed, freezes for a few precious seconds, just enough time for me, still tied to the chair, to spring up and back, smashing into him. He crashes to the floor and I land heavily on top of him. Caught unawares, the scissors fly from his hand.