‘It was you.’ She frowns. ‘What?’
Ilook from Erin’s face – freeze-framed in the video – to her actual face, standing in front of me.
‘It was you.’
She frowns. ‘What?’
I angle the phone towards her.
She comes closer, squints at it. ‘What is that?’
‘CCTV from Main Street. Taken in the early hours of Monday morning. Right around the time someone broke in here and tried to kick down the door to the room I was sleeping in.’
‘Kick down the … What?’ Erin grabs the phone from my hand and brings it close to her face, turning ghostly in its blue glow. ‘Where did you get this? I might have been here in Dundrum, yeah, but I wasn’t in here.’
Murphy’s text suggests otherwise. Although …
there is the laneway running behind the houses.
The one I used earlier to leave here. So while Erin may indeed be the only person captured coming into or out of Delaney Row at the place where it connects with the main street through the village, someone else could’ve got to or from my house another way.
But why would she have been anywhere near here in the middle of the night?
‘I found it,’ I say. ‘Accidentally.’
Erin looks confused. ‘Found what?’
‘The stain. You asked me how I knew it was there. I didn’t. I just found it, by accident, when I took up the carpet. But how did you know about it?’
She doesn’t answer me.
I hold out my hand to take my phone, but she steps back, darting beyond my reach.
‘Erin,’ I say warningly. ‘Give me my phone.’
She digs to find a pocket in the folds of her coat and then slips the phone into it.
‘I will,’ she says. ‘In a minute. But you don’t understand what’s going on here and, until you do, I really can’t let you make another mistake.
’ She moves away from me until her back is against the wall, hiding the I in BITCH.
‘I came here, you know. Over the years. While you were … away. To look after the place. I even met your neighbours, sometimes. Turned the heating on every now and then – your boiler needs replacing, by the way. I wouldn’t take a chance with it, the noises it was making …
But yeah. Should’ve sold it ages ago, really, but I couldn’t bring myself to.
And then, when I finally did, when I finally made the decision that I was going to move on, to be free, to have something like a life of my own, well, didn’t I get a surprise?
’ Erin rolls her eyes. ‘That stupid fucking prick.’
‘Wait,’ I say, trying to fit the pieces together. ‘You tried to sell the house?’
‘Tried being the operative word. I was going to take the money and disappear. Disappear better – I already had, in many ways. But then the solicitor digs out the deeds and whose name do I see on them? I could hardly believe it. I couldn’t believe it, really.
After everything. Can you imagine? He’d have got exactly what he wanted when he bought this place.
A little love nest. You could’ve stayed here for ever, just the two of you. ’
I can’t believe what I’m hearing.
She can’t honestly believe it either, surely.
‘Erin, listen. I don’t know what you think is going on or what he’s told you, but I haven’t seen Jason or spoken to him since that night. I’ve never contacted him. Not once. I mean, why would I? I fucking hate him. I was charged with trying to kill him.’
‘Did you actually want to?’
‘What?’
‘Kill him.’
‘Of course not.’
Her gaze lingers on me for a moment.
Then she starts pacing, marking a line in the spill of light from the landing, walking back and forth in the space between me and the open door.
‘I saw the comment,’ she says. ‘On his Instagram. So, technically speaking, you contacted him today.’
‘I only did that so he’d know I’d seen it. I wanted him to know that I was going to pass the picture on to the guards.’
Erin raises an eyebrow. ‘And did you?’
‘Not yet. But I will.’ I hold out my hand again. ‘My phone. Now.’
‘I knew you’d be on there,’ she says, ignoring me. ‘First chance you got. You were so bloody obsessed with it, back then, I bet you couldn’t wait to get back to it. I looked at it all, you know. When I started to suspect. I set up an account under another name.’
The scared, anxious woman I met outside my door not even half an hour ago isn’t here any more, and it’s making me scared and anxious. I’d feel better if I had my phone but short of assaulting her, I don’t see how I’ll get it back.
I wonder if Murphy will try calling me when I don’t respond to the video.
Or if Alex will ignore me like he has every other time I’ve told him to leave me alone, and come to the house – but of course, the one time I want him to, I bet he won’t.
I should just leave. Right now.
Push past Erin and go.
Run.
But do I need to run? It’s only Erin. What is she going to do to me? And what if she and Jason are in this together? What if they’ve teamed up to get rid of me, once and for all? What if I get outside only to run straight into him, into a trap?
‘Erin,’ I say. ‘Just tell me: what’s going on?’
She sighs. ‘What’s going on is that you got away from him, but I never could.
You lost eight years – let’s say ten, fine.
You lost ten years, but me? I need to double that.
And you have this house and a chance to move on.
You had a great life when he found you, so you know you can make another one.
But I never had anything. I had nothing.
Because of him. And I don’t even have him now.
Isn’t that the most pathetic thing you’ve ever heard?
I actually miss him, sometimes.’ She pauses.
‘I did it for you, Hannah. That’s the part I know you won’t understand. ’
A chill shoots down my spine. ‘Did what for me, Erin?’
‘You know what I did. Stop pretending you don’t.
I tried to drive you out, didn’t I? To get you to leave here.
I used my keys. It was me kicking the office door – but not very hard, come on.
And when that didn’t work, I came back. Made a bit of a mess – sorry about that.
And this.’ She jerks a thumb over her shoulder, indicating the BITCH.
‘And that bathroom mirror, I … That was a bit much, I know. But you just won’t go, will you?
It’s like every time I try to free you, you get yourself tangled up even more, again. ’
‘Erin, what the …? Why?’
‘Aren’t you listening? I’m telling you why!
It’s the anger, you see. I laugh at all the times in my life, before he left me, that I thought I was angry.
Because you know something? I had no fucking idea what anger was.
I was, at most, mildly annoyed. Mildly. But real anger …
Rage. It’s …’ She exhales. ‘Sometimes, it was like I was so mad at that man, at what he’d done, I couldn’t even see straight. Literally. My vision would blur.’
I think of how I felt this morning, sitting outside the Italian place, looking at Jason’s Instagram. Giddy, almost manic. Like I’d had too much coffee but not enough sleep. Not fully inside my own lines.
How I’d felt that way that night, just before I put my car in reverse.
That was why I did.
I’ve always told myself that what that feeling did was obscure rational thought. Clouded my judgement. Prevented me from thinking straight – from thinking at all. But the truth is, it gave me clarity. Crystal clear, like I’d never experienced before. It pushed away everything that wasn’t primal.
I was only action, no thinking required at all.
I knew Jason was right behind me. I saw him, in the rear-view mirror. Giving me that fucking look. Like I’d just made a complete fool of myself. Like all of this was some kind of game. Like I’d lost it, and he’d won.
It made the rage roar up inside me.
But the noise wasn’t the rage. It was the engine.
I’d already shifted into reverse. I slammed my foot down on the accelerator and waited to hear him cry out, to feel him under my wheels, to have the satisfaction of literally crushing him.
I wanted to end him because I was so fucking mad at him for ending me.
But only for a heartbeat. When I realized what I’d done, when I came to, I hit the brakes.
I tell myself that part is important, that it matters.
It has to.
‘I understand,’ I say. ‘Erin, I do.’
‘No, you fucking don’t,’ she spits. ‘I gave him everything. I gave away everything for him. I had plans, you know. Ambitions. Dreams. And I could’ve done them all.
I could have lived an incredible life. I could be out there now, just halfway through it.
Just gearing up. Just getting started. But instead, I met him.
When I was eighteen! And I don’t even know how he did it but it was, like, he crawled in, under my skin, into my brain, and took hold of the controls.
Just like that’ – she snaps her fingers – ‘I forgot me. I forgot who I was supposed to be becoming. And I turned into her, his. This.’
She stops, frowning, and reaches into her pocket to pull out my phone.
It’s glowing, buzzing. A name is flashing on screen. Someone is calling me.
Erin stabs the screen, then does it a few more times. The phone goes dark; I think she’s turned it off. She slips it back into her coat pocket – but the one on the other side, where I hear it clang off something else that’s already in there.
Something solid.
And I feel it again, the way I did when she walked out of the shadows. Unable to breathe. Paralysis. Terror, strangling me from the inside out. I should’ve trusted that feeling, stuck with it.
I should’ve run then instead of inviting her in.
Because now that I look for it, I can see that Erin has something sizeable in her coat pocket. And it’s heavy – the hem of the coat is lopsided, drooping with the weight.
I need to get out of here, now.
‘And yeah,’ Erin is saying, ‘OK. I wanted him. Or I thought I did. Maybe I actually did. Maybe I didn’t and then I started to.
And eventually it started being OK, because he had his business and he was a success and we only had all of that because I had been there, helping him, pushing him, steering him, trying to make him into the man I didn’t think I deserved.
Giving him the money he needed to start the fucking thing, even.
Because that’s it, isn’t it? In a nutshell.
I didn’t choose him. I didn’t make a decision. I let myself get fucking picked.’
She’s talking faster now, her voice rising.
‘You can’t just wake up one day,’ she says, ‘turn to the woman whose youth you’ve spent and tell her you’re not happy, that you want more, you know? I actually thought, you know what? Better that she has the house than some stranger. I can talk to her. I can make her understand.’
‘Understand what?’ I ask, hoping to keep her talking. Distract her, while I figure a way out. There’s only one, and it’s right past her.
‘That I did it for you, Hannah. For us. Because I could see it, you know? I could see you were the new me. He was going to take advantage of you, like he took advantage of me. Ruin you, like he ruined me. And then, in another ten, twenty years’ time, discard you for his next trade-in.
Leave another woman’s life in ruins in his wake.
The whole thing, I could see it. And I had to stop it. ’
‘What did you do?’ The problem is, if I bolt now, she’ll get to me before I get to the door.
‘It was supposed to be a fresh start,’ she says.
‘Australia. But he was just running away. By then it was abundantly clear that Jason had never been the brains behind Shreddr. He’d lost pretty much everything.
We had, because of him. You see, you going to prison only took care of you.
There was still the problem of him. So … ’
She looks at me, so that I’m looking at her when she looks down at it.
The stain.
‘I did what I had to do,’ she says.
I look down at the stain now, too.
‘I know what you’re thinking, Hannah. That I’m mad.
Unhinged. Crazy bitch. Isn’t that always what they call the wife?
Because you think this couldn’t happen to you.
But you don’t get it, do you? I was you before I was me.
And you did do something, in case you’ve forgotten.
Just not as well. Maybe because you couldn’t.
But he had so much longer to work on me, didn’t he?
Maybe that’s why I could. So I finished the job.
I did what you couldn’t. But now you’ve fucked it all up, Hannah.
For both of us. Pulling up the carpet. Calling the guards?
’ She shakes her head. ‘That really surprised me. After everything they did to you? You called them?’
It’s futile to correct her, but, still, I say, ‘No.’
‘And then,’ she continues, ‘to make matters worse, you invited those idiot murder men round to take a look at it. Honestly … Annalise is right. You are your own worst enemy.’
‘Wait – you know Annalise?’
‘I wish I didn’t,’ Erin says. ‘I wish I’d never met her.’
‘Where did you meet her? When?’
‘The first time we really talked was in this room, funnily enough.’
I don’t understand.
‘Sorry about the article.’ Erin is reaching into the pocket now, the heavy one. ‘But surely you know it would’ve all come out at some stage, right? This is Ireland, Hannah. You can’t have secrets here.’
‘That was you?’
A little shrug. ‘I had to. I needed you to leave the party and come here.’
‘But why—?’
‘Because you were going to expose me. Don’t you get it? You were about to find out what I’d done. Because here’s fucking Jason, ruining everything again, even now.’ She sighs. ‘I’m sorry, Hannah, but I have to do this.’
It happens in a flash, and it happens in slow motion.
Erin pulls Sophie’s drill out of her coat pocket and raises it into the air while, somehow, at the same time, lunging at me, bringing it down.
I see it coming, this heavy object on a collision course with the left side of my head. I hear it, the whoosh of it and Erin’s arm slicing through the air. Then—
Impact.
A dull crack and explosions of white.
But I don’t feel it. I think because there isn’t time to. I see the floor, rising up to meet me—
Black.