Chapter 7
I stare at Holly, then look down at Max again. ‘Max?’ I say softly.
Nothing.
‘Is he dead?’ Holly asks.
I put my ear close to this mouth. Nothing. Then a sudden gurgling sound that makes me recoil.
‘Oh my God. Max?’ I put my hand on his cheek. ‘We’re getting an ambulance. It’s going to be all right. Holly! Get my phone! Call the ambulance, Holly!’
‘I think he’s dead,’ she says, her eyes still trained on him.
‘What? No! He’s not!’ But when I look at his face again, I notice that something is different.
I put my fingers on his neck, feeling for a pulse.
‘But that can’t be.’ I look down at the knife, still wedged deep inside him. ‘There’s hardly any blood.’ I check his wrist for a pulse. Nothing.
I bend down again, my ear to his lips. Nothing.
I look up at Holly. ‘We have to call an ambulance. If he is dead, then… I mean, they’ll know what to do.’
‘What do you mean if? He is dead, Kate! Look at him, for Christ’s sake! There is no if!’
‘All right. It’s all right. Don’t panic. We have to call the police.’ I stand, and a wave of vertigo almost knocks me over. I lean back against the table for support.
‘Are you kidding me?’ Holly’s mouth is distorted, like she wants to scream. ‘You can’t call the police? What will happen to me?’
‘Oh, Holly. It was self-defence! We’ll tell them what happened. It will be all right.’
She looks at me like I’m mad, tears streaming down her cheeks. ‘And you think they’ll believe that?’
I try to replay the scene in my brain, but it’s a blur.
Did Max hit her? I don’t think so. I can’t remember, but he’s never hit Holly before.
Although his moods, his temper, it was escalating lately.
Was he strangling her? I look at her throat.
It doesn’t look bruised. He had his hand on the back of her neck, I remember that.
And a fistful of her hair. I remember that too. Is that enough for self-defence?
‘It doesn’t matter,’ I say. ‘We’ll tell them he was attacking you and you had to defend yourself. That’s what we’ll tell them.’
She shakes her head violently. ‘No. We can’t. They won’t believe it. He didn’t have, like, a gun. It’s not like he was about to shoot me. And everybody liked him, remember? They’ll arrest me. They’ll say I murdered him!’ She’s completely hysterical now, her face red.
I take her in my arms and hold her tight. She’s shaking uncontrollably. ‘It’s all right. It’s going to be all right. Listen to me, Holly. I’ll—’
The doorbell rings.
My heart explodes in my chest. We both pull away. Holly opens her mouth, and for a moment I think she’s going to scream.
I take her face in my hands. ‘Shhh,’ I whisper. ‘Don’t make a sound.’
‘Oh, God…’ she whines softly. ‘Who is it?’
‘I don’t know. Be quiet.’
‘What if it’s the police? Maybe they heard us shout?’
The doorbell rings again.
‘Oh my God,’ she whimpers.
‘They would have said so,’ I say. Would they? I have no idea, but you imagine the police banging on your door shouting, ‘Police! Open up!’ Or that’s how they do it on TV anyway.
The doorbell rings again.
Maybe it is the police. Maybe they’re more polite than I realise.
‘They’ll go away. Just wait.’ I feel like I’m going to faint.
Holly and I stand like that for another two or three minutes, my arms around her, Holly shaking and whimpering, her face in her hands. Her heart is beating so hard and fast that I can feel it in my chest, and I’m sure she can feel mine.
Finally, when enough time has passed, I release her gently, slip off my shoes and tiptoe around Max’s body to the front door.
I put my ear against it, but I can’t hear anything.
I bend down, and ever so softly I push the letterbox flap, only by a hair, looking for the edge of a foot, the cuff of a trouser leg, but all I can see is the granite on the step.
I crouch and open it fully. There’s no one there.
I breathe out and return to the kitchen. Holly is leaning against the worktop, her arms wrapped around herself.
‘They’re gone.’
‘Who was it?’
‘I don’t know.’
She pulls her sleeve over her knuckles. ‘What are we going to do?’
I try to think. I could have opened the door just now and screamed and begged whoever was standing there to call the police, but I didn’t. Why didn’t I?
Because I know, deep down, that Holly is right.
There’s no evidence this was self-defence, no evidence he was ever violent or that her life was ever in danger.
He didn’t have a weapon, as Holly pointed out.
There are no marks on her. It will just be our word against the evidence – and that’s never going to be enough.
Max is a respected member of society, like most psychopaths, no doubt.
There are laws. The police would arrest her.
She’s sixteen years old. They would charge her.
God only knows what would happen to her then.
But the truth remains that he was a monster. He was a horrible, horrible man. He terrorised us both, day and night. And as I look down at his body sprawled on the kitchen floor, I find that I don’t mind that he’s dead.
And anyway, surely, it’s too late to call anybody now. You’re not supposed to wait ten minutes to make up your mind.
‘Kate?’ she whimpers.
I turn to her. ‘I don’t know. I’ll think of something. Let’s carry him into the garage for now.’