Chapter 34
THIRTY-FOUR
ERIN
I hit the brake too hard, lurch forwards onto the steering wheel.
Shit. I’ve never driven an automatic car before and it feels strange – I keep reaching for a gear stick that isn’t there through force of habit. It’s been over six years since I was behind the wheel and I’m rusty to say the least.
I check my reflection in the rear-view mirror as I blow my fringe out of my eyes, try to concentrate on the road ahead.
I wish now I had just bitten the bullet and gone to a professional hairdresser’s instead of doing a hatchet job on myself.
Aside from the astronomical prices, which I resent paying, I didn’t think it wise to.
Spending two hours or more staring back at someone in a mirror and there’s a greater chance I’ll be recognised.
If I’m to complete this mission successfully, then I have to think like Samantha Valentine would think; I have to stay one step ahead of the game.
Now though, my penny-pinching feels like it’s coming back to bite me in the ass.
I miss my long hair – the safety and protection it gave me – and I hate being blonde.
Anyway, I don’t know why I’m fretting so much; soon it won’t matter what colour my hair is.
‘Alexandra Fisher, right?’ The receptionist at the car hire firm flashed me a disingenuous smile.
I could tell it wasn’t a real smile because it didn’t reach her eyes and had faded to nothing almost instantly.
Genuine smiles leave a muscle residue that is slower to dissipate.
Again, I thought of the smile that Malcolm had greeted me with when I opened the door to him the other evening, that slightly coy, stupid great grin on his face as he waggled the bottle of wine at me.
‘Shall we unscrew this bad boy then, or what?’
‘That’s me.’ My smile was largely for Malcolm as I handed over my fake driver’s licence to her.
I felt a sudden flash of panic. What if creepy Pete has sold me a dud?
What if they find out it’s fake and call the cops on me?
I held my breath as she punched my details into the computer, stabbing the keyboard, sharply, with a long, painted fingernail.
‘Yep, you’re all paid up and good to go, Alexandra.
Joe will take you to your vehicle.’ She handed me the keys, not even bothering with the disingenuous smile this time.
I knew how she felt though, stuck in a dead-end job she clearly hates with colleagues that no doubt get on her wick and a pay cheque at the end of each month that does little to reflect all her hard efforts.
Really though, she had no idea how truly lucky she is.
I would say that ‘I’d kill’ for such an un-challenging, monotonous, dead-end, normal job now, but that sounds like a not-so-funny joke.
Even everyday, glib sayings hold a different meaning for me now.
I switch the radio on. I listened to a lot of radio while I was in Larksmere.
It sometimes helped to drown out the screams at night and made me feel more attached to humanity.
I always found it a more personal experience than the TV, like the actors were speaking to me directly.
I often found their voices soothing. BBC4 was my favourite station to tune in to.
Sheer boredom alone was enough to drive you insane in that place, if you weren’t insane already – and of course, most people were.
Sometimes I would sit in the recreation room with my fellow in-patients – we were never allowed to refer to ourselves as ‘prisoners’ despite it being exactly what we were – listening to The Archers or Woman’s Hour.
It’s not that I chose to socialise with them – mental health feels contagious when you’re surrounded by it – but human beings crave company and contact.
Loneliness is a debilitating disease that grows if it’s left untreated, but admittedly, it was kind of bizarre to find myself chuckling away alongside violent and disturbed murderers, arsonists and criminals, even if I was supposedly one myself.
After a while, if you’re around it for long enough, crazy really does begin to feel normal.
I switch the radio on to BBC4, let it play in the background as I head towards the Airbnb that I’d hastily booked online – a trendy-looking apartment in Battersea.
I might as well spend the last of what little cash I have left on something comfortable and a bit posh, to go with the new name.
I like to think that maybe I’ve earned it, even if I don’t deserve it.
Delilah is waiting outside the property as I pull up. She comes towards me when she sees me, waving enthusiastically with a wide smile of relief. I’m ten minutes late.
‘Alexandra, yah?’ She stoops down as I open the electric window. ‘Alexandra Fisher?’
‘That’s me!’ Well, it is now. I switch the engine off. ‘I’m sorry I’m a little late, the London traffic…’
She rolls her eyes in sympathy, as though it needs no further explanation.
‘Dreadful, isn’t it? Can’t get around anywhere in this city anymore, too many people. Too many people who shouldn’t be here,’ she adds sniffily.
I smile, though I have no compunction to become embroiled in any kind of conversation with her, let alone one with racist undertones.
She stops for a moment, a slightly bemused look on her horsey face.
‘Gosh, have I… have we met before?’ Her brow creases.
Panic sweeps through me, but I take a deep breath, let it pass.
‘I don’t think so,’ I reply, as I snatch up my tote bag, the gun still rolled up inside it. She’s still staring at me with a perplexed expression, as though it’s going to come to her any moment. ‘I’m sure I would’ve remembered.’
‘You really look like someone I know.’ She crinkles her nose up. ‘I just can’t think who now.’
‘Really?’ I reply, pretending to busy myself with my small amount of luggage so as not to have to look at her directly. ‘I get that a lot. I must have one of those familiar faces.’
My guts tighten. I guess I can be forgiven for the paranoia. After all, my face is currently trending on social media thanks to Dan Riley and his flying monkeys. No doubt it’s the closest to being famous as I’ll ever get, while I’m still breathing at least.
‘Would you like me to show you around?’ Delilah says in her clipped home counties accent that screams of privilege and success.
I pray I haven’t just said the word ‘no’ out loud.
‘It’s all pretty straightforward, yah? There’s instructions on how to use the washing machine and the cooker, and the Wi-Fi password is underneath the fish magnet on the fridge.’
‘Perfect,’ I say, wondering what kind of person needs instructions on how to use a cooker, or if she thinks it’s just me who’s the idiot.
‘And there’s everything else you need, a rice steamer and an air fryer, a NutriBullet, cooking utensils, pots and pans and cutlery, the whole enchilada…’
Cutlery. We weren’t allowed knives and forks at Larksmere, not the real stuff anyway, for obvious reasons, I suppose.
Instead, we had to eat our meals using these strange latex rubber knives and forks, which proved especially challenging on ‘meat Mondays’.
You needed a hacksaw to get through some of the unidentifiable chewy gristle they served up to us.
Often, I gave up and used my fingers instead, like a savage. When in Rome…
‘Is it just you who’ll be staying the two nights?’ Delilah flicks me a sideways glance, key poised in the door. Why is she still here? How hard can it be to turn on a frickin’ hob?
‘You really don’t need to worry about showing me around,’ I say, as if she needn’t waste any more of her valuable time. ‘I’m sure it’s all pretty self-explanatory.’
‘It’s no bother.’ She watches me closely.
My paranoia is fast becoming harder to ignore – it’s the way she’s looking at me.
‘I like to give all my guests a brief once-round, show them what’s what.
That way you won’t need to contact me, unless it’s an emergency of course, like a leak, or an explosion, or there’s a dead body or something. ’
A dead body? It’s a strange thing to say and it stops me in my tracks for a second. Is it just an attempt at humour, or something else?
‘Here we are,’ she says proudly as we enter the apartment.
Immediately, she begins plumping up the cushions on the huge, impressive-looking sofa.
It’s a thing of beauty, this sofa, large and low and L-shaped in a rich, dark aubergine-coloured velvet with sumptuous, squishy-looking cushioned seats that make you want to take a run up and throw yourself into them.
It’s got Samantha Valentine written all over it.
I check the time. It’s coming on for 9 p.m., although it’s been dark for a couple of hours or so now.
I wonder if the police have turned up at the Bull and Barrow yet, or if they’re there right now with their battering rams and taser guns and shouty loud voices.
I bite my bottom lip, stifle a smile. Creepy Pete is going to curse me to hell.
But I doubt he’ll talk. He’s the one who has provided me with a deadly weapon after all.
I could murder that scampi and chips now though, pardon the inappropriate pun.
I’ve only eaten half a family bag of M&M’s all day and my stomach is making embarrassingly loud growling noises.
I hope Princess Tippy-Toes here hasn’t heard them.
I wander over to the hi-spec open kitchen area, run the tips of my fingers over the smooth, sparkly diamond granite work surface.
Oh, to live in a place like this! Maybe I could’ve, would’ve, done, if I’d never met Samantha.
Who knows what my life would’ve gone on to become if I hadn’t shown up to the job interview that day, if I’d missed the bus, or got sick? Why couldn’t I have just got sick?
They say you should never think about the coulda, shoulda, woulda in life, but for me, that’s impossible.
I’ve had my life snatched from me, my freedom and liberty, my reputation and my future – my sanity.
The sense of this loss burns like a raging fire inside of me that can’t be extinguished – at least, not until I find her.
I spot the large wooden knife block, sitting next to a shiny chrome, full barista-style coffee machine that looks like it’s never been used, with the six, dark wooden handles in various sizes protruding from it.
I remove the largest from the block, feel the solid wood, weighty in my hand, the curved, perfectly shiny blade, cold to the touch against my skin.
For a moment I’m mesmerised by my warped reflection in the blade, stare at my misshapen image, somehow indicative of how I am now – a distorted version of myself.
He flashes up in front of me then – Bojan Radulovic. I see his handsome features as he comes towards me, the flash from the blade as I bring it down into his chest, and the whites of his eyes as they expand in horror and shock and fear.
I grip the knife tighter in my hand, will the flashback to pass.
I can barely bring myself to think about that day, that pivotal moment when his life ended and mine did too, metaphorically anyway, but try as I must to lock it away in the recesses of my memory, it returns with a vengeance, each time with a touch more clarity than before.
I know there’s only one way to erase it for good.
‘… Annnnd…’ I realise that Delilah has been talking in the background and I haven’t heard a word she’s said. I quickly replace the knife before she sees me with it. ‘The pièce de résistance… ta-da!’
The floor-to-ceiling shutters make a satisfying clicking sound as she concertinas them open. I can tell that this is her favourite part of the tour – the big reveal.
‘How’s that for a view?’ She stands back, checks my expression eagerly. ‘Phenomenal, isn’t it?’ She sighs. ‘I never tire of it.’
I stare out at the London skyline, at the clusters of buildings that look like they’re made out of mirrors, reflecting the light, even on a miserable, damp day like today.
It’s not a view I’m familiar with, I’m a Yorkshire lass, more accustomed to rolling hills and countryside, and padded cells.
Admittedly, it’s impressive nonetheless.
‘That’s the old power station over there,’ she points. ‘They regenerated it some years ago and there’s a great shopping centre inside, some cool bars and bistros… everything you need, yah?’
I nod. What I need is for her to leave now. ‘Well,’ she says, placing the set of keys on the table with a loud clank that I’m sure wasn’t intended. ‘Enjoy your stay, Alexandra.’
‘Thanks so much, Delilah – and, don’t worry,’ – I smile at her, sweetly – ‘I’ll be sure to let you know if any dead bodies turn up.’