Chapter 50
I can’t move.
That’s my first thought when my head finally stops spinning enough for me to register that I am still alive.
Open your eyes is the second, but try as I might, they cling to the blackness of denial.
Behind me, Katherine grumbles. ‘Why did she insist on coming upstairs? I’m barely halfway through the book.’
I’m about to ask her what she means by that when I feel her hands wrap around my ankles. The injured one smarts, but Katherine doesn’t give me a second to protest before she starts dragging me across the carpet.
‘What are you doing?’ I cry.
Or at least, that’s what I try to cry. In reality, the only sound coming out of my mouth is a garbled moan.
‘You’re awake,’ Katherine says, yanking me harder. ‘Great. That will make this even more difficult.’
‘What are you—’ I croak, but I never get to finish my sentence because Katherine’s hands move to my waist and flip me over. The wound on my head roars as it presses against the carpet. The pain is so fierce, the shock of it forces my eyes to open.
A sombre Katherine looms above me, the door to the room at the end of the landing right behind her. How did I get to this side of the landing? Gulping, I realise Katherine must have dragged me.
‘Why did you have to come up here, Janine?’ she complains. ‘I was going to ask you for a quote for my book cover. Now I have to kill you instead. All that wasted PR potential.’
As Katherine sets her hands on me again, I order my body to fight back, but it’s too dazed to obey. She pins my hands to my chest with her knee. Then, from the back pocket of her jeans, she pulls out a length of rope and a kitchen knife.
I recoil at the sharp blade, but Katherine shakes her head.
‘I’m not going to stab you here, silly. It will ruin the carpet.’
Resting the knife on the floor, Katherine begins coiling the rope around my wrists. Desperately, I try to pull my hands free, but she swats my attempts away.
‘I’ve got to restrain you. You might try to escape otherwise, and I’m too tired for that.
I was up all night perfecting a torture scene.
’ Katherine pulls the rope tighter, crushing my wrists together.
‘Writing coaches always say how important the start of a book is. They rarely talk about the build-up or the end, but you’ve got to make sure readers don’t see the big reveal coming, haven’t you? ’
My brain strains to make sense of what Katherine is saying. Everything about this feels surreal and wrong.
With my binds securely in place, Katherine stands by the door. ‘Brace yourself. She’s not smelling great these days.’
Then, Katherine presses down on the handle.
If I wasn’t already on the floor, the stench that escapes the room would have me on my knees. Bile rises up and burns my throat. My body jerks to the side to vomit, but Katherine stops me by pushing me onto my back. As I choke on vomit, her hands make themselves at home on my ankles once more.
When the grip of her bony fingers tightens, something primal in me comes to life. I thrash my limbs, convulsing, desperate not to be dragged into the room.
‘Janine, stop!’ Katherine shouts, but I refuse to listen.
Jerking my body in all directions, I expect Katherine to become more aggressive, but instead she drops my legs. They land with a thud that clatters through my skull. I let out a pained groan, but the sound is cut short when Katherine kneels beside me and grasps my jaw.
‘What’s so special about you?’ she hisses. ‘You don’t know literary theory. You’re not well-read. You’ve never even taken a creative writing course. Yet there you are, in the window of every bookshop I see. You don’t deserve it. Not as much as I do.’
I stare at Katherine through a fog of confusion. ‘This… this is about a book?’
‘Oh, don’t dismiss the thing that’s earned you thousands just because you’re going to die for it.
That’s so hypocritical.’ Katherine lets go of my head with such venom, it flops to the side.
‘You know what it’s like to have a story inside you, but do you know what it’s like to have every publisher in the world say you’re not good enough to tell it?
To have spent your entire life picking up your children’s socks and cooking dinner, then when you finally get time to do something for yourself, being told you shouldn’t have bothered? ’
Katherine tips her head back to stare at the ceiling. I follow her eyeline, taking in the tiles above me. My head is reeling so much from the attack, the pattern seems to be moving.
‘I’ve had a lifetime of flimsy justifications from people who wouldn’t know talent if it punched them in the face, yet they control whether I make it or not.
They say my writing isn’t bold enough, isn’t active enough, isn’t realistic enough.
Not realistic enough, eh? Let’s see how realistic it is now I’ve described death more accurately than anyone ever has before. ’
Gulping, my attention moves back to the woman before me. ‘What have you done?’ I whisper.
When Katherine fixes her stare on me, gone is any sign of the person I thought I knew. Instead, I come face to face with pure evil.
‘You always say real life is inspiration for stories, Janine. Well, I just happened to make my real life all about the tragic demise of Alexa Clarke.’
The world around me stops. ‘You’ve – you’ve killed Alexa?’
‘All those twists, yet you couldn’t figure this one out? And you call yourself a thriller author.’ Katherine tuts, standing and stretching her neck, while a disbelieving sob escapes me.
‘Why?’ I cry.
‘It was an accident,’ Katherine admits. ‘Alexa’s death, writing a crime novel – it was never meant to happen. But they’re always the best stories, aren’t they? The ones that come to you through the mist.’
With a sigh, Katherine leans against the wall behind her.
‘I always go for a walk a day, rain or shine. When she was alive, so would Alexa. We’d occasionally bump into each other. Over time, we got chatting. I’d tell her about my writing. She’d tell me about her life. But that day…’
Katherine’s eyes close as a ripple of rage washes over her.
‘I’d just been rejected again. This time by an agent I didn’t even want to work with,’ Kathrine spits the fact like it’s poison.
‘Do you know how demoralising that is, to be told “no” by people you don’t value?
I went to walk it off, then I saw Alexa.
It was clear she’d been crying. God knows about what. That woman had it all.’
Otis’s fight with Alexa that morning flashes in my mind. Him, asking if they should stop trying for a baby. Her, desperate to grow their family. A sinking feeling takes over me, knowing that whatever happened next changed everything for them both.
‘I told Alexa about the rejection, and do you know what she did? She snapped, Janine. Right there, in the fields behind my own home! She told me that she didn’t have time to listen to me complain.
That some people had real problems, as if what I’m going through doesn’t matter.
And then she had the audacity to turn her back on me and walk away.
Well, do you know what? I saw red. I saw red. ’
Goosebumps race across my body as I understand the implications of Katherine’s words.
‘I never intended to write crime, but as soon as I picked up that branch? It was like the power of God was in my hands. I hit her twice on the back of the head. She crumpled like a piece of paper.’ Katherine’s body trembles, coming alive with each new detail she recounts.
‘All those months of listening to you talk about the importance of immersive research were spot on. You were right – there’s no better research than actually doing the thing!
From that moment, I knew exactly what it felt like to be a killer. ’
The sting of blame sits heavy on my chest. My words, innocently delivered. Never did I imagine this could be the consequence.
‘Alexa died in the field?’ I croak.
‘Not quite, although she might as well have. I must say, it was annoying how fast she gave in. I’d hoped to find out a little more about the experience of a captive, but she barely survived the first night. I’ve had to imagine most of her reactions, can you believe it?’
Katherine looks to me to verify her frustration, but I’m too shocked to respond.
‘I must have hit her head too hard, but at least I managed to get a few cuts in before her blood stopped pumping,’ she continues.
‘It’s a shame I had to do the breaking of her bones later.
Torturing a corpse isn’t as accurate as torturing the living.
Still, I’ve described the decay of death perfectly.
Who writes realistically now?’ Katherine laughs, then she pushes the door to the room at the end of the landing open wider.
I peer inside. A mottled, purpling hand hangs limply over the side of a bed, with every finger bent out of shape and a chunky metal handcuff coiled around the slender wrist.
On the fourth finger, I spot something I recognise.
Alexa Clarke’s emerald ring.
A loud, guttural wail breaks free from the centre of my chest.
‘Oh, be quiet. You didn’t even know her,’ Katherine snaps.
‘You killed her!’ I shout through tears. ‘You killed Alexa!’
Katherine tilts her head. ‘Why are you so upset? This is your writing theory coming to life! Besides, aren’t real people the inspiration for all characters, all stories?
’ Katherine grins, triumphant when I don’t have the strength to argue.
‘Don’t mourn Alexa Clarke, Janine. Not when she will go down in history as one of literature’s greatest victims. And I will go down as one of the greatest writers because I brought her real death to life! ’
I shake my head, trying to knock the truth out of my skull, but it stays lodged there, more distressing than I could ever have imagined.
‘It’s been hard working to such a tight deadline,’ Katherine complains. ‘There’s not a lot of time after death before a corpse starts to smell. I don’t think I could have thrown the police off my scent for much longer, pardon the pun.’
When I don’t laugh, Katherine nudges the bottom of my foot with her toes.
‘The scent, Janine, get it? Because Alexa smells so terrible now. Oh, you’re no fun,’ Katherine sighs when I don’t respond.
‘Luckily, I’ve always been good at planning my stories.
I knew exactly how to buy myself time. Dropping Alexa’s bank card near the university to make Otis think she was still alive was a particular stroke of genius.
One thing I learned as a lecturer is to never underestimate a student’s need for a night out, Janine. Never.’
A horrified sob bursts from me, making Katherine frown.
‘Don’t pity Alexa. She’s not the innocent victim you’re making her out to be. I’ve told you what she said to me. It was beyond cruel. She deserved it.’
‘No,’ I groan. ‘No one deserves this.’
Katherine’s nostrils flare. ‘Stop. I won’t be made to feel guilty for what I’ve done.
If you think practically, not emotionally, you’ll see I did Alexa a favour.
Alexa and Otis were never together, and when they were, they were miserable.
Alexa told me that herself. I saw it, too.
The rest of the time, Alexa trailed around that ugly house or went for walks with Jim, of all people.
Can you imagine a life as depressing as that? I did Alexa a favour by killing her.’
I’m already dizzy, but when Katherine grabs hold of my injured ankle I roar in pain. It’s only when she’s dragged me halfway through the door into the small white room that I realise I am being pulled towards Alexa Clarke’s rotting corpse.
Screaming like I’ve never screamed before, I reach out with my bound hands to grab onto something, anything. My fingertips scratch the skirting board, then a door frame, but they slip before I get the chance to grab on.
My desperate cries grow louder. Twisting at the waist, I angle myself closer to the banister until my fingers connect with one of the wooden rails. I cling on, curling my fingers around it because I know as soon as I enter that room, I will not make it out alive.
Katherine yanks me, but I hold strong. Snarling in frustration, she drops my legs and comes to a crouch beside me.
‘Why are you being so difficult?’ she spits.
‘Why can’t you even try to understand my side of things?
You have no idea what it’s like to be me, Janine.
No idea. I’ve spent my life looking after my husband and children.
I pushed my dreams, passions and identity to the side for them.
Now they’re gone, and what do I have to show for myself?
Nothing. Writing is the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do.
The only thing that’s ever been mine. I just want someone who isn’t my husband to tell me I’m good enough, but it’s always a no.
And now infants like Natalya are getting yeses ahead of me!
It’s not fair. What, am I too old? Too suburban? Does my voice not matter?’
My shoulders curl inward at the shrillness in Katherine’s voice.
‘This book is my goal, my purpose, and no one is going to stop me from achieving it. Not even you.’
With those words, Katherine reaches for me.
‘No!’ I protest as her hands scrabble to pry mine from the banister.
‘Let go, or I will break every finger you have.’
To prove her point, Katherine peels the little finger on my right hand back and twists it. I cry out, my howl peaking when the bone pops to announce it has broken.
Katherine gasps in delight. ‘That’s the noise Alexa’s fingers made, too!’
She reaches for my hands once more, but her joy is cut short by a knock at the front door.
Before my lips can part to shout for help, Katherine clamps her hand over my mouth. I scream against it, a mixture of snot and tears dampening her skin. My shouts only make Katherine hold tighter.
Whoever is at the door knocks again before flipping open the letterbox.
‘Hello?’ they call out into the house. ‘Janine, are you there?’
I would recognise that voice anywhere, even through the thickest haze of terror.
Beth.
Beth is at the door.