Anything for Her (8 page)

‘Well, thanks to my pit stop, two hours, maybe. There’s a train every hour.’

‘I’ll come and pick you up from the station.’

‘Thanks.’

‘I’ll see you later.’

Brooke hangs up the phone on the other end. Louise’s phone rings again. She looks at the screen.
Her gut instantly clenches at the sight of her sister’s name.

After everything she has done, she can’t even leave me alone to grieve
.

She can imagine Denise sitting at the other end of the line, waiting impatiently for Louise to answer, completely unfazed and unapologetic, as though the phone call is already taking up too much of her time.

Fury begins to build within her. She answers the call with a tense jaw.

Neither of the sisters say anything, just breathe in sync down the line.

‘Do you have something you would like to say, Denise? Or are you calling just to torment me?’

‘Louise, I’m— I’m really sorry.’

‘For destroying our sibling bond? Or for fucking my husband for the past ten months?’

‘Both.’

Louise’s hatred for her sister grows. She longs to pull Denise’s hair clean from her scalp and punch her face until her hand breaks; she wants to release every ounce of the rage that is inside her until there is nothing left but raw pain – and her sister’s swollen, mutilated body beneath her.

‘Is that it? You can destroy my marriage, but you can’t find it within yourself to apologise with even a speck of conviction?’

‘Louise, I—’

‘If you could take it back, you would. Well, you can’t. You can’t take back every kiss you laid on my husband’s lips, or how many times you fucked each other in your bed – or did you prefer my marital bed?’

‘Louise, stop it.’

‘What? You can have sex with my husband of two decades, but I can’t even ask you about it?’

Denise hesitates.

‘We never did it in your bed.’

‘Bullshit. I know you, Denise. I know you better than you know yourself. You like to take what isn’t yours. You would have seen our bed as some sort of sick conquest. Well, bravo: you broke my heart and destroyed my life. I’m sure Mum will be very proud of her conniving slut of a daughter.’

‘I don’t deserve this,’ Denise spits, audaciously.

‘No, you deserve far worse. You deserve to see your whole world collapse right before your eyes with no way to stop it. You deserve to bow your head in shame for putting me in this position: I have to tell my children that their parents are getting a divorce because their aunt is a malicious cunt.’

‘Don’t you dare blame your entire shitty existence on me, Lou. You helped dig your own grave.’

‘What, for trusting my own sister not to proposition my husband by opening her legs?’

‘You’ve been a completely different person for the last year. You pushed Michael away. You pushed
everyone away.’

‘So that gives you the right to take him from me, does it?’

‘Take responsibility for your part in this, Louise. If you hadn’t pushed him away, he wouldn’t have fallen into the arms of another woman.’

‘So because I had a nervous breakdown, my husband was granted an affair? Are you serious? Listen to yourself, you delusional bitch.’

‘You know how difficult you’ve been for the last year. Brooke too.’

‘Don’t you
dare
bring my daughter into this.’

‘I’ve apologised. I’ve done what I needed to do. I won’t beat myself up about this.’

‘So when do you intend to begin beating yourself up over this? Because you sound like a smug bitch, to me.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. Of course I feel guilty.’

‘Not guilty enough to keep your hands away from my husband’s crotch.’

‘I don’t have to listen to this.’

‘You may have taken my husband, Denise, but you stay away from my children – and me – all right? If you see me in the street, turn and run in the other direction. And watch your back in case I see you first, because if I ever set eyes on you again, I swear I’ll kill you.’

Her hands are trembling with rage as she hangs up.
She longs to grip her sister’s neck and squeeze it until every drop of life vanishes from her eyes.

For a few seconds she sits in the deafening silence of the house, shaking with the anger that plagues her like a disease and eats away at everything good in her. She takes a deep, rattling breath, and sobs. She howls into her hands, mourning for how her life used to be before that wretched, disastrous night.

Chapter Nineteen

Louise pulls up outside the train station and turns off the ignition. The muscles in her shoulders are so tense with stress that they feel as though they have fused together and hardened like cement. She sits in silence, breathing calmly, trying to enjoy her last moments of isolation before Brooke arrives.

Her mind wanders. She thinks of the man who chased her daughter down the train. She has dreamt about him returning into her life ever since they met that night. He is always asking questions, wanting to know why they didn’t come back, why he was left with the bodies. He always does it in front of other people: clients, Michael, her parents, her son, a police officer strolling past. In every dream, her jaw drops in horror as everyone she knows looks at her, distraught, slowly beginning to see the real her: a monster. In every dream, she agonises over her decision to deny it – or kill him. In some dreams, she begins to deny everything, but by the end, she lunges at him and kills him in some way. Sometimes she bludgeons him to death with a hammer; sometimes she penetrates his chest with a kitchen knife. In other dreams, she shoots him in the head with the shotgun that suddenly appears in her hand. The dreams push the barriers of
reality and fantasy, and the plot is always flawed, but her reaction remains the same: sheer terror.

Louise jolts out of her daydream at the sound of knocking on the window of the car. Brooke jumps back, startled, and Louise’s heart is pounding. She winds down the window.

‘For goodness sake, Brooke. You nearly gave me a bloody heart attack!’

‘Jesus, sorry!’

Louise gets out of the car and the two hold each other in a fond embrace, both of their hearts still racing from the fright.

‘I’ve missed you,’ Brooke whispers.

‘I’ve missed you, too, darling,’ Louise replies, stroking her daughter’s hair. She hadn’t realised how lonely she was until she saw her daughter.

She takes Brooke’s suitcase and puts it in the boot.

When Louise gets into the driver’s seat, Brooke has already put on the radio and changed the channel.

‘Interesting morning,’ Brooke says with a smile, although her eyes cannot help but reveal her terror.

‘You’ll never see him again, Brooke. That was just an unfortunate coincidence.’

‘Well, who left the glove, then?’

‘You think it was him?’

‘Well, it’s odd that I find the glove, and then get chased by him the following day.’

‘How would he know you? Or where we live? He
doesn’t know who we are.’

‘Well, someone knew to leave the glove.’

‘It’s not the only thing that’s been left,’ Louise says, deciding on a whim to tell her daughter about the birds.

‘What?’

‘I’ll tell you over lunch. You must be starving.’

Chapter Twenty

Louise drives them back to the village and parks outside the only pub in the area. They walk inside, attracting glares from the old, ghoulish men who are sitting at the bar.

‘What’s their problem?’ Brooke whispers, as they wait to order.

‘They have small-town syndrome here. A new face is a threat.’

‘I miss London already.’

They order food from the specials board and try to ignore the miserable men who are staring at them like drooling bulldogs. The atmosphere feels musty – the sour stench of local ale stains the air and the men at the bar exude the scent of stale cigar smoke.

Louise orders a white wine. Brooke orders the same. Louise almost protests, but remembers her daughter is eighteen now: she can do whatever she wants. They take their drinks to a secluded table away from the acrid odour of the bar, and wait for their food to arrive.

‘So what has been left for you to find?’ Brooke asks.

‘Birds.’

Brooke frowns.

‘Birds?’

‘Dead birds.’

‘What the fuck?’

‘Language,’ Louise scorns.

‘I’m an adult now, Mum, and – given the situation – I think you can let swearing slide.’

‘You’re right.’

Being given permission to swear sparks a youthful flash of excitement in Brooke’s eyes. Louise’s heart warms at the sight. She hasn’t seen Brooke act her age for a year. A glimpse of her eighteen-year-old innocence proves that it is still in there somewhere; that one day her daughter might be able to live her life without being suffocated by guilt.

‘Why dead birds? What kind?’

‘Robins.’

‘How many?’

‘Twenty-two.’

‘
Twenty-two?
’

‘At first it was just one; it was left on the doormat outside the house. I thought it had just died there naturally. Then another showed up in the same place.’

‘And the other twenty?’

Louise hesitates, wondering if she should tell her daughter about her traumatic awakening. Brooke may be her partner in crime, but she is also her child: she must be protected from further trauma. She swallows her doubt and speaks.

‘I woke up and they were all over the bed.’

Brooke’s face drains of colour; she presses her lips
together into a thin line, as though she is fighting the urge to vomit.

‘Someone definitely knows.’

‘No shit,’ Brooke replies. ‘What the hell do we do now?’

They fall silent as their food arrives. They have both lost their appetites. When the waitress leaves, they speak again.

‘We can’t go to the police.’

‘I know,’ Louise replies. ‘But what do we do without their help?’

‘Well, it’s not as if we haven’t covered up a murder before.’

‘That’s not funny.’

‘I wasn’t joking.’

They sit in stifling silence.

Brooke is the one to break it. ‘A man came to the house last night.’

‘What?’

‘I went downstairs to get a glass of water and a man was staring at me from the courtyard.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?’

‘I was too busy thinking of the man who chased me down the train. I forgot.’

‘Could it have been the same man?’

‘Only if the man on the train shrunk a few inches overnight.’

A chill runs down Louise’s back as she visualises
the scene.

‘What happened?’

‘I screamed and Dad came down.’

Louise is relieved to hear that her husband had spent last night at home – and not with her sister.

‘He didn’t believe me. Said I needed to see the doctor. Asked if I was taking my meds.’

Louise shakes her head, disapprovingly.

‘He hit me.’

‘What?’

‘I said some awful things. I was spiteful. He slapped me.’

‘I’ll kill him!’ Louise exclaims, clenching her fists below the table.

‘There’s no point thinking about that,’ Brooke says. ‘Not when we have all this shit to worry about.’

I’ll kill that son of a bitch
, Louise thinks, trying to rein in her dismay.

‘What did the man look like?’

‘Old.’

‘How old?’

‘Forties, I’d say.’

‘Thanks,’ Louise replies, humorously.

‘You know what I mean. Sorry.’

‘White? Black? Asian?’

‘White. Tall. Really blue eyes.’

‘Had you ever seen him before then?’

‘No.’

‘Maybe he was just a drugged, homeless man,’ Louise says.

‘Maybe, but I don’t think so. Do you?’

‘No,’ Louise replies honestly. ‘I don’t.’

They sit in silence, their food untouched, trying to decide how to deal with their new and horrifying dilemma.

Neither of them notices the watchful eye of someone sitting alone in a shadowy corner of the pub. He sips at a pint of Guinness, wondering how long he should wait before he acts.

Chapter Twenty-one

Bent over the desk, Denise moans as Michael thrusts into her, holding her down against his desk with one hand on the nape of her neck, the other gripping the flesh on her hip.

‘Tell me you love my big dick inside you.’

‘I love your big dick inside me.’

Michael releases his hold on her neck, takes a fistful of her hair and pulls until her face is elevated from the varnished desktop and her scalp is burning.

‘How much do you love it?’

‘More than anything,’ she replies, her third orgasm making her legs quiver with escalating intensity.

‘You like being fucked like a dog, don’t you?’

‘I love it!’

Her whole body begins to quiver. Michael pulls her up towards him, pressing her back against his moist front, and smothers her mouth with his hand, his wedding band cold against her lips, as she moans and whimpers with rapturous glee. He grunts and climaxes inside her, holding her in a vice-like grip as he shakes against her, spurting deep inside her and exhaling heavily in low moans.

They pant from exertion and pleasure for a moment, their bodies still connected in a moist lock, their bodies
dripping with warm beads of sweat.

Michael kisses her damp shoulder and then releases her; he slips out of her and saunters across his vast office for his clothes.

Denise remains perched against the desk, dripping and shivering with the pleasure that hasn’t yet left her.

‘I spoke to Louise.’

‘What? Why?’ Michael replies with a grimace.

‘I had to talk to her, Michael. She’s my sister.’

She turns to face him and tries to take control of her quivering legs and throbbing crotch. The orgasm is still racing through her like an electric current.

He grunts.

‘Don’t you want to know how it went?’ she asks, suddenly conscious of her naked body as Michael pulls his shirt on.

‘Not good, I expect.’

‘What’s wrong?’

She grabs her dress and steps into it – while frustration replaces her pleasure – and quickly slips her arms into it.

‘Forgive me if I’m not happy with you interfering in my marriage. This is nothing to do with you.’