Donor, The (21 page)

Kay and I arranged to meet Graham at the train station in town then head to Largs for a day of fresh air and no hospitals. I was a block from home when I
remembered
I’d forgotten my hospital-only phone. ‘I’ll run back and get it. Tell you what, meet you in town. I’ll call when I’m on the train,’ I said.

I knew there was something strange as soon as I opened the door. A bang coming from the office. Our mail strewn across the hallway. Dad was in Edinburgh with Si. Kay was on her way to the train station.

Someone was in the house.

I walked to the kitchen, quietly slid our largest knife from its wooden block and looked for the phone in the hall – the base was there, but the handset was missing. Where the hell was the phone? I tiptoed towards the office.

The door was open slightly. I peered in. The man from the pub yesterday was going through the papers on my father’s desk.

I opened the door.

‘Who are you?’

The huge lug turned towards me and smiled. ‘Oh, hi. Georgie, isn’t it!’

‘Who the fuck are you? And what are you doing in my house?’

He moved towards me, not scared by the knife in my hand. ‘Now, now, why don’t you just give me that,’ he said.

I gripped the handle tightly. ‘Get out of this house or I’ll stab you.’

He kept moving towards me till the knife was actually touching his chest. ‘You want to know who I am?’

‘I want you to get out or I will push this into your heart.’

‘My name is Heath Jones. And my heart is on the other side of my chest.’

My grip loosened. I moved it to the right. Heath Jones. My mother’s lover. Of course. Under that flabby face was the tough murderer I’d seen in the newspaper article.

‘What do you want?’

‘I want my stuff.’

‘What stuff?’

‘Heroin. Drugs. The poofter stole it from your mummy. It’s mine.’

I moved to the filing cabinet and looked in M for money. I grabbed the emergency envelope. Handing him the money, I said, ‘I don’t have drugs. This is the only money we have. Take it and go.’

He put the envelope in his pocket, but he didn’t go. He moved towards me again, smiling.

‘I said go!’

‘Now, now, no need to be so grumpy. Why are you so grumpy? Must come from your mother.’

‘Get out!’ I yelled, but my grip on the knife was
loosening
again. My hands were sweaty. I looked around the room – where was the phone? I needed to dial 999.

‘You want me to tell you who I am, who I really am?’

‘I don’t give a fuck. I just want you to leave. NOW!’

‘I’m your daddy, Georgie. You want to give Daddy a hug?’

‘Get out,’ I said, not listening to his nonsense.

‘I don’t think so,’ he said, grabbing the knife so quickly I hardly realised he’d done it, then pushing me against the wall. The knife was now at my chest. His arm was pushing against my throat. I couldn’t breathe. I kicked him as hard as I could but he didn’t seem to feel it. I pulled his hair. Didn’t stop him. I couldn’t do it any more anyway. My brain couldn’t get messages to my limbs. My eyes were bulging. He looked into them. He seemed to like the look of my bulging eyes.

‘It’s true. Isn’t that funny? I’m your father.’

‘Bullshit!’ The word was barely audible. God, he was killing me. I was going to die. Everything in the room was blurry. I managed one more kick, right in the balls. He winced a little, but that was all.

‘It’s true, little Georgie. I just found out. I’m over the moon. I’m your daddy!’

‘Bullshit!’ I rasped again, knowing this was the last word I would be able to muster.

‘It is true,’ I heard, as everything started to go dark. But these two words didn’t come from the guy who was killing me.

They came from the man standing in the doorway.

My
real
father.

Will Marion.

Will had never done anything bad in his whole life, bar the drunken pros and cons list in his notebook. Now, he was going to do something very bad indeed. He was going to kill a man.

What luck, that he’d retrieved his gun earlier that day, almost as an afterthought, having rifled through videos, knowing it was dangerous leaving it in the house with the girls and that he might need to have it on him to convince the prick to go along to the hospital.

What luck, having worked it all out the way he had.

Firearms: 8/10.

Luck, too, that he had researched how to use the gun (7a).

Had decided where to aim (7b), in the head, right temple.

Had determined to do it at home (7c).

Knew an ambulance would arrive within
twenty-two
minutes of the call.

Not so lucky that his daughter would witness it. But the bastard was trying to kill her. She had stopped moving.

Will moved towards Heath and placed the gun at his right temple. ‘Let go of her now,’ he said.

Heath did as he was told, dropping Georgie to the floor. She coughed, spluttered, sat up.

‘Georgie, move out of the way,’ Will said.

Will shouldn’t have watched Georgie drag herself towards the door, hoping, praying that she was all right. He’d taken his eye off the ball, and Heath had grabbed the metal spike from the desk and tried to plunge it into his chest.

Will was quick, though. He shielded his chest with his left hand. The metal spike went right through it, stopping a millimetre short of his chest at the other end. Eighty or so defunct pieces of paper with lists of things to never do were now attached to the palm of Will’s left hand.

Unfortunately, the shock had made him drop the gun from his other hand. The weapon hurtled across the room and under the sofa bed. Heath lunged to the floor, trying to reach it.

Will put the end of the spike on the ground, and pushed his hand down as hard as he could so it moved down the spike with a painfully slow, moist scrape. Eventually, his hand reached the floor and he pulled the metal base out. He shook the pieces of paper from his bloody hand – pieces of paper with lists that
represented
the man he used to be, the man who never did anything. Grabbing the spike at its base, he lunged towards Heath, who was still trying to reach the gun under the sofa bed. His head was at knee height. With an animal roar, Will plunged the ten-inch metal spike into Heath’s right temple. He stopped when he realised what he’d done. Heath stopped too, placing his hand on his head, fumbling about. Had this really
happened
? Was there a stick in his head?

He looked at Will for confirmation. ‘What is that? Is there something in my head? What have you done? Tell me what that is!’

Will’s hand was no longer holding the base of the spike. He looked at the man kneeling before him, who was still very much alive. He looked at the spike. Two inches had disappeared into his thick skull.

‘You know what I’ve done? I’ve started
something
…’

Will kicked Heath so he fell onto the floor on his side. Placing his foot on the base of the metal spike, he looked Heath in the eye and said, ‘And now I’m going to finish it.’ He pressed his foot on the base, pushed with all his might, eyes on Heath’s, unflinching, until the spear exited the other temple and pressed into the underfelt of the carpet.

Why was he still breathing?
Will thought, when he’s impaled on a spike from temple to temple?
How was he still speaking?
Pleading, hand out to Georgie? 
‘Georgie … Help me. Help your daddy. I’m your father. You’re my own flesh and blood.’

Georgie paused, watching the man weaken,
watching
him die. ‘No you’re not,’ she said, reaching under the sofa for the gun and handing it to Will.

‘This man is my father.’

*

There was no need for the gun. The spike had done the job. Heath stopped talking, expression faded from his eyes, blood dribbled from his mouth, his ears, his temples. A spasm, a gurgle, a loosening. He closed his eyes, and stopped breathing.

Will looked at his daughter. ‘I’m sorry, Georgie. I’m sorry.’

Neither of them could avert their eyes from the dead man on the ground. What had Will done? He had killed someone.

Georgie leant down and checked Heath’s pulse. Nothing. She touched his cheek, as if she hoped to feel something, some sadness at the loss of this man, but quickly retrieved her hand. She felt nothing. She stood and looked at Will, who seemed catatonic.

‘You’ll go to jail, Dad. I don’t want you to go to jail,’ Georgie said. He didn’t respond. She grabbed his shoulders, shook them. ‘Dad! Listen, you can’t go to jail!’

Her words hurled him back to reality. He shook his head, clearing the debris.

‘Right. I won’t. Now listen to me. He killed himself,’ Will said, putting the gun to one side.

‘With that?’ she said, looking at the spike. ‘That’s ridiculous.’

‘No,’ Will said, standing over Heath’s dead head and grabbing the base of the spike. It exited the temple with a sucking hiss. Will picked up the gun, wiped it clean with his T-shirt and placed it in Heath’s hand. Turning to Georgie, he said, ‘Don’t look. Leave!’

Georgie didn’t move. What could be worse than what she’d already seen?

‘I said OUT! Now, Georgie!’

She backed out of the room, shut the door, slid down behind it, her head in her hands.

A moment later, Will placed Heath’s body on its side on the blood-soaked carpet, positioned the gun against his right temple, checking the angle was correct and would make the same journey as the spike. He took a deep breath and pressed Heath’s fingers hard against the trigger.

The noise made Georgie jump, and then scream, and then sob.

*

It was a few minutes later when Will tried to open the office door. ‘Georgie, let me out. Move away from the door!’

She crawled forward so her father could get out of the office. Will opened the door and kneeled in front of her.

‘G, it’s okay. Keep your cool. I’m going to clean up. You’re going to write a suicide note.’

‘But … How? I don’t know his handwriting.’

Will handed her Heath’s iPhone. ‘This was in his pocket. Do a text. Don’t make it too clever. Clean your fingerprints after. Rub his fingers with it, send it to Mr Jamieson. I’ve put the number in his contacts. You understand? Tell the doctors to get here. Then put it next to him and wash yourself. Can you do that?’

‘I can.’

‘When you have, we’ll get hold of Kay.’

‘Bessie up or down?’ Will said, palm down on the new dining table in their recently renovated kitchen. All three looked different. There was no yellow in the girls; no sadness in Will. Kay’s hair was several inches longer. Georgie had dyed hers black.

‘Down,’ Georgie said.

Will lifted his hand slowly. Lizzie was indeed down.

‘Ha!’ Georgie said.

‘So where do you want to go?’ Will asked.

‘You know where? To the sofa. I want the three of us to watch your new film and eat crisps … for a whole week!’

‘It’s not ready! It’s uncut!’ Will said.

‘Don’t care. Wanna see it,’ Georgie said.

It was a deal.

*

It had been such very good news, all those months ago, because Heath Jones had died. Will had cleaned
fingerprints
and bloodstains thoroughly. He had shot
accurately
. The police did not suspect foul play and had escorted him to the hospital to be with his girls as the operations took place.

And his darling Georgie had written the perfect goodbye, the heart-wrenching note for which Will had always yearned.

Helen FitzGerald is one of thirteen children and grew up in Victoria, Australia. She nows lives in Glasgow with her husband and two children. Helen worked as a parole officer and social worker for over ten years. Her first novel,
Dead Lovely,
was published in 2007 and
My Last Confession
was published in 2009.

DEAD LOVELY

MY LAST CONFESSION

THE DEVIL’S STAIRCASE

BLOODY WOMEN

HOT FLUSH