What Goes Around: A chilling psychological thriller (33 page)

He raises his hand and then stops it in mid-air, not willing to go as far as actually hitting me – he’s not that man, which is just as well because I’m holding a knife in my hand and I am prepared to use it. He walks out of the kitchen and upstairs. I hear doors and drawers being slammed shut with temper and then five minutes later he’s downstairs again with two packed suitcases and his briefcase in his hands. ‘You don’t have to leave,’ I say. ‘Alex and I will be out by the weekend.’ I stand next to him as he grabs his keys and wallet from the hall table. ‘Tom?’

He’s unable to look at me.

‘I’ll take my car and all of my things,’ I say. ‘I’ll leave the house keys and the diamond earrings you bought me for Christmas.’

He doesn’t respond. His chin wobbles and his jaw tenses in response. He has become a wounded little boy and he needs to escape for a good cry, take himself off to another place where he won’t be confronted with the reality of a woman who has rejected him.

I let him go and, sensing that Katarina must have heard most of this, I go into the living room. She looks up at me guiltily. ‘I was not hearing. I am not listening.’

‘Tom and I are not going to live together any more,’ I say.

‘I am sorry.’ Her eyes fill with tears. ‘I am not … this is not …’ She shakes her head, unable to find the words.

‘These things happen,’ I say, with a businesslike tone. ‘It’s not for you to worry about.’ I smile, but she still looks sad and I realise it’s because she cares. She is a more sensitive soul than I have given her credit for. ‘I’m going to be leaving over the weekend and I don’t think you’ll want to be here with Tom on your own.’

‘He does not like me.’

‘Don’t take it personally.’ I smile, but she is unable to respond. ‘I’ll give you three months’ wages and buy you a return ticket to Prague if you want to go home immediately.’

‘You will?’

‘Of course. This is not your fault.’

‘Yes!’ She jumps up and throws her arms round me. ‘I love go home. I have boyfriend and he is missing and I am missing.’

‘That’s good then!’

‘Yes, that’s good then!’ She smiles and in that instant, her face is beautiful. It’s the happiest I’ve seen her since she arrived. I know I haven’t been kind enough to her and don’t imagine she’ll look back on her time in Scotland with any degree of fondness.

‘Let’s buy you that ticket.’

I log on to my laptop and she sits beside me, her legs moving up and down impatiently. ‘I am sorry for you but I am excited for me.’

‘You be happy, Katarina,’ I say to her. ‘You deserve to be happy. Don’t forget that.’ I print out her boarding card and hand it to her.

‘Thank you!’ She kisses the page then kisses my cheek. ‘I pack!’ She runs upstairs. ‘I pack now!’

The next day when I drop Katarina at the airport, with more hugging and promises to stay in touch, promises that I can’t imagine we’ll ever keep, Rob Mooney rings – perfect timing – to tell me that Alex is ready to come home. He gives me a progress report and I can tell that Alex is in the right frame of mind to resist temptation and put focus and effort into his future. ‘The friend he’s made,’ I say.

‘Alistair?’

‘That’s right. They’ve been making music together. Do you think it’s a healthy, mutually supportive friendship?’

‘I do,’ Rob says. ‘I know they’re planning to meet up and I think it will be good for both of them.’

‘That’s great news.’
Paisley here we come!
‘I could be with you in just over an hour,’ I say. ‘Is that too soon?’

Rob assures me Alex will be ready and I set off, planning as I drive, thinking about where I’ll find work. I have plenty of contacts in my current business but it does make it easy for David to keep finding us, so I’m contemplating a career change. I think of all the roads not yet taken that still stretch out either side of me: I could work on the land, learn to grow some vegetables, make cheese even. (Well, why not?) I could train to be a teacher. I could work in a local shop. In actual fact, it doesn’t really matter what I decide to do because the job will be a means to an end. The next few years will be about Alex, what’s good for him and what brings us closer, while at the same time preparing him for life as an independent adult.

He’s barely in the car when I say, ‘How do you feel about us moving closer to your friend Alistair?’

‘He lives in Paisley.’

‘I know.’

‘What?’ He stares at me, surprised. ‘You mean move to Paisley?’

‘Yes.’

He smiles. ‘Mum, I don’t think Paisley would suit you and Tom.’

‘It would just be you and me because, you see, well, I don’t think it’s working out with Tom.’ I glance across at him to gauge his thoughts. ‘I’m sorry, Alex. This isn’t the first time I’ve left a man and we’ve upped sticks and gone to another city but I promise you it will be the last.’

‘Shit! It’s not because of me, is it? Was it because I had to go back to rehab?’

‘No, no, no.’ I briefly place my hand on his knee and he doesn’t recoil. It makes my heart lift. ‘It’s me. I’m at fault. I don’t think I’m meant to be the other half of a couple.’ I glance across at him again. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘It’s okay.’ He shrugs, unconcerned. ‘Tom and I don’t really get along anyway. But Paisley, Mum? Are you sure?’

‘Yes, I am sure. I’m absolutely sure.’

He’s pensive for a bit. ‘You can look at it in another way, Mum. You can say you’re not afraid of change. You’ve always been able to recognise when something isn’t right and move on. That’s a good trait to have.’

I don’t tell him that most of my moving on has been running away, because of my brother, his father and the secret I’m never willing to reveal. It’s not that I don’t think we would be unable to get past the fact of his conception, although I know that would take a good deal of working through; it’s that I don’t trust David. He has always been unpredictable and I won’t subject Alex to that. Not now, not ever.

‘I’ve not been much of a son recently but I’m going to make up for it, Mum, I really am. I’m going to get a job, carry on with my music. Become someone.’

His sincerity tugs at my heart and makes me feel proud of him. And perhaps proud of me too, and once more I let myself think that maybe I haven’t made such a bad job of raising my son after all.

It’s Friday and Alex has gone up town to say goodbye to some friends. We’re leaving Edinburgh tomorrow. I’ve found us some temporary accommodation in Paisley for the next three months; we’ll be able to seek out a better option once we’re living there and we have more of an idea of the area of town that best suits us. I’m not a hoarder and have never been someone who has hung on to possessions just for the sake of it, so we haven’t amassed a huge amount of stuff. The van will arrive at nine and I expect to be on the road by ten.

I’m ticking items off my list – van hire, registered change of address with the post office, letters to all my clients and to the university – when the doorbell goes. For a second I think it might be Tom, but he’d hardly ring his own doorbell and I don’t expect to hear from him again. We had a stilted telephone conversation last night when he made an attempt to change my mind. ‘I thought I’d give you a couple of days to cool off.’ (I wasn’t heated.) ‘We both said things we didn’t mean.’ (I didn’t.) ‘Why don’t we have a weekend away? Paris? Amsterdam? New York? You choose.’ (I choose Paisley.)

‘I’m sorry, Tom,’ I interrupt him when he reminds me how good we are together. ‘We’re over. There is no us. Please don’t contact me again.’

The doorbell sounds a third and then a fourth time. I hoped, I might have even prayed – but I didn’t actually believe I’d get away without seeing David for one last time. And it will be the last time, because I’m going to do what I should have done years ago and put a stop to him bothering me.

He’s standing on the doorstep. We look one another up and down. ‘There’s blood on your sleeve,’ I say.

‘You seem nervous,’ he says.

‘What do you want?’

‘To talk to you. Please.’ He smiles. It’s the little-boy smile that I’m a sucker for, the smile that pulls me right back to his side. I’ll give him an inch but no more than that.

‘Five minutes,’ I say. He follows me into the kitchen. ‘Whose blood is on your sleeve?’

‘No one’s.’ He widens his eyes. ‘It’s nothing.’ He moves around the kitchen picking things up and putting them down again. I turn over the page on my notepad in case his eyes fall on my tick list and he works out that we’re moving. ‘Ellen found out who I was. Did you tell her?’

‘I didn’t need to. She saw you come in here.’ I look through the window and down to the bottom of the garden. I can’t see where I hid the cat but I know he’s there, a quietly decomposing reminder of the power I hold in my hands. ‘David, I have something to tell you. Something I should have admitted to you years ago. Wait here.’ I go upstairs and bring the sheet of paper out from under the mattress, the one I copied and altered from the original in Tom’s case files. ‘Read this,’ I say, handing it to him.

I watch his eyes as they move down the page. I see a shiver pass through him and then he shakes himself like a dog. ‘You’re trying to tell me that guy Ed is Alex’s father?’

‘I’m not trying to tell you anything. This is a DNA test. It states as a matter of fact that Edward Trent is 99.9% likely to be Alex’s biological father.’

‘The date on this is ten years ago.’

‘That’s right. I bumped into Ed in a pub and it was the opportunity I needed to ask him whether he’d be willing to take a DNA test. He said yes but he didn’t want anything to do with Alex – he had just got married and his wife was expecting.’ My lie sounds convincing even to myself. ‘I said that didn’t matter. I simply wanted to know for sure who Alex’s father was because I had noticed something about his walk and the set of his mouth that reminded me of Ed.’

‘You liar,’ he says, a smile in his voice as he tries to laugh it off. ‘The night Alex was born you called me. You said you saw me in the baby! My nose, my eyes.’

‘I know I did. And I’m sorry for that but I was emotionally vulnerable, needy, very unlike myself.’

‘Unlike yourself enough to be truthful.’

I shake my head. ‘I had no birth partner and I wanted to speak to you, to make things better between us. I felt bad about our rift. I’d been given the gift of a baby and I wanted to share that gift with you. To heal us both.’ I pause. ‘Afterwards I realised it was only myself I was seeing in Alex. You and I have features in common after all and I was confused.’

The truth is this: I called David because I couldn’t help myself, because I was misguided enough to believe, in that post-partum moment when there was a rush of hormones and my maternal love had been instantly activated, that David deserved to know the part he’d played in creating this beautiful, tiny, perfect human being. I didn’t think about the consequences and I certainly didn’t anticipate how much that decision would come to haunt me.

David takes a lighter from his pocket and sets fire to the page. The flame flares up; the paper curls and blackens. He drops the burning remains into the sink.

‘There’s more than one copy.’

‘I know this isn’t true.’ He is maintaining his position. ‘You would have told me years ago.’

‘When? When could I have told you? At what stage in your life would you have believed me?’ He leaves these questions unanswered so I continue, sensing a chink of doubt. ‘There’s never been a right time, David. I thought that maybe if you met someone and married her then that might be an opportune moment but you haven’t, and so that moment has never come, and now with all you have done these past few weeks I knew I couldn’t delay any longer …’ I trail off.

‘You bitch!’ He’s shaking his head as if just realising he’s been taken for a fool. ‘You absolute bitch.’

‘David, I think what you’re conveniently forgetting is that you took advantage of me.’

‘You were a slag! You slept with anyone.’

‘I didn’t sleep with anyone. I had sex with the men I wanted to have sex with. And I certainly did not want to have sex with my brother.’ I move in close. ‘You came into my bed when you knew I’d had too much to drink and you all but raped me.’

‘You enjoyed it.’

‘I was barely aware it was happening. While you were stone cold sober, entirely aware of what you were doing.’

He flexes and extends his fingers from fist to wide-open palm. It’s an action I make myself. It’s an action Gareth always made and I know what follows. ‘I could contact Alex any time I want. Have you thought about that, Leila? I could blow your life sky-high.’

‘And yet you haven’t. And why is that?’ I leave a space for him to fill but he doesn’t; he’s busy watching his hands. ‘I’ll tell you why – because it’s not about Alex; it’s about me. It’s about having power over me, owning me.’

‘You can’t own another human being.’ His eyes flick briefly towards mine. ‘Not while they’re alive.’

I catch a look that I’ve seen before and I feel my joints stiffen. It’s the dead-eyed expression that Gareth used to have when he came out of the cellar. ‘You’ve had your five minutes, David.’ My voice is strong. ‘Please go now.’ I glance at my watch. ‘I have a client arriving in five minutes.’

He shakes his head. ‘You want to know whose blood this is?’

‘Tell me you haven’t hurt Ellen,’ I say quietly.

‘Ellen? Why would I hurt Ellen? We only hurt those we love, don’t we? Those we love – or in this case—’ he brushes at the blood on his sleeve ‘—hate.’ He holds out his hands palm-up, and moves them up and down as if weighing the emotions. ‘Love, hate,’ he repeats. ‘What’s worth more?’

‘Love,’ I say softly. ‘Of course.’

‘But hate feels so powerful.’

‘So does love.’ In the corner of my vision is the knife rack. I’m one step, one reach away from it. ‘To be loved is what we all want.’ I reposition my feet. ‘You, me, everyone.’

He considers this. ‘But, Leila Mae, can love exist where there are secrets?’

‘There are no secrets between us, David. Not any more.’

‘Oh yes, there is.’ He throws his arms wide enough to encompass the whole room. ‘There is one mammoth, fucking secret that you’ve kept from me for years but when Gareth told me—’ he nods his head up and down, up and down ‘—When Gareth told me it made perfect sense because the night I fucked you, you talked in your sleep. You’ve always talked in your sleep. Do you know that about yourself, Leila Mae? Do you?’ His face moves up close to mine, until our mouths are just inches from each other. ‘I know you killed her.’