Hell To Pay (2 page)

Chapter 2

"The knife. I remember him showing it to me; gloating about having the one from the kitchen drawer. Shoving it right under my nose, the sharp end dragging across my outer lip, as though he was gonnae carve me a new smile. He told me he was gonnae use it on me. Fuck me with it. My hands were tied behind my back so I couldn’t struggle, my feet were bound so I couldn’t kick him in the balls so he’d crumple and leave me alone. There was nothing I could do."

I stop talking because I don’t want to go back there. To be that powerless victim, again.

Dr. Drinkell hands me a box of tissues. There’s a cartoon sheep design on the box, as if that will make any difference to how people will feel when they use them to wipe away the snot and tears.

Dr. Drinkell straightens up in his chair, builds a pyramid with his hands and rests his chin on it. His motions are so slow and deliberate I wonder if he’s doing it for dramatic effect. Everything about the man is contrived (he thinks I don’t know this because I don’t have fancy certificates from different universities hanging on my wall in ‘look at me’ frames).

When he speaks, he has a voice some people might describe as soothing, but which becomes monotonous after dozens of 45-minute sessions, dissecting things you’d rather stayed buried.

"How does that make you feel? Knowing there was nothing you could do?"

I fight the urge to give him the same answer I gave the first time he asked me that months ago – how do you think I feel? But, I’ve gotten passed that. At least that’s what I want him to believe because I want out of here.

Dr. D thinks his treatment’s working if I give him the answers he wants; if I don’t blame myself for what happened. When I do.

If only I'd been there earlier, maybe I could have saved them.

Dr. D calls it survivor’s guilt. I call it giving yourself a mental kicking for allowing someone to shit all over you, even although deep down you know there’s nothing you could conceivably have done. Not that knowing that helps, because what happened, happened. No amount of talk therapy can change that or bring them back.

But I won’t let him know that’s how I still feel, because I’ll do whatever I have to do to get out of here; to protect the illusion his bullshit therapy is working and it’s safe to discharge me.

Since the police discovered me at my parents’ house all broken and torn inside, blood draining out of me and onto the kitchen linoleum (as I lay there all I could think was Mum will never get the blood stains out, no matter how much she scrubbed), they told me I’ve been unable to function. I’ve been non-responsive to anything or anybody, including Shug who was given a day pass from prison on compassionate grounds. They said they’d no choice but to section me.

When they got me to hospital, I had to be sedated or I would start screaming, tearing at my own clothes, pulling out my own hair, dragging my nails into my skin until it bled.

I swallow, which isn’t easy to do when your mouth is as dry as an alcoholic in rehab. I don’t need to think too hard to answer his question in an acceptable way, but I want to give the illusion of introspection. That I’ve deliberated and given my answer a great deal of thought when all I’m doing is ticking another box.

It’s all about ticking boxes in here. Medication – tick. Therapy – tick. Socialization – tick. Conning the good doctor - tick.

Bullshit the lot of it. But it keeps Dr. D happy and it’s keeping him happy that’s going to get me home. Whatever the hell that means. It’s just me and Shug left now and he’s in Bar L prison, I don't even have a place to stay.

Michael’s found someone else. They’re living together in
her
house. He ditched his old place the way he ditched me. What other possible outcome could there be with a loony tunes girlfriend swimming in her own drool, versus the fandabulous, fucking Donna Marie. Bet even her number twos smell of coconut and chocolate. She was meant to be my friend.

He even had the temerity to bring her here. Since I’d seen her last, she’d undergone a major transformation so she could steal my man - all blonde hair and Hollywood star teeth. (Bitterness has made me go all Jeremy Kyle.) They’d sat there making puppy eyes at one another as though they were Romeo and fucking Juliet; all lovesick grins and wee in jokes, expecting me to be happy for them.

I told them to fuck the hell off, as they’d exchanged ‘she’s loopy’ glances, probably waiting until they got outside to circle a finger around their ears.

Now that Dr. D’s got a thread he’s mining it for all its worth.

"How does that make you feel? That you could do nothing to prevent what happened?"

I take a sip of water from the paper cup placed in front of me (normal cups and mugs are banned because they can be smashed and the sharp pieces used for cutting into flesh or swallowing). These days I take great care when I drink. When I was half out of it, I have a recollection of someone trying to give me water and the liquid going down the wrong way; I felt as though I was being water boarded. Those things I remember. Other things? Not so much.

Apparently, I scratched the face of an orderly who tried to calm me down, using a plastic fork I’d sharpened to cut my arms. Not that I remember. My brain’s a hard drive and some of it's been corrupted.

When I finally talk, I make it sound as if I’ve thought this through and come to this great realization.

"It makes me feel that it wasn’t my fault. There were two of them. They were armed. I was tied up, gagged so I couldn’t even scream. My parents were dead. What could I do?"

Dr. D gives me a knowing look because I’ve told him what he wants to hear even if it's not the truth. If I told him the truth, he’d keep me locked up here forever; claim I’m a danger to others and myself. Put me in a padded room, in an I-love-me jacket, pumped full of drugs to make me as compliant as a rag doll.

The truth is fury courses through my veins; the only feeling stronger than that is the smoldering hate. The kind that festers and grows every minute, of every day, becoming a raging inferno that can’t be controlled – even if you wanted it to be, which I don’t, because that's what stops me from taking a knife to be my wrists and having one long last bath.

What I want most is revenge. To go after the bastards who killed my parents.

They brought hell to my home. Now they’re in for some hell of their own.

That’s what I call therapy; not Dr. D’s clappy, happy approach.

Chapter 3

Dr. D isn’t the only person who wants me to relive that day.

It’s hard not to like Detective Inspector Duncan Waddell when he always brings me a plastic bottle of Irn Bru; Scotland’s answer to Mountain Dew. For some reason, they don’t sell it in here. Maybe they think people will get too happy on the sugary drink and will no longer need medication and therapy.

Waddell is not a happy bunny today, because I’m still not cooperating and he knows I know much more than I’m telling.

"Did they say anything? What about how they looked - did they have any tattoos, scars, jewelry? You must remember something, Nancy. What about how they talked. Did one of them have a speech impediment or affectation, a strange accent?"

"No, I’m sorry. I just don’t remember." A lump forms in my throat, because I remember too much, but I don’t show it. "It’s all blank."

His shoulders hunch forwards and he eyes me as though I’m his daughter and I’ve disappointed him in some way.

I have to battle not to look away: to be the one who blinks first.

"Do you want the scum who did this to your parents and left you to die, to get away with it?"

I don’t answer that. Why should I?

There’s a trace of irritation in his voice and I don’t blame him. He knows I’m lying and there’s not a damn thing he can do about it.

Impassive, I sit there as he uses phrases such as "hindering a police inquiry" and "holding back information."  I've developed an indifference to these stock phrases, because I've heard them all before.

Why does Dr. D let Waddell see me? Is he trying to set back my recovery? 

Apart from a burly orderly standing at the door in case I go crazy and he needs to restrain me (when I was first brought in, I gave him a bloody nose and he still bears a grudge), we’re alone in the dayroom with its mellow yellow walls, blu-tacked posters and Formica tables.

In some ways, I look forward to these little police visits at the same time as dreading them. On one hand, I love Irn Bru and Waddell is a nice man who seems genuinely concerned about me, but I’ve never been that comfortable with lying. Some people lie as easily as they breathe, but I’m not one of them. Blame my parents who brought me up to be honest.

Waddell's forehead crinkles. "What if they do the same thing to someone else? You might not care about what happened to you, but what about the next victims?"

Yeah, right. I don’t care about being raped then stabbed with the knife my mum used to peel potatoes. Heartless bitch that I am.

He sits there in judgment of me and he doesn’t even know me. I know he’s only doing his job. Goading me, trying to get me fired up, so I’ll throw a hissy fit and tell him everything I know, as a WPC sits next to him, smiling sympathetically (how I hate that bloody smile). But, I won’t rise to the bait.

It’s up to me to finish it; to make the bastards pay. The police had their chance whilst I was in gaga land, zonked out on the meds, and they blew it. Now, the baton's been passed to me.

Waddell’s stopped talking now and he’s eyeing me as if he's seen inside my head and knows what I'm thinking. I sit there trying to look contrite as he lectures me about taking the law into my own hands, appearing shocked that he'd dare suggest that I’d do such a thing. I point out that I was a victim of a terrible crime and instead of treating me as though I were the criminal; he should be going after the thugs who killed my parents and raped me. I tell him I’m not a vigilante. All I want to do is get on with my life.

All crap of course, because in my head I’m plotting revenge.

Waddell relaxes and apologizes for having given me "the spiel."

He says he knows I wouldn’t do anything illegal, but he has to warn me for my own good. He tells me some story about the family of a woman, who’d been violently assaulted by an asylum seeker, paying two men to beat the crap out of him. When the man later died – well, having your penis hacked off tended to do that if you didn’t get medical treatment before you lost too much blood – it emerged he wasn’t even in the country when she’d been attacked. They’d got the wrong man.

Morality tale over, he pulls himself up out his chair and nods to me as if I’m an old friend he’s come to visit, and not just another case number.

"If you remember anything Nancy, let me know. You have my card."

He’s being nice considering I’ve told him nothing.

Flashing him a smile, I say, "I will, and thanks for the Irn Bru. Think the hospital considers it an illegal drug."

I roll my eyes; a shared joke even although we both know we’re engaged in a merry dance.

A broad smile appears on Waddell's face and gazing into those bloodshot eyes, guilt tugs at my resolve.

"My pleasure. Have a bit of an addiction problem myself, but don’t tell the wife."

He pats his stomach and I laugh. My laugh sounds funny to my ears, because I haven’t laughed in so long.

As I watch him go, I congratulate myself on standing firm and not throwing away my chance of revenge. 

"Why are you still bothering with the girl, Sir, when she’s doing nothing to help us or herself?"

DI Waddell frowned as he looked over at DC Brian McKeith whose lumbering limbs were folded under the driver’s seat because yet again they’d been assigned one of the crappy cars and not one of the new roomier Peugeots.

“If we only spoke to those who want to speak to us, Brian, we’d hardly speak to anyone.”

From behind his glasses, McKeith gave his boss a disapproving look.

"Besides, Miss Kerr went through a hell of an ordeal that most other people wouldn’t have survived. She deserves our sympathy."

"But, we could catch them, Sir, if she’d only cooperate."

Waddell took a sharp intake of breath as McKeith carried on. "I think she’s protecting that brother of hers. But what could be so big it led to their parents being killed?"

Waddell tapped his nose. "That Brian is what we need to find out."

McKeith’s face brightened behind the glasses.

Waddell went on. “When she was brought in the knife had made such a mess she should have bled to death. It’s doubtful she’ll ever be able to have kids. The nurses counted twelve cigarette burns all over her body and there were cuts and bruises over every inch of her torso. They didn’t just cut her hair; they gouged her scalp with a knife. We need to get them."

Chapter 4

When you’re finally free of the relentless round of drugs and the constant therapy, where you're forced to dig deep into your psyche to remember things you’d rather pretend never happened, the air smells so much better. Objects sharpen. Colors become more vibrant. There’s beauty everywhere.

Best of all, things start to crystallize in your mind and you find a new clarity: you know what you need to do. The future is a road map stretched out before you.

I’ve been released from Parkview Hospital and now I plan to have as good a life as I can like my parents would have wanted. But before I can move on, I have scores to settle. I need to find out who killed Mum and Dad and attacked me, and hack off their genitals with a rusty blade (at least that’s one of the scenarios I’ve played out in my head, along with decapitation and ramming their heads into a railing spike).

There's so much hatred in me I can think of a million different ways to hurt the men responsible for ruining my life.

The police have had their chance. After “exhaustive inquiries,” they decided my parents were the victims of a burglary gone wrong. But, what opportunistic burglars would put a gun to two old people's heads and pull the trigger without any hesitation, after they'd tortured them? There were only two bullets. Stunk of a professional hit to me. Or maybe I’ve been reading too much Martina Cole.

Whatever the reason for what happened, they shouldn’t have messed with my family and now they have I’m going to mess with them in ways they could never have imagined.