Hell To Pay (3 page)

Chapter 5

The drive over is the longest journey of my life, because I hit every traffic light going (on purpose), delaying the inevitable first visit to my parents’ house. It’s a visit I need to make. For 19 years, I lived there happily and I won’t let all those good memories be destroyed by what the scum did to me. Mum made my Halloween costumes in that house (I always wanted to be a fairy) and cut my toast into soldiers to dunk in my boiled egg whenever I was sick. Dad brought my bike into the kitchen to patch up punctures and showed me how to rewire a plug and change a fuse, as well as teaching me how to change a car tire. I refuse to let anyone taint my memories.

Seeing the house in darkness is a boot in the gut. Before, there were always lights on, even at night. There were lanterns on either side of the door and the hall light was left on so my dad wouldn’t trip when he had to “point at the porcelain” in the middle of the night.

Reality hits me like a punch in the jaw. There will never be lights on in this house again. Not unless I turn them on myself.

Hauling myself out of the car, I jingle the keys in one hand because it’s so quiet and I find the sound comforting. I debate whether to go through with this; ask myself why I'm doing this. To find evidence? Hardly, surely the police would have found that. Maybe I'm here to exorcise some demons, or in some childish way do I honestly believe its all been some big mistake and when I open that door everything will be as it should be? Dad will be sitting in his armchair, engrossed in the latest David Baldacci as Mum chirps away as she flicks through her magazines.

Lurching towards the side of the house, away from the roses that Mum was so proud of, I throw up. The violent retching burns my throat and hurts my chest. Spent, I find a hanky in my pocket and wipe my mouth. I know I look a right state but don’t care if the neighbors see me. They weren’t so nosey were they when my parents were being brutalized and murdered. No curtain twitchers then.

Bending down in the dirt to scoop up the keys I dropped, I fall to my knees and sob. I have no idea how long I’m there for, but I’m so cold I swear there’s icicles in my veins. There’s dirt on my face.

With shaking hands, I turn the key. The door clicks open and I go inside, switching on all the lights as I go. They’d cut off the electricity, but I’d managed to get it reconnected.

The house that used to be filled with noise, with laughter and my parents bickering, was now as still as a movie set long after the crew had gone home. And this is when the reality hits me: it really did happen.

Dad dead, face a bloody pulp. Mum with a bruised face and a burnt hand, her face wearing the terror that preceded her death. She knew what was going to happen.

Another ghost has joined them now. A woman. She’s naked and bleeding, hugging her knees to her chest, as she rocks to and fro. She’s mumbling something, but I can’t make it out. Her eyes are wide, vacant, and just, for an instant, her gaze locks onto mine and I see myself as I was that night: all battered and torn, inside and out. A shell of a person.

She’s a stranger to me.

Closing my eyes, I stand there. When I open them, all of this will be gone. I’ll be alone in this house, plotting my revenge. This nonsense will stop, now. There's no time for me to start unraveling. Dr. D called it disassociation.

I count to five out loud, as if that will banish the ghosts that I know exist only in my head.

When I open my eyes, I’m alone in the house and the silence is almost as painful as the ghosts. I have never felt so alone.

I need a drink. There’s not a drop in the house. Mum didn’t believe in it because her mother was a “bit too fond of a wee dram.” And I can't be alone.

Locking the house behind me, I jump in the car and head towards the city center with no clear destination in mind.

The first decent bar I come across I go into. It’s one of those designer wine bars. Michael loves them; I find them poncy and pretentious.

I'm out of place in jeans and a hoodie and wind tangled hair, but I dare anybody to say anything to me: tonight I could bust someone’s jaw. I gave a letch a Glasgow kiss once, just swung my head back and thrust it forward - any hassle and I’m more than prepared to repeat it.

Still some guy in an Italian suit gives me the glad eye. Must be the beer goggles. He’s with an office party and they’re all steamboats, except for him. He makes eye contact and I try to look away. Too late, he thinks I’ve given him the come on. Maybe I should come right out and tell him to fuck right off?  I’m in no mood for this crap. He’s not what I had in mind.

He’s smiling as he struts over and he’s walking in a straight line.

There’s something about his smile that reminds me of this guy I used to fancy at school. A long time ago now. I couldn’t even say hi to him without my face burning hot enough to fry an egg.

I need to get a grip. I’m not fourteen any more. I don’t need this kind of complication. I’m on a mission. There’s no way I wanted to pick up someone who reminds me of a boy I knew fifteen years ago, but so far he's the only option.

Neal buys me a drink and I make up a story about what I do for a living. It's not like I can tell him I was recently released from a psychiatric hospital. That tends to repel people.

When he tells jokes, I laugh at all the right bits. When he places his hand on my leg, I’m prepared for it and I don’t break it off as I thought I would if any man ever touched me again. The first fluttering of desire sends a tingle through my body. Close up, Neal is quite good looking and his soft Irish lilt makes every word sound like poetry.

"We can get to know each other better at my place," I say, moving his hand higher.

We fall into the back of a taxi, giggling and clutching the bottle of wine I insisted on getting from the off license. His arm’s draped around me and when he moves in for the grope and I tell him “down boy, or I’ll spank you,” there’s a glint in his eye.

I’m saying all the right things to him but I’m no longer feeling it, so I have no remorse when under the guise of getting some glasses from the kitchen, I slip one of the Rohypnol pills I bought from a local dealer into his wine and present the glass to him with a flourish.

"I need to have a shower, first," I tell him, starting to remove my clothes as I head for the bathroom before cooing,” I’d ask you to join me, but the shower’s a bit small."

Let him believe he’s onto a promise and he won’t slip away.

After my shower as I try to tease my short hair into some kind of order to make sure it covers my scar, my mind goes back to one of my first sessions with Dr. D.

"Do you know what the worst thing was?"

Dr. D raised a well-groomed eyebrow.

"That they hacked off my hair. After years of wearing hair extensions that were dragging my hair down and giving me a bald spot – they don’t bloody tell you that’ll happen. Not when they’re parading Cheryl Cole on the telly, with her luscious bloody locks.” I break off talking to see if Dr. D was going to agree with me, and when he sits there impassive, I carry on. “And dyeing the rest because I hated all those fiery redhead and ginger quips, I was finally at peace with my hair. I liked it. And they ruined that."

"Why do you think they did that to you, Nancy?"

Here he went again, expecting me to be the shrink; to do the psychoanalyzing. Did he honestly believe I was going to have a Eureka moment and say it was because one of their mothers had short hair and they had some sick fantasy about screwing their mother?

If I voiced that thought, would I ever get out of here?

My lips tighten. "You tell me."  

As he spouted his theories, I pretended to listen, but all I could see was my beautiful hair in scraps on the floor of the house where Mum used to plait my hair.

When I finally come out of the bathroom, I’m fully dressed and Neal’s snoring away on the couch.

I watch him sleep (because I want to make sure he’s not dead) and think about how its not just women who are easy prey when they go out at night. Men are too. More so than women, because they don’t expect to go to some girl’s home and be drugged.

Tonight was my test run.

The next morning, I call my disorientated visitor in a taxi. If the drugs do what they’re meant to, he won’t even remember me or this place. And, if he does it's no biggie. Would the police even believe his story?

There's something else I have to do. Dr. D was certain that I had repressed memories, so I make an appointment with the hypnotherapist he suggested. He told me she might be able to help me to remember because often our minds block out the things that might hurt us.

The second thing I do is phone Shug in Bar L to tell him I need to see him. What happened must have something to do with my baby brother, because nice, ordinary law-abiding people like my parents don’t get murdered in their own homes.

Chapter 6

Since that night, something has been niggling away at me. It’s that way you get when you’re at a pub quiz and you know the answer to a tricky question nobody else knows. It’s on the tip of your tongue, but no matter how hard you concentrate on trying to get your brain to dredge it up from the murky depths, you can’t quite latch onto it, so it floats away.

After they’d humiliated me, made me wish I were dead, and one of them punched me in the stomach - at least I assumed I’d been punched until I gazed down and saw the hilt of the knife embedded below my chest - I remember thinking that I must be hallucinating because I couldn’t feel any pain. Surely, if I’d been stabbed I’d have felt some pain.

My first instinct was to yank out the knife, but my arms were tied so tightly behind my back they’d lost all circulation;
dead arms for a dead girl
. Inside my head, there was a manic laugh.

Unable to move, all I could do was gaze up at the ceiling, noticing for the first time the bits Dad had missed, when everything went dark
. I’m blind. I’m blind.

Panic made every wheeze a struggle. I remember Caitlin and how in her last days in her battle against cancer, she’d gone blind as her body shut down and I realized that was happening to me. Rather than make me worse, that knowledge slowed everything down and calmed me, easing the tightness in my chest. My whole body hurt, but soon there'd be no more pain.

As I drifted off, my two attackers were talking about their plans for that night. Although they were in the room with me, their voices sounded far away, as if they were drifting in on the breeze, but I knew what they were saying should mean something…

Dr. D had warned me that hypnotherapy might not work.

"It’s still unproven in this country. Personally, I don’t consider hypnotherapy to be as reliable as more traditional methods. However, in your case it may prove useful."

His expression turned serious. "But, your conscious mind may not want to remember, as though it’s flicked a safety switch. Nothing may be able to get past that."

Whatever his opinion, I need to try something because revenge is the only thing that stops me from curling up into a ball and weeping until my throat runs dry.

Dr. Judith Bowen’s practice was in Hyndland, one of Glasgow’s richest suburbs and she must be bona fide because she has all these initials after her name on a brass plate on a varnished oak door.

When I climb up the stairs and ring the bell, a young woman in a dark blue suit appears, a smile fixed on her face. I tell her who I’m here to see and she ushers me in. She leads me to a seating area, and tells me Dr. Bowen will be with me in a minute.

Five minutes later, Dr. Bowen strides down the hall. She’s not what I expected. She’s Afro Caribbean and a big woman; and I don’t mean fat. She’s from a race of Amazons and I'm dwarfed in her presence – me who’s five foot and three quarter inches tall in my sensible shoes. If I’d known she’d be this tall, I’d have worn my stiletto-heeled boots.

She pumps my hand as though she’s trying to get the remainder of the shower gel out of a tube as I try to match her handshake and fail. 

I follow her down the short hallway to her consulting room, taking in the luxury of the surroundings and thinking this therapy lark must pay well. My feet sink into the lush velvety blue carpet and I resist the temptation to go “ah.” I want to lie down and cocoon myself in it. That's when I notice Dr. Bowen isn’t wearing any shoes. Christ, how tall is she?

As I sit in the plush chair Dr. Bowen indicates, I survey the room. The entire back wall is covered from ceiling to floor with books. Most of the authors and titles mean nothing to me, but I spot Jung and Freud. There’s also the book Pamela Stephenson wrote about her husband Billy Connolly and I make a mental note to ask Dr. Bowen if he’s ever been a client before I realise she can’t tell me that.

"Now," says Dr. Bowen as she gracefully folds herself into her chair. "Why have you come to see me, Nancy?"

With my nails digging into the palm of my hand, I tell her about what happened to me. She makes no comment as I speak.

When I mention Dr. Drinkell’s recommendation, she's happy.

"That was kind of him as I know he’s quite skeptical about hypnotherapy. Many psychiatrists and psychologists share that skepticism. I used to be one of them until I delved deeper into it. What I found was quite remarkable."

Listening to her speak, is like slipping into a warm bath. She turns her head and gazes out the window. There’s woodland behind her house. When I was a child one of my hobbies was climbing trees. One year, Dad built Shug and me a tree house in the woods near our house. We used to have picnics there. Cartons of orange juice and sandwiches Mum always cut into triangles.

The doctor follows my gaze.

"Beautiful, isn’t it?"

I nod, but I’m no longer admiring the view, I’m listening to a bird singing outside the window. There’s something familiar about it. The thought hovers above my head like a balloon, and then drifts higher and higher until it’s out of reach and I’m left trying to clutch at the strings.

"Nancy, are you alright?"

Dr. Bowen’s concerned voice drags me back to the present.

We talk some more about how I’m feeling and coping with being out of hospital, as well as discussing hypnosis, which she assures me is perfectly safe.

"So, I won’t end up thinking I’m a chicken and clucking?"

A stony look makes me realize I've said the wrong thing. Maybe she thinks I’m being a bit cheeky, but I had to ask. A few years back, I’d gone with some workmates to a hypnosis show and one of the group who’d gone on stage went home still thinking they were a clockwork toy.

When Dr. Bowen’s eyes drift up to the clock, I notice our forty minutes are up.

"Let's leave it here for today."

What, she hasn’t even hypnotized me.

Dr. Bowen picks up a leaflet from the pile on her desk and holds it out for me.

"Before I put any of my patients under, I ask them to read this. It explains how the process works and answers so many questions."

I accept the leaflet and thank her. "'Do you think you’ll be able to help me?"

If anyone needs to believe hypnotherapy can unlock the secrets in my brain it’s me, but I don’t want to waste my time because if this doesn’t work I need to find another way. Too much time has passed since that night and in all that time my parents' killers have been free men. They should have killed me that night too, but they were sloppy: if the knife had gone one inch the other way, I’d be dead by now.

"Hypnosis doesn’t work for everybody," Dr. Bowen tells me, as she leads me down the hall.

I bite back the urge to say I don’t care about anybody else as long as it works for me.