Sometime in the evening, when I’m still trying to work out a way of getting a message back to her, I hear Jack coming up the stairs, so I close the book quickly and place it a little away from me on the bed.
‘Finished already?’ he remarks, nodding at the book.
‘Actually, I’m finding it hard to get into,’ I lie. ‘It’s not the sort of thing I’d normally read.’
‘How far have you got with it?’
‘Not very far.’
‘Well, make sure you finish it before we see her next week.’
He leaves, and I find myself frowning again. It’s the second time he’s insisted that I read it before we go to Esther’s for dinner, which tells me that he knows about the shading and is hoping I’m going to dig a grave for myself. After all, he as good as admitted, when he said earlier that I was getting too clever for my own good, that he misses punishing me, so I can imagine how happy he must have been to see Esther’s message—and how he must have laughed at her attempt to help me. But then, the more I think about it, the more I feel that I’ve missed something. It’s only when I remember the amount of time that passed between the ring on the doorbell and Jack bringing the book up to me that it dawns on me that the shading in the book is not Esther’s work, but Jack’s.
PAST
Molly could only have been dead a few days at the most, because her body hadn’t started to decompose. Jack had been very clever in that respect; he had left her some water, but not quite enough to last her the two weeks until we got home. The shock of finding her dead was terrible. The look of malevolent anticipation on Jack’s face as he opened the door to the utility room had prepared me for something—that he had left her tied up for the two weeks we were away, or that she wouldn’t be there—but not that he had left her to die.
At first, as I looked down at her little body lying on the floor, I thought the drugs he had given me were playing with my mind, because I was still feeling woozy. But when I knelt down beside her and found her body cold and rigid, I thought about the terrible death she must have endured. It was then that I didn’t only vow to kill Jack, but to make him suffer as he had made Molly suffer.
He feigned surprise at my distress, reminding me that he had told me in Thailand there was no housekeeper, and I was grateful I hadn’t paid any attention to what he’d said back then. If I’d understood what he was alluding to, I don’t know how I would have got through those two weeks.
‘I’m so glad to see that you loved her,’ he said, as I knelt beside Molly and wept. ‘I hoped you would. It’s important, you see, that you realise just how much harder it would be if it was Millie lying there rather than Molly. And if Millie were dead, you’d have to take her place. When you think about it, nobody would really miss you and, if anybody asked where you were, I’d say that following the death of your beloved sister you had decided to join your parents in New Zealand.’
‘Why can’t I replace Millie, anyway?’ I sobbed. ‘Why do you need her?’
‘Because she will be so much easier to terrify than you. Besides, if I have Millie, I’ll have everything I need right here and I won’t have to go to Thailand anymore.’
‘I don’t understand.’ I dashed tears from my cheeks with the back of my hand. ‘Don’t you go to Thailand to have sex with men?’
‘Sex with men?’ He seemed amused by the idea. ‘I could do that here if I chose to. Not that I would choose to. You see, I’m not interested in sex. The reason I go to Thailand is so that I can indulge my greatest passion—not that I actually get my hands dirty, you understand. No, my role is more that of observer, and listener.’ I stared up at him uncomprehendingly and he bent his head towards mine. ‘Fear,’ he whispered. ‘There is nothing quite like it. I love how it looks, I love how it feels, I love how it smells. And I especially love the sound of it.’ I felt his tongue on my cheek. ‘I even love the taste of it.’
‘You disgust me,’ I hissed. ‘You must be one of the most evil people that has ever lived. And I’ll get you, Jack, I promise. In the end, I’ll get you.’
‘Not if I get Millie first, which I intend to do.’
‘So you’re going to kill her,’ I said, my voice breaking.
‘Kill her? What use would she be to me dead? I’m not going to kill Millie, Grace, I’m just going to scare her a little. Now, do you want to bury that dog or shall I dump it in the bin?’
He didn’t lift a finger to help, but stood and watched as I wrapped Mollie’s body in the black bin bag and, sobbing with distress, carried her up the stairs, through the kitchen and out onto the terrace that I had told him I wanted. I looked around the vast garden, shivering with cold and shock, wondering where I could put her.
Following me out, he pointed to a hedge at the bottom of the garden and told me to bury her behind it. As I rounded it, I saw a shovel standing ready in the ground and the knowledge that before leaving Molly to die he had prepared a shovel for me to bury her with made me break into fresh sobs. It had rained while we were in Thailand so the ground was soft, but digging her grave was only made bearable by imagining it was his I was preparing. When I had finished, I took Mollie’s body out of the bin bag and held her to me for a moment, thinking of Millie, wondering how I was going to be able to tell her that Molly was dead.
‘She’s not going to come back to life, no matter how long you hold her for,’ he drawled. ‘Just get on with it.’
Afraid that he would snatch her from me and throw her unceremoniously into the hole I had dug, I placed her gently in it and shovelled the earth back on top. It was then that the full horror of what had just happened hit me and, throwing the shovel down, I dashed behind a tree and was violently sick.
‘You’re going to have to learn to have a stronger stomach than that,’ he remarked, as I wiped my mouth on the back of my hand. His words sent waves of panic shooting through me. Running back to where I’d dropped the shovel, I snatched it up and rushed towards him with it raised high above my head, ready to bring it down on him and beat him to a pulp. But I was no match for him; raising his arm, he caught hold of the shovel and wrestled it from me, causing me to stumble. Righting myself, I broke into a run, screaming for help at the top of my voice. When I saw that the windows of the nearest property were only just visible through the trees, I ran towards it, hoping that someone would have heard my screams, and, as I ran, I looked for a way out of the garden. Realising that the walls that bordered it were too high for me to climb, I drew in air, about to scream again for all I was worth, knowing it might be my only chance. A blow to my back expelled the air I had drawn in with little more than a grunt and, as I fell forward, Jack’s hand came around my mouth, silencing me completely. Jerking me upright, he used his other hand to bend my arm behind my back, rendering me helpless.
‘I take it you’re not in a hurry to see Millie again,’ he breathed, as he frogmarched me back towards the house. ‘Because of your attempts to escape in Thailand, you had already forfeited your right to see her for the next two weekends; now you won’t see her for a third weekend running. And, if you try anything again, you won’t see her for a whole month.’
I struggled against him, twisting my head away from him in a frantic effort to free my mouth from his hand, but he simply tightened his grip on me.
‘Poor Millie,’ he sighed in mock sorrow, as he propelled me along the terrace and into the kitchen, ‘she’s going to think you’ve abandoned her, that now you’re married you have no time for her.’ Releasing me, he pushed me away from him. ‘Listen to me, Grace. Provided you don’t do anything stupid, I am prepared to treat you well—after all, it is not in my interest to do otherwise. Nevertheless, I shan’t hesitate to withdraw any of the privileges I have chosen to accord you should you displease me. Do you understand?’
Slumped against the wall, trembling with fatigue, or from the after-effects of the drugs, or from shock, I could only nod mutely.
‘Good. Now, before I show you the rest of the house, I’m sure you’d like a show
er.’ Pathetic tears of gratitude sprang to my eyes. ‘I’m not a monster,’ he said with a frown, noticing. ‘Well, at least not in that sense. Come on, I’ll show you where your bathroom is and once you feel more refreshed I’ll give you a tour of the house.’
I followed him into the hall and up the stairs, barely noticing my surroundings. Opening a door, he showed me into a bright and airy bedroom decorated in pale greens and cream. On the double bed I recognised some of the coverings and cushions I had chosen the day we had gone shopping together to buy furniture for the house he had promised to find me. In the hostile world I found myself in, they seemed like old familiar friends and my spirits lifted a little.
‘Do you like it?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ I said reluctantly.
‘Good.’ He seemed pleased. ‘The bathroom’s through there and you’ll find your clothes in the wardrobe.’ He looked at his watch. ‘I’ll give you fifteen minutes.’
The door closed behind him. Curious, I walked over to the huge wardrobe that ran the length of the left-hand wall. Sliding the doors open, I found the clothes that I had sent to the house ahead of me, the ones I hadn’t needed to take to Thailand, hanging there. My T-shirts and jumpers were neatly folded on the shelves and my underwear had been put in specially made drawers. In another part of the wardrobe, my many pairs of shoes had been placed in clear plastic boxes. Everything seemed so normal that once again I experienced a feeling of disconnect. It was impossible to equate the beautiful room Jack had prepared for me and the promise of a shower with what had gone before, and I couldn’t rid myself of the feeling that if I were to lie down on the bed and sleep for a while, I would wake up to find it had all been a terrible nightmare.
I went over to the window and looked out. It gave onto the side of the house, where a rose garden had been planted. Just as I was appreciating the beauty of the flowers and the stillness of the afternoon, a black bin bag, caught in a sudden gust of wind, came scudding around from the back of the house and became snagged in one of the rose bushes. Recognising it as the one I had carried Molly out to the garden in, I gave a cry of distress, turned from the window and hurried over to the door, realising I had wasted precious minutes when I should have been trying to escape. Yanking it open, I was about to run out into the hall when Jack’s arm came shooting out, blocking my way.
‘Going somewhere?’ he asked pleasantly. I stared at him, my heart thumping painfully in my chest. ‘You wouldn’t have been thinking of trying to leave, would you?’
I thought of Millie, about how upset she would be by my non-appearance over the next three weeks and knew I couldn’t risk another punishment. ‘Towels,’ I mumbled. ‘I was wondering where the towels were.’
‘If you’d looked in the bathroom, you would have found them. Hurry up, you only have ten minutes left.’
As he closed the door on me, imprisoning me again, I went over to the bathroom. It had a walk-in shower and separate bath, as well as a sink and a toilet. There was a large pile of fluffy towels on top of a low cupboard and, on opening it, I saw it was generously stacked with bottles of shampoo, conditioner and shower gel. Suddenly desperate to wash away the filth that seemed to permeate from every pore of my body, I stripped off, turned on the shower and, arming myself with everything I would need, stepped under the water. I adjusted the temperature to the hottest I could bear, shampooed my hair and scrubbed away at my body, wondering if I would ever feel clean again. I would have stayed longer under the water, but I didn’t trust Jack not to come in and pull me out of the shower as soon as my ten minutes were up so I turned off the tap and dried myself quickly.
In the cupboard under the sink, I found a pack of toothbrushes and some toothpaste and used a precious two minutes of the time I had left brushing my teeth until my gums bled. I hurried through to the bedroom, opened the wardrobe, pulled a dress off one of the hangers, took a bra and pair of knickers from a drawer and dressed quickly. The bedroom door opened as I was zipping up my dress.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘I didn’t particularly want to have to come and drag you out of the shower, but I would have.’ He nodded towards the wardrobe. ‘Put something on your feet.’ After a slight hesitation, I chose a pair of shoes with a small heel rather than the slippers my feet ached for, hoping they would make me feel more in control. ‘Now for the tour of the house. I hope you’re going to like it.’
I followed him down the stairs, wondering why he should care whether I liked it or not. Although I was determined not to be impressed, reason told me that giving him the positive reaction he obviously craved might be in my interest.
‘It’s taken me two years to get the house exactly as I wanted it,’ he remarked, as we reached the hall, ‘especially as I had to make last-minute changes that I hadn’t accounted for. For example, the kitchen originally didn’t lead onto a terrace, but I had one built because I thought it was an excellent idea. Fortunately, I managed to steer the rest of your desires towards what was already here,’ he went on, confirming what I had already worked out, that the day he had asked me to describe the sort of house I would like, he had cleverly manoeuvred me into describing one he had already bought.
‘If you remember, you said you wanted a toilet on the ground floor for guests to use, but when I suggested a whole cloakroom, you readily agreed.’ Opening a door on the right, he revealed a cloakroom that housed a wardrobe, large mirror and a separate washroom.
‘Very clever,’ I said, referring to the way he had manipulated me.
‘Yes, it was rather,’ he agreed. Moving on down the hall, he opened the next door along. ‘My study and library.’
I caught a quick glimpse of a room covered from floor to ceiling with book-lined shelves and, in an alcove to the right, a mahogany desk.
‘It’s not a room you’ll have to come into very often.’ Crossing over to the other side of the hall, he threw open the huge double doors that I had noticed earlier. ‘The sitting room and dining room.’
He held the doors open, inviting me to go in, and I stepped into one of the most beautiful rooms I had ever seen. But I barely noticed the four sets of French windows that gave onto the rose garden at the side of the house, or the high ceilings, or the elegant archway that led through to the dining room, because my eyes were immediately drawn to the fireplace where Fireflies, the painting I had done for Jack, was hanging.
‘It looks quite perfect there, don’t you think?’ he said. Remembering the love and effort I had put into it, and the fact that it was composed of hundreds of kisses, I felt sick to my stomach. Turning abruptly on my heels, I went back out into the hall. ‘I hope that doesn’t mean you don’t like the room,’ he frowned, following me out.
‘Why should you care whether or not I like it?’ I snarled.
‘I have nothing against you personally, Grace,’ he said patiently, as he continued down the hall. ‘As I explained in Thailand, you are the means to the end I have always dreamed of having, so it’s normal that I feel some sort of gratitude towards you. Therefore, I would like your experience here to be as pleasant as possible, at least until Millie arrives. Once she does, I’m afraid it will be extremely unpleasant for you. And for her, of course. Now, you didn’t get a chance to see the kitchen properly yesterday, did you?’ He opened the kitchen door and I saw the breakfast bar that we had decided we’d have, complete with four high, shiny stools.
‘Oh, Millie will love those!’ I cried, imagining her turning herself around on them.
In the silence that followed, everything that had happened caught up with me and the room began to spin so fast that I felt myself falling. Aware of Jack’s arms reaching out to catch me, I made a feeble attempt to fight him off before passing out.
When I next opened my eyes, I felt so wonderfully rested my first thought was that I was on holiday somewhere. Looking around, still drowsy with sleep, I saw all the equipment necessary to make tea and coffee on a table near the bed and decided I was in a hotel, but where I didn’t know. As I took in the
pale-green walls that were both familiar and unfamiliar, I suddenly remembered where I was. Leaping from the bed, I ran to the door and tried to open it. When I found that I was locked in, I began hammering on it, screaming at Jack to let me out.
The key turned in the lock and the door opened.
‘For goodness’ sake, Grace,’ he said, clearly annoyed. ‘You only had to call me.’
‘How dare you lock me in!’ I cried, my voice trembling with rage.
‘I locked you in for your own good. If I hadn’t, you might have been foolish enough to try and escape again, and I would have had to deprive you of yet another visit to Millie.’ He turned and reached for a tray, which lay on a small table outside my door. ‘Now, if you move back a little, I’ll give you something to eat.’
The thought of food was tempting; I couldn’t remember the last time I had eaten but it must have been well before leaving Thailand. But the open door was even more tempting. Moving aside, but not back as he had asked, I waited until he had come right into the room, then lunged towards him, knocking the tray from his hands. Amid the sound of breaking crockery and his roar of rage, I ran towards the stairs and went down them two at a time, registering too late that the hall below was in complete darkness. Arriving at the bottom of the stairs, I searched for a light switch and, finding none, felt along the wall until I arrived at the kitchen door. Throwing it open, I found that it too was in darkness. Remembering the four sets of French windows I had seen in the sitting room the day before, I crossed the hall and groped along the wall until I found the double doors. The total darkness inside the room, without even a glimmer of light coming in from the windows, as well as the silence—because the house was eerily quiet—became suddenly terrifying. The knowledge that Jack could be anywhere, that he could have crept down the stairs behind me and be standing within feet of me made my heart race with fear.
Stepping into the room, I slid to the floor behind one of the doors, drew my knees up around my chest and curled myself into a ball, expecting his hands to reach down and grab me at any moment. The suspense was terrible and the thought that he might decide not to find me until it suited him made me regret ever having left the relative safety of the bedroom.