Tell Me Your Secret Page 28

  I had seen enough, read enough, to know that even murderers struggle to kill people who they think of as human. I had to humanise myself to him. I had to become a real, living, breathing, feeling person to him in a way that would make it difficult for him to dispose of me. And to do that, I had to pretend I was somehow attached to him.

  I wanted to live so I had to make him believe that I was his to do whatever he wanted with.

  It still messes with my brain on a daily, sometimes hourly basis. I didn’t have time to shut off the part of me that feels while I did it, so it became entangled, swirled together with my normal thoughts and feelings. A bit of what I had to make him believe ended up inside me, bleeding into every single part of my being.

  I still have to remind myself that I did what I had to do to survive, because a tiny, poisonous part of me judges myself for being able to. For not just giving in and letting him end me rather than going along with it.

  And if I, the person who was there, who had to do anything to stay alive, judges me, what will everyone else do? I can’t tell anyone about it because my words, my story will be translated in so many different ways and most of them will find the interpretation something completely different to what I experienced.

  I keep these words, these realities, these tactics I used to ensure my continued place on Earth locked away inside, even though they tear me apart. I would love to unburden them, share the horror I feel at what I had to do with someone, but I cannot risk it. I could not survive another person telling me what the poisonous voice in my head tells me.

  I live in colour, I mould pottery, I focus on my son; I do it all so I do not have to think about what I did, I do not have to think about people blaming me even half as much as I blame myself.

  ‘You can tell me,’ Ned says. ‘I won’t judge you. I won’t say anything, I’ll just listen.’

  I stare at the image of my son on the screen in front of me. He is asleep, not the fake sleep he sometimes tries to get away with, but properly ensconced in dreamland. He is incredible. I could not love him more than I could love anyone else on this Earth. He is my sun rising, my reason for carrying on. And I know every feature that isn’t mine came from his father. Came from a certain type of evil.

  I cannot say that, either.

  No one can ever know that sometimes . . .

  I throw my hands over my face, allow the horror of what I feel to explode. I fold in two, broken by the agony of who my son is and what he means to me, about me.

  No one can ever know that sometimes . . . just sometimes . . .

  Ned’s arms slide around me and I don’t pull away.

  It’s something else to feel a man’s arms around me, something alien. This hasn’t happened in over a decade, for nearly a quarter of my life I haven’t properly experienced human, adult touch in this way.

  No one can ever know that sometimes . . . just sometimes . . .

  I look at my son and I . . . My crying is silent, an agony that would be ear-shattering if it was ever made sound. I’ve accepted that when I break down, it has to be hushed, quiet, unheard because once it becomes sound, it’s a few short cries away from the words leaving my mouth. They can never enter my mind because I do not ever, ever, EVER want them to exit via my words.

  No one can ever know that sometimes . . . just sometimes . . . I look at my son and I h—

  The crying becomes more intense, it feels like it will break me apart piece by piece. Ned does the best he can to hold me, probably not knowing that he’s actually helping to hold me together.

  Jody

  Friday, 12 July

  In the entrance just beyond the doors of the warehouse, a white transit van sits with its rear to the doors. To the left, there are pallets of animal feed, huge sacks piled on top of each other. The frosted-plastic bags are labelled ‘Organic’ and look expensive. He’s a vet. Or, at least, in the animal business. We were right – that’s how he had access to Sux and ketamine and other anaesthetic drugs. He is a vet, not a doctor or pharmaceutical rep.

  There is a darkness beyond the van and the pallets of feed. Unless you knew something was being hidden back there, you would think this was it. You would assume that the van and the feed take up all the available space. But beyond is where he is. Where he is keeping her.

  ‘This way, Detective.’ His voice floats out from beyond the van, from the sinisterness that lurks back there. I pause for a moment, close my eyes, try to experience his voice like Jovie did, like Pieta did, like Callie did, like Harlow did, like all those other women did. I try to put myself in their shoes for just one moment. His voice is soft, soothing, like hot cocoa after a night out in the cold. How it must have turned the blood in their veins to ice, how it must have turned their stomachs.

  Since he doesn’t mention Pieta or her son, I’m assuming he has CCTV outside that shows that I am alone. I step towards the unknown, working my way around the obstacles. As well as being a good cover for what goes on in the back, they are an excellent barrier to a quick escape.

  I see Callie first of all. She sits on a high-backed chair to the right of where I enter. She has her back to the wall and he has strapped her to the chair: her arms are behind her back, linked; her legs are tied to the front two legs of the chair. Around her eyes is a green silk blindfold.

  I hadn’t really thought what it would be like seeing her, how he would be treating her. But clearly, he doesn’t need her any more so he has relegated her to this. At least she is still alive.

  ‘Are you OK, Callie?’ I ask.

  She quivers, her face fighting to stay brave as she nods. I go to her, remove the blindfold, untie her hands. I unstrap her legs and use the sound of the tape unsticking to cover my murmuring, ‘Run if you get the chance.’

  Once I have freed Callie I turn to face the man in the dark-brown leather chair. I can’t see him properly because of the way he has placed his chair facing three other similar leather chairs. He really thought I would bring them, one of them a child, because he has decreed it. He really is delusional.

  I walk towards him and he, The Blindfolder, comes more into view. More and more until I see him.

  ‘We meet again,’ he says.

  And we do. We do meet again. He was sitting in a chair the last time I met him, too. He had his back to me but he did turn around briefly, he did talk to me.

  Ross.

  The boyfriend of Karin Logan. Detective Constable.

  Pieta

  Friday, 12 July

  We sit on Ned’s sofa, below deck, a bottle of beer each on the table in front of us, neither of us drinking or talking.

  Everything around us is fragile, friable, ready to shatter at the lightest of touches.

  I keep thinking of Callie, what she is going through now he has her back. What he’s planning to do to me. What he might do to Kobi. We can’t stay on Ned’s boat for ever, and I need a way to get our passports sorted. If we can leave the country, we may have a chance – we could possibly make it without him finding us.

  ‘Whatever you had to do.’ Ned makes me jump by speaking suddenly. ‘Whatever you had to do, I’m glad you did it.’

  ‘What?’ I turn to him and find he is staring at me. Openly examining me with dark, hazel eyes.

  ‘I’m glad you did whatever you had to and you got out of there alive. I’m glad you survived and that you’re sitting here right now with me. I’m not judging you. We all make choices every day that help us get to the end of that twenty-four hours and sometimes, we can’t do that. Sometimes, it’s too hard and we can’t do it any more, but I’m glad you said whatever you had to, did whatever you had to, to get through it.’

  ‘You don’t know what I did, though,’ I reply. I want to look away, to avoid eye contact like I normally do, but I have to watch his response, see what he really thinks instead of what he thinks he thinks.

  ‘I don’t c—’

  ‘I talked to him. Despite what he was doing to me, I talked to him. I asked him questions, I listened to h
is answers. I kept engaging with him until I made him believe that I . . . that I cared about him. That there was something between us. And at the end of the forty-eight hours . . . he asked me if I wanted to stay with him. He believed it, you see, he believed that I thought we had some kind of connection, and he thought he had been taking care of me, that he’d been good to me. So he didn’t want to give me up, and he asked me if I felt the same.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘If you tell me you want to stay, I’ll keep you. I will keep looking after you. I will take care of you like I have. I’ve been good to you, haven’t I? Haven’t I?’ he repeated when I didn’t reply.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you want to stay with me? Just a little while longer? Do you want to be with me?’

  Ned’s question hangs in the air between us, waiting for me to pluck it down and put it away by answering it.

  ‘He would’ve known that it’d all been fake if I told him no. He would have realised that I didn’t mean any of it and he would have killed me. I truly believed he would have killed me.’

  ‘How much longer did he keep you?’

  I hesitate, wait to admit this, this other thing I cannot share. ‘Another day. Another twenty-four hours.’ I had another twenty-four hours of being there with him, enduring what he put me through, and it’s another thing that eats away at my peace of mind, terrorises my thoughts.

  ‘I’m glad, Pieta.’ Ned’s voice is fierce and certain, his gaze doesn’t waver. ‘I’m glad you could do that to save yourself. I’m glad you got out of there.’

  ‘You don’t have to say that.’

  ‘I do, actually. Because you need to hear it. You need to know that whatever you did, there are so many people who would celebrate you still being here if they knew. And no one, no one knows what they’d do in that situation until they’re in it.’

  I can’t argue with that. If life has shown me anything, it’s that you never know how you’ll react to anything until you’re in it.

  ‘Can I say something about Kobi?’ he says, automatically lowering his voice. He’s staring at the small screen of the baby monitor with the image of my boy. I stare at the grainy picture as well, counting his breaths as they go in and out.

  I don’t want to talk about him, not with anyone, especially not with someone who knows about his parentage, but I’m going to be having this conversation with most of my family soon. I will have to tell them what happened, and then I’ll have to tell them about how it is connected to how their nephew and grandson came to be here. And I’ll have to listen to their judgements on the situation. I don’t want to talk about it to anyone, ever, but I will have to so I may as well start with Ned.

  ‘If you want,’ I mumble.

  ‘I’ve only met him for a few short hours, but he is incredible. He’s amazing, a really fantastic boy.’

  ‘I can’t argue with that.’

  ‘You did that. You brought him up to be like that.’

  ‘Ned—’

  He ploughs on: ‘I suspect I know why you broke down earlier.’ He shakes his head. ‘I . . . There are so many things I want to say to try to make it better for you but I think they’ll come across as trite and condescending. What I can say, though, is that choosing to have Kobi was, hopefully, a way for you to take back some of the choice and control that was ripped away from you.’

  I’ve never thought of it like that. I was so afraid and stuck, that I didn’t realise that, yes, the bedrock of it all was my choice. Out of everything that happened to me, this was a choice I could make. And if I had ended the pregnancy, that would have been my choice, too. My body, my choice.

  ‘It makes me angry that there are people out there who think they can decide what women get to do with their bodies. If you had chosen to abort, that would have been for the best, because it was what you wanted to do. I say that having met and been utterly charmed by the brilliance of Kobi. But the fact you had him is an equally valid choice, and how you might sometimes feel, sometimes wishing . . . things were different still makes your decision a valid choice.’

  Choice.

  Kobi was my choice.

  I have always been so trapped in the memory of what happened and my determination to not let it define or break me, I didn’t see that I had made the choice to continue the pregnancy. To bring up the child despite where part of his genetic code came from. I made that choice in fear, in pain, in a haze of shock, but it was my choice. And if I went back, I might not make that choice again – I may well have an abortion because that would be my choice.

  Kobi has turned over now. The left side of his face is in profile on the pillow. He looks like he does when he’s thinking really hard, trying to come up with a theory for how the world works the way it does because what he’s been told just doesn’t ring true for him. He looks how he does when he’s trying to work out what the seagulls are plotting.

  ‘You know the world’s completely messed up when Ned Wellst is the voice of reason and comfort,’ I say.

  When he laughs, quietly, I look at him again. He’s staring at me, his face very plainly telling me how he feels while his hazel eyes hold mine.

  Eventually, his laughter melts away but the look, infused with so much emotion and longing, doesn’t. He wants to say something, do something.

  I want him to say something, do something.

  I don’t know how I’ll respond, but I want him to—

  ‘Another beer?’ He’s on his feet, breaking the moment by moving and reaching for our full beer bottles. ‘These are practically warm now, sitting here undrunk as they are.’

  ‘No. Not for me, thank you.’

  ‘Yeah, I’m not feeling the beer tonight, either. A port would go down really well about now, though.’

  ‘Have you got the cheeseboard, cigar and cravat to go with that?’

  ‘I’ll have you know I have some of the best cravats this side of the Downs, and my cheeseboards are legendary, so don’t be trying to port-shame me. I’m unshamable.’

  ‘Wouldn’t dream of it.’ I get to my feet, stretch my body; arch my back as far as I can, enjoying the long, deep pull of the muscles in my torso, along my neck, feeling the twinge of where I had surgery on my shoulder. It still hurts sometimes. Years later, it still grumbles and complains and reminds me it’s there. Just like the number 25 brand. ‘I think I’ll head off to bed,’ I say. ‘Which way is it, again?’

  Ned returns from the kitchen area. ‘The one next to Kobi’s cabin.’ He points down the corridor; each room off it is shut, apart from Kobi’s, which I left ajar. ‘My cabin is opposite yours, in case you need anything.’

  I can feel the heat from him, he is that close. I want him nearer, to occupy the same space as me. I glance up and find him staring down at me with the same expression he had a few minutes ago on the sofa.

  He snaps out of it again, glances away, takes a step back. ‘Goodnight, Pieta. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring, but try to get some sleep.’

  Without thinking it through properly, I reach out, lightly place my hand on his arm to stop him walking away. I’m not looking at him, I’m pretty sure he’s not looking at me. But we are connected now. A small part of each of us is occupying the same space. Slowly, I move my hand down his forearm, until it is resting against the back of his hand.

  All I can hear is the sound of the water, the buzz of the electrical lights, the thick rhythm of our breathing.

  Carefully, he moves his body to face mine; just as unhurriedly, I move my body to face his. I want to be closer, nearer to him. Gradually, he moves his fingers until they are between mine, intertwining us. Deliberately, I raise my eyes to look at him. He stares down at me, holding my gaze. Tenderly, I raise my hand and stroke across his cheek.

  What are you doing? I ask myself. What the hell do you think you’re doing?

  We stare at each other for long seconds, stretched minutes, until time becomes irrelevant, something that doesn’t concern us because we’re connected, we
’re close, we’re sharing the same space.

  Gradually, carefully, Ned lowers his head and, cautiously, gently, as though I may break, he presses his lips onto mine.

  What the hell are you doing? I ask myself again, this time louder, more forcefully.

  I don’t know, I reply as I relax against him, let go of his hand. I don’t know.

  He pulls me closer, kisses me a little harder.

  Bad idea! Bad idea! Bad idea! part of me is screaming. Bad idea! Bad idea! Bad idea!

  I know, I know, I know, another part of me replies.

  Ned suddenly pulls away, his breath coming in short bursts. ‘This is probably not a good idea,’ he says.

  ‘It’s definitely not a good idea,’ I reply.

  He kisses me again, and I don’t do anything but kiss him back, unwind into the delicious motion of it.

  He pulls away, rests his forehead against mine, our unsynchronised breathing hard and fast. ‘This is actually—’ he pauses to press his lips against mine ‘—what they call a bad idea.’

  We’re kissing again, connecting again, bonding again. ‘Oh, it’s a terrible idea,’ I state when we part again, noses brushing, foreheads touching, bodies panting against each other.

  More kissing, more closeness, more connection.

  When we finally break apart properly, we both instinctively take a step back, but keep staring at each other, our eyes sizing up the other.

  Bad idea! the inside of my head is still screaming at me. Bad idea! Bad idea! Bad idea!

  ‘There’s a voice in my head telling me this is a bad idea,’ he says.

  ‘Snap.’

  ‘Are you going to listen to it?’ he asks.

  I lean over and pluck the baby monitor screen off the coffee table. I start to move backwards, down the narrow corridor, walking carefully until I’m outside my cabin, opposite his cabin.

  This is Ned Wellst, the voice inside reminds me. This is Ned Wellst who made your life hell. He said you were ugly, he made you feel worthless. Are you really going to do this with him? Of all people, him?