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‘Look, I know I shouldn’t really be using the private information you provided to contact you, but…well, I’ve never been good with rules.’ Then came an awkward laugh. ‘I was wondering if you’d like to meet me for a drink sometime. Or a walk. Or something. Bring Belle too.’
‘A drink?’ For some stupid reason, my first thought was that this was usual bank protocol to get to know new clients – not that him calling me for personal reasons was likely a huge breach of banking ethics. Somehow, my mind glossed over that.
‘I…I’m sorry. I know it’s a bit unprofessional and would probably get me fired if my boss found out. But…you know. When we met…I liked you, and just thought that…’
‘Oh, you mean adrinkdrink?’ I’d said.
‘Or awalkwalk, if that’s easier with your daughter.’
I laughed. ‘Sure,’ I found myself saying, filled with relief that it wasn’t anything sinister as I hitched Belle up higher on my side.
‘Are you free at the weekend, perhaps?’ he’d asked, his voice virtually lost beneath Belle’s rising cry as we made arrangements to meet. Somehow, after the call ended, it seemed a little bit easier than usual to lug everything up the stairs.
‘Hannah…for God’s sake, say something.’
I startle as Rob grabs me by the shoulders.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say, which is the truth. I stare down at the photographs, terrified that Belle is going to walk in at any moment and see them. The final picture is half hidden beneath all the others, though I see a splayed naked leg and part of a foot poking out. And it doesn’t belong to Belle. ‘I’ll…I’ll have a word with her. You’re right. These pictures aren’t good. I’ll make sure nothing like it happens again.’
‘This is so,sowrong,’ Rob says, shuffling them around with his hand. A thigh and some blood is revealed on the final picture, though Rob doesn’t notice as his eyes are fixed on me. I remember how the blood became dark and sticky, like a toffee apple left out in the sun. And the smell – cloying and metallic, the stench of death itself as the life drained from her. I’d stared down at her then too, just as I’m staring at the photograph now. Unable to move and not knowing what to do. Not knowing what I’ddone.
‘Jack took them, didn’t he?’ Rob spits out.
Suddenly, I feel myself rocking back and forth. Rob is shaking me. My brain thrums in my skull.
‘Where the hell did you get them from, and why did you hide them? Our daughter is engaged to a monster, for crying out loud, and you were just going to ignore it?’
I shake my head, wondering if I can slide the other photos on top of the one with the blood without Rob noticing, covering up the horror with Belle’s image.Not far from the truth, I think.
But in his anger, Rob’s hand shuffles the photos about more as he implores me to speak, to give him answers. I’m bracing myself for him calling the police – or worse, him telling me that he already has. He doesn’t know that I can’t do that. He doesn’t see the rope binding my hands behind my back.
And then he sighs – huffing out all his frustration as he gathers up the photographs one by one, sliding them into the Manilla folder. That’s when he sees it. The last picture. The dead girl lying on her side on rough wooden floorboards, her legs and body drenched in blood. Her long hair is matted to her face, but not so much that it makes it hard to tell that it’s not another photo of Belle.
‘Who is this?’ Rob asks, slowly picking it up. ‘Christ almighty,’ he says, studying it. He turns it round, viewing it several different ways, trying to make sense of the contorted figure.Just as I once did. Rob shoves the photograph under my nose. I can almost smell her, taste her, hear her final pleading cries as the life drained from her and she let go. The most undignified of deaths. After everything she did for me, she didn’t deserve that.
‘What have Idone?’ I’d whispered back then, clutching onto Belle – not that I’d named her at that point. Even her sweetness as I held her close, that adorable scent babies are born with, didn’t mask the reek of death. The baby whimpered in my arms and, instinctively, I turned her away from the mess on the floor so she couldn’t see.
‘Whatisthis?’ Rob yells close to my face, making me startle.
My nostrils flare as I suck in a breath, unable to take my eyes off the photograph.
‘It’s…it’s a girl,’ I say, forcing myself to look him in the eye. But I don’t tell him that I killed her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
BELLE – NOW
Everyone is out, even Natalia. Thank God. Off with her college group – a coach trip to Birmingham or something. Belle smirks.Awful, she thinks, but she’s glad she’s out of the way. She’s never liked Natalia much. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with her, apart from her spiky hair – oh, and those tattoos on her forearms are a bit grim. But somehow, she always seems to be there, hovering, whether it’s with a plate of food, clean clothes, offering her a lift in the old Fiesta her mum bought for her, or sensing that Belle might need an ear to bend. Sometimes she does, just not Natalia’s. She’s had to remind her several times that she’s only here to look after Amber, that at eighteen she doesn’t need a bloody au pair.
Natalia usually responds with that aggravating, steely stare of hers that is also loaded with a sort of wisdom that gets Belle’s goat. Aknowingstare – that’s it. Being only a few years younger, Belle doesn’t like it. She wants to have her own wisdom-building experiences, not be mollycoddled by a girl she barely knows.
‘She’s probably jealous of me,’ Belle mutters to herself as she shifts restlessly on her bed, batting away the thought that perhaps it’s the other way round. Natalia is in a foreign country, after all, independent, earning money, learning the language, making new friends. All the things Belle has dreamt of doing while she was growing up, until a few months ago. But now she’s engaged to Jack, and is soon going to be his wife, and doesn’t need to bother with all that stuff any more. Does she?
Belle stretches. She’s not even got dressed yet and the only thing she’s managed to achieve so far today is glug two shots of espresso and stare at her phone for an hour waiting for Jack to reply. But he hasn’t.He’ll be busy with work in London, she thinks. Important stuff to make a good life for the pair of them. That’s what her mum’s always said about Rob when he’s had his nose buried in his laptop and sometimes works at weekends.Making a good life.
In the shower, Belle sings idly to herself as she shaves her legs. She can’t lie around here all day long, moping. How’s that going to make her seem to Jack? Like a sulky little girl, that’s what. After she’s towelled off and dried her hair, dousing the thick strands with a salt spray and bending them into beach waves with her tongs, she stares at all the new clothes in her wardrobe that Jack has bought for her. She’s awash with excitement as she imagines a walk-in dressing room in the new house they’ll be buying together. She whips a short, clingy, jade-coloured dress off its hanger and slips into it. Not what she’d normally wear in the day, but she wants to impress.
No, she thinks.I want to influence.
