An Impossible Dilemma: A Psychological Thriller Novel (16 page)

My feet dragged as I walked down the stairs. Just lifting them had become an effort. The last five months had been a reprieve, but it made me more aware of the future and the heartbreak that loomed.

Frank came out of the snug again.

“It’s happening, Frank. Just like that—” I clicked my fingers, “—and she’s sick again.”

“Maybe she’s just tired. It’s hot out there—it saps your energy.”

“Who are you trying to kid, Frank? Me? Yourself?” I didn’t mean to snap at him. “We know how quickly she got better. Why would becoming sick again happen gradually? It won’t.”

He dropped his eyes to the floor and I saw I had hurt his feelings. Guilt hit me. He’d been so supportive and I’d be lost without him.

“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to take it out on you. It just breaks my heart, that’s all.” I moved to hug him.

“I know, lass, mine too.”

I found myself in his arms, sobbing into his chest. I was reminded of the night outside Emily’s room and the way I had drawn strength from his embrace. He made me feel things would be all right, although I knew they couldn’t be.

“Come on, lass. Let’s sit you down.” He made to go into the snug but I stopped abruptly and he changed direction to the kitchen instead.

***

A couple of hours later Emily joined us in the lounge.

“Hey, Em, are you feeling any better?” I asked, holding my arms out to her.

Emily climbed onto my knee looking decidedly sorry for herself.

“Can I get you something to eat?” I kissed her cheek.

She shook her head. “Not hungry.”

“Okay, what do you want to do?”

“Watch
Mary Poppins
.”

My heart sank. She’d not had any desire to sit in front of the TV for months—she’d been much too busy for that. I recognised it as another warning sign.

I glanced at Frank sitting at the dining table, studying the
TV Guide
. “Come on, lass. I’ll put it on for you.

I smiled in gratitude. I didn’t want to set foot in the snug unless absolutely necessary. I knew I was being silly—after everything else I’d gone through, how could a room affect me so much? But I couldn’t help it.

That night, I loaded the last of the dishes into the dishwasher while Frank emptied the rubbish bin before bed.

I started as the phone rang and looked at the clock. Almost ten.

“Strange,” I glanced at Frank and wiped my hands on a tea-towel “Who would be ringing at this hour?”

“Hello?”

“Hello, Victoria. It’s Stan from The Bells.”

‘Oh, hello, if you’re looking for Hector, I’m afra—.”

“It’s you I need to speak to, lass. There’s been an incident here this evening involving Hector and Stephanie. Stephanie has just left in an ambulance. She’s in a bad way, I’m afraid.”

“What?” My head spun. “What sort of incident?” I swallowed noisily.

“Hector attacked her as they left the pub, and we didn’t realise what was happening until it was too late. He beat her. Badly, I’m afraid.”

“Oh my God! Where is he?”

“He left. We heard the commotion and by the time we got outside, Hector had jumped in the car and scarpered.”

My mind went momentarily blank. She’d told me about the last time, but having known him for five months and shared a home with him, even grown to love his fun-loving childish ways, I couldn’t absorb this new information. He normally appeared a gentle and loving man.

“Victoria, are you there?”

“Yes, Stan. Thanks for letting me know. I’d best get to the hospital.”

“Would you let us know how she is?”

“I will do.” I hung up.

“What was that all about?” Frank said.

“Hector has attacked Stephanie, and she’s in hospital. I’d best get there. Will you be …”

“I’ll be fine. Just go.”

Chapter 20

The accident and emergency department buzzed with the usual drunken Saturday night crowd.

One guy sat on the floor of the entrance, vomiting into a rubbish bin. He had blood smeared down his face and stank to high heaven.

Two more men stood in front of me at the reception desk, trying to hold each other upright. The poor young girl behind the counter couldn’t understand a word they said. She called for an older woman to help her, who happened to be fluent in drunkspeak and understood every word.

It soon emerged they’d been playing around with a shopping trolley and one of them was flung out. He landed on the road, receiving a deep gash to his head.

Once they took a seat the young receptionist shrugged at me apologetically, raising her eyes to the ceiling. “How can I help you?”

“I’m looking for my friend. Stephanie Cross—she’s been brought in by ambulance.”

“One minute, I’ll check for you. Ah yes. She’s being seen now. Come through and I’ll show you where she is.” The door buzzed open to the side of her and she led me down a corridor. Then she poked her head behind a curtain, before holding the curtain open for me to enter.

Stephanie began to cry when she saw me.

She was a mess, her face mottled shades of purple and red. Her left eye had completely closed, and the large black egg-shaped lump below it was obviously filled with blood. Her nose looked broken and the right side of her face was badly grazed.

“Vic,” she said.

I noticed, as she spoke, that half of her front tooth was gone.

“Oh my God, Steph. What the hell has he done to you?” I perched on the edge of the bed and pulled her to me. Both of us broke into floods of tears.

After a few minutes, Steph wiped her eyes. “I was drunk. I’d been chatting to those guys, but I didn’t mean anything by it. Hector didn’t … he seem bothered until we left the pub and then—Wham! The first smack came from nowhere.”

Her words were slow and disjointed, and had a funny whistle to them. She had to suck air in between sentences as her lips were swollen and bleeding.

“He dragged me across the car park by my hair. Look.” She turned slightly, and showed me a bald patch where a massive clump of hair had been ripped from her head.

“I’ll kill him,” I said. “We never should have trusted him again.”

“It’s all my fault. I wanted to believe him. He could be so … so lovely. You saw that, right?” Another bout of sobs followed.

I nodded. “But he’d attacked you before, and out of the blue that time too.”

She tried to sit up, but gasped and gripped her side. “I think he’s broken my ribs. He kicked me in my stomach, over and over. I didn’t think he was going to stop.”

“What did the doctor say?”

“He said I’m lucky. There’s nothing major—apart from my ribs. They’re keeping me in tonight. I’m waiting for them to arrange a bed in the ward.

“I’ll stay with you till then,” I said.

***

When I pulled up outside the house, I was flabbergasted at the sight Stephanie’s car parked on the driveway and Frank standing at the front door.

“I raced from the car. “What the hell! Is he inside?”

“Hang on, Victoria—HANG ON!” His raised voice and stern tone stopped me in my tracks.

“What? I don’t give two shits what he told you. He’s not welcome here. You should see the state of her, Frank. He almost killed her.”

“I agree, but it’s not that simple. He’s unconscious.”

I pushed past him into the hallway. “Where is he?”

“In the bedroom.”

I charged upstairs and burst into the room.

Hector lay face down on the bed, completely out of it.”

“Hector! Hector!” I shouted.

Nothing.

I grabbed hold of his hair and yanked it back. Reminding me about the clump of hair he’d torn from Steph’s head.

No response at all.

“What happened, Frank?”

“He came back just after you’d left. Let himself in and began searching the house for Steph. He seemed distraught. I told him Steph had gone to the hospital but he couldn’t understand me.”

“Did he seem drunk?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“This isn’t a normal sleep,” I said, shaking my head.

“I think he took something.”

I pulled back Hector’s eyelids; his pupils weren’t reactive, and were the size of pinpricks. “I think he’s overdosed on something.”

“That’s what I wanted to say to you, lass. He was sick in the sink and it was full of pills.”

I raced to the bathroom with Frank close behind me. A pool of mustard-coloured vomit filled the basin, along with several blue, oval-shaped pills. The vile stench hit my nostrils, causing me to gag.

“Shit, Frank. Why didn’t you call an ambulance?”

“Because I was waiting for you.”

“What for? He could die.”

“For Emily.”

“Oh my God. You can’t be serious!” I stared at him, hoping I’d misunderstood him, but knowing, deep down, exactly what he meant. 

Frank didn’t move. His face didn’t alter as he stared at me.

“We’re not going through that again, Frank.” I shook my head, my pulse racing. “No way—you hear me? No fucking way!”

“But …”

“No buts!” I screamed. Placing my hands on my head. “Are you for real? I’m still having fucking nightmares about Shane and pigs. I’ll never look at a piece of meat in the same way ever again. And what for, eh? Emily’s already deteriorating, and you want to do it all over again!”

“Look at the state of him, lass. He’s going to die anyway. We could take what we need first.”

“You’re off your fucking rocker, Frank.” I stared at him, unable to comprehend.

“Hector chose to do this to himself, and besides, he’d want us to save Emily. For all his faults, Hector loves her.”

“Course he would. Only not if it meant
he
had to die in the process.”

“We need to do this, lass. We owe it to Emily.”

“She’s dying, Frank. The sooner we accept that, the better. All we’ve done up to now, is prolong the inevitable. What will we do in another few months when Hector’s Proteum wears off? Kill someone else?”

“No, of course not,” he snapped. “But don’t you see? We’re not killing anybody. Hector’s done this to himself.”

“You’re mad! Absolutely stark staring bonkers.” I shook my head, astounded. “I need to call an ambulance. This man is dying.”

“Wait. Please, lass, think about it for a second. No one will expect him to come back here. He has no family or friends. Steph won’t want him after what he’s done. He’s taken an overdose and will probably die anyway. What if we can help Emily long enough for a cure to be found?”

“But it’s murder, Frank. Do you not see how wrong this is?” I hugged myself, shaking uncontrollably, my voice sounding garbled to my own ears.

“No. You’re wrong. It’s suicide. We’re just helping Emily at the same time.”

I began pacing the short distance between the bed and the doorway, confused. Frank’s words sounded so logical. Besides, this man could have killed my best friend tonight if he hadn’t been stopped. He knew he’d lost her for good now, which I presumed was why he took the overdose. He wouldn’t want to live without her. So it wouldn’t be murder. Would it? I couldn’t think straight. I needed some air.

I raced from the room heading for the stairs. As I passed Emily’s room, I noticed her door was slightly ajar. How she’d slept through all the commotion was beyond me. I reached for the handle, paused, then pushed the door a little wider.

Emily was lying on her back, the duvet bunched at the bottom of the bed. I quietly entered and rolled the duvet over Emily’s tiny body.

I thought about how lethargic she had been today. Knew we wouldn’t have long before she was as sick as she had been five months ago.

I was suddenly struck by an overwhelming sensation that I wasn’t alone. All my senses heightened, and my scalp prickled.

“Jonathan? Is that you?”

A sound behind me made my feet leave the floor.

“It’s only me, lass,” Frank said, reaching for my hand.

“I must be as crazy as you for even considering this, Frank.” I was suddenly calmer.

“Not crazy, lass. Resourceful. He has something we desperately need. Why waste it?”

I joined him out in the hallway, taking one last glimpse of Emily before closing the door. Then we walked back to Hector.

“We need to get him to the clinic.” I grabbed Hector’s upper arms and dragged him off the bed. He was bigger than Shane, and a couple of stone heavier. Frank helped with his good arm and between us, except for a precarious moment on the stairs where the three of us almost toppled to our deaths, we got him down into the hallway.

I fetched Frank’s wheelchair and we managed to get Hector strapped into it. “I’ll meet you there,” I said to Frank and ran on ahead with Hector.

The clinic was only a short walk from the house. Once in there, I busied myself preparing all the things I needed and when Frank arrived I was ready to get Hector onto the table.

I gave Frank a couple of minutes to catch his breath. “Okay, same as last time, but he’s much heavier. Are you ready?”

He nodded.

“Go.”

We both lifted the top half of Hector onto the table and Frank held him in place while I got his legs. The shirt Hector wore had a shiny finish and Frank had trouble keeping hold of him. He slid down a couple of inches, but we caught him and finally had him on top, lying face down.

The procedure was even easier this time. Within forty-five minutes I was back with Emily and injecting Hector’s Proteum into her. She woke up this time and cried a bit. I sat with her for twenty minutes afterwards until she was sound asleep again. She probably wouldn’t remember any of it.

Frank had stayed with Hector. Between us we got him onto the quad and locked in the butchery fridge just as before. With one difference. Hector still had a faint pulse.

We went back to the clinic to tidy up, then I left to put the quad back in the shed.

When I returned, Frank sat in his wheelchair waiting for me. He looked like a gentle and frail old man. Nobody would ever believe what he’d been up to tonight.

At the house, I threw all of Hector’s belongings into a couple of bags and hid them in the boot of my car. I’d deal with them in the morning. I cleaned the vomit from the sink and sat down, exhausted.

“We did the right thing, lass.” Frank shuffled in.

“Oh, Frank. You made me jump. I thought you’d gone to bed.”

“I checked on Emily. She’s fast asleep.”

“What are we going to do when this lot wears off, Frank? Trawl the streets for runaways and criminals?”

“Of course not. We didn’t plan to murder anyone, lass. Shane, on the other hand, would have gone on to commit a much worse crime than rape or robbery that night, I guarantee it.”

I knew he was right, but it still felt so wrong.

“As for Hector. From what you said, he left Steph for dead. Maybe would have finished the job if he hadn’t been interrupted. Plus, he took an overdose, essentially killing himself.”

I nodded. I needed to believe him, needed to believe our actions were vindicated.

“I know what we’ve done is against the law, lass. But we were handed the chance to cure your daughter, albeit temporarily. It’s an impossible dilemma. Save the nasty rapist, or the innocent five-year-old girl? Any mother would make the same decision in your shoes.”

He was right, or was he brainwashing me? He sounded perfectly correct, justified even. He had a calm, knowledgeable and trusted voice.

“Should we go to bed? We have a big day ahead of us tomorrow,” I said. The thought of chopping up Hector’s body and feeding him to the pigs made me weak at the knees. I still saw Shane’s foot every time I closed my eyes.