Authors: Catherine Hunt
She loved him. Always had and always would. Nobody could ever love him the way she did. He was her saviour and he belonged to her. But other women would take him from her if they could. Laura Maxwell had taken him, the blonde at the hotel had wanted him. Men were led by their dicks. It was not his fault.
Her breath came in uneven gasps; there was a screeching in her ears from the mayhem in her head. There had been too much love and not enough hate. Too much time already wasted. Joe still lived with Laura Maxwell, slept in her bed. Who’s laughing now? Not you Anna, she thought, certainly not you.
She looked at her watch. 4.30 p.m. Tenderly, she replaced the photograph and went downstairs, brought back a kitchen knife from the rack and sat down again on the bed, running her fingers up and down the blade, testing it. This time she would make sure; the car chase had been a chance grabbed in the heat of the moment, a chance to frighten Laura and hurt her though she hadn’t cared if she killed her. It had shown her the way and as the idea of badly hurting Laura, maybe killing her, grew large in her mind she had planned a second attack: she had strung the wire between the trees to bring down Laura’s horse.
But the bitch was still alive and Joe was no closer to being hers, in fact he seemed farther away than ever. Anna shook her head in murderous fury. There would be no more half measures; she wasn’t stopping now until Laura was dead.
She gripped the knife’s handle, held it high above her head, thrust it down with all her strength into the mattress. Laura Maxwell before her eyes. Stab, stab, stab and stab again. Slash and stab. Face, heart, neck, chest. This is how it would be. She could hear the screams; smell the blood.
Anna had read somewhere the story of a survivor who’d been stabbed nineteen times: ‘You don’t feel the stabs when they’re happening,’ he said. ‘You think you would but you don’t. And you don’t feel pain either, because pain is a distraction while you’re fighting for your life. I felt nothing at all, except the fear and the adrenaline that it gave me.’
But Laura Maxwell would know pain because Anna would make certain of it. It would be the pain of a knife twisted in her heart, the pain Anna had endured for so many years.
‘This is how it feels,’ she shrieked, stabbed again, then again. ‘See how it feels.’
Anna Pelham’s face in the bedroom mirror was smiling and triumphant. Her breathing grew more regular and the noise in her head died away. She felt calm again. She would do it tonight.
With Laura dead, she would get her happy ending. Joe would live with her, wake up next to her every morning and go to sleep next to her every night; she would be happy at last, free from the crippling fear of losing him, of seeing his love grow cold. She would watch over him and never again would any other woman take him from her.
Laura would be alone tonight. Anna knew this because it was the beginning of the ‘special’ time that she had planned to enjoy with Joe. The first evening of Martha’s absence and she’d hoped Joe would spend it with her, had fantasized that he would spend the night with her. She had been badly disappointed – again. He couldn’t make it; he was taking his mother to see a musical at the Theatre Royal in Brighton. He had no choice, he told her.
Laura alone in the house. Would she be just a little bit scared?
You’ll be dead by the end of the week.
It was only Wednesday. There were a few days left.
Want to know how you’re going to die?
No thank you. Please, will you leave me alone.
Painfully. Very painfully.
Anna laughed. Had the police found it yet, she wondered.
It had been so very easy because Laura Maxwell had been out when she’d arrived at Morrison Kemp. Her plan had been to see Laura on the excuse of giving her more of Harry’s financial correspondence. She had ready, in her bag, a letter stolen from his house. It was nothing much and Laura might think her over-anxious for wanting to hand deliver it. But so what? It would get her into Laura’s office, which was where she needed to be.
The mobile was also ready in her bag, the one she’d used to send the texts. She intended to drop it somewhere in the office, somewhere out of sight where it could later be traced by the police, and the lawyer discredited and humiliated. It would be tricky, she knew, dropping it in the right place; a place where it wouldn’t be spotted too soon, before the police arrived.
She needn’t have worried. It had worked out a treat. That nosy cow of a receptionist had been there, of course, had tried to get her to come back later when the bitch was in, but Anna knew exactly how to deal with people like her. They were leeches, thriving on other people’s problems; hadn’t she met enough of them in her life? So she told Monica all about Harry, the pervert, watched her suck in the salacious details and digest them. Hinted at things too gross to relate.
‘Monica, it is Monica isn’t it? I just can’t tell you … I really can’t,’ she had gasped in distress.
Best friend. Confidante. Pour it all into Monica’s eager ear.
‘You poor thing, come in and wait, Laura won’t be long I’m sure, would you like a cup of tea?’
She’d been shown to a room, and finally, left alone there. It took a couple of minutes to dash up the stairs and plant the phone behind the books in Laura Maxwell’s office. Fingers crossed for a result.
Anna Pelham really didn’t care anymore. Result or not. Whatever. She was ready. It was just past 5 o’clock. Time to go. Carefully, she wrapped the knife in tissue paper and placed it at the bottom of her bag.
She put on the Parka, pulled up the hood.
Harry checked carefully before approaching his house just in case the police were there. Just in case his wife was there, he thought bitterly. He didn’t plan on staying long, no longer than it took to pack a suitcase and rig a spy camera in the hallway, trained on the front door, to record her next visit. He hoped she would come back soon.
He hadn’t checked carefully enough. As he put his key in the front door, he heard footsteps on the gravel behind him. He fought the urge to run; it would be stupid. He couldn’t escape and trying to would only make him look like a guilty man. He blew out his cheeks in frustration and turned around to face the police.
Ben Morgan was walking hesitantly up the drive. He appeared more the worse for wear than ever, his gaunt face and shabby clothes thrown into sharp relief by the light from the security lamp. He must have been standing in the cover of the hedge waiting for Harry to return. He looked like he’d slept under it.
Ben stopped a short distance away. He was wary: Harry was violent and unpredictable.
‘Can we talk?’ he asked nervously.
Harry wanted to get away, but he also wanted information out of Morgan.
‘Come inside,’ he said.
‘I’ve come to tell you all I know but I’m not coming in unless you promise not to hurt me. OK?’
‘OK, I promise. But last time you hit me, remember.’
Ben followed him cautiously down the hall and into the kitchen, making straight for a chair by the radiator. His teeth were chattering. Harry put on the heating and made some coffee. Morgan’s mood was neither high nor low, and once he was sure there would be no immediate hostilities, he relaxed a bit. The heat from the radiator entered his coat, then his body, and a sour smell filled the air. Harry sniffed it.
‘When did you last have a wash, mate?’
Ben ignored the remark and launched into the reason for his visit. He was going back to Reading. He’d had enough, he could do no good by staying longer, the police were after him. They’d come asking at his guest house and he’d only avoided them because the landlady felt sorry for him and she’d stalled them, giving him a chance to get away. That had been yesterday evening; he’d spent the night at a hostel for the homeless.
He gulped the coffee, stretched out gratefully in the chair. Harry wondered if he was after a bed for the night.
‘I’m not living here right now, Ben. You can clean up but you can’t stay.’
‘You’re not getting it, are you? I don’t want to stay. It’s the last place I want to be. I’m going, going now – tonight – just as soon as I’ve told you. Now do you want to know or not?’
‘Of course I want to know,’ Harry said mildly, trying to put Morgan at his ease.
Ben reached into the pocket of his smelly coat and pulled out a tatty, dog-eared letter. ‘Your girlfriend wrote me this. It’s why I’m here. She asked me not to tell you and I’ve kept quiet but now I think you should see it. Tell her I’m sorry.’
‘What fucking girlfriend?’ Harry said, outraged, unable to keep his voice from rising, snatching the letter from Ben’s hand and starting to read it.
Dear Ben,
Excuse me contacting you like this and not giving my name. I don’t feel I want to at the minute, but I hope we can meet and talk things through and maybe become friends.
Your story made me cry so much. I read it on your website and also in the newspapers and it was all so cruel and unfair. They didn’t understand how you were driven to violence, made out it was all because you were bipolar and weren’t behaving normally. Well I know that’s not true. I know you lost your little girl because of that lawyer, Laura Maxwell. It was not your fault, it was hers.
You’re not a violent man. Anyone who had to go through what you did would have done the same. That woman was out to get you and you couldn’t win however hard you tried. She stacked everything against you and you had to do what your heart told you. You showed real courage and love for your little girl.
The reason I am writing to you is because I’m going through the same thing. It’s all happening to me, well to my partner, just like it happened to you. He’s bipolar too and he’s terrified of losing his daughter and his wife has got Laura Maxwell working for her. She is so toxic, I can’t tell you. Well, I don’t need to tell you. How you must hate her.
Harry, that’s my partner, he is terribly depressed. He goes up and down, of course, but I’ve never seen him like this. If he loses Martha I don’t know what he’ll do. Suicide probably.
Harry looked up for a moment, appalled by what he was reading, and glared at Ben Morgan. Then his eyes went back to the letter, eating up the lines.
I’m desperate. I don’t suppose there’s anything you can do but I want to ask if you’ll meet me. Just to talk to someone who understands would be such a relief. Laura Maxwell is making Harry out to be a bad, mad dad just like she did with you. She’s working in Brighton now at Morrison Kemp solicitors. Our lawyer, he hasn’t a clue how to deal with someone as poisonous as her.
Martha is heartbroken. She wants to be with her dad, she misses him so much, she says he’s her best friend. She cries herself to sleep and talks to him through her favourite teddy bear.
Harry has Bipolar 2, the mildest form. He’s never had a manic episode, he’s not psychotic and he doesn’t have substance abuse problems. He’s been in hospital twice for depression but they were both voluntary admissions. He’s been on medication for three years and his condition is fully stable with no relapses. He loves Martha very much and would never do anything to hurt her. He’s a good dad but he’s so worried that everything is being twisted and he’ll end up losing her.
Laura Maxwell doesn’t care about any of that. She’s only interested in winning and she plays on ignorance and misunderstanding about bipolar. There’s so much prejudice. I know some people have it so bad they find parenting hard but it’s not like that with you and Harry. You love your kids, they mean everything to you.
Please, please, please don’t mention this letter to anyone. I think it would be the end for Harry if he found out I’d written it but, like I said, I’m desperate.
The letter ended with details of where and when Ben could meet her. She would be in Kim’s Café, near the West Pier, between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. The date she gave was four days ago.
‘You met this woman?’ Harry asked in a low, tense voice.
‘I tried to. I went to the right place at the right time but she wasn’t there.’
‘I bet she wasn’t.’
‘The thing is,’ Ben said gloomily, ‘I hope nothing’s happened. I thought maybe she’d had enough, I mean, that you two had broken up. It’s difficult for people, I know, dealing with someone who’s bipolar – the mood swings and stuff … ’ he tailed off as he saw the expression on Harry’s face.
‘There are a few things you need to know,’ Harry stood, leaning over him, ‘One, I have no girlfriend; two, I’m not bipolar; three, someone has been playing mind games with you.’
Ben Morgan looked up at him apprehensively. Harry was a big guy and he didn’t want any more physical contact with him.
‘Stay cool,’ Ben got out of his chair and backed away. ‘I understand. I really do. It’s hard to accept, sometimes, that we have this illness and we lose people we love because of it.’
‘For the last time, I do not have any fucking illness.’
‘Please calm down,’ Ben said, circling round Harry to get to the door. ‘There’s another thing you should know,’ he stopped in the doorway, ‘something’s going on with Laura Maxwell. She’s been seeing the police.’
‘The police,’ Harry grunted, ‘I guess that wouldn’t be so unusual for a lawyer.’
‘Don’t treat me like I’m an idiot,’ Ben was suddenly touchy. ‘She has some sort of serious personal crisis going on is what I’m saying.’
He related how he’d gone along to Morrison Kemp, intending to speak to Laura’s boss about Harry’s case, but he’d come across her the moment he walked through the door, and hadn’t been able to handle it. He’d turned straight round and left. He’d waited outside, trying to get up the courage for another attempt, but before he could do so, she’d come out herself.