What Goes Around: A chilling psychological thriller (29 page)

She inclines her head as if she’s taking this on board, then she sits down and gestures towards the chair opposite. ‘Do take a seat, Ellen.’

‘I’m not ready to sit down.’ I stand in front of her and fold my arms. ‘You wilfully took my husband and then you took my house. My children have lost their family home; my granddaughter has lost the garden she loved to play in.’ I pause to gather my strength. ‘I have OCD because of you. I am driven to distraction by my own anxiety and that is directly linked to you. I will be lucky if I can continue to hold down a job and I can trace all of this,
all of this
, back to you.’

‘I’m so sorry, Ellen,’ she says, her tone placatory. ‘Please believe me when I say that I would never have continued my affair if I had known Tom was misleading me. He assured me his marriage was over and I believed him. I can see that I was wrong.’

‘Why? Why did you believe him? You’re astute – I know you are. You believed him because it was convenient.’

‘Yes,’ she admits. ‘You’re right.’

‘You didn’t even know what I looked like!’ I shout. ‘It was as if I didn’t even exist! Who does that? Who behaves with such disregard? What is wrong with you?’

‘What is wrong with me?’ She gives me a sad look. ‘I run away. I don’t commit. I’m careless of other people’s feelings. The only person I truly care about is my son.’ She spreads her arms wide to include the house and the garden. ‘This? It means almost nothing to me. You can get it all back.’

‘I know. I’m fighting for it.’

‘I don’t think you’ll need to fight.’

‘And why is that?’

‘I’m leaving Tom.’

‘What?’ I drop down backwards onto the seat. ‘Already? Your relationship is over
already
?’

‘I made a mistake. I thought Tom would be someone I could be with for the long term, the rest of my life even, but he’s not.’

I laugh then because for some reason this strikes me as hilarious. She waits patiently while I vent my mirth and then, when I’m wiping my eyes with a tissue, she says, ‘I completely understand why you hate me.’

‘That’s big of you.’ I stare across at her. ‘That’s really, really big of you.’ She is not as well groomed as normal and there are dark circles under her eyes. ‘So what’s put you off Tom?’

‘He prefers his home life to be straightforward, doesn’t he? And I don’t think my life will ever be straightforward.’

She gives me a conspirator’s smile and I’m not sure I like it. She’s only known him for eighteen months. She’s definitely not entitled to bond with me over his shortcomings even though I’m sure we could have an interesting time comparing notes. ‘And does he know you’re leaving?’ I say.

‘Not yet.’

I wonder whether to believe her. This is not at all what I expected. When I’d been practising my vitriol in the car I imagined that the therapist in her would let me speak, but then the woman in her, the one who loves Tom, would defend her position. I feel like my mood is a balloon that has a slow puncture. I’m gradually losing my anger and starting to feel, if not exactly a kinship with her, then an acceptance of her position. ‘You’re really leaving him?’ I say quietly.

‘Yes.’

‘Poor Tom,’ I say. ‘I almost feel sorry for him.’

‘I can’t imagine he’ll want to live here by himself, so I would have thought the timing would be perfect for you to get your home back.’

The light begins to dawn on me, slowly but surely, and it feels like a sunrise after a long, sleepless night. Perhaps I will get Maybanks back. If everything she’s telling me is true, then I’m not going to have to battle for the house after all. It could all just fall back into my lap. As if it was meant to be all along.

‘About my brother,’ she says.

‘Yes.’ I feel the weight of emotion descend on me again. ‘What’s … Why did …’ I try again. ‘Did you know that he was leading me on?’

‘No, I didn’t. I only found out yesterday.’

‘That’s also when I found out. I was with Mrs Patterson and I saw you letting him into the house.’ I reach for my handbag and tip the jewellery out onto my knee. ‘He wanted me to give the pieces to him so that he could deliver them to you but—’ I pass everything across to her ‘—I wanted to return them to you myself.’

‘Thank you for that.’ She looks relieved. ‘He wouldn’t have given them to me or, at least, not without me having to give him something in return.’

‘I don’t understand,’ I shake my head. ‘Perhaps I should ask him but …’ I feel embarrassed as my eyes fill up with tears. ‘I’d rather not see him again. I thought he genuinely liked me! I’ve been taken for a fool and I have no idea why.’

‘David is complex,’ she says. ‘He had a difficult childhood – we both did – but I was luckier, because I’m six years older than him.’ Her expression is serious. ‘We were everything to each other. Absolutely everything.’ She stares out of the window. ‘When you first came to see me, it was clear that you were someone who was suffering because your marriage had come to an end – but you’re not damaged as such. You’ve been loved and cherished and you haven’t suffered significant trauma as a child. I know the OCD feels overwhelming at the moment but I believe you have an excellent chance of making a full recovery.’

‘Thank you.’ I take a deep breath. ‘That’s good to hear.’

‘But David and me, we have scars that run deep and will take years of therapy to heal. We bring our problems into every relationship we have and the result is—’ she shrugs. ‘Dysfunctional behaviour.’

‘He’s been visiting your mother in the hospice.’

‘Our mother has been dead for almost twenty years.’

‘I did wonder.’ I shake my head. ‘I believed him at the time, though. He’s a really good liar.’ I give a short laugh. ‘I thought I was the one chasing him! We seemed to come together by accident. He brought my scarf back and I invited him in. Not the other way round.’

‘He’s clever,’ Leila says. ‘He should never be underestimated.’

‘So the scar he has just here.’ I touch my side. ‘He told me he was drunk and accidentally got in the way of two men who were fighting. Was that true?’

‘He was stabbed,’ she affirms. ‘But not in the way he described it to you.’ She leans forward in the chair. ‘Ellen, I don’t expect you want to have anything else to do with my brother.’

‘You’re right, I don’t.’

‘Good.’ She nods, reassured. ‘You need to keep him out of your house. He is likely to be quite agitated when he discovers we have spoken to one another. He will perceive that we were going behind his back.’

‘What if he does come to my house?’

‘Lock your door and call the police.’

‘You think he could be dangerous?’ I say, recalling last night when I was in the house alone with him.

‘It’s possible. He has been violent in the past.’

‘Bloody hell.’ I stand up. ‘This is just …’ I shake my head, disbelieving. I’ve allowed a violent man into my house, into my life. ‘I think I’ve had a lucky escape.’

‘You have, but listen. Before you go.’ She writes a mobile number on a scrap of paper and hands it to me. ‘This is the number for Maurice van Burren. He’s expecting your call. He’s an expert therapist. I’ve been going to him for years.’

‘And yet look at you,’ I say, an edge of spite in my tone that I instantly regret because I can see that, despite appearances, she’s a woman who’s already on the ground. There’s no need for me to keep kicking her.

‘Touché.’ She gives me a sad smile. ‘I have a lot of wounding to work through, Ellen. And maybe I’m a slow learner.’

She sees me to the door and at the last second I turn back. I have to leave her with something true, something real and good from one human being to another. ‘Leila, you really did help me you know,’ I say. ‘I think the exposure therapy will work.’

‘It will work,’ she affirms. ‘Maurice will help you to keep going with it.’

‘Good luck.’ I reach out my hand and she shakes it. ‘And I’m sorry about your clothes and shoes.’

‘That’s okay.’ She laughs and shakes her head. ‘It’s the least of my worries.’

‘And good luck to your son. Ben told me he had to go to rehab.’

She nods. ‘Yes, he’ll be home very soon, though.’ Her face takes on an expression I haven’t seen before. If I had to give it a name I would say it was an expression of hope.

I walk to my car and glance back just the once. She’s standing in the doorway staring up at the sky but I’ve a feeling she’s not really seeing the clouds. She’s smiling as if her thoughts are happy ones and I’m glad for her.

I drive home thinking about our conversation. The whole thing bordered on surreal. By the sounds of it, this is a brother and sister who have a seriously unhealthy relationship. I’m still not entirely sure why Francis, or David as Leila calls him, decided to seduce me. To annoy his sister? As a warped kind of tit for tat – you got the husband, I get the wife? As a way of gaining insight into her life? Perhaps it’s as simple as that. I have the feeling he isn’t normally allowed over Leila’s threshold. Could that be because he’s prone to aggression? Mrs Patterson said he was hanging around outside, which isn’t the way people normally treat their siblings. And I would bet that Tom doesn’t even know he exists.

A strange business, but I’m sure I can live with never fully understanding either Leila or David, because Maybanks could soon be mine again and that’s enough to banish all thoughts of the last few weeks. When I arrive home, I attach Maurice’s number to the pinboard in the kitchen and tackle the financial forms with renewed enthusiasm. Poor Tom doesn’t know what’s about to hit him. His mistress is leaving him and his wife is odds-on favourite to get the house back. Serves him right. Sometimes there really is justice in the world.

I’m halfway through the forms when I get a text from Francis:

Hope everything’s going well with your uncle. I’ll pop round later this evening. X

I’m unsure whether it’s best to ignore him or to answer him. I don’t want him coming to the house and keeping his finger on the bell the way I saw him do at Maybanks yesterday. I think, on balance, it’s best to keep him at bay until he’s realised that I know exactly who he is and that I don’t want to have anything more to do with him. So I text back:

I won’t be home this evening and possibly not tomorrow either. Thanks for your concern.

I press send and remember Leila’s advice about calling the police should he appear at my door. It’s a sobering thought and one that I hope I don’t have to confront any time soon.

September 1996

I’m in bed when I get the call.

‘David Francis is in hospital,’ Gareth says. ‘Your mother wants you home.’

That’s it. The line goes dead. I sit on the edge of the bed, naked and shivering. I’m not shivering because I’m cold; I’m shivering because my heart is afraid and, for me, being afraid turns me to ice. Fear freezes me until my limbs are rigid and my joints seize up and before long I won’t be able to move.

‘Come back to bed.’ A warm hand lands on my back and burns me. I slap it away, stand up, feel my body stiff and complaining as I half-stumble, half-skid across the wooden floor to grab my belongings: underwear, jeans, sweatshirt, coat, backpack. I dress quickly, find my socks and boots at the door.

‘You’re not going, are you?’ The hand’s owner stands in front of me, smoothing back his hair, his semi-erect cock at eye level as I bend to pull on my boots.

I push past him and while I’m running down the stairs I make sure I have my purse, I have my keys, I have my pills.

‘There’s a bus leaving at midnight,’ the sales clerk tells me. ‘It’ll get you into Dundee for 9.30 tomorrow morning; you’ll have to change in Edinburgh.’

‘I’ll take it.’ I spill money onto the counter between us.

‘Single? Return?’

‘Single.’ He takes most of the money and passes me a ticket. ‘Bus stop three.’

Antidepressants and lack of sleep is a paranoia cocktail, I know this, but it doesn’t stop me thinking through a multiplicity of scenarios, from: David isn’t in hospital, he’s run away from home and Gareth has no one else to focus his particular brand of torture on (for some reason my mother is exempt – perhaps because she’s already half-dead) so he’s called me back to his lair, to: Gareth has killed David. With all the practice he’s had on rodents, rabbits and cats, dogs and deer, it’s come to the point where he just had to try his skills out on a human being and David was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The journey is interminable. Headlights and rain, gear changes, the smell of other people’s food, the sound of other people’s chatter, breathing and snoring. I want to scream, to hurtle up and down the aisle, thumping my fellow travellers on the head until they
shut the fuck up
! Instead, I close my eyes and count down the miles, firstly to the Scottish border and then to Edinburgh itself.

The counting gets me there and when I alight from the bus, my brain punch-drunk with numbers, ice in my joints, my knees give way and I end up kneeling on the pavement like a supplicant who has just arrived from a foreign country and is grateful to touch the earth. I’m in the path of the other passengers and a couple of women step over me before one of them turns round to help me up. She doesn’t look at me or speak to me but carries on talking to the woman she’s with. I don’t register what they’re saying, just the tone, which is one of ‘putting-the-world-to-rights’.

She has me on my feet and leant up against the bus stop before she walks off. I sway from left to right and practise moving my joints, bending and stretching knees, elbows and thighs, before I have the courage to set off and find the bus to Dundee. A shorter journey, this one, and when I get there I buy myself a coffee and swallow a couple of pills. I decide to go straight to Ninewells. If David is in hospital then that’s where he’ll be. I use the last of my cash to take a taxi and I’m at the reception for 10.30. ‘David Francis Morrison,’ I say to the receptionist. ‘I think he was admitted last night. He’s my brother.’

She runs her finger down a list in front of her, then she reaches for some papers to shuffle through, and then she makes a phone call. ‘Your brother has been admitted,’ she says at last. ‘He’s in one of our surgical wards.’ She shows me the ward’s whereabouts on a map. ‘Visiting is between two and four, and then this evening, six thirty till eight.’