Destroy Me Page 20

  He looks sleepy-eyed, ready for a quiet night in, wearing grey jogging bottoms and an old, worn Rolling Stones t-shirt. The pungent smell of curry spice wafts out from his kitchen and the TV is burbling away in the background. He steps back and ushers me in. ‘It’s a bit of a mess, I’m afraid.’

  He’s not wrong about the mess. There are boxes and piles of clothes and books and crockery everywhere on every surface.

  ‘I’m moving out soon,’ he explains. ‘It’s amazing how much stuff you accumulate. Even though we were only here a few years.’ He turns off the TV and gestures for me to sit. ‘Most of it is Charlie’s,’ he sighs. ‘I don’t know what to do with it. You can have look through and take what you want. I’m sure she would have wanted you to have something.’

  ‘Er, thanks.’ I remove a pile of clothes and perch on the edge of the sofa. My heart is racing. Has he got Dylan? If so, where is he hiding him?

  ‘You said you had something to tell me about Charlie,’ he says.

  ‘Er, yes, a photo.’ I rummage in my bag and hand him the photo. It’s a picture of me and Charlie on a school trip in France. We’re on the beach. Mont St Michel in the background. We look so young. Charlie is wearing a beret and pretending to smoke a cheroot. We were going through a phase of trying to emulate the bohemians of the 1950s. Charlie looks beautiful, slender and elegant. By her side, I look fat and frumpy.

  Adam’s eyes well up as he looks at the picture and he fingers it delicately, as if it might fall apart in his hands.

  ‘Can I keep it?’ he adds. ‘I could make a copy and give it back to you.’

  ‘Yes, sure,’ I say, distractedly. I’m scanning the apartment for places Dylan could be. The doors to the bedrooms and the bathrooms are all closed, I notice. But how can I look inside without arousing his suspicion?

  ‘So, you’re moving?’ I say, trying to sound politely casual.

  He nods. ‘Yes, I thought it best to have a complete break, a fresh start. There are too many memories here . . .’ he tails off.

  ‘Have you rented the apartment?’

  He shrugs. ‘No, not yet. I haven’t had much interest. People are superstitious. You know – they don’t want to live in a place where there’s been a murder. I suppose I can’t really blame them.’

  ‘I might be interested,’ I say, sensing an opportunity.

  ‘Really?’ he stares at me surprised.

  ‘Yes, my place is a bit too big for just me and my son, now my husband has moved out. I was thinking of downsizing.’ I’m already moving towards the closest door. ‘Do you mind if I have a look around?’ I don’t give him time to answer before I push open the door and barge into the master bedroom. Inside, I inhale sharply. The room smells slightly stale. There are a couple of black plastic bags full of clothes on the double bed. Drawers and wardrobe have been flung open as if someone has ransacked the place. There’s no sign of Dylan though, and no obvious hiding places. I peer under the bed, just in case. Just as Adam comes into the room behind me. He gives me an odd look but doesn’t say anything.

  ‘There are two bedrooms?’ I say, talking loudly, so that if Dylan is here, he’ll hear me.

  ‘Er, yes,’ Adam’s arms are hanging loosely by his sides. He’s broad-shouldered and powerful-looking, but I’m not afraid. I’m too worried about Dylan to be afraid of anything. I will do anything, face any danger to get him back. I brush past Adam and open a door to another smaller bedroom and then finally the bathroom with Adam following, watching my every move.

  ‘How much is the rent?’ I ask, swallowing my disappointment as I realise that the apartment is empty, and that Dylan isn’t here.

  ‘Actually, I was thinking of selling it.’

  ‘The whole place?’ I ask, surprised, ‘or just this flat?’

  He sighs. ‘Just this place. Charlie made me promise never to sell the house. She was dying of cancer, you see, and she was worried about what would happen to Ben and Meg after her death.’

  ‘She was very generous to them.’

  He bites his lip. ‘Yes, maybe too generous. I’m not sure she was in her right mind the last few months. I don’t know, but after her diagnosis she just seemed to go crazy.’

  ‘Crazy how?’ I’m only half listening. My mind is working overtime. Maybe Adam has taken Dylan somewhere else. Maybe Dylan is already dead. But I won’t allow myself to think that. Dylan is alive and he needs me to hold it together. I try to focus on what Adam’s saying. He’s talking about Charlie.

  ‘Well, for starters she gave away over half her money to charity and then she let the upstairs flat to Ben for free. I mean it wasn’t exactly the soundest move from a business perspective. We argued about it a lot. But it’s hard to win an argument with someone who’s dying, and she was adamant. She had some crazy idea that she had sinned and needed to make amends.’

  The hairs on the back of my neck stand up. ‘Sinned? What did she mean?’

  Was Theo right? Did she tell Adam about the accident? And if she did, what exactly did she say about me?

  ‘I don’t know,’ he says, after thinking a while. ‘I’m not sure she knew herself. I think she felt bad that she abandoned her religion. She was brought up a Baptist. Her family were religious. I suppose you know that?’

  I nod impatiently.

  ‘But then after her mother died, she stopped going to church, stopped believing in God. It wasn’t until she found out she had cancer that she discovered God again. She used to go and pray with Meg, next door.’

  ‘With Meg?’

  ‘Yes, Meg was fantastic when Charlie got her diagnosis. She helped her come to terms with dying and helped her keep a positive outlook right up until the end. Charlie said that if Meg could stay positive despite everything she had gone through, then so could she.’ His eyes well up again. ‘She was very brave, my Charlie.’

  ‘Yes,’ I agree absent-mindedly. I stand up. I’m trying to work out how to wind the conversation up so that I can move on. Dylan clearly isn’t here, and this is a waste of precious time.

  But Adam seems eager to talk now he’s started. ‘She’s an amazing woman, Meg,’ he’s saying. ‘I mean, imagine what it would be like to be a world-class athlete one day and in a wheelchair the next. But she’s always upbeat. She never complains.’

  ‘An athlete?’ I stop by the door, my hand frozen on the knob. ‘What kind of athlete?’

  ‘She was an ice-skater, believe it or not. She won the British ice-skating championship.’ He frowns, trying to remember. ‘Something like that, anyway. She doesn’t like talking about it, but Sophia, her care worker, told me once.’

  There is a buzzing in my ears that’s getting steadily louder. I’m back in Doug Foster’s dingy bedroom, the photograph of his wife, dressed in a frilled leotard, spinning on the ice.

  I’d assumed she was dead, but had he actually said that? I try to remember his exact words. ‘She’s gone. Gone to a better place,’ is what he said. Perhaps he didn’t mean she had died but that she had literally gone to a better place – a place set up for someone with a disability, a flat which Charlie had had converted specifically for her. And if Meg is Doug Foster’s wife . . .

  ‘Thank you very much for the tea. I’ll let you know about the flat,’ I say hurriedly, heading for the door.

  Dr Blake says I’m lucky. Ha! What does she know? She’s young and strong and goes running every morning. I know that because I heard her talking to one of the nurses about how she ran her personal best only the other day. She didn’t mean me to hear. She’s not that insensitive. But I heard her all the same. So how can she know what it’s like? She hasn’t a clue how it feels to be trapped in this useless body, day after day. She can’t imagine what it’s like to have to rely on other people for simple tasks that you used to take for granted: getting dressed, washing, even going to the toilet. She doesn’t know what it’s like to dream that you’re dancin
g and to wake up unable to move out of bed – to be left alone with your bitter thoughts and memories and only daytime TV to distract you. People are full of advice on topics they know nothing about, aren’t they? My mother, for instance, is always telling me I should forgive and forget. ‘Let bygones be bygones,’ she says. The past is the past. She doesn’t know that the past bleeds into the present and that I will never be able to forget and I will never be able to forgive . . .

  Thirty-four

  The door to Meg’s flat is ajar and I can hear the low hum of the hoover from inside. I push my way through the narrow hallway without bothering to knock and burst into the living room. Meg is sitting by herself in her chair by the window, gazing out at the road. She has her back to me, her neatly bobbed grey hair curling at the nape of her long, stringy neck. She doesn’t turn the chair. Maybe she’s asleep. But something about the angle of her head tells me she’s not.

  ‘Where’s my son?’ I demand loudly.

  The chair turns slowly until she’s facing me, and she regards me steadily with pale blue eyes. Her expression is hard to read.

  ‘What have you done with my son?’ I repeat.

  I wait impatiently as her eyes flick over the monitor.

  ‘Catherine, hi. I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ says the friendly, robotic American voice.

  ‘My son, Dylan. Where is he? I know you’ve got him.’ I clench my fists, digging my nails into my palms. I’m tempted to grab her by her scrawny neck and strangle it out of her. It would be so easy, I realise. What could she do? She is completely defenceless.

  There’s a long silence and then the machine speaks again.

  ‘I have no idea. I don’t know your son.’

  ‘Yes, you fucking do. Don’t lie to me!’ My voice rises, rage and fear choking me. I’m shouting now so that Sophia hears me in the other room, switches off the vacuum cleaner and comes rushing in.

  ‘What the hell?’ She glares at me, bristling like a guard dog. ‘How did you get in?’

  I ignore her, stepping closer to Meg. ‘Where’s Dylan?’ I say.

  Sophia grabs me by the arm. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing? Do you want her to go, Meg? I can kick her out, if you like.’

  I turn on Sophia. I’m hysterical now, gibbering like a mad woman. ‘You don’t understand. She’s got my son. She took him from school. She’s going to kill him.’

  Sophia looks startled. Then concerned, as if I might be a dangerous lunatic.

  ‘You need to calm down,’ she says, taking a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry, if it’s true that your son is missing, but you can’t just barge in here like this and accuse Meg of God knows what. You must realise you’re being ridiculous. How do you think Meg could have taken him, for Chrissake? Think about it. Look at her. She’s paralysed.’

  I hear the words and I know they make sense, but I’m too far gone now and besides, I know that Meg is involved. She’s Daisy’s mother. I know that for sure.

  I slip out of Sophia’s grasp and fumble in my pocket for the note. Hands shaking with agitation, I thrust it in Meg’s face.

  ‘You wrote this, didn’t you?’

  Meg doesn’t answer. Did I imagine it or is there a flicker of something, maybe alarm, in her eyes?

  ‘What’s that?’ Sophia snatches the note from me and reads it with a look of increasing disbelief.

  I HAVE YOUR SON. DON’T GO TO THE POLICE OR TELL ANYONE ELSE IF YOU WANT TO SEE HIM ALIVE AGAIN.

  ‘Where did you get this?’ she asks me.

  ‘Ask her.’ I gesture towards Meg who is slumped in her chair. She seems to have shrunk in the last few moments. I try to snatch the note back from Sophia, but she pulls it out of my reach.

  ‘Do you realise how crazy you sound?’ she fumes. ‘This is handwritten, for a start. How do you think she wrote it? She can’t move her arms.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I admit. ‘Maybe you wrote it for her.’

  She snorts with outrage. Her face red with fury. ‘You’re insane,’ she says. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if you wrote that yourself. I’m going to call the police if you don’t get out of here in the next ten seconds.’

  She starts counting. ‘One, two, three—’

  ‘Wait,’ says Meg’s machine voice loudly. She seems to have turned up the volume somehow.

  We both turn and stare at her.

  ‘Don’t call the police, Sophia,’ she says. ‘I didn’t write that,’ she says. ‘But I know who did.’

  Sophia looks completely bewildered. ‘What are you—?’ she begins.

  ‘We’re out of milk,’ Meg interrupts. ‘Why don’t you go out and buy some? And get me some cigarettes while you’re there. I feel like I’m going to need them.’

  ‘But you don’t smoke. You gave up.’

  ‘Just do what I ask please, for once.’ The machine voice is perky as ever, but I guess Sophia senses the serious intent. She hovers uncertainly in the doorway, casting a sharp, suspicious look my way. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Perfectly. I need to speak to Catherine alone. Don’t worry, I’ll be all right.’

  Sophia shakes her head. ‘Okay then – if you insist. You’re the boss.’ She turns on me and hisses, ‘If you so much as lay a finger on her, you’ll have me to answer to.’

  I wait until I hear the click of the outer door closing and the clack of her heels on the pavement outside. Then I say bitterly, ‘I know who you are. Your real surname is Foster.’

  ‘It was Foster,’ she agrees. ‘I changed back to my maiden name, Darley, when we got divorced. My husband couldn’t cope with my disability.’

  I ignore her. I’m not interested in the break-up of their marriage.

  ‘You were married to Doug Foster,’ I continue. ‘I saw your photo at his house. Daisy Foster was your daughter.’

  She doesn’t answer.

  I breathe in sharply. ‘And you know who I am, don’t you?’

  There’s a flicker of hatred, swift but unmistakable, in those expressive eyes, and finally she speaks. ‘Yes. You’re Catherine Bayntun. You killed my daughter.’

  There it is, after all this time. This had been building like magma underground. The pressure has been so intense lately, it’s almost a relief to hear the words spoken out loud.

  ‘How do you know?’ I ask. There’s no point in denying it. We’ve gone beyond that.

  ‘Charlie told me,’ she says. ‘A few months ago, she told me everything. She wanted me to know what you both had done before she died. She told me it was the reason she sought me out and offered me this flat in the first place. As a kind of compensation.’ Meg makes a gurgling noise in her throat. ‘As if anything could compensate for what we lost.’

  Tears well up in her eyes and trickle silently down her cheeks.

  I harden my heart against an instinctive feeling of pity. She’s mourning an old loss. My loss is fresh and urgent. ‘I know you must hate me, and I don’t blame you,’ I say. ‘But it was an accident. We were young.’

  ‘You’re wrong,’ she says. ‘I don’t hate you because you killed her. Accidents happen. People make mistakes. I could forgive that. What I can’t forgive is the fact that you decided not to take responsibility for those mistakes. You could have called an ambulance and you didn’t. Daisy was still alive when the ambulance arrived. She would have lived, if they’d arrived sooner.’

  I stare at her appalled. ‘No, that can’t be right. We took her pulse. She was already dead.’ Everything is slipping. Blackness curling at the edge of my mind. I want to throw myself down on the floor at her feet and howl.

  Somehow, I claw myself back to reality, to here and now. What happened, what we did was terrible – worse than I even knew. But that’s all in the past and Dylan is in danger right now. I must do everything in my power to persuade this woman not to hurt him and to return him to me un
harmed.

  ‘I’m sorry. I’m really so sorry. But all that happened, it had nothing to do with Dylan,’ I continue shakily. ‘Dylan is just a child. He’s innocent. Punish me if you like, but not him . . .’ My voice cracks and I can’t speak any more for all the fear and anxiety threatening to overwhelm me.

  ‘I don’t know where your son is. I haven’t got him.’

  I’m confused. ‘You must have. You gave the police the photofit of me. You sent me those photos, you killed Charlie.’ But even as I say the words, I know that they’re impossible.

  ‘I gave the police the description of you. But nothing else is true. Look at me,’ she says. ‘How could I have killed Charlie?’

  ‘You got someone else to do it for you, then. Sophia?’ I hazard.

  ‘No. Sophia knows nothing about any of this.’

  ‘Who then? You know who. I know you do. Please, I’m begging you. My son is in danger.’

  There’s a long pause. I can see from her eyes, which are flickering wildly, that she’s struggling with some inner conflict. Finally, she appears to come to a decision. ‘You’re right,’ she says. ‘She’s gone too far this time. It was my daughter – Daisy’s sister, Beth.’

  ‘Beth?’ I repeat, holding my breath.

  Meg seems almost to be talking to herself. ‘I never should have told her what Charlie told me, but at the time, I thought she had a right to know and I suppose I thought it might help her gain a kind of closure. But it had the opposite effect. As soon as she found out about you, she became obsessed with tracking you down. And it didn’t take her long. We’re all easily traceable nowadays, if we have an online presence.’

  ‘Where is she?’ I demand. ‘Where does she live?’

  ‘She was always a difficult child.’ Meg ignores my question. ‘Even before Daisy died. She could be so kind and loving one minute, then if she lost her temper, she was a terror. I used to call her my girl with the little curl. You know the rhyme. “When she was bad, she was horrid”.’ She pauses. ‘But it was serious, and it got worse as she got older. She could be violent. It was frightening sometimes. Daisy was the only one who could calm her down. She adored her little sister.’