Anything for Her (27 page)

The next morning, I entered her house while she slept. I wanted to scare her even further. I wanted her to be terrified from the moment she woke to the moment she slept, and dream of nothing else
.

I had the exact number of robins I needed in a
black duffel bag. I placed robins all over the bed. She didn’t even stir. She stank of alcohol and cigarette smoke. She dropped a leg out from under the duvet and over the edge of the bed just as I zipped up the empty bag. I stroked her leg, fighting the urge to carry my hand further up. She was a worthless slut that needed to be killed, not pleasured. I watched her sleep for a while, until she began to stir. I left the house through the front door, leaving it wide open to frighten her further – to show her that I could always enter her life, regardless of how many locks and walls she put between us
.

Her daughter made the rest so easy. When she came to the Cotswolds, she might as well have been lying in my lap and asking to be killed. Stupid slut. She found herself alone at the station, standing on the dark platform like my wife did before she jumped, and I couldn’t help but take her then. I didn’t know where. I didn’t know how. I just knew I had to
.

I drove my knife into her back – a knife I stole from her mother’s own kitchen, adding a sort of sombre poetry to the act – while covering her mouth with my hand. I led her, bleeding and whimpering, to the boot of my car. She fought, but twisting the knife in her back made her stop. She
went rigid as her nerves convulsed – and when they relaxed, I was able to fold her into the boot and slam the door shut
.

I drove around for an hour, unsure what to do with her. I wanted her to suffer the most. I wanted her to beg for my forgiveness. I didn’t want it to end abruptly. She was quiet in the boot. She didn’t kick or bang or scream, she just lay there, waiting for her death with the occasional whimper
.

I finally took her to the barn until I had decided how to kill her. When I opened the boot, I was shocked at how fast her condition had declined. Her skin was as pale as the snow on the ground and her eyes had almost no life them at all. She looked weak and lethargic. She was shaking all over. Her train ticket was still clutched in her pale hand, as if she still had a chance to escape. I snatched it from her weak grasp and looked at the destination. It’s then that I began to laugh. I laughed so hard I coughed up phlegm. She hadn’t planned to go home at all. She was going further north, as if she could escape her past – or me. Then anger returned, at the realisation that she
had
nearly evaded my wrath. I couldn’t have found her then. She would have vanished
.

I took her inside the barn and threw her on a rotting pile of hay, where she barely had the energy to whimper. She flittered in and out of
consciousness from her wound. She was dying too quickly. I panicked. I had only just begun, and she was nearly dead already. She was going to win – to die on her terms, not mine
.

I tied her wrists around a support beam with dirty, frayed rope and hoped she would be alive when I returned – there was something I had to do
.

I trashed Louise’s car, the car she had driven to the scene of my daughter’s death. Another clue for her to unravel. I vented all of my rage on the vehicle until the blaring alarm woke me from my daze and made me run. I sprinted down the lane through the darkness with the alarm echoing in my ears, praying the girl was alive. She was, but limp and unconscious
.

How dare she begin to die without my consent? How dare she begin to die so easily, before I had even begun to show her the pain I have had to live with? How dare she escape her crimes so unjustly?

I beat the barn’s walls, shaking the whole foundation of the building with my fists. Snow fell in through the hole in the roof. Tiles slipped from above. The building whined and groaned as though in pain
.

By the time I had calmed down and checked on the girl, she was dead
.

She had died so quickly, so easily, so quietly –
so damn secretly. I’m not ashamed to say that I cried like a boy. I sobbed. I beat her body with clenched fists. I stabbed her over and over and over until the pain ceased, not even taking time to relish in the sound of her blood oozing from the slits in her flesh, or the weight of the blade as it scraped against bone when I was tugging it free from muscle. I lay with her corpse that night on the blood-soaked hay, howling with frustration until I fell into an exhausted slumber
.

I woke up the following day more determined than ever. Brooke may have escaped my wrath, but Louise wouldn’t. I would torture her until she lost her mind and longed to die. The bitch would pay for them both
.

It was dawn. I gave Brooke a swift, weighty kick in the ribs before I left, but she failed to respond, just jolted limply with the force
.

I walked up the lane. I crept round the side of the house. I unlocked the back door with the key I had copied. She had dropped her keys when she fell over like a pathetic mess while walking to the front door of the country house. The back door key had broken off the keychain and was left abandoned on the lawn. I had it copied and returned into the lock on the inside of the door within an hour
.

I let myself in
.

I went up the stairs
.

I ventured into the bedroom
.

She was lying in bed, with purple stains on her lips, exhaling fumes from the wine she had drunk. She looked tired and was frowning in her sleep. I wondered if she was dreaming about her precious secret. I watched her sleep for minute after minute, longing to lunge on top of her and wring the life from her
.

‘Your daughter’s dead,’ I whispered
.

I wondered if she subconsciously heard it, somehow
.

I approached the bed and sat beside her, watching her chest rise and fall, longing to grab my knife and plunge it into her beating heart. I peeled back the duvet and looked at her body. I wondered how many men she had fucked with it, how many she had tasted with her mouth and let between her legs. I could tell she was a whore, just by looking at her. I wondered why she stopped letting her husband touch her, why she let him go off with her own sister for pleasure. A family of whores. I took a lock of her hair in my hand, and noticed how similar it was to her daughter’s. I realised how alike they were, and how, by killing Louise slowly, it would be like killing her daughter too, in the way that I had wanted to
.

‘Soon, I will spill your blood. I will be the last person to see you alive. You will finally feel the
pain I feel, the pain you and your dead daughter caused.’

I took one last look at her body, her slutty, disgusting body, and placed the duvet over her again. She snuggled underneath it, content, completely unaware that her killer was right beside her
.

I sneaked out of the room and left the house
.

She had already called the police, either about her car being trashed or about Brooke vanishing – or both. I knew I had to be extra careful, but I also knew she had to be too
.

I tormented her a lot the following day. Brooke was dead and I was bored. One night, I banged on the windows and doors. She screamed. It was just the reaction I wanted: pure fear. I smashed a window and left her a robin, this time with a note
.

I found myself getting more and more adventurous, but it was called for. She had to know that the pressure was mounting and that things were only going to get worse. She came to the broken window with a knife and a pale, horrified face. It was priceless
.

It was when I found her journal that everything changed
.

Inside her journal, this very journal, she had written a confession: one that I had not seen
coming. Louise Leighton killed my grandson. She held her hand over his mouth and nose until he suffocated. I remember just staring at the words on the page, reading them over and over as shock ricocheted through me. I cried. I beat Brooke’s corpse until I heard bones break. He was so young, so innocent, and she took his life to protect her cunt of a daughter. I knew then that she was going to die very soon indeed. I couldn’t wait any longer, knowing what she had done
.

First, I decided to meet her in the flesh. To have her eyes look into mine. I wanted to see how well she pretended to be sinless. It was the day of the search for her daughter, a perfect time to meet her face to face
.

First, I hid her daughter’s body in the boot of my car, along with any blood-soaked hay, and drove out into the lane. I returned on foot and swept away the tyre tracks left in the snow by brushing them with a tree branch that still had its leaves. I made sure nothing could be found in the barn, if it were to be searched. I left my food cans around to distract any sniffer dogs that might enter. They would see it as a squatting place for the homeless, not a hideout for a father wanting revenge. I walked back to my car and drove to the train station, where the search was being held. Then I got out to join the search
.

I watched Louise from afar. She looked distraught – as any mother would. I was pleased to see the sick bitch had a heart. It meant I could stab it and watch her die
.

When the policewoman left her alone, I moved in towards her. I told her about Robyn. I told her she died. I told her how much it hurt. Feeling Louise so close to me made me feel both revolted and elated. My hands began to sweat, my dick got hard. I wanted to do so many horrendous things to her there and then. I wanted to push her away in disgust, but at the same time, pull her near and strike her neck with the blade hidden in my coat
.

Tears formed in her eyes when I told her about Robyn. She thanked me for sharing my story. She had no idea that in that story she and her daughter were the villains. I dared to touch her, just in the small of her back. Shocks shot through me like painful spasms. My hard-on pulsed. I had to leave before I killed her then and there. I couldn’t join the search. I had to return to the barn and wait until the time was right to end her miserable life. I drove away with Brooke’s dead body in the boot of the car, smirking at the thought of all the people searching for something that was literally passing them by
.

Before I killed Louise, I had to pay someone a visit,
someone who didn’t deserve to be a part of this – someone as innocent as Jamie
.

I drove back to London and let myself into the townhouse. I went up the stairs to Dominic’s bedroom. I watched him sleep from the corner of his room, taking a seat on a red beanbag that Jamie would have loved. He slept so peacefully. I lit a cigarette and opened the window to clear the room of smoke. I drank whisky from the bottle until the boy woke
.

He didn’t notice me at first, just the open window. When I spoke, I thought he was going to have a heart attack. I’ve never seen a body flinch that hard. I felt bad. He was innocent in all of this. Just like Robyn. Just like Jamie
.

I told him that his mother and sister had to pay. He deserved to know – to be prepared. He didn’t deserve to be trapped in a family with such horrendous people. He didn’t say a word. He simply went back to sleep. I wondered if he was even truly awake before. I got up, closed the window, and stroked his hair tenderly before leaving
.

Tonight is the night. Tonight is the night I kill Louise Leighton. I’m going to reveal her daughter’s body, hanging by her neck just like my daughter had been discovered on the bonnet of
her car. I’m going to terrify her to the point where she doesn’t want to live in this world anymore. I’m going to chase her down, stab her, spill her blood, before finally releasing myself from this pitiful existence
.

I have lost my wife, my daughter, and my grandson. I have nothing left to live for. I will be with them in heaven, and Louise will join Brooke in the fiery pits of hell
.

Robyn didn’t deserve to die. I would do anything for her to be alive again: for her, Jamie, and my wife to be back with me, just like it used to be. But I can’t do that. I must live with the pain until I end it all. What I can do, though, is take revenge. I’ve wiped Brooke from this world, now it’s time to rid it of Louise
.

You may not understand why I had to do this. You may not believe every part of this story. You may not want to believe that these women were capable of such atrocities, or that I could take revenge so colourfully. But this is the truth. The bodies – Brooke’s, Louise’s and mine – will be the proof
.

Curt Grady

A bloody fingerprint rests under his name.

After writing the confession, Curt Grady had gone on
to kill Louise and then himself.

Michael stares at the man’s bloody fingerprint; tears roll down his cheeks, his body shaking as though he is about to erupt. Michael knows it’s his daughter’s blood on the page.

Jessica watches him, the glint of tears shimmering in her eyes, looking as though she cannot bear to witness the man’s pain for another second.

He scrunches up the pages and sobs into them. He cries so hard that he retches. The sounds that escape him are deep and animalistic.