The Border: Part One (2 page)

I

There might be a thin line between good and evil, but Beth Hague had learned long ago that things could get muddied when you were close to the border. You could be on the bad side, but still real close to the good, or you could be on the good side and just one step from doing something really
really
bad.

Today – Paradise Beacon motel parking lot, just outside Bowley

“Come on, you goddamn cock-sucker,” she whispered, barely even blinking as she sat in her dark car and watched the door to room 5. She’d been crying earlier in the evening, crying more than she’d ever cried before, but now she was dry-eyed and determined.

Now she had a plan.

“Mummy, can we go home?”

“Soon,” she replied, not even turning to look at Lucy in the back seat.

“Mummy, I’m tired.”

“I know, just…” She paused, letting her voice trail off for a moment as she imagined the door to room 5 opening and Bob – lying, cheating,
skirt-chasing
Bob – stepping out with his arms around that little bitch’s waist. For a moment, she allowed the image to fill her soul, to consume her every thought and bring boiling rage rising through her body until she was almost trembling with anger, until she was almost ready to storm out of the car and go knock on that door and bring the bastard out, and then make him pay for every single humiliation. One by one, in order, and with no mercy, she’d list ever slight, every wrong. She knew it wouldn’t help in the long-term, but right now it’d feel so goddamn good.

Finally, remembering that she’d always sworn to be a better mother to her daughter than her own mother had been to her, she turned and stared at Lucy, before slowly forcing a smile. “Hey, sweetheart,” she continued, “just… Just five more minutes, okay? And ignore any bad words Mummy says. Mummy should know better.”

“What are we doing here?” Lucy asked, with tired eyes.

“We’re just taking a quick look to see if Daddy’s around.”

“Why would Daddy be
here
? Daddy works on the other side of town. Daddy’s office is a big tall building, and it doesn’t have a neon palm-tree flashing outside” Turning, the little girl looked out the window and watched as a dark figure emerged from the brightly-lit pharmacy on the other side of the parking lot. “I don’t like this part of town,” she added cautiously, as she noticed a crack in the car’s window, running up from the bottom-right corner.

“I know, but…” Beth paused for a moment. It was so tempting to unleash the whole thing, to tell Lucy what a disgusting man her father was, to stop protecting her and to start teaching her, at the age of just eight, something she’d inevitably find out for herself one day. At the same time, she knew she had to be the better person, and she didn’t want to break the girl’s heart. Not yet. “We’ll go to McDonald’s after, okay?” she continued, finding another smile from somewhere. “You can have whatever you want.”

“I don’t like McDonald’s.”

“Since when?”

“Since forever. Anyway, Burger King’s closer.”

“It is?” She checked her watch. “Huh. You know, for an eight-year-old, you sure -”

Hearing her phone ringing, she turned and grabbed her jacket from the next seat. Fumbling through the pockets, she was already trying to work out what she’d say if it was Bob on the other line, calling from inside room 5 with some pathetic excuse about why he’d missed all her calls earlier. “I’m at work,” he’d probably say, which was his go-to excuse for everything, since he obviously assumed she’d never check. By the time she found her phone, she was just about ready to tell him to go to hell, but finally she saw – with a hint of relief, but then some disappointment – that it was her brother Jack who was trying to get through.

“Hey,” she said as she answered, “this is a bad time, can I call you back when -”

“Ben’s coming home,” Jack said, interrupting her.

She opened her mouth to reply, before frowning. The news was sudden and unexpected, and it seemed to come jagging into her thoughts with no care as to how it might fit with everything else that was going on in her life. “Um…
What
?”

“Ben’s coming next week. I just found out. Mum told me.”

“Ben? Why the hell is Ben coming?”

“I guess it’s the ninth anniversary of the last time he bothered to come home for Christmas, so he felt bad.”

She paused, running through the idea in her head. It still seemed impossible and unreal.

“
Ben’s
coming?” She paused, utterly shocked by the idea. “Are you sure? You mean
our
Ben? Our
brother
Ben?” Another pause. “Are you
sure
sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“But…”

“I know,” Jack replied on the other end of the line. “That was my reaction too.”

Silence fell for a moment, as they each waited for the other to say something.

“Fuck,” Beth muttered finally, before turning to Lucy. “You didn’t hear Mummy say that bad word, okay?”

Lucy nodded.

“So,” Jack continued, on the other end of the line, “I guess we have to talk about… things.”

“We do?” She glanced back toward the motel and saw that the door to room 5 was still shut, and the light was still on inside. “I mean, yeah, we do.”

“Where are you now?”

“Um… At home.” She put a finger to her lips and turned to Lucy, who reciprocated and smiled.

“I’m coming over.”

“No!” she said quickly, turning back to look at the motel. “No, Lucy’s gone to bed and I’m exhausted. Bob’s working all night, so… We’ll talk about it tomorrow, okay?”

“I think we should talk about it now.”

“When’s he coming?”

“Monday.”

“That’s almost a week away.”

“We should start thinking about it now.”

“Jesus, it’s not that much of an emergency.” As soon as the words left her lips, she knew they were wrong. Ben.
Ben
was coming. As if she didn’t have enough on her plate already. “What I mean is… What I mean
is
, he’s our brother, not some kind of monster. We can handle this.”

She waited for him to reply, but a kind of silence seemed to have settled on the conversation now, slowly lowering its wings over them both even though they were on opposite sides of town.

“Did you speak to him?” she asked eventually.

“Mum did.”

“Did she say anything else? How did Ben sound? Where’s he been since the last time he was in town?”

“I don’t know. I think she didn’t want to press him too hard, in case she scared him off. She’s pretty desperate for him to come.”

“Will he be alone?”

“Beats me.”

“And it’s just for Christmas?”

“That’s what he told her.”

“So he’ll leave again, right?” she continued. “I mean, that’s the important thing. He’s coming for Christmas, he’ll hang around for that, but then he’ll be gone again.”

“I guess.”

“He’ll go back to… Wherever the hell he’s been for the past nine years.”

“Hopefully. If we’re lucky.”

“So there’s no problem,” she pointed out, still watching the motel intently, still waiting in case the door to room 5 suddenly opened. “Mum’ll be happy, and the rest of us can put up with him for a few days.” She paused. “I hope he doesn’t stay for New Year as well.”

“Fingers crossed,” Jack muttered.

“And…” She paused. “Does Jane know?”

“I’m with Jane now.”

“And is she going to… I mean, do you think Alex and the rest of the police should be told Ben’s coming to town?”

“Well, Jane knows.”

“That’s good.”

“Exactly.”

Silence again.

“And if -” Before she could finish, she saw the door to the motel room open. Two figures appeared silhouetted against the light inside, before they pulled the door shut and stepped out into the parking lot. Leaning forward, Beth felt her heart beating at double-speed, but she could already tell from the shapes of the figures that they were strangers. She’d been so certain that she’d finally tracked Bob down to one of his all-night, away-from-home, lying-about-being-at-work lairs, and now she didn’t know whether to be glad she was wrong or disappointed.

After a moment, she realized she was disappointed.

“Fuck,” she whispered.

“What was that?”

“We’ll talk tomorrow,” she replied, “and Jack… Don’t get too worked up over this. It’s just Ben. Maybe everything’ll be okay this time.”

“You don’t really believe that.”

She paused, watching as the two figures made their way to a nearby car.

“No,” she said finally, “you’re right. I don’t. But I can’t deal with this tonight, I’ve got other things going on. We’ll talk tomorrow, yeah? Not now.”

Cutting the call, she kept the phone in her hand for a moment and watched as the couple got into their car. The man opened the door for the woman and held it while she got in, before closing it carefully and heading around to the driver’s side. Set against the backdrop of late-night pharmacies, all-night bars and every-night police sirens in this part of town, the chivalry of that one gesture seemed somehow magnified. Beth tried to remember the last time Bob had held the door for her, even in the driveway of their seven-figure house in the good part of town, but she came up blank. They were past the door-holding phase of their marriage and into the shouting-and-slamming phase.

“Can we go home now?” Lucy asked, sounding exhausted.

“Sure we can, sweetheart,” Beth replied, before a stray thought slipped into her mind. “But we might make one more
small
detour along the way.”

***

“I need to swing by my father’s place,” Jack said suddenly, after driving for several minutes in silence since the call with his sister had ended. “I’ll drop you guys off at home first.”

“This late?” Jane glanced at the clock on the dashboard. “Honey, it’s gone ten.”

“I know, but it’s important.”

She paused for a moment. “Are you going over to tell him about Ben?”

“No-one else will.”

“Do you feel the need to warn every member of your family that your brother’s coming home?”

“Kind of,” he muttered.

Looking over her shoulder, Jane saw that Stuart and Oliver were fast asleep in the back seat. She turned back to Jack, and for a moment she watched as he kept his eyes on the road. The problem with Jack was that when everything was fine, he tended to be very quiet, and when everything was up in the air, he also tended to be very quiet. Being quiet was his default mode, and it had taken her a long time to learn how to tell one type of silence from another. At that particular moment, however, she could tell that this was the type of silence that indicated trouble beneath the surface. He was already getting himself tie up in knots.

“Have you called ahead to see if he’s up for having visitors?” she asked finally.

“I’ll call in a bit.”

“You should. He might have gone to bed already.”

“He might be drunk already, you mean.”

“Jack -”

“It’s fine,” he continued, as he slowed the car and turned onto their street. “I’ll drop you off and then I’ll go see him. I’ll be quick. He needs to know.” He eased into the driveway. “He
has
to know,” he added. “I’m not letting him get out of this one. If the rest of us are worried, he has to be worried too. I’ll just go to his place and tell him, and I’ll be back before the kids are in bed.”

***

Two minutes later, as the kids trudged to the front door, Jane watched Jack backing the car out of the driveway.

“Oh God,” she muttered under her breath. “Why now?”

***

“Dad?”

Jack knocked again, but there was still no answer. Trying the handle, he found that the door was unlocked, so he pulled it open and leaned into the hallway.

“Dad?”

From the spare bedroom, there was a familiar sound.

Porn.

Sighing, Jack stepped inside and pulled the door shut. Whatever his father was watching, it sounded like someone was having the time of her life, and a flickering blue glow was leaking out from under a door at the far end of the corridor.

“Dad?” he shouted.

He waited a moment, and then the sound stopped.

“Jack?”

“Hey, Dad,” he continued, keeping his voice raised a little. “Didn’t mean to disturb you, I just need a quick word! Sorry it’s so late.”

Another pause.

“Hang on!” his father shouted.

“I’ll be in the front room!”

“You what?”

“The front room!” Sighing, he headed through. “Deaf old bastard,” he muttered as he reached the sofa and saw that old newspapers had been left all over the cushions. Clearing a space, he sat down and picked up one of the papers, which turned out to be from almost six months ago. He smiled as he remembered the office meeting where they’d come up with the headline. After a moment, he tossed the paper aside and glanced around the room. There were dirty plates piled up on a table by the armchair, and old, half-crushed beer cans on the floor. Glancing at the window, he saw a crack running through the glass. It was tempting to think that the old man was slipping into the early stages of dementia, but Jack knew his father had always been a messy guy. It had been one of the things that had driven Audrey crazy and caused the divorce.