The One You Love (14 page)

‘I’ll just be a minute.’ Emma opened the door and grimaced as the foul pungent smell hit her like a tidal wave, rolling up from the bottom of the stairs in the dark abyss. ‘It’s a basement. The smell’s coming from down there.’

‘Be careful,’ Lizzy insisted.

Emma stood at the top of the stairs, looking down into the darkness. She looked to her right and found the light switch, but the bulb had blown. She would have to go down there in the dark, or give up. Never a fan of the dark, and having seen too many horror films to feel comfortable in basements, she didn’t relish going down there. But something drove her on to do it.

‘Are you okay, Em?’

Emma progressed gingerly down the stairs, brushing against cobwebs, not daring to answer Lizzy in the fear that any noise would send something careering out at her from the darkness. With only the dim light from the kitchen providing any guidance, it felt as if the darkness was swallowing her up. At last she reached the basement’s concrete floor, where the rotting meat smell was so strong she began to feel nauseous.

Shadows danced across the cellar, which stretched back farther than she could see. It was impossible to tell where exactly the stench was coming from, but there was no doubt that the source was down here. What the source was, she didn’t like to think.

A number of cardboard boxes littered the floor, and she began looking through them. The boxes contained a variety of ordinary household junk material. No rotting meat. No body parts.

But the smell was coming from somewhere.

She moved deeper into the cellar. Feeling around in the darkness, coughing from the overpowering smell, she stumbled over a stray box that was so heavy it refused to budge even with her running into it. The smell seemed stronger than ever. She ripped at the brown tape that snaked across the top of the box. Its sides seemed damp.

‘Em!’ Lizzy shouted from the top of the stairs.

Emma continued to pull at the tape. It was difficult to see here, in the very back of the cellar. She turned to let some of the light from the kitchen reach the box.

‘Em! We’ve got to get out of here! Quick!’

Finally Emma managed to open the box, and she instinctively recoiled. The smell rolled around her as she held her breath and peered inside. The box contained raw chicken, still in the supermarket packets. It was in the latter stages of decay, but she didn’t stop to look at it too closely.

She turned, coughing and spluttering, and headed back towards the stairs. There was no time to investigate further. It hadn’t been a pleasant experience, but at least her worst fears hadn’t been realised – that a body had been down there: Dan’s body.

Lizzy was waiting for her at the top of the stairs. Her face was anguished. ‘Thank goodness you’re all right. C’mon!’ She pulled at Emma’s sleeve. ‘We’ve got to go, now!’

‘What’s the matter?’ Emma closed the basement door, feeling panicked. Lizzy looked terrified.

‘It’s Mrs Myers. She’s screaming Stephen’s name. It sounds like she’s having some kind of a breakdown up there. Please, can we go?’

‘Of course! Let’s get out of here.’

They passed through the lounge into the hallway, counting the seconds until they could escape from this house of horrors and emerge into the real world. But the sight of a crying, bread-knife-wielding Mrs Myers blocking the exit brought them to a sudden halt.

‘You can’t leave,’ said Mrs Myers, holding the shaking blade towards them, tears spilling down her cheeks. ‘Not until you tell me where my Stephen is.’

22

‘You were going to leave, without even saying goodbye, just like he did,’ said Mrs Myers, taking a tiny, faltering step towards them. Emma mirrored her movement and held up her hands, while gesturing for Lizzy to retreat into the lounge.

‘I’m sorry, we were just going for a walk,’ Emma lied. Now was the time to tell Mrs Myers whatever she wanted to hear.

Tell her anything to get out alive.

‘No.’ Mrs Myers shook her head and took another zombie-like step forward. Emma used those milliseconds to evaluate what she might do to get the knife off her. But it was difficult: the corridor was narrow, with little room to manoeuvre.

‘Let’s sit down and talk about it in the other room,’ Emma offered, trying out a smile.

There would be more of a chance if she brought Mrs Myers into the lounge. Taking the knife by force, however, would be a last resort – her karate instructor had always stressed that talking, along with body language, was often the most effective weapon in a dangerous situation.

‘I love my son so much,’ said Mrs Myers, her face contorted with grief. She was grasping the knife so tightly that her knuckles were ivory white, contrasting against the dirt of the rest of her hands. ‘I miss him.’

‘I’m sure you do,’ Emma said, keeping her eye on the blade and stepping back again. Mrs Myers followed her into the lounge, step by step, as if they were linked together.

Lizzy was standing at the back of the room and Emma shot her a comforting glance.

‘We’re going to talk about this,’ Emma said, to both Lizzy and Mrs Myers. ‘Do you want to give me the knife?’ Mrs Myers was looking around the living room, bug-eyed, as if it was the first time she’d ever been there.

Emma watched the woman’s face for any sign of acceptance. ‘Can you give me the knife?’

‘When he called me a few weeks ago, I was so happy. He told me he was coming to see me – that he hadn’t meant to go away like that. He was looking forward to seeing his mother.’

‘Did Stephen say where he was?’

‘I thought he was with you. He said he was with you.’

‘He wasn’t with me, Mrs Myers,’ Emma said, ‘I promise.’

The knife began to lower as Mrs Myers’ head started to droop, as if her neck muscles had started to fail.

‘Do you know what it’s like to lose someone you love?’ she asked, staring at the carpet. ‘It feels like your insides have been ripped out – your heart stamped on.’ Now she was fighting tears.

‘
I understand,’ Emma said.
‘My mother died.’ She understood all too well what it was like to lose someone who you loved so much that it physically hurt to think about them not being there anymore.

Mrs Myers raised her head and looked Emma directly in the eyes. Then she stepped forward. Emma stood her ground as she approached.

‘Em,’ Lizzy said, concerned.

‘It’s okay,’ Emma said, bringing an arm out towards the knife, which was now held loosely. But before she could get it, Mrs Myers released her grip completely and the knife fell onto the carpet, narrowly missing Emma’s foot.

‘C’mon,’ Emma said, leading Mrs Myers to the sofa and sitting her down. ‘Just sit down for a while.’

As she did this, Lizzy picked up the knife.

‘What shall I do with this?’ Lizzy said, holding the knife by its very end as if it was contaminated.

‘Better keep hold of it for now,’ Emma said.

Lizzy pulled a painful face. ‘Shall we call… you know?’

‘Please, don’t.’

Emma and Lizzy started with shock as a bearded man stood in the doorway.

‘Please, don’t call anyone,’ he said, stepping into the lounge. ‘She has a mental health nurse. I’ll call her.’

‘Are you Mr Myers?’ asked Emma, standing up.

‘I am, but please, call me Peter.’ He held out his hand. ‘It’s nice to meet you, Emma. Well, I can’t pretend I don’t know who you are,’ he said, noticing her surprise. ‘Not with all those photographs up in that bloody bedroom.’

‘Nice to meet you too.’ Emma took his hand. It was weird having strangers recognising her. That was what real fame would be like, and she wasn’t sure she liked it.

‘I guess you’re here to see Stephen,’ he said.

‘We wanted to talk to him, yes,’ Emma replied, noting that Mr Myers looked even more like Stephen than his wife did.

‘Well, you’d better come with me,’ he said. ‘I can take you to where he is.’

***

‘I’m sorry you had to see Margaret like that,’ said Peter Myers, a few minutes into the journey in his van, which was emblazoned with adverts for his handyman business – locksmith, electrical and computer repairs, plumbing, no job too small. ‘I had no idea things had got so bad.’

He hadn’t told them where they were going: just that he was taking them to see his son. And although Emma was still nervous about seeing Stephen, she felt comforted by Peter Myers’ presence. While his father was there, she doubted Stephen would do anything stupid. And he might just be more likely to tell the truth about what had happened.

‘You don’t live there anymore?’ she asked, thinking too late that it was a terribly personal question.

‘Not for a few months,’ he said, turning the corner and accelerating along the main road, ‘although I do keep popping in, just to make sure that she’s okay.’

‘She seems really depressed,’ Emma said.

‘She is. She’s not been well for a while, although it’s been getting worse since I left, if I’m honest with myself. She used to be such a proud woman, especially where the house is concerned. But now, well, you saw what it’s like.’

‘She seems like she needs help really badly.’

‘I know,’ he acknowledged, ‘and she does get the mental health nurse visiting her. But she stopped taking her drugs regularly and things got worse from then on. That’s one of the reasons why I left. I just couldn’t cope any more. I know it sounds selfish, but I just had to get away, for my own sanity.’

‘Is it something to do with Stephen, her being depressed? Lizzy heard her shouting his name, and she was talking to me about how he had left her.’

‘It all started with Stephen, but now it’s taken on a momentum of its own. To be honest, if he walked back through the door tomorrow, I think it would probably be too late.’

‘She told me he called her a few weeks ago,’ Emma said.

‘She said that?’ Peter Myers was clearly shocked, and for a second it took his attention away from the road.

‘Yes, she definitely said he had called her.’

He shook his head. ‘I really need to call that nurse and tell her that something needs sorting out.’

‘You don’t think he did call her?’

‘No,’ he said, turning right and then taking a sharp left into a country lane.

They continued, in silence, down the lane for a few hundred yards before pulling to a stop against the side of a dry-stone wall.

‘We’re here.’ Peter undid his seatbelt and got out of the car. Emma and Lizzy followed him as he moved towards the wall. As Emma looked over the wall she saw that they had parked next to a cemetery; she gazed across at the hundreds of gravestones that ran off downhill into the distance.

‘Follow me,’ he said, climbing over the wall and heading off, weaving through the gravestones. Emma and Lizzy followed, not speaking. Just a few metres from where the car was parked Mr Myers stopped and waited.

When they caught up to him he simply pointed at Stephen Myers’ headstone.

PART TWO

23

‘I can’t believe it’s been four years,’ Peter Myers said, staring at the headstone. ‘The time has gone so quickly, but so many things have changed.’

Emma didn’t know what to say.

‘I’m really sorry, Mr Myers,’ she said, feeling like a complete fraud for standing in front of this man’s grave and uttering words of condolence. But even though she had feared Stephen, and learned to hate his puppy-dog-like attention, there was always a part of her that had still felt compassion for him. He was certainly a sad, pitiful figure – the sort of person who seemed destined never to be truly happy. She wondered whether destiny was set in stone in that way.

‘I always thought it could end up like this,’ said Peter, as if reading Emma’s thoughts, ‘even from when Stephen was a young child. There was always something different about him, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. He was so intense, in everything he did. Obsessive really – like he was with you.’ He turned to Emma, who smiled weakly back. ‘I’m just so sorry for all he put you through.’

‘That was a long time ago.’

‘Still, you don’t forget those kinds of things in a hurry, do you?’

Emma shook her head.

‘As soon as I found out what he was doing to you, I tried my best to reason with him, but he really believed that you were in love. I know it seems hard to understand, but he’d create alternative realities, and for him they were the truth. We took him to see specialists, psychiatrists, but it didn’t really make any difference.’

‘Like I said, that was a long time ago.’

‘Yes.’

‘How did Stephen die?’ asked Emma, wanting and not wanting to know in almost equal amounts.

‘He committed suicide.’

A sickening stab hit Emma right in the stomach. He’d killed himself, and it was around the time of the restraining order, when reality had probably finally hit home that she didn’t want to be with him.