Chapter Nine
Tuesday Morning – 3 am
The girl cowered in the corner.
She might have been pretty – he didn't remember looking, he had been too angry to bother, She was just a target, something to satisfy him albeit fleetingly. She wasn't pretty now; her lipstick had been smudged and smeared, merging with her torn and swollen face where the punches had landed, and her mascara had run into black pools with her tears. The drops ran, clear and dark and mingled with the blood that dripped from the stumps of her broken front teeth, coalescing into a steady flow of liquids that pooled on the floor under where she lay.
She had stopped screaming. She had learnt her lesson. Now she just sobbed quietly, her entire body shaking.
She was totally terrified.
Just how he wanted her.
But he couldn't enjoy her like this for long.
That was amateur. That put him in danger.
He felt the reassuring feeling of having the knife in his hand.
The blade glinted as he leant down to the girl.
*
Dan woke with a start.
He didn't know where he was.
All he could think of was the girl. It was so vivid, he had to have been there.
Didn't he?
No. No, he was on his settee. He'd fallen asleep there.
Hadn't he?
Shaking he checked his hands, almost convinced that there would be blood on them.
He was remarkably relieved to find that they were clean.
Still trembling, he headed for bed.
*
To Dan’s relief, the next day in work was comparatively busy. A fairly urgent instruction had come in to value a portfolio of commercial investments and all of the team, including Ian, had headed out to do the inspections. Dan had paired up with Hannah and was pleased to have some sensible company. It at least kept his mind off all the issues in his life and, particularly, the enigma that was Tess and all the issues that went with her – was she even real or just a figment of his crumbling mind? He would just rather not go there and work was an ideal distraction.
He had woken to find he had got a text from Jenny. It was sent, he noted, at 2.30am and said how much she wished that she was snuggled up close to him. He hadn’t replied, just quietly admired her stamina to still be going at that time.
He had more than half expected Hannah to ask him straight away how his date had gone. Instead she had stayed absolutely professional, their conversations only being about their inspections. It was not until after noon when they had stopped to buy a sandwich that she eventually asked.
‘It was…fine,’ he replied rather lamely, even though he had been thinking all morning of what he would say.
Hannah winced. ‘Oh dear, that bad?’
Dan had been dreading the question. He knew that Jen and Hannah had lived together all the way through university and beyond, the latter only moving out to live with Greg earlier in the year. He knew that he had to be diplomatic about what he said because it was sure to get back to Jenny.
‘Oh she’s lovely. I think she’s a really sweet girl, it’s just me. It’s a bit…soon and, well I think I’m a bit quiet and boring for her.’ And too old, he knew he should really have added. Far too old to be chasing girls of Jen’s age around.
Hannah looked thoughtful as she ate her sandwich and didn’t immediately reply. Dan’s thoughts drifted again and settled as inevitably as a butterfly on a flower on thoughts of Tess. So had he decided? What was it to be? Was she real or was he losing touch with reality? Was his mind going, was he sane or insane? It was these thoughts that had kept him awake long into the night and that were still there when he opened his eyes in the morning. It was a circular argument, a loop that he could not find a way out of, thoughts and words without any real direction or solution and seemed, in themselves, only to be leading to a breakdown.
This was why a busy work day was such blessed relief. Distraction not solution and now they had stopped for a while the thoughts were back like irritating flies on a summers evening.
‘You’d be really good for her. You’re just what she needs.’ Hannah’s voice cut through the swarm.
Dan said nothing, absently flicking through the twitter feed on his phone, but was sure his face betrayed his doubts.
‘Look, she’s her own worst enemy,’ Hannah said. ‘I know what she’s like when she’s out, she gets giddy, like she is…well, she has to be friends with everyone, has to be in the centre of things with everything revolving around her. I think it’s…’ For the second time in a few moments, Dan was sure that Hannah was mentally biting her tongue, trying to stop herself telling him something. This was confirmed when she started talking again. ‘There are things I could tell you about Jen but I won’t. Let’s just say that I know the real Jenny and just why she gets like that. She’s scared to show anyone what she’s really like. Please, please don’t give up on her just yet, OK?’
Dan was frankly astonished at this. It just didn’t fit with what he knew. But then what did he really know about Jen? Well that she was real, that was one thing. Thinking about her was far healthier than where his thoughts had been until that moment. Mentally he thanked her – and Hannah – for bringing him back to the real world.
‘Ok,’ he said, ‘I promise. Not that I think I’m actually any good to anyone at the moment. I’m about to be made redundant – again, I’m only just about solvent and…’ He paused. How the hell was he going to put this? ‘lately I’ve started to doubt my sanity,’ he eventually said.
‘Oh God help us Dan. If you’re not sane what hope is there for the rest of us?’
Tuesday Afternoon
The rest of the day was taken up with more inspections.
In the middle of the afternoon Dan got a rather plaintive text from Jen: ‘Aren’t you talking to me? :0( J x’.
This time he did reply.
‘Of course I am. Just been busy today. Thanks for last night. Did you get back OK?’ He almost pressed send but at the last moment he added an ‘x’ and then, after a few moments, two more before the message went. He then spent the next hour wondering whether he would regret them.
He didn’t check his phone until he got back to the office. There were three texts, all from Jenny. The first told him yes, she had got back fine, the second asking whether he wanted to come over that night and the last, sent twenty minutes after the second, was simply a question mark with another sad smiley.
He decided that he had better call rather than text but, even so, was rather glad when it went straight to voicemail.
‘Hi Jen, it’s Dan. Sorry, I’ve not been ignoring you just been mad busy at work, out inspecting with Hannah all day in fact. Can I take a rain check on tonight? I’d love to but I know it’s being boring but I must do some shopping tonight. I’ll try and call you later – bye!’
Ringing off, he tried to ignore both of the guilty feelings he had; that he was pleased that he didn’t really want to talk to her directly and also that he was stringing her along when really the best thing for both of them was telling her to forget it.
He left work just after 6pm, the last thing he did being to photocopy two job adverts from Estates Gazette that looked half-promising; he thought he could draft applications for them that night. His first port of call was Tesco’s though, to get all the things that he had failed to get on Sunday night.
Not hurrying, he browsed through the magazines, books and exercise gear. He also paused at the camping section. He had plenty of camping gear but seeing it had sparked an idea; perhaps he should go away next week, have a break, get away from things. Sure it was only April but the weather hadn’t been too bad in fact, with his camera, changeable weather could be ideal for some good landscape shots. Where could he go though? Wales? Maybe, Anglesey was in easy range, and not that far if the weather was horrible to retreat back to the flat. But then he’d so like to spend some more time on the West Coast of Scotland; he’d only ever been once the summer before. It would be at least a 7 hour drive though on his own, with only the car radio and CD for company.
Still he would have plenty of time so why not?
Still mulling this over, he carried on with his shopping. Once he had got everything on his list he went back and added some camping staples; savoury rice, pasta, beans and the like. He then returned to the camping section and added a lantern that was on offer, a water carrier and some batteries. All of it would come in useful at some point even if he decided not to go in the next week.
After paying he headed straight home to the flat and put his purchases away, noting that he was low on meths for his Trangia and that he would need to visit an outdoor shop before he ventured anywhere. He then cooked a quick stir fry and settled down in front of the TV to eat it, turning to BBC2 to pick up a documentary.
He was a few minutes into the programme and about halfway down his bowl of stir fry when he realised where the TV remote had been when he used it. It should have been on the table, where he had always left it. He was pretty sure though that he had just picked it up from the arm of the settee again.
‘Dan no! Don’t start this again!’ he said angrily to himself, ‘You left it there, you!’ He was not going to give in to the paranoia. He couldn’t afford it for one thing, changing the locks had cost him over £200. He didn’t have that sort of cash to spend, not any more. He would just have to find a cheaper way of going insane.
He could not stop his eyes flicking to the window to where the dryer should be propped. No, he realised, not propped, it would be out still. He hadn’t put the clothes away yesterday and certainly not this morning when he’d woken late and had to dash to get to work on time.
But it wasn’t out.
It wasn’t even there. And he knew where it would be without the need to look. But look he had to and there it was, tucked neatly away out of sight again behind the other settee.
Dan jumped to his feet. He felt chilled and slightly sick. What the hell was going on? What was happening to him?
Tess couldn’t have got in, she just couldn’t. The locks had been changed; she couldn’t possibly have a copy of this set. So what was the other explanation? That he was going mad of course, that he was doing all these things and not remembering that he was. So he had invented everything, including Tess.
But wait, she was real. She had been anyway. He had seen her picture on the M.E.N. website.
Or had he? Or had he read the story before and seen her picture and then forgotten the facts and used the picture to create his own fantasy girl? In fact hadn't he, himself been in Manchester that weekend, the weekend she had been murdered? Had he seen the headlines before he left?
He didn’t know. Nothing seemed solvable any more. His mind raced.
But then he felt the prickly sensation on the back of his neck again, the one he had felt on the street.
‘Sod it,’ he said quietly but out loud, ‘I'm not going to run from madness, I'm going to embrace it.’
He waited a few more seconds, then, taking a deep breath and much more loudly he said; ‘Hello Tess.’
There was a pause. A long pause during which time Dan was convinced that the whole world seemed to be holding its breath.
‘Hello Dan,’ said Tess.