I find myself frowning, because if she suspects that he controls me, surely she must guess that he also controls everything I come into contact with? If she’s realised that Jack is not someone to be trifled with, why would she risk discovery when she has nothing concrete to back up her suspicions?
I go back to reading, hoping to find something that will tell me how I can communicate with Esther without Jack finding out, because how can I let her down when she has reached out to me so amazingly?
Sometime in the evening, when I’m still trying to work out a way of getting a message back to her, I hear Jack coming up the stairs, so I close the book quickly and place it a little away from me on the bed.
‘Finished already?’ he remarks, nodding at the book.
‘Actually, I’m finding it hard to get into,’ I lie. ‘It’s not the sort of thing I’d normally read.’
‘How far have you got with it?’
‘Not very far.’
‘Well, make sure you finish it before we see her next week.’
He leaves, and I find myself frowning again. It’s the second time he’s insisted that I read it before we go to Esther’s for dinner, which tells me that he knows about the shading and is hoping I’m going to dig a grave for myself. After all, he as good as admitted, when he said earlier that I was getting too clever for my own good, that he misses punishing me, so I can imagine how happy he must have been to see Esther’s message—and how he must have laughed at her attempt to help me. But then, the more I think about it, the more I feel that I’ve missed something. It’s only when I remember the amount of time that passed between the ring on the doorbell and Jack bringing the book up to me that it dawns on me that the shading in the book is not Esther’s work, but Jack’s.
PAST
Molly could only have been dead a few days at the most, because her body hadn’t started to decompose. Jack had been very clever in that respect; he had left her some water, but not quite enough to last her the two weeks until we got home. The shock of finding her dead was terrible. The look of malevolent anticipation on Jack’s face as he opened the door to the utility room had prepared me for something—that he had left her tied up for the two weeks we were away, or that she wouldn’t be there—but not that he had left her to die.
At first, as I looked down at her little body lying on the floor, I thought the drugs he had given me were playing with my mind, because I was still feeling woozy. But when I knelt down beside her and found her body cold and rigid, I thought about the terrible death she must have endured. It was then that I didn’t only vow to kill Jack, but to make him suffer as he had made Molly suffer.
He feigned surprise at my distress, reminding me that he had told me in Thailand there was no housekeeper, and I was grateful I hadn’t paid any attention to what he’d said back then. If I’d understood what he was alluding to, I don’t know how I would have got through those two weeks.
‘I’m so glad to see that you loved her,’ he said, as I knelt beside Molly and wept. ‘I hoped you would. It’s important, you see, that you realise just how much harder it would be if it was Millie lying there rather than Molly. And if Millie were dead, you’d have to take her place. When you think about it, nobody would really miss you and, if anybody asked where you were, I’d say that following the death of your beloved sister you had decided to join your parents in New Zealand.’
‘Why can’t I replace Millie, anyway?’ I sobbed. ‘Why do you need her?’
‘Because she will be so much easier to terrify than you. Besides, if I have Millie, I’ll have everything I need right here and I won’t have to go to Thailand anymore.’
‘I don’t understand.’ I dashed tears from my cheeks with the back of my hand. ‘Don’t you go to Thailand to have sex with men?’
‘Sex with men?’ He seemed amused by the idea. ‘I could do that here if I chose to. Not that I would choose to. You see, I’m not interested in sex. The reason I go to Thailand is so that I can indulge my greatest passion—not that I actually get my hands dirty, you understand. No, my role is more that of observer, and listener.’ I stared up at him uncomprehendingly and he bent his head towards mine. ‘Fear,’ he whispered. ‘There is nothing quite like it. I love how it looks, I love how it feels, I love how it smells. And I especially love the sound of it.’ I felt his tongue on my cheek. ‘I even love the taste of it.’
‘You disgust me,’ I hissed. ‘You must be one of the most evil people that has ever lived. And I’ll get you, Jack, I promise. In the end, I’ll get you.’
‘Not if I get Millie first, which I intend to do.’
‘So you’re going to kill her,’ I said, my voice breaking.