Jess laughs. ‘And that’s exactly your problem. You never think you’ve done anything wrong. It’s always just down to the way the world works out, isn’t it? It’s always due to circumstance, to bad luck. You make your own luck in this world. And yours has run out.’
She takes another huge drag on the cigarette, which is now nearly burnt down. As I look at the glowing orb at the end of the cigarette, a thought ignites in my mind. I lift my hands slightly and place them on my hips, standing like a PE teacher at the side of a sports field. When I see her glance down at the floor, I manipulate my thumb and push it inside my jeans pocket, flicking the switch across on the dictaphone. I hope to God it’s the switch that starts it recording. I’ve only used it once, so I can’t be certain, but it’s all I’ve got.
‘How did you get here?’ I ask her.
‘There are such things as planes, Daniel.’
‘But you couldn’t get on a plane. You’re wanted across Europe.’
‘No, Jessica Walsh is wanted across Europe. If I’d used the British passport with Jessica Walsh in it, I’d be pretty stupid, wouldn’t I?’
‘You have two passports?’ I ask.
‘No, I have one. My French one. My parents were French. The British one isn’t real, Daniel.’ She says this in such a patronising manner, as if she’s telling a thirty-year-old man that Santa Claus isn’t real. ‘That’s where Claude comes in handy occasionally.’
‘Claude? How do you mean?’
She shakes her head and looks up to the rafters of the barn. Her look is condescending, pitiful. ‘He helps me. He always has. He understands me. Listen, he’s got contacts. That’s all you need to know.’
‘You can’t just rock up to an airport with a fake passport and expect it to work. They do scans and checks and all sorts of things,’ I say.
‘Don’t be so naive, Daniel. There are ways and means,’ she replies.
My mind jumps straight to some very weird places. ‘But how did you get a job in the hotel without all the paperwork?’ It’s the first thing that comes to mind, as if my brain is completely blanking out the more obvious questions and reverting to the simple, straightforward, rules-based stuff. Because, right now, all of the rules have gone out of the window. In a world where a person can come back from the dead, I need to root myself in facts and logic.
‘You’re very sweet. Do you really think I can’t get what I want without bending the rules a little? Really? After the past few days?’
I suppose she’s got a point.
‘How did you find me?’ I ask.
She laughs again. ‘I tracked you using the iPhone. I knew you wouldn’t use it, but I also knew you wouldn’t get rid of it. There’s an app called Find My Friends. Sweet, isn’t it? I saw you’d gone to Bratislava, so I went there, too. Why Bratislava, by the way?’
I can’t answer that, so I just shrug.
‘How odd. I had a lot of fun tracking you around, anyway. That’s the beauty of technology – I never needed to keep you in sight, so you never saw me, either. I knew where you were at any time. When I tracked you through Bratislava and saw that you had started heading north, I had a pretty good idea where you were going. While you were doing twelve hours on the road, I had a two-hour flight from Bratislava to Charleroi. Much nicer. Food wasn’t bad, either.’
‘Where’s Claude?’ I ask. I can’t see she would have harmed him, but I suddenly remember the TV blaring out and the lack of response from inside the farmhouse.
‘Inside the house,’ Jess replies. ‘Yes, he’s alive, and yes, he knows I’m here. I also asked him not to answer the door tonight and told him I’d be gone by morning. That’s the good thing about Claude. He’s trustworthy. And he trusts me. Strange what men do, isn’t it?’
Then the thought, the realisation, hits my mind like a bullet. My brain’s finally made the connection, having dismissed it completely back at the caravan when I saw Jess lying on the floor, seemingly dead. ‘You killed Lisa.’
Jess smiles. It’s a funny smile, almost as if she’s proud of me for having finally worked it out. She looks like a piano teacher who’s just seen her youngest, poorest student finally manage to play ‘Chopsticks’ without fucking it up.
‘Why?’ I ask.
‘I’ve told you why, Daniel,’ she says, bending over and stubbing another cigarette out on the dirty floor. ‘Because you’re a serial abandoner. Because men like you deserve to be punished.’
‘You wanted me as much as I wanted you,’ I say, feeling almost like a fifteen-year-old schoolboy who’s just been dumped by his girlfriend.
Jess shrugs. ‘Call me a good actress. Call it whatever you like.’
There are tears forming in my eyes. I don’t want to ask the question, but I know I need to. I need my own personal closure, and I need it for the dictaphone. ‘How?’
She looks me in the eye. ‘You want to know?’ I nod slowly. ‘You were in the bathroom one afternoon. After we’d . . . I got Lisa’s number from your phone. I’d seen you tap the pin number in a couple of times, so it wasn’t difficult. Early that afternoon, I called her. I told her I was working at the hotel where you were staying and that there’d been an incident and you’d asked her to come down. I knew it’d only take her just over an hour or so, and I knew what time you tended to go down for dinner. That’s the problem when you make me part of your dirty little routine, Daniel. Why did you think I was so keen for you to get down to the restaurant?’
I blink rapidly. It’s all starting to make sense.
‘You left your phone in the room, as you always do. So while you were in the restaurant I sent a message to Lisa asking her to come up to your room. Then I deleted the sent message. I’m guessing you don’t want to know the details of the next bit.’
I shake my head.
‘Good. I’m not some sort of psychopath who gets kicks out of telling everyone how they killed someone. Let’s just call it a means to an end, shall we? And before you ask, no, I felt nothing. Yes, she was just a pawn in the game. Get over it.’
I somehow get the feeling that killing Lisa affected Jess more than she thinks it did. There’s emotion creeping into her voice.
‘So you killed her because I cheated on her?’ I ask. ‘How does that make sense?’
‘No. I killed her because you deserved to know what a lying, deceitful little shit you are. Because men like you hurt women. Because you need to lose the things you love before you even realise you loved them. It’s all about power with men like you, isn’t it? Power over women. Well I think we can safely say we turned that one on its head, don’t you?’
Jess walks over to the large doors at the front of the barn and pushes them completely shut, before fastening the huge padlock across the two hasps. She’s locked us in. She flicks a switch to turn on a small light up in the rafters, which gives off a soft orange glow.