Heathen/Nemesis

Eighty-Two

She woke with a start, looking around her frantically, disorientated, unsure of her surroundings. She felt her heart beating madly; the fear she had come to know only too well enveloped her like a cold glove.

Julie Craig sat forward on the sofa and rubbed her eyes, still trying to shrug off that twilight state between dreams and awareness.

‘Shit,’ she murmured, exhaling deeply.

Her faculties seemed to return slowly. She shook her head, as if that simple action would clear her mind. Immediately she became aware of a dull ache in her right forearm and looked down to see the bandage wound round it from just above the wrist to the elbow.

‘You okay?’ Donna asked her quietly.

‘I dropped off. I’m sorry,’ Julie apologized, rubbing both hands across her face, pulling her long dark hair back from her forehead. ‘What time is it?’

‘Just after one,’ Donna told her. ‘I flaked out, too, when we got back.’

They had returned to the cottage almost two hours ago, exhausted, drained and frightened. Both of them had fought against the sleep they so desperately craved, but eventually it had overtaken them. Through that troubled sleep the events of the night returned to them. The drive to the Wax Museum, the slow exploration, the meeting with Dashwood and Parsons and the terrifying aftermath. All of it was re-run through their subconscious like a video recording. Their escape from the waxworks, through a small window which opened out into a side alley, and then the long drive back to the cottage.

Donna wondered if, indeed, she had just awoken and the entire bizarre chain of events had been the product of her fevered mind.

If only that were the case.

She need only look at the cuts and bruises on her own body and on Julie’s to know that the events had been all too real.

‘We have to leave here tonight,’ Donna said.

‘We need to rest,’ Julie protested.

‘We can rest when we get back to London. I don’t think they will, but if they come looking for us and find us here . . .’

She allowed the sentence to trail off.

Julie closed her eyes for a moment.

‘The police will come,’ she said.

‘That’s another reason we have to get out of here,’ Donna said.

‘Why? When they come, you can tell them what happened. Tell them everything. Like you should have done in the first place.’ There was a trace of anger in her voice. ‘Let them take care of this business now, Donna.’

‘No. It isn’t their business. Besides, if they find out what happened there’ll be problems. How the hell are we supposed to explain what happened at the waxworks? They’ll lock us both up. They’ll think we’re insane, and I wouldn’t blame them if they did.’ She regarded her sister for long moments then spoke again. ‘We have the advantage now. Dashwood and his men think we’re dead. They won’t be expecting us to go after them. They think they’ve got rid of us. They’ll be off guard.’

‘What the hell are you talking about, “Go after them”?’ Julie said incredulously.

‘Like I said, they think we’re dead. They won’t be expecting us,’ Donna said almost excitedly.

‘You’re mad,’ Julie said quietly. ‘Donna, for God’s sake, they’ve already tried to kill you Christ knows how many times, and you’re still not satisfied. Do you want to die?’

‘I want them to die,’ she rasped.

‘Forget it, it’s over. They’ve got the bloody book, that was what they wanted. Let them have it. Let them keep it. We’re alive, that’s all that matters.’ The anger had turned to desperation.

‘It’s not about the book, Julie, it never was.’

‘No, it’s about revenge. Your need for revenge. It’s become an obsession with you, Donna. It’s eating you away and you don’t even know it. First it was Chris’s affair, and now it’s that book, and even after everything we’ve been through that’s not enough for you. You won’t be happy until you’ve got us both killed.’

‘You don’t know what I’m feeling,’ she said angrily. ‘It was bad enough knowing about the affair, then being involved in something which could have caused our deaths, but now I find out my husband could have been a murderer, too. You heard what Dashwood said tonight. Chris was one of them.’

‘And you believe that?’

‘I’m going to find out and I’m going to wipe those bastards off the face of the earth.’

‘You can’t even see what it’s doing to you, can you? You can’t see what it’s made you. All that matters to you is this ridiculous need for revenge. You couldn’t have it against Chris or Suzanne Regan so you used the hunt for the book, instead. And now that’s gone you’ve found another excuse to carry on.’

‘Perhaps that’s all I’ve got left, Julie.’

‘Well, I won’t help you. I’m sorry but I can’t take any more. I’m not going to be there when you get yourself killed. I won’t watch you die, Donna.’

‘Part of me died when I found out about Chris and Suzanne Regan,’ Donna said. ‘And perhaps you’re right, perhaps this whole thing has been about that, an extension of the anger I felt. Somebody had to pay for it. Somebody will pay for it. And if you won’t help me, then I’ll do it alone. I can’t stop now. Not until this is over.’

‘It is over,’ Julie shouted, tears running down her cheeks. ‘Jesus Christ, how many more times? How much more pain can you stand? You were looking for the truth and you thought you’d found it. Well, you didn’t.’ She sniffed back more tears. ‘He wasn’t having an affair with Suzanne Regan. He was having an affair with me.’