Strangers

23

Scott was still in bed, sleeping off the combined effects of the scotch Jeremy had brought around last night and the absolute fucker of an argument which had continued long after he’d gone. Michelle had almost drunk all her wine and she felt like finishing the last dregs this morning, rather than sober up. Her head was pounding, both as a result of the booze and how hard Scott had hit her this time. He’d slapped her right across the face back-handed, hard enough to loosen a tooth. She swallowed down a bilious sob: a nauseating mix of hangover and fear. Getting back into something resembling the drunken state she’d ended up in last night seemed like a good idea, an easier option. Far easier than dealing with the inevitable aftermath this morning.

Same old routine, she told herself, checking her face in the mirror for marks. Different argument, but the same old routine.

She didn’t know how much longer she could keep repeating this cycle, but equally she didn’t know how to get off. The pressure builds, his behaviour gets worse, then he hurts me. That time he punched her in the face and knocked her out cold, that time he shut her hand in the door, that time he grabbed a handful of hair and smacked her head against the wall… she was his release valve. Hurting her made him feel better. But when he told her he was sorry and begged for forgiveness, she believed him. Every bloody single time she believed him.

She decided she’d enjoy the early morning silence for a short while longer, then go and wake him up for work. He’d be full of apologies and remorse again, no doubt, blame it on the booze or on her or on Jeremy… anyone but himself. It’ll never happen again, I swear, he’d tell her like he always did.

She knew what Scott was. She’d known it for a long time. It still made her laugh that she was the one getting help! Her counsellor had been helping her identify her own faults and start working through them so she could better deal with Scott’s. The pills, the therapy… all necessary because there was a part of her which still wanted this to work. Needed it to work. She had loved Scott to begin with – honestly, genuinely – and maybe she still did. She still believed there was a chance she could get those feelings back despite everything he’d put the family through. This move, this house, this place: all just temporary setbacks. That’s what the therapist had said when she’d told him she was moving away.

The house was in a real bloody state. An absolute bloody pigsty. It pissed her off how it was all left to her again. The division of labour in this family was so bloody unfair. She gave, they all took. No, wait… that was unfair. The girls helped when they could, regularly looking after George so she could get on with everything else. This morning, though, this kitchen seemed to perfectly sum up hers and Scott’s relationship. She worked hard to keep it clean and comfortable, he’d just come along with a sledgehammer and knocked a fucking huge hole in the wall.

Jeremy might have had his faults, but at least he’d tried. He’d been pretty good around the house, actually, and had enjoyed cooking. But even that had caused issues because when she wanted something quick and easy out of a packet to feed two hungry kids, he’d wanted to cook a wholesome three-course meal from scratch. They’d learnt to adapt to each other and everything had become a joint effort. Shame, then, that the spark had been snuffed out somewhere along the way. They’d ended up more like brother and sister than lovers. Looking at him last night, she struggled to remember what she’d ever found attractive about him.

It’s got to be me. It must be something I do. I must be the one who always messes it up. I never give them what they want. Jeremy wasn’t happy, Scott’s never happy, the kids are always complaining… it must be me.

She’d started around the house too fast and too early this morning, and Michelle had already peaked. She’d been up for less than an hour, but she was ready for bed again. I’d love to spend the whole bloody day in bed, she thought. Let them fend for themselves.

There was a pounding noise outside, and it wasn’t helping her head. It sounded like a helicopter, hovering over Thussock in the same way the motorway police used to buzz around the M42 and M5 back home near Redditch. This morning it was a constant, irritating, migraine-inducing noise which bored into her brain and refused to go away. She hoped it wouldn’t wake the others. She walked around the ground floor of the house, looking out of all the windows, seeing if she could spot it.

She was staring out of the kitchen window, looking up into the blue sky overhead, when Jeremy appeared at the glass. She jumped back with surprise and cursed him as she tried to catch her breath and calm her nerves. What the hell was he thinking, creeping up on her like that? And what was he doing here anyway? Christ, Scott would go mental if he caught him. He’d arranged to see the girls today, but not until later. She marched outside to deal with him.

‘You scared the crap out of me, Jeremy. What the hell are you doing?’ He just looked at her. ‘We agreed you’d pick the girls up after school, didn’t we?’

He moved closer. Mumbled ‘sorry.’

Something wasn’t right. Michelle realised he was wearing the same clothes as last night. She remembered his cardigan, and she hated cardigans on men. Kids and old folks could just about get away with them, but middle-aged men like Jeremy definitely couldn’t. She remembered thinking he looked like he was trying too hard when she’d first seen him yesterday, but that definitely wasn’t the case today. His trousers were grubby and creased and his hair was a mess. It wasn’t like him. ‘Are you okay? Has something happened?’

‘Didn’t know where else to go,’ he said, his voice almost too low to make out. That damn helicopter was still buzzing overhead. ‘Wanted to see you.’

She looked around but couldn’t see his car. ‘How did you get here?’

‘Walked.’

Alarm bells were ringing. Was he planning something? Was he going to try and snatch the girls and take them back with him to the Midlands? But hold on… this was Jeremy, remember? Safe, sensible, reliable Jeremy. He wouldn’t do anything like that, would he? When they’d first split up, he’d immediately acknowledged the kids would be far better off with their mother and in all the years since he’d never said anything to make her think his opinion had changed. He didn’t take risks, he did things by the book. And she realised that whatever his reason for being here this morning, she was actually glad to see him.

He moved a little closer, stopping just a couple of paces away, almost close enough to touch. He just stared at her. Needed her. Wanted her.

‘Jeremy, love, what’s wrong?’

Michelle remembered everything that had happened last night and how physically inferior Jeremy had appeared next to Scott, how quickly he’d capitulated. She’d felt so sorry for him but hadn’t dared say anything. It had been like watching the nice, quiet kid at school getting the shit kicked out of him by some lump-head bully. If Jeremy was hurting or upset this morning, she didn’t want him to be. She looked deep into her ex-husband’s eyes and all she could see were the things that had first attracted her to him. She loved his face. She’d always loved his face but it was like she’d forgotten why and was only now beginning to remember. She could see it again now… the bump at the top of his nose, his light blue eyes, his neat ears. There was nothing pretty or particularly handsome about Jeremy, but this morning he just looked… right. And then she felt her legs weaken because it was as if that innocent, unspoken admission had unwittingly opened the floodgates. A torrent of long forgotten and completely unexpected emotions washed over her. Had these feelings merely been suppressed, not lost? She felt desperately sad because she’d let him go. More than that, she suddenly felt an undeniable urge to be with him stronger than anything she’d felt for him before, even during their first weeks and months together. This felt pure and basic, unstoppable and inevitable. All she wanted was to hold him close again, to feel his body against hers, inside hers…

Not a word needed to be spoken between them. It was as if a forgotten connection had been re-established between the estranged couple, transcending the need for verbal communication. There remained just inches of clear space between them.

A final moment of hesitation, one last failed sanity check, then an embrace in the middle of the yard in front of the house.

Their lips locked and hands began to move, exploring bodies which hadn’t touched one another in years, hadn’t wanted to. Jeremy gently pushed her up against the side of Scott’s Vauxhall Zafira, his tongue exploring her mouth in the same way the girl’s tongue had explored his last night, and—

—and Scott flew through the front door and pulled Jeremy away from his wife. He threw him to the ground and kicked him in the gut, hard enough to roll him over. ‘Bastard,’ he spat. Michelle grabbed at him and tried to pull him away, but he swung around and slapped her across the face, just as he had done last night. ‘What the fuck is going on?’ he demanded, standing over her as she sank to her knees, sobbing. ‘Answer me! What the fuck is going on?’

Michelle looked up at her husband, then at her ex-husband behind him on all fours, struggling to get back to his feet. Her mouth opened and closed, but the words wouldn’t come. ‘I don’t…’ she said, ‘I didn’t…’ She couldn’t form full sentences, could barely even form full thoughts. Blood poured from her nose.

‘You bitch,’ Scott said. ‘How long have you and him been planning this?’

Already distracted, he was taken completely by surprise when Jeremy barged past him to get to Michelle again, his unbuckled trousers now around his ankles, his penis erect. Too stunned to react at first, as Jeremy reached for Michelle, Scott grabbed his shoulders and pulled him over backwards. He kicked him again, focusing his full fury on the man on the ground. Michelle staggered away, heading for the relative safety of the house.

Jeremy was still trying to get back up. Scott ran at him and punched him so hard he thought he’d broken his hand, catching him full on the side of his jaw and knocking him out cold. He stood over the unconscious, half-dressed man and shook his stinging hand. There was a noise behind him. He spun around quickly, expecting to have been locked out of the house, but the noise had come from upstairs. Phoebe was hanging out of her bedroom window, and she started screaming when she saw her dad. Seconds later, Tammy came flying out of the front door. Scott caught her and carried her back inside, throwing her down the hallway before slamming the door shut then locking and bolting it behind him and pocketing the key. She scrambled back to her feet and threw herself at him, pounding him with her fists. He tried to catch her vicious, flailing arms but couldn’t. He refused to hit back and instead just soaked up punch after punch until she was too tired to keep fighting.

The house was full of noise now: Michelle sobbing at the bottom of the stairs, Phoebe a few steps above her, howling too, and elsewhere George, forgotten, was screaming for attention. Tammy saw that Scott was distracted and shoved him away before bolting, looking for another way out of the house. He blocked her at every turn. ‘It wasn’t my fault,’ he tried to say, cornering her in the kitchen. ‘He attacked your mum… tried to force himself on her.’

‘He wouldn’t do that. You’re lying again… he wouldn’t.’

‘It’s true,’ Michelle said, wiping her bloody nose, desperately trying to cling onto Scott’s half-truth and avoid making any admissions of her own. She’d been as much to blame. She’d wanted Jeremy as much as he had wanted her, though now she couldn’t understand what had possessed her. She felt as if she’d been violated though they’d barely touched. Conscious they were staring at her, she wrapped her dressing-gown around her half-naked body. Her voice was hoarse with crying and tears flooded down her cheeks, mixing with the blood. ‘He was outside and I went to ask him what was wrong. He looked scared. I went to talk to him and he… I don’t know if he’d been drinking or what… he was wearing the same clothes as last night and—’

‘And you weren’t putting up much of a fight,’ Scott sneered.

‘You’re both lying,’ Phoebe said from the corner of the kitchen, away from the rest of them.

‘Did you not see him from up there?’ Scott said, no consideration for her feelings. ‘Trousers round his ankles, everything hanging out… dirty fucker.’

‘Scott!’ Michelle said.

‘What? Don’t you dare criticise me, you bitch.’

‘Don’t talk to Mum like that,’ Tammy screamed at him.

‘And don’t any of you talk to me at all.’

Michelle looked at him and he held her gaze for several seconds. But there was no concern in his eyes anymore, no love, just hurt and hate. She moved towards him, he backed away. ‘You have to believe me, Scott… I know how it looked but it wasn’t like that. I really thought there was something wrong. I went out to check on him and he… I don’t know what came over me.’

‘Well your ex-husband very nearly did,’ he said, emotionless.

‘We need to talk about this. For the sake of the girls and George, we need to talk…’

‘What’s there to talk about? I caught you in the front yard, about to fuck your ex-husband. That’s pretty much it from where I’m standing.’

‘I know, and I can’t explain it… it’s just…’

‘Just what? Come on, I want to hear this. Are you going to explain to me how it’s okay that you nearly fucked Jeremy just now?’

‘I swear, I didn’t plan anything… But there was just something about the way he was, the way he looked at me…’

‘Oh, fuck, was it love at first sight all over again?’

‘Don’t take the piss out of me, Scott.’

‘Then don’t treat me like a fucking idiot. You’re telling me you just felt like having sex out in the open with your ex because of the way he looked at you? So you’ve not had any feelings for him for years, you just changed your mind this morning? Or was it last night? Did something happen before I came back in and caught him slagging me off? Was he touching you up while I was out of the room?’

Michelle gasped. ‘Don’t talk to me like that. Don’t say things like that in front of the kids. You shouldn’t—’

‘You’re criticising me? Don’t waste your breath,’ Scott cut across her, the contempt in his voice clear. He leant closer so that only she could hear him. ‘I saw everything. I was watching from the moment you went out there. I know what happened. I know what you did, what you wanted to do.’

‘No, Scott, I swear… I didn’t do anything to…’

He grabbed her throat, squeezing tight enough to leave red finger marks, almost choking her but not quite, knowing just the right amount of pressure to apply because he’d done this plenty of times before. ‘Save your breath. Go and see to George and get out of my fucking sight.’

She did as he said, running to the stairs, keen to shield her son from the chaos. On the other side of the kitchen, Tammy straightened herself up, ready to attack Scott again. ‘This is all your fault…’ she started to say. He lifted a hand to hit her and she cowered away, the moment seeming to last forever. He eventually lowered his fist.

‘Get upstairs and get ready for school,’ he said, the unnatural calm in his voice now somehow more frightening than the anger he’d shown seconds earlier.

‘I don’t want to go to school,’ Phoebe sobbed. ‘Not now, not after…’

‘Both of you get upstairs and get ready for school before I really lose my fucking temper. Now!’

They did as they were told, fearing for their safety. Scott could be intimidating at the best of times, right now he was downright terrifying. Neither girl had any doubt he’d hit them if it came down to it. They’d seen what he’d done Mum enough times.

And then they were gone, and he was finally alone, left to try and make some sense of the madness of this morning. He looked out of the window at the pervert lying on the gravel by the side of the family car. What the fuck is wrong with all these people? He was surrounded – both in this house and in this town – by crazy people. What had he done to deserve this? A wife who cheated on him, step-kids who couldn’t stand him… He thought about just getting in the car and going, but that wasn’t going to happen. He had nowhere to go. He checked he’d still got the door key in his pocket, then walked around downstairs and made sure all the other doors and windows were locked too. If I can’t go anywhere, neither can they. Not until I decide.

In frustration, hoping to get rid of some of the pent-up anger festering inside him, Scott picked up the sledgehammer. It was where he’d left it on Sunday evening. He shoved the kitchen table back and began to swing at the hole in the wall. Again and again he swung the hammer at the brickwork, feeling satisfied every time a piece of masonry fell, kicking rubble out of the way so he could keep swinging. He’d thought previously that he might be capable of demolishing this whole bloody house, now he thought he might actually be about to do it.

A frantic few minutes and the hole had almost doubled in size, but it still wasn’t enough. He lifted the hammer to swing it around again, then stopped, feeling like he was being watched. Phoebe was standing in the kitchen doorway, dressed in her school uniform, face white and eyes red. ‘What do you want?’ She was almost too afraid to talk. She fidgeted on the spot, eyes on the sledgehammer, not him. ‘What?’ he shouted at her again, and she jumped at the noise.

‘My dad’s gone,’ she said quietly, wincing in anticipation of his reaction.

‘So? Do you think I give a shit about your bloody father after what he’s done this morning?’

She was crying again now, sobbing hard, shoulders shaking. It was almost impossible to speak between the tears but she made herself do it. ‘Please, Scott… I know what he did but I’m worried…’

‘Then you go and sort him out.’

‘I can’t get out.’

‘I’ll let you out.’

‘I think something’s wrong with him.’

‘I know something’s wrong with him. Sick fucker.’

‘Please, Scott… Please help.’

Scott swung the sledgehammer at the wall again, grunting with effort, then he stopped. He looked over at Phoebe. Was any of this her fault? Her sister was a genuinely spiteful and vindictive bitch, but Phoebe wasn’t. She was just a scared and vulnerable kid who’d already seen things she should never have seen this morning, things which would no doubt scar her for life.

‘His trousers are still in the yard,’ she said, sniffing back more tears. ‘And his pants…’

‘Wait here,’ he told her, deciding he needed to make sure Jeremy was well away from the house. ‘I’ll go and look.’

Scott side-stepped Phoebe then let himself out and locked the door behind him. Phoebe went to the window and watched, keeping out of sight as Scott hunted around the yard, checking under the car and around the side of buildings and walls, like he was trying to find a missing cat… She didn’t know what to do for the best. She couldn’t understand what was happening. She’d seen more than she’d let on, and she didn’t know why her mum and dad had done what they’d done. He’d always been a good dad. He’d always looked out for her and Tammy and Mum, even after they’d split up. He’d always said kind things about her, and had never talked about Scott in the unkind, disrespectful way Scott usually talked about him. But she couldn’t think about Dad like she used to now, because she had an image burned into her head that she couldn’t shake: her own father, lying on his back in the middle of the yard of this horrible grey house, beaten up and bleeding, half-naked and exposed to the world.

She just wanted all of this to stop.

Scott couldn’t find him. Surely the dirty bastard couldn’t have got far? He climbed up onto the stone wall at the end of the drive to get a better view and looked out over the fields on the other side of the road. He could see for miles, but he couldn’t see Jeremy.

He had to have gone back into town. Where else would he be? Scott picked up Jeremy’s trousers so he could sort him out when he finally found him, though he didn’t know why he was bothering. Sick fucker didn’t deserve his help.

Scott walked back to the house then got in the car and drove towards Thussock. The roads were silent today, absolutely no other traffic about. He couldn’t remember having seen a single other vehicle, not that he’d been looking.

When he reached the wooden bus shelter near to the small house where those bizarre twins lived, he slowed down. He could see movement, though he couldn’t quite make out what it was at first. Wait… it looked like someone lying on the ground on the other side of the shelter, feet sticking out but the rest of their bodies obscured by the little wooden building. Hang on, there was more than one person. Had someone else found Jeremy? Were they helping him? He hoped so, because he didn’t want to have to. He decided he’d just make sure it was him, throw the sick fuck his trousers, then go back and tell Phoebe everything was okay, that her dad was fine.

He parked in the bus space in front of the shelter and walked around the Zafira. Then he just stopped, struggling to understand what he was seeing. In spite of everything he’d already witnessed today, what was unfolding in front of him now was bizarre, grotesque and just… wrong. He’d found Jeremy all right, but there was a woman with him. More than just with him, she was astride him. Fucking him. Riding him in broad daylight, neither of them appearing to give a damn about anyone or anything else.

‘What the hell is this?’ he demanded. The woman – who he didn’t recognise – slowly turned her head to face him but didn’t otherwise react, so consumed by what she was doing with Jeremy to care, overcome with pleasure and completely uninhibited. Scott followed a trail back to the bus shelter with his eyes… her shoes, her knickers, the remains of a torn pair of tights… Christ, had this woman just been waiting for a bus when Jeremy came wandering down the road, and had they just decided to fuck on the spur of the moment? It had to have been quick and spontaneous, no time for small-talk or foreplay. Scott almost laughed out loud at the ridiculousness of it all, but the serious implications of what he was seeing were clear. There was something inherently sinister about this inexplicable public display of base emotion, something clearly unnatural about this most natural of acts. Should he stop it? Try to separate them? Or should he just get back in the car and drive home and pretend none of it was happening?

‘Jeremy, what the hell are you doing?’ he asked, hanging back a short distance, almost too embarrassed to keep watching but unable not to. ‘Do you know what—?’

A howl of pleasure from the woman interrupted him mid-sentence. He watched as she threw her head back and looked up into the swirling white clouds overhead, groaning as she started to cum. Scott stared as she began to experience an orgasm of remarkable intensity, muscles hard in spasm, gripping Jeremy’s shoulders tight. Scott could take no more and he returned to his car, head spinning. He couldn’t understand why such an uptight little idiot as Jeremy would behave this way? He’d always been so reserved, so proper, overly polite… Michelle used to joke about how awkward he’d always been about sex, how it had always been safe and functional with Jeremy. Never spontaneous. Boring, even. Text-book.

Scott was about to get in the car and drive home when he noticed the woman was up and rushing away, running almost, clutching her clothes. She kept looking back over her shoulder. Was she looking at Jeremy, or looking at him? Hurrying away with shame, perhaps? She was still half-naked. Scott almost called out to her, but stopped at the last second because he didn’t know what to say. He felt like he didn’t know anything anymore. Nothing made sense. How could she possibly be embarrassed now after such an exhibitionist performance seconds earlier?

He noticed that Jeremy hadn’t moved.

Scott could still see his feet sticking out from around the side of the bus shelter, one of them twitching. He thought about Phoebe back at the house. How the hell am I going to explain this to her? For a moment he considered taking Jeremy back with him. His mess, his fault. He can do it…

‘Oi, Jeremy,’ he shouted. ‘Get up you useless bastard.’

Nothing.

Had he fallen asleep? Again the immature side of Scott’s character took hold. Michelle was always having a go at him for falling asleep straight after sex, was this just the same thing? Was poor little Jeremy exhausted after all that uncharacteristic exertion? No way. Jeremy was a nervous little shit, scared of his own shadow, terrified of not doing everything ‘by the book’. So why was he still lying there?

He walked around to where the semi-naked man lay on the grass verge, then stopped.

Fuck.

If Jeremy wasn’t already dead, then he would be in the next few minutes… the next few seconds, even. His face was unnaturally pallid. His mouth moved slightly, as if trying to form his final words, and though his eyes looked directly at Scott, he knew they weren’t seeing anything.

There was blood all over the grass: puddles of it under his pale white buttocks, pools forming between his spindly legs, dribbles running down his thighs.

Where the hell’s it all coming from? Did that woman cut him?

Scott gagged when he saw it, almost threw up. The end of Jeremy’s penis looked like it had been torn apart, as if someone had first skewered the hole, then ripped the flesh away in sections like they were peeling a banana. Flaps of skin hung uselessly over the end of the stump from which blood continued to pump in dull spurts, slowing with the weakening pace of Jeremy’s pulse.

And, for the briefest of moments, all Scott felt was relief. He didn’t understand what was happening, but he didn’t care because he immediately knew this was what had happened to Shona McIntyre. This was what he’d seen in all those grotesque photographs that frigging detective had shoved under his nose while he was in custody. This was proof positive to the rest of them that he wasn’t the killer.

The woman.

Was it her?

He reached for his mobile, but stopped. He scanned the horizon looking for the woman and spying her almost out of view, half-running into town. He couldn’t be the one to tell the police, could he? They’d jump to all the wrong conclusions if he admitted to being here. No, Scott knew he had to get away from here fast. He’d phone them from home, let them know what Jeremy had tried to do to Michelle, tell them where he thought he’d gone then let them find him and his fuck-buddy… Better still, maybe he’d stay quiet and plead ignorance and let someone else find the corpse.

He got back into the car, turned a tight circle in the empty road, then drove away at speed.