Peter James - A Twist of the Knife

Frowning, Juliet looked up and saw a very attractive-looking Indian woman, in her early thirties, peering in.

‘Can I help you?’ she asked.

‘This is the Juliet ?’ the woman asked. ‘The yacht Juliet ?’

‘Yes, it is.’

‘I’m meeting Tony.’

Now Juliet frowned again, more severely. ‘Tony Trollope.’

‘Yes!’ Then she hesitated. ‘You are the cleaner?’

Bloody hell, Juliet wondered. Did she look that bad after all this time at sea? Without commenting she replied, ‘Might I ask who you are?’

‘Yes, I am Tony’s fiancée.’

‘Fiancée?’ Juliet could barely control herself.

‘Yes, Tony was sailing here to meet me, to get married here.’

‘Who was he sailing with?’

‘He said he was sailing alone, solo.’

A sudden chill rippled through Juliet. Was that why Tony had chosen this route? Three weeks at sea, away from land. Three weeks out of radio contact. Three weeks where anything could have happened to either of them, and no police would have had any evidence that a crime had been committed?

Had that been his plan? To push her overboard and then sail on to a new life with this beautiful young woman.

The bastard.

‘What is your name?’ Juliet asked.

‘Lipika.’

‘That’s a very pretty name!’

‘Thank you. Is Tony on board?’

‘Yes, he’s just a little tied up at the moment. You know what, I think we should have a drink, Lipika, to celebrate your engagement!’ She pulled a second glass out of the cupboard.

‘No, thank you,’ Lipika said, and smiled sweetly. ‘I don’t drink.’

Ignoring her, Juliet filled the second glass. ‘You’re going to need one, dear, a very large one!’

She carried both glasses up into the cockpit and stared at the woman in daylight. She really was very beautiful indeed. Beautiful enough to kill for?

But what did that matter any more? It was over now. The past. She raised her glass and clinked the young woman’s. ‘Cheers!’

Lipika hesitantly clinked back.

Then Juliet said, ‘Sun’s over the yard arm!’ and raised her glass high. ‘Here’s to the happy couple. Tony and Lipika! He’s all yours!’

The woman raised hers high and followed Juliet’s gaze. And at that moment, a light gust of breeze unfurled the strip of sail that had wrapped around Tony’s body, and it flapped free, exposing his ragged skeleton, his skull picked clean apart from a few sinews and a small patch of hair.

Lipika’s glass fell to the deck and smashed.

Her scream shattered the calm of the afternoon.

It was almost dark when Laura drove away from the supermarket. Sleet was falling and strains of ‘Good King Wenceslas’ echoed from the Salvation Army band outside Safeway. She wound down her window and pushed her ticket into the slot. As the barrier swung up, a movement in the rear-view mirror caught her eye and she froze.

Black eyes watched her from the darkness of the car’s interior. She wanted to get out of the car and scream for help — instead, her right foot pressed down hard on the accelerator and the rusting Toyota shot forward.

She swerved past a van, zigzagged between a startled mother and her children, who were walking on a zebra crossing, and raced across a junction.

The eyes watched her, expressionless, in the mirror.

Faster.

The windscreen was frosting over with sleet, but she couldn’t find the wipers. She swung out too wide on a bend and the car skidded, heading on to the wrong side of the road. She screamed as the Toyota careered towards the blinding headlights of a lorry.

The lorry’s bumper exploded through the windscreen. It slammed into her face, ripping her head from her neck, hurling it on to the back seat. The car erupted into an inferno. Flames seared her body...

Then she woke up.

The room was silent. She lay bathed in a cold sweat and gasping for breath. Suddenly, she remembered the old gypsy woman who’d tried to force a sprig of heather on her outside the supermarket.

The gypsy had blocked her way and had been so insistent that Laura had finally lost her temper, shoved past the woman and snapped, ‘Sod off, you hideous old hag!’

The gypsy woman had followed her to the car, rapped on the window, pressed her wizened face with its piercing black eyes against the glass and croaked, ‘Look at my face. You’ll never forget my face. You’ll see it for the rest of your life. The day you stop seeing my face will be the day you die!’

Laura turned for comfort towards her sleeping husband. Bill stirred fleetingly. She smelled the raw animal smell of his body, of his hair. He was the rock to which her whole life was anchored.

Christmas Eve tomorrow. It was going to be just the two of them together this time and she had been really looking forward to it. She snuggled closer, wiggled her toes — hoping faintly that he might wake and they could make love — pressed her face against his iron-hard chest and began to feel safe again.

In the middle of the next night, Laura woke again, startled by a sharp rapping. The room was flooded with an eerie sheen of moonlight. Odd, she thought, that she hadn’t drawn the curtains.

Then she heard the rapping again and her scalp constricted in terror. The face of the old gypsy woman, a ghastly chalky white, was pressed against the bedroom windowpane.

‘Look at my face!’ she hissed. ‘Look at my face. You’ll never forget my face. You’ll see it for the rest of your life. The day you stop seeing my face will be the day you die!’

Laura turned to Bill with a whine of terror, but he was still sound asleep. ‘Bill,’ she whimpered. ‘Bill!’

‘Urrr... wozzit?’ he grunted, stirring.

‘Someone’s at the window,’ she said, her voice so tight it was barely audible.

She heard the sound of his hand scrabbling on his bedside table. Then a sharp click and the room flooded with light. She stared fearfully back at the window and a wave of relief washed over her. The curtains were shut!

‘Wozzermarrer?’ Bill grunted, still half asleep.

‘I had a bad dream.’ She turned towards him, feeling a little foolish, and kissed him on the cheek. ‘I’m sorry.’

In the morning, Bill brought them both breakfast in bed. Then he gave her a huge card and three gift-wrapped packages. ‘Happy Christmas,’ he said, and blushed — he was never very good at sentiment.

Laura gave him his presents — an expensive bottle of aftershave and the cordless screwdriver he’d hinted at wanting — then she opened hers.

The first package was a sweater with daft-looking sheep appliquéd on the front. It made her laugh and she kissed him. The next was a bottle of her favourite bath oil. Then she saw his eyes light up in anticipation as she gripped the final package. It was small, square and heavy.

‘I... er... hope you like it,’ he mumbled.

With mounting excitement she unwrapped a cardboard box. It was filled with sprigs of heather. Buried in their midst was a small porcelain figurine.

Laura froze.

Bill could sense something was wrong. ‘I... I got it yesterday,’ he said. ‘For your collection of Capo di Monte peasants. I thought it had...’ his voice began to falter, ‘... you know — a real presence about it.’

‘Where did you get it?’

‘A junk shop. Something made me stop there — I just knew I was going to find the perfect present for you inside.’

Quite numb, Laura stared at the black, piercing eyes of the hag that leered up at her with lips peeled back to reveal sharp, rat-like incisors.

‘It’s lovely,’ she said flatly, seeing how hurt he looked. ‘Really lovely.’

Laura kept the figurine on her dressing table over that week, to please Bill, but the thing’s presence terrified her.