Дэвид Муди - Strangers

‘Thanks for looking,’ Phoebe said.

Scott looked at her, confused. ‘What?’

‘I said thanks for looking for Dad.’

He turned away. ‘It’s fine. Sorry I didn’t find him.’

‘He’ll come back later, won’t he?’

Shit. Is she testing me? Does she suspect? ‘Sure he will.’

‘He’s not well, is he? There’s something wrong with him. He must be sick.’

‘He must be.’

Scott went to the bathroom, more to avoid Phoebe than through any real physical need. He leant against the wall, shaking with nerves. What he’d just seen happen to Jeremy made no sense at all, and yet he felt in his gut that it should explain everything. Who was that woman? Was she the cause of all of this? If so, why hadn’t she been seen or caught previously? Was she the killer, or just another victim? Could it be that these weren’t murders, that they were something else entirely? Some kind of infection? A killer STD passed from person to person? He laughed at the ridiculousness of it all, then sat down on the toilet and held his head in his hands, unable to think straight.

When Scott returned to the kitchen, several minutes later, Michelle was back. ‘They won’t do anything,’ she said.

‘Who won’t?’

‘The police. They won’t do anything about Jeremy. They say someone walking off after a fight doesn’t qualify as a missing person.’

‘They’d know. Fucking top-notch police force we’ve got round here.’

Michelle stared out of the window, looking for something to help make sense of this impossible day. Maybe she should go and look for Jeremy herself? She quickly dismissed that idea, knowing full well how Scott would react. Besides, she thought that if she left this house, she might not ever come back, and she couldn’t leave the kids. She glanced up as a convoy of three khaki-coloured trucks thundered past on their way into Thussock. If they’d been going the other way , she thought, I might have thumbed a lift.

This was stupid. They were grown adults. She couldn’t explain how she’d felt around Jeremy this morning – maybe it was just a reaction to how she was beginning to feel around Scott? Anyway, as close as it had been, nothing had happened. She turned around, looking for her husband.

‘We need to talk, Scott.’

‘You need to shut the fuck up and keep out of my sight. You think I want to talk to you after what’s happened?’

‘Phoebe, would you take George upstairs please,’ Michelle said, undeterred. Phoebe looked from face to face, unsure.

‘But I don’t want to go upstairs.’

‘I need to speak to Scott. Just do it. Please.’

She grudgingly did as she was told, scooping up her little brother and his toys and carrying him out. Scott watched Michelle intently, trying to work what she was thinking, how she thought she was going to worm her way out of this mess. If only she knew what he knew. This inexplicable urge to copulate – first between Michelle and Jeremy, then Jeremy and the woman – was it pheromones or endorphins, he wondered, something like that?

The silence between them was deafening. Michelle didn’t know where to begin. She was starting to wonder if she even wanted to, if it was worth the effort anymore.

‘I’m worried about the girls,’ she said, trying a different tack. ‘They were already struggling, and now this…’

‘Maybe you should have thought of that first,’ he said, his spite a gut reaction. Then he thought about Jeremy, lying dead on the grass less than a mile from the house. ‘Oh well, look on the bright side, eh.’

‘There’s a bright side?’

‘There is for me. For once none of you can blame everything on me. You and Jeremy can share this one.’

‘And is that all that matters to you?’

‘I’m sick of being the whipping boy. Everything’s always my fault.’

‘That’s because it usually is,’ she said without thinking. She cringed inwardly, waiting for his reaction, bracing herself in case he came at her. When he didn’t, she risked saying more. She knew she had to; the enormity of the moment slowly dawning on her. It was now or never: to put up with more of his shit and risk things getting even worse, or to finally make a stand and do something about it. Tammy had said as much the other night, and Michelle knew now that her daughter had been right. She’d known it for a long time. ‘It’s your fault we’re here and in this mess, Scott. Your fault we had to leave Redditch.’

‘So is what happened this morning somehow my fault too? Is it my fault I lost my temper when I saw another man trying to fuck my wife outside my bedroom window? Jeez, what a terrible overreaction on my part. What do you think I should I have done, Chelle? Fetched you a bloody condom? Cleared out of the bedroom so you two could have had the bed?’

‘I can’t explain this morning. I just…’ she started to say before losing her nerve. Deep breath. Can’t avoid this. Have to do it . ‘I think you’re the cause of all our problems. I want you to go. I want you to leave us alone.’

He threw himself at her and she cowered, braced for the familiar rush of pain. But he stopped, fist just inches from her face, and grinned as she shrank away from him. ‘You’ve got this all mixed up in that empty little head of yours,’ he said. ‘You see, love, I’m the one who keeps this fucked-up family together. I don’t know why I bother sometimes.’

‘Then why don’t you just stop? Leave us alone… Don’t you get it? There’s nothing wrong with us. There’s nothing wrong with Thussock or any of the people here… it’s all you . You’re the one who’s different. You’re the one who’s got it wrong, the one who doesn’t fit in. You should just pack your stuff and—’ The phone started to ring, interrupting her. She heard Tammy sprint to the living room to answer it. Michelle tried to follow but Scott blocked her way.

‘You’re unbelievable, you know that?’ he said. ‘You’re deluded.’

‘I think I might have been, but I’m starting to see things more clearly now.’

Tammy was in the doorway. ‘It’s Jackie. She’s asking to talk to you, Mum. Says it’s urgent.’

‘Be a good girl and tell the nice lady that your mother’s busy,’ Scott said. ‘Actually, tell her your mother’s busy and ask her to stop sticking her fucking nose in other people’s business.’

‘Leave Jackie alone,’ Michelle said. ‘She’s a good friend.’

‘I know. I met her.’

‘You didn’t say.’

‘No, and you didn’t tell me she was round here when I was locked up, either. Have a little party, did you? Drinks with friends while I was away?’

‘That’s not fair, Scott,’ Michelle protested, pushing past him to get to the phone. ‘None of this is Jackie’s fault. She came around to support me. She’s just—’

‘—she’s just another frigging hillbilly local who can’t keep her nose out of other people’s business.’

Michelle ignored him and snatched up the phone, but the line was dead. She checked and double-checked it, then turned back to face him again. ‘What have you done to the phone?’

‘What are you talking about now? How could I have done anything to the phone?’

‘It’s disconnected.’

‘It has to be you,’ Tammy said. ‘You pulled the cable out because you don’t like Mum having friends.’

‘Jesus, love, you’re getting as bad as your mother. You’re all paranoid.’

‘I’m not paranoid, and I’m not your love,’ she spat.

Scott grabbed the phone from Michelle and held it to his ear. Nothing. He tried making a call – still nothing. The screen lit up but there was no noise, not even a dialling tone. ‘I give up,’ he said. ‘Is there nothing in this house you lot can’t fuck up?’