Laura Read online

  “Victoria,” I whisper, “what...”

  She's gone.

  I stay completely still for several minutes, unable to stop staring at her. The rip in her throat is so jagged and deep, with rich red blood glistening in the torn meat. Finally, slowly, I start getting to my feet, although I quickly find that my legs are trembling. Leaning back against the wall, I can't help wondering what in the name of all that's holy I'm supposed to do now. Victoria is clearly beyond help, and I take a couple of steps back as I realize that I might be about to faint.

  “Oh Victoria, I...”

  My voice trails off.

  My reputation.

  I shall be talked about.

  Everyone will know about my wife's suicide. They'll all be whispering about me. My entire professional reputation will be in tatters.

  Suddenly I turn and make my way out of the bathroom, leaning heavily against the wall in case I faint. Once I'm in the hallway, I look down and see that there are a few patches of blood on my jacket and shirt, although for the most part I was missed by the arterial spray.

  “I didn't mean for this to happen,” I whisper, holding my hands up and seeing blood on my fingers and palms. “I just wanted to leave her, that's all.”

  Maybe some people will understand, but for the most part they'll take her side. That's just how the world works these days.

  Sickened by the blood, I instinctively turn to go and wash my hands in the bathroom sink, but then I'm confronted once again by the sight of Victoria's corpse. Turning again, I hurry to the kitchen and start washing my hands there instead, while desperately trying to work out what I'm going to do next.

  I shall be ruined by this.

  Everyone will know that my wife killed herself, and that she did it because I was leaving her.

  They'll think she was some poor, desperate creature. They'll see her as the victim. And I'll be the villain, I'll be the awful man who drove his dear, devoted wife to her death. That might not be a fair assessment, but I know how people think. I'm the man, so of course I'll be vilified.

  “Oh God, no,” I stammer, with tears in my eyes as I feel I might be on the verge of collapse. “Please...”

  I must come up with a plan.

  I must make sure that when news of Victoria's suicide comes out, people see my side of the story. As I continue to wash my hands at the kitchen sink, I start trying to work out how I shall frame these events to my benefit. Victoria's death is a tragedy, of course, but it need not destroy me. I just have to be smart.

  And then, suddenly, I hear the sound of crunching glass in the bathroom.

  I turn the faucet off and look over my shoulder. There's no sign of movement in the apartment, but I swear I heard something. A moment later, I hear a faint gasp. I don't know how, but there's someone here with me. My first thought is that somehow, miraculously, Victoria might have survived, but I know full well that she's dead. Could someone else have been here all along? Against all the odds, could there have been someone hiding away, someone who has only now emerged? And if they heard everything, they could tell others that I wasn't the bad guy here.

  I stumble toward the door, before stopping again as I hear a distant sigh. Suddenly, Victoria's final words echo once more in my thoughts.

  “I'm just the first, Jonathan. And now she's done with me, the rest of you are going to be next. Laura's coming for you!”

  “No,” I whisper, as I hear a shuffling sound coming from the bathroom. “It can't be. It just...”

  My voice trails off, and for several minutes I simply stand in the doorway and listen to a series of faint gasps and groans. I tell myself that Victoria was simply mad, that there's no way Laura could have come back from the dead. At the same time, there's definitely somebody in the bathroom.

  I have to go and look.

  I can't allow this doubt to set root in my mind.

  Even though I feel I shall faint at any moment, I make my way on trembling legs to the bathroom door, where I stop and look through at Victoria's corpse on the floor. She's still dead. Of course she's still dead. But a moment later, I spot a figure standing next to her.

  Victoria again.

  “Darling,” she says, with a hint of uncertainty in her voice, “I must admit, I'm feeling a little...”

  Her voice trails off. She looks down at the bloodied floor for a moment, and then at the shattered mirror, and finally she turns to me again.

  “I'm feeling...” She pauses again. “I suppose I'm feeling a little confused, dear.”

  She furrows her brow, as if she can't quite fathom what's happening to her.

  I look down at the body, but her dead eyes are still staring up toward the ceiling. At the same time, a second Victoria is now standing right next to the corpse almost as if...

  I take a step back.

  It's as if Victoria refuses to leave. She has always been so headstrong, so determined to make everything perfect, and now she seems to even deny the possibility of her own death.

  “I think I need a moment,” she says finally. “Just to pull my thoughts together and... I need to calm myself, Jonathan. Would you mind giving me a little privacy?”

  I take another step back, then another, until she's out of sight. I step back a little more, until suddenly I bump against the coffee table. Still feeling as if I'm going to collapse at any moment, I stumble to my armchair and sit down, and then I wait in silence.

  She's not there.

  The vision of Victoria was some kind of illusion offered up by my brain.

  I must be losing my mind.

  Gripping the arms of the chair, I try to stay strong.

  Still staring at the door that leads into the bathroom, I tell myself that Victoria is really dead, and that there's no way she somehow returned once she'd cut her throat. That would make her a ghost, and ghosts are not real.

  Suddenly I hear her moving in the bathroom again, and a moment later she appears in the doorway, staring at me with wild, panicked eyes. Once again, she's holding that bloody leg of lamb.

  I grip the arms of the chair tighter than ever.

  This can't be real.

  She's dead, she...

  “Are you...” she starts to say, before her voice trails off. After a moment, she turns and looks back into the bathroom, and then she turns to me again.

  I must be suffering some kind of breakdown.

  That's the only possible explanation.

  In which case, I should just try to push through.

  “Is anything wrong, my dear?” I ask as she stares at me. Somehow, I manage to keep the fear from my voice, although I'm still gripping the chair and I'm starting to think I should run out of this apartment and fetch help. Then again, to do so would be to invite suspicions of madness, and that would be an even greater mark against my reputation.

  “Of course not,” she replies, offering a very tentative smile. It's almost as if, despite having just looked into the bathroom, she saw nothing amiss. No blood. No dead body. No broken mirror. None of the chaos and mess. “Everything is splendid. Why wouldn't it be? I'm just so glad that you...”

  Her voice trails off.

  I wait for her to say something, or to do something, that'll help me understand what's wrong with her. My mind is racing and I honestly don't understand what's happening here, but I'm starting to think that perhaps I've suffered some kind of psychotic episode or break. The stress of preparing to leave Victoria must have driven me absolutely out of my mind, and I no longer know what's real and what's part of some fantasy.

  “I should finish getting ready,” Victoria says finally. “I must -”

  Suddenly she lets out a gasp as she looks down at the leg of lamb, which she's still holding in her arms. For a moment, she seems utterly shocked.

  “You should put that thing somewhere to defrost,” I say cautiously, trying to act normal while I figure out what's going on. “You can't hold it all night, dear.”

  “No,” she stammers, turning to go into the kitchen bef
ore stopping as if she can't quite manage to walk. “Could... Could you do it for me?”

  “Me?”

  “If you'd be so kind.”

  She sets the leg of lamb on the dining table, before taking a step back.

  “I feel awfully peculiar,” she continues. “I don't know what has come over me, but I'm most certainly not in my right senses. In fact, I feel as if I might faint at any moment.”

  “Join the club,” I mutter, before getting to my feet. I don't want to get too close to Victoria, not until I've figured out exactly what's going on here, so I make my way carefully over to the table while she backs away toward the bedroom door. Frankly, she seems completely shocked, so I guess that makes two of us.

  As I pick up the leg of lamb, Victoria turns and hurries into our bedroom, and finally I hear the door slamming shut.

  What the hell just happened?

  I head into the kitchen and quickly put the leg of lamb in the freezer, and then I hesitate for a moment before realizing that I simply have to take the bull by the horns and figure out what to do next. I can't dither, I must face reality and determine a proper course of action, so I make my way out of the kitchen and start walking toward the bedroom. First, though, I resolve to look through into the bathroom.

  And that's when I see her.

  Victoria's body is still on the floor, and there's still blood everywhere. Yet even now, I can hear her ghost in the bedroom, as if she refuses to let even death take her away.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Today

  “Sophie!” I call out, pushing the door open and rushing into the apartment, filled with panic. “Where are you? Where -”

  Stopping suddenly, I realize I can hear laughter coming from the lounge area. I swing the door shut and head through, only to find that Victoria and Sophie are sitting side-by-side on the sofa, looking through one of the photograph albums. The scene looks so utterly normal, yet somehow I can sense that something is terribly wrong.

  “And that's Jonathan right before the ceremony,” Victoria says with a smile, pointing at one of the pictures. “Look at the fear in his eyes. You'd almost think he was on the verge of putting his tail between his legs and running away.”

  She laughs, before reaching over and turning to the next page.

  I step closer.

  Sophie glances at me, and I immediately see the fear in her eyes. She's scared, and she wants me to help her. Just as I'm about to ask if she's okay, however, I spot something glinting nearby. Turning, I see that the bathroom mirror has once again been shattered, six months after it happened for the first time.

  “And there you are!” Victoria exclaims with delight.

  I turn and see that she's pointing at another photograph in the album.

  “That was a lovely dress,” she continues. “Oh, it's you and Toby, don't you look like such a handsome couple? I'm sure he'll come around eventually, you know. Men can be terribly foolish, but they usually see sense in the end.”

  Sophie is still staring at me, and I can tell that something's wrong. Even from here, I'm able to see that she's trembling with fear.

  “Are you just going to stand there like that, darling?” Victoria asks suddenly, not looking up as she turns to another page in the album. “If you've got nothing else to do with yourself right now, Jonathan, you might at least put on a fresh pot of coffee. I'm sure Sophie could use a top-up.”

  “Well,” I stammer, “I -”

  Suddenly realizing that there's something I need to check in the kitchen, I hurry through and head straight to the freezer. I pull the lid open and reach down, sorting through the various bags of frozen meat and vegetables until I find that the false section at the base is still secure. Nobody has disturbed anything, at least not as far as I can tell, but I still need to be certain. I take the rest of the bags out and then, once I'm certain that Victoria and Sophie are still talking in the front room, I reach down further and carefully lift one end of the freezer's lower panel.

  I flinch as soon as I see Victoria's bloodied, frozen face at the very bottom. Ice crystals are glistening in the wound that she carved in her neck, and her eyes are still open.

  I hesitate for a moment, before putting the panel back in place and then returning all the other items to the freezer. Finally, once the lid is closed again, I head back to the doorway and look through to see Victoria and Sophie still sitting on the sofa, still going through the album.

  Sophie looks at me with pure fear in her eyes. Evidently she is starting to realize that something is amiss.

  “Did you put the coffee on, darling?” Victoria asks airily. “Please, Jonathan, just be helpful for once.” She glances at me, with a faint smile on her lips. “You look white as a sheet, my dear. Whatever is the matter?”

  Part Nine

  VICTORIA

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Today

  “And there's Elliot,” I continue, pointing at another of the photographs, “looking dapper as usual. He always cleans up so well, doesn't he? So much potential, and yet he spends half his time dressed like an utter scruff-bag. What he needs is the right woman. Someone who can give him a helping hand.”

  I turn and smile at Sophie, but I can't help noticing that she looks rather terrified. Jonathan is still loitering in the kitchen doorway, as if he has nothing else to do with himself, and all things considered I feel as if the pair of them are acting rather strangely. I do wish they'd lighten up. After all, I'm sure Nick and Lynn wouldn't want any of us to be so down in the dumps. Life goes on.

  “Now where's that picture of Nick?” I mutter, turning to the next page.

  “Sophie, can I talk to you for a moment?” Jonathan asks suddenly. “In private?”

  “Yes!” she gasps, immediately getting up. She's so keen, she knocks the photo album to the floor, but she simply mutters an apology and hurries across the room.

  “What's the big secret?” I ask with a smile.

  “Nothing,” Jonathan replies awkwardly, “I just... I need to speak to Sophie for a moment. We'll go to the bedroom.”

  I sit and watch as they hurry away, and they're already whispering to one another as the bedroom door swings shut. I'm not a suspicious or paranoid person by nature, but I can't help feeling that something is wrong, and that perhaps they're up to something. After all, I'm certain that Sophie is the person who has been sending me such horrible messages lately, and I'm a little worried that she knows I'm behind the appalling photographs of her that leaked online. Finally, resolving that I must try to overhear a little of their whispered conversation, I get to my feet and make my way quietly toward the bedroom door.

  “Just calm down and tell me what happened!” Jonathan is whispering as I stop and listen. “It's okay, there's nothing you can say that'll make you seem crazy. I just need to know. Was it...”

  He pauses.

  “Was it anything to do with the freezer in the kitchen?”

  I don't know why he's always so worried about that wretched freezer. Every time he mentions it, though, I feel a shudder pass through my chest.

  “She's been acting really weird since I got back from seeing Toby,” Sophie replies, keeping her voice low. “I mean, she's always weird, but this time I feel like something's really up. And then while she was in the bathroom, I heard this awful, angry cry, and then the mirror above the sink shattered. I ran to the door, I thought something was wrong, but Victoria was just standing there with all the broken glass around her.”

  “Did you ask what had happened?”

  “She just smiled and nodded and said everything was okay. It was almost as if she'd forgotten. When I mentioned the broken glass on the floor, she acted like it wasn't even there.”

  I can't help furrowing my brow. I certainly have no recollection of the bathroom mirror getting broken. Turning, I look over at the door, and for a moment I'm surprised to see that there does indeed seem to be glass all over the floor next to the sink, although I quickly tell myself that such a thing is
impossible. My gaze is briefly drawn to one particular spot on the floor, in the corner, and I half expect to see some kind of figure slumped there. Forcing myself to ignore such trivial thoughts, however, I finally turn back to the bedroom door and listen a little longer.

  “Something's going on here, Jonathan!” Sophie hisses. “I can see it in your eyes! There's something about Victoria that you're not telling me!”

  “Sophie, please -”

  “Tell me! Right now, before I...”

  Her voice trails off.

  “Before you what?” he asks.

  “I can just tell that something isn't right.”

  He sighs. “Let me deal with Victoria. I'm sorry if she gave you a fright, but please ignore anything you might have heard. I'll get the bathroom mirror fixed this evening, and then everything'll be back to normal.”

  “Is this how you two live your lives?” she asks. “Get everything fixed and pretend that nothing's wrong?”

  “You'd be surprised,” he mutters.

  He adds something else, but I can't quite make out the words. I lean closer to the door.

  “This apartment is driving me crazy,” Sophie says with a sigh. “I don't know how you two can live here. There's such a weird atmosphere.”

  Suddenly the bedroom door swings open and Sophie comes out. Startled, I take a step back just as Jonathan follows her, and I open my mouth to apologize for eavesdropping. Before I can say anything, however, Sophie stops next to the sofa and looks around, as if she's lost something.

  “What's wrong?” Jonathan asks, following her out of the bedroom.

  “Victoria?” Sophie calls out. “Where are you?”

  They both look around, but it's as if they can't see me. Again, I open my mouth to speak, but instead I hold back and watch as Sophie heads to the kitchen. Both she and Jonathan seem completely unable to see me, which seems utterly absurd considering the fact that I'm right here. I can't even begin to imagine what's wrong with them both, but finally I make my way back toward the sofa area.