Page 20

TEN

FRAN

It was a silent walk back to our cars. The doctor had told us about the subsequent next steps when Gareth had returned after…

depositing. I wasn’t really listening. I hated it when Gareth was angry.

My own bouts of ferocity consisted mostly of me doing some loud shouting and slamming some doors, before quickly getting over it and being ready to make up.

But with Gareth, he would just sit there, seething and marinating in his own rage for a handful of hours at least – sometimes days, if I got really unlucky.

The normally optimistic and energetic man became monosyllabic and abrasive, only speaking in grumbles and murmurs.

Not even the offer of a blowjob could get him out of his self-imposed funk.

I tried calling him a few times on the drive home, but naturally, he didn’t pick up.

I got home first and waited for him with Mep on my lap, perched on the steps outside the front door, facing the huge white tent that enveloped O’Neill’s house next door.

About ten minutes later, he pulled up onto the drive and stayed sitting within his car.

I knew he was trying to avoid talking to me by pretending to be busy.

This was the classic Gareth move. ‘Men need processing time,’ I remembered a uni friend once saying to me.

I watched him pretending to put away his work stuff in the relevant compartments when I knew for a fact he would have already done that meticulously before he left the station.

‘You’re going to have to get out eventually,’ I yelled to him. But he pretended not to hear. He stayed in the car, face neutral, shuffling around the pages in the car manual for the millionth time.

It was only a few minutes later that I decided this was silly, and also, it was far too cold to stay sitting outside. I swung Mep from my lap onto my chest, strutted across the driveway, yanked open the car door, and sat in the passenger seat.

‘So, you going to ignore me for the rest of the evening?’ I asked him.

‘Maybe,’ Gareth grumbled contemptuously.

Mep, furious that he was being denied entry to his palace, gave a small growl as he scratched at the car window with his paws.

‘Gareth, come on, don’t be like this,’ I pleaded. ‘I’m sorry. Is that what you want me to say? You know what I’m like when it comes to Angus. I’ll say it again, okay? I’m sorry. Are we friends now?’

‘Just why?’ Gareth said, raising his voice, breaking out of his emotionless zombie state. ‘Why did you have to take his call right there and then in the bloody fertility clinic? Could it not wait? What was it even about?’

‘It was nothing really, I just…’ I lied, letting my voice trail off.

‘No, go on, tell me. Tell me what happened that was so interesting that it just couldn’t wait,’ Gareth snapped.

‘It was just something he saw in the paper,’ I said, as softly as I could, trying to calm the situation. ‘He thought it would be of some interest to me, okay?’

Gareth raised his hands up as if to say, ‘I was right’, and slapped them back down on the steering wheel.

We both sat there quietly for a few more moments.

Gareth reached his arm out towards me – I thought maybe to grab my hand as a peace gesture, but instead, he pushed his hand underneath Mep and pulled him over the console to place him on his lap.

I decided to let it slide. He needed Mep more than I did right now.

However, I didn’t think Gareth realised quite how hard he was stroking Mep; every time he patted his head, I could see the poor cat’s eyeballs bulge out of their sockets.

‘I just don’t get why you feel the need to drop everything for your brother-who’s-not-really-your-brother the very minute he needs you,’ Gareth said, as Mep discovered what feline botox would feel like with Gareth rubbing his head maybe slightly more forcefully than he realised.

‘Oh, come on, don’t be cruel,’ I said. He had something of a point, but I couldn’t help that I was worried about Angus. He had been through a lot. Well, we both had. But then I remembered it was different for Gareth. He had no idea about Edith, about the fire.

‘I’m just frustrated, okay? That’s all – I’m frustrated,’ Gareth said, more calm and considered now, like he was choosing his words carefully.

‘This is something serious that is going on between us – this is our future, as we plan a family together – and I don’t get why Angus had to ring you during the time you were getting your…

fucking fanny scanned, nor do I understand why you had to pick it up.

Could you not have just let him go to voicemail and called him back later? ’

There was another little interval of silence, which I wasn’t sure was making us calm down or just winding us up more, but I couldn’t help myself.

I felt my body convulse and shudder as I clasped my hand over my mouth.

I burst out a cackle; my Wicked Witch of the West cackle, as Gareth liked to call it.

‘What?’ Gareth hissed through his pout.

‘Getting your fucking fanny scanned?!’ I managed to say through the hysterical laughter that was making my whole diaphragm shake uncontrollably. ‘Fanny!’ I repeated, through my shrieks.

I could see Gareth try not to break. He wanted to laugh; I knew he wanted to laugh. He turned his face to try and stare at the wing mirror, but I raised my finger, pointing at him.

‘You want to laugh. I can see it in your face!’ I managed through the giggles.

‘I don’t want to laugh,’ he retorted, even as the corners of his mouth began to slightly twitch upwards.

‘Oh, come on, can I touch you now, hot-head?’ I asked with a smile, my cackles beginning to subside, and Gareth gave a snigger. I stretched my arm out and began to stroke the back of his head gently.

‘You’re right. I’m sorry, okay?’ I said. He finally tilted his head to look at me and gave something of a smile, although to me, it looked more like he was passing wind.

‘I’m sorry for exploding.’

‘It’s okay, we all explode sometimes,’ I said back. He leaned forward and gave me a kiss as he rested his hand on my thigh.

‘For example,’ I said as I placed my hand on his cheek, ‘you exploded in record time in the wank room today.’

It was the following Monday and I had decided to work most of the morning from home, which worked out well as Gareth had rushed out in the morning and had taken my phone instead of his.

I hadn’t really thought much about Clark after we’d got back from the clinic.

It had mostly been pushed to the back of my mind as Gareth and I had discussed what Dr Patel had told us.

But in the cold light of day, alone with my thoughts and only mundane email admin to distract me, Clark’s grotesque face began to slither into my head.

I had tried tracking them all down over the years, and it was only Macleod I had ever managed to find.

I had thought that maybe Clark had died long ago.

But now two of them had turned up in just over a month.

It all felt vaguely serendipitous – for me that is, certainly not for them.

I tried to find a way to distract myself.

I set countless work targets to keep my mind occupied, but no matter how hard I tried, Clark’s smug, gross face kept appearing in my mind.

That flash of fear that I hadn’t felt for years.

More worryingly, the thought of killing him kept pushing its way into my cerebral cortex, attached to a rather uncomfortable feeling of delight.

Macleod was like a scratch card, and O’Neill, perhaps, the Thunderball.

But Clark? He was the triple rollover Euromillions – the most cruel and sadistic of them all.

Suddenly, all I could think about was Clark.

Again, I know this is probably something that psychopaths think, and I know that I’ve said that I am not one.

However, I won’t lie to you. The thought of slitting Clark’s throat was genuinely indescribable.

Like, you must have something that feels like this.

I had this intense rush of joy as I thought about the most painful and agonising ways I could do it.

I loved the whole piano-wire thing from gangster movies, you know.

I could just say something cool like ‘Francesca says hello’, and then yank it back against his throat as his little old arms and legs flailed about.

I hadn’t really thought about the possibility of going to prison until after I had cut up O’Neill, and even then, it was tempered by that weird old feeling of fate lurking in my mind that had propelled me to kill him.

This was the universe giving me a chance to correct it, so why would I be punished for acting on the opportunity presented before me?

I started to realise that maybe, in fact, I was perhaps un poco psychopathic. Hey, at least I was self-aware.

I decided that not a lot of work was being done, so I would go and see Angus. I thought about picking him up some papers along the way, but knew that would probably only feed his own personal obsessions more, positioning me as some kind of enabler.

I hated where Angus lived, not just because it was about an hour’s drive away, but also because it was so incredibly miserable.

The whole small estate seemed to be in a constant state of grey, drizzly overcast, and all the high-rise apartment buildings shared the same plain grey concrete exteriors with a small pink neon sign at the top, so over-lit that I couldn’t even make out the word it was trying to say.

I clambered up to floor eleven, wheezing, as I dared not take the lift that looked about the same age as the Roman lighthouse at Dover Castle.

I beat my fist hard on the door six clear and coherent times, counting each knock as I did so.

He swung open the door, saw me, and barely reacted.

‘Hi,’ he said, unbothered by me standing there, still damp from the rain that I had got caught in.