Читать книгу Hide And Seek - Amy Bird - Страница 14

Chapter Four

-Will-

There she is. My murdering mother. Just like the photo Ellie showed me. A woman too well-groomed to show guilt. The dyed hair, painted lips, pinched-in waist. They are not the features of a woman destroyed by remembering what she has done. No. They are just the sort of self-indulgent traits I would expect of a woman who killed her husband and abandoned her son. Then apparently got engaged again. I know those features well, of course. From the moment I saw the pictures Ellie gave me, of the woman as she was back then, as she is now, and of the inside of our former home, all my memories have come back. My mother, that woman, standing in the kitchen, with those black and white tiles, holding a hammer, shouting, slapping me, leaning over my father, my Max, to examine her handiwork. My subconscious was trying to tell me the truth, but Ellie and her detective work unlocked the secrets, uncovered the memories that were always there.

And what new memories I will have by the end of today! The hammer smashing through her skull to her cortex. The moment she is still and cannot move any more, cannot do any more harm.

Look, now, at the harm they are letting her do to these children. If they knew, would they let her stand there with them? Address them, give them a perspective on life? Her warped, cruel perspective, that meant she killed so she could live alone. Maybe I should be grateful she didn’t take the hammer to me literally too. Only figuratively. And look, look at all those electronic keyboards that the children are sitting at. Curtailed, castrated pianos, their hammers removed, half their span cut out. How can a woman married to such a man as Max countenance that? How can she have the cheek to teach these small children to play, when she murdered the one true talent she had known? And when she gave away her own child? Never before will someone so deservedly have been brought to a halt.

But how do I do this? I have not given much thought to how I go in for the kill. The hammer and the smashing, yes, I remember that. The hammer reminds me of itself even now – it’s slipped lower in my jacket, and creates a pressure at the top of my groin. It will only come out for Sophie. But when to do it? How to get her alone? Or do I even need to get her alone? Why not just march into the schoolroom now, let the hammer do its work, then walk out again before anyone has realised why the children are screaming?

No. No, that is not right. The children. Think, then, of the lives that they will lead. The trauma counselling that they will need. The memories that they will repress. That will later resurface, and appal them. Lead them to kill. No. I do not want to gift to them my horrors.

And besides, we need a showdown. I need her to know, before she dies, what she has done. Before I force the hammer into her brain, I need to force Max and myself back in there. Even if she resists, I will push into her thoughts the lives that she shattered. Push, push, push, until just when she thinks her head is about to split – it will.

So alone it is. I must wait here, until she comes out. Perhaps move away from the window, lest I scare her. Then, when she emerges, I will follow her home. To the home that must hold Max’s piano, and more remnants of my past. Although that is not the main mission. Just a perk, if I can attain it. The ending of Sophie is the main prize. So should she choose to remain in the school, I will get her there, when everyone else has gone, when she doesn’t expect me. I look at my phone. 3pm. Can’t be more than about thirty minutes until the end of the school day. Good. My wait will not be long.