Читать книгу The Second Sister: The exciting new psychological thriller from Sunday Times bestselling author Claire Kendal - Claire Kendal, Claire Kendal - Страница 16

The women shift around to make the circle wider and create an empty space for Ted on the grass beside my towel. Ted nods thanks and drops into place, saying hello.

This is the second time he has come to help the group – the first time was last month. The police think it is a good thing for officers to do volunteer work in the community, and I made sure that the women were all happy for him to join us.

‘I want to thank Ted for being here. He has come on his day off to let us kick and punch him, which is extremely kind.’ To my relief, everyone laughs, including Ted, who is doing a good job of pretending that we are not furious with each other.

I always worry about making jokes, even though the women and I agree that we must. Telling jokes is a way of defying the things that were done to them. They are all here because they have been victims of sexual assaults and they are determined not to lock themselves away forever in the aftermath of what happened to them.

‘Ella’s been beating me up since we were four,’ Ted says, and they all laugh again, though my laugh is a half-hearted mask for sadness and guilt, as well as fury and distrust. He and I both hear the complex history behind this comment, including our recent argument, though thankfully they cannot.

Ted leans over to unzip his duffle bag, then pulls out what looks like a puffy astronaut suit. His predator costume. It is navy blue, a poor mimicry of a man’s jeans and T-shirt. Only his forearms and hands remain bare – he will need to use those hands. He stands up, talking as he steps into the suit, and the others stand up too.

‘Here’s the thing,’ Ted says. ‘It’s not about size. Ella’s barely eight stone but she can floor a man more than twice her weight.

‘Slap an assailant’s jaw, he will smile. Punch his stomach, he will laugh.

‘But jab his throat, he’s going to clutch it with both hands and his eyes will water. Hook your thumb into his nose or mouth, he won’t move for fear of your tearing his flesh.

‘So you don’t hesitate. You fight as hard as you can. You give me everything Ella taught you. You can’t hurt me in this suit and I’m wearing protective shoes as well as the helmet over my head and face. So kick – I can see you all obeyed Ella’s instructions to wear trainers and they can’t do me any damage. Punch. Push. Scream. Stomp. Keep it going. Make noise. I am not going to hold back when I attack, so you are going to need to work hard. If your moves work on me, you can bet they are going to work on an assailant.

‘The idea is muscle memory. If you can go through the motions physically, really fighting, then you are going to have the confidence you can do it. Your body is going to remember what to do.

‘I want you awake,’ Ted says. ‘Not afraid. Awake. That is the point of all this.

‘The thing about policemen is we know how scumbags think. Today I am the scumbag. Ella will talk you through the scenarios. But first, she and I are going to enact a new threat and response, so you can see what she wants you to work towards.’

I say his name in surprise. We had not agreed we would do this. We didn’t when he came last month. But he only shoots me his hard villain look, which actually makes a shot of fear go through me.

He continues to talk to the women without pause, clearly not prepared to allow any interruption. ‘You need to promise not to laugh once I’ve got this zipped up. I know it’s Halloween but this is not my costume.’

And of course they do laugh as soon as he says this, because Ted has disappeared into the suit. But his head – that serious mouth, those green eyes, that ruffled hair – are all still visible as he cradles the giant silver helmet in his huge hands. He is a stuffed man, a creature made of dough. When he moves, he makes me think of a life-sized toy space explorer making his way through a gravity-free atmosphere.

‘I’m going to be a bad guy,’ he says. ‘And I am going to approach you in lots of different ways, giving each of you a turn to fight me off. The best thing you can do is to avoid being in a dangerous situation. Avoid being in a position where you need to fight. I want you to deal with me with that in mind. But everyone here knows that avoidance is not always possible. Ready, Ella?’

I move towards Ted, not wanting to look reluctant in front of the women, but it feels like I am dragging myself through mud.

‘You’re in your bedroom asleep,’ Ted says. ‘It’s the middle of the night and you’re woken by an intruder.’

One of the women gives a little gasp in the background.

‘I haven’t gone through this kind of situation yet.’ My whisper is a low hiss that I am pretty sure the women cannot hear. ‘You know how fragile some of them are. We normally do the role play and talk it all through before a session so they’re prepared. I – they – don’t like surprises.’

‘Better for them to see how it works while you’ve got me here.’ Ted pulls me by the hand into the centre of the circle as they watch. ‘I hate wasted opportunities.’ There is an edge to his voice but the others cannot hear it. They must be thinking that this is what we have rehearsed and planned. ‘Practice is always better than theory alone.’ He points down at the grass.

‘Fine.’ I lie down and curl up on my left side.

‘Close your eyes,’ he says. ‘I’m putting the helmet on now. Don’t make me wear it any longer than I have to.’

‘Don’t tempt me.’ The grass is tickling my left cheek and I am trying hard not to scratch it. There is a small pebble beneath my hip and I am not sure how much longer I can ignore it.

Ted puts on the giant silver helmet, which is lined with shock-absorbing material. He zips himself the rest of the way into the suit. His eyes are not the jewelled green of emeralds. They are the earthy green of moss, one of my favourite colours, and I wish I could see them but I can’t. They are hidden beneath two squares of reinforced plastic that look black from outside.

A hand slams onto the ground only inches from my head. Ted is screaming, ‘Wake up.’ His voice is as muffled and scary as anyone’s can be. He is grabbing my right shoulder and rolling me onto my back, pinning both of my arms down and pressing me onto the grass with the full weight of his body. Everything is in slow motion and my ears are buzzing and the sun is dazzling. One of the women cries out.

I have been turned to stone. Every trained reflex I have is paralysed. All that I have practised is dead. Is this what he really wants to do? How he really wants it to be?

I disappear from the park. I am somewhere else, in a city by the sea, and it is almost ten years ago, the last time Ted and I were lying in this position. And I want him on top of me, in this narrow single bed in this rambling old house that seems to come out of a dream and is full of twisting corridors and hidden bathrooms and seemingly vanishing loos as well as multiple other inhabitants I hardly ever see. Whenever he is able to visit, we spend all the time we can in this basement room, pressed against each other, the ocean in our ears. He is so beautiful as we kiss, his expression so soft and blurred, as if our kissing is all there is in the world, and he is lost in it, lost to himself. His eyes are closed but mine are open, wanting to see, unable to look away from his face, which I have loved since I first saw him in the playground sixteen years ago. He seems half asleep and half in a trance. All the time we make love I look at him, not knowing that this is the last time we ever will. Not knowing that as we kiss and I watch him, at this exact moment, you are vanishing.

There is a hissing in my ear, bringing me back. There is grass beneath me and sky above me and the scent of honeysuckle all around me though I am not sure how that can be possible and all I can think is that you loved honeysuckle.

There is a voice spitting questions and commands. Are you scared? Spread your legs. Were these the last ugly words you ever heard? There is a man squirming his feet between mine and using his knees to try to force my legs apart. There is a pebble bruising the small of my back, reminding me where I am.

But still I cannot move. There are women’s voices and they are saying my name over and over again, as if urging me to do something, but I cannot understand what it is. I cannot think who they are.

There is a horror-film face above mine and I do not know who it belongs to. I hear my name. It is not a question, and even though it is still in that same strange voice, it is not said with hatred. Even beneath its static fizz there is a note of concern that brings me back and I remember that the face is behind a mask and it is Ted’s face and I am glad I cannot see his expression. I am glad his murky green eyes are hidden beneath the tinted visor, and his hair is beneath the helmet so that I cannot be reminded of what it felt like ten years ago when I last cupped his head in my hands and pulled it towards me.

He is inching my knees farther apart and I am trying to keep my legs as fixed as marble but it isn’t working. My name is getting louder but Ted isn’t saying it. My name is a screamed chorus of female voices and it isn’t coming from me but it goes through my bones like an electric shock and jolts me and jolts me and jolts me awake.

I let out a grunt and roll onto my left side, taking Ted with me, taking him by surprise and in one continuous motion kneeing his upper thigh once, twice, three times in quick succession. He is crouching now, coming at me again, and I am sitting up with my legs bent in front of me. I raise a leg and kick him hard in the face again and again, until he falls onto his back. I scoot closer to him and bring my heel down on the helmet-shaped cage that covers his mouth and nose. Again it is once, twice, three times. Always the magic number three. My movements are controlled and exact. The impact is precisely as I wish it to be.

He is completely still. Everything is silent. Slowly I stand up, knees bent, looking all around me, holding my hands in front of my face for protection in case he pops back up.

‘Ted?’ I say.

He sits, pulls off the helmet, gives his head a shake. When he speaks this time, there is no hint of the muzzled villain. ‘Each and every one of you is going to be that good by the time she finishes with you,’ he says to the women.

I offer a hand and he takes it to pull himself up. ‘Then reward me,’ I say, so quietly that only Ted can hear. ‘Tell me what was on her laptop.’

‘What you need to emulate in Ella,’ he says to the women, ‘is that she never gives up.’

I pick up my towel and thrust it at him to mop up the sweat. ‘Too right.’

That snaps him back. He is beside me again. His mouth is near the side of my face so that his whisper whistles right down my eardrum. ‘If you meet Thorne you’re going to need to practise every move there is. And not just the physical ones. He’s an expert at the mind fuck.’ He turns to the women, restored to his usual relaxed and friendly stance. ‘So. Who wants to beat me up next?’