Читать книгу Dead Inside - Noelle Holten - Страница 19

Patrick smirked as he sat down and looked at the text from Lucy’s sister.

Hi, Patrick. Great to see you tonight. If you ever fancy a pint, give me a bell. Would be great to see you and Lucy again. X M.

Of course, he didn’t tell Lucy about the last bit. He could use it to wind Lucy up. She might even appreciate him more.

Sipping on his beer, Patrick withdrew into his dark place. He knew that alcohol was a bad mix when he was in a mood, but he didn’t care. He drank for many reasons, but mainly to stop the demons that haunted him.

As a child, he was abused sexually, and rather than deal with the abuse, his mother ignored the problem. As Patrick’s dark thoughts spiralled, he was suddenly fifteen years old standing in his bedroom.

It was dark outside and he was shaking with fear, trying not to think about Uncle Stan … He looked at the baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire that he had spent weeks making ….

He nearly beat Uncle Stan to death that night before his mother stopped him. The police weren’t called, and Uncle Stan was warned if he ever stepped foot in the house or was seen anywhere in the area, his life was over.

Patrick stood up and started pacing the room, trying to walk away his memories. If he ever saw Uncle Stan again, he knew exactly what he would do; he had been planning every single detail for years. Patrick kicked a chair across the room.

People wound him up. He told himself he couldn’t help it, but really, he could. He knew exactly where and when he could lash out. Spotting weakness in others a mile off was his biggest talent. He preyed on people’s vulnerabilities and had a charm about him that got him into their favour. People could be very stupid sometimes. He drew the line at his kids though. He’d never lay a hand on them and God help anyone else who tried.

Upstairs, Lucy sat up on the bed, listening for Patrick. By the sound of it, he was settling downstairs for the night as she heard another can of lager being opened. After he had forcefully kissed her she had run upstairs, desperate to scrub the taste of him out of her mouth. Lucy hoped he wasn’t going into one of his moods: the mood when he’d start his drunken ramblings, his voice getting louder the more he drank, until he was shouting at the walls, the floor, or his own reflection. It wasn’t good for Siobhan to hear her dad that way. She was a deep sleeper, like her father, and Lucy only hoped that she slept through it.

The rants did give Lucy insight into Patrick’s behaviour as an adult, though. For instance, she’d learnt that he was always getting into trouble as a child. A tearaway teen is how he’d described himself, telling her that he was always in and out of trouble – but never getting nicked. He believed he was too clever for that.

Patrick was estranged from his family, but Lucy had caught him calling his mother a few times, ranting vile words down the phone. Eventually, his mother had changed her number and moved to the Isle of Man without giving Patrick her address. Even his family didn’t want to be anywhere near him. Another warning sign Lucy had ignored.

At the start of their relationship, Lucy had blamed his family, but she now understood the truth and only wished she’d seen it sooner.

Although Patrick had never told her directly, it was clear from his rants that he’d been physically abused by his father. Lucy also suspected other abuse, because Patrick had an extreme hatred for someone he called ‘Uncle Stan’. When Patrick had been barely coherent through alcohol one night, he’d told Lucy that Stan was never talked about by any of the family members. Although on occasions in the past when they all had met up, little snide remarks were made and Patrick would usually end up storming off. Eventually, he stopped going and the invites dried up. Lucy tried to find out more about Stan but, on one particular night, pushed too far and received a punch in the mouth for her concern.

‘Now will you shut the fuck up?’

Lucy got the message loud and clear. When Patrick mentioned Uncle Stan now, Lucy stayed silent.