I do as she asks, daring to cut a little deeper, three or perhaps four millimetres under the surface now, and suddenly I’m no longer in control of my own hand. Now Ioana is guiding me, pushing me forward, controlling everything.
‘You can go deeper,’ she says. ‘It won’t do any harm, will it?’
‘No it won’t,’ I reply.
But we are both wrong. It does cause harm. Because without warning, I’m wrenched from my hypnotic state and thrust back into the reality of what I’ve just done. The pain is no longer pleasurable, and when I dare to look down through half-closed eyes, my blood is seeping to the surface like oil from a well.
Shit, I think, and drop the knife into the bath with a clatter. I grab a sanitary pad from the toilet lid and press it firmly against the wound, angry at myself for allowing Ioana’s influence to get the better of me. It’s been years since I last cut this deep, which put paid to me doing it again for a long time.
The room is silent aside from my short, sharp gasps. I know that Ioana has got what she wanted and has left me to clear up the mess. Immediately I regret being so weak. Why did I give in? Why do I keep allowing her to hurt me?
I lift the pad and again the blood flows. And this time, panic accompanies it.
I think about the explanations I’ll have to give, the lies I’ll be forced to tell. I was supposed to go lightly, so I could allow my thigh time to heal before my plastic surgery procedure on my large scar seven weeks from now. The letter arrived seven months ago with the appointment date. Today’s wound won’t recover in time. The surgeon will see what I’ve done to myself and she’ll delay the operation, because why would she waste her time putting me back together again when I keep finding ways to tear myself apart? She’ll refer me back to my GP, who will recommend another psychiatrist, but the NHS waiting list will be at least a year to eighteen months long. And when I do finally get to see someone, they’ll be another person I’m dishonest with and I’ll make false promises to, to get me back on the surgery waiting list. In three years’ time, I will be exactly where I am now, waiting for an operation and trying to shield myself from Ioana’s influence.
I momentarily consider calling Drew and asking him to come home and help me. He is the only person who knows my truths and vice versa. Despite all that divides us, he was protecting me from that detective, from the accusations that were about to come, the explanations I’d have to give. In one swift hammer blow, he provided us with a solution to a problem I hadn’t ever predicted. Then I decide against it. I can’t let him see me like this again.
I reach for the shower head and turn the tap on to wash away the blood dripping down my leg and from my still-seeping wound. I grab a towel and wish I hadn’t only bought white ones because I know from experience that blood stains won’t come out, no matter how many times I put them through a cold wash. I’ll have to replace them before Drew notices. I clamp it against my leg with one hand and rinse the bath with the other. I lift the towel up and still the blood rises. And now I feel tears pouring down my cheeks.
It’s then when the voice appears.
And this time, it’s not coming from inside my head.
Chapter 46
Liv
It wasn’t long past 5.30 a.m. when I pulled into the car park. Me and the two yogis I’ve taken on rotate who unlocks and closes the studio each day, and today it’s my turn for the early bird start.
The novelty of walking through these corridors and knowing this place is mine has yet to wear off. Brandon and I have stepped far from our comfort zones to be where we need to be, and I’ve done things he isn’t aware of to push us over the line. But as I gaze at what I’ve accomplished, I am convinced the end has justified the means. It doesn’t stop the hairs on the back of my neck from prickling each time I’m alone here though. Whenever I open the closed door to my office, I am hesitant just in case Harrison has returned. It’s unlikely, as he made his point with his last visit. But I can never be a hundred per cent sure.
I still don’t miss my life in the capital. Bow’s gentrification enabled us to make a huge profit on our flat two years after moving in. That, alongside my bank job and online work, afforded us a decent deposit on a small house and a suitable building to use as a studio in our commuter belt of choice, Northamptonshire. But we still needed to take out a loan. Our only obstacle was Brandon,who, along with a friend, ended up bankrupt when a gym they had invested in before we met proved unsuccessful. So I had to secure a loan on my own.
I applied to each of the high-street banks because I didn’t want my employers knowing I was planning to quit my job. And one by one, they declined. Their excuses echoed: I was newly qualified with an unproven track record in the health and well-being industry; I didn’t have a sufficient back-up plan; I lacked collateral; my debt-to-income ratio was too high. And they never allowed me to forget that I was married to a bankrupt.
Harrison, Murray & Kline was my last resort. I was PA to Michael Murray, grandson of one of the founders. But internal regulations meant that Murray deciding upon my application for a loan would be a conflict of interest, so instead I was interviewed by Lord Robert Harrison, an arrogant bulldog of a man who couldn’t have looked any more like the Monopoly mascot Uncle Pennybags than if he had worn a top hat and monocle. I’d remained in touch with his former secretary, Mary, who, before resigning, had been signed off on long-term sick leave due to the stress he put her under. She loathed the man.
‘He will turn your application down,’ she’d warned me weeks earlier when we met at a café far from the bank. ‘But he’ll make you feel as awkward as possible before he does it. He might even make you beg, because he gets off on humiliating women.’
‘So I’m wasting my time?’ I asked, deflated.
‘That depends. How far are you willing to go?’
‘How far will I need to go?’
Her response was a wry smile.
For ten long minutes, Harrison silently pored over my accounts in his wood-panelled office as I shifted from buttock to buttock opposite him. For reasons I had yet to learn, he’d invited two lawyers with him into our meeting.
‘You’ve saved a lot of money, particularly over the last three years,’ he began.
‘My husband Brandon has a lot of social media followers who subscribe to his personal-training videos,’ I explained. It was a part-truth. ‘His earnings are paid into my account because of the bankruptcy I mentioned earlier. Next year he hopes to be discharged from his debts.’
‘Will he be joining you as a director in your proposed business?’
‘No, he will be a paid employee.’
‘A paid employee,’ he scoffed.
