‘What more do you want to know?’ Lewis asks. ‘I told you, I felt sorry for Flora. She’d deceived me and trashed my family, and I knew exactly what she deserved, but … I don’t know. I hate to admit it, but maybe on some level I still loved her. I had Thomas and Emily, and she had no one. She was still my wife, stillmine.I had to do something with her, I couldn’t just leave her to rot. Then I realised there was absolutely no reason why she shouldn’t have a second family.’ His face hardens. He stares at me, eyes wide, as he says slowly, ‘One. Baby. At. A time.’
I stare back at him, full of a cold numbness. Is this what it feels like to look at the worst thing you’ve ever seen? I’m not really feeling anything, not any more.
He says, ‘While Flora was pregnant – this timewithmy permission and without hers – it came to me. Of course the baby had to be called Thomas, if it was a boy. And a girl would be Emily. Same house, same names. Are you starting to understand, Beth? I saw a way of giving Flora some of it back, some of her old life. Me, from time to time. Every day, on the phone. A Thomas. An Emily.’ He walks towards Flora. ‘And one day soon, I hope, a Georgina,’ he says quietly. ‘We’ll just have to keep trying, won’t we?’
Any second now, if he keeps walking, he’ll be facing away from me.
And you’re going to do what? Run at him, try to overpower him? Risk getting killed sooner?
‘I’m not lucky. I’m not lucky,’ Flora repeats as he walks towards her, her voice rising. ‘I’munlucky.’
‘You’re not as lucky as you could have been if you’d been more resourceful,’ Lewis says. ‘You could have made friends if you’d wanted to: mums at school, neighbours. You chose not to. It was your decision to become a virtual recluse, to sit around all day stewing in your misery.’
‘I’m not going to get pregnant again. I’m in my forties.’ Flora backs away from him as he approaches.
I stand completely still. How many chances to escape have I missed already? Do I have one now? This might be my one chance and I’m missing it because I’m thinking this instead of … I can’t bring an alternative to mind. I’m frozen. Action feels impossible.
‘Forties is nothing,’ says Lewis. ‘You’re fit and healthy.’
‘Every time, I order my body not to get pregnant,’ Flora says. ‘Every single time.’
Lewis laughs. ‘Well, it’s ignored your orders twice already.’
‘You’re a rapist,’ I tell him. ‘A rapist and a murderer.’
‘Everything you’ve done, you’ve done it to torture me,’ says Flora as he moves closer to her. ‘Making me live in that house, making me have more children, calling them the same names.’ She’s breathing hard and fast, as if she’s been running. In my head, I’m running away from Lewis. I wonder if she is too.
‘The lies you made me learn by heart to repeat to Beth, while my children that I haven’t seen fortwelve yearsare just round the corner, and I can’t see them, not even once, for a second. What’s next? Let’s say you get your way and I have another baby – what’s next on your torture list after that?’
‘Why are you saying all this now?’ Lewis asks her.
There’s a pause. Flora looks at me. Then she says, ‘I don’t know.’
‘Your friend’s here, and you’ve got some moral support for the first time in years. Clearly it’s gone to your head. But Beth’s not going to be here for much longer. Maybe you aren’t either. Did you stop to think of that?’
He’s going to kill us both. And if he does that, if he’s killed once and will happily kill twice more … ‘Why has Thomas been taken out of school?’ I ask him as he raises his arm to point the gun at Flora’s head.
Her eyes fill with fear. ‘What?’ she says.
‘Ignore her,’ says Lewis. ‘She’s talking shit.’
‘I’m not. Thomas isn’t at the school any more. And Emily’s place has been cancelled. Kevin and Yanina …’ The missing words stick in my throat.
What did Kevin and Yanina do? And why, if Lewis knows nothing about it? They’re supposed to do what they’re told in exchange for life-changing money.
‘What thefuck?’ Lewis swings round and points the gun at me. It makes a clicking noise. Everything inside me starts to shake. His face is twisted: a mixture of rage and confusion.
Flora lunges at him from behind. The gun falls from his hand and lands on the floor. He trips and tumbles, taking her with him. She lands half on top of him, with a noise that’s halfway between a scream and a howl. Lewis lunges for the gun, not quickly enough. It’s in my hand.
It’s in my hand.I stare down at it.
Lewis lunges towards me.
‘Beth!’ Flora screams.
‘Lewis, don’t!’ I say, aiming the words at his phone on the table. ‘Don’t kill me. Please.’
He was about to lunge again, but he stops. Confusion spreads across his face. He can’t think why I’d say those words when I’m the one holding the gun. ‘Don’t do it!’ I cry out. There’s nothing fake about the panic in my voice.
