Keep It in the Family

by John Marrs

It won’t be long until this latest disappearance is made public. It might remain in the newspapers or on the television for a few days, or even a week. Then something fresher and more pressing will replace him.

And me. I remember every one of them. Because I am the bait that lures them here.

There’s a small, silly, insecure part of me that wonders if he’s still not let go of her completely, which is why he’s kept it. Debbie certainly isn’t willing to wave farewell to Saint Emma.

But for tonight, I intend to have loud, passionate sex with Debbie’s son and scream the sodding roof down if I have to, and I don’t care who hears. If I can’t give him a baby, I’ll at least give him the time of his life.

I know that I wear a different, tougher skin now to the one I was born into, but scratch beneath the surface and below I am that same, frightened child.

my attention gravitates towards her more than him. Her head is held straight, her shoulders are thrown back and her stride is self-assured. But her confidence is undermined by the way she clings to his arm for dear life. She is an actress. She needs him more than he needs her.

My friends and colleagues were speechless when I told them I was giving up my flat in Hoxton to live out here in the sticks. A handful even held what they semi-jokingly called ‘an intervention’ to persuade me to change my mind, reminding me I shouldn’t give up anything for a man, let alone one with a job as ordinary as Finn’s.

Finn and I began trying for a baby almost immediately. The first year passed unsuccessfully and it wasn’t until my doctor sent me for scans that a specialist diagnosed me

with endometriosis in both ovaries. Three years later, and after an operation, two free NHS IVF rounds, two private fertility clinic transfers and three miscarriages, we were no closer to having our much-wanted child.

I’d stare at the photograph in Debbie’s dining room of him and Emma on prom night, telling myself how much happier he’d be with her, not someone as broken as me. This was the universe punishing me for stealing another woman’s man.

And that blonde hair and blue eyes still light something inside me that burns all these years later. She also values her own space, which means I get time to myself and that suits me down to the ground. I have a life away from my marriage.

And if I’m being honest with myself, it didn’t take that much doing. It was always Mia who was desperate to start a family, much more so than I was. Not that I ever told her that.

As exciting and life-altering as this news is, it’s going to stretch me thinner than tracing paper. And it’ll mean I will need to keep my eye on the ball, much more so than I ever have before. Because if I don’t and I slip up, Mia will never forgive me.

I see this woman clearly. She is like my mother, a pretty woman who hides an ugly heart. Her looks will soon fade and her soul will only grow more grotesque. But my intervention can stop that.

Her neck is slender and I instinctively move my hands towards it, hovering so close to her skin that I can feel the heat she radiates on the palms of my hands. I wonder how much pressure I would have to exert to rupture her windpipe and choke her to death. Only a fraction, I think. My skills are well honed.

Umm ok sis

Now I contemplate the strength needed to push a blade into her doughy flesh and the depth required to penetrate the womb. I imagine the warmth of her wound against my cool skin as I slice her open, push my hands inside her, feeling my way around until I can locate and pull out its contents. I have never taken an unborn before, but for her, I am willing to make an exception.

I gently exhale so that she breathes me in and I become the oxygen that fills up her lungs and feeds her baby. Then I open my

mouth and allow the thinnest line of silvery saliva to drip from my mouth, thread-like, and on to hers. She unconsciously runs her tongue over her bottom lip and I am inside her.

EWWWWW

I squint just as the sun blooms and now I can read the whole thing. I WILL SAVE THEM FROM THE ATTIC.

‘It looks like another room,’ says Finn, flashing his light into the hole. ‘And there’s something in there.’

There’s seven of them. It’s hard to tell under so much dust, but they appear to be different colours, though all are the same size. And there’s a red letter embossed on each of them, a P.

Nope..

There’s an immediate smell of decay, but it’s not overpowering. Finn shines his light into the case but, to begin with, neither of us can work out what we are looking at.

human skull, only small. It’s then that I realise it belongs to a child.

I’m looking at the mummified remains of a child.

And for the first time in all these years, this child’s circumstances were of no consequence. I was not trying to save him from anything.

His death was a selfish one. I killed him because I wanted to. This moment marks the end of an era.

I don’t stop to think before I blurt out loud, ‘Well at least we don’t have to go far to get new luggage.’ By the time Mia glares at me I already know it was a stupid thing to say.

Now that copper is looking at me like I’m a dick, and it’s not for the first time. If he’s not directing most of what he says to Mia, then he eyeballs me like I’m guilty of something.

Pretty sure you are lol

‘Who in their right mind would want to buy a house where seven kids were murdered?’

don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl. I don’t even care. I’m trying hard not to let these murders dominate our lives but they’re coming between us a lot lately. She accused me of being cold and unfeeling but I’m not. I’m just better at compartmentalising than her.

Today marks 372 days since my last kill. And if I don’t strike again soon, I fear for my sanity. It’s begun to consume my days, thinking about all those poor souls out there who need me and who I’m letting down on this self-imposed sabbatical.

But I can’t ignore these visceral urges. They’ve started targeting me at night when I’m at my most vulnerable and there are fewer opportunities to distract myself.

The need to deliver the worthy into a better world is like having rats under my skin. They claw at my insides and tear at my flesh until they break through the surface.

So I cannot turn the other cheek any longer. This afternoon, I will do what I am trained to do. And the anticipation alone is enough to unleash a river of adrenaline coursing through me, rendering me light-headed and dizzy, almost. Every part of me is awakening.

I can’t deny there’s a small, selfish element to taking a life, a physical release that is hard to explain. But it’s a by-product of what I do, not a reason.

It’s in moments like these I can’t help thinking how nice it would be to have a like-minded soul to enjoy these experiences with. I thought I had them once. I shared everything I knew with that person, I trusted them with my life and my freedom. But it takes strength, resilience and conviction to be someone like me, and as much as I wanted it for them, ultimately, they didn’t have it in them.

Emma?!

I find them both in the bedroom, her curled up in a foetal position on the bed, cradling her belly and wearing her headphones. Tinny music and drumbeats come from them. She has her back to Sonny, who lies in his carrycot next to her, his face bright red and his cheeks wet with tears. He’s been crying for a while.

‘Stop defending her!’ I snap. ‘This isn’t about not picking him up or changing his nappy. She sleeps too much during the day, she’s distant and she’s always in tears. I’ve caught her crying when she doesn’t think anyone’s watching. And she looks anywhere else in the room but at her child.

‘Why do you strangle them?’ This is just blurted, out of nowhere. ‘You’ve never told me.’

The question alone makes my fingertips tingle . . . the softness and pliability of their necks, the warmth of the blood flowing close to the surface, their palpitating, escalating pulse, their small, hopeless hands grabbing at mine . . . there is no feeling that will ever replicate it. ‘It’s clean, quite painless and you don’t need to rely on a weapon,’ I say instead.

This is all I have ever wanted, someone who shares my beliefs and who is committed to the cause. They have also helped me recognise how lonely this hidden part of my life has been until now.

But now I have found a kindred spirit who believes the same. I cross my fingers that this will be a long and fruitful working relationship.

I know I’m a bad wife and mother for pushing a good husband and child away. But I can’t help it. Finn wants the woman he married to return but I don’t know how to be her again. I’m better on my own, away from him and away from his baby. Here, alone in my room, I can’t hurt anyone.

I question if we’d still be together had she not fallen pregnant. I hate to say it, but no, probably not. It was an accident, albeit a happy one.

Mia knows I’ve been subcontracted by a plumbing firm, taking on emergency call-outs at stupid hours. She doesn’t know I’m not on a call-out now. And she doesn’t know how much I lie to her or who I’m with now. I intend to keep it this way.

‘That little boy looks like my father-in-law,’ I say. ‘Which one?’ Jasmine asks and I point to a child with a port-wine stain on his forehead and eyelid. ‘Oh, you know Davey Hunter?’ I take a short gasp of air but, before I can reply, a sudden, high-pitched noise rings out around the room, snagging everyone’s attention.

But I’ve grown to realise that when I don’t have blood on my hands, they are uncomfortably dry.

Considering we share the same house, it’s been near impossible to get Dave on his own lately. It’s as if he knows I’ve discovered he was in the same class as two kidnapped kids and doesn’t want to be alone with me.

The way he stamps on the empty can with force tells me he is angry and that he’s a liar. He knows much more than he is letting on.

Finn knows very little of my childhood. He has no idea of the lengths I have gone to – and continue to go to – in protecting him from the truth.