Bending over the page, he wrote with a flourish. Before running out of both, he’d mastered the basics of an elegant script. No need for artistic skill, just patience and attention to detail. Guy paused hadn’t Megan described him as a regular Jekyll and Hyde?Īt Haverigg, he’d studied calligraphy, an agreeable means of passing the long days. The landlady opened the register with as much reverence as if it were The Book of Kells. He liked to think of the black lacquer Waterman Expert as an heirloom, though he’d picked it up less than eighteen months previously in a grubby little shop in Camden Town. ‘Thanks, but I always write with my own fountain pen.’ Her hands were chapped, her pink nail varnish flaking. Guy smiled at the landlady as she proffered a ballpoint pen with a bitten top. He stands in front of me, naked and defenceless. When I start to fold my petticoat, he roars in disbelief. Grunting with impatience, he strips quickly. My hands shake as I pull off my stockings and struggle out of my corselette.
He commands me to undress, just as I expected. I am dying now, withered and weary, but that afternoon I was so alive. He looks about him, his attention caught by a rattle of stones. When he reaches out and touches my arm, I recoil. The words glanced off me like arrows striking a shield. I was jealous and selfish and sick in my head. What did it matter? When I did not reply, he let fly with a volley of abuse. His back is turned, but when he hears my footsteps he spins round, leering with anticipation. I have this foolish superstition that, if they were buried with me, I should never find peace. But before I leave, I shall share my secrets. Long gone, destroyed like so much else that once seemed permanent and immune to change. I didn’t turn back, but passed beneath the large stone they called the Sword of Damocles. In the bag slung over my shoulder, I feel the sharp blade of the knife. It is not merely his fate that lies in my hands this afternoon. Nobody need ever know the wicked imaginings that twist my soul. How easy to turn around and go back home. It is not too late, I need not carry out my plan. My calves ache with the effort of scrambling up the slippery fell.
You’d never believe it to look at me now, but once upon a time I killed a man.
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