The Perfect Girl Read online

  Verity shrugged, as if the question of Simon’s parentage was of no great significance.

  “I just want to know why,” Simon said. “Why did you take Sapphire? It doesn’t make sense. Peter’s dead. You were free.”

  “I’d got a taste for it,” Verity said. “That’s what attracted me to Peter. He was the only one who understood my cravings, my desires. But then he was arrested.” She bit down hard on her lower lip, as if repelling a painful memory. “I couldn’t kill Claire. I’d never done it by myself. So I kept her alive and I came to depend on her.”

  Claire gave her an understanding nod.

  “But I hadn’t lost the taste for it. I was just pacing myself, preparing for the next kill. I thought that would be Daphne, but then Claire saw her sister in the local paper, when the May Queen contest was announced. We couldn’t believe it. She was handing herself to me on a plate. She wanted me to take her. She practically invited it.”

  Simon’s chin quivered. He must have hoped for a different outcome. Perhaps he had thought his mother would tell him he was wrong. “You’re not going to get away with it this time,” he told her. “The police are on their way.”

  Verity laughed a cold, callous laugh. “You’re bluffing,” she said. “I can always tell.”

  A voice projected itself through the silence.

  “Stay where you are and put your hands in the air!”

  “Who’s that?” Verity asked.

  “It’s the police,” said Simon. “Just like I said.”

  “Put your hands in the air,” the voice repeated.

  “I don’t bloody think so!” said Verity.

  Too late, Jock saw the gun. He had never seen one in real life before. It looked old and rusty. Verity’s eyes flashed with anger.

  “Everyone stay right where you are.”

  “Stop! Armed police!” The voice on the loudspeaker sounded louder and clearer than before. Wherever they were, they could see everything that was happening.

  “Put the gun down, Mum,” Simon begged. His eyes, so like hers, were filled with fear.

  Her face contorted. “This is your doing, isn’t it? You brought them to me!”

  “You need to give yourself up, Mum, before anyone else gets hurt.”

  “What’s the worst they can do? Send me to prison for the rest of my life?” She let out a cackle. “Old age is not the time to go soft, Simon. It’s the time to experiment, to drink and take drugs and do whatever else it is you’ve been holding back all those years. Because at my age, what the hell have I got to lose?”

  “You’re not that old, Mum. You could still–”

  “I’m not that young, either.”

  A tiny red dot appeared on the wall above her. She must have sensed something was up because her eyes flickered from left to right.

  “What? What are you all looking at?”

  She pointed the gun in Jock’s direction and his fear was as forceful as a punch in the stomach.

  “Tell me! Tell me!”

  Words blocked his throat. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t speak. He watched, transfixed, as she eased back the trigger. But there was nothing he could do. Even after all this, his cowardice was going to kill him.

  “It’s a sniper,” Sapphire shouted, causing Verity to swing round and point the gun at her.

  “No!” Claire threw herself in front of Verity, blocking the red light with her body.

  Verity let out a snort. She seemed to think it was funny that Claire would risk her life for her. And little wonder. It was a kindness so undeserved.

  The red light flickered back to the wall as the police marksman waited to get a clear shot. Claire reached for the button to call the lift. The doors opened. Once again, it had stopped half on one floor, half on another.

  “Press it again,” Verity hissed.

  Claire raised her hand but instead of hitting the button, she shoved Verity as hard as she could into the lift shaft. The old woman grasped wildly at the air, then her bony fingers clamped themselves around Claire’s ankle. Claire’s eyes were wide with fear as she struggled to fight her off, but the old lady held on tight, her mouth set in a hard, grim line.

  “Claire!” Sapphire lunged forward, but their fingers did not quite meet. Claire’s eyes bored into her and she found it hard to look away. If Jock hadn’t grabbed her arm, she would have tumbled in after them.

  The screams went on for longer than they should have. Down, down, down they plunged, gunshots ricocheting off the walls, arms and legs flailing with nothing to break their fall. There was a loud, sickening thud. And then nothing.

  Sapphire stared down the lift shaft, desperate for a glimpse of her sister.

  “Don’t look,” Jock warned, holding her tight.

  But she had to know for sure. She grabbed his phone out of his hand and shone it down the hole. What she saw was a disgusting, mangled mess, as if someone had filled two large balloons with red paint and dropped them from a great height. Verity’s face was indistinguishable from the pulp they both lay in. Claire had landed on top and her glassy eyes gazed up at them. She looked like a broken doll.

  “Why did she do that?” Jock cried. “Why didn’t she let the marksman take care of her?”

  “She wanted to kill her herself,” Sapphire said, staring into the abyss.

  She tasted blood in her mouth and sank back against him, exhausted. He held her as close as he could without hurting her. The police would be with them in seconds, but it felt like eternity.

  36

  “They couldn’t even find me a female nurse,” Dylan complained, as a young man came to check his chart.

  “Glad you’re feeling better,” the nurse said with a smile.

  Jock hovered at his bedside, clutching a bag of grapes and a copy of Bizarre magazine.

  “God, Dylan. I can’t believe I left you like that. I’m so sorry. I don’t know what came over me. I can’t believe I was such a coward.”

  “That’s OK. You are what you are.”

  “But it’s not OK. I left you.”

  “Leave it in the past, will you? And hand me those grapes. I’m starving.”

  Dylan crammed a handful into his mouth and stopped to touch his head. He seemed proud of the twenty-seven stitches sewn across his skull.

  “How do I look?”

  “Like a cricket ball.”

  “Thank God for Simon, ay?”

  Jock nodded. If Simon hadn’t carried Dylan back to the boat, his injuries would have been much worse. And if Dylan hadn’t swallowed his pride and called Stavely, who knew what would have happened.

  “Poor Simon. Imagine finding out your parents are serial killers,” Jock said.

  “And I called him boring!” Dylan laughed.

  Jock shook his head. “I still can’t believe it was Verity. She seemed so nice and normal.”

  “She never did like me,” Dylan said, chomping on another handful of grapes. “Should have known there was something wrong with her.”

  “I forgot to tell you. Simon’s got a theory about who put the brick through the window,” Jock said.

  “Yeah?”

  “He reckons it was that little turd you had a fight with in the tea shop.”

  Dylan frowned. “You’re going to have to narrow it down.”

  “His name’s Evan Thomas and Neil saw him talking to Verity on more than one occasion. Simon reckons she paid him to create a distraction while everyone was looking for Sapphire. It was probably his dogs who mauled the lambs, too. It doesn’t seem fair that he’s got away with it,” Jock complained. “That brick only just missed Morgan. And those poor little lambs!”

  “Don’t worry your pretty little head about it,” said Dylan. “Evan’s none too bright. If it was him, it’s just a matter of time before he trips over his own shoelaces.”

  The first thing Sapphire did after leaving hospital was run herself a bath. While the tub was filling, she went into her bedroom to get a book.

  “Hey, this is my room!”
she told Claire, who was flopped out on the bed, wearing an old dressing gown Sapphire thought she had thrown away years ago. “You can have the sofa.”

  “We’ll see about that,” Claire said, lighting a cigarette.

  “Hey! You can’t smoke in here! You’ll set off the alarm.”

  She picked up a dog-eared copy of Alice in Wonderland and went back to her bath. She wasn’t that surprised Claire had made an appearance. Dr Jenkins had said it might be a while before her medication took effect.

  The hot bubbles soothed her battered body. Her wounds were healing well, but it would be a while till she wore a low-cut top again. She ripped open a sachet of hot mud and massaged it into her tired face. She was just about to lie back and relax when the doorbell rang.

  “Can you get that?” she asked Claire, before she remembered herself. She threw on her silk dressing gown and walked, dripping wet, to the door.

  A young woman stood on the doorstep. She had one of those little suitcases that you drag along by the handle.

  “Harmony?”

  “No, it’s Melody, actually,” she said, leading a large Afghan hound into the living room. “You had it wrong. Look it up if you don’t believe me.”

  “Melody?” she repeated.

  “You don’t mind if I let Kiki off the lead, do you?”

  The dog ran around the room, treading her muddy paws into the carpet, before settling herself on the sofa. Sapphire bit her lip as she watched Kiki gnaw on the remote. She turned to shut the door, only to find Fizz standing there with a large box of pizza.

  “That smells amazing,” she smiled.

  Fizz dumped the pizza on the table and produced a bottle of Buck’s Fizz and a video of Pretty Woman from her oversized handbag.

  “Sorry, I haven’t got a video player,” she said.

  “Don’t worry; it’ll still work,” Fizz said, trying to jam the video cassette into the DVD player.

  Sapphire went back to the door and peered out. She was still hoping Ingrid would show.

  “Don’t worry; I’m only here for the funeral,” her mother said, as she slid into the pew beside her.

  Sapphire glanced at her out of the corner of her eye, amazed to see her so well-recovered. She knew her mum had her ups and downs, but still, she hadn’t thought this possible. If she had given it any thought, she would have imagined that the disappearance of both her daughters would be enough to send her into permanent catatonia.

  “What happened to you?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I just snapped out of it,” her mum said. “Apparently, it happened when they told me you were missing. My memory’s a bit foggy. But that’s what they say. ”

  Sapphire leaned a little closer. She didn’t even smell like Mum. She smelt of soap and shampoo and just a touch of Lily of the Valley – just how a mother was supposed to smell; one who could wash and dress herself; one who took pride in her appearance.

  It confounded her. Since her own diagnosis, Sapphire had seen herself as a functioning schizophrenic, not a lunatic like her mother. She knew what she was doing. She took her medication and she controlled her illness. It didn’t control her. She had her rules and her coping mechanisms and she lived with it. She still saw people who were not there – the man in the green raincoat was her most frequent tormentor – but she knew what he was and she only acknowledged him when there was no one else around. He was like an unfriendly ghost, but he had no power unless she gave it to him.

  But her abduction had meant such an abrupt cessation of her medication that it was no wonder she had been confused. Anyone would have struggled to adapt to life in a dark, rat-infested cellar, and Sapphire had retreated into her schizophrenia. Her mind had dreamed up companions for her. Her illness hadn’t been a menace; it had been her saviour. It had meant that she was never truly alone.

  Her mother sat beside her, an unexpected shoulder to cry on throughout Claire’s service.

  “Don’t be afraid,” she said, taking Sapphire’s hand in hers. “Who knows, maybe we’ll even see her again one day,” her mother whispered.

  Sapphire closed her free hand around the pills that waited in her pocket. It was exactly at that moment that Gertrude climbed out of her body and walked up the aisle to the altar. No one else seemed to notice as she stood beside the vicar, nodding politely as he conducted his sermon. She waited until they sang Claire’s favourite hymn, then opened the casket. Sapphire forced herself not to scream as Claire climbed out and Gertrude lay down in her place.

  She looked down at her hands, surprised to find that she was still there. She had separated so completely from the person who used to be Gertrude that the two of them were now separate entities: one dead and the other alive.

  She looked back at the church door to see if her father would also appear. But even in her hallucinations, he was absent.

  Angie and Simon sat close together on the pew opposite. She sensed it wouldn’t be long until Angie fell pregnant. In fact, if she looked closely, she thought she could make out the outline of a foetus through the swell of her dress. Gabriella sat on the other side of Simon. She glanced dubiously in Sapphire’s direction, like she wasn’t sure if she should be there. Sapphire gave her a cursory nod to let her know it was OK.

  As they moved outside, Sapphire looked up at the heavens and willed it to rain down on Claire’s awful grey grave. The man in the green raincoat marched by, crashing dustbin lids together as the vicar spoke comforting words about people he didn’t know and circumstances he couldn’t begin to imagine. His words floated to the ground, covering the coffin in a pile of baby blue feathers. The man in the green raincoat crashed his dustbin lids louder and louder until he created thunder. The heavens opened and colourful raindrops poured down. Sapphire brushed the water from her face, smudging the landscape with purples and oranges that only she could see. A huge rainbow smiled across the sky, and the clouds shimmered like they had been tossed in glitter and lit up from the insides with halogen lamps. She reached for Jock’s hand. Once she had craved control, but now she chose to live life in full, Technicolor glory. The pills would remain in her suit pocket for many years to come.

  “We’d better ask someone how to find the Metro,” Jock said, as he and Dylan emerged from customs at Prague’s Václav Havel Airport.

  “That’s OK. I’ve arranged for someone to meet us,” Dylan said, scanning the room.

  “Oh, OK.”

  He had been a little sceptical about allowing Dylan to arrange this lads’ break for the two of them, but he seemed to have everything in hand.

  “Ah, there we go,” Dylan said, pointing towards a stern-looking lady with a placard bearing their names. Dylan waved her over.

  “Why’s she wearing a nurse’s uniform?” he whispered.

  “I paid extra for that!” Dylan said with a smirk.

  Jock rolled his eyes, wondering what other little surprises Dylan had in store for him.

  “Ambulance was busy,” she said in clipped English. “We must take my car.”

  “What’s she talking about an ambulance for?” he asked, looking at Dylan with concern. “Are you ill?”

  “Quite on the contrary,” Dylan said. “In a few hours, I’ll be getting my new liver.”

  Jock zipped his jumper up all the way to the top. “But I thought you said I wasn’t a match?”

  “You’re not.”

  “Come on! Are you getting in or what?” the nurse asked.

  Jock climbed in the back and fastened his seatbelt. Dylan sat in the front.

  “So, what’s going on, Dylan? How did you find a donor?”

  “I found this website called Liverswap.com.”

  “Really?”

  He nodded. “I found a woman on there who’s willing to give me a piece of her liver.”

  “And she’s a match?”

  “That’s right.”

  “That’s amazing, Dylan. But why didn’t you say so?”

  “Well, here’s the thing, Jock. She’s willing to donate
because her boyfriend also needs a transplant. And as it happens, his blood type matches yours. It’s a painless procedure, really it is. We’re all going to get it done here in Prague then we get to recuperate in the beautiful Czech capital. Alright, Jock?”

  Jock clutched the door handle as the car sped along at 60 mph, on what felt like the wrong side of the road.

  “You’d better be bloody joking.”

  Also by Lorna Dounaeva

  McBride Vendetta Series Book One

  FRY

  She acts like she's your new best friend, but is she really a deadly enemy?

  When Isabel nearly runs over mysterious Alicia, she is filled with guilt. She helps Alicia get a job at the supermarket where she works and soon, Alicia is acting like her new best friend. Then fires break out all over town and she suspects Alicia knows more than she's letting on, but it’s Isabel the police suspect. In order to survive, Isabel must question her own innocence, her sanity and the very fabric of her morality.

  Lorna Dounaeva’s debut novel is a sizzling psychological thriller that will make you question how well you can ever really know a person.

  FRY is a very British fast paced psychological thriller.

  * * *

  McBride Vendetta Series Book Two

  Angel Dust

  It's every parent's worst nightmare…

  When Isabel's daughter, Lauren is snatched from outside her school, she suspects Jody McBride is behind the kidnapping. Yet the detective in charge of Lauren's case seems more interested in picking apart her statement, and investigating members of her family.

  Can Isabel persuade the police to take her seriously, or will she have to take matters into her own hands? In order to save Lauren, she must take a stark look at her own relationships, and consider how well she really knows her daughter.