Sacha had thought she’d be unable to get up here today. They had a long-standing regular arrangement. It was sometimes disrupted by external factors – or more often by Gordon’s unpredictable whims – but it had continued this way for several years now.
She usually came up here twice a week to carry out the various duties that Gordon had allocated to her. Those duties included some cleaning, the preparation of some meals to be frozen or chilled for the subsequent days, and – as Gordon required – more personal services.
She’d begun to wonder whether it was appropriate for her to continue to perform the last of those. But there were problems in changing their long-standing arrangements. The first was that Gordon wasn’t the kind of man to take no for an answer. The second was that she couldn’t ignore what Gordon had done for her. He’d no doubt done it for his own selfish reasons, but that wasn’t the point. Without him, her life would be very different and far, far worse. Gordon himself never let her forget it, but she didn’t need him to remind her. She knew how much she owed him, and almost any price he might extract from her seemed worthwhile.
But the third reason was the most important. Quite simply, she knew what Gordon was capable of. She’d seen the way he could treat people who crossed him, from the women she’d once worked with through to the men he dealt with in his business. He was a ruthless and violent man. It wasn’t even that he might lash out at her in a moment of fierce anger – though he was more than capable of that. It was that, if it suited him, he might take a much more ruthless and absolute revenge. He’d destroy her, destroy the new life he’d enabled her to build, strip away her legal status, leave her penniless and homeless, and with no choice but to return to the world he’d chosen to drag her out of.
So, repulsive as she found Gordon’s demands, she continued to meet them. She knew she’d continue to do so, until he became bored with her. She didn’t even want to think about what might happen at that point. He’d cast her aside, but she hoped that, if it was his own choice, he might simply leave her be. Once he lost interest in her, that would be it. She wouldn’t even be worthy of his attention. She could easily live with that.
She drew up her car next to his huge vehicle. She assumed the size of his car was intended to compensate for his shortcomings in other areas, but that wasn’t a thought she could afford to share with anyone.
The previous day, she’d thought she would have to cancel this visit to Gordon. The roads had all been snow-covered and many of the back roads had been closed. She’d contemplated phoning Gordon to postpone, but had failed to work up the necessary courage. Even though there’d been nothing she could do, he would have blamed her. It probably wouldn’t have been sufficient to end their arrangement, but it would have been enough to make him extract some suitable retribution when they next met.
Overnight, the temperatures had risen and much of the snow had thawed. The main roads were now largely clear and even the back roads had mostly been opened up. Although she never really came here willingly, she was mostly relieved. She hadn’t wanted to try to offer Gordon her excuses, legitimate as they might be.
As she always did, she’d been sitting in the car for several minutes preparing for the moment when she’d have to face Gordon again. He’d be as pleasant as he always was when he was getting what he wanted. Even then, he made her skin crawl and she had to conceal her disgust at his touch.
And there was always the possibility he might already have drunk too much. That seemed to be happening with increasing frequency in recent months. Gordon wasn’t a pleasant drunk, and he was prone to losing his temper over nothing at all, taking offence at some passing comment or accusing her of disrespecting him. He’d been violent with her more than once, although his mood could change in a moment and he’d turn remorseful and self-pitying. Those days were not ones she enjoyed.
She climbed out of the car into the cold afternoon air. Despite the partial thaw, the landscape was still largely white, the land before her falling away down towards the firth. The day had brightened, and the sky was a clear blue. For most people, it would be a day to stop and admire the view, but that wasn’t an option for her.
She’d asked Gordon if she could have her own set of keys so that she could avoid disturbing him when she arrived. She’d thought it was an innocent enough request – many of her cleaning clients were only too happy to trust her with a set of keys – but it had been another moment when Gordon had become unexpectedly furious, accusing her of wanting to undermine his safety and security. She’d never mentioned it again.
It struck her that Gordon was taking an unusually long time to answer the door. Usually he was only too keen to get his hands on her. He’d be at the door in seconds, almost dragging her inside, desperate to satisfy his own unpleasant appetites. It was only when he’d done that to his own satisfaction that she’d be allowed to get on with her cleaning and other domestic duties.
She pressed the bell again, gazing around her as she did so. There were the marks of tyres in the remaining snow on the driveway. It looked as if the marks had been made since the overnight thaw, which suggested that Gordon had already had a visitor. That wasn’t too surprising, even though her impression was that very few people came to see Gordon up here. Other than the needs that Sacha satisfied, he claimed he had little desire for other company, and could conduct the bulk of his business remotely.
It was another aspect of his personality that Sacha could barely comprehend. She lived alone, but not through choice. She’d gradually been able to make friends in the village she lived in, even if it had taken them some time to grow accustomed to this odd foreign woman in their neighbourhood. Most of them were decent people who’d shown her increasing friendship and hospitality as they’d grown to know her. She needed company, companionship. It was what she remembered from her early life and, though she knew she’d never find that sense of community here, she did at least now feel she was welcomed.
Impatient now, she pressed the bell again. Much as she might feel relieved at delaying her encounter with Gordon, she wanted to get on with it, get it over and done with so she could return to her own form of normality. Even so, she didn’t want to sound impatient, even in the urgency with which she pressed the bell. That would just give Gordon another excuse.
There was still no sign of any response from inside the house. Where could Gordon be? Had something happened to him?
She reached out to press the bell again, but hesitated. If Gordon was involved in some important phone call or trying to finish some complex business task, he wasn’t going to thank her for incessantly ringing the doorbell. Her hand dropped nervously to the large brass door handle.
To her surprise, it turned. She twisted it and pushed at the door. It stuck for a moment then opened fully. That was unheard of. She knew Gordon always kept the front door firmly locked, with a series of deadlocks and bolts, which he painstakingly drew back and reset whenever he had a visitor. He was almost obsessive about security.
She stepped uneasily forward into the hall. Gordon would be angry if she came into the house without permission, however honest and honourable her motives. ‘Gordon?’ she called tremulously.
There was no reply. The house was eerily silent. She took another step forward, listening hard for any sound, ready to jump back outside the door if Gordon should appear.
‘Gordon?’ Her voice was louder this time though she was still unsure whether it would penetrate to other parts of the house.
Still no response. She walked forward another few steps, beginning to feel uneasy. Gordon had known to expect her today, and she couldn’t imagine that wouldn’t have been higher priority to him than anything else. She knew his appetites too well. ‘Gordon? Is everything okay?’
The silence seemed almost oppressive now. It was the silence of a deserted house. She took a few more steps forward and drew level with the door of the living room. There was something else now. A scent or smell she couldn’t identify. Something rich, cloying and unpleasant. Something that felt like a warning.
She moved towards the living room door and stopped. It felt as if she’d been physically struck, as if all the breath had been knocked from her body. She could no longer move, could only stare in horror at what she was seeing.
The living room had always been expensively but anonymously furnished. Two solid leather sofas, a glass-topped coffee table, an unnoticeable beige carpet, landscapes on the walls chosen by some paid designer. She’d never detected a trace of Gordon in there.
There was plenty now, though. The carpet was thick with blood, a wide congealing patch spread below the coffee table. There were more splashes of blood on the walls and – well, everywhere.
There was no doubt about the cause, and no question that the blood was Gordon’s. His body lay prone across the coffee table, his head hanging across the far edge. He was dressed in a pale blue shirt also soaked with blood.
She wanted to turn and run. But she knew she couldn’t do that. She didn’t even know for sure whether Gordon was dead. She had to check that and then decide what to do. She told herself she had to call the police and perhaps an ambulance. She had nothing to fear in doing that. Her legal status was sound. She had nothing to hide. She had no reason to be afraid.
Except, of course, she would never not be afraid of dealing with the authorities. Because of what she had experienced in her early life, and because of what she had experienced here.
Even so, she had to do what was right. She took a breath and then walked another couple of steps forward.
She saw immediately that she’d been wrong. Gordon’s head was not hanging over the far side of the coffee table.
Gordon’s head was not there at all.