Chapter Thirty Three

 

 

Q. Was there ever a moment when you realised things weren’t - quite right - with Annie?

A. Yes, and I can tell you exactly when it was. Phil came round one night, a broken man. He sat talking about Aunt Phyl, reminiscing, saying things like how they met - she’d said ‘I’m Phyl’ and he said ‘so am I’ and they laughed about it and - got together. And how she’d been his only love and he was devastated without her. And Annie just sat and laughed, inside, silently, but it was welling out of her and into me. She was revelling in his misery. A look passed between them, and I think he could have killed her right there on the spot even though he didn’t know she had anything to do with it.

Q. But he wasn’t her only enemy, was he?

A. Oh no. Alfred Wrayland would have killed her too, if he’d had the guts.

Q. You’re saying he didn’t do it.

A. I’m saying he didn’t do it. He didn’t have the strength. In almost every bossy man there is a weak man trying to get out, but is too weak to get out. He hated Annie because she revealed his secret weakness, and because she did, just once, cane him to please him and he knew he’d never be the same person again.

Q. Who else hated Annie?

A. Oh, who didn’t? Our lecturers at college hated her, because she could outsmart them every time, or if she didn’t do that, she would create some diversion in class to annoy the hell out of them. Danny Gibling hated her because he loved her really and wanted to get his hands on her but couldn’t, because she’d led him on and got him wound up before he found out she was his half-sister. Or did he think she was his full sister? Whatever, it was illegal. I don’t know how Mr. Gibling felt really, he never admitted it.

Q. But none of them hated her enough to kill her.

A. They might have done, but they didn’t have the strength of mind or the necessary anger or rage if you like. It’s very hard to kill someone, no matter what crime writers might like to tell you.

Q. What about Mark and Niall?

A. What about them? In their way they were both wimps, Niall for allowing Annie to dominate him to the point when she had drawn blood, and still he sat at her feet and worshipped her, Mark, while being able to give someone a good whipping if she said so, did it because she said so, so he was dominated by her in that way too. Even if it did give him a huge erection I had to deal with afterwards, or Annie did it, as the mood took her. She ruled our lives,you see, in every way. And that was before she destroyed the Giblings.