Liam stood in the centre of the bedroom. It was the room that stood at the bottom of the landing, the one that he’d told Madeleine had belonged to his parents and that he kept locked. It was the room that she’d never been in and the room which had held his secrets for so many years.
Each wall was wallpapered in tattered, crude woodchip paper. It was painted in a pale washed out green emulsion and covered with large, wooden framed cork boards. Seven of the nine had pictures, photographs, personal items and pieces of clothing pinned to them. Each had a name above it, and each had photos or items hung from pins that were stuck into the cork below.
Black lines had been scribbled through the people’s eyes in the photographs, partially obliterating the pictures, making it difficult to recognise who some of them were.
He laughed as he spun around in the centre of the room, admiring his work and his perfect murders. His sister had been the first, quickly followed by his mother and his father. His laugh turned into a hysterical screech.
‘To think Maddie believed that you’d gone back to Ireland,’ he said as he poked at his mother’s board. ‘Everyone believed me.’
He then turned and looked at a board that hung alone. ‘You had to die. She loved you too much, when all I wanted was for her to love me.’ It was a picture of a man trapped in a car. The car had crashed and his head was slumped backward in the darkness, his mouth hung open and blood spilling from his nose as water surrounded the car, spilling in through its windows.
Liam laughed. ‘It was just too easy to get rid of you, wasn’t it, Michael?’ He walked to the window at the back of the house. ‘Of course she missed you, she cried for you. But I was there for her. It was me that comforted her when the time was right after your death.’ He thought of the night he’d waited for Michael’s car. Of how he’d laughed hysterically, watching as it sped around the corner. He’d known that Michael would have to hit his brakes. Known that he’d swerve to avoid the broken timber that had been strewn all over the road. And had been in awe of his own ingenuity when Michael lost control on the bend and the car left the road in exactly the spot that he’d predicted and cascaded over the bridge and into the water below.
His board was the only board with just one photo stuck in the middle. There were no other photos, no items of clothing, no articles that had belonged to him. ‘She shouldn’t have loved you, don’t you see? I had to get rid of you, just like her mother who interfered after your death. It was so easy to feed her the nuts, discharge the Epi-pen and walk away. Far too easy, she was far too trusting.’
There were two boards to the right of the room. The first was of Bridget, Maddie’s agent. ‘You, you too interfered and gave too much advice. I wanted a joint account, I needed Maddie’s money. But you advised Maddie to keep her own money, keep her independence, but that was a mistake. A really big mistake.’ He then moved to the next board along and sat in the middle of the floor with his head held in his hands. He rocked back and forth, his eyes fixed on Angelina’s board as he looked at each photograph in turn. Most were of her at work, of them both at work, laughing and joking and he thought of how much effort he’d put in to keep her on side, to keep his job. On one photograph Angelina’s eyes still managed to peer out, making him grab a black marker pen that lay on the windowsill. Ferociously he scrawled a line across the picture, this time completely eradicating her eyes.
‘You shouldn’t have made me redundant, should you?’ he finally continued. ‘You should have been nice to me when you had the chance. But you chose the others over me. It wasn’t fair. I worked hard, but you couldn’t forgive me, could you?’ He stood back from the board and thought of the time he’d brought her to the house, the time Madeleine had caught them and Angelina had stamped off, glaring at him as she’d gone. ‘Well, I bet you wished that you hadn’t done that now, don’t you? Cause I had the last laugh, didn’t I?’ His voice trembled as he spoke, and then turned into a soft, gentle sound as he threw the marker pen down. ‘Well, you can’t watch me now, can you? That’s why you had to wear the blindfold; after all you couldn’t watch. Not when I killed you. It wouldn’t be right.’
He liked the chase, to capture and torment, torture and maim. He’d spent years creating the perfect murder, yet still he couldn’t bear them to look at him and had never wanted to visualise how their eyes had looked just before they’d closed for the very last time.
He looked up at the two newer boards. One was covered in pictures of Madeleine, some large, some small.
‘You too, Maddie. You turned against me, just like the others. You shouldn’t have left me,’ he said as he flicked at the broken locket that hung from the board. It was held there with a pin and showed the small picture of Madeleine within the gold oval. He stroked it carefully and seductively while looking up at the hundreds of other photographs that adorned the board. One or two were recognisable as Madeleine looked now, but the others were much older and dated back to when she’d have been between twelve and eighteen years old. One of her on a bike, one in fancy dress and another was a picture from secondary school; her black framed glasses were perched on her miserable face, her hair had been pulled back in a tight ponytail and her school tie had been wrapped around itself so many times it was almost as wide as her neck.
‘Didn’t know the school photos were being done that day, did you, Maddie?’ He laughed and stroked the photo. ‘You’d have worn make-up and done your hair if you had. That’s right, you just hated having your picture taken without notice, didn’t you?’
He stepped back and studied her other pictures. All were staged. All had a look of Madeleine’s perfect pose, perfect hair and perfect smile.
‘You didn’t like me at school, Maddie, did you?’ A tear fell down his face. ‘And I waited such a long time for you. I watched you every day, every morning outside your form class.’ He paused. ‘But you walked past me with your friends. You didn’t even know that I existed, did you? But, Maddie, I did exist and just like the others who ignored me, annoyed me, or left me, you’re going to have to pay.’ He looked across at the seven discarded boards. ‘You’re going to realise that I exist, Maddie. I will punish you, and you will pay for your mistakes, just like they did.’
His eyes flicked to the second new board that he’d erected. Another laugh left his throat as he looked at the photos of Jess that he’d begun to collect. There were only a few but he’d get more. His collection of her possessions had already started; the break-in at her flat had been easy and the photo album had been a jewel. The DVD had been an obvious choice. He could play it over and over. Watch how she moved, laughed and played. She hadn’t owned much jewellery, but the odd pieces that he’d found were now hung up on pins. And central to the board there was a large picture of both Jess and Madeleine; they had their hair in braids and were smiling, cuddling and wearing soft pastel bikinis.
The photo had been taken during a holiday they’d shared during their time at school. It had been around the same time that he’d watched Madeleine outside her classroom; she was two years below him and had smiled once or twice as she’d walked past. He’d felt sure that the smile had meant something, felt sure that she was waiting for him to make his move and had risked everything to walk across the canteen to speak to her. But she’d turned her back on him, ignored him and had carried on speaking to her friends.
And then, with good planning on his side, everything had fallen into place. He’d waited for hours in the snow, watched for her to emerge from her flat and had then performed the act of his life, crashing into her at just the right moment. Oh, she’d been sorry. He’d been hurt and just as he’d predicted, she’d invited him in. The rest had been history as he’d slowly become her friend, her confidante and she’d allowed him to manipulate her life, not realising for a moment that they’d been in the same school and he hadn’t thought to tell her. There would have been no point.
He’d given himself a second chance. She was going to be his and for once in his life he was going to have what he wanted: a normal loving relationship with someone who wanted him too.
He looked at the holiday photo and then between both Madeleine and Jess’s boards wondering which one it truly belonged to. Stepping back his foot stood on a discarded photo album making him slip and twist his knee.
‘Damn you!’ he snarled as he stared down at the object that had been tossed on the floor, next to an ornate photograph frame that he’d stamped on to break it in two. Cursing, he kicked them both to one side of the room as he walked over to a picture that lay on his desk. Madeleine’s father looked up at him. ‘Do I class you as murder too?’ He picked up the picture and tossed it in the bin. ‘No, you were too easy, just one little sachet in your drink, one dose was all it took and, with a little bit of persuasion, you flew like a bird. So, was it my doing, or yours? Besides, you didn’t play fair. I didn’t get to torture you, maim you or blindfold you.’ He shook his head. ‘No, you don’t get a board, though I’m glad that you’re gone. You tried to take Maddie away from me and no one takes her away from me.’
He moved back to Madeleine’s board.
‘You think you can run, but you can’t hide, Maddie, darlin’. You should have loved me at school.’ The words fell from his mouth as he grabbed at his face and a sob reached his throat. ‘You almost made up for it, Maddie. I was happy, we were normal, we were a family. I almost forgave you. You should never have left me.’
He picked up a large camping knife. It was pointed with a long serrated edge. He pressed the tip against his thumb, testing the sharpness of the blade. A bright red drop of blood ballooned up. Pushing his thumb in his mouth he began to suck away the fluid. The suckling gave him comfort like that of a mother giving comfort to her child.
‘You didn’t love me either, Mummy, did you?’ he sobbed as he looked over at the second board that he’d hung. Old black and white pictures of his mother covered the board. Again, black marker pen obliterated her eyes. ‘I needed you to love me, but you loved her instead,’ he said as he stared at the board containing pictures of his younger sister.
He’d never liked her. Never wanted her in his life and had no idea why his mother had needed a second child. She’d taken his place. ‘Special’, they’d called her. Well, she was special now.
The pictures stared back at him: a child of five, young, and tiny for her age, smiled for the camera with a vacant, dreamy and innocent look, that only a blind child could give. The photographs remained unmarked and unlike all the others, her eyes stared back.
Walking over to the picture of Jess and Madeleine, he used the knife to separate the two. ‘Soon I’ll make sure that you’re parted forever, Maddie. You don’t need a sister and neither did I,’ he said as he pulled the half that contained Madeleine and walked across the room to pin the picture on her own board. He chose a place near the locket, picked up a pin and pushed it through her face. ‘Not so pretty now, are we? You bitch.’
A knock at the front door made him jump. Following his normal routine, he locked the door carefully behind him, all three Yale locks. Opening the door to the servants’ staircase, he picked up the small pouch, hid the keys inside and then tucked the pouch carefully under the top step. He looked up and smiled as he saw the cage. That’s where most of them had ended up. Where they all begged for their life and where they’d all eventually died. He then shut and locked the door to the servants’ staircase with three keys on his keyring, then went to open the front door.
Two figures stood waiting and he saw a hand rise up as they knocked again.
Opening the door, two policemen stood before him, dressed in their traditional black uniforms.
‘Mr O’Grady?’ one of the policemen questioned as he placed a foot forward stopping Liam from slamming the door.
‘Yes, sir, what can I do for you?’ His Irish tone came over as gentle, friendly and composed.
‘We’re following up on the disappearance of a Miss Angelina Corby. Could we ask you a few questions, Mr O’Grady, please?’