“Ben?” I whisper.
“Do try and keep up, my love. My name is not Ben Bailey. Just like your name isn’t Aimee. Do you need to read the letter again?”
I stare down at the crinkled piece of paper in my hands.
“Eamonn?”
He smiles and claps his gloved hands. “Finally.”
I try to process what is happening.
My husband has been dressing up as a woman and stalking me.
That same man, my husband, has just told me that he is my brother.
I shiver, despite the heat of the fire. I feel physically sick at what I’m seeing and hearing, and automatically back away when he walks towards me. It looks like him, but at the same time, it doesn’t.
“Did you like all those vintage postcards I sent you?” he asks.
I don’t answer. Can’t speak.
“‘I know who you are’ in my very best handwriting, over and over again. But you still didn’t know who I was! It’s funny when you think about it.”
“Your face,” I say, unable to articulate anything more.
“Oh, the nose? Do you like it? I asked for one just like Jack’s, showed them his picture, had my bags removed too … the things I do for you. Did the police show you what I looked like? I went straight there after the surgery, let them take a picture of my broken nose, black eyes, and swollen face as evidence of your abuse. Almost all healed now. Looks good, don’t you think? Just. Like. Jack.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re in love with him and I wanted you to love me! Just like I loved you!” he shouts.
I take another step back.
“Come on, dance with me.” He grabs my hands, as though wanting to embark on some demented waltz to the climax of the song. The music stops, but it’s as though it is still playing inside his head.
I try to pull free from his grip and start to cry as he holds me closer, humming the tune. “Please, stop.”
“Stop? Baby Girl, you and I are just getting started. Till death do us part, remember? Do the pictures make you feel at home?”
I follow his stare and see the framed image of us on our wedding day, next to the black-and-white photo of a little boy.
“Why do you have pictures of John as a child?”
He looks down at me, fake surprise drawn on his clownlike face. “Finders keepers.”
“I don’t understand.”
His surprise ignites into anger. “I took all of his things because he helped her take you from me. Maggie O’Neil was already dead when you wrote me that letter, but he wasn’t, so I tracked him down. To be fair, he was dead not long after that.” He laughs and forces me into another embrace, as though we are ballroom dancers in some twisted horror film. “All those years I didn’t know where you went, I thought you were dead too. Did you ever wonder what happened to the real Aimee Sinclair? The girl you replaced?”
He takes my head in his hands, forces me to look up at him.
“I made John tell me everything before he died. It was an accident, apparently. I said I’d spare him if he told me the truth, but I couldn’t do that. An eye for a lie, and what’s mine is mine.” He twists my head and whispers in my ear, “They killed her, then buried her in Epping Forest. I made him show me where. The sick bastard had carved her initial into the tree they hid her under. They’re together now.”
I push him away and run for the door.
“I bought this humble abode for you shortly after I met John. Do you like what I’ve done with the place? Business has been booming, but times are tough, so I had to borrow ten grand from the joint account before I left. You didn’t mind, did you?”
The door is locked.
“I’ve even dressed up like her, the woman you left me for. Does it bring back happy memories? I thought you’d figured it out when you found my lipstick under our bed…”
I bang on the door and call for help, already knowing it’s pointless; all the other shops are boarded up and empty.
“You’re not going to run away again before I give you your belated birthday present, are you?” He picks up an elaborately decorated box.
“Please, we can get you some help. Please let me go, please,” I say.
“Don’t you want to open it?”
“Please, Ben.”
“I’m not Ben, I’m Eamonn! And you’re not Aimee. You always were so ungrateful, Ciara. So spoilt. Don’t worry, I’ll do it for you. After all, I used to do everything for you, but that still wasn’t enough. That’s why I had to teach you a lesson.”
He starts to untie the ribbon on the box.
“I like your hair better like that, by the way, natural. It suits you curly, you look more like…”
I’m trapped in the corner of the room, my back pushed right up against the locked door as he leans forward and kisses me on the lips.
“… more like you.”
His lipstick has smudged all over his mouth, and I can taste it on my own. I want to wipe my face, but I’m too scared to move, too scared to say or do anything. He strokes my hair, tucking a strand behind my ear, then kneels down in front of me and starts to remove the wrapping paper from the box.
“There was a girl, who had a curl”—he lifts the box out of the paper—“right in the middle of her forehead.”
He opens the lid and I see a pair of red children’s shoes. The exact ones I had wanted for my sixth birthday, before I ran away. They were missing from the shop window that day when I first met Maggie. Now I understand why—he had bought them for me.
“When she was good, she was very, very good.”
He puts a hand inside each shoe and thrusts them in my face.
“But when she was bad … she was a bitch.” He caresses my face with the red leather. “When our daddy found these shoes, he beat me so hard, I couldn’t walk for three days. We couldn’t afford to eat, but I got you these bloody shoes because I knew how badly you wanted them, and I loved you.”
He throws the shoes on the floor and grabs me by the throat, then bangs my head against the wall in time with his words.
“I. Loved. You.”
He lets me go and I fall to the floor. I sit on my knees and can’t stop myself from sobbing.
“I did so much to protect you from him. I took the verbal abuse, I took the beatings, I made sure it was me he came to visit in the night and kept him away from you. Everything was fine before you were born. We were happy. But you killed our mother and it changed him. You may as well have killed me too.” He starts to pace around the room, his large high heels clicking on the wooden floorboards. When his back is briefly turned, I try to reach inside my bag for the gun. “And what did you do to thank me? You ran away, left me with him and never looked back. Do you know what he did to me after you were gone?” He sees my hand inside the bag and comes storming over. He grabs the bag from me, reaches inside, and takes out the gun, shaking his head and smiling.
“Just like I was saying … when she was bad—”
He hits me hard across the face with the pistol and I’m knocked flat onto the floor, the taste of blood filling my mouth.
“I should really shoot you with this, it’s what you deserve.” He throws the gun onto the sofa, picking up something else I can’t quite see. “But, seeing as we are family, I’m going to shoot you with something else instead. I got this little beauty at a house clearance in Notting Hill a few months ago. It’s amazing how useful it is to know the dead. Now, this is going to hurt, Baby Girl. That’s what you said she used to call you, isn’t it? The woman you called mother after killing your own? I think that’s the only true thing you told me about her.”