I climb the first step and grip the banister, as though it might be the only thing stopping me from falling over. Facing my fears doesn’t make me feel any less afraid. The stench of damp combined with something unfamiliar makes me nauseous, but I force myself to keep going.
“Richard?” I call.
But he doesn’t answer.
When I reach the first floor, I find myself at the end of a long cobweb-covered landing. All the doors on either side of it are closed, except for the one at the very end. That door is slightly ajar, and throwing a sliver of light into the otherwise dark hall. I try the switch, but nothing happens.
“Richard?” I call his name again, but hear nothing.
I force myself to take a step closer and the elderly floorboards creak.
I can’t imagine growing up somewhere like this; it’s like a haunted house from a fairground, except that it’s real. No wonder Catherine Kelly was a little odd at school if this was her childhood home.
The floor continues to creak beneath my weight, and I remind myself that Catherine Kelly is Cat Jones. Nothing about this scenario feels right. The voice inside my head screams at me again to turn back and get out.
But I don’t.
I keep walking forward, every step heavy with hesitation, getting closer to the door at the end of the hall. I stop when I reach it, taking a few seconds to summon the courage to push it open. When I do, I can’t move.
Cat Jones is swinging from a beam on the ceiling, a St. Hilary’s school tie acting like a noose around her neck.
Her eyes are closed, and she’s still wearing the white dress she wore to present the lunchtime news earlier today. Her bare legs and feet are sticking out underneath, as though someone took her shoes. One foot is still oddly balanced on a chair leaning against the wall, and the frayed ends of a red-and-white friendship bracelet are sticking out of her slightly open mouth.
The woman she became is so different, but I can see the child she once was hiding just below the surface. Things are always easier to see when we know what we are looking for.
I take a step toward her and almost trip over something on the floor.
It’s Richard.
He is lying facedown, and there is a small pool of blood around his head. He has been hit so hard there is a concave crater on the back of his skull, and there are stab wounds all over his back.
I freeze.
I’m scared to touch him, and I can’t stop my hands from shaking. I bend down and check for a pulse. The surge of relief I experience when I find one is overwhelming. He’s still alive. I need to call an ambulance, but my phone has been taken and I’m also aware that whoever did this must still be here. Not just in the house, but upstairs.
Nobody has left since Richard screamed.
An army of goose bumps line up on my skin as I realize that I would have seen whoever did this pass me if they had left the room. Or at the very least, heard them; the house is eerily silent now, as though my own fear has muted all sound. Everything except for the body swinging from the beam on the ceiling, like a slow, creaking pendulum. I wish I could make the noise stop.
That’s when the pieces of the puzzle start to fit together, a picture forming despite the gaps. Cat Jones must have attacked Richard before killing herself. I can think of no other explanation for what I am seeing. Then I spot my phone on the dressing table, next to what looks like a kitchen knife.
“I’m going to get help. I’ll be as quick as I can, just hold on,” I say into Richard’s ear.
He doesn’t open his eyes, but his lips move.
“Alive,” he whispers.
“I know you are, I promise I’ll come back.”
He tries to say something else. His lips struggle to part, and words I can’t quite translate escape them. I have to hurry; he’s running out of time.
I stand up and stare at my phone on the table just behind Cat. I’ll have to pass her to reach it. Her lifeless body is still slowly swinging, and the sound is even worse than the sight.
Creak and squeak. Creak and squeak. Creak and squeak.
I take a step toward her, my eyes darting from her face to my phone.
Richard groans; he must be in tremendous pain.
I take another step, almost close enough to reach my mobile now. I can see that the school tie around her neck is definitely the same as the ones we wore at St. Hilary’s.
Creak and squeak. Creak and squeak. Creak and squeak.
Richard moans again.
“Get. Out.”
He whispers the words, but I hear them loud and clear, because the sound of swinging has stopped.
When I look up, I see that Cat’s bloodshot eyes are wide open. She has pulled the chair toward her with her feet and is now balancing on it, standing on tiptoes. She starts to loosen the tie-shaped noose from around her neck. I have a mental flashback of us as schoolgirls, and remember all the sailing knots she once demonstrated using her shoelaces. My mind races, trying to process what my eyes are seeing, and reaches the conclusion that this is all some sort of sick trick. But why would she pretend to hang herself? And why would she attack her own husband?