“What if I have the dream?”
“So what if you do? You’re worried what I might see, right? But you don’t need to be.”
“It’s not just that. I know this sounds crazy, but what if…What if I attack you in my sleep?”
Mia laughed. “If only I was so lucky.”
“I’m serious. I might hurt you.”
“I doubt that, but if it makes you feel better I could tie your hands.” Mia stooped to pick a fishnet stocking off the carpet. She grinned, flashing her eyebrows at Julian. “Kinky, eh?”
Face creased in uncertainty, Julian put a hand to the dull, sleepless ache in his head. “I’m not sure this is a good idea.”
“Chill, it’ll be fine. Listen, you looked after me when I freaked out, so now I’ll do the same for you.”
Reluctantly, Julian allowed Mia to tie his hands. “Make sure it’s tight.”
“There. You’ll never get out of that.”
Julian wriggled his hands. Mia was right, he couldn’t work them free. “Now you’re mine to do what I want with,” she teased, taking hold of his shoulders and drawing him down onto the pillows. He took a deep breath. “Close your eyes,” she said. He did so. He felt her hand on his head, felt her fingers pushing through his hair. His body stiffened with apprehension as a slight numbness drifted over him, a hint of sleep. He heard her shush him. Then he heard nothing more, felt nothing more and saw nothing more.
He awoke refreshed, exhilarated. His sleep had been like falling into an oblivion absolved of dreams. Mia was gone. Late afternoon shadows played across the curtains. Rolling to glance at the bedside clock, he felt something hard beneath the pillows. He reached under and pulled out a little black book, Mia’s diary. He stared hesitantly at it. Aware of how much he valued his own privacy, the thought of prying into someone else’s secret place made him deeply uneasy. And yet, surely it was justified if he found something he could use to snatch Mia back from the edge he sensed she was swaying on. Ears tuned for the slightest sound of movement on the landing, he opened the book. A photo fell out, dog-eared from being handled, faded with age or exposure to sunlight. It was a school photo of a smiling girl of about fourteen or fifteen. Her mousey blonde hair was tied in a sleek ponytail. Her makeupless face was lightly freckled, her features strikingly similar to Mia’s. She had the same eyes, the same nose, but her mouth was fuller and the curve of her jaw was softer. She and Mia could’ve been sisters, or maybe mother and daughter. Julian’s gaze lingered on the photo as long as he dared, before moving to the pages it’d marked, which dated to the previous day. At the top of the page was written ‘How much is enough?’ and underneath it there was an incredibly lifelike sketch of a face. The face was jowly and thick-featured with a snoutish nose. The eyebrows formed a single line above small, close-set eyes. Swollen-looking lips curved up into a smile, which seemed to exude a kind of repulsive leering cynicism. Next to it was written ‘Mr Ugly’.
The door clicked open. Julian went to shove the diary back under the pillow, but with his hands tied he wasn’t fast enough. Mia appeared in the doorway, holding two mugs. “Hey, what the fuck you doing looking at that?” she said. “Put it down right now.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to…I just…” stammered Julian.
“Just what? You just wanted to stick your nose where it doesn’t belong, that’s what.”
“Who’s Mr Ugly?”
“None of your fucking business.”
“Is someone…hurting you? Is a man hurting you?”
Mia laughed contemptuously, as if to say, no man could hurt me. “Just get out.” All the softness was gone from her voice. Her eyes burned like blue flame.
“Please, Mia, you can tell me. I can help.”
“What makes you think I want help from you or anybody else?”
“Your Facebook photo.”
Mia thought for a moment, then realising what Julian referred to she said, “You mean what I wrote on my wrist. That was a joke. I was just fucking around.”
“It didn’t look like a joke.”
“Yeah, well it was. Now go on. Fuck off out of here.”
Julian rose, holding out his hands which were tingly from lack of circulation for Mia to untie. The corners of her eyes and mouth curling with mischief, she shook her head. “We don’t want you molesting any schoolgirls on your way to your car now, do we?”
A flush rose up Julian’s throat. “That’s not fair and you know it.”
Mia’s eyes flickered as if she realised she’d gone too far, but she didn’t untie Julian. Sighing, he made his way downstairs and out into the street. He found a low brick wall and sawed the stocking against its edge, conscious that it wasn’t the kind of neighbourhood where a stranger could loiter without causing curtains to twitch. It took him a good ten minutes to work his hands free. Stuffing the stocking into his pocket, he returned to his car. He felt bad about the diary, but it occurred to him that Mia must’ve known there was a good chance he’d find it. Perhaps on some level, conscious or subconscious, she’d wanted him to find it. Perhaps, like her Facebook photo, it was a call for help — help she desperately needed, but was too proud to ask for. He released a heavy breath. Perhaps he was just an idiot for reading it. Still, he couldn’t shake the image of Mr Ugly from his mind. He had no doubt that Mr Ugly was one of the ‘bad people’ Mia had referred to. But who was he? Did he even exist or was he just something produced from her mind, a representation of her troubled psyche? Julian shook his head. That face had displayed a sordid cynicism of almost inhuman proportions. Sure Mia was cynical, but that wasn’t all she was. Beneath her cynicism, he knew now, there was a tender heart. But that heart was being eaten out of her by bad people. And when the last bite was gone, Mia would be gone too, gone like Joanne Butcher.
Henry greeted Julian with a bark as he entered the house. Stooping to scratch behind his ears, he made his way through to the kitchen. Wanda was preparing the evening meal. “What’ve you been up to?” she asked.
Julian expelled a breath of irritation. “Not you as well. Always questions, questions.”
Wanda’s eyes grew stern. “Don’t get offish with me, Julian. If we ask questions it’s not because we’re trying to pry into your life, it’s because we’re worried about you. Would you rather we just ignored you and let you get yourself into a worse mess than you’re already in?”
“Who says I’m in a mess?”
Wanda made a who are you trying to kid face. “I’ve seen you like this before, Julian, when you were having those nightmares. You’ve got the same look in your eyes now that you had then.”
Julian dropped his gaze from Wanda’s. “Where’s Mum?”
“In bed. All this upset has wiped her out.”
A twinge of guilt tugged at Julian. “I’m taking Henry for a walk.”
As he headed for the back door, Wanda said, “All we want is for you to be happy, Julian.”
He hesitated, glancing a smile at Wanda. “I know. I’m sorry for snapping.”
Julian made his way through the woods to where the path forked. He took the fork that led straight on. The police were gone now. The only sign that they’d ever been there was some torn strands of yellow-and-black plastic ribbon dangling from tree-trunks where he’d found the body. He thought about Joanne Butcher, about the way she’d looked alive, about the way she’d looked dead. He thought about Mia. “How much is enough?” he said to himself. “How much is enough for what?”
Chapter 8
When Julian returned from his walk, he went to bed. He wasn’t particularly tired, but he was eager to see if the dream returned. He closed his eyes and tried to relax. Sleep came on, and with it the dream. He jerked awake, trembling with disgust and rage. Catching a glimpse of himself in a mirror, he snatched up a mug and hurled it at his reflection. The mirror cracked with a loud pop. The distorted, fragmented face that stared at him from it seemed like the revelation of his inner being. There was a knock at his door.
“Everything okay in there?” asked Christine. “What was that noise?”
Julian slung a shirt over the mirror, before opening the door and smiling at his mum. “I just dropped something, that’s all.” He studied his mum’s face. The lines were perhaps a fraction more deeply etched, the shadows perhaps a shade darker than when he’d first arrived home. “Listen, Mum, I realise I’ve been behaving in a
