Fault (Define Book 3)

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Curve

  Heart

  Copyright © Nicola Hudson 2016

  Cover designed by Hilda at Dalliance Designs

  Image from Shutterstock

  Editing by Kristin at Hot Tree Editing

  Formatting and interior design by Pink Ink Designs

  Nicola Hudson asserts the right to be identified as the author of this work.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and events portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or events is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved under International Copyright conventions.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author, except for brief quotations in reviews and literary articles.

  N.B. This book opens with a sexually motivated attack which some readers may feel is a personal trigger. The author has tried to describe the event without gratuitous or sensationalist description whilst conveying the seriousness of the attack and its repercussions.

  I TRIED TO SCREAM BUT my brain was stuck on registering details: the cold kitchen counter under my cheek, the painful pressure of a drawer handle sticking into my hipbone, the stale alcohol on his breath as he groaned in my ear.

  “It’s been a long time since I had a redhead. I bet you’re already all fired up, aren’t you?” He pulled at my leggings, the weight of his upper body keeping me pinned in place. The material refused to cooperate, stretching outward rather than moving down, generating a grunt of frustration.

  “Please, don’t,” I cried as his hand ferreted between my legs, my clenched thighs unable to offer enough resistance. “Please. Please. Please.” My begging fell on deaf ears as he tugged again at my waistband. I knew what was going to happen and couldn’t believe that this was my fate. Vague memories of my brother Jake’s attempt at teaching me self-defence skirted at the edge of my consciousness, but I couldn’t move enough to stamp on his instep or hit his windpipe.

  I knew I couldn’t give in.

  Not yet.

  I squirmed and shifted, fighting harder than I had ever needed to before.

  “Stop it, you little bitch,” he spat before grabbing my hair and slamming my head against the counter. “Do you like it rough? Is that what you’re after?” Bile burnt my throat at the sound of his zipper. I heard the rip as the material of my leggings started to give way in his hands, my life and soul leaching out of me at what it meant.

  I stopped moving.

  I stopped breathing.

  I stopped hoping.

  And then there was noise, the cry of an animal in agony, and the dead weight of his body slumped on mine. I couldn’t work out what was happening. His guttural moaning had nothing to do with pleasure, and he repeatedly pushed into my back, but made no contact anywhere else. I took advantage of his loosened grip on my hair to twist my head.

  And saw Mum stood next to us.

  Holding a knife.

  Dripping blood.

  As she lunged for him again, I managed to pull myself away from the counter and felt the weight of him slide off me. Pain shot through my arm as the knife caressed my skin, leaving a red line in its wake.

  “Mum!”

  Silent waves of rage rolled off her, rendering her oblivious to my cries. She launched at him again, even though he was slumped, unmoving, in a growing pool of red. The sound of knife plundering flesh made me retch and I tugged at her, causing us both to slip in the blood. As we fell to the floor, I managed to knock the knife out of her hand and pull her to me.

  “Mum, what have you done?” I tried to make eye contact with her, but she was like a wild animal, unable to make a connection. Even on her darkest days after Dad died, or her most hung-over days, I had always managed to get through to the hidden her. But not in that moment. She was beyond me, lost in a world I didn’t know how to get to.

  A gurgling sound brought the realisation that the monster may not have been slain. The dilemma of what to do next was overwhelming. Who needed me the most? Mum still appeared unaware of my presence, staring into the abyss of her mind.

  That left him.

  I moved across the floor on my knees, warm blood soaking into my clothes, and turned him over. His front was covered in congealing blood and his eyes were glassy, staring into the same space Mum was inhabiting. I couldn’t hear or see any signs of breathing so I felt around his wrist, not knowing how or where to find a pulse but compelled to do something.

  “Nine, nine, nine” was the whispered instruction from behind me. I looked at her, but her eyes were still elsewhere. Running to the hall, I picked up the phone, dialling as I returned to the carnage.

  Looking back, I wish I’d sat there with her for longer before making that call. I wish I’d had the chance to try and find her, my mum, one final time. I wish I’d thought about how to protect Josh from it all. I wish I’d thought about whether I had the strength to deal with the ensuing chaos.

  “Hello. Which service do you require?” There was a split second when I thought about hanging up, trying to get Mum away and finding a way to explain a body in the kitchen. But I knew it would be an act of utter futility. This could never be undone. The consequences had to be faced.

  “Ambulance, please. There’s a man and I think he might be dead.” My voice was strangely calm.

  “What’s the address?”

  “Six Highfield Road. I don’t know what to do. I don’t think he’s breathing.”

  “Right, an ambulance is on its way. Can you see him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is there any movement in his chest?”

  “No, but I can’t really tell with all the blood.”

  “What’s caused the blood?” I could hear the tip-tap of her typing as she spoke to me.

  “He’s been stabbed. Lots of times.”

  “Do you know who by? Are they still there? Are you safe?” Questions I didn’t want to answer.

  “I’m okay.” I couldn’t condemn Mum.

  “Right, what’s your name?”

  “Grace.”

  “How old are you, Grace?”

  “Seventeen.”

  “Okay, Grace, let’s see if you can find a pulse. I’m going to stay on the line with you until the ambulance turns up.” The calm voice led me through instructions on finding a non-existent pulse on his neck. “What about CPR? Have you ever learnt about this? Done any first aid at school?”

  “I can’t do it,” I admitted as she started telling me to lie him on his back and open his airway. I knew I wouldn’t be able to cover his mouth with mine. Not covered in blood. Not after what he had tried to do.

  Not when it might save his life.

  “That�
�s okay, Grace. Just try to find a pulse again, will you?” I did as she asked, avoiding looking at his face, into his eyes, just in case they looked into mine. There were already too many horrific images to erase from my brain. “The ambulance has just pulled into your road, Grace. Can you let them in?”

  I opened the front door and wordlessly led the two paramedics into the kitchen. It was then that I grasped the true horror of the scene in front of us. He lay in an abstract painting of crimson, his jeans still unzipped, face contorted in a fixed grimace. She was huddled against the door, rocking and wringing her hands. I was smeared in blood, leggings torn, my own arm leaving a trail of blood wherever I walked. It was worse than a scene from a horror film because this was in our house. Our home.

  The male paramedic leant down and took his pulse. He flashed a light into his eyes and examined the pool of blood. He looked up at me and then his partner. “No pulse. Extensive exsanguination. Injuries commensurate with severe internal injury. I recommend no resuss. Concur?”

  “Concur,” the female paramedic said before talking into her walkie-talkie. “No resuss. We need forensics here.”

  “Received. Sergeant Briggs is duty FAO and will be with you shortly. Coroner’s ambulance will also be called.”

  “Thanks.” She clipped the walkie-talkie back onto her belt and turned round. “This is a crime scene so we can’t touch anything, but I’d like to take a look at your arm. Let’s go into the hall.” I followed her out of the kitchen and stood silently as she took first aid equipment out of her case. “I’m just going to cut the sleeve so I can get to it better, okay?” I could only nod. Once the sleeve had been removed to shoulder length, I could see that the cut was long but hardly a gaping wound. “Some tape should be enough to keep this closed. Let me clean it first.”

  She talked me through each stage, until my arm was neatly bandaged and I was left with the promise of a scar that would disappear in time, proving the body heals quicker than the mind. She then babbled on, checking when I’d last had a tetanus jab; I don’t know if she was trying to keep me calm or just trying to stop herself asking the obvious questions. Maybe she thought it was me who had killed him? Maybe, by not trying to give him CPR, I did.

  Sergeant Briggs was a huge man, intimidating in both size and presence. The male paramedic gave him a brief outline of what he knew, using a lot of jargon that sounded like it belonged on CSI.

  “What’s your name, love?” Sergeant Briggs asked, pen poised above his notebook.

  “Grace.”

  “Grace what?”

  “Dawson.”

  “And how old are you, Grace?”

  “Seventeen, eighteen next month.” There was a prolonged pause before his next question.

  “What happened here today, Grace?” The earlier facts had been much easier to share. Scared that anything I said would incriminate Mum, I merely shook my head. “It’s okay, I’m just trying to work out what went on. Is that your mum in there?” I glanced over to where Mum was still sat, rocking and staring.

  “Yes.”

  “Is that your dad?” Briggs didn’t know how wrong his assumption was. I didn’t know his name, but I’d seen him a few times before, one of the endless line of losers who hung around with Jim, drinking and smoking instead of leading responsible adult lives. Since Dad died, Mum had moved from one loser to another, each one bringing more hassle into our already turbulent lives. When Jake died, it became even worse, and a part of me wasn’t that surprised it had ended up like this.

  “No.”

  “Do you know him?”

  “Yes. No. Kind of.” Sergeant Briggs waited for me to expand on my ambiguous response but I wasn’t going to share details of Mum’s lifestyle. Not until I had to, anyway.

  I walked back into the kitchen and sat next to Mum, hoping the press of me against her might be enough to tug her back home.

  BY THE TIME THE forensic team arrived, Mum was still sat next to me, but her head was on her knees, refusing to look at anyone or anything. This gave me a strange hope that she was resurfacing from whatever had taken her over. Was that why she did it? Did she lose control of herself and her sense of right and wrong?

  A female police officer led us both into the lounge and, after introducing herself as PC Gibson, asked Mum the same questions Sergeant Briggs had asked me. Except Mum was in no fit state to filter her responses.

  “What happened, Andrea?”

  “He was trying to rape her so I killed him.” The facts sounded as stark as they were.

  “You killed him?” the officer repeated, scribbling notes as she spoke.

  “Mum, don’t say anything. You have to get a lawyer!” I’d watched enough crime dramas to know that she wasn’t helping herself.

  Mum turned and looked at me, her eyes filled with the clarity I thought was forever gone. “Grace, that’s what happened. And if I ever saw someone trying to do that to you again, I’d do exactly the same. You’re my baby. He was going to destroy you. I did what any mother would do. Didn’t I?” She turned and asked the question of the police officer, who was a similar age to her.

  “I can’t comment, ma’am. We’re going to have to take you both down to the station for questioning.”

  “How long will it take?” I wondered how long it would take me to clean up the mess. I didn’t want Josh to see it. Josh. Shit. “My brother will be home in a bit.”

  “Oh. Where is he?” The look on her face told me that he wasn’t going to be coming home soon. Thinking about the crates of equipment the forensic team had carried in, it hit me that our house was now a crime scene.

  “At a friend’s house. How long is this going to take?” My voice was more assertive that time.

  “I don’t know. I don’t think you will be coming back tonight,” she admitted. Turning to Mum, I could see that she had retreated into her other world again and so it would be up to me to sort things out. In that moment, I missed everyone who had ever shouldered responsibility in our family: Dad, Mum, Jake.

  “WE WISH WE COULD have you as well, Grace, but we just don’t have the room. If Callum and Amie swap rooms, there will be room for Josh to share with Callum—and both boys are happy with that. But we can’t let you stay on the sofa indefinitely.”

  As much as I agreed with what Beth was saying, I didn’t want to process what it meant: that I would be separated from Josh, the only family I had left. As his best friend’s parents, she and Chris had been a part of Josh’s life for years but they had no such link with me.

  “Tim said you could go and stay with him. We’ll sort your train fare, if you need it.”

  I couldn’t go to my uncle’s house, filled as it was with middle-class condemnation of Mum’s lifestyle and his bitch of a wife, Leanne. It was also where we had been staying when we got the news about Jake. Memories of the police interrupting my dreams flooded back. No, I couldn’t go back there.

  “I don’t want to be that far from Josh. Or Mum. The family support worker from the police station said Mum would be allowed to ring me today, once she had been assigned a prison.” Prison. After her full admission of guilt to the police, she had been fast-tracked through the magistrates’ court the day before, only to be told that, as the offence was so serious, it would have to go to Crown Court. “She said we could go to the council for temporary housing until we can go back to the house.”

  “Even if they let you go back into the house, I don’t think it would be right for Josh to be there, not until your mum gets out.”

  “Why? Don’t you think I could look after him?” She didn’t know about the nights we had comforted each other after losing Jake, the days we had spent trying to keep Mum sober. She knew nothing.

  “Not at all, Grace. I don’t think you should be there, either. Being around Jim and his friends is no place for you kids, not without your mum there to look after you. But Josh is only fifteen. He’s got his GCSEs next year; it’s completely the wrong age to be parent-less.” I wondered how being two years older
than him made me any better equipped to cope. “I rang social services yesterday, and they said he can stay here under an informal arrangement until things are more sorted for you all.”

  “So what are you suggesting? I’ve told you, I’m not moving to London. I’m not leaving Josh. And you can tell Tim that.” It annoyed me that he was communicating with Beth and Chris, rather than with me.

  “Why don’t you see what the council says before you say no? If you want, I’ll go with you.” At that point, I was struggling to see Beth as anything more than a do-gooder determined to take Josh from me.

  “No, thanks. I’ll be fine. I’ll pick my scooter up from home on the way. Can I bring it back here?”

  “Of course you can. Anything we can do. Just ask.”

  I masked my disbelief in her words, opting not to burn this bridge yet. After all, it was my only route to Josh.

  AS HELPFUL AS the guy at the council housing office had been, it was obvious that I was a statistic: a teenager who couldn’t stay at home. The reason was almost irrelevant. The tiredness in his voice when he rang hostel after hostel, trying to find me a place, told me how often he made the same calls, how often he was told that they were full. He got one positive response but the fact that it had been so far down his list worried me. Yet what choice did I have? He gave me a card with the address of the hostel and a supermarket voucher, ‘for essentials,’ and let me leave so he could do pretty much the same for the next kid in line.

  I had no idea what to expect from a hostel but, sitting outside on my scooter, it looked more intimidating than I had imagined. Two Victorian townhouses had been knocked together to create one large house, imposing itself on its neighbours with bars on the downstairs windows and a general air of unwelcome. I chained my scooter to a lamp post before ringing the doorbell.

  “Yes?” The surveillance camera whirred and moved, as if commanded by the tinny voice.

  “I’m Grace Dawson.” A loud buzzing was the only reply. I pushed against the door, and it opened to reveal a hallway more like a workplace than a home, even down to the reception area, with its display of charity leaflets and helpline numbers.