Page 40 of No Safe Place
Lily should live with her perfect smug-faced-cunt boyfriend.
And it would be all right. Because eventually Lily would have to tell the prick that she was mental too.
And if she didn’t, Scott would work it out.
There was a sound, under the music. Callum turned hishead, to the hallway, squinting into the darkness. He flicked the light switch, forgetting nothing would happen.
The song was fading out, but before “Handsome Devil” could start up, someone knocked again.
He stumbled in his haste to get to the door before whoever it was got to nine knocks. It’d be next door, the timid wife sent by her uptight husband to tell Callum to keep it down, remind him thattheyhad work tomorrow.
Well so did he, Cal thought, as he fumbled with the locks. He had work to do – he had to write a book that would prove to Lily – to everyone – that he wasfine.Fine on his own. Better.
But once he’d managed the key, the door wouldn’t open. Lily must have locked the bottom bolt.
He frowned at it, stumbling again.
Fuck, he was drunk.
He groped on the side for his keys, knocking things over. Really, he should keep a torch in the hallway, or learn to cope with the one on his bloody phone.
He found the keys, finally, and after a few wobbles, got the bottom lock undone.
And opened the door.
He must be dreaming.
Callum pressed his hand harder into her throat, but it slipped from under him. She let out a low moan. His palm was already slick with thick, hot blood.
He gagged.
‘Help—’
His voice sounded pathetic, thin in the night air. Not loud enough to raise the neighbours.
Less than five minutes ago he was in his living room, safe, angry-drunk. Then the knock on the door and the body in the street, the blood …
Callum shouted again, louder.
Then again, and again.
Apart from her gasping, the night fell back into silence. He looked up and down the street, waiting to see a light go on in a window.
He hadn’t seen Sam in over a decade. And now she was here, on his street – bleeding to death.
Sam’s eyes were frantic, her hands scrabbling weakly at Callum’s wrist, like he was strangling her.
‘I’m sorry, Sam,’ Cal choked on a sob. ‘I’ve got to.’
Callum twisted to look at the wounds to Sam’s stomach, her thigh.
Don’t count them.
In spite of himself, he counted.
One– the wound to her neck.Two, three, four– down her side. There was a deep slash in her jumper, and the blood was staining the blue fabric black.
Five. Six.Cuts to her forearms.Seven– the thigh, visible below her denim skirt.
