PROLOGUE
I stare through the living-room window. She is napping. This has become her nightly routine. She dozes off around ten, trying to fight the end-of-day fatigue.
She could switch off the lamp and haul herself up the stairs to the larger of the two bedrooms, collapse on the bed and let deep sleep claim her. But she won’t because I’m not home yet. She can’t sleep until I’m home.
Normally I’d walk in the door, remove my boots and she’d sit up straight, widen her eyes and pretend she hadn’t been softly snoring. But not tonight.
‘You ready?’ the voice beside me hisses.
For just a few short seconds I had forgotten what we were here to do. A pang of regret shoots through me but it’s the only way. We have agreed.
I open the door, gently, my jaw clenching with tension at the prospect of even the tiniest noise. I don’t want her to wake up and see me. That would ruin everything.
I move further into the hallway, one deliberate, calculated step at a time.
I try to hear past my own breathing, which I’m sure must be echoing around the house. It will wake her. I know it will.
Just above the gentle hum of the fridge to my left, in the kitchen, I hear the soft snoring coming from the sofa. I inexplicably feel both relief and dismay. Does some part of me want her to wake up and ask what the hell we’re doing?
I push the thought away. If that were to happen, nothing would change. She would still ruin my life and force me to let go of the thing I love with every ounce of my being.
My jaw clenches in anger. Just the thought sends a wave of rage ripping through my body. She will not separate us. No one will ever pull us apart. A love like ours is unique, forever and I have known it from the moment we met. No one understands that this relationship means more to me than breathing. Without it I might as well be dead.
There is no time for second thoughts. We have a plan, and if we don’t carry it out, the alternative doesn’t bear thinking about. We will not be parted.
I step silently, slowly into the lounge. I beckon behind me to indicate that the coast is clear.
No words are exchanged. There is no need. We both know the plan.
We stand behind the sofa.
The orange lamp lights up the area around the three of us as though we are the final act of a stage play, the rest of the room bathed in darkness.
Every second counts.
She could wake up.
The hammer rises in the air.
It falls with unflinching certainty.
The sound of bone cracking fills the silence. Then a moan, a gurgle as blood begins to pour from the hole in her head. In this light it appears black. The glistening richness of the liquid is caught in the lamplight as it escapes like lava from a volcano and runs down the line of her hair.
I am horrified by what I see and yet liberated too. There is no more indecision. No more doubt. We are beyond the point of return. It cannot be undone.
The conversations, the wishes, the plans are now real life. We will be together forever. This binds us like nothing else ever could.
The hammer appears before my face. Drops of blood fall onto the throw that’s draped over the back of the sofa.
‘Your turn.’
I take it, surprised by the weight of it in my hand. My palm closes tightly around the rubber handle.
‘Do it.’
I lift the hammer and hesitate as another soft moan escapes from her mouth.
‘If you love me, you’ll do it.’