The Calling Read online

  To my husband and best friend, Jacen. To my cherished family, Natalie, Lana and Dean. And to Lily, the little girl I’ll always miss.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  PROLOGUE: MONDAY, 24 AUGUST 2009

  CHAPTER 1: SATURDAY, 26 MARCH 2011

  CHAPTER 2: SUNDAY, 27 MARCH 2011

  CHAPTER 3: SUNDAY, 27 MARCH 2011

  CHAPTER 4: SUNDAY, 27 MARCH 2011

  CHAPTER 5: MONDAY, 28 MARCH 2011

  CHAPTER 6: MONDAY, 28 MARCH 2011

  CHAPTER 7: MONDAY, 28 MARCH 2011

  CHAPTER 8: TUESDAY, 29 MARCH 2011

  CHAPTER 9: TUESDAY, 29 MARCH 2011

  CHAPTER 10: TUESDAY, 29 MARCH 2011

  CHAPTER 11: TUESDAY, 29 MARCH 2011

  CHAPTER 12: TUESDAY, 29 MARCH 2011

  CHAPTER 13: WEDNESDAY, 30 MARCH 2011

  CHAPTER 14: WEDNESDAY, 30 MARCH 2011

  CHAPTER 15: WEDNESDAY, 30 MARCH 2011

  CHAPTER 16: WEDNESDAY, 30 MARCH 2011

  CHAPTER 17: WEDNESDAY, 30 MARCH 2011

  CHAPTER 18: THURSDAY, 31 MARCH 2011

  CHAPTER 19: THURSDAY, 31 MARCH 2011

  CHAPTER 20: THURSDAY, 31 MARCH 2011

  CHAPTER 21: THURSDAY, 31 MARCH 2011

  CHAPTER 22: THURSDAY, 31 MARCH 2011

  CHAPTER 23: THURSDAY, 31 MARCH 2011

  CHAPTER 24: FRIDAY, 1 APRIL 2011

  CHAPTER 25: FRIDAY, 1 APRIL 2011

  CHAPTER 26: FRIDAY, 1 APRIL 2011

  CHAPTER 27: FRIDAY, 1 APRIL 2011

  CHAPTER 28: SATURDAY, 2 APRIL 2011

  CHAPTER 29: WEDNESDAY, 27 APRIL 2011

  CHAPTER 30: MONDAY, 2 MAY 2011

  CHAPTER 31: WEDNESDAY, 4 MAY 2011

  CHAPTER 32: THURSDAY, 5 MAY 2011

  CHAPTER 33: FRIDAY, 6 MAY 2011

  CHAPTER 34: FRIDAY, 6 MAY 2011

  CHAPTER 35: SATURDAY, 7 MAY 2011

  CHAPTER 36: MONDAY, 9 MAY 2011

  CHAPTER 37: TUESDAY, 10 MAY 2011

  CHAPTER 38: TUESDAY, 10 MAY 2011

  CHAPTER 39: WEDNESDAY, 11 MAY 2011

  CHAPTER 40: WEDNESDAY, 11 MAY 2011

  CHAPTER 41: WEDNESDAY, 11 MAY 2011

  CHAPTER 42: WEDNESDAY, 11 MAY 2011

  CHAPTER 43: MONDAY, 16 MAY 2011

  CHAPTER 44: THURSDAY, 19 MAY 2011

  CHAPTER 45: FRIDAY, 27 MAY 2011

  CHAPTER 46: FRIDAY, 27 MAY 2011

  CHAPTER 47: FRIDAY, 27 MAY 2011

  CHAPTER 48: FRIDAY, 3 JUNE 2011

  CHAPTER 49: WEDNESDAY, 8 JUNE 2011

  CHAPTER 50: WEDNESDAY, 8 JUNE 2011

  CHAPTER 51: WEDNESDAY, 8 JUNE 2011

  CHAPTER 52: THURSDAY, 9 JUNE 2011

  CHAPTER 53: THURSDAY, 9 JUNE 2011

  CHAPTER 54: THURSDAY, 9 JUNE 2011

  CHAPTER 55: MONDAY, 13 JUNE 2011

  CHAPTER 56: MONDAY, 13 JUNE 2011

  CHAPTER 57: TUESDAY, 21 JUNE 2011

  CHAPTER 58: THURSDAY, 30 JUNE 2011

  CHAPTER 59: FRIDAY, 1 JULY 2011

  CHAPTER 60: SATURDAY, 2 JULY 2011

  CHAPTER 61: MONDAY, 4 JULY 2011

  CHAPTER 62: MONDAY, 4 JULY 2011

  CHAPTER 63: MONDAY, 4 JULY 2011

  CHAPTER 64: MONDAY, 4 JULY 2011

  CHAPTER 65: MONDAY, 4 JULY 2011

  CHAPTER 66: MONDAY, 4 JULY 2011

  CHAPTER 67: MONDAY, 4 JULY 2011

  CHAPTER 68: MONDAY, 4 JULY 2011

  CHAPTER 69: TUESDAY, 5 JULY 2011

  CHAPTER 70: TUESDAY, 5 JULY 2011

  CHAPTER 71: TUESDAY, 5 JULY 2011

  CHAPTER 72: TUESDAY, 5 JULY 2011

  CHAPTER 73: TUESDAY, 5 JULY 2011

  CHAPTER 74: TUESDAY, 5 JULY 2011

  CHAPTER 75: WEDNESDAY, 6 JULY 2011

  CHAPTER 76: WEDNESDAY, 6 JULY 2011

  CHAPTER 77: WEDNESDAY, 6 JULY 2011

  CHAPTER 78: WEDNESDAY, 6 JULY 2011

  CHAPTER 79: WEDNESDAY, 6 JULY 2011

  CHAPTER 80: WEDNESDAY, 6 JULY 2011

  CHAPTER 81: WEDNESDAY, 6 JULY 2011

  CHAPTER 82: WEDNESDAY, 6 JULY 2011

  CHAPTER 83: WEDNESDAY, 6 JULY 2011

  CHAPTER 84: THURSDAY, 7 JULY 2011

  CHAPTER 85: THURSDAY, 7 JULY 2011

  CHAPTER 86: THURSDAY, 7 JULY 2011

  CHAPTER 87: THURSDAY, 7 JULY 2011

  CHAPTER 88: THURSDAY, 7 JULY 2011

  CHAPTER 89: THURSDAY, 7 JULY 2011

  EPILOGUE: SATURDAY, 10 SEPTEMBER 2011

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  THE SOUNDTRACK FOR THE CALLING

  Also by Alison Bruce

  Copyright

  PROLOGUE

  MONDAY, 24 AUGUST 2009

  My counsellor says I should keep a journal of my dreams.

  What does she know?

  I need far more help than she can give me.

  Blood bubbled through the scored skin, swelling and dripping. Swelling and dripping. Slipping into a languid crawl before diluting across the damp enamel, and finally plunging into the water. Each droplet billowed and unfurled in delicate ribbons before vanishing, dispersing in the bath where she lay. She watched her wrists bleed. Strange how peaceful it is, she thought, and sank deeper beneath the silky bubbles.

  The drifting steam swirled above her, entwining the scents of jasmine foam and rose soap. She slid her head below the water, her hair floating around her shoulders, shining in the wetness. She no longer felt like hacking it off. Glad that she hadn’t.

  She closed her eyes, content to hear the muffled music from the radio in the hall, and the muted rain against the window. Thoughts drifted in and out.

  She looked down along the plane of her outstretched body. Imagine being beautiful. Imagine being the centre of the world. She wished she were someone else.

  She sighed and closed her eyes again.

  He groped for the handle of the back door, located it and held it tight to stop it rattling.

  He peeked into the house. No sign of her; if she was there at all, she hadn’t heard him.

  He turned it slowly, holding it tight to keep it quiet. It was unlocked, providing an open invite for anyone.

  No surprise there, though.

  He stepped inside and paused, listening. Music trickled down to him.

  He flicked the light switch and the fluorescent tube jolted into life, reflecting a bright strip of light from the stainless-steel draining board and glinting from the chrome-edged cupboards.

  The surfaces lay bare, apart from the bunch of keys and a screwed-up, tear-sodden tissue marooned together on top of the low fridge.

  He walked the length of the hall. He stopped at the foot of the stairs.

  She stirred just enough to twist the hot tap with her foot. The fresh water rippled into the old, and warmed her.

  She shut off the tap again and dozed.

  Floating, floating.

  And, floating away, she saw someone else with fair hair and blue eyes. Tired, scared, bewildered blue eyes. Who was it? She couldn’t see. A girl? A boy?

  Someone in the woods with fair hair, fair skin and blue eyes.

  She saw more: a pretty girl with a dirty face, tied against a tree.

  Like me, but pretty, she thought.

  He heard the running water and drew a deep breath, as if to smell her.

  He grabbed the handrail, propelling himself towards the bathroom. Step by step. Quick and quiet.

  He tilted his head close to the door, resting his temple against the frame.

  Was she alone?

  He waited and listened. No voices, but that didn’t mean anything.
<
br />   He stroked the satin paint along the doorframe. No whispers or giggles. Perhaps she really was alone.

  Alone with her precious fucking radio.

  He grabbed the handle and tried to open the door. Locked.

  * * *

  Her eyes flashed open at the first crack. The wood ripped apart and the door splintered open.

  Her hands shot under the water, hiding her damaged wrists. Dark, clotted blood trails streaked in their wake.

  He lunged forward, shouting words she couldn’t understand.

  ‘Don’t hurt me,’ she gasped, as she cowered naked and defenceless in the tepid bath.

  ‘What the fuck is going on in your head?’

  She couldn’t reply. She stared at him, wide-eyed and shaking, and began to cry.

  Between her sobs she caught the words, ‘Mad bitch’.

  ‘Answer me,’ he roared.

  She shook her head, unable to speak.

  She wanted him to stop shouting. To stop hating her.

  She began screaming.

  The flat of his hand hit her full across the left cheek and the skin reddened into hot, stinging blotches. Her hysteria subsided.

  ‘I-can’t-stand-you-any-more.’ He spoke each syllable with cold deliberation. ‘You’re like a leech, clinging and sucking me dry. Just being near you revolts me.’

  Somehow his words mesmerized her. He hated her; she could see it clearly in those narrowed eyes and the way his mouth twisted as he spat out the words.

  ‘Why do you bang on and on until I lose my temper? Until you make me snap? And now look at you.’ He gestured as if waving her away in disgust.

  He turned and reached out beyond the broken door, grabbing the radio from the hall table. He shook it at her. ‘If you were so fucking suicidal, you wouldn’t be lying there listening to this.’

  Her brain reacted slowly. She only realized how the radio was attached to a cable, the cable to a plug, the plug to an electric socket, as he tossed the whole lot towards the water.

  And then it tumbled in the air.

  In slow motion, according to her addled mind.

  And then she woke.

  CHAPTER 1

  SATURDAY, 26 MARCH 2011

  Margaret Whiting wanted to cry: anger and frustration had bitten into her, and it clawed at the back of her neck. She wanted the tears to come, she’d wanted to sob out loud and hear her own voice, without having it shouted down by her husband or her son.

  She’d stood in her kitchen, sorting washing and tossing each item on to the correct colour pile with an angry flick of her wrist. She separated her clothes from theirs, thinking theirs weren’t fit to share the same wash. She knew she couldn’t cry, so she had shouted, and Mike had then said she was hysterical and was the cause of all the upset in the family.

  Oh, yes, she’d thought, our gloriously happy family! Her son was a liar and her husband a hypocrite, and yet she was supposed to be happy.

  Just this morning had been the start of it.

  The day had begun the same as always, a four-hour shift at Histon Road service station watching the very same people fill the same cars with petrol, or buy their cigarettes and bread and milk – that had been the start of it. Each time the till had rolled open, Margaret had looked down at the twenty-pound notes and the Queen had looked back. And each time Margaret had felt the Queen was looking a little more smug. Everyone had money except her, it seemed.

  The clock on the cigarette counter had been nudging five past eleven as Lindsay arrived. Late again. ‘Morning, Margaret. How are you?’

  ‘Fine. How are the kids?’ Margaret had replied, because that was the routine.

  Fine.’

  And so it had gone on. ‘Another day the same as every other bloody day,’ she’d eventually complained. ‘Do you know what, Lindsay? Every single day of my bloody life is spent worrying about pennies and watching everyone else spend money like there’s no tomorrow. I could never spend what they spend on fuel without feeling bad about it.’ Margaret had felt a surge of bravado even as she said it. If only she could talk like this to her husband Mike.

  ‘Lindsay, do you ever feel nosey?’ she’d asked.

  ‘Oh, yes.’ The other woman had grinned. ‘All the time!’

  ‘What, with Craig?’

  ‘Oh, suspicious you mean?’ Lindsay had shrugged. ‘Not really. Just the odd minute of winding myself up, but that’s about all. You’re not worried, are you? About Mike, I mean.’

  Margaret had lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, determined now to spice up her day. ‘Well …’ She’d paused, and added to the drama with a wary glance around the empty shop. ‘The other day I was putting his socks away and I suddenly had the urge to check his pockets.’ Margaret had lowered her voice further. ‘I didn’t do that, of course, but then I even thought about checking the numbers he’d called recently on his mobile phone.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Well, nothing.’

  ‘What, you mean you didn’t find anything or you didn’t check?’

  ‘Of course I didn’t check.’

  Lindsay had shaken her head. ‘That’s not suspicion. That’s boredom.’

  ‘Oh, I thought it was intuition.’

  ‘Intuition, my arse. You’re obviously spending too much time putting his socks straight, but don’t let your imagination get the better of you. My mum says the devil makes work for idle brain cells. You need to spend some money on yourself. Be reckless, Mags, and buy a whole new outfit for your mum’s party. That’ll make him sit up and think.’

  ‘Damn.’ Margaret had winced, then. ‘I should’ve cancelled the hairdressers.’

  ‘Oh, no, it’s not off, is it? I’m here all afternoon just so you can go.’

  ‘No, no, it’s fine.’ Margaret had frowned. ‘I mean it’s not really a waste, but there’s so much to do for dinner tonight, I need the afternoon to prepare.’

  ‘I thought you said you’d done it all – and frozen it?’

  Margaret had nodded, realizing she wasn’t good at lies, even little white ones. ‘There’s still some more to do but, to be honest, Mike and I had a row about money. And it’s true, we do need to be a bit careful.’

  Lindsay had bent to pick up a Penguin wrapper, straightened it out and dropped it into the bin before she spoke. ‘Mags, it’s not my business but it is just a tint you’re getting, not major cosmetic surgery, and it’s cost you less than most people spend on fags in a week. On top of that, you’ve been looking forward to your mum’s birthday for ages, and you’ve done all the hard work for it, too. Don’t you think you deserve to treat yourself?’

  She’d later gone to her hairdresser’s appointment in a surge of rebellion, only to be told that her girl, Nicky, had rung in sick. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Whiting. I’m sorry, Mrs Whiting,’ she’d mimicked their whining excuses to herself, surprisingly disappointed at missing an appointment that she’d planned to cancel anyway.

  So she’d instead splashed the twenty-five pounds on a discounted polycotton blouse that she didn’t like much. She then decided not to tell Mike because as far as he was concerned, she would have missed her haircut and he deserved to think that she’d ended up with in return was more housework.

  Housework instead of a haircut?

  Margaret had seethed with resentment all the way home on the bus. Mike himself would never catch a bus. She felt her anger surge again, reflecting that there had been a distinct pecking order since their girls had left home. Mike being number one, Steve as the heir apparent, and then Margaret herself coming last.

  She always came last.

  The bus stopped two hundred yards from her house and, as she walked towards the empty driveway, she started on a mental list of jobs to do before Mike’s return from work. Ironing, she decided; check the food for the dinner party, load the washing machine and change the sheets.

  Steve’s motorbike stood beside the garage, which meant he hadn’t spent the day out job-hunting. I’ll get my hair done as soon as he
gets a job, she promised herself.

  She knew school leavers now had to wait for the right opening. Mike and Steve had explained that often enough. Almost as many times as she’d stood in front of the mirror and practised saying ‘Steve, I’d like you to help with some housework’.

  Margaret let herself in through the back door and stepped directly into the kitchen. ‘Hello,’ she called as she held the jug kettle under the tap, filling it for some tea.

  There was no reply, though she could hear the television. He’d probably heard her, but that’s the way it was with him sometimes.

  ‘Kids!’ she tutted and opened the hatch to speak.

  Shock choked her at the sight, and she tried to draw a breath, willing herself to unsee it. She recoiled, folding closed the hatch doors and sealing herself away from the scene. She kept retreating, out of the back door, then away from the house.

  She ducked into the bus shelter and perched on one of its plastic seats. She shivered and tried to tell herself that she’d made a mistake.

  But she’d seen him, Steve her son, lying flaked out on the settee, dead to the world, with his outstretched hand resting on top of an empty bottle of Thunderbird, which stood on the carpet beside him.

  She looked back towards her house and her top lip began to twitch as disgust dug deeper. ‘In our own home!’

  Steve had fallen asleep watching a video. He often watched videos. But now she knew what.

  Pornography.

  Blue movies.

  Steve hadn’t even stirred, and for a few seconds Margaret had watched.

  The screen was filled with a woman’s face, her head tilted back, gleaming with sweat, as her tongue ran slowly along the line of her upper teeth, moistening her cherry-red lips. The camera then slid down her body, following her fingers as they traced her skin down to her breasts. Her nipples, pinched erect by small gold clamps connected by a chunkier chain, were already being massaged. As the camera panned back, a second naked girl guzzled greedily between the splayed legs of the first …

  That’s when Margaret’s reflexes had sent her cannoning out of the kitchen.

  She now realized that her breath was coming in short bursts, and forced herself to slow her inhalations. After a few moments the hot flush of embarrassment also faded from her cheeks.