Hold Your Breath Read online

  HOLD YOUR BREATH

  B P Walter

  Copyright

  Published by AVON

  A Division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2020

  Copyright © B P Walter 2020

  Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2020

  Cover photograph © Karina Vegas/Arcangel Images

  B P Walter asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

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

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

  Source ISBN: 9780008309640

  Ebook Edition © April 2020 ISBN: 9780008309657

  Version: 2020-03-30

  Dedication

  For my sisters, Molly and Amy

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  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

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Acknowledgements

  Keep Reading …

  About the Author

  Also by B P Walter

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  January 2020

  London passes me in a grey blur. I keep thinking it’s going to snow. Part of me would like that – to be stranded here on a train in a snow drift, unable to move forward or backward. Trapped in a vague sort of limbo; a physical manifestation of the state I’ve been in for most of my adult life. But I’ve shifted into an unsettling, uncharted realm since I got the phone call yesterday morning.

  The voice of the woman at the other end of the line had cut through the dullness of my sleep-muffled brain. Part of me had been waiting for her call, and another part was sure that it would never come; that this sort of thing happened to other people, not me. How stupid that sounds, thinking about it now.

  ‘Am I speaking to Katherine Marchland?’ she’d asked in her businesslike tone. ‘Formerly known as Katherine Carlson?’ I’d told her she was, and she had continued as I’d sunk down onto my bed, clutching at the duvet, hoping it would protect me. ‘Ms Marchland, my name is Detective Inspector Cousins of Northumbria Police. I need to ask you to present yourself at Wickton Close Police Station, Newcastle tomorrow afternoon at 3 p.m. to be interviewed under police caution. You are not under arrest at this time, but I have to inform you that you may be liable to arrest if you fail to turn up at the appointed time. You are of course free to bring legal representation with you, or you can access free legal advice through a duty solicitor if you request one to be appointed for you. Please can you confirm you have understood this information?’

  By some miracle, I’d managed to say, faintly, ‘Yes. I do.’ She’d ended the call after that.

  Now that I’m on the train, hurtling north at an alarming speed, I’m filled with doubts about the choice I’ve made. I could have just not gone. Failed to turn up. Left my flat and gone into hiding. Left the country. I imagine myself in a court dock, and then being sentenced to spend time in prison. Being taken down those steps you see in TV dramas, police officers escorting me to a van to drive me to my place of incarceration. Everyone knowing what I did, and why I need to be punished for it.

  I can’t help it. I begin to cry. The tears start light and slow, trickling gently down my cheeks, then grow louder and louder into constant sobs. Some of my fellow passengers begin to look around. Others try to ignore me, pulling their phone screens closer, surreptitiously edging their headphones into their ears so they can tell themselves that they can’t hear me; that I’m not their problem.

  I don’t care. I don’t stop. The panic has settled in now, strong and thick and all-encompassing, the sobs developing into tight, fast breaths. The irregular oxygen supply causes my face to tingle, then to blaze. I’m not sure how many minutes pass before I stagger to the tiny bathroom cubicle and lock myself in, or how long I’m in there for before a kind woman’s voice speaks through the door: ‘Hello, are you OK in there? Is everything all right?’

  I can barely get my answer out, but when it comes, between the quick breaths and the sobs, it’s stark and emphatic: ‘No.’

  ‘Do you want me to call for help? I can ring the passenger alarm?’

  This elicits an angry response from some of the other passengers, clearly enraged by the prospect of major delays to their journey due to the mad woman in the toilets. Let her pass out. Let her hyperventilate. Let her die. I can’t really blame them.

  ‘Hello? Are you OK?’ The woman’s voice continues, sounding even more worried. ‘Is there anything I can do to help?’

  I’ve started to focus on the sink in front of me now. The slow-dripping tap. The rock and tilt of the train causes the water to fall in a different direction with each drip. I feel the panic starting to lessen a little; enough for me to answer this Good Samaritan on the other side of the cubicle door: ‘No. There’s nothing anyone can do to help me. Not after what I’ve done.’

  Chapter 1

  To: [email protected]

  From: [email protected]

  Date: 2 September 2018

  Subject: The Cottage in the Forest Manuscript

  Hi Katherine,

  I hope you’re well.

  Goodness. I’m not sure where to start. First, I’m sure you know, but I’m not really working in the book world any more. I’ve gone into more generalised PR (for my sins), but as I said before, I’m very happy to read anything you write. That aside, this manuscript is, to be frank, rather astonishing.

  I’m sure everyone’s got something curious in their past, but your story has got me seriously hooked. I’m also so sorry to hear you had to deal with your mother’s breakdown so young (btw, I wasn’t sure how old you actually are in the book? Ten? Eleven?), and that you
r father’s solution was to take you all to live in the woods. The details you go into – being left to wander the forest alone; the two visitors who are clearly doing something very strange with your mum – is all of this true? Of course, I’m not doubting your word (as you mentioned), and I’m sorry to ask; it’s all just so shocking. Have you been burying all these experiences over the years without telling a soul? Are the names all real? And lastly, can I ask: was there ever a police investigation?

  The ending truly shocked me – especially if what happened was covered up somehow. Try as I might, I can’t get some of the images you paint in those last few chapters out of my head. They’re going to haunt me for a long time, I think.

  Thank you again for sending this. Let’s have a meetup sometime soon. I can advise you on your next steps and recommend some contacts you can approach.

  Best,

  Susan

  Susan Douglas

  Douglas & Evans PR

  @SusanDouglasPR | 23 Howell Park Gardens, Hackney, London.

  To: [email protected]

  From: [email protected]

  Date: 3 September 2018

  Subject: RE: The Cottage in the Forest Manuscript

  Hi Susan,

  Thanks so much for reading. I know life must be hectic at the moment, so I really am hugely grateful for this! And yes, it’s all true. Mostly. It all happened when I was ten, when my dad took me and my mother to Northumbria for a couple of weeks in the October half term (when the trip started to run into school time, I believe my father told the school I had flu). The names haven’t been changed, at least. I did think about altering them, but something always stopped me. Perhaps because it feels like I’d be doing it to protect the guilty – something I’d rather not do.

  Even so, I’ve decided to present the book as a novel. I just couldn’t cope with the attention a memoir might bring, and at least as a novel it gives me a bit of room to string it together into a coherent story. I just wish it was only fiction. I’d be really keen to meet up some time soon and discuss it in more detail if you have the time. Would love to hear any other tips or suggestions you have before I begin submitting it to agents.

  Thanks so much, once again,

  Yours,

  Katherine.

  Chapter 2

  1987

  We’re leaving. Go and pack your things.

  That’s what my father said to me, his suit crinkling as he knelt down onto the patio. I was in the middle of sorting out my ladybird colony and was rather cross about being interrupted. One of the dead members – Tiffany, who had been crushed earlier when I was building them a hut out of rocks – seemed not to be quite so dead after all, and I was enjoying watching her come back to life. Dad was interrupting.

  ‘Kitty, we need to go,’ he said, trying to get my attention. I kept looking at the ladybirds. ‘Leave that, please. We’re packing up the house. You need to come and help.’

  ‘Help?’

  I said it as a question, but I didn’t really want to hear an answer. I said it like that to make it clear that the very idea was stupid. I wasn’t going to help us leave. My garden was my kingdom, even if it was a boring, straight, nearly-perfect square at the back of our house in Grays, Essex. Tidy, Dad called it. I measured it one Christmas, enjoying the crunch of my boots as the metre wheel I’d borrowed from our neighbour Mr Jeffers sliced through the snow drifts. Eight metres, then seven and a half, then eight, then the house taking up nine. So not quite a perfect square, but close.

  ‘Your help is required,’ he said, bluntly, before walking away. His blunt days used to be rare and not last long. But recently, he’d become like this more and more, telling me to do things more like a teacher at school. The rest of that afternoon and evening was spent packing up our things. One side of the lounge was for boxes of ‘rubbish’, the other for ‘keep’. Then we stopped for tea. Dad told Mum to order a pizza but she was crying too much to use the phone – her hand kept shaking and her tears went everywhere. He phoned them in the end. Three large pepperoni pizzas with extra cheese. We won’t eat it all, he explained. Just so we have some extra for the morning. For the journey.

  I think he expected me to ask where we were going. Why we were going. What we were going to do when we got there. But I sometimes enjoyed doing the unexpected: it usually caused more interesting things to happen. Dad dropped a few hints: ‘You’ll need your wellington boots’ and ‘Bring your cassette tapes and your Walkman. It will be a long drive.’ I responded to all these instructions with my best blank face until he wandered away shaking his head.

  The pizzas made us sleepy, but we hadn’t quite finished packing and Mum kept having her ‘moments’. The biggest came when Dad found her using a permanent marker to scribble over the faces of laughing women on the cover of a magazine. He was holding some wine glasses when he chose to confront her. ‘Put down the pen, Marjory,’ he said gently. Her reaction wasn’t gentle.

  Once Dad had bandaged his hand and cleared up the blood, Mum had calmed enough to be settled down onto her bed. Sleep now, she was told, and she did, as if her off switch had been flipped. It wasn’t always that easy.

  Once Mum had fallen asleep, Dad and I carried on packing in silence. I did it without making a fuss as I didn’t want to go to bed; he didn’t seem in any hurry to send me there. I think it was about one o’clock in the morning when he finally said we should stop. ‘We’ll be leaving at 5.30. Get some sleep.’

  ‘Why do we have to pack up and tidy the place? Are we never coming back?’

  I didn’t think Dad was going to answer at first; he was staring at the floor, kicking the vacuum cleaner cord out of his way. ‘We will be, don’t worry. We’re just letting some people stay in our house for a bit.’

  ‘Who are these people?’ I asked.

  ‘People who will pay us money to stay here while we’re … away.’

  I was about to tell him I didn’t understand, but he spoke again before I could: ‘Go to bed, now. We’ll load the car in the morning.’

  I left him in the lounge. He was still wearing the suit he wore when he was at work selling his insurance stuff.

  It would be the last time I saw him wearing it for quite a long time. But I didn’t know that then.

  Chapter 3

  ‘Come near me and I’ll kill you.’

  That’s what my mum said when I tried to wake her. Then she cried when she realised it was me and said she was sorry. ‘It wasn’t me who said that,’ she said. ‘It was him. It was him.’ She tapped her neck as she spoke and shook her head violently. I used to be scared. I still was, a little. But it was amazing what I managed to get used to.

  Dad was sitting on the sofa in just his pants and a white t-shirt. He and Mum hadn’t slept in the same bed for a while. Not since she’d started to get more and more upset. I think Dad had tried, hoping it would make her calmer, having someone next to her during the dark hours of the night, but then I would hear shuffling around and then Dad going downstairs before the clock had even reached twelve.

  ‘Mum’s crying,’ I said to him. For a moment, I thought he was going to cry too, but then he just sat up. ‘It’s good you’re awake. You can start loading the car. The smaller bags and boxes. Not the big ones. I’ll do those once I’ve sorted out your mum.’ He wandered away, the light from the window turning him yellow-gold. I sat on the sofa for a bit, then did as I was told. Some of the bits we’d packed that night had been put in supermarket bags when we’d run out of the boxes Dad had brought home with him. I picked some of these up and went out to the car, which was already unlocked, and threw them in, not caring if anything broke. The day had only been new for a matter of minutes, and I was already starting to feel cross. It didn’t look like I’d be going to play in the garden, or to the library to get some more books. Nothing seemed certain any more.

  The street was completely empty. The sun was still low, the ground untouched by its warming light. Although the summer weather had lasted into
September, you could tell autumn wanted to break in and ruin the fun. Before Mum had become like she was now, early last year or the year before, she used to paint the autumn leaves on the trees. Browns and reds and golds. She’d sit outside and paint the trees in the neighbours’ garden. I used to sit with her sometimes, making little finger paintings of different plants or animals, often insects and squirrels. Then Mum would beam at me and tell me I’d created another masterpiece and how she’d phone up the Tate at once. Then we’d laugh, and she’d show me what she had created. Her pictures didn’t really look like the trees in the way I would sometimes paint them – she used to zoom in on a particular branch and just paint the leaves on that one. Then one day she painted this big, amazing tree – an oak tree, she said – one she remembered from when she was younger. Then, over the top of it, she painted flames. Big flames licking at its trunk, snaking up towards the leaves, and all of them were burning, smoke covering the sky. That was when things started to get bad.

  Mum tried to help with the packing of the car but eventually Dad just told her to sit in the front passenger seat and we’d finish the job. She sat there working her way through a pack of garibaldi biscuits while we heaved and stuffed and pushed everything that would fit into the car. We weren’t taking that much – not as much as when my friend Melanie moved house back when we were both in playgroup and a huge lorry turned up to take all their things – but even so, by the time we were finished packing the car, there was just a small hole in the side for me to sit, all our stuff almost covering the seat. I liked being in there. It felt like I was a dormouse, settling in for hibernation.

  ‘Why are we going away?’ I asked. I had been thinking about asking the question since I’d woken up, but sometimes asking my dad questions sent him into a ‘flaming rage’. That’s what our old neighbour Mrs Slater used to call it. He used to have a go at her about her ‘bloody cat’ when it left us dead mice on the doorstep. ‘You in one of your flamin’ rages?’ she used to say when he’d try to hand her the corpse of a rodent as she left for the Quicksave to do her shopping. She would never take it from him. She’d wander off, leaving him holding it. Dad used to say ‘that woman is a bitch’ to himself whenever they had one of their disagreements. I didn’t think she was a bitch. She sometimes gave me books from the charity shop. Most of them were about posh girls at boarding schools – the type where they have stables and games they play with sticks – but sometimes a really naughty one would slip in. My favourite of the naughty ones had been a book called The Count Comes for What He’s Owed. It was about a count in a castle somewhere foreign and he’d been promised a young woman’s hand in marriage by her father. I tried to write a sequel myself, in an old notebook I found under the stairs, about when the count started forcing her to have so many babies her body starts to break in half, until she dies giving birth to their twelfth child. I submitted it at school as a part of my writing homework. Mrs Bolton just wrote on it ‘See me’ in red biro. When I did, she wasn’t very pleased. I had to sit outside while Mum had a whispered conversation with her about me. Mrs Bolton had used the words ‘unhinged’ and ‘depraved’. My mother just cried and advised her I was probably going to hell anyway and a ‘horrid little story about the sins of the flesh’ was the least of her worries at that moment in time. Even so, my paperback of The Count Comes for What He’s Owed was thrown onto the fire. Mrs Slater was forbidden to give me any more books after that.