The Puppet Master Read online

  Adam thought a lot about this girl, Billie. His uncle would not tell him much about her. He tried to do some digging of his own, but as she was still a minor, there wasn’t much about her online. She had no social profiles, unlike most girls her age, so he was unable to even find a picture of her. It was hard to hate someone that you’d never met. But he saw the damage that was done to his uncle, and he still managed to hate her. He didn’t understand why she had done it. If it weren’t for the lack of evidence, the case would have gone to court. How could someone get up on a stand in front of people and say all those lies? Maybe she was ill? But his uncle had said that she wasn’t, she was just evil and vindictive, lashing out because of her poor home life. It made him feel better about the fact he’d had to lie, knowing that he was fighting her nasty lies and not letting her get away with it. Still he couldn’t understand it. He knew there were evil people out there, but this crime was less obvious than killing someone. He wondered if she knew that the stories she had concocted had affected so many people. Him, his uncle, Sylvia, her family. To convince the police to investigate she must have been a fantastic actress. It made him so angry and frustrated when he thought of her because he couldn’t get the answers he needed. Why had this horrid girl had turned her calculating and malicious nature on his uncle, one of the kindest people in the world? One of these days, he’d make sure that she got what was coming to her.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  2011

  Billie

  When Billie left behind her village in Windermere to move to Worcester University, she also left behind her family. She got onto the train with as much as her stuff as she could manage and promised herself that once she got off the train at Worcester, she would not think about anything or anyone from her past. It was going to be hard, eighteen years of her life had been spent with her mum. But it turned out that it only took one act of betrayal to ruin an eighteen-year relationship. Only one conversation.

  Billie’s mum had sat her down on a typical rainy day in August, a month before she was due to leave for Worcester. Billie had been blissfully reading her way through her last summer holiday in Windermere. She was too scared to leave the house. It wasn’t worth it. She wasn’t going to let anyone or anything stop her from leaving. Before she had overdosed, every time she had mentioned leaving, she saw a fire light up in Eric’s eyes and she had believed that there was no way that he would ever let her leave. So she was staying behind closed doors until she was in Worcester. Only then would she be safe. She hadn’t got the grades for Hereford so she was doing Media at the University of Worcester.

  When Billie’s mum had shouted for her to come downstairs to talk, it made her very nervous. Her mother, until that day, had been happy to let Billie stay upstairs. She seemed to prefer it that way – though she would never admit it.

  She walked downstairs with trepidation. She stopped behind the glass door to the kitchen and her heart sank. Her mother was pacing up and down. Her normally stylish blonde hair was dishevelled. That was never a good sign. That meant her mum had done something and needed to tell someone. She hoped it wasn’t another affair, thinking back to the previous summer where Billie had to spend most of it covering for her mother by waiting in a coffee shop until her mother came back.

  “Listen, Billie,” began her mum. She could feel her mum’s leg shaking through the table. “I’ve got two things I need to tell you. I’ve felt so sick keeping things from you. I can’t do it any more.” Her mum paused, staring intently at Billie’s face but unable to meet her eyes. “I’m leaving Matthew.” The weight of those words hung in the air between them. Billie didn’t really know what she was supposed to say. She loved Matthew, he had been in their lives for ten years. That was nine years and eight months longer than her own dad had lasted. She knew her mum was a flirt, but to actually leave Matthew? How could she do that after so long? What was the point of those ten years if she was just going to throw it away? With tears running down her face, her mum told her how her new man was getting a house ready for them, just as soon as he’d left his wife.

  Billie felt really selfish but all she was thinking was, what about me? Where am I going to live? What if I don’t like this new man? Billie didn’t like change at the best of times but this would mean a complete transformation of her life. No longer would she live in this house, that she’d seen when it was just foundations in the ground. She would not have the sanctuary of her bedroom any more. What about her books? Where would they go? All these unsettling questions were whirling through her mind but she saw that her mum desperately needed Billie’s approval and support. She was leaning forward and her eyes were pleading with Billie’s – funny, now she could look her in the eye.

  Billie took her mum’s hand and said everything that she knew her mum wanted to hear. “Of course I don’t mind. I’ll do whatever you need.”

  As her mum swallowed each lie, her smile grew and the tears stopped falling. Billie was about to get up, desperate to be alone when her mum stopped her with a hand on her shoulder.

  Her mum spoke into her lap. “There’s something else. I don’t really know how to tell you this. But I know I have to. The thing is.” Billie couldn’t remember seeing her mum so lost for words. What else could be worse than uprooting her whole family and leaving the man Billie considered a father figure? “I’ve been seeing your grandma again.”

  The pain in her chest at those words was immense. She honestly thought it must be a physical wound. She looked down at her chest. Nope, no holes or bleeding. She tried to breathe through her panic. This was it. He had found a way back in. Billie listened as this woman who had sat at her bedside in the hospital after her overdose and promised that she would protect her no matter the cost; explained how she’d run into her gran quite by chance and they had been unable to deny how much they had missed each other. Billie’s mum had then gone over to Gran’s house – “Don’t worry he was upstairs” – and they’d talked and talked and decided to put this whole mess behind them because, after all, they were mother and daughter. Billie’s fingernails had created bloody holes in her hands; she had clenched them so hard. She stared as a trickle of blood made its way from her hand to the black material of the kitchen chair cushion.

  “Billie, look at me.” Billie looked up, ever the dutiful daughter, doing what she was told. “Do you understand, Billie? I miss my mum. She’s my mum. You get that don’t you? We don’t have much family, Billie, and I’ve lost my mum and my sister over this mess. I’ve supported you through this but you’re about to go to university soon and I will be here with just your sister and Marcus.”

  Who’s Marcus? Oh yes, keep up, brain, Mum’s new man. “I love my mum and I’ve missed her so much. Do you understand?”

  Billie wanted to stand up and scream at her mum. ‘No, I don’t understand! We are mother and daughter too! What about all the promises you made? You said you hated her. You said what she had done was unforgivable. I already forgave you for not doing something about it when I told you before I overdosed. Why are you doing this to me? You promised you wouldn’t ever hurt me again. You promised you would always choose me. Aren’t parents supposed to love their child more than anyone? Why don’t you love me enough to be on my side? Am I not enough for you? What does Gran have that I don’t? She’s a liar. She lied to the police. She shamed us to anyone who would listen. Why are you doing this to me?’ But she didn’t, she didn’t say anything. Instead, she took a deep breath and locked all her real feelings in that box they now belonged in. “Yes of course I understand. Let’s just get you through this divorce first.”

  From that day Billie’s relationship with her mum was broken, irreparably. She couldn’t say anything to her mum because she knew it would not make any difference. It wouldn’t make any to Billie actually. The damage was done. Billie’s mum had broken them when she decided to enter the house of the man who was responsible for destroying what should have been the most innocent and happy years of her life.

  The t
rain pulled into Worcester, Billie had put her foot down when her mum offered to drive her. She wasn’t having it. She hadn’t told her mum, but from that moment on she had no intention of seeing or speaking to her mum or her sister ever again. Her sister was just as bad as her mum. She quite happily had tea and biscuits in their new home with Marcus and their gran. They were all one big happy family and she was no longer part of it. It hurt so much. Especially when she considered that the entire reason that Billie put up with Eric for as long as she did was to save her sister from going through the same fate and for her mum not to lose her mother. What was the point?

  She let that anger force her pain and memories of them away, and she stepped off the train into her new life. Life as an orphan. A life without family. But most importantly, a life without Eric. She truly believed that was possible now. The entire time she studied at home she was convinced that he was going to come and destroy her escape plan but she hadn’t seen or heard from him in nine months, twenty-eight days and around eleven hours. She was free and safe. She meant to keep it that way.

  Billie made her way to her halls. She tried not to be intimidated by the massive blocks of flats that formed the campus village. She was excited but terrified. She saw danger around every corner. She was trying to find flat one but she wasn’t sure which building. She was stood outside what she thought was the right one when a raven haired girl came out from the door she’d been hovering outside of like a stalker. She had a curvy figure and she walked with confidence over towards Billie.

  “You looking for flat one, babe?” she asked. A broad smile filled her face. Billie could only nod. It was like it was hitting her, this was the first day of the rest of her life. She couldn’t afford to screw it up. Luckily, this girl seemed to like doing all the talking and she looped her arm around Billie’s, firing questions at her but never waiting for the answers. It was a relief because she was feeling overwhelmed.

  Billie sat in her room breathing deeply. Since the raven haired girl – Sarah – dragged her in the flat she had been thrust into the kitchen to face her new flatmates, Steve, James, Hannah, Kate and Harriet. Only waiting long enough for names to be exchanged, Sarah then unceremoniously yanked Billie from the room and guided her down the corridor to a hallway filled with doors. They walked to the end of the hallway, to the last grubby green door on the right.

  “This is yours. They aren’t much but then we will be partying won’t we?” said Sarah. Again, Billie just nodded, wondering what the polite way to get rid of Sarah was.

  “Sarah, come look at this!” shouted an excited voice from the kitchen.

  “Well, see you later, neighbour, mine’s that one if you need anything,” said Sarah, pointing at the door to the left of Billie’s as she walked away.

  Billie knew she needed to unpack but she was still just sitting on her single bed. It was empty and it made her sad to think that she didn’t really have anything to furnish it with. She was alone in the world now. She’d left behind as many reminders as she could of her old life. She had her books though. Those favourite ten books that she couldn’t be without. The thought of them cramped up in her travel bag was enough to get her off the bed.

  She was emptying them onto her bed, stopping to inhale that book smell of imagination and escapism. Putting the last of books, Jane Eyre, onto the small bookcase on the wall a white piece of paper dropped from between the pages. Call it intuition or sixth sense but her heart nearly stopped. Gingerly she picked up the folded piece of paper. It read: My dearest Billie, I hope you enjoy your time in Room C, Flat 1, Bromsgrove Hall, at the University of Worcester. Please know that I will be thinking of you and though you can’t see me, I will always see you. It pains me that we can’t be together right now. But I will always be thinking of you and I look forward to the day that we are finally reunited. Who can say when that day will be? It could be days, months or years. Just know that where you go, I go. I will always be with you. Eternally Yours. E.

  Part Three

  Present Day

  “I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.”

  Carl Jung

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Diary Entry

  I’ve had enough now. I have had my fill of being patient. I’ve watched her from afar since she left me. I revelled in her suffering and the pointless existence she has led since then. I’ve spent years waiting for her to trip up and lead me to the evidence she has on me. I was so careless, leaving that camera in her room. I wanted to scare her into dropping the case. But it didn’t strike me that instead of that I was handing her evidence. It was so unlike me. To not think things through. I guess I was just getting desperate thinking that I would end up getting charged. Well, my work isn’t done. She obviously doesn’t know she has it. But it is getting more dangerous now that she is with Adam.

  I don’t mind admitting in the privacy of my own writing that I have been getting jealous. She belongs to me. At first, it was fun, watching Adam woo her using tips that I gave him. Watching the whole thing and knowing that he was using her to expose what she did to me. Of course, he hasn’t told me this but I know. He is the man I made him to be, I know everything about him. But now it is starting to leave a bitter taste in my mouth.

  I watch them together and I’ve noticed the confusion behind Adam’s eyes. She is undoing all the hard work that I have done. But most importantly, she is becoming happier than I’ve ever seen her. Once she would walk around oblivious to the world. Her fear weighed her down, like rocks in her pockets. But now I see her smiling. It burns my eyes to see this. She left me. She doesn’t get to be happy. She needs to remember that she is in my control. And she needs to hand over that bloody camera. It rankles, knowing that she has the power to bring me down. But I know that I have the power to bring her back to me. I am her master after all.

  Adam

  He screeched to a stop outside of the only food shop Billie ever went to. He understood her fears now and why she had constructed a set routine that made her feel safe.

  As he jumped out of the car he had to beat down the guilt and disgust at what had happened to her, the knowledge that it was his uncle that had done it. He had to concentrate on getting to her and making sure she was safe. He had seen his uncle in her flat, and that could only mean that he was waiting for her. He burst through the door of the shop like a tornado. His eyes desperately searching for her. When he spotted the top of her head a couple of aisles down, he nearly sank to his knees in relief. He didn’t know if his uncle would hurt Billie or what he planned to do. But what he was sure of was that he did not know who his uncle really was. Unwanted images from the walls of his uncle’s study flowed before his eyes; a young Billie tied up, her face red from crying, tears on her cheeks, and she was completely naked. Nausea rose within him, and he shook his head to dislodge the images.

  He needed to get Billie away. Her safety was his first concern. It was the least he could do, considering. He felt a stabbing pain in his chest when he realised that he was going to have to tell Billie that he was related to the person that had made her life hell. The man that had shaped her to live in fear of the world. Adam had got through her barriers, and it scared him to think that she was going to recede even further into herself once she found out the truth. If he couldn’t convince her of the truth; that he had been another victim of his uncle’s staggering manipulation, then he would lose her.

  He jogged over to the aisle where she was, and when she realised that it was him, her face brightened, her body relaxed and it caused him unimaginable pain. He loved her. Pure and simple. But he was going to lose her because of the one person he had trusted for most of his life. But at least she would be safe. He had to make sure of that. When trying to talk her into leaving the shop didn’t work, he went to grab her arm but stopped when he saw the colour drain from her face. Her arm was shaking in his hand. The terror was written across her face filled him with dread. She wasn’t looking at him but at something behind him.

&nb
sp; Billie

  As Billie looked at Eric, she felt like the floor had disappeared and she was falling indefinitely. Her stomach hurtled inside her like it was trying to escape from her body to get as far away from Eric as it could. His face reignited the suppressed memories she had and images of his cruel face and the awful things he made her do floated into her vision. She felt sick. She was terrified. How was she going to explain to Adam who this was? What if Eric convinced Adam of his innocence? What if Adam didn’t believe her just like everyone else? On countless occasions, Eric had demonstrated his powerful ability to manipulate anyone. Anyone he came into contact with dissolved under the force of his charm until they were nothing more than his puppets. His appearance was something she had dreaded for the last five years. It had caused her to live in the shadows; it was the only way to live with her fear. But these last few months, because of Adam, she had begun to crawl out from the shadows and live again. So now, as she looked at Eric, she realised she was going to die. He had promised her the next time he saw her, he would kill her – once he was done tormenting her. She had never forgotten finding his note when she’d unpacked her books.

  She wondered what it was that had made him wait five years. Until she had met Adam, she had always felt his presence lurking in the background. The feeling of being watched permeated her entire life. Had he always been watching? Was he angry that she was starting to be happy, and so he’d come to destroy it? All these thoughts swirled through her mind as she looked at him. He looked older than last time she saw him. His skin had more creases, like a used tea towel. His hair was receding. But his evil nature still shone from his eyes, defying his age. He wore a simple black coat, with black jeans and shoes. All unremarkable; someone who you would forget after one look. The one thing that stopped her from crumbling to the floor and submitting to whatever he wanted was Adam. She had to explain. More than that, she had to keep him safe. Get him out. She was about to move when Adam turned and shielded her with his body. He began to speak to Eric, but it wasn’t to ask who he was. It was to tell him to leave. Why would he do that? Did he sense the evil within this man?