Haunted

By Maria Savva

Nigel Price has MURDER on his mind.

He can run but he cannot hide. Nigel's past has come back to haunt him. The truth is, his past has never left him... it follows him without remorse, catching him at every turn. There is no escape.

Regret, guilt, nightmares, despair... these fill his every waking hour and disturb his sleepless nights.

Take a trip inside Nigel's mind, in this dark, psychological thriller with a paranormal twist.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Maria Savva
• Release date: Feb 10, 2013

Maria Savva

Maria Savva is Associate Professor and Director of the International Studies Program at the City University of New York’s LaGuardia campus. She has published widely on the intercultural development of international educators, with additional research interests in cross-cultural identity formation and the internationalisation of higher education. She holds an MA in Comparative and International Education from Columbia University and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Education from UCL, Institute of Education. Prior to joining academia, Maria taught in both primary and secondary schools in the United States and abroad. She is a New York State certified teacher and also holds Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) in England.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Nigel returned home from work at 9 p.m. As he closed the front door behind him, he could hear the familiar music that always made his stomach turn. His wife June enjoyed watching the programme. It was her favourite: Crimewatch. Each week, her eyes were glued to the TV screen, unmoving, transfixed, watching reconstructions of crimes that had taken place. Nigel hated it.

‘I have to deal with enough stress in my life, why would I want to come home and watch such a depressing programme? Can’t we watch something else?’ His pleas were made in a moderate tone; Nigel had learnt the hard way that it did not pay to get angry. Anger was the seed that grew into hate, and hate was evil. The last twenty years of his life, he had been living as a shadow of his former self; afraid to live, guilt catching him at every turn. A cycle of fear, regret, and shame. A deep feeling that he did not deserve to even be living.

Nigel sometimes felt like a victim, but he would find himself unable to allow such thoughts further than the outermost regions of his mind. If they got any deeper, they would be met by the constant companion he now lived with; the one that reminded him, every time he breathed, that he was unworthy.

Twenty years ago, Nigel had been a young man, with prospects. In his early thirties he worked for a large company as an I.T. specialist. He would deal with all the computer problems and was paid a hefty amount to do so. He’d always been gregarious. He’d been confident and quick to speak his mind, quick to argue his case; he’d never been one to back down in an argument.

Now, Nigel was in his fifties. If you saw him walking along the street, you might be forgiven for thinking he was homeless. He didn’t really care much about his appearance. He’d worked from home after his nervous breakdown for a couple of years, but his wife said that she thought he would benefit from going out to work because his bouts of depression were becoming more frequent. He was offered a job in London, over an hour on the train from where they lived. The train was the only transport he would use now. Not a car. Never a car. Not even a bus. The memories gave him no peace.

Nigel was living, but not really living. It was as if his soul had deserted him twenty years ago; a light had gone out inside him. He could never be the same.

He never raised his voice nowadays. In fact, his tone had become so quiet it was sometimes hard to tell if he was speaking. His lips would move, but it was as if the volume had been turned down. Maybe it was the screams he often heard in the night? The ones that would shake him from his dreams. The dreams that were, in reality, nightmares.

Nigel could not remember the last time he’d really slept; not without sleeping pills, anyway. It was as if his life had stopped twenty years ago. Someone else had died, but she had taken a piece of him with her.

Maybe that was what happened. If you killed someone, did they get to take your soul with them? Nigel often thought that was what must have happened. He’d had a lot of time to think about it. It was all he ever thought about.

Her face, her eyes. The look of shock in her eyes. That was the thing that lived in his conscience. Why? He had asked himself the same question many times, until it had driven him into a corner. He had not been able to live with himself. His mind had closed down.

June looked up at Nigel, who was standing at the hallway entrance to the lounge. ‘You never used to be such an old bore, Nige,’ she said, turning back to watch the programme. Then she twisted around again, quickly, as if she had just remembered something. ‘There was a time we used to watch Crimewatch together, and any other programme that had anything to do with law and order. Remember we used to have fun?’ She shook her head. ‘Fun. Huh. Remember what that is? But, yes, we used to have fun laughing at all the rogues that got caught. Why are you so distant these days, Nige? We hardly spend a moment together anymore.’

Although the room was dark, only illuminated by a table lamp and the TV screen, he was sure he could see tears glistening at the edges of her eyes.

‘It’s always the same. You walk in from work and disappear into the kitchen, or the other room. Why, Nige?’

He hadn’t expected this. He couldn’t remember the last time he and June had exchanged two words with each other. An actual conversation was pushing it. He tried to answer, but any response he gave would be futile. He could not venture into a conversation with her now or ever. That part of his life was over for good. He shrugged, and mumbled, ‘I’m going to make some pasta,’ then disappeared into the kitchen.

Nigel sat at the kitchen table half an hour later. June’s earlier rant filled his mind, momentarily taking precedence over the incessant chanting that reminded him of his guilt.

She was right. Years ago, they would laugh together. Quite a lot. They had been a fun couple to be around, he knew that because they were forever being invited to friends’ houses, out to dinner, to parties and celebrations. They hardly spent any time in the house. Weekends were always taken up with hosting dinner parties or visiting friends, city breaks to destinations all over Europe—occasionally alone and enjoying each other’s company, but more often with other couples. They’d had a hectic and satisfying social life. That all came to an end quite abruptly after he killed Emily Baxter.

He spooned some penne into his mouth and ate reluctantly. Eating was just another thing he had to do; he derived no satisfaction anymore, as if to enjoy anything now would be a sin. He was reminded of the way he used to be, and he wished he had listened to friends and family when they had warned him that his headstrong attitude would get him into trouble one day… if he’d had a penny for every time someone had said that… but he hadn’t listened.

As he chewed his pasta, Nigel remembered the first time he had been warned about his behaviour. He had been ten years old, at a friend’s birthday party. Jonah was celebrating his tenth birthday. He had received a remote-controlled car as a gift from his parents. Nigel asked him if he could play with it. ‘No, it’s my present,’ said Jonah, sticking out his tongue.

Nigel watched as the boy pressed the button and the car zoomed around a track. He could feel an emotion that was not yet fully formed but was to become very familiar as he grew up: it was the first time he could remember feeling angry. His own parents did not allow him to have many toys. They said that it cluttered up the house, and besides he didn’t need so many toys. That wasn’t the way Nigel saw it. He resented his parents’ attitude. They were quite well off, from what he could gather. The family took holidays twice a year to visit his mother’s family in Cyprus and his father’s family who had emigrated to Spain from England. Many times, he remembered as a boy, his mother telling his aunts not to buy him any more toys. They never had birthday parties for him. ‘It will only mean all his friends’ parents will bring lots of tacky toys and we’ll end up having to give them to a charity shop,’ he heard his father say one day.

Nigel thought his parents were boring. Whenever he visited his cousins’ houses, they had playrooms filled to the brim with toys, and their parents were always buying them more, even though he knew that his aunts and uncles were not very wealthy. He envied his cousins. His parents hardly ever took him to visit them anyway; they were always complaining about something one of his aunts had said and finding a reason not to visit. The truth was, his father didn’t like his mother’s sisters and would refuse to visit them; he thought they would be a bad influence on Nigel. In Nigel’s mind, however, he was convinced the real reason his parents didn’t want him to visit his cousins was because they didn’t want him to ask for toys. He would always ask for toys after visiting them, feeling the void in his own life. He often heard his parents say that his aunts and uncles were spoiling their children; Nigel didn’t understand what that meant, but in his heart, he felt neglected and deprived.

As he had watched Jonah’s new red car speed around the track, his blood boiled in a way he had never experienced before. Suddenly, he lurched forward and grabbed the car from the track, throwing it sideways without looking. It ended up smashing against a glass cabinet that shattered. Some crystal glasses that were displayed in the cabinet had been knocked over, too.

‘Nigel!’ he heard his mother scream. She ran towards him and grabbed his arm, shaking him. ‘Why did you do that?’

She turned towards the other parents and children who were all now silently watching the spectacle. The mother of a four year old who had been standing next to the glass cabinet, was wiping fragments of glass off the child’s sweater, her face bright red and full of concern.

‘I’m so sorry,’ said Nigel’s mother to the crowd of onlookers. ‘We’re going home now!’ she screamed into Nigel’s ear, and then looked apologetically at the other parents and dragged him towards the front door looking for his father among the crowd.

That evening, Nigel was given no dinner and sent straight to his room. His father came to see him late that evening and sat silently across from him for a while. Nigel had never seen his father angry and wondered whether he would be now. His father seemed to have only one emotion: a cold indifference to anything that was going on around him. After staring at him for a while, his father shook his head and stood up. ‘You embarrassed us today, Nigel. Don’t ever do anything like that again.’ With that, he walked out of the room, switching off the light on his way out. Nigel had been putting together a jigsaw puzzle, but now he could not see a thing. He began to cry.

A while later, just as he was about to fall asleep, his mother walked into his bedroom and turned on the light. ‘Nigel, wake up. I have to talk to you.’

He sat up on his bed. He was still wearing the clothes he had worn to Jonah’s party. His mother was always slightly more emotional than his father, but she kept a tight rein on her emotions for fear of upsetting his father, who believed that showing emotions, such as crying and shouting (and perhaps even smiling and laughing, in his case), was a sign of weakness.

‘This behaviour…’ His mother appeared to be trembling in an effort to keep a hold of her temper. ‘It has to stop.’

‘Sorry,’ he heard himself say, even though he wasn’t really sure why. If they had bought him toys, maybe he wouldn’t want to play with other children’s toys; he sizzled inside but made sure not to show it.

‘You embarrassed us today,’ she said, repeating what his father had said.

‘But Mum…’

‘Don’t argue,’ she said. ‘Your father and I have brought you up to be a good boy. Why did you try to break Jonah’s toy?’

‘He wouldn’t let me play with it,’ said Nigel loudly, his lower lip protruding as he sulked.

‘You have your own toys. That was his present.’

‘I don’t have any toys!’

‘You have to learn to keep a hold of that temper, my boy. It’s an ugly emotion. I won’t have any son of mine behaving like that, do you hear me?’

Nigel felt as if his throat was tightening from the strangulating hold his parents had over his life. They controlled his every move, from what toys he could have, to with whom he could play.

‘I hate you!’ he said, standing up and pushing his mother, then bursting into tears.

‘Say sorry, Nigel!’ His father appeared at the door, as if from out of nowhere. His voice was loud. ‘We won’t have behaviour like that in this house.’

Nigel looked at his parents standing there emotionless, both of their faces set in miserable frowns that never changed from one day to the next, as if just breathing was a task. He remembered being at Jonah’s party and seeing the way the other parents would laugh and joke with their children. He wanted parents like that. He remembered his cousin Jacoby shouting at his mother a few months ago. His aunt, Jacoby’s mother, had told him not to shout at her, but then she had smiled and given him a hug and asked him what was wrong. Nigel could almost feel the warmth emanating from her. He couldn’t understand why his parents were so different. It felt to him as if they didn’t care about him.

He began to cry.

‘You think about what you’ve done today, Nigel,’ said his father harshly. ‘Come on, Elena, leave him. He has to learn to behave like a decent human being, not like a brat. He’s been spending too much time with your sisters’ children, I think.’

Nigel hadn’t seen his cousins for months. He missed them. They lived in normal, loving houses. His home was cold.

‘That temper of yours has to go, young man,’ said his mother. His parents turned out the light and closed the door behind them, leaving him standing in the middle of his room, tears pouring down his cheeks.

Wanting something to blame, Nigel began to wonder again, as he had done before, whether it was his parents’ cold treatment of him that had caused him to hold so much anger inside him, and take that out on others. Or was he just inherently a bad person? Had they known what he would do one day, or had they started the chain of events that would lead to that fateful day? As he looked at the few bits of pasta that had now gone cold in his plate, he knew that no amount of blaming anyone else could get him out of this hole he had dug.

As a child and teenager, Nigel’s angry temperament had been a backdrop to everything else in his life. It was almost obvious to most people in his life that, one day, it would be the unmaking of him. Most of his peers, however, were too afraid to say anything to him. His best friend, Mike, came from a similar background, and understood some of Nigel’s reasons for feeling so resentful, but even he was worried for him.

One day, when Nigel and Mike were thirteen years old, a young boy who had recently joined their school made a comment about Nigel’s hair whilst they were waiting in line at the school cafeteria at lunchtime. Nigel had begun to grow his hair as he was becoming a fan of Heavy Metal music, having heard a Led Zeppelin album at Mike’s cousin’s house.

‘Your hair… I don’t mean this in a bad way, but when I saw you from the back, I thought you were a girl,’ scoffed the boy. Then, seeing Nigel’s eyes narrow, he laughed as if to brush it off. ‘It looks like my sister’s hairstyle,’ he added, the grin on his face showing that he thought it was quite a funny comment.

Nigel took a fork from the cutlery tray and stabbed the boy in the arm. Blood began to seep through the young boy’s white cotton school shirt, and his face turned pale. Tears formed in his eyes. ‘What did you do that for?’ he yelled. ‘I was only having a laugh.’ By then, one of the girls had alerted a teacher, and Nigel looked up to see a very stern-faced Mr Jeffreys, his history teacher, who happened to be in the school canteen at the time.

‘Price! It would have to be you, wouldn’t it? What’s wrong with you?’

‘It was his fault,’ said Mike, trying to defend his friend. ‘He was making fun of him.’ He pointed at Simon, the new boy, who was now crying and holding out his arm towards Mr Jeffreys.

‘You come with me, Simon, we’ll get you cleaned up,’ he said, assessing the fork-marked scar on the boy’s arm. ‘I’ll be talking to your parents, Nigel. Report to me for detention tonight!’ With that, he walked away.

As he followed the teacher, Simon turned his head to face Nigel and stuck out his tongue.

As it turned out, Simon was in fact a real school bully, in a different league to Nigel altogether.

The next day, Simon and three of his friends, who were part of a gang called The Tribe, followed Nigel and Mike on their way home. As they were walking through a park, Simon and his friends pounced on Nigel and gave him a beating that left him bleeding and bruised. If Mike hadn’t run off for help, returning with two older boys who scared off the gang, Nigel may well have ended up in hospital—or worse.

Nigel didn’t want to face his parents after the fight. It was not the first time he’d been in scrapes, although usually he was the perpetrator. He felt embarrassed. He asked Mike if he could go to his house to clean himself up before going home.

Nigel called his parents from Mike’s house to tell them that he was doing his homework with Mike.

Later that evening, Mike and Nigel sat listening to music. Nigel was not very talkative.

‘Are you okay, Nige?’ asked Mike, concerned.

‘Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?’

‘Er… you’ve just been beaten up by four thugs.’

‘You just wait… I will get that Simon. He’s too weak to fight his own battles, so he brings his stupid mates.’

‘Didn’t you hear what Roger said about Simon? His cousin goes to the school where Simon used to go. Apparently, he was expelled because he was going to stab a teacher.’

‘That’s just rumours.’ Nigel scowled.

‘It’s not.’

‘I’m not scared of Simon, okay?’ Nigel walked over to the record player to change the record as it had finished. He lifted it off the turntable roughly, and threw it on the floor as he looked for another one to play.

‘Hey! What are you doing? You’ll could have broken that! Nige, you really have to do something about your temper.’ Mike bent over and picked up the vinyl 7-inch single, checking