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Boldwood Books - John Nicholl

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131 pages

English

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Description

Alice Granger is no ordinary survivor. She has a tale to tell, a story of revenge.

Alice feels driven to protect the innocent from dangerous men. Men like her father. Men who hurt children. Predators who prey on the innocent. And there’s nothing Alice won’t do to make them pay.

Alice wants to make them suffer as their victims did. But the police are one step behind. And as the net closes, Alice’s life spirals out of control, the lines between good and evil becoming ever more blurred as she attempts to escape capture.

When the hunted becomes the hunter, is anyone innocent?

*Previously published as Killing Evil*

Sujets

Policier & Thriller

Policier

Thriller

Psychological

Thrillers

Women

Suspenso

Psychological thriller

Domestic

Woman

Psychology

The Women

City Life

Crime

Suspense

Fiction

Informations

Publié par	Boldwood Books
Date de parution	13 janvier 2023
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781837514137
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,1500€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

THE VICTIM

JOHN NICHOLL
CONTENTS

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

More from John Nicholl

About the Author

About Boldwood Books

The Murder List
1

I‘m a keeper of secrets: dark secrets, ﬁlthy secrets, secrets that eat away at my peace of mind like a wild creature feeding on ﬂesh. Unwelcome thoughts claw to leave my troubled mind pounding. Booming pressure and sound threatening to explode my fragile skull into a thousand jagged pieces. Destructive memories of the not-so-distant past, desperate to escape at almost any cost.
I think I’ve reached that time. An hour I thought may never come. The moment to speak out, to pour out my deep anxiety and dread, to tell you everything, to hold nothing back, whatever the potential consequences for my life. It’s something I need to do. Something I have to do. I know that now. I no longer have a choice.
Are you ready to read on? Have I captured your interest even slightly? I guess the answer must be yes if you’re still reading. I sincerely hope my story doesn’t keep you awake at night, as it does me. I’ve no investment in the discomfort of others, or at least not that of the innocent. You may ﬁnd my tale shocking. There’s no avoiding the horror. But I make no apologies for that.
I can’t erase the past. If I’m going to tell you my story, it has to be all of it.
I’ve experienced terrible things. And I’ve done awful things too. Some of which you may think are justiﬁed, and others perhaps not. Things have a way of running away with themselves. I sometimes went further than even I intended. I can’t pretend otherwise. I’ve committed to total honesty. I’ll leave it to you to judge my degree of guilt. All I can oﬀer is mitigation. But try to be kind. Put yourself in my place if you can. Try to be understanding. And I’ll try to keep my writing as succinct as possible in return. I’m an enthusiastic reader, a lover of word games. But I won’t let emotion cloud the picture. I won’t let tears soil the page.
Have we got a deal? Can we shake on it, in a metaphorical sense, without actually meeting? Well, yes or no, I’ve got my laptop at the ready. So, I’m going to get on with it. I’ve put it oﬀ long enough. Now we get to the heart of the story – the foundation of all that came next.
2
‘STICKS AND STONES MAY BREAK MY BONES. BUT WORDS SHALL NEVER HURT ME.’

The familiar linguistic rhyme came to mind as I cast my thoughts back to my childhood, vivid memories, reliving events as if in real-time. I guess the author’s words were well-intentioned. I’m sure the writer meant no malice. But don’t believe a word of it, that’s my cautionary advice. Words have power; they can hurt; they can control. And they did me to the nth degree.
Words served my father’s purpose all too well, as he indulged his deviant tastes with no concern for my well-being, despite my tender years. The bastard! I still hate him with a burning intensity I can never hope to erase. Forgiveness? Forget it! He brought nothing but misery to this world, nothing but pain, nothing but suﬀering. And he did it simply because it pleased him to do so, because he could. Because he thought he could get away with it, that he’d never be caught and punished. Those were all the reasons the pig needed. The total fucking bastard! Ahhhh! The man was a parasite. I think that’s a fair description, although no single word could fully capture his vile persona. He oozed destructive evil. It seeped from every rotten pore of his body. But he hid it from the world; he wore the mask well. Only I saw the bleak reality. He thought of no one but himself.
I was just four years old when it all started; certainly no older than ﬁve. I was a young child; an innocent in a dangerous world. I should have been protected in my parents’ care. Home should have been a sanctuary, a haven, a place of safety where I could thrive. But it was so very far from that. If heaven can be a place on earth, then so can hell.
I’m not going to focus on that time of my life with any great intensity. It’s far too painful. But I’ll give you a ﬂavour of events in the interests of understanding. I’ll open a window just wide enough for you to glance in. I’m sure you’ll get the gist quickly enough if you haven’t already done so. It’s not as if it’s diﬃcult to comprehend. The man was a predator and I – his prey. That sums it up very nicely. I was his plaything and in the worst possible way.
I can feel his dirty hands on me even now as I write these words. I can hear his sing-song voice, the urgency, the accent, the tone.
‘This is our special secret, Alice. No one else can ever know what we do together.’
That was one of his favourites. I must have heard those poisonous words at least a thousand times back then. He’d place his very ordinary face only inches from mine, with our foreheads almost touching, hissing his words, his whisky-soaked breath ﬁlling my nostrils, making me retch.
‘Tell no one, Alice! Do you hear me, girl? You’ll be taken away if you speak out, to somewhere awful, somewhere terrible. Somewhere inﬁnitely more horrible than you could ever imagine even in your worst nightmares.’
Another example of his repeated contributions to my confused anxiety. Inevitably followed by something equally diabolical. Anything to put the fear of God into me. Anything to ensure my silence.
‘Oh dear, can you picture it, Alice? It would all be your fault. You’d never see your poor mother again. Do you want that? Do you? You’ll keep your mouth shut if you don’t.’
And I’d reply, ‘No, no, no, please, Daddy, no!’ or something along those lines, swallowing his every lying word, believing every untruth that spewed from his venomous mouth. That’s the way it works with adults. Children believe them. And I believed him. The bastard understood that. He used it to his advantage for nine long years. He used it because it was easy for him, he knew he could.
I can remember it now as if it were yesterday, his lies ringing in my ears, louder and louder. I’m trembling now as I think about it.
‘Tell no one.’
That was a line he often used, repeating it, driving his message home, time and again. Anything to keep me silent. Anything to avoid detection. Anything to continue along his destructive path.
‘Never tell a single soul. If you did, if you said anything, the consequences would be too terrible to contemplate. You’d break your poor mother’s heart. Do you want that? Do you, do you?’
Then, just when I thought it was nearly over, he’d pick up a belt, or a hairbrush, or some other implement with which to beat me, somewhere where it didn’t show. Never where it showed. That was part of the subterfuge. He was never careless, always careful, considered. He was practised, his methods honed over time. The bastard knew exactly what he was doing. And he kept doing it, however much I pleaded. However much I wanted it to stop. He hurt me often because he didn’t care.
Give me a second. I need to compose myself before continuing. The memories are closing in, raw, painful, surrounding me mercilessly. If only… if only… Oh, what’s the point in even thinking it? It happened. I can’t change that… I think I’m ready to go on:
‘No, Daddy, no!’
Whack!
I can hear the impact of each stinging blow even now. I can feel it on my skin. I can picture the bruises, red, blue, purple, green, yellow and brown. Once, then again and repeat. That was his usual pattern, as his breathing intensiﬁed, like an overheated dog in need of water, his chest rising and falling with the eﬀort of it all. He’d get red in the face, sweaty, panting, then aroused, always aroused. Violence never failed to excite him sexually. For him, that was the point of it all. I’m certain of that as I look back on events now. Although, of course, I didn’t understand that at the time.
I’d be crying as he’d hurt me, hushed, as quietly as possible, swallowing my sadness, stiﬂing my girlish sobs, straining my being to try and make it stop.
‘The punishment,’ he called it. I deserved it, apparently, time and again. And in the end I believed it. That it was my fault just as he said. That I deserved no less.
His face would contort, muscles tensed, contours changing, snarling. ‘You’re a bad girl, evil! Do you hear me, Alice? Evil! I’ll beat the sin out of you. I have to do it. You do know that, don’t you? It’s not me that’s doing it, it’s you, it’s you: you dirty, bad girl. You drive me to it. You’re a ﬁlthy temptress sent by the devil. You’ve brought it on yourself.’
I yearned to say no, to yell no, and keep shouting no, no, no, until he ﬁnally understood and stopped his abuse of my body, mind and spirit. But where would that have got me? Reason was lost on him. My wasted words would only have made things worse, inﬁnitely worse. I think I always knew that, instinctively,without having to be told. My silence was a means of survival. Until I was old enough to… Until… Until… Well, more of that later. I will come to that part of the story but not quite yet. I mustn’t jump ahead. It’s not yet that time.
Whack!
He’d hit me again. Harder this time, with force, as he blew out the air, spittle spraying from his mouth.
Whack!
‘Stop moving, lie still and shut your mouth. What is wrong with you, girl? You’re making this worse for yourself. May God forgive you! It’s all down to you. Original sin!’
I’d ﬁght to stop shaking, instantly, without hesitation, m