Retribution

Jonathan took David into the new playschool, the one she didn’t know about. Although it was only a short distance from the house he took the car as it was raining heavily. He stayed long enough to see David settled in and playing with his new friends and then waved goodbye and left with a lump in his throat but David did not even look up.
As he got into the car he reflected that the company had been very sympathetic to his problems with Rachel and said he could work at home for as long as he needed to before David started school next term.
Rachel. He shivered. Why had he not seen her growing madness? Why had he not foreseen the danger to David? Rachel was David’s mother and surely no mother would deliberately harm their child? Logical, but Rachel wasn’t logical; she was insane and he should have seen it earlier, picked up the tell tale signs that seemed so obvious with hindsight. Everyone has 20:20 hindsight they’d told him, there is no way you could have known. But he should have known. She’d always been possessive and jealous if he’d as much as glanced at another woman but in their eight year marriage he could honestly say he had never been unfaithful to her. Why would he – she had a fabulous body which he had never tired of seeing and exploring.
The unexpected rages had started on their honeymoon when she had accused him of trying to seduce the hotel reception clerk. He was shocked by her outburst but she quickly calmed down and told him she was sorry and made love to him with an urgency and passion that left him exhausted and blissfully happy.
The pattern was repeated throughout their marriage, fits of uncontrolled rage followed by contrition and sensational sex.
After David was born she seemed calmer for a while, showing tenderness with the baby and with him in their lovemaking.
When the baby was no longer new the rages returned; she yelled at the baby for biting her nipples whilst feeding and she sometimes threw his filthy nappies at Jonathan as he came into the house.
He was told by his mother it was post-natal depression and Rachel’s doctor prescribed Vallium to calm her down.
The medication seemed to work and life returned to normal or as normal as things could be with a boisterous boy like David.
The rages had started again three months ago when he had appointed a new secretary called Sarah. Rachel brought David to the office soon after Sarah’s arrival and when he got home that evening she accused him of having an affair with her. His regular denials were met with angry contempt and, when he had to work late to produce the end of year figures, her fits of accusation and anger went on well into the small hours.
Even then her ultimate actions were a shock to him.
The police came to his office to tell him that his wife was on the roof top of the office block threatening to jump with their son unless he came at once. He realized she must have snatched David from the playgroup where he had dropped him off earlier. He rushed up the stairs two at a time because the lift took too long to come and came out on the roof to see Rachel stood on the parapet holding David and snarling at the policewoman who was holding out her hand and offering soothing comfort.
She accused him again of having an affair with Sarah and said she was going to jump unless Sarah could convince her that it wasn’t true.
Sarah had followed Jonathan up onto the roof. She told Rachel that her relationship with Jonathan was purely professional and in any case she had an Australian boyfriend who she was going to marry later in the year before emigrating to Sydney. This was news to Jonathan but seemed to mollify Rachel and, with more soothing talk from Jonathan, she handed David to him and let the police take her away.
The psychiatrist’s report diagnosed a genetic mental illness that had led to the suicide of Rachel’s mother and recommended that she be sectioned to an institution where she could have long term care.
The newspapers had printed a sensational version of events singling out the resourcefulness of Sarah de Silva, who had made up a boyfriend, marriage and Australia on the spur of the moment to avert a tragedy.
David had nightmares for weeks about the roof top experience and refused to go back to the playschool hence Jonathan’s delight at the way he seemed to have settled into the new playschool.
He’d worked long hours for the last month and had decided to take today off. He’d have a long, hot bath, then shave and then read the paper with a cup of freshly ground coffee and a Danish pastry. He called at the paper shop and the bakery in town. He had his usual chat with the baker about last Saturday’s performance of the local football team –always a depressing subject these days.
When he eventually got home he ran the bath, humming softly to himself, pouring in generous shot of Radox Stress Relief herbal bath liquid to create the foaming bubbles. He sniffed the aroma which he’d never noticed before and gave an involuntary shudder. Something familiar about the smell………
He switched on the two-bar electric fire they had always had in the bathroom to make getting out of the warm bath more bearable.
He lowered himself into the luxuriously hot water and switched on the radio. He liked to listen to the local radio station when he was in the bath – the mixture of mindless music and even more mindless chatter seemed to help him relax.
He heard the front door open and shut. Sarah delivering the files he’d requested yesterday – she was very efficient. In fact the shared horror of the incident on the roof seemed to have drawn them closer together. Nothing had happened so far but he felt it only needed one of them to make a move.
He called out, ‘Sarah, put the files on my desk, I’m in the bath but I’ll be down shortly’.
After a pause there was a creak on the stairs. She was coming up. She was making the first move. He was becoming aroused as he heard her coming up the stairs.
At that moment the top stair creaked and he heard her footfall coming along the landing.
The door handle turned and the door slowly opened. She stood there completely naked. She held David in her arms.
‘Rachel, how did you………….’ His voice trailed off.
‘Hello Jonathan’ she said in a voice like melting honey, ‘I see I can still arouse you. Or was that for sexy Sarah?’
He glanced down and reached for a flannel.
The scent of Georgio was what he’d sensed earlier– her favourite perfume. She’d been here earlier and followed him to the playschool.
‘I stripped off because I thought I might join you in the bath like we used to’ she said, ’But I realised coming up the stairs that it wasn’t me you wanted to join you’.
The radio beeped for 10 O’clock and the inevitable news bulletin. He was still staring at her with his mouth open when a news item made him sit upright, showering water onto the carpet.
‘Police have identified the woman who was murdered last night as Sarah de Silva. Ms de Silva, who was praised by the police for her quick thinking in preventing a tragedy in the recent rooftop suicide drama, was stabbed ferociously over twenty times in the kitchen of her basement flat. And now the weather………..’
Sarah murdered! She was here only yesterday delivering some files and collecting some letters.
‘Rachel, what have you done?’
‘Done? I’ve done nothing except exact retribution on that lying whore. You may have put me away but I can still read the papers. She deserved all she got, I enjoyed every blow. You should have seen the look of surprise on her face when I followed her into her flat. She proclaimed your innocence to the end, Jonathan, very loyal to you she was, the little tart. She even told me which playschool David was going to now when she thought it would save her skin’.
Jonathan started to rise.
‘Stay where you are’ she screamed, producing a bloodstained kitchen knife from behind her back and holding it to David’s throat. The boy was sobbing and shivering.
He lowered himself back into the tepid water.
‘That’s better’ she said, ‘Now we can talk’.
She lowered the lavatory seat and sat David on it and put the knife on the cistern cover.
‘How many times have I told you about putting the seat down when you’re finished – you are a naughty boy, aren’t you Jonathan?’ Silky, sexy voice now.
She sat on the edge of the bath. The knife was in easy reach.
She reached out and ran a hand over his chest.
‘I always found your hairy chest exciting Jonathan; do you remember……’
‘What do you want, Rachel? Why are you here?’
‘To kill you of course for your deception and betrayal; shall we call it retribution?’
‘What about David? He’s innocent. He’s not to blame for our problems’.
‘When I’ve dealt with you, David and I are going to fly off the roof of your office like Peter Pan and Wendy; and there’ll be no sexy Sarah to stop us this time, will there?’
She traced a pattern in the bubbles with her fingers.
‘The water’s getting cold, Jonathan, and we wouldn’t want you to catch a chill would we?’
She picked up the electric fire and held it over the bath.
‘No, Rachel no …please’.
‘I understand that electricity and water and people don’t mix very well, Jonathan; aren’t you going to tell me you love me before you go?’
At that moment there was a thud and the sickly smile on her face was replaced with a look of horror and she screamed and screamed and screamed.
‘Naughty mummy, naughty mummy’, said David, holding the knife in both hands and plunging it again and again into her back.
Jonathan put both hands on the side of the bath and catapulted himself out backwards as she slumped forward, still holding the electric fire, and fell headlong into the bath.
The sizzling and screaming seemed to go on and on, her blackening body jerking and convulsing and churning up the bath water.
Then she lay still, face down in the red and black tinted water; the bubbles had gone. He felt her neck for a pulse. There was none.
‘Rachel, Oh Rachel’ he sighed.
Jonathan picked up his son, and gently prised the knife from his blood soaked hands; he was now trembling and sobbing uncontrollably. He took him to the bedroom. He sat down on the bed with David on his lap and reached for the telephone.

Robert Newcombe