But… this was Orla. There was no mistaking that face.
She could hear Layla retching weakly in the bathroom. A chilling bolt of horror shot through her as she thought of what could have happened tonight. If she hadn’t woken, Orla would have slit her throat. And then she would have moved on and done Layla too.
Annie gave a violent shudder and thrust the images of bloody mayhem from her mind.
‘What are we going to do?’ asked Layla at her shoulder.
Annie half-turned. Layla’s face was white and tear-stained with shock. Her eyes were darting everywhere, she was trying not to look at the corpse but her eyes seemed to be pulled back to it, time and again.
‘Oh God, I did it, I shot her,’ she said, starting to cry in earnest.
Annie hesitated for a moment. Then she put an arm around her daughter’s trembling shoulders. ‘You saved my life,’ she said simply.
Layla nodded, glancing uneasily at Annie. Tonight, they were united – if only in fear and desperation. Layla stepped away, shrugging off her mother’s embrace.
‘What are we going to do…?’ she moaned.
Try to figure out what the fuck she was doing here after all this time. How she could have survived, thought Annie.
Orla Delaney should have been long dead.
Yet here she was, dead on Annie’s bedroom floor – at Layla’s hand.
Annie looked at her daughter, concerned. Layla was so straight. She even dressed straight – all those dull beiges and pale greys. Her hair pulled starkly back, never worn loose. Her face with its constant half-angry expression, never enhanced with make-up. Layla would not raise a hand to anyone. She had fired the gun in panic, not meaning to harm, not meaning to kill. But she had. And it had shaken her to the core, Annie could see that.
‘We have to get rid of the body,’ said Annie.
Layla stared at her mother as if she was mad. ‘No,’ she said, ‘we have to phone the police.’
‘That’s the last thing we should do,’ said Annie.
‘What are you saying?’ A strained half-laugh emerged from Layla. ‘She came in here with a knife. The police will understand…’
Annie was shaking her head.
‘Understand? We’re in possession of an unlicensed firearm. They’re not going to understand that, Layla. If she’d gone for us with the knife and we’d knocked her out, overcome her, that’s just about excusable in a court of law. But this?’
‘No, no…’ Layla was talking rapidly now. ‘No, wait. We were provoked…’
‘Yes. We were. But we killed her. With a gun we shouldn’t have had in the first place. That’s not reasonable force. The law wouldn’t see it as such.’