A Morning

I sit in the kitchen, directly in front of the stove. I dragged a chair here because it's the furthest corner from the windows, and half hidden by a pillar.

I dislike the shiny chrome coffee machine. It's too loud, and it always makes the coffee too hot to drink.

I nurse the mug in my hands, wishing the ice machine attached to the fridge could reliably and gently dispense a single cube of ice, not fire out 50 at once. I want a drinkable beverage. That doesn't seem so much to ask.

I hear the soft sound of someone approaching, and ready myself to leap out of the seat. I barely slept - I was too tense to relax - and I'm still on high alert. The best defensive weapon I have on hand is probably the mug of coffee.

A head peers around the pillar - one of the staff.

'Don't drink that!'

I look at the black liquid in my cup.

She hurries over to take it from me. I don't want to give it up.

'Why?'

'I... uh.'

She looks around, clearly frightened. She whispers;

'Poison. I couldn't do it. I can't do it.'

Ah.

'He asked you to poison me?'

'You know?'

I nod.

'He's poisoned me before.'

The statement did nothing to alleviate her fear.

'Did he threaten you with something if you didn't poison me?'

She nods.

'Do you have any of the poison still?'

She takes a small plastic canister from her pocket. There's a white powder in there.

I think this might be even better than signed documents.

'I'm pretty sure I can keep him from hurting you, at least for now. I'm going to put my arm around you, and you're going to help me to my room. You'll stay in there with me and answer the door for me if anyone comes to check on me. We're going to pretend I took the poison.'

We return to my room together, leaving a zig-zagging trail of spilt coffee on the floor. Those carpets are probably ridiculously expensive, but I need my inebriation to look real.

I sit on the floor in front of the wardrobe while she locks the door.

'Come here, sit with me.'

She complies, eyeing the window. From down here we'll be harder to see.

'I need you to tell me everything. Were you the only one he asked to poison me?'

'No - I didn't poison the coffee, I don't know if it even is. I just - they said it was the thing that you'd definitely drink, so it'd be the easiest option.'

'Jaq and Lionel drink coffee too.'

I take out my phone, readying a text to warn them both not to eat or drink anything in the house.

'Oh, oh no, he said not to hurt Jaques, he said Jaques needed to be kept safe.'

That sounds about right.

If Jaq's dead, then I think legally the entire estate goes to Isaac. None of her silly stipulations would matter any more.

'Show me the poison again.'

I snap a photo of the canister in her hand.

What do I say to make them act right?

I tell Lionel to stay in his room and consume nothing. I've confirmed we're under surveillance and in danger. He'll be safe but he needs to wait for Jaq to get him.

I tell Jaq I've been attacked and he needs to come to my room now.

'Jaq will be on his way as soon as he gets my message. I need you to answer the door and tell him I'm sick, and feign reluctance to let me in. Let him in, but try to delay him. Close the door after him. You want the others to think you're trying to ensure I'm dead before he can get me to a hospital.'

I tip the last of my coffee on the floor and lay down next to it as I send the photo of the canister to the Executioner along with a request for her to arrange a safe place for me to go and hide.

'Did he want you to contact him to let him know that you'd done what he asked?'

She nods.

'Do it.'

I feel the vibrations from Jaq's footsteps as he barrels down the hallway to my door.

'Jo? Jo?! Jo, let me in!'

The staff member opens the door and tries to tell him I'm too unwell to see him - he cuts her off by shoving her out of the way. She slams the door shut as he rounds the bed to see me on the floor.

'JO! I'm here! What's wrong?!'

He reaches down to lift me up, and I clamp my hand over his mouth, pulling him down closer. I whisper hurriedly;

'Jaq, shush, listen. We're not safe here. If you fail, I will die. You need to go get Lionel, tell him loudly you need help carrying me to the car because you don't trust ambulances. This lady will help us, ok?'

He nods, his eyes wide. I release him, and he falters - I point to the door. He leaps across the bed and dashes away, shouting Lionel's name. The sound is barely muffled when the door is shut again.

'What now?'

'Now, like I said, stall them. Force them to wait while you put shoes on my feet, direct them to pack me a hospital bag. See if you can get a bottle of water to bring - get in their way while they try to carry me out. Keep checking my pulse.'

Jaq is back at the door, the force of his knocking shaking ornaments off the shelves nearby.

'Let us in!'

She stops at the door a moment, counting to three before she opens it - it slams back against my chair with a splintering sound. I shut my eyes and try to remember how I felt last time, but I don't remember anything. There's just a void where those memories should be.

Jaq and Lionel are tripping over themselves, both trying to lift me up. I'm sure I'll be covered in bruises tomorrow.

Friendly fire.

'Hey hey, stop, get her some shoes first! She'll hurt herself if she has to walk barefoot!'

My squeamish staffer's objections are all but ignored as the two men drag me out of the room.

'The car! The car!'

'Why not an ambulance?'

'Fuck ambulances!'

I'm dragged down the front steps to the garage, the poor staffer behind us, still trying to tell them to slow down.

I'm laid in the back of a car - she says she'll sit in the back with me and make sure I'm still breathing - they let her.

Doors slam, the engine starts, and we're off.

'I got your shoes,' says the staffer, softly.

A pair of shoes are placed on the seat by my stomach.

I remain laying down and check my phone, hoping I've been sent the address for a safe place. Instead, I've been instructed to head to the Executioner's office.

'Jaq, turn left at the lights.'

'Oh Jeez, Jo, I thought you were dead!'

Lionel's face is pale and covered in sweat.

'Sorry, I had to pretend they actually got me, or he'd make them try again.'

'He really tried to have you killed?'

A tear lands on my forehead.

'I'm so sorry - I didn't think he wanted to kill anyone - at first, I thought it was cute, he was Jaques' best friend, trying to make sure his friend was okay, and he wasn't being taken advantage of, and I just kept telling him stuff to reassure him, I think the others did too, but then he kept giving us stuff, and then he told us we'd been taking bribes for information and we had to do what he said or we'd go to prison, and he had Emily's house ransacked, and then he wanted us to poison Jo...'

She breaks down into sobs. I want to sit up properly so I can hug her, but I'm meant to be unconscious, if not a corpse.

'It's okay, it's okay, you didn't kill me. I'm fine.'

My attempt to reassure her only makes her cry harder.

I try to write what she said, word for word, so I can send it to the Executioner. I'm still wearing my stupid 'personal safety' system - but I need a computer to access the recordings. I want her to know everything as soon as it's said. I can't wait for computers.

Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

We don't even need to stop at the gate to the underground car park beneath the building. The security guard opens it when he sees us. Somehow I feel safer when I hear the gate clang shut behind the car. There's nothing at all stopping someone on foot climbing over the thing, or a car ramming through it.

There's nothing to stop him from bribing the security guard or sending someone in some other way.

We circle down to a deeper level, past another guard and another gate. I feel safer again.

I roll and pull myself up, opening the door. There she is. A stern angel standing in the harsh electric light.

It's hard to believe I ever saw her as a mere military Sergeant.

'You have the vial?'

The staffer brings it to her - she holds out a plastic bag for it to be dropped into.

'Would you be willing to testify in court?'

'Yeah.'

'And you're all safe?'

I nod.

'Come inside.'

Pitch in Prison: Exposé

Popular singer and beloved heartthrob Charles Pitch has been found guilty on a litany of charges including attempted murder, solicitation to murder, assault and battery. Witnesses close to Pitch described him as a man lacking impulse control; 'He was incapable of managing his own finances, and constantly on the verge of bankruptcy.' His ongoing financial strife led him to attempt to seduce a childhood friend's ailing mother, Frances Glarean (now deceased), with the intent to take her wealth and leave her family destitute.

Four women testified to being 'intimidated' by Pitch after he had seen them in proximity to Frances' son, Jaques Glarean. Employees of the Glarean household said Pitch would frequently ask them about Jaques' relationship status. One said, 'At first it seemed sweet, like he was looking out for his best friend. Then, things got bad.' Pitch used both bribes and intimidation to maintain a network of spies within the Glarean household. One staff member said, 'It was easier to just tell him something small, something harmless, he'd leave you alone if you told him something.' These actions were part of a campaign of control and isolation perpetrated by Pitch against the Glarean family, so they would be 'too preoccupied with (their) own problems to see what was happening until it was too late.' Jaques said; 'It worked. I felt unloveable, incapable of keeping friends or getting a woman to look at me twice.'

Jaques said 'I wasn't sure what I was suspicious of, but I started being secretive with my relationships.' This secrecy allowed him to meet his current wife, Joanne Glarean (then Joanne Knight). He said, 'I only told my family about Jo when my mother tried to set me up with someone else.' He said, 'Even then, I wouldn't let them meet her until I was forced to.' The pair maintained their relationship for six months 'before Pitch found out'. According to Joanne, the intimidation started as soon as she was left alone 'for a moment' with Pitch. Joanne said, 'At one point, he called me Jaq's 'side ho', and said Jaq was only dating me to hurt him.' Jaques told the court the claim was ridiculous. 'I'm straight, I've always been straight, and I'm pretty sure I've only ever seen him with women. He said it to drive Jo away from me.'

The verbal threats against Joanne 'didn't last long' as Pitch quickly 'switched gears to physical attacks.' Video and audio footage shown to the court depicted an event one juror described as 'sick and depraved,' in which Pitch dragged Joanne semi-conscious across a parking lot until he was fought off by Jaques' stepbrother, Lionel Glarean.

'I was terrified,' said Joanne, 'He had my house burgled, looking for blackmail material. He poisoned me. He assaulted me. I thought if I didn't leave Jaq, he'd kill me.' When asked why she didn't take the footage to the police, she said 'I was too scared to try. I was sure he'd get out of it with no charges, and then he'd want revenge.'

Jaques said; 'We were all so confused. Why would he do this to us? He was my best friend.' He said, 'It came clear when I found a copy of my mother's will.' The will stipulated that, on Frances' death, all her assets would be placed in a trust to be managed by Pitch for the benefit of her family - unless Jaques was married. In that case, the trustee became Jaques' wife. According to legal experts consulted by the Manor Post, prosecuting dishonest trustees for inheritance fraud is often futile. 'If the trustee invests the fund's assets and the investment fails to achieve a return, it is difficult to prove that they intended to damage the fund unless there's a clear money trail that directly benefits the trustee. A competent accountant can hide the beneficiaries of these kinds of investments with ease.'

Jaques said, 'Once I knew (Pitch) wanted to steal my inheritance, it turned into a game of managing him so he wouldn't explode and hurt someone.' Jaques said he was unconcerned with his own safety; 'He needed me alive.' He said; 'All the risk was on my Mother and my fiancée. I didn't know if (Pitch) was capable of murder. I didn't want to risk it.'

Joanne said, 'Jaq had me tell Pitch I was an actress he hired to get Frances to stop nagging him to marry. It worked, he backed off for a little bit.' Pitch's defence maintains that Jaques did hire Joanne to act as a 'fake wife,' though they claim it was a move by Jaques to defraud his own mother. Jaques was able to produce a signed drawing with a note he had kept in his violin case 'since the day I first asked Joanne on a date.' Jaques said, 'I kept it there because it gave me comfort.' The court was able to verify the drawing's age, and was described by an attorney for the prosecution as 'The cutest receipt I've ever seen.'

While Pitch believed the couple's ruse, it had unintended consequences. Pitch began to obsessively stalk Joanne. He harassed people who had wronged Joanne in the past. He was caught in possession of 'a collection of items stolen from (Joanne's) garbage.' He sent her extravagant gifts, which she said 'frightened me just as much as the threats did.' Video captured by Joanne shows she was being followed in public by a private investigator found to be in Pitch's employment.

After Joanne repeatedly refused his advances, Pitch offered her a job building the set for his new music video. She said, 'He told me he'd make me famous. [...] I couldn't even refuse, he'd already told all these reporters I'd agreed.'

Counter to this, Pitch described Joanne to the court as a 'common slut,' who was constantly flirting with men, including himself and Jaques' stepbrother. The photographs he produced to prove his point overlapped with descriptions given by Joanne of photos used in Pitch's 'attempted blackmail.' Lionel said that they only spent time together in public 'because Jo was frightened to go out alone with Pitch around,' and 'I stopped as soon as it was clear I'd become a pawn for Pitch's games.'

Frances was admitted to hospital in critical condition. According to Joanne, Frances 'begged us to move the wedding up and have it before she passed.' Joanne said she thought Frances 'might have guessed what Pitch was up to.' Jaques said, 'I wanted to marry Jo in my own time. If I did it right then, it'd put her at risk, but it would also protect my inheritance (...) I didn't know what to do.' He said, 'We had to hold the wedding ceremony in (Frances') room so she could see it, but (Pitch) had people watching her.' He said 'I couldn't hold a fake ceremony, I couldn't lie to my Mother like that.' He said, 'We told (Pitch) our relationship was a lie, but it wasn't. I didn't mind lying to him.' The couple hatched a convoluted plot to duplicate their wedding certificate so that they would be able to 'meekly hand over the copy' to Pitch when he demanded it. According to Joanne; 'He said he wanted to destroy it himself.' The real certificate was filed in secret by a friend of the couple. Joanne said, 'I couldn't relax until I got the text saying it had been submitted successfully. I was worried he might have someone following my friend, too.'

While the wedding meant Frances' death would no longer leave Pitch in control of her fortune, Joanne's life was at greater risk. Joanne said 'I was supposed to begin work on the music video, but I was petrified of being left alone. I was desperate.' She bought a hidden body-cam with a live video feed so she could be monitored by a security team at all times. 'Even now, I'm scared to take it off.'

The purchase was well-timed. 'Pitch somehow caught wind that Jaq knew about the will.' One video clip depicts Pitch approaching Joanne at her workplace and intimidating her into getting into his car. She tries to placate him by reassuring him that she is 'doing everything (he) wanted.' He only allows her to leave when she promises she will 'report everything' Jaques says to her about the will from then on.

Jaques said, 'After that, we had to stage events to make it look like Jo was reporting on me like he said.' Jaques said, 'It was ridiculous, rehearsing scripts for dates so we could say the right things in front of (Pitch's) cronies, and then Jo could report the same thing.' He said, 'I didn't care how stupid it was, I would have done anything to keep her safe.'

Joanne said she 'had enough' of the mind games. 'A few threats, some stalking, a little assault, that's enough to put a normal person behind bars for 25 years, but when you have money like Pitch, charges don't stick.' She said, 'We needed hard evidence of his crimes.' She said, 'I reached out to friends in the entertainment industry for advice, and instead discovered there were loads of people he hurt. Pitch is a menace.'

These 'friends' have since formed a separate, ongoing class-action suit against Pitch in relation to a growing number of accusations of sexual assault and rape.

Joanne said, 'Knowing I wasn't alone made me determined. He had to be stopped. He couldn't be allowed to continue.' She said, 'All we had been doing up to that point was capitulation. We'd been letting him walk over us, like he owned us. I was mad.'

Joanne said that the next time she met with Pitch to report on Jaques' activities, 'I told Pitch I knew he was a liar. I said that Jaq showed me the will, and offered to marry me. I said I was considering it.' She said that, because she had a group of friends nearby to come to her rescue if Pitch attacked her, she felt safe telling him 'something close to the truth.' She said, 'Pitch was furious. He grabbed me and shook me.' She said, 'He demanded to know what cut I'd get of the estate - (Jaques and I) hadn't ever discussed money, I didn't even know how much the estate was worth, but I was too scared not to answer, so I said a quarter.' His counteroffer was one-third of the estate. Joanne accepted the deal and demanded the agreement in writing. She said, 'I didn't mean to negotiate with him. I don't know why I did it. It just came out.' When Pitch's defence attempted to describe this incident as 'entrapment,' the judge said 'It's difficult to claim entrapment when the defendant held the victim's arms hard enough to leave distinct hand-shaped bruises and shook her until she agreed to negotiate.' The following day, Joanne received 'a death threat by bike messenger.'

In a feat described by one witness as 'super-human,' Joanne completed construction on the music video sets in record time. She said, 'I couldn't stop working. If I took even a moment's break all I could think about was how I might be murdered any second.' On the day of the handover, Joanne said 'Pitch was too happy about everything, he was grinning. I thought he'd quibble about the colours, or ask for changes, but he just said it was great. It made me anxious.' One of the workmen who had stayed to help with the handover said, 'Jo seemed scared. She told us if we were going out to celebrate the end of the job, we should stay away from windows. She even told us to talk shit about her loudly.'

Unnamed members of the Glarean household's staff said that Pitch contacted them that night. One said 'He gave us this powder and told us to put it in Joanne's food. He said if we didn't, we'd be sorry. I didn't want to kill her, but I was scared for my life, and my children.' Chemical analysis performed on the vials of powder given to the staff members matched the drug used in Pitch's earlier attack on Joanne, but at a much higher dose. If administered, the dose would have been lethal.

Joanne said, 'I was getting my morning coffee, and one of the cleaners came and took it from me. She said Pitch wanted me dead.' Joanne said, 'We ran and hid in my room until Jaq came to get us. We pretended we were driving to the hospital. Instead, I went into hiding.'

Now that the case is over, Joanne says she's still scared to go out in public. Message boards and other online communities have sprung up under the banner of 'Jojo Hunters.' Sightings of Joanne, or women who look like Joanne are posted, allowing Pitch's supporters to harass her wherever she goes. Joanne says, 'I just want to disappear.'

Aftermath

I pull away as Jaq tries to take my hands in his.

'No, Jaq, I'm not staying.'

'But why? It's all over now. You're my wife. I'll keep you safe.'

I grit my teeth in exasperation. It feels like he believes the story we sold in court. He thinks he's a hero.

'If I stay with you, I can never go out alone again. That's not living.'

'We have a security team - you can keep them with you.'

'Do you not understand the meaning of 'alone'?'

He pauses, thinking. It's no use. There are no solutions that he can offer me that will make me stay.

'Look, I'll stay in contact with you, but I'm not staying in the country, and you can't come with me.'

The decision was daunting when I made it, but it was really the only option that would return my anonymity. It's so tiring defending a decision that is already overwhelming.

'What if-'

'No, Jaq! No. I'm not staying.'

'Then why did you marry me?'

I roll my eyes.

'You hired me to protect your inheritance. It was necessary.'

I've already told him this a thousand times. He looks like a kicked puppy every time I say it. It hurts to look at him.

The only way I can think of to stop his whining is to offer him false hope - to suggest that if he shuts up about it, I might reconsider in a few months. Then I have to deal with him in a few months when he starts whining again.

My next best option is to just disappear.

I can't quite yet - we still haven't divorced. I can't divorce him until the media drops the story... and I suspect he won't make it easy for me to leave him quietly.

Marriage is such bullshit.

False hope it is.

'How about this. You let me go without complaint, and you spend the next... I guess, year or so, trying to make yourself a better person. When people stop hunting me for ruining their rapist boy-crush's career, I'll be able to return. I'll decide how I feel about staying with you then.'

There he goes. The light of hope is practically radiating out of him. If he lived in a lighthouse, ships would never crash into rocks.

I'm a monster, but I don't have much choice. It's this, or I endure his emotional leech act forever.

I grasp the handle of my suitcase. He finally steps out of the way.

'Catch you later.'

I walk away, pointedly ignoring anything he says. I don't want to hear any more of it. I just want to get on a plane and sleep until I land somewhere far away.

I still haven't decided if I'm getting plastic surgery. I hope changing my hair and my look will be enough.

I'm looking forward to being a nobody again.