The real Ripley - or should I say the other Ripley - turned to me. "Who the fuck are you?" he yelled.

Only now did I realise what a momentous question that really was. Who was I, indeed? Mary Ripley - presumably identifying with the spirit I held inside me - saw her husband when she looked at me, but it was evident that Ripley did not: his uncontrollable anger each time we had met suggested he viewed me as nothing less than a rival - someone to be fought, someone to be beaten.

He saw me as his wife's lover.

And the irony was, of course, that he was right: I was his wife's lover - but that lover was himself. Suspicion makes the obvious opaque: it can paint on the plainest of canvasses the most fabulous creations and, in the process, conveniently obliterate the simple truth. Ripley, blinded by jealousy and confused by mistrust, saw what he wanted to see, his cynical mind twisting facts to make them conform to his preconceptions.

He swaggered into the room, his face already reddening with anger. Catching sight of Carlee, he rolled his eyes. "Jesus, what is this, a fucking harem? An orgy? What's going on here?" He turned to Mary and lurched towards her, peeling his hand from the butt of his shotgun and drawing it back as though ready to strike her. She cowered in the doorway in a daze of confusion.

"Please," I said.

He turned back to me. "Who the fuck are you?" he repeated, his voice deepened by anger, eyes bulging and the vein in his forehead pulsing visibly. Once more, I was astonished by the speed with which he had lost his temper: this was a man so riven by insecurity and self-loathing he was unable to view any new situation as anything other than a threat; and, unthinkingly, he turned those threats into confrontation, and from confrontation he deliberately provoked violence. Anger is the doubter's crutch: and Ripley surely needed it.

"I'm you," I spat. "I'm the evil that's inside you; I'm the jealousy that makes you kill; I'm the anger that won't let you rest. Don't you recognise me?"

His expression indicated he had made no sense of my words, and indeed they seemed to serve only to inflame him further. "Jesus Christ, don't give me any crap. God, I've seen it all now. All this time, there was me thinking it was a man 3;"

"No, you're wrong..."

"Shut up! Just shut the fuck up! I ought to break your neck." He turned away, the pain of betrayal - or so he thought - etched on his face. I stepped towards him. "Tell me you aren't?" he shouted.

"You know I'm not! It won't fucking stop you, though, will it? Jesus, you're a half-wit, man. How many times? How many times? Can't you understand, yet? Won't you ever understand?" But, watching him, observing the slack-jawed certainty on his face, I knew that he would indeed never understand. Blinkered by anger, Ripley would not permit himself that opportunity: instead, it was too easy to hate. That was why he was inside me, his hatred so virulent it was perpetuated after his death, bubbling and simmering, smouldering for eighteen years and then thirty-six, before awakening and erupting in a blaze of violence once more. I felt sick. The corollary was too awful to consider: in another eighteen years it would happen again: little Jane would be revived so that she could be sacrificed once more on the altar of her father's insanity. And it would happen again, eighteen years after that, and again, and again, onwards, forever, the desperate Ripleys trapped in an endless cycle of death and revenge. Their pain affected me deeply but, if I was being honest, the most distressing thought was that I, too weak to resist, was complicit in the murder that had been and was yet to be wreaked.

The injustice screamed at me, grabbing at my heart and twisting it. I couldn't allow this to continue: I couldn't allow these innocent women to spend eternity as victims in a triangle of hate. Ripley's eyes were on mine, his face seething with anger - unreasonable, unreasoned, and uncontrolled - and I felt a surge of detestation. His smug face - so certain in the fantasy world of betrayal and retribution which he had shaped, the unnecessary anger, the certainty that he could manipulate any occurrence to suit himself - they all combined to unleash my fury. A fireball of rage exploded in my chest, all my pent-up frustrations turned on the man before me. I grabbed the poker from the fireplace and brandished it in front of him, millimetres from his nose. Taken aback, he stepped away, the first glimmer of fear showing in his eyes.

"Harriet," cried Carlee. "What are you doing?"

"It's over!" I yelled - and it was true: I felt a moment of liberation, then, as I decided irrevocably on a course of action. I advanced towards Ripley, eyeing his shotgun nervously. He may have lost the initiative in this particular enactment of our history, but nonetheless I was mindful of the threat he posed: after all, he was part of me, and I couldn't deny his power. I had felt the utmost revulsion when I had discovered the truth, when I became aware that he was lurking inside me, but as the minutes passed I had begun to grow accustomed to his presence, even feeling that I was coming to understand him; and as my understanding increased, my fear dissipated. He seemed diminished, even as he stood before me with his shotgun: it seemed less an obstacle and more a minor inconvenience. The aura around him - that air of violent, casual malevolence - was fading, and I saw Ripley for what he was - a bully and a coward who hid his insecurity behind a wall of anger.

He was pathetic, a squirming, unworthy brute. For years he had preyed on the frailties of those who loved him and fed his ego on their terror. Now, he stood before me, quaking, his eyes revealing, at last, his own fear. Disgust washed through me and I shook my head, never taking my eyes from his, silently transmitting the knowledge of what I was about to do: I fancy he already knew what was about to befall him - at least, I hoped so. I drew my arm back and trained the poker on him. Adrenalin firing through my body, I swung hard and crashed it against his shotgun, the searing clatter of metal on metal rending the air. I was ready for the kickback this time, relaxing my grip as contact was made, but Ripley was taken by surprise and screamed, dropping the gun and flexing his fingers in pain. His face was masked by fear as I stepped forward. This was my chance. This was the chance to rid the world of Ripley, to finally end the nightmare, to allow Jane to rest in peace.

Mary Ripley screamed as I moved towards her nervous husband. There was a clamour of voices around me, but I was fixed on my goal: to my cost, I had been deflected the last time this had happened, but not now: the stakes were higher, so much higher. Two-handed, I swung the poker again, like a broadsword, flat and fast, and struck Ripley on the upper arm. I was surprised by the level of resistance, the poker recoiling in my hands every bit as much as it had when it collided with the metal gun barrel. Ripley fell to the floor, screaming and clutching his arm. His leg was stretched in front of him, foot flat against the carpet, gaining a purchase and sliding backwards as the terrified Ripley tried to retreat from me.

But there was no escape.

I scented victory. Whatever fear I had felt was gone and I knew that, finally, I had triumphed over Ripley. He cowered beneath me, mumbling in fear, his eyes pleading, defenceless. I struck again, slashing across his left cheek, slicing through the flesh and creating a bloody tear from his ear to his mouth. Instantly, he fell silent, the pitiful wailing stopped by the shock of the blow. With barely a pause, I brought the poker back down, sluicing this time across his right cheek and creating an elegant mirror image of the first wound. Ripley covered his face with his hands, but his eyes stared out between his fingers, watching me disbelievingly, beaten and dulled. I sharpened my angle of delivery to avoid his hands and brought the poker down hard on his ear, feeling it kick as the bone of his skull crumbled beneath the impact. Ripley's blood was splattered over my legs and arms, the sweet, dense smell filling the room. I was oblivious of everything around me: this was a task which needed to be done, for the sake of Mary Ripley and Jane; and while I had approached it with resignation, I couldn't deny that the final triumph over evil was immensely satisfying. I slashed at his ear again, the poker melting into the broken flesh, and the contorted shape of his face told me I had shattered his skull. Pausing for a moment, I took in the bloodied and beaten shape before me, before raining down blow after blow on his disgusting body, twenty-four in total, each one for Mary and Jane, their years of torment repaid in kind and in full. By the time I had finished, my arms aching, my chest heaving, blood pulsing in my head, he was an unrecognisable heap of detritus, sprawled lifeless on the living room floor, blood pooling sinister and warm around him.

Ripley was no more. The nightmare was over.

I turned round, still brandishing the poker, now glistening crimson and black. Three faces stared at me, dumb with shock. Carlee was crying, her face contorted as great, heaving sobs spasmed from deep within her chest. Jane's moon face, so slight and pale, reflected sorrow and regret; and Mary Ripley held her head in her hands, shaking.

I felt a surge of anger. Was this their gratitude for what I had done? Done for them - to release them from the prison of history. Their mute indignation felt like a slap in the face.

"What?" I yelled.

"What have you done?" whispered Jane.

I looked round at the bloodied body of Ripley, then turned back to my inquisitors. "You know what I've done. We agreed. It's why we came here."

"But not like that 3;"

"'Fuck's sake. Killing is killing. It's not pretty. What did you want me to do? Say 'excuse me Mr Ripley, would you mind very much if I killed you now?' Jesus!" Carlee shook her head, a look of deprecation in her eyes. I stepped towards her and she backed away, eyeing the poker apprehensively. In the name of God, I thought, what a drip: as if I would do anything to hurt her. For goodness sake, I loved the woman - I would never harm her. I reached for her hand but she pulled away again, moving beside Mary and Jane, and the three of them stood watching me, their eyes betraying their thoughts.

Victims.

All of them - victims. None had the courage or the ability to resolve their own problems: they relied on me, and when I had done their ugly business they shied away in horror, disapproving of the work done on their behalf.

Losers.

All three of them. I shook my head, realising that I had wasted my time: my efforts would resolve nothing, because Jane and Mary were too weak to help themselves. Given a lifeline, they chose instead to flounder in the waves, slowly drowning in their own ineffectuality.

"Pathetic," I snorted, turning my back on them and admiring my handiwork on the carpet. Blood was oozing from his right ear, viscous and dark, like oil from a can; it bubbled and frothed on the carpet, the pool growing larger by the second, like an exclamation mark drawing attention to the important point of an inconsequential death. Now that life had been eclipsed, it didn't look like a body any longer: it was heavy and inert, flattened against the carpet as though trying to dissolve into it. I kicked the trailing leg and the foot twitched desultorily, like the tick and tock of a pendulum - but Ripley's pendulum had stopped.

Carlee broke ranks and walked towards me. She was white, almost as white as Jane, and she bit her lip, gripping so hard that it, too, was white, all blood drained from it. Her eyes told me everything. I shook with anger, furious that I was being blamed for doing what all of us had agreed was necessary. Some people can't stomach reality. She stepped so close I could feel her breath on my face. Staring into my eyes, she inhaled deeply. And she spoke: "Who are you?"

What kind of a lunatic question was that? Who was I? I was only the person who had had the guts to carry out the mission, the one with the resolve to kill Ripley and end his tyranny. I looked down at his body, bent and defeated, his face in his hands, fingers bloodied and broken, a symbol of hate brought low by my courage. I kicked at his arm, knocking the hand clear of his face.

Except there was no face.

Where, once, Ripley's features had been was a mass of flesh and blood, unrecognisable as a human being. His nose had disappeared inside the skull and the eyes and mouth were concealed beneath a mass of congealing blood.

The body before me had no face. It had no identity. It was nobody. My blood froze. I stared at Carlee, revulsion washing through my body as a horrible glimmer of understanding filtered into my brain. I felt, at once, a towering anger and debilitating fear; I saw Carlee as both enemy and lover, helper and obstacle; and my thoughts were assailed by staggering doubt and blistering certainty. Two conflicting emotions: two conflicting minds.

The body in front of me was nobody. It was not Ripley. Which meant only one thing.

Ripley was still in me.

On to part twenty