The Man I Married

by Elena Wilkes

  The room was full of pearly dawn light. I was exhausted. I lay there mute: a dried-up rag staring into nothing as the phone rang.

  ‘Mummy?’

  There was a rattle in the background and then a tiny voice.

  ‘Mummy?’

  My heart stopped.

  ‘Come on, say “hello Lucy”,’ Simon cajoled. ‘Say, “please come and find me”.’

  And then the line went dead.

  I let the phone drop from my ear. A band of pain tightened and I was shaking so hard I could hear it in my teeth. My head was screaming to tell someone – anyone. But no one was listening, no one cared. This child was just another lost soul in amongst all the other souls: a statistic, a number, a case file, an everyday unsolved tragedy. Well, I wasn’t waiting for anyone anymore. I was going to find her myself.

  Chapter Ten

  I stood with the kitchen door open watching the water pouring out of the guttering, chuckling and gurgling as it swirled down the storm drain. I loved this time of year, when September has those few October days: that thick, musty tang of turned soil and sodden leaves as the rain pounded down. I breathed in, filling my lungs with the sharp, cool air. Things smelled of endless possibilities – all dormant and hiding right now, but ready and full of promise.

  Emma scuffed into the kitchen wearing one of my old dressing gowns. Her hair was standing on end.

  ‘Gawd, it’s chilly with that open!’ She banged about a bit, all disgruntled. ‘Sleep well?’ She clattered a cup from the cupboard and poured tea from the pot. I shifted from the step and quietly closed the door and she stopped suddenly. ‘Oh! You’re dressed.’

  ‘I am.’ I winced, easing myself down onto a chair.

  ‘Are you going out?’

  I shook my head slowly, ‘Nope.’

  ‘Are you okay?’ She peered closely into my face. ‘You look a bit—’

  ‘I’m fine. It’s probably those new tablets.’

  ‘Okay. Right. Well just take it easy today, yeah?’ She sloshed some milk into the cup. ‘Look, I’m going to have to get going or I’ll catch all the traffic in this weather.’ She peered out into the patchy storm-laden sky. ‘Dunno what time Paul’s due back, do you?’ I didn’t answer. ‘I’ll pop round at lunchtime anyway and say hello. Oh, and I don’t want to find out you’ve been doing anything stupid with that foot or I shall get very cross.’ She slurped her tea deliberately noisily. ‘Do you hear me?’

  ‘I hear you.’

  ‘Right. I’ll go and sort myself out. And you, girlie, need to stop worrying yourself stupid with – Hang on—’

  I smiled up at her encouragingly.

  ‘—How come your top’s all damp? … And your hair?’ She reached out and touched the ends. ‘And you’ve got your shoes on…’ She frowned. ‘Have you been out somewhere?’

  ‘Me?’ I looked at her, wide-eyed.

  ‘That’s what I’m asking.’ She scanned my face.

  ‘Where on earth would I have been at this time?’

  * * *

  I had asked the taxi driver to wait. His yellow hazards flashed a warning into the darkness as I walked up to Simon’s door. I glanced around, watching the needles of rain slanting through the headlights and listening to the thump of music from one of the flats. I rang the top bell. There was silence for what seemed like an age, and then there was the thud of a door, and a lone figure stood in the gap.

  I couldn’t tell if it was male or female; its wraith-like shaved head bobbed cautiously in the shadows.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘I’m looking for Simon Gould. He lives in the flat upstairs. I need to speak to him.’

  ‘He’s not here.’ The eyes peered at me blankly.

  ‘Have you seen him recently? Did he have a little girl with him?’

  The head swayed loosely from side to side. ‘Dunno. The Old Bill came and got him about an hour ago. Try the nick.’

  Something like ice water ran down my spine. ‘Thanks… thank you,’ I stammered. ‘Thank you very much.’

  I don’t remember getting back into the taxi, or the pain, or the movement of the cab. I was locked in my own pounding terror as we pulled up outside Stoke Newington police station. I asked the driver to wait and made my way to the front desk to find Kath, the officer I knew, standing there.

  ‘Oh! Hello, lovely!’ She glanced up at the clock. ‘Blimey, you’re keen aren’t you? I’m assuming you’re here because… Hey, are you okay? Someone told me you’d been poorly.’

  ‘You’ve got Gould. What’s happened?’ My words gulped and choked.

  ‘You’re not, are you?’ She went to move round the desk.

  ‘Just tell me, Kath.’

  She gave me a look. ‘Well, officially, he’s breached his licence conditions,’ she kept her voice low and glanced at the other officers who appeared to be busy doing paperwork. ‘But unofficially, we got a tip-off he’d been seen with a kiddie.’

  I swayed and had to hold onto the counter.

  ‘You sure you’re alright, lovely?’ She made a grab for me.

  ‘Honestly, I’m fine, I’m fine—’ I held up a hand. ‘I just need to know—’

  But a booming male voice interrupted us as two officers appeared from a back office.

  ‘Physically, the doc says the kid’s unharmed,’ the tall one said. ‘But it just depends now if Gould will spill. He’s a weird one alright. The duty solicitor is on his way, so—’ he stopped and looked at me. ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘We’re all sorted here I think, thanks,’ Kath butted in. ‘She’s just here to get some information.’

  The officer nodded abruptly and they both stalked off. Kath shot me a look. ‘Well thank God we got him, eh Luce?’ She smiled but the weariness and sadness of it all shadowed her face.

  ‘Can I have just two minutes with him?’

  ‘You want to talk to him? I don’t think that’s—’

  ‘Please Kath,’ I pleaded. ‘Please. It’s really important.’

  She looked at the door again and then at me. ‘I can’t unlock him, so you’ll have to speak to him through the flap. Remember if the brief turns up and you’re still there I’m seriously dead.’

  ‘One minute and I’ll be out of your hair. I promise. Just one minute.’

  She gave a quick nod and gestured to the corridor housing the cells. ‘Third one down on the left.’

  * * *

  The studded door sat there in its line of identical doors: scuffed and dirty, with its peeling yellow paint. Behind it, I knew, was the horror of a boy I didn’t even recognise as being human.

  I reached up and slid the catch. The weight of the metal flap leaned against my fingers and I let it drop. He was sitting there quietly, hands linked loosely in his lap, looking straight at me.

  ‘I knew you’d come,’ he smiled.

  ‘Did you,’ I said levelly.

  He smiled softly. ‘See Lucy? I proved it didn’t I? Did you hear what that officer said? “Unharmed.” Did you hear that? You and your colleagues will be able to put me down as a rehabilitation success story. But you’re all so stupid I even managed to do it right under your noses. Good though, eh?’

  My venom rose instantly.

  ‘You’re one sick bastard, do you know that, Simon?’

  ‘Is that a professional assessment?’ he smirked.

  My anger began to burn: hot and vicious. ‘I’ll tell you what my assessment is, shall I? I’ll make sure every report from every department will keep you behind bars for the rest of your life – I’ll make it my personal mission.’

  Simon only giggled, shaking his head, and then frowned as he licked his lips. ‘Well firstly –’ he held up one finger. ‘We both know that I get everything I want from being in prison. For a start-off I’m practically a celebrity!’ He chuckled. ‘And secondly –’ the second finger rose. ‘They got a tip off, didn’t they? So where do you think that mysterious tip-off came from?’ He looked up at me. ‘I gave myself up – that’s all.’ His hands lift
ed. ‘Which will all go in my favour in court, as you know.’ He smiled his appalling smile. ‘The thing is, Lucy,’ he sighed, ‘I just wanted to see if I could get you to jump if I pulled enough strings?… And look!…’ His palms sprang apart. ‘Abracadabra… Here you are.’

  I became aware of my fingers clutching the metal door flap.

  ‘Oh, and while you’re here, Lucy. I meant to say to you. Maybe you should enrol on those offender rehabilitation courses that Doctor Webb runs in the prisons. Honestly if you want to learn about manipulation, you should sit in on one. Anything you want to know about coercion… That’s the place to learn it… So if you run into him anytime, do thank him for me, won’t you?’

  I felt the metal plate bite into my fingers. There was a sour sick taste on my tongue. I couldn’t listen anymore. I took a step back, slamming the hatch back into its housing, the echo reverberating with his voice as it echoed down the corridor behind me.

  ‘Didn’t you ever wonder why it was you, Lucy!’ he shouted. ‘Didn’t you ever wonder why I specifically asked for you?’

  The voices of the police officers at the front desk grew louder. All I wanted was to get away from the voice – to walk over that threshold, to breathe clean air.

  ‘You were like Cassie Edwards, Lucy,’ his voice rang out. ‘You were ripe for plucking.’

  My lungs fought as I stumbled through the doorway and almost fell into Kath’s waiting arms. ‘My God!’ she panted. ‘Are you okay? What happened?’

  ‘I just need to get out of here.’ The air dragged painfully into my lungs. ‘Please. There’s a cab waiting. Please.’

  A bald-headed man in a suit carrying a briefcase was coming through the door and was met by the tall officer. He was speaking but I was having difficulty catching the words. All I could feel were Kath’s arms supporting me as we slewed awkwardly towards the exit.

  ‘As Mr Gould’s solicitor, I shall be advising him accordingly, but I don’t believe, on this first charge, you’re able prove any kind of premeditation, or indeed, any intent to do physical harm.’ The words jagged through my head. We had nearly reached the door and Kath grabbed for the handle.

  ‘You’re having a laugh, aren’t you?’ the officer spluttered angrily. ‘Have you seen her? That child’s completely traumatised!’

  My head swung round to look at Kath but she blocked my view. ‘Go home Lucy. Just go home.’

  She bundled me though the door towards the taxi that was sat ticking at the kerb.

  ‘Kath—? She is okay? You would tell me, wouldn’t you?’

  But Kath only shook her head. ‘You don’t need all this Lucy, you really don’t.’

  She got me into the backseat, fussing a little, pulling the seatbelt for me, and I suddenly grabbed her hand. ‘Kath—’ the power of my grip shocked both of us: her eyes snapped up into mine. ‘How do we stop these people?’

  She gave a humourless little laugh. ‘Stop them? We can’t stop them. You heard that solicitor back there, minimising and defending him,’ she tipped her chin towards the police station. ‘Then he’ll get to court and they’ll believe he needs some kind of treatment programme: the psychologists, the psychiatrists, the case workers will all put their five pennyworth in, while people like Gould are laughing their bloody socks off while they line up their next three year old. I don’t have to tell you that.’

  ‘So what’s the answer, Kath?’ I let go a little and she patted my hand.

  ‘We’re not allowed to put him down, are we?’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘So the next best thing is to put ourselves as far away from those kinds of people as we possibly can.’ She smiled. ‘Keep the filth of them out of our lives: mentally and physically.’

  * * *

  It was raining much harder when I got home. I looked up at the closed curtains as I slid my key quietly into the lock. I knew Emma would be getting up for work soon. Tiptoeing into the living room, I looked at the time: 06:13. Pulling a throw from the sofa, and wrapping it round my shoulders, I switched on the TV.

  Cassie Edwards’s father stared back at me; it was breaking news on every station. I pressed the mute button, I just couldn’t listen to anymore. The footage, again, was of the candles and the teddy bears outside the house. Then Cassie’s smiling face: cheeky-eyed and grinning with no clue as to the horror that was about to befall her. I stared at the screen for a moment, my thoughts churning and distilling as I got up and crept up the stairs. The briefcase lay where I had left it. Gathering all the photographs together, I went back downstairs and tipped them out onto the carpet. Kneeling to the task, I began to lay out the photographs one by one, sorting and grouping them so that they began to tell a story… Paul, his babies, Caitlin… Would I ever know the truth?

  My phone bleeped to say there was a message and I glanced at it. It was Viv. I didn’t even want to listen; I didn’t care what she had to say. The TV was still flickering in the background; a newsreader’s face flashed up like a ventriloquist’s dummy. He was mouthing things that made no sense. Simon Gould. Cassie Edwards… The truth, the lies… Who knew? Maybe it was all just a good story, just like Paul’s, to lure the punters in. I concentrated hard on the image, watching the newsreader’s muted lips moving, trying to read what he was saying, as a talisman to keep the heartbreak of my thoughts at bay.

  * * *

  I knew I wasn’t going to tell anyone hat I was leaving. I was alone in the house. My case lay unzipped and still only half-full on the bed as I checked the time. I’d have about three hours before Emma reappeared.

  I knew there’d be tons of reasoning, and explanations offered, all designed to talk me round, to tell me I’d got it all wrong and that Paul was really a great guy.

  I threw a T-shirt angrily into the case. There was more trauma, less certainty, less clarity every which way I turned. There was no one to rely on.

  Screwing up some underwear I rammed it down the sides. If I could, I’d have gone back to Lou and holed up there for a while, but I knew that would be the first place that he would look. Then I thought about Broadstairs… Or Whitstable… Somewhere with no connections… Somewhere along that coast…

  I listened to the rain beating incessantly across the roof tiles. I imagined this weather and the rolling sea, the stoney beach, and being alone and extremely happy.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

  I wheeled round. Paul’s bulk stepped through the doorway.

  My legs nearly gave way at the sight of him.

  He barged past, filling the room, the shoulders of his jacket darkened with rain.

  ‘What the hell is going on?’

  I was aware of his breath coming out hard and laboured as though he’d been running.

  He glared at me, his eyes red and bloodshot.

  ‘Go on, then, tell me!’ He swung his arm angrily. ‘Go on. You’ve normally got so much to say.’

  ‘I’m going away for a while. I need to think—’ I went to move towards the door, but his arm shot out and grabbed me.

  ‘Oh no you don’t!’ He blocked my way, one hand on the doorframe. ‘You think you’re going to treat me like some kind of mug, do you?’

  I winced.

  ‘What?’ He put his face very close to mine. I got the sudden sour blast of booze.

  I felt a fleck of spittle hit me on the corner of my mouth. I involuntarily licked my lips and was instantly repulsed.

  ‘Where is he?’

  The question stunned me. ‘Where’s who?’

  He stood there panting like an animal unsure of its territory. His hair was plastered with damp; the sound of his breath whistled angrily, but there was something panicked there behind his eyes.

  ‘This bloke who you’re going off with.’ His voice was whispered and hoarse. ‘Where is he?’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘Or do I have to drag it out of you?’

  ‘Bloke? Jesus, Paul, there is no bloke! Is that all you can think of, after all that’s happened? Get out of my way.’ Grabbing up my case and fumbling with the catch,
I pushed past him, and to my amazement, he let me.

  ‘So you’re just leaving me, then.’ His voice rang out behind me as I ran down the stairs. It wasn’t a question. I was desperate to get into the living room where the briefcase was sitting waiting for me. He lumbered into the room after me, dragging his weight in heavy strides, arms flailing, before he collapsed on the sofa. His eyes were glassy. He hadn’t seen the briefcase.

  ‘I’m leaving because you’re a liar.’ I stood between it and him, hearing the calm surety of my voice, its strength, its dignity. ‘You’ve lied to me. Probably from the first day I met you. The man I fell in love with doesn’t exist. It has all been a fabrication. All this,’ – my hand spanned the room – ‘us, our relationship, is built on lies. Dirty filthy lies.’ I felt my mouth trembling, but I was not going to stop now. ‘Go on then, Paul. Tell me. Tell me about the children.’

  I waited for his face to register the shock, the surprise, but it didn’t come. He sat there, blinking up at me, his breathing audible, and then leaned forward suddenly, dropping his head, elbows on knees, his hands hanging like gloves in front of him. He hunched heavily, stupid with effort.

  ‘Did you think you could hide it forever?’ I glanced at the case.

  ‘And how did you find out?’ he mumbled dully.

  ‘These?’ I turned and crouched, flipping the catch and pulling one out. The baby sat laughing up in the bath, the suds sparkling on her nose.

  I watched him flinch. He closed his eyes and looked away. ‘Ah…’ he rocked a little. ‘So you’ve seen the ones of Caitlin too.’

  A knife drove its way straight to my heart. ‘What, this one?’ I threw the one of Caitlin wearing the scarf at his feet. ‘Yes, I’ve seen it all. The children, the two of them, and you and her. You kept the scarf and then let me wear it – My God—’ I looked away.

  His head bounced up. ‘Scarf?’

  ‘Oh don’t! This…’ I toed it angrily. ‘This… Christ. The perfect family.’ I heard the hurt and the pain and the disgust.