by K. L. Slater
Safe With Me
A Psychological Thriller So Tense It Will Take Your Breath Away
K L Slater
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Acknowledgments
Letter from K.L. Slater
To my daughter, Francesca Kim
Thank you for your love and support
From the very beginning
Prologue
So, they’re tucked up in bed at last. You take a handful of matches and you light each one, watching the burn die to a powdery black dot.
The embers in the open fireplace are dying down but there’s still the white hot core, deep in the centre, still powerful enough to help you set things good and straight one final time.
‘Two squashy seat cushions piled on the floor, four squashy seat cushions piled on the floor.’ It’s fun to sing to the tune of ‘Ten Green Bottles’.
You push the chair right up next to them so the fabrics are touching. You carefully extract two balls of molten coal from the ashes with the tongs, carefully placing each one in the middle of the cushions. Now you sit back to watch them melting in, deep down. The glowing balls sink greedily into the soft foam, and the scorched fabric cover of the cushion shrinks back as if it’s trying to escape.
There is no noise and you enjoy the silence.
Entranced, you watch as the small flames start to dance, flicking their pretty, lethal tongues. The power amazes, terrifies and comforts you, all at once. You feel the layers of protection you have tried to coat yourself with over the years being stripped away. You needed them so you had a chance of getting through each day and drunken night but you are safe now. The flames will make it safe.
You have tried to tell them many times, of course, tried to ask for help. But they didn’t understand what you were trying to get through to them. And now the rawness of your fear, your sadness – it’s here for all to see in the sharpness of the thick, sulphured air.
You mustn’t cough. You don’t want to wake them, set the sillies screaming and crying. Leave them to their dreams, they will learn soon enough.
The flames grow larger, then fuse together. You know it’s a sign that they are silently promising to help you and yet, for a second, you actually consider changing your mind. You could stomp down the flames and shout for help. You could wake them up.
Then you hear it.
‘Let us do our work,’ the flames whisper. ‘Everything will be better in the morning.’
And that’s when you decide to finally walk away.
One
Present day
Anna
The small silver car coming the other way is moving far too fast, and as it takes the bend, the driver loses control and veers over on to the wrong side of the road.
Everything happens so quickly: there’s no time for it to slow down or to even mount the kerb.
There is a hard, muted thud as the car hits the motorbike in front of me. The rider flies up into the air, sort of half-turns and lands face down in the road. As the metal bends and twists it whines like an injured animal, and my hand flies to my face, trying in vain to stem the acrid stench of burning rubber that starts to fill my lungs.
My foot slams down on to the brake, and I jump out, leaving the driver’s door wide open and the car in the middle of the road. I stand there, swallowing down the sickly taste that floods my mouth.
Everything seems to freeze in time, and a silence descends. It has a deafening quality all of its own and, for a moment, I am lost in the empty roar that surrounds me.
Then the spell is broken as the door of the silver car opens and a woman of about forty, dressed in jeans and a short pink coat, staggers out and vomits onto the side of the road. She holds her hair away from her face as if it’s somehow important to keep it clean.
And it is in that split second that I recognise her.
There is no mistaking that face.
I remind myself to breathe. My throat feels tight and dry, and my heart squeezes in so hard on itself I can almost sense it hanging in my chest like a dried-out apricot stone.
Twelve years ago, when I got out of hospital, even though I had met her only briefly on just a couple of occasions, I spent every spare minute I had trying to trace her again.
I was so young, desperate and naïve back then. With nobody to help me I hit a complete brick wall: she had simply vanished into thin air.
Eventually I was forced to acknowledge I’d lost her. Then all I could do was pray that karma really did exist and that she’d get what was coming to her for what she did to us.
And now she is here, right in front of me. Ruining yet another life.
I watch as the silver-haired driver from the black Mercedes that stopped behind me shrugs off his expensive-looking jacket and drapes it around her shoulders. He comforts her with a protective arm, murmuring reassuring words into her ear.
Something about her draws people in, gives them the impression she is a decent person.
So ironic.
Knots of people start to appear, seemingly from nowhere.
I think about getting back in my car, leaving the scene. Part of me is pulling to get away from her, but, of course, that’s not going to happen.
I could never just let go of her again.
Amid the chaos my eyes are drawn to the long, broken shape lying in the road. Pieces of motorbike are scattered all around him like fragments of jagged chrome confetti.
I ignore the rapidly growing crowd on the other side of the street and crouch down beside him, feeling for a pulse. My hand shakes as I press his wrist gently and, for a moment, I think she’s done it again, because I can’t feel any movement at all under my fingers. No sign of life.
Then his eyes flicker, and I release my br
eath.
People pour out of the small, terraced houses lining Green Road, fingers pointing and mouths all frozen wide.
I look down at him again.
He is hanging on to life by a thread; I can sense it. If he slips away now, I will never be able to forgive myself.
That terrified young girl who didn’t know what to do for the best is long gone now.
Maybe, this time, I can make a difference.
The rider has landed face down on his left-hand side. A thick pool, like ruby molasses, blossoms out from the underside of his head.
I reach down to stroke his face but I don’t let go of his hand.
He looks about my age: early to mid-thirties, I’d say. His skin is smooth, lashes long and dark and twitching as if he is caught in a dream.
Over the other side of the road, where all the attention is, she is howling.
There is barely a scratch on her but then she was always so good at playing the victim, so I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.
I try to stop staring in case I give myself away, but I’ve no need to worry – she’s oblivious to anyone but herself.
She hasn’t got a clue who I am or what she did to me all that time ago.
Granted, I look very different now. It’s been a long thirteen years; I’m much darker-haired and carry nearly four stones of extra weight. There is no trace of the naïve, slender girl who gave up her trust so easily.
See, people like her never really notice the insignificant people around them.
They go through life making their selfish decisions, leaving a trail of destruction in their wake, and never giving it a second thought.
Until it all comes back with a vengeance, that is.
Then they have to suck it up good.
I hear someone call: ‘The ambulance is on its way.’
There are hordes of people standing around now, rubbernecking.
Their eyes are trained on the motorbike rider but I don’t see much compassion, more a thinly disguised hunger for the gory details that might be revealed if they hang around long enough.
I move stiffly from my knees to my haunches and prepare to stand up, to walk away before the ambulance arrives.
I know I’ll be able to keep tabs on her now through the local newspaper reports about the accident, and I can identify myself later to the police as a witness.
A big part of me wants to stay but I learned a lot from my therapist. Like how to stand back from my thoughts and evaluate a situation calmly and logically so I make the best decision.
If I stay, I don’t think I can trust myself not to cause a scene. This time I need to make sure that every action, every step I take, is carefully planned and considered.
So that there are no mistakes.
I feel something brush over my hand and I glance down as the injured rider’s fingers close around mine.
His slate-blue eyes are bloodshot and wide open now but he seems oblivious to all the people standing around, as if he can’t see past my face.
A sharp intake of breath and he looks right at me.
‘Help me,’ he whispers.
Two
I’ve worked for the Royal Mail for just over five years.
Six days a week, I set the alarm for four a.m., and I drive to the delivery office in good time for the start of my shift at five.
My first job is always to organise the mail into postcodes according to the addresses on my round. Then I bag it up and deliver it to the residents of the Clifton housing estate, a sprawling mass of 1950s grey concrete on the outskirts of Nottingham that once had the dubious privilege of being the largest housing estate in Europe.
It sounds simple, but delivering mail correctly and in a timely manner is far from easy, and it isn’t a menial task either. Most people place great value on their mail service.
For some of the other postal workers it’s just a job but my view is that it doesn’t take that much to make a real difference to people’s lives.
Mrs Gray on Beck Crescent has ulcerated legs, so I always put her bin out first thing on a Friday morning. This summer, I cut Mr Bagley’s lawn on my day off when his arthritis was playing up.
Now, when he catches me at the door he talks non-stop about his only son, who lives in Australia. I often feel like saying: ‘And where’s your precious son when the grass needs cutting and you need your prescription fetching?’
But, of course, I never do.
My colleagues at the delivery office are a good bunch really; they seem to know just to leave me alone and let me get on with my job.
People stopped trying to draw me in to their non-stop conversations about reality TV and Coronation Street a long time ago; although, I admit, by some kind of weird osmosis, I’d probably be able to tell you what’s happening in each and every one of those programmes they discuss.
Everything had been going perfectly well at work and then, out of the blue last week, the situation changed. The management team decided we were to have a reevaluation of the delivery rounds.
When it was my turn, Jim Crowe walked over to my counter.
‘You’re not getting finished until way past three, Anna,’ he said, consulting his clipboard. ‘We think that’s because the round might be too big for you.’
It was Jim who interviewed me after I’d applied for the position five years ago. I got myself so het up beforehand I caught the wrong bus and was a few minutes late arriving.
I remember how Jim repeated one or two of the questions when I got confused and told me to take my time when I forgot what it was I wanted to say.
He took a chance on me back then; he gave me a job. I suppose he’s always sort of looked out for me a bit ever since. It’s as if, on some level, he’s always understood that I sometimes find things difficult.
He didn’t know anything about what had happened to me before though; none of them did.
‘I get the round all done, don’t I?’ I replied.
‘With an hour or more overtime you do. But we can’t keep paying it, Anna. Overtime’s expensive, and I’ve got my orders to cut the rota.’
I watched as beads of sweat settled in the bald patches where Jim’s hair was beginning to recede. I kept quiet and waited for him to meet my eyes but he just kept flicking through the papers on his clipboard.
In the end, Jim agreed I could keep my round for the time being, providing I didn’t put in any overtime claims. Very gracious.
‘We’ll see how it goes,’ he said. ‘If you’re struggling to get finished then we might have to put you on another round, possibly the Huntsmoor. I’m sorry, Anna, it’s beyond my control this time.’
I shrugged my shoulders and sauntered off but, underneath, a blistering heat seethed deep into my bones. Nobody wanted the Huntsmoor round, which was precisely the reason they always covered it with agency staff.
The dreaded Huntsmoor; a sea of dirty concrete and boarded-up windows.
It was a miracle if postal workers could get past the banned-breed dogs straining at their leashes and the heckling, hooded youths who gathered outside the multi-occupancy council houses from dawn until dusk, whatever the weather.
It made my scalp crawl to think I could end up doing the Huntsmoor round if the management made big changes.
My job kept me on track, kept the days ticking on. It helped me escape the dark days, and I didn’t want to go back there.
I made my mind up there and then that I would hang on to my delivery round at any cost.
* * *
As it turns out, I needn’t have worried.
As of today, I have completed my round within my allocated time for exactly seven days and without the need to put in any overtime.
Now the management team have no excuse but to back off and leave me alone. They can go pick on someone else because I have found a way to manage.
Manage for now, anyway.
This morning, I finished bang on time and took the empty mailbag back to the office, making sure Jim saw me hang it
up.
My customers depend on me and they don’t like change. They wouldn’t appreciate a new delivery person.
For starters, how would someone new guess that the Benson family of Buxton Crescent have all their internet shopping parcels delivered to number 86 across the road?
Who would tell the new delivery person that the immaculate Mr Staniforth, who commutes to Canary Wharf and is out of the house fourteen hours a day, likes his mail packaged together with a rubber band so it doesn’t fly all over the hallway?
It’s those kinds of details that count with people.
When I finished my shift this morning, I locked my bike up in the outdoor rack and set off back home in the car. I still wore my fluorescent jacket, and as it was still fairly mild for October I couldn’t help sweating quite a bit.
I remember feeling eager to get back home, where I could throw on my comfies and chill out with my cat, Albert, a hot chocolate and a recorded episode of Homes Under the Hammer.
That’s when I opened the car window a touch and turned the corner into Green Road.
It’s only now, looking back, I realise that every single minute of the last thirteen years has been perfectly aligned to that very moment – to bring her back to me.
Despite the fact I lost hope a long time ago that she would one day be made to pay for what she did, the truth was now crystal clear.
I was always meant to find her again.
Three
In the morning, there is a cursory paragraph about the accident in the Nottingham Post.
Annoyingly, the driver of the car is not named; but, of course, I already know her real name. Before she changed it, that is.
I assume that’s what she did, anyway. Months spent trying to find her and hitting constant dead ends smacks of someone getting a new identity and disappearing. But any anonymity she might have had has gone for good now, thanks to the accident.
Overnight, I’ve given the situation a lot of thought, and I think the most important thing I need to do is stay in contact with the motorbike victim.