The Escape

by C. L. Taylor

  He holds his breath as he presses the blue log in button. She’s bound to have changed it.

  But no. The screen refreshes and he’s in. He exhales loudly as he taps the messages icon and feels a surge of adrenalin as he looks through the messages. He shouldn’t be doing this, spying on his wife, but he can’t ignore the uneasy feeling in his gut and—

  He inhales sharply. She sent a message to her friend Helen at 9.27 that morning. The first five words are in the preview panel.

  I’m going to divorce Max.

  Chapter 13

  ‘Where’s Daddy? Where’s Daddy, Mummy?’ Elise wanders from room to room, poking her head around the kitchen bar and peering into the downstairs toilet. She’s convinced that Max is playing an elaborate game of hide-and-seek. Her face crumples as she completes her second circuit of the kitchen and she plonks herself down on the tiled floor.

  ‘He’ll be here soon, sweetheart. I’m sure he just got caught up at work.’

  On Tuesday night I asked Max for some space. I was going to talk to him about a separation but he threw me when he mentioned moving to Chester. It broke my heart, the way he was smiling at me and the way that smile slowly faded to confusion. There was a time when his suggestion would have thrilled me but so much has changed over the last few years. We’ve both changed. I’m a needy basket-case. He’s a workaholic. I never would have believed that he’d put us at risk but he has. Whatever he did or didn’t do to Paula has to be connected to his work. He’s covered so many court cases it’s inevitable that there are people out there holding grudges against him. Against us. I spent all of yesterday going back and forth with my decision but when I woke up this morning my head was clear. I knew what I had to do.

  Max said he’d be home tonight at the normal time but it’s 6.45 and there’s still no sign of him. Elise should be bathed and in her pyjamas by now but I held off a bit so she could spend some time with Max first.

  My phone pings. It’s a text from Helen:

  Sorry, sorry, sorry. I’m a shit friend. I thought I’d replied to your text. I just got your Facebook message. What’s happened?! I can ring you now if you want?

  ‘Where’s Daddy, Mummy?’ Elise asks again but this time her question is interrupted by a sharp knocking at the front door. Her face lights up and she picks herself up from the floor, hands on the tiles, bottom in the air, and toddles down the hallway towards the front door.

  ‘Max,’ I say as I release the catch. ‘I didn’t double-lock it. You could have used your—’

  But it’s not my husband standing outside the house.

  ‘Mrs Joanne Blackmore? My name is DS Merriott from Avon and Somerset Constabulary.’ He flashes his badge at me. ‘Could I come in, please?’

  There are four police officers standing outside my house: three men and one woman. The man standing closest to me is bald, with thick, black-framed glasses and a dour expression.

  ‘What’s this about?’ I touch a hand to Elise’s shoulders to reassure her and fight to keep my voice steady. There’s something about the way DS Merriott is looking at me that makes me feel uncomfortable. ‘Is it about Paula? I told the other police officer I’d changed my mind about reporting her.’

  ‘If we could talk inside, please, madam?’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course.’

  I usher Elise into the living room and am followed by DS Merriott and the female officer. The two male officers remain in the hall. Elise immediately rushes towards her box of toys by the bay window. I sit down in the armchair. DS Merriott takes the sofa and the female officer squats down by the toy box. She engages Elise in conversation, asking her which is her favourite toy.

  ‘Mrs Blackmore.’ DS Merriott inches forward on the sofa and reaches into the inside pocket of his jacket. ‘I have a warrant to search your property. We have reason to believe that you may be handling or distributing illegal drugs and this warrant gives us the authority to look in your rooms and outbuildings.’

  He hands me an official-looking piece of paper. My name and address are at the top and it’s been signed at the bottom by a magistrate.

  ‘Drugs?’ The word comes out sharply. When Elise turns to look at me I lower my voice. ‘There has to be some kind of mistake. No one in this house does drugs.’

  ‘There’s been no mistake, madam.’ He gestures towards the hallway where the two male police officers are hovering. ‘PC Beare and PC Bagnall will conduct a controlled search now. They’ll endeavour not to make a mess.’

  ‘They’re going to look through all my things? All my personal things?’ The thought makes me feel sick.

  ‘They’ll look through everything.’

  ‘There’s a wooden box,’ I say. ‘In the cupboard over there. It’s got … there are mementos inside, of a baby we lost. Handprints, footprints, a little hat. Please,’ – I glance at the two men in the hall – ‘please be careful with it.’

  They look at DS Merriott who nods.

  ‘We’ll get started then, Sarg,’ says the younger of the two.

  I sit in my seat, rigid with shock, as they head next door into Max’s home office. Their boots traipse back and forth on the wooden floorboards as they move around his study. Drawers are opened and closed, papers are riffled through. It’s like being burgled whilst you’re still in the house. This is my home. This is where I feel safe. I want to run into the office and tell them to get out.

  Instead I say, ‘Can I ring my husband?’

  DS Merriott glances down at the notepad in his hands. ‘Max Blackmore,’ he says, more to himself than me. ‘Journalist at the Bristol News. The information we received specifically pertains to you, although, if anything is recovered, we will need to talk to your husband too.’

  I feel a pulse of panic. ‘Please! I need to tell him what’s going on.’

  A muscle twitches in his jaw. ‘I’m afraid that’s not possible.’

  The two young police officers move from Max’s office to the kitchen. Cupboard doors open and shut, glass tinkles and crockery clatters as they continue their search. There has to have been a mistake, that’s the only explanation for what’s going on. Max is vehemently anti-drugs and I haven’t taken recreational drugs since I was in my twenties. This has to be down to Paula.

  ‘I think I know why this is happening,’ I say and DS Merriott give me a sharp look. ‘Did someone called Paula tell you I was dealing drugs?’

  ‘I’m not at liberty to reveal details, Mrs Blackmore. All I can say is that a warrant wouldn’t have been granted without good reason.’

  Exasperation makes my chest tighten but I keep my voice low and controlled as I tell him about Paula. As I speak, DS Merriott watches me intently but he doesn’t move. His hands remain in his lap, one on his thigh, the other covering his notebook.

  I pause for breath. ‘Why aren’t you writing this down? It could be important.’

  ‘Possibly. What did your husband say when you told him about these incidents?’

  ‘Well I … I only told him about the first time it happened. I didn’t tell him about the second time because … because …’ What do I say? I can’t tell DS Merriott about me pushing Paula or taking Dad’s medication and then forgetting to collect Elise from school. ‘Because Max didn’t take me seriously when I told him about the first incident. He said he didn’t know a Paula. But he’s a crime reporter. I imagine lots of people have a grudge against him. Whoever she is she knows him and she’s been threatening me and my daughter.’

  ‘And you didn’t think to report this?’

  ‘No. Well. I did. I spoke to someone but I … I changed my mind. I thought Paula would leave me alone. But she hasn’t. She’s done this.’

  One of the young male police officers appears in the doorway to the living room. He holds out a gloved hand, his fingers almost completely enclosing whatever lies in his palm, but not quite. I can see the corner of a clear plastic bag protruding from beneath his curled little finger.

  ‘Sarg,’ he says. ‘We’ve found something.�
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  Chapter 14

  ‘Please.’ I have to fight to control my breathing as DS Merriott leads me towards a black Ford Focus and opens the door. ‘I told you. Paula’s behind this. I don’t do drugs. Neither does my husband.’ I look up into the detective’s expressionless face. ‘Please, if we could just wait until Max gets home he’ll back me up.’

  ‘We’ll talk at the station.’

  DS Merriott puts a hand on the top of my head and lightly pushes me towards the back seat of the car. I twist around and look over my shoulder, searching for a glimpse of my daughter. She’s got to come to the station with me because there’s no one else to look after her. I was allowed to put her coat and shoes on as one of the male officers took Elise’s car seat out of my car then the female officer took over.

  ‘Mummy!’ The door on the other side of the car opens and my daughter’s curly blonde head appears. She scrabbles across the seats and parks herself in the car seat in the middle as the female officer gets in beside her.

  Elise watches me intently as I strap her in. If I give into the fear that is building inside me she’ll become scared too.

  DS Merriott, in the driver’s seat, glances back at us and I feel myself grow hotter and hotter under his appraising gaze. The metal frame of the car feels like it’s closing in and the air feels too thick and cloying to breathe.

  ‘Could you open it?’ I gesture at the closed window to my right. ‘I need some air.’

  ‘Mummy?’ Elise’s tiny fingers weave their way through mine. ‘Mummy?’

  ‘Are you going to be sick?’ DS Merriott asks over the electronic drone of the window being lowered.

  I’m too panicky to speak so I incline my head towards the window, take a deep breath of cold February air and count to three in my head as I inhale. I do the same as I exhale. I imagine myself on holiday in Rhodes with two friends, a long time before I met Max. I am lying on my back in the sea, sculling with my hands. My eyes are closed and I can feel the warmth of the sun on my face. I can hear the muffled sound of my friends’ laughter. I feel safe, peaceful, relaxed, happy. An intrusive thought pops into my mind, of the two police officers staring at me, judging me, thinking I’m mad, but I push it away. I am not in any danger. Nothing bad is going to happen to me.

  It feels like for ever before I am calm enough to speak. I sit forward in my seat, the back of my shirt clinging damply to my back, and make eye contact with DS Merriott in the rear-view mirror. I’m too ashamed to tell him what just happened.

  ‘I’m OK now.’ I reach an arm around my daughter’s shoulders and pull her into me. ‘Mummy’s OK.’

  In the last two hours I’ve been interviewed, photographed and had my fingerprints and DNA taken. I nearly had another panic attack when the female officer said she was taking Elise to a separate room but DS Merriott put a steadying hand on my arm and said, ‘The calmer you are the quicker we can do this. You don’t want your little girl to get upset, do you?’ So I played along; I gave Elise my best ‘happy, excited Mummy smile’ and told her to have fun with the nice lady while Mummy had a quick chat with the policeman.

  I felt like I was in a film, or a nightmare I couldn’t wake up from, as the Duty Sergeant told me that I was under arrest on suspicion of the possession of controlled drugs. The questions came thick and fast. Do you want a solicitor? Do you have any illness or injury? Are you suffering from any mental ill health or depression? Are you taking or supposed to be taking any tablets/medication? Have you ever tried to harm yourself?

  ‘No,’ I replied to every question. I just wanted it to stop. For them to bring Elise back to me and let us go home. ‘Can I ring my husband? Please! I’m allowed a phone call, aren’t I? He’ll tell you that this was down to Paula. She knows where we live. She’s been following and threatening me!’

  I was told that they’d ring Max in due course and then my belongings were taken away and placed in a clear plastic bag. I did everything I was told, moving zombie-like as I opened my mouth and held out my hand, but then I began to shake. They’d found drugs in my house. I didn’t know how many they’d found, or where. All I knew was what DS Merriott had said to the Duty Sergeant – that they’d found a quantity of class A and class B drugs hidden in my home.

  My panic increased as DS Merriott led me through a maze of different corridors. I tried to memorise the route we were taking – a right, then a left, then another left. By the time the detective pushed open the door to a tiny interview room, I was dripping with sweat and struggling to breathe. I took one look at the cramped space, strip-lighting and lack of window and shook my head.

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Mrs Blackmore, please don’t make this difficult.’

  ‘I suffer from agoraphobia and panic attacks. If we go into that room and you shut the door …’

  DS Merriott looked at me with a kind of weariness that suggested that he’d had the shittiest of shit days and he really didn’t want to deal with my neurotic crap. ‘You were asked by the Duty Sergeant if you suffered from any kind of mental illness. You replied no.’

  ‘I was scared. I didn’t know what would happen if I said yes.’

  ‘We could prop the door open with a chair?’ suggested the portly female PC who’d accompanied us to the interview room.

  The detective glanced at his watch and sighed again. ‘Fine. Let’s just get this done.’

  I insisted, all the way through my interview, that the drugs weren’t mine, that I didn’t know how they got into the toilet cistern and that no, I did not take drugs for personal use. After grilling me for several minutes, DS Merriott then asked about Max and whether the drugs could be his. I told him, as calmly as I could, that Max’s dad had died from a heroin overdose when Max was a child and there wasn’t anyone more anti-drugs than he was. The drugs had been planted in our house by Paula. They had nothing to do with either of us.

  He asked me to tell him again what had happened with Paula, and made a few notes on his pad of paper. Then he asked me whether I’d noticed any sign of forced entry when I’d returned home with Elise today. I told him that I hadn’t noticed any issues with the front and back doors but I couldn’t say whether anyone had tampered with the windows because I hadn’t checked them.

  At that point we were interrupted by a ginger-haired police officer who stuck his head around the door and announced, ‘The husband is here.’ I slumped back in my seat. Finally! Max would corroborate everything I’d said and I’d be let go. But DS Merriott wasn’t done with me. He dismissed the ginger-haired police officer with a nod, then continued questioning me for another five or ten minutes. Only then did he conclude the interview. I was asked to remain in the room for a couple of seconds while the two officers left. I could hear them talking in low voices in the corridor but couldn’t make out what they were saying. The female PC returned to the interview room and sat down opposite me.

  ‘We’re just going to sit here for a while,’ she said, ‘while DS Merriott talks to your husband. Normally we’d return you to a cell but,’ – she raised a hand when I gasped – ‘given your medical condition I think it’s for the best if we remain here. If you feel unwell at any point I will call for the Duty Doctor. OK?’

  I feel faint with fear. My husband is on a plastic-backed chair on the other side of the custody suite with our daughter fast asleep in his arms, and I’m back in front of the Duty Sergeant with DS Merriott standing beside me. I have no idea whether I’m about to be charged or not.

  ‘Mrs Joanne Blackmore?’ the Duty Sergeant says. He is a tall, thin man with a long nose and a prominent Adam’s apple that juts over the collar of his shirt.

  ‘Yes.’

  A clear plastic bag containing my purse, mobile phone and jewellery is pushed towards me, along with some kind of iPad and a stylus.

  ‘Sign where indicated, please.’

  I pick up the stylus. It quivers across the screen as I write my signature.

  ‘Mrs Joanne Blackmore,’ the Duty Sergeant says as he takes
it from me, ‘I’m going to release you on police bail for the officers to carry out further enquiries. You must return to this police station at 2 p.m. on the first of March unless you are informed in writing that the date or time has been changed or the bail cancelled. If you don’t turn up to answer your bail you’ll commit a further offence which could result in you being fined, imprisoned or both. Do you understand? If so,’ – he hands me the tablet again – ‘sign here.’

  Chapter 15

  ‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘For offering to sleep on the sofa tonight.’

  Max shrugs. ‘I couldn’t let you two stay here alone, could I?’

  We are sitting side by side on the sofa. The tele-vision is off, the curtains are closed and the house is silent, save the occasional crackle from the baby monitor on the windowsill whenever Elise coughs or grunts in her sleep as she turns over. Naija told me she stopped using one for her boys when they turned one but I’m not ready to give up ours yet. I used to think that I’d be a chilled, laid-back parent, but when you’ve lost one child, that innocence is gone for ever. You can never truly relax. Not when you know how fragile life is, how a strong heartbeat can stop, almost overnight.

  My fingers twitch against the rough wool of my work skirt. Work. It feels like a hundred years ago since I was sitting at my desk, answering emails from students, keeping one eye on the clock so I wasn’t a second late to collect Elise from nursery. But it was only four hours ago. I still can’t process what’s happened. I tried to talk to Max about it on the way home but he shushed me, telling me to wait until we’d got Elise home and in bed. I want to get a glass of wine so I can dull the sharp edges of my nerves but I’m worried that Max will judge me if I do.

  ‘You do believe me, don’t you? That the drugs weren’t mine.’