The Escape

by C. L. Taylor

  He hadn’t expected to be able to board a flight the next morning. His forehead was damp with sweat and his shirt was clinging to his back as he approached border control in Dublin airport. He felt sure that his passport, or the replacement he’d ordered for Elise, would spark some kind of alert and he’d feel a heavy hand on the back of his jacket. But none came. The border control officer gave him a long look, transferred his gaze to Elise and then nodded them through.

  And now here he is, walking through Bristol airport with his daughter in his arms. There’s just a few hundred metres between him and freedom. It’s a shame he isn’t going home with the ten grand as well as his daughter. God knows what will happen to that. But at least Elise is safe. That’s the most important thing. And he’ll find a way to get Paula off his back. Maybe he’ll sell the house and move up north. He could buy a place in Tynemouth or Whitley Bay and work in Newcastle. Elise would enjoy living beside the sea.

  An image of Jo’s anguished face as the wave closed over her flashes through his mind but he blocks it out. Just like he’s blocking out the conversation he’ll have to have with Elise about where she’s gone.

  Jo was ill, he tells himself, as he walks through the green ‘nothing to declare’ doorway. And she was getting worse. Even if she hadn’t died the chances are the court would have ruled that she shouldn’t have any contact with Elise. She’d gone on the run instead of taking their daughter to the paediatric unit at the hospital. That was an admission of guilt as far as he was concerned. And to think she’d blamed him for that! Her level of self-deceit was astonishing, even at the end.

  He’s nearly through the ‘nothing to declare’ hallway now. There are two uniformed customs officers, standing by a table to his right. Should he acknowledge them or ignore them? he wonders. Ignore them, he decides. His arms are growing tired after carrying Elise all the way through the concourse but he doesn’t shift her into a more comfortable position. He doesn’t want to attract any attention. He just wants to get out of there, find his car and get home. He can already imagine the expression on his daughter’s face when he shows her all the wonderful new toys he’s bought her and—

  ‘Mr Maxwell Blackmore?’ Two uniformed officers and a blonde-haired woman in a suit step in front of him, blocking his exit from the hall.

  He freezes, fighting to keep his breath steady. They’ve come to tell him that Jo is dead. That’s all it is. No need to panic. No need to run.

  ‘Mr Maxwell Blackmore?’ the woman says again.

  This time he nods and one of the police officers places a firm hand on his arm.

  Chapter 68

  ‘Elise!’ I come to with a start, arms flailing, snatching at the air, trying and failing to grip my daughter’s red winter coat as she floats away from me. My chest is burning, my ears are ringing and my hands, as they pass in front of my face, are pale and blurry. I can’t hold my breath for much longer. The instinct to inhale is too strong.

  ‘Breathe, Jo, breathe.’ A woman with dark hair and a strong Polish accent appears beside me. She tentatively touches me on the shoulder. I twist to knock her away but, as I do, a searing pain shoots through my side.

  ‘Jo, you’re in hospital. Remember? You have cracked ribs and severe bruising. If you are in pain I can give you some drugs.’

  ‘My daughter!’ I try to struggle up to a sitting position but the pain is more than I can bear. ‘Where’s my daughter!’

  ‘Jo. It’s OK.’

  ‘No, it’s not.’ I grab hold of her wrist. ‘It’s not OK. I need to know where my daughter is. My husband took her! We were on the beach in Clogherhead and—’

  The nurse twists her wrist from my grasp. ‘I’ll get someone who can help. Don’t move. You need to stay still.’

  As she pulls back the curtain that surrounds my bed I ease myself onto my back and stare up at the whitewashed ceiling. Tears run down either side of my face and drip onto my neck as I clench the sides of the bed. My chest, beneath my cracked ribs, feels hollowed out. When the wave closed over me I thought I would die. I closed my eyes, I curled myself up into a ball, took a long deep breath and prayed that it would be over quickly. When I was younger I feared death. The unknown terrified me. Would I, as Mum drummed into me, go to heaven and be reunited with Jesus? Or, as someone in the playground told me, would it be more like a light switch – a darkness that lasted for eternity? But as I waited for the sea to crush the last breath out of my lungs it wasn’t my fate I worried about, it was my daughter’s. I couldn’t bear it, the thought of her small face crumpling with a grief she didn’t understand. The tears. The confusion. The dawning realisation that, no matter how many times she called for Mummy, Mummy wouldn’t come.

  And so I fought. As the sea lifted me up and crashed me down against the rocks I told myself not to panic. If I panicked, I’d run out of air. I’d gulp seawater. I’d drown. But it was hard not to panic as the rocks slashed at my arms, my legs, my face and my skull, and my lungs burned and every fibre of my being urged me to unstop my throat and breathe. I waited and I waited and I waited for my head to break the surface of the waves and, when it did, I sucked in the cold, cold sea air, only to be pulled back down again. Down, down, tossing and turning and tumbling. And then another gulp. And back down. It felt like for ever, that torturous cycle, and I felt myself grow weak as the cold seeped through my skin and into my bones. And then there was a tug on the back of my jacket. I thought it was a riptide and I lashed out with my arms and my legs and I battled, but then I was lifted up, up, up and my eyes stung and my breath rasped in my throat as my body, my soaking wet, lead-weight body was dropped onto the floor of the lifeboat, slipping and sliding like a landed fish. I saw a man’s face, peering into mine, telling me to breathe. And then everything went black.

  ‘Jo?’

  There is concern in the Polish nurse’s voice and I don’t turn my head at the sound of the curtain being pulled back. I already know that it’s not my daughter stepping silently through the gap. She’s not in this hospital. She’s not even in Ireland. She’s gone.

  ‘Jo? It’s Mary.’

  I slowly turn my head to the left as my landlady tugs the chair out from beside my bed. She winces as she sits down, but it’s not the sound that makes my heart constrict, it’s the lump on her forehead like a large, flat mushroom, swollen and puffy, and the violent black and purple bruising above her closed right eye.

  ‘Mary?’ A fresh tear runs down the side of my face. ‘Mary, I’m so sorry.’

  ‘No, no.’ She presses a hand over mine and squeezes it. I don’t resist her touch. There is no fight left in me.

  ‘He hit you.’

  ‘No.’ She shakes her head, then grimaces. ‘I hit the side of my head on a rock when Max tried to grab the phone.’

  ‘I shouldn’t have run … I should have made sure that you were—’

  ‘No.’ She tightens her grip on my hand. ‘You did the right thing, Joanne. You tried to protect your girl.’

  ‘But I left you. I left you on the beach. You could …’ My throat tightens and the words dry up. Mary could have drowned. So could Elise. I risked everyone’s lives because I couldn’t bear to be parted from my daughter. I never should have left Bristol. I should have taken Elise to the hospital. I should have fought Max in the courts. I told myself that Elise would be safe in Clogherhead but it wasn’t my daughter who would feel safe there, it was me. I didn’t do what was best for her. I did what was best for me.

  ‘Why did you help me?’ I whisper. ‘I thought you were going to give Elise back to Max.’

  ‘I was going to,’ she says softly. ‘I wanted to believe all those awful things he told me about you. I wanted to believe that Liam O’Brien’s daughter was as evil as he was. It felt like retribution, you know, for what had happened to Niamh. He’d taken my child so I’d punish his. As I walked across the sand with Elise in my arms I didn’t care about what was right or wrong, forgiveness or the Church. I wanted you to hurt as much as I was hurting. I wanted
you to know how violent the pain is when your child is snatched away. I wanted you to suffer for the rest of your life, just as I’d suffered.

  ‘I’m not proud …’ Her face crumples as she lowers her head, unable to meet my eyes. ‘I’m not proud of the woman I was in that moment but the anger I was carrying in my heart … the pain I’d felt when I found the photograph in your room … it was so powerful. It consumed me. When you ran up and tried to snatch Elise back I felt certain that I’d done the right thing but then Max took hold of you and you pleaded with me. You appealed to me, one mother to another, and I could see the fear and desperation in your eyes. And little Elise, she wanted you, Jo. She was fighting to get out of my arms so she could be reunited with you. And then you and Max started fighting about who had hurt her and I didn’t know which of you to believe. I’d never forgive myself if I made the wrong decision. That’s when I decided to call the guards and Max attacked me. I knew then who’d hurt the child.’

  ‘Oh, Mary.’ I search her face, looking for anger and resentment, but all I can see is sorrow. A deep, deep sorrow that makes my heart twist in my chest. ‘I’m so sorry you got dragged into all this. I swear I didn’t know about Niamh or what Liam did. I promise you, Mary. There’s no way I would have come back to Clogherhead if I had.’

  ‘I know. Brigid told me.’

  ‘You’ve spoken to my mum?’ I can’t hide the shock in her voice.

  ‘Yes.’ Mary nods.

  ‘But I thought … I thought you hated her.’

  ‘I never hated her, Jo. I said some people thought she knew more than she was letting on. I never did, not in my heart, not after a lifetime of friendship. But Brigid never once rang me or set foot in my door after Liam was arrested and I was hurt. I was so, so hurt. I thought she was a coward, for slipping away in the middle of the night like she did. She left me when I needed her most and I could never forgive her for that.’

  ‘But you’ve spoken to her – recently?’

  ‘I got her number from your Auntie Sinead.’

  Sinead? So Mum hadn’t just sent birthday and Christmas cards to her relatives. They’d been ringing each other too. What else has she kept from me?

  ‘I thought they’d lost touch too,’ Mary says, reading the expression on my face. ‘Not that I ever asked. I only know Sinead to say hello to at Mass. We keep our distance otherwise. But I went round to her house, yesterday, after the doctors said you still hadn’t woken up, and I asked if she had Brigid’s number. I had to let her know what had happened to you, Jo.’

  ‘Was it OK, the phone call?’

  ‘We talked for a very long time. About you, about the past. She told me about Andy.’

  ‘What about him?’ I can’t tear my eyes away from Mary’s face. Is that why she looks so sorrowful? Has Dad died? ‘Please, Mary. Please tell me. I need to know.’

  She gently touches my hands. ‘He’s sick, Jo, but he’s hanging on. Brigid thinks he’s hanging on to say goodbye to you.’

  ‘Oh God.’ Fresh tears fill my eyes. Poor Dad. Poor Mum.

  ‘Did Mum … did she mention …’ I am desperate to ask Mary if she’s heard anything about Elise. I wanted to ask her the second she appeared from behind the curtain but I’m too terrified to ask the question. I don’t know how I’ll cope if she tells me that Max and Elise have disappeared.

  ‘Max was arrested at Bristol airport,’ Mary says. ‘His editor gave the police some files. Voicemail messages or something, Brigid said.’

  It worked. Oh, thank God, it worked. When we were on the beach, standing beside the car, I didn’t know if 999 would connect to the police so I made a split-second decision and tapped 5 on my phone instead. As I goaded Max into telling me the truth about what he’d done I prayed that the call would go through to Fiona’s voicemail. If I escaped it would give me the evidence I needed to prove that I wasn’t an unfit mother and that Max had staged the whole thing.

  ‘And Elise?’ I ask. ‘Where’s Elise?’

  ‘She’s in the hospital but your mammy’s seen her. She’s not sick, she’s just being observed.’

  ‘Oh my God.’ I turn my head away as tears stream down my cheeks. The relief I feel is unbearable. She’s safe. Elise is safe. And my dad’s still alive. I try to push myself up and into a sitting position. I should be with them. I need to get out of the hospital and onto the first flight back to the UK.

  ‘No, no.’ Mary applies gentle pressure to my shoulder. I’m so weak I immediately slump back onto the pillow. ‘You need to get your strength up, Joanne. You’re no good to anyone like this.’

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ I look up into her soft, lined face. ‘Why are you helping me? Why are you being so kind when my family are the reason you lost your little girl? You should hate me.’

  Mary looks at me for the longest time then she reaches into the pocket of her cardigan and pulls out a white handkerchief. She touches it to my cheek and softly dabs at my tears.

  ‘How could I hate you?’ she says softly. ‘You were just a little girl when it happened. I wasn’t the only one who lost everything that day. You did too.’

  Chapter 69

  Mary walks slowly along Clogherhead beach, her sandals in one hand, a picnic basket in the other. She curls her bare feet as she walks, relishing the sensation of the warm sand between her toes, the sunshine on her face and the warm breeze in her hair. The sea, so wild and angry just four months earlier, is still and serene – a sparkling grey-blue sheet that stretches as far as the eye can see. The glorious June weather has lured the tourists out of their holiday chalets and the locals out of their homes and the beach is alive with the sound of laughter and chatter.

  Jo and Elise, several feet ahead, are hand in hand. They dawdle rather than walk, distracted by the pretty shells and stripy stones that catch their attention. Elise breaks contact with her mother, dips down and snatches up a shell then drops it into the blue bucket she’s filled with seawater. Her tinkling laughter drifts towards Mary. No one is in a rush to lay a blanket on the sand and tuck into the lunch that she prepared that morning. Least of all her.

  Mary turns her head to look at the dark-haired woman walking alongside her. Brigid’s face is more lined than it was thirty years ago. Her hair is finer, her waist is thicker and there’s a looseness to her jawline that matches Mary’s own sagging jowls, but she’s still the same Bee. Her blue eyes still sparkle when she becomes animated, her lips still thin into a tight, straight line when she disapproves of something, and her laugh is still horribly, wonderfully raucous.

  ‘How are you?’ Mary asks. It’s their second day together and the awkwardness that accompanied their reunion, in the hallway of Mary’s B&B, has long since vanished. Mary barely slept the night before Brigid arrived on a plane from Manchester. She oscillated between fear and excitement. Jo had reassured her on the telephone that Brigid was desperate to see her, but what if the reality didn’t match the expectation? What if they were cold with each other? What if thirty years had changed them beyond recognition? What if too much damage had been done? They’d stared at each other in her hallway for one minute, two, three, neither of them saying a word, not even when Jo announced that she was taking Elise down to the beach to give them a moment. But the second the front door slammed behind her Brigid blurted out, ‘Forgive me, Mary. Please.’ And then there were tears and hugs and tea, lots and lots of tea, as they both talked themselves hoarse.

  Now, Brigid gathers her thin cardigan around herself. ‘I was just thinking how much Andy would have loved this.’

  Mary nods. ‘Patrick too.’

  ‘He was a good man.’

  ‘The best. I just wish I’d met Andy. He sounds like a good man, from everything you and Jo have said.’

  They share a look, loaded with meaning. Both single, both married and now both widowed. Neither of them mentions Liam. They did talk about him, on the first night that they were reunited. They talked about everything that had happened and then, with neither of them actually saying th
e words, they decided to leave the past where it belonged.

  ‘I’m glad Jo got to see Andy before he passed,’ Brigid says softly. ‘A week. That’s what the doctors gave him, but he held on for nearly three times that.’

  ‘He wanted to say goodbye.’

  ‘Yes. I think he did. And he was at home when he passed. That was important to him.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Brigid.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She nods and the two women fall into a companionable silence as they watch Jo trying to teach Elise how to skip a stone across the sea.

  ‘They look so happy,’ Mary says.

  ‘They are. But there was a horrible couple of weeks when we weren’t sure if Jo was going to get her back.’

  ‘I didn’t know that.’

  ‘No, Jo doesn’t like to talk about it but, after Max was arrested and Elise was taken to the hospital, Social Services stepped in. Jo wasn’t allowed to see her. Not until the hospital could be sure what had caused Elise’s bruises.’

  Mary’s hand flies to her chest. ‘Bruises?’

  ‘They found them all over her little body when they checked her over. Jo told them Elise must have got them when they fell onto the rock but, for a while, the doctors were convinced that someone had hurt her.’ Brigid closes her eyes for a split second, as though she can’t bear to relive the memory. ‘It was a horrible time, particularly for Jo, but then blood tests showed that Elise had a virus. Comes on sometimes after a cold or what have you and it makes little ones bruise more easily. I can’t remember the name. Idiopathic thrombo–something.’

  ‘So no one hurt her?’

  ‘They don’t think so, no. Jo’s friend Helen gave the police the photos of the bruises on Elise’s body after someone broke into the house, and Max admitted that he was there that night. He said he wanted to make sure that she was safe after he was attacked and he had to grab her to stop her from falling when she tried to climb out of her cot. The doctors can’t say for sure but they think the bruises were caused by the same virus. Jo said that Elise was sick before they left Bristol, a temperature and snotty nose and so on.’