He Will Find You

by Diane Jeffrey

  My mother-in-law must hear tension in my voice. ‘Is anything wrong, Kaitlyn?’ she asks over the phone.

  ‘No. Everything’s fine,’ I tell her. ‘I just thought I’d go out and meet up with a friend. Someone I met at the pool.’ I’m past caring if this gets back to Alex. Anyway, he seems to sense that I haven’t settled in since I’ve been back and I think he’s worried I’m not going to stay. He’s being very careful about what he says and does at the moment. I don’t think he’ll make a song and dance about me going out with a friend.

  When Sandy arrives, she takes one look at me and says, ‘You’re looking a bit peaky. I expect it’s your baby blues.’

  I’m about to protest, tell her I’m not depressed, when she adds, ‘Go out and have some fun. I’ll look after Chloe.’

  I pull on trainers and a light jacket, pushing my purse into the jacket pocket. I park my car in Ambleside and meet Vicky outside the estate agency. Then she drives her company car – the one with the Swift and Taylor Properties stickers on each side – as far as her mother’s house.

  ‘More room in this one,’ says Vicky, after she has loaded two of the dogs – the Great Dane and the golden retriever – into her mum’s silver hatchback. ‘And no dreadful adverts on the doors.’ As we set off for Troutbeck, Vicky is in high spirits. Her happiness rubs off on me a little, although it doesn’t completely lift my mood.

  ‘I’ve got some good news,’ Vicky says. ‘My offer has been accepted on the place I told you about! I can’t wait to move in!’ She describes the ground-floor flat, part of a converted church, which Vicky says has views of the fells beyond the garden. She’s so excited that for a moment I feel envious. I haven’t grown to love the Old Vicarage as I’d hoped, but I love the sound of Vicky’s cosy new home. ‘A new start,’ Vicky continues. ‘On my own. With the dogs.’

  ‘Do you think you’ll feel a bit lonely?’

  ‘No,’ she says. ‘My mother is kind and caring, but she’s hard to live with. And my fiancé treated me very badly. And yet, I stayed until he finished with me. Afterwards I realised how much happier I could be without him. I’m looking forward to being by myself for a while.’

  Vicky flashes that wide smile of hers at me as she parks in the pub car park. We let the dogs out and begin our ascent of Wansfell Pike. When we get to the top, we sit down on the ground side by side and I hug my knees to my chest. Vicky says the views are breathtaking on a clear day. I look out across the water at a stretch of land in the distance, barely visible through the veil of cloud. I have no sense of direction, but it occurs to me that this expanse of water might be the Irish Sea.

  ‘Could that be Northern Ireland, do you think?’ I ask Vicky, thinking of my mum. I like the idea that from where I’m sitting, I can see where she came from.

  ‘No. Those are the Coniston Fells over there.’ Vicky points. ‘And that’s Lake Windermere.’

  ‘Oh.’

  I got that wrong. I feel a quick stab of almost physical pain. It leaves me short of breath. I feel a long way from home. Further than ever right now. I wish my mum were here to hold my hand and tell me that everything will be OK. Because I’m no longer sure that it will be.

  ‘What on earth’s the matter, Kaitlyn?’

  It’s only when I hear Vicky’s words and clock her worried tone that I realise a tear has made its way down my cheek. Followed by another one. And then a torrent of tears. It’s a while before I can tell her what’s wrong.

  And then, like the tears, it all gushes out. I start at the end with the red heart necklace. Then I let things unravel backwards. I tell Vicky about the parcel; I tell her about Hannah and Kevin. I explain that I met up with Alex in Exeter, which resulted in us conceiving Chloe. I tell her I’m feeling cut off from my family and friends. I describe the knot in my stomach that just won’t go away. And I finish with Alex’s moods and controlling behaviours.

  ‘Even when he’s telling the truth now, I think he’s lying to me. I’m getting paranoid,’ I say.

  It’s cathartic, putting all of this into words, but at the same time I feel disloyal. I usually jump to Alex’s defence instead of criticising him. I justify his actions in my head all the time by finding fault within me. Now I’m admitting out loud what I really think deep down, I realise I won’t be able to deny any of this to myself anymore.

  Vicky listens to it all without interrupting. She puts her arm around me and I lean against her.

  ‘It sounds like a rather abusive relationship,’ Vicky says.

  ‘But he doesn’t hit me,’ I argue, ‘and he’s an excellent father.’ Here I go, sticking up for Alex. It’s second nature. ‘And we have some really good times.’ Now I sound a bit like my mother-in-law.

  ‘Sometimes psychological abuse can be much more insidious than physical abuse.’

  She pauses. I say nothing, but I think: she’s an estate agent, not a psychologist. How would she know? Then I feel angry with myself because I realise she’s probably right.

  ‘If you ever need to talk about it or if there’s anything I can do to help …’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I don’t know about you, but I’m starving,’ Vicky says, getting up and taking my hand to pull me to my feet.’

  I’m about to say that I have no appetite whatsoever, but then my tummy rumbles faintly. It’s loud enough for Vicky to hear and she persuades me to have a pub dinner with her in The Mortal Man, where we started out on our walk.

  As we begin our descent, the sun breaks through the cloud and I realise I’ve forgotten my sunglasses. When we’re at the foot of the fell, I ring my mother-in-law, who tells me Alex is home and puts him on. I haven’t had time to think up a story, and there have been more than enough secrets and lies, so I say I’m having dinner with a friend. I half-expect him to be brusque, but he sounds upbeat.

  ‘I understand. You have a lovely time,’ he says. ‘Chloe and I will be fine.’

  I’m still not that hungry, so I order a bowl of soup. Vicky wants me to try a local beer, Black Sail, which turns out to be a meal in itself. A liquid dinner. I don’t usually like stout, but this one tastes a bit chocolatey and I think I could get used to it. We sit outside in the beer garden, soaking up the last rays of sun and taking in the panoramic views. Out here, I can breathe again. Fill my lungs with fresh air. Out here, I can tackle the thoughts crowding my head, with the green hills stretching away from me, and Scooby and Shadow stretched out at my feet.

  As I watch the sun go down, I resolve to talk to Alex. He seems repentant after his ‘radio silence’, as he calls it, when I was in Porlock, and I think he’s scared that I might go back to Somerset for good, so I don’t think he’ll sulk or pick a fight any time soon. I should be able to make a few demands while he’s making amends. Nothing unreasonable. Nothing much. Just a few hours of childcare a week – from a professional rather than from his mother – and the opportunity to do some sport with Vicky without Alex guilt-tripping me about it. I need to have some sort of life outside the walls of the Old Vicarage.

  ~

  I can feel the onset of a headache as I drive back from Ambleside, and when I get home, Alex is in the garden with Tom and Stacey, Mike and Sarah, and Rebecca. I won’t be able to discuss my plans with Alex this evening.

  I watch them all for a few seconds through the kitchen window, Alex’s friends apparently drinking in his every word as they drink their beers. Then, baring my teeth into a wide smile that feels both foreign and fraudulent, I join them. For a few minutes, I attempt to make small talk with everyone, careful not to speak to Tom in any way that could be misconstrued as flirting. But I don’t feel like socialising right now. In fact, I’m starting to feel quite sick. I regret drinking that pint in the sun now.

  ‘I’ve got a headache,’ I say. ‘I’m going to go and lie down.’

  Alex looks concerned and asks what he can do.

  ‘Nothing, thank you. Just look after Chloe.’

  When I get upstairs, I hunt for aspirin, ibuprofen o
r paracetamol, but there is none in the bathroom cabinet. I tip the contents of my handbag onto the bed. There’s none there either. Then I remember Alex’s tablets next to his whisky in the cupboard in the sitting room.

  A minute later, I’m sitting on the bed examining the packet of pills. The migraine has blurred my vision and I struggle to read the label on the packaging. Fluni … something. I don’t know whether it’s a painkiller or not. I want to Google it on my phone, but there’s no way I can look at the backlit screen now. I can’t stand the light anymore.

  The throbbing has become intense; the pain in the right side of my head and behind my right eye is excruciating. It feels like someone is drilling into my skull. A wave of nausea submerges me. I decide not to take the medicine. I can’t be sure what it’s for and I doubt I can keep it down anyway. It’s all I can do to draw the curtains, strip off my clothes and clamber into bed.

  The next thing I know, Alex is waking me up the following morning to hand me Chloe. ‘Good morning,’ he says. ‘Have to skedaddle. I’ve fed Chloe and changed her nappy. I’ll bring you a cuppa before I go.’

  Plumping up the pillows, I sit up in bed. My head is a lot better. Seeing the contents of my handbag still spilled on the sheets on Alex’s side of the bed, I realise he hasn’t slept next to me.

  ‘I didn’t want to disturb you last night,’ he says, as if reading my mind, ‘so I slept in the guestroom.’

  As I sit in bed, holding the mug of tea Alex has brought me in one hand and tickling Chloe’s tummy with the other, I’m astonished once again at how calm she has been since we went to Somerset. Before, she only seemed to stop screeching when she fell into a deep sleep. Now she smiles and gurgles, and because she’s happier, I feel like I’m a better mummy, like I’m finally doing something right with this parenting business.

  I decide to have a relaxing day with my baby girl. I can sing her nursery rhymes and read her children’s stories. I want to go for a long walk with her in the baby carrier. And while I’m waiting for her to wake up from her nap later, I’ll lose myself in my novel.

  My thoughts are interrupted by a tapping noise, as if someone is drumming their fingernails on the windowpane impatiently to give me my cue to get up. Then the sound becomes more urgent. A pummelling with fists. I freeze as Chloe’s mouth forms a startled “O”. It takes me several seconds to realise it’s raining.

  ‘It’s all right,’ I soothe. ‘It’s just the rain. We won’t be going for a walk today after all.’ I sigh. ‘Daddy may come home early though. He won’t want to go for a run in this weather.’

  That thought would usually have prompted me to write all sorts of housework chores on my to-do list to get everything clean and tidy for Alex coming home. But today a rebellious streak prevents me from even making the bed. I don’t want things to go back to the way they were. I’m no longer going to give in to the pressure he puts on me to be perfect.

  Chloe falls asleep. I leave her on the bed and go into the bathroom. In all the baby books Alex encouraged me to read, that’s a big no-no. But Chloe is only seven weeks old. She’s not going to wake up and roll onto the floor. And perhaps I’m not quite as good a mother as I prided myself I’d become after all.

  Coming out of the shower, I catch sight of all the junk I tipped out of my handbag. I have slept next to an array of pens, lipsticks, tissues and papers. For a second I panic, wondering where my purse is, but then I remember it’s in the pocket of the jacket I wore to walk the dogs with Vicky.

  I may have decided against doing any housework, but I should clear up this mess. So, after getting dressed, I start sifting through my stuff. I throw out the used tissues – yuk! – and put the rest of the packet back in my handbag along with half a packet of Polos, two pens, one lipstick … And then I see it. The card that was in the parcel. I pick it up and turn it over and read the message even though I know the words by heart. Wake up and smell the dead flowers.

  These words seem even more sinister this morning, although I’m not sure why. Dead poppies and violets. Poppy and Violet. Maybe the message was intended for Alex. But I still don’t get it. Why would anyone write that to him?

  I get a strange feeling in my gut. I’ve had this impression before. I feel like I’m missing something. A piece of the puzzle. No, that’s not quite it. I’ve got the piece that fits right here with this card, but somehow I’m not making the connection.

  Then it comes to me. I jump up from where I was sitting on the bed and race into Chloe’s room. The wooden mobile Becca bought for Chloe is dangling over the cot. In a rage, I tear it down and stamp on it. Now where is it? I hunt around until I find it on the bookcase. The card Becca wrote to congratulate us on the birth of Chloe. I open it and read the words she wrote. To Kaitlyn and Alex, Best Wishes on the birth of your Beautiful Baby. Love, Bexxx. Her handwriting is a spidery scrawl. That’s not it. That’s not what I’m after. False alarm.

  I tear Becca’s card into tiny pieces and let them fall to the floor. For some reason, I was convinced it was her. I could already see myself slapping her pretty little face and kicking her tanned toned legs. Dammit! And now I’ve broken Chloe’s mobile. I kick the bits of wood under the cot. I need to calm down and think.

  Then an image bursts into my head. This time I know I’m right. I walk slowly into the peach guestroom, knowing what I’m going to find, but scared of confirming it all the same. Kneeling in front of the wardrobe, I pull the cardboard box out and tear at the Sellotape, but I have sealed up the box thoroughly and I can’t get it off, so I go downstairs and into the kitchen and grab a knife. A sense of urgency seizes me and I bound back up the stairs.

  I cut the tape and open the flaps of the box. I start pulling things out. The handcuffs, the medals, the trophies … the photo’s not there anymore, of course; my mother-in-law has it now.

  Then I find what I’m looking for. The book, the one about the injured ironman’s comeback. Opening it, I stare at the neatly penned dedication inside the cover. To Alex. With all my love, always. Nicola. X.

  Holding the card next to the wording of the dedication, my eyes flit from one message to the other. But even without close inspection, I can see that I was right. The capital W gives it away. It’s the same loopy letter for the ‘With’ inside the cover of the book as for the ‘Wake’ on the card that was underneath the dead flowers in the box.

  I think my heart has been thumping fast for a few minutes, but I only register it now. I also become aware that my calf muscles have become numb, so I sit on the floor with my back against the bed and kick my legs out in front of me. Still clutching the book in one hand and the card in the other, I ask myself what this means.

  Nicola. I try to remember her surname. Todd, that’s it. Nicola Todd. A friend of Alex’s on Facebook, and clearly one of his exes. She’s the one who gave Alex this book. And it’s her handwriting on the card. So, she’s the one who sent the poppies and violets with their heads snapped off. No, she didn’t send them. She delivered the flowers to our door. She knows where we live. She probably even lived here once herself.

  A voice inside my head warns me not to say anything about this to Alex. He’ll know I’ve opened Pandora’s box in the guestroom if I tell him I know who has been trying to scare us. Then I reason that I don’t know Nicola or how to find her. She could be dangerous. But Alex knows who she is and he’ll know where she is. I have to tell him.

  I get up and throw everything back into the box, including the book, and send a text message to Alex.

  Hi Alex. Please can you come home early? I need to talk to you.

  XXX.

  I go back into the bedroom, where Chloe is still sleeping peacefully, and I check out Nicola Todd on Facebook. But there’s no more to see than there was the other day, and I’m certain I’ve never seen her before. There’s no reason for me to have met her if she’s Alex’s ex-girlfriend. I zoom in on her face. Her long hair partly covers her face, but I can see that she’s very attractive, although I think she’d probably
be prettier still if she smiled. She looks very serious in this photo. Maybe even a little sad.

  Alex doesn’t reply to my text, but he arrives home at five. I’m getting dinner ready, with Chloe in the baby carrier. Alex sits down at the kitchen table, so I hand Chloe to him and she babbles blissfully on her daddy’s lap.

  ‘Got your message,’ Alex says. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Alex, remember the day we received that parcel with the dead flowers inside?’

  ‘How could I forget?’

  ‘Well, there’s something I didn’t tell you at the time, because, well … you didn’t look like you could take any more and I’ve only just realised you might know who it is.’

  Alex says nothing, but he furrows his brows.

  ‘You see, under the flowers there was a card. Written by someone called Nicola.’ I haven’t actually lied although it strikes me that I’m getting really good at twisting the truth when I need to. ‘Anyway, today I was looking at the profiles of some of your Facebook friends and I noticed you’re friends with someone called Nicola Todd.’

  Alex’s eyes widen.

  ‘So I was wondering who she is and if she would have any reason to … intimidate us.’

  ‘She was my girlfriend once, a long time ago now. Maybe she has heard about you, or she’s heard I’ve got married and she’s jealous.’

  ‘She’d have to be insanely jealous to pull a stunt like that, Alex. The dead poppies and violets looked like a warning or a threat.’

  Alex nods. ‘You’re right. I’m not in touch with her anymore. I didn’t even realise we were still connected via Facebook. But I’ll sort this out. I’ll sort her out. Leave it to me.’

  Alex and I have dinner and watch Top of the Lake on TV even though we’ve missed all of the previous episodes and neither of us has a clue what’s going on.

  Alex chooses this evening to open the bottle of Irish whiskey I bought him for his birthday. He even uses the glass I gave him. He fetches me some wine. With Nicola Todd on my mind, I don’t feel like bringing up my childcare plans. Instead, we talk and laugh for hours. The later it gets, the more the whiskey and wine slur our words.