He Will Find You

by Diane Jeffrey

  ‘I still think you should go to the police afterwards,’ Nikki says, raising an over-pruned eyebrow at me.

  Nikki’s right, but I really need to be with my family. ‘Listen, if Chloe isn’t at Sandy’s house …’ I trail off and swallow. That eventuality doesn’t bear thinking about. ‘… We’ll call the police immediately. Otherwise, I’ll go to the police station in Minehead as soon as I get to my dad’s. I promise.’

  ‘OK. I’ll take you to your dad’s house, then.’

  ‘You can’t drive to Somerset.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It’s too far. You can’t drive all that way.’

  ‘On the contrary,’ says Nikki, ‘It’s the very least I can do.’

  She wriggles the fingers of her outstretched hand and I put my car keys in her palm. She hangs them back on the hook. Nikki has parked her mum’s grey hatchback in the driveway and we load the cases and bags into it.

  While we’re doing this, Nikki fires questions at me and I answer them, filling her in on how I ended up confined to the nursery with a swollen face.

  ‘Why did you come here?’ I ask Nikki as we’re getting into the car, suddenly suspicious. ‘Did you know Alex was keeping me captive?’

  ‘No. I had no idea,’ she replies. ‘I wanted to see you and I’ve – well, I’ve driven past a number of times, but I hadn’t seen you leave the house for a few days. I thought you were away, actually, but I wanted to make sure.’

  I’m not sure I believe her, and I’m more convinced than ever that it was Nikki driving past in her mum’s car that day. She was spying on Alex and me, I know that now, but I’m very glad she was. Otherwise I’d still be stuck in the nursery.

  ‘How did you get into the house?’

  She slides her hips forwards in her seat, pushes her hand into the pocket of her black pencil skirt and takes out a key. ‘He never asked me to give it back,’ she says. I look into the palm of her hand. The front door key. ‘I let myself in.’

  As Nikki turns the car round, I take one last look at the Old Vicarage. This remote, desolate house that has sadness and despair seeping out of every wall inside. Ironically, from the outside it looks less austere than when I arrived. The creeper, which appeared barren in February, now bears leaves that lend it the illusion of life and hope. This house was the setting for my dreams of a happy family but it became the setting for my nightmares as my home turned into my prison. That was a gradual process. I was trapped long before Alex handcuffed me to the bed.

  Nikki pulls out of the driveway. She has left the gate open and she doesn’t stop to close it. As I get another whiff of her perfume, a memory stirs. Alex breaking out in hives from head to toe the day I was convinced someone had been in the house.

  ‘You switched Alex’s shampoo in the bottles in the shower,’ I say, giving her a sidelong glance.

  ‘I knew he was allergic,’ she admits, keeping her eyes on the road.

  ‘It made him blotchy all over his body.’

  I imagine in other circumstances, we might laugh about this as two scorned women whose man has had a taste of comeuppance. But Nikki shows no sign of amusement. In fact, she doesn’t react at all, and I know she’s thinking of Chloe right now, as I am. She turns left without asking for directions. She knows the way. She must have been to Sandy’s house several times before now. After all, Sandy almost became her mother-in-law instead of mine.

  ‘How did you know?’ she asks.

  ‘Your perfume. I smelt it in the house that day.’

  For a moment, Nikki doesn’t speak. Then she says, ‘It’s aftershave, actually. I bought it for Alex. He wore it once. That’s how I know he’s allergic. I really like the fragrance, so I wear it sometimes. It sort of reminded me of him at first, after … well, after he ended our relationship.’

  ‘When was that exactly?’ I ask.

  She takes her eyes off the road for a second and looks me in the eye. ‘At the end of January. I came home from work one day to discover he’d packed up my things. He broke off our engagement, demanded I give him the ring back and then asked me to leave.’ For once, her voice contains no hint of honey; it is flat and cold. ‘I didn’t see it coming and I didn’t get an explanation.’

  She takes a deep breath and then continues, ‘I lost all our mutual friends. I’ve no idea what he told them, but they wouldn’t speak to me. I had to pack in the triathlon club.’

  So those are her medals in the box in the peach room. And that’s why she’s such a good swimmer. She was a triathlete. It’s probably how she met Alex, too, through sport. For the first time, I see Nikki’s point of view. I understand what I did to her. I stole her fiancé. She was engaged to Alex, who discarded her and threw her out of the house when I came up to the Lake District to live with him.

  I also realise Alex waited until the very last minute before he got Nikki out of the picture. He’d known for several weeks I was pregnant, and yet it sounds like Nikki lived at the Old Vicarage until a few days before I moved in. Perhaps he was boxing up her stuff the very weekend I arrived. I drove all the way up here by myself, as he’d offered to come down by train and share the driving with me, but he let me down at the last minute.

  ‘And you found out about me the day you saw us out walking?’

  Nikki nods. ‘I could see you were pregnant and I put two and two together.’

  This time she doesn’t look at me, but I can see that her eyes are glistening with tears.

  Talking to Nikki has kept me from going out of my mind with panic about Chloe. But when neither of us speaks, my baby spills into my thoughts and heart again. I’ve been telling myself that she’s in good hands at her grandmother’s. Now, though, as Nikki pulls up in front of Sandy’s house, I can feel my anxiety levels soaring. What if she’s not here?

  I’ve leapt out of the car and raced up the path to Sandy’s front door before Nikki has even parked. I hammer on the door. When there’s no answer, I pound my fists against the frosted glass. But the door remains closed.

  I hear Nikki behind me.

  ‘She’s not here,’ I say.

  ‘That doesn’t mean Chloe’s not with Sandy,’ Nikki points out. ‘Is there a play area or a park near here they could have gone to? Have you got her mobile number?’

  Sandy’s phone number is in the memory of my mobile. I didn’t think to look for my phone before we left. I’ve got my handbag with my purse in it, hopefully, but no phone. I shake my head.

  ‘Have you got her number by any chance?’

  ‘No. I deleted it.’

  Just then, I catch sight of Sandy over Nikki’s shoulder. She’s pushing Chloe’s pram towards us, but she hasn’t seen us yet. I push past Nikki, and sprint towards my mother-in-law. She stops in her tracks. I can see I’ve startled her.

  ‘What on earth is wrong, my dear?’ she asks, recovering from her shock. ‘What has happened to your face?’

  ‘Is Chloe OK? Let me see Chloe!’

  Without answering either of her questions, I push her out of the way more roughly than I mean to and she wobbles on her inappropriate shoes as I reach into the pram. As I take Chloe into my arms, I feel myself smile. It hurts, not just because of the split lip and the bruise on my cheek, but because my muscles are no longer used to stretching my mouth upwards. But a split second later, hunched around Chloe’s tiny frame, my body starts shaking with long, racking sobs. Tears of relief.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Sandy repeats, her strident voice faltering this time. I glance at my mother-in-law and see she has spotted Nikki, who is walking towards her. ‘Nicola,’ Sandy says, nodding at her. If she’s puzzled, she’s hiding it well. She sounds curt rather than confused.

  ‘How’s your father?’ Sandy tries again, turning to me.

  This is a question I can answer. I try to get a grip, and politely, I reply. ‘He’s, well … he’s been better, I suppose. I think he’s devastated at the idea of having his dog put down.’ I see Nikki flinch out of the corner of my eye. She would hate that ide
a too, of course, being a dog lover.

  ‘I meant, has he recovered from his stroke?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ I frown. ‘A while ago now.’

  ‘But I thought …’ Sandy breaks off. It’s clear to me that she’s not going to say any more.

  ‘Did Alex tell you that’s where I was? At my dad’s house?’

  Sandy pushes a strand of grey hair behind her ears. ‘Alex … Did Alex …?’

  She’s looking at my face, but she can’t bring herself to ask. I feel inexplicably angry with her all of a sudden as if she’s somehow responsible for what her son has done to me.

  ‘Your son kept me prisoner – for several days – after beating me and threatening to take Chloe away from me,’ I inform her. My mother-in-law casts her eyes downwards. My words have hit her like a slap in the face.

  ‘Alexander asked me to look after Chloe until his return,’ she says, and for a moment I think she’s going to refuse to give me my daughter. But then she adds, ‘He’s due back on Friday.’ Friday! That’s three days! I would have spent another three days and nights in that nursery with no food!

  ‘Do you know where he’s gone?’ Nikki asks.

  ‘No,’ she says. ‘He doesn’t like me to pry. I only know he’s away on business.’ She pauses, then asks, ‘Are you going to the police?’

  I scrutinise her, trying to work out if she’s going to plead with me not to. ‘Yes, I have to.’

  My mother-in-law nods. ‘He rings me every day,’ she says. ‘I’ll pretend Chloe is still here, to make sure he does come back on Friday.’

  For a few seconds, I’m stunned. Then holding Chloe in one arm, I place my other arm on Sandy’s shoulder. ‘Why would you do that?’

  She lets out a weary sigh, the lament of a mother who suffered for years in a marriage to someone evil and who knows she didn’t manage to eradicate his evil from her own child.

  ‘He pushed me,’ she says.

  At first I think she means that Alex has made her do something she didn’t want to.

  ‘Pushed you to do what?’ I breathe, not sure that I really want to know.

  She shakes her head almost imperceptibly and just when I think she isn’t going to say another word, she continues. ‘We had an argument. Over something inconsequential.’ She waves her hand dismissively. ‘He was angry with me. So he pushed me and I fell down my own front doorstep. That’s how I sprained my ankle.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Sandy,’ I say.

  ‘It was deliberate,’ my mother-in-law continues. ‘He had this malevolent gleam in his eyes.’

  Sandy reaches out and gently touches my face. ‘Go now, both of you.’ She lowers her voice and I only just make out her words. ‘Kaitlyn, make sure the police find him before he finds you.’

  Chapter 23

  ~

  As Nikki drives away, the enormity of what I’ve lost and of what I’m leaving behind hits me with as much force as Alex’s blow. I’ve lost my dignity, my self-respect and my confidence. I’m not just abandoning my dream, my home and my husband, but also part of my identity. Not for the first time in my life, I feel as if half of myself has gone. I’ve spent all my adult life coping with being a ‘twinless’ twin. And now I’m a wife with no husband.

  I can hardly breathe or speak until we turn onto the M6. Then the knot in my stomach loosens a little. I have Chloe, I keep saying to myself, over and over again. I can feel the tension lift ever so slightly from my stiff shoulders and at the same time my eyelids become heavy. There’s a lot I want to talk to Nikki about, but I’m mentally and physically exhausted. I allow my eyes to close, intending to rest for a moment. I don’t want to sleep. It wouldn’t be fair to Nikki. Besides, I don’t know if I can trust her completely. She’s put my dad’s address into the satnav, but I want to check she stays on the right road.

  The next thing I know, Nikki is calling out to me.

  ‘Kaitlyn? Wake up, Kaitlyn.’

  ‘Where are we?’ I ask just as my sleepy eyes spot a sign for Gloucester Services. Then, reading the time on the digital clock on the dashboard, I add, ‘How long have you been driving?’

  ‘We’ve done a good three hours of the journey now,’ Nikki says. ‘I could do with some coffee to wake me up a bit. Otherwise, I’ll fall asleep, too.’

  Her words chill me.

  ‘Wake up and smell the coffee,’ I whisper. ‘Or wake up and smell the dead flowers.’

  Biting her lip, Nikki pulls into a parking space. I can see she has heard me. She wraps her arms around the steering wheel, and resting her cheek on her hands, she fixes me with her large chocolate eyes.

  ‘Were you responsible for that parcel?’ I ask.

  ‘Yes.’ It’s no more than a whisper.

  ‘And you delivered it yourself?’

  ‘Yes,’ she repeats.

  ‘But weren’t you scared you’d get caught? We could have seen you!’ Without meaning to, I’ve raised my voice and Chloe starts to stir in the carrycot on the back seat of the car.

  ‘I always rang the house first. To make sure no one was in.’

  At first, I think she means the doorbell. Then I get it. The calls to the landline. They were from Nikki. When I answered, she didn’t say anything. She was hoping no one would pick up, checking there was no one home. I remember hearing the phone ring while I was imprisoned in the nursery. She called today before coming out to the Old Vicarage, I realise.

  ‘But why did you deliver poppies and violets? I don’t get it. And that message? What the hell was that supposed to mean?’

  ‘It was just to … I wanted to … I suppose my aim was to freak Alex out. I didn’t want him to do the same thing to you and your daughter.’

  I take a few seconds to process this. Then I ask, ‘The same thing? Are you talking about Melanie, Alex’s ex-wife?’

  ‘Yes. Melanie and the girls.’

  ‘What happened to them?’

  ‘I have no proof,’ she says, ‘but I think he killed them.’

  I inhale sharply. Chloe begins to whimper. ‘What makes you think that?’ I ask.

  ‘He planted poppies and violets under the damson tree in the back garden. They didn’t grow. So then he planted daffodils. They died, too.’

  Smell the dead flowers.

  A series of images plays through my head, like in the trailer of a film. St Oswald’s church. William Wordsworth’s gravestone. Alex. Dora’s field. The Coffin Trail. I remember that day as clearly as if it were yesterday. The day we saw Nikki walking her little white dog.

  ‘Wordsworth planted daffodils as a memorial to his favourite daughter when she died,’ I say.

  Nikki nods gravely. ‘It’s just a theory,’ she says, ‘but once I’d come up with that scenario, I couldn’t get it out of my head.’ She shrugs, seemingly less sure of herself all of a sudden. ‘Maybe I wanted to make Alex into more of a monster than he really is so I could get over him. I don’t know. But I figured something bad had happened to Poppy and Violet, so I cut up thirteen flowers––’

  ‘Why thirteen? To bring bad luck?’

  ‘No! That’s how old they would be now.’

  ‘And you added dirt,’ I say. ‘What was that about?’

  ‘It was earth.’ I narrow my eyes at Nikki. I’m not sure if she’s telling the truth. None of this makes sense. ‘To let Alex know someone was on to him in case I was right and he had buried them all under that wonky damson tree.’

  ‘But Alex isn’t capable of … murder!’ As I utter these words, I wonder if I’m conditioned to stand up for Alex, even when he commits the most atrocious acts. ‘Is he?’ I add weakly. Would he kill someone? Could he kill someone? His own family?

  I can feel Nikki shrug next to me as I shudder. Chloe starts to cry. She must be hungry. Her evening feed is long overdue. I look at Nikki. She sits up straight and avoids my gaze. I don’t believe her.

  Then I remember a day about a month before the wedding, the day Alex and I met the Superintendent Registrar to give notice of our intention t
o marry. The officer was irritable because Alex had forgotten his divorce papers. Alex went back with them later. Is it possible he handed in a death certificate instead? Would he have a death certificate if no body had been found because his wife is buried under the damson tree? Maybe he provided false documents. I wouldn’t put it past him.

  I open the car door and get out on shaky legs. Leaning against the car, I’m vaguely aware of Nikki getting out of the car and taking Chloe out of her carrycot. I hear her soothing Chloe and her words soothe me a little, too.

  I desperately need a pee and this primal need enables me to function in spite of the state I’m in. I take the baby bag and Nikki carries Chloe and we walk towards the entrance of the motorway services side by side in silence.

  Inside, I make up a bottle of formula and Nikki starts to feed Chloe while I race off to the loos. When I get back, I suggest we have something to eat. For the first time in several days, I’m famished.

  ‘Good idea,’ Nikki agrees. ‘Anything. As long as it comes with a double espresso.’

  I order two plates of spaghetti bolognaise and two double espressos, but my card is declined. It’s a debit card. I haven’t spent any money recently, so I should have more than sufficient funds in my account. I have another card, a credit card, the one for our joint account, so I try that. But to my dismay, it doesn’t work either.

  Leaving my tray by the cash desk, I have to ask Nikki to lend me the money. She gets up immediately and, handing me Chloe, she pays for our dinners.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Nikki,’ I say as soon as she comes back. I’m mortified. ‘You’ve driven all this way, I didn’t keep you company on the journey and I can’t even buy you a meal.’

  I burst into tears. I’m aware that people are staring at me, but right now I just don’t care. I’ve shed so many tears recently, I should be all cried out by now, but I’ve got a feeling there’s a lot more to come.

  Nikki places her hand on my arm. ‘Think nothing of it,’ she says. ‘I’ve deceived you terribly and I’m trying to make it up to you. You mustn’t feel you owe me anything. Not even dinner.’ She gives me a quick toothy grin and it makes me feel a bit better.