‘Well, we’ll be doing everything we can to locate your husband before then, obviously. But if somehow he does find out you’ve left, he may contact you because you’ve taken his baby.’ DC Bryant’s choice of possessive adjective makes me wince, but he doesn’t seem to notice. ‘If you hear from him, you must let us know. Immediately.’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Unlawful imprisonment is a very serious offence.’ His voice conveys the gravity of Alex’s actions. ‘We’ll liaise with the Cumbria Constabulary on this matter. I’ll be in touch with them today and I fully expect them to check out your house as part of their investigation. They’ll be looking for evidence that you were detained by force by your husband in your home. That will be the first step. This, I’m confident, will lead to his arrest.’ He sits forward in his seat, signalling the end of my appointment. ‘And we’ll be in touch to take it from there. In the meantime, I’ll be checking in with you on a daily basis.’
Coming out of the police station, I tilt my head back and allow the sun to warm my face for a few seconds before I walk down the steps. I haven’t rung Dad and I don’t want to just yet. I wander around for a while before realising where I’m going.
‘I would have rung,’ I say, seeing Hannah’s eyes widen as I enter the salon, ‘but I don’t have a mobile at the moment.’
She looks startled to see me, and almost scared, although I can’t imagine why. I was going to give her a hug but this stops me. I watch her as she hands a customer’s credit card back to him and goes to open the door for him. As soon as we’re alone, Hannah asks, ‘What happened?’
It takes me a second to realise she means my face. I sigh.
‘I left him, Hannah,’ I say. ‘You were right. He was too good to be true. He was cruel and calculating. And in the end, he was violent.’ My brief marriage summed up in a few short sentences.
Hannah says nothing; she just stares at me. The pity exuding from her is almost tangible, and in her eyes it’s legible. It makes me feel inexplicably angry with her. I don’t want her to feel sorry for me, but I don’t know what reaction I was hoping for.
A bell chimes as an elderly lady enters the hairdressing salon. I hardly acknowledge her.
‘Are you home for a while?’ Hannah asks after fetching a protective cape for her next customer and getting her seated.
‘I’m not going back to the Lake District, if that’s what you’re asking.’
‘No, it wasn’t. I just meant, will we see you around?’
I don’t answer. The ‘we’ bothers me. Hannah locks eyes with me. She has realised this.
‘You need to go and see Kevin,’ she says.
I wasn’t expecting that. ‘Why?’
‘You just … do. That’s all.’ She turns away from me, perches on her stool, and looking in the mirror, she tucks a wayward ringlet back into the messy bun on the top of her head.
‘I don’t want to … I’ve nothing against … Can’t you and I meet up, just the two of us?’
‘No. Yes! Listen, Kaitlyn. Kevin has something important to tell you.’ She’s still studying her own reflection above her customer’s head, avoiding eye contact with me for some reason. ‘I think you should know. It might … change things. I’d rather you talked to him. It’s not really my place to tell you.’
‘Tell me what?’
Hannah shakes her head. ‘Why don’t you come round to dinner on Saturday evening?’
I hear myself accepting the invitation, ignoring my brain telling me that this is a very bad idea.
‘Here’s our address,’ Hannah says, getting up to fetch a business card for her salon and jotting the address down on the back of it. ‘We’re renting,’ she adds.
Our address. This is where Hannah is living with Kevin. My ex-boyfriend and my ex-best friend.
I read Hannah’s familiar handwriting upside down. Hopcott Terrace. Minehead.
‘You can’t miss it. It’s the redbrick one on the end.’
While Hannah focuses her attention on her customer, I borrow her mobile to ring Dad. I have no intention of going to Hannah and Kevin’s place for dinner. I’ll call her on Saturday morning and tell her I’m ill.
Chapter 25
~
Porlock is a long way from Grasmere and I feel safe here. For a while. But by Friday afternoon, the familiar knot in my stomach is back. The police still haven’t located Alex. DC Bryant has informed me that according to Alex’s colleagues, Alex had taken a few days off work and wasn’t away on business at all. No one seems to know where he is.
I tell myself that he’s due home today and he’ll be arrested then.
The phone rings and interrupts my thoughts. I hold my breath while Dad answers it.
‘It’s the police,’ Dad says, and I breathe out. For a second, I thought it might be Alex.
‘Nigel Bryant here,’ the detective constable says. ‘Nothing to tell you, really, but I wanted to touch base. As you know, we’re working with the Cumbria Constabulary and they found evidence of unlawful imprisonment at your house when they went there the day before yesterday.’
‘The handcuffs,’ I offer.
‘Yes. Obviously, there will be a full investigation now. My colleagues in the Lake District will continue to drive by both Mrs Riley’s house and Mr Riley’s house until your husband shows up. Then he’ll be taken into police custody.’
This is nothing new, but the uneasiness in my tummy begins to lift.
‘He’s supposed to come home sometime today,’ I say, although we’ve already been over this, too. ‘He’ll probably go to his mother’s first. That’s where he thinks Chloe is.’
‘Mrs Riley is cooperating with us, Ms Best.’
DC Bryant continues to talk to me, but I listen with only half an ear, thinking about Sandy, and hoping this will all be over soon. Then the police officer mentions something that grabs my attention.
‘My colleague in Cumbria also said that a friend of yours was at the house today.’
‘Which house?’
‘The Old Vicarage. A Nicola Todd? You mentioned her in your statement.’
‘Yes. What was she doing there?’
‘She said she was picking up a few things.’
‘What things?’
‘I don’t know. Apparently she said that would be OK with you?’
‘Um … yes.’ I clear my throat and try to sound more convincing. ‘Yes, that’s fine.’
‘I think my colleague only brought it up because, well … I don’t know why he told me, actually. I think they’ve done what they need to do inside, but they weren’t expecting anyone to enter the house except your husband. She was just leaving with her mother when my colleagues arrived.’
‘Her mother?’
‘Apparently,’ Bryant repeats.
When the police officer ends the call, I’m left feeling confused. I have no idea why Nikki would go round to my house with her mother or what she would take. The only things that belong to her, as far as I can see, are some of the medals and the book she gave Alex that I found in the cardboard box.
I try to calm myself down. I’m sure Nikki would have a perfectly good explanation for this if I asked her. I would call her, but of course I haven’t got her number – it’s in my mobile. I decide to email her. I have her email address thanks to the photos she sent me of my face.
By the next morning, I’m consumed with paranoia. Nikki hasn’t replied to my email and I don’t know why. I can’t imagine what she was doing at the Old Vicarage.
But, more importantly, the police haven’t arrested Alex. They still don’t know where he is. I’m convinced he found out somehow that I escaped from my prison in the nursery. His mother might have warned him after all, or maybe he drove by the Old Vicarage and saw something that raised his suspicions – Nikki and I left the gate open, I remember, although it may have been closed since then, or perhaps he spotted a police car or Nikki’s car.
Alex will come after me now, I’m certain of that. He won
’t let me get away. I don’t know where he is, but he’ll know where I am. Where else would I be? This is the very first place he’ll look. My mother-in-law’s words echo in my mind: Make sure the police find him before he finds you.
DC Bryant has promised to let me know as soon as he hears anything. He says he will send a patrol car round periodically to check on Dad’s house as a precaution. Dad has also tried to reassure me, saying that the police in Cumbria have probably got him and if we haven’t heard anything yet, it’s simply because it’s the weekend.
I try to relax under the hot jet of the shower, savouring the homely mess of Dad’s bathroom. It’s quite a contrast with the showroom neatness of the sparkling en suite bathroom at the Old Vicarage, where Alex lines up his bottles according to size and keeps everything in its place.
It’s as I’m looking among the bottles on the windowsill for the shower gel that I spot it. I gasp. It’s the make Alex always buys because it contains no parabens or allergens. A memory replays in my head – Alex waving an identical bottle to this one in my face, accusing me of switching his body wash deliberately to bring him out in a rash.
Alex has been in the house. He has been in the bathroom. He’s playing tricks on me.
I don’t remember getting out of the shower or getting dressed. The next thing I know, my dad is holding me as I sit on the floor in Julie’s room, shaking and gulping for air.
‘Breathe in,’ he says, rubbing my back. ‘Breathe out.’
I realise that it was my father’s voice in my head, helping me control my breathing, every time I was overcome with anxiety. Breathe in, breathe out. These are the words I’ve been repeating to myself whenever it has felt like my lungs are shrinking. A mantra I’d stored in my memory, but that wasn’t meant for me to begin with.
This is how my dad used to calm my mum down, I remember now, when she had panic attacks after losing Louisa. I recall peeping round the bedroom door and seeing him sitting on his daughter’s bed as his wife lay in it, unable to face life for a while, but ready to embrace death. The cancer didn’t grant her that wish until a few years later.
Damn! I thought I was done with the panic attacks. The memory of my mother doesn’t help. But I’m determined not to let Alex beat me and I focus on my breathing and shut out everything except my dad’s voice.
When I’ve finally recovered, I ask him about the shower gel.
‘I probably bought it when I did the shopping,’ he says. ‘There was some shampoo and stuff I don’t usually buy on special offer at Tesco’s last week.’
A false alarm, then. All that for nothing. Feeling annoyed with myself, I let out a huge sigh of relief.
‘Speaking of which,’ my father says, ‘we need to get some shopping in. Do you want to come with me?’
I don’t, but I don’t want to be alone, so the three of us go to Tesco’s, then come back and make lunch. I appreciate spending time with Dad and I can see Chloe loves being around him, too. I think having us around is taking Dad’s mind off Jet a bit.
It’s mid-afternoon by the time I remember I wanted to ring Hannah to tell her I can’t make it for dinner. I realise I don’t have her mobile number and I don’t think I ever learnt Kevin’s by heart. Looking at my watch, I think I should still be able to get hold of Hannah at the salon, but it seems a bit late now and a bit rude. Both she and Kevin work on Saturdays so they will have got organised before now for this evening. I’m going to have to go.
So later that evening, I borrow Dad’s car and drive to Hannah and Kevin’s. After strapping Chloe in her carrycot in the back seat, I follow the satnav instructions to Hopcott Terrace, stopping just outside Minehead to buy chocolates and flowers from a petrol station.
The whole way there, I wonder what Kevin wants to tell me. The only thing I can come up with is that he must have asked Hannah to marry him, but I don’t know why she couldn’t have told me that herself.
I find their house easily enough. Hannah opens the door.
‘Hi, come in. We’re so glad you could make it.’
Her delighted tone is affected. I know Hannah well, or I used to, and I can tell she’s feeling as awkward as I am. I follow her into the kitchen and sit down to tend to Chloe while Hannah opens the oven, peers inside and then closes it again. I watch as she undoes her bun, winds up her hair and pins it up again. It doesn’t look any different to me.
‘I’ll show you around in a minute if you like.’
Fortunately, she seems to forget about this idea, or maybe she just thinks the better of it. I don’t get the guided tour in the end anyway. I look around the kitchen. Kevin collects those rectangular magnets you can buy in tourist traps all over the world and clearly he still uses them to stick important notes and business cards to the fridge. Whenever we went abroad, he bought one. Paris, Lyon, Rome, Florence, Madrid … So many memories. There’s a new one, I notice. Prague. We always talked of going there. He must have gone with Hannah.
Kevin appears in the kitchen doorway. Chloe is on my lap, and I’m grateful for that as it saves me from having to get up and greet him. I don’t know what the correct etiquette is for greeting your ex in his home when you’ve been invited for a meal. His damp fair hair tells me he has just taken a shower, the first thing he always did when he got in from work.
‘Hi, Kaitlyn. I was a bit later than I’d hoped getting home,’ he says, by way of an apology. ‘We’re having problems with the foundations for that new sports complex up the road because of the sloping site and bad drainage. It’s all turning out to be more complicated than we’d anticipated.’
He’s babbling and I can see he’s not at ease with me being here. I try to show an interest in his work, though, as that’s a topic we’re safe with. But there are lots of uncomfortable silences even before we take our seats in the dining area at the table Kevin and I chose a lifetime ago in a furniture shop in Taunton.
Throughout the meal, I find myself stealing glances at Hannah’s tummy, trying to work out if she could be pregnant. Hannah and I only have one glass of wine each. If Hannah had got drunk, I’d have known she wasn’t pregnant, but with one glass I can’t be sure. The fact she hasn’t drunk much doesn’t mean anything, either, as she rarely overdoes it on the alcohol.
I would certainly have downed more wine this evening if I hadn’t been driving. A lot more. If nothing else, to help the conversation flow more easily. After all, what is there to talk about? We seem to have the choice between Hannah and Kevin’s plans for the future or the events leading up to me leaving Alex and coming back down to Somerset.
Chloe is on the floor in her car seat next to the dining table, studying a toy that Dad bought in Tesco’s that stretches across the handles of her seat. I notice Kevin gaze at her several times while we’re eating. He has what I can only interpret as a longing expression on his face. Perhaps he’s broody.
When Hannah has polished off the last of her dinner, she asks if she can hold Chloe. Maybe I’m right and they are expecting a baby. Hannah coos away to her while Kevin clears the plates and I sit watching Hannah with Chloe, keen to get away and head back to Dad’s.
Kevin and Hannah wait until we’re having coffee after the meal before they drop their bombshell.
‘Kaitlyn, Hannah and I have something to tell you,’ Kevin begins with his broad Somerset inflections. Kevin went to the local comp whereas at my school we all spoke with plummy accents. Even now his voice is like music to my ears.
He pauses and I can hear a drum roll in my head. I get ready to offer my sincerest congratulations with a contrived look of joy.
But when he says it, I’m dumbfounded.
‘What?’
He repeats, but I can’t take it in. To say this gives me pause for thought would be a huge understatement. It takes me a few seconds, but the first thing that springs to my mind is, I have no connection whatsoever to Alex now. The shock becomes infused with a rush of relief.
‘But how do you know? Are you sure?’ I try to think back to October,
when Alex came to Exeter and I slept over at his hotel. It’s possible, I suppose.
‘Do you remember when you came to see me at work a few weeks ago?’ Hannah says. She doesn’t wait for me to reply. ‘I pulled a hair from Chloe’s head.’
I remember Hannah holding Chloe after cutting my hair. Chloe suddenly started screaming for no reason. Well, for no reason I could see at the time. It was the first time she’d screamed like that since we left Grasmere and she wasn’t being drugged by Alex anymore. Now I know the reason. Hannah pulled some of her hair out.
‘I got the hair tested,’ Hannah continues. ‘You know, DNA? You can send it off––’
‘There’s no doubt,’ Kevin interrupts. ‘Chloe is mine.’
‘Oh God. Oh, Kevin, I am so sorry.’ I put my head in my hands with my elbows on the dining room table. ‘It’s just that you and I had been trying to have a baby for so long with no result, I just assumed … It never occurred to me …’
The next half an hour or so goes by in a daze. I think it’s Hannah who suggests I should go home and let it sink in. I’m homeless at the moment, but I don’t say that.
As I’m leaving, I try to ask Hannah something. ‘But how did you …?’ What I really want to know is how it crossed Hannah’s mind that Chloe might be Kevin’s when it didn’t cross mine. I can’t finish the question, but Hannah has understood.
‘Kevin said he never saw it coming. You leaving him, I mean. He confided in me before we … as a friend. At the time he said he hadn’t stopped loving you and it wasn’t like you were no longer sleeping together or anything. I don’t think he meant to open up as much as he did. We’d been drinking wine that evening. But it was something I couldn’t forget afterwards. And then, well, Kaitlyn, Chloe’s got blonde hair. Like Kevin’s.’
‘Yes, but Alex was fair when he was a baby.’
She shrugs. ‘I didn’t know that,’ she says.
‘And my dad was fair-haired. Before he went bald.’
‘I know. I remember.’ She shrugs again. ‘I wasn’t sure. It was a hunch, I suppose. But I needed to know.’
He Will Find You Page 25