by Daniel Hurst
I’m so busy waving my phone above my head as I walk that I don’t notice the headlights coming towards me until it’s almost too late. I look up to see the car driving slowly down the lane, and its engine is so quiet that it’s no wonder I didn’t hear it coming from further away. I’m not sure why the driver is going so slowly, but I’m grateful because it gives me a chance to duck into the trees and get myself out of view before they pass.
I step off the tarmac and onto the wet leaves that surround the many tall trees here and quickly shield myself behind one of the thick trunks. I wait as the car moves past my hiding place before letting out a deep sigh as I watch it disappear down the road. I couldn’t make out the driver inside, but I’m just as confident that they didn’t see me either, so it’s mission accomplished.
With the car gone, I go to leave my hiding place and get back onto the road but stumble over a tree root as I do and fall forward.
The sudden motion causes my phone to go flying out of my hand, and as I land on the wet leaves, I hear the sound of my device clattering across the tarmac.
I get to my feet as quickly as I can and look down at my jogging bottoms to see that they are now covered in mud. Great. I’m going to have to hide these when I get back, so Adam doesn’t see them. But my biggest concern right now is not my dirty clothes. It’s my mobile phone lying in the road.
Is it broken?
I rush over to it and see that the back part of the device has separated from the front. Fortunately, the screen hasn’t cracked, and there are no broken pieces anywhere so all I need to do is attach the back on again and I’m good to go. But it is as I am doing that when I notice something.
Looking into the exposed part of my phone, I see that the sim card is not in there.
Did it fall out when I dropped it?
I reattach the back and use the torchlight from the battery to light up the road to help me look. But there is no sign of the sim card. It surely would have been here if it had fallen out just now.
So where is it?
It’s only after ten minutes of looking for it that a thought occurs to me. Maybe this is why I couldn’t find a signal anywhere along this road.
Maybe the sim card was never in there to start with.
I think back to last night when my phone was missing from my bedside table. How Adam claimed to have found it under the bed. How it was strange for it to not only have left my bedside table and ended up on the floor but how I later found out it was impossible for it to get under the bed.
Did Adam find it so quickly because he was the one who took it?
Did he take it because he was secretly removing the sim card?
Did he do it so that I could never get a signal again even if I did leave the cottage?
I stand there in the middle of the road with several worrying thoughts running through my tired mind. If I go left, I can keep walking until I reach the village. If I go right, I will go back to the cottage.
At this moment, I’m not sure which way to go.
27
ADAM
I’m standing by the window looking out over the dark hill and waiting for Laura to get back from wherever she has gone. She thinks she was so quiet leaving the cottage, but I heard her.
I heard her get out of bed. I heard her zipping up her coat downstairs. And I heard her closing the front door, although she really did try her best to do it quietly.
I went to the window just after I heard her leave, and it was there when I saw the torchlight moving down the dirt track in the direction of the main road. I can guess what she is up to. She is going to try and get a phone signal so she can check the news reports for herself. It’s not that I think she doesn’t trust me with the information I have given her. It’s just that I know she will be desperate to see the news articles with her own eyes to answer the many questions she has about the victim and the accident.
Those are questions that she would never ask me because she wouldn’t want to be insensitive when she thinks I am battling such inner turmoil. Therefore, she has decided to sneak out of the cottage in the middle of the night and go and check the internet before coming back and acting as if she was never gone when we wake up together in the morning.
It’s a cute plan, and I’m not at all surprised by it.
I’ll just have to pretend like I never knew it happened.
I remain by the window as I wait for the sight of the torchlight on the track to return which will tell me that Laura is on her way back. Then all I will have to do is get back into bed and pretend to be asleep as she creeps back into the bedroom satisfied of my cluelessness. But that’s all she will be satisfied with because her trip will have been a fruitless one. She won’t have been able to find a phone signal out on that road, and she won’t have been able to check the internet and learn that the news articles about the hit and run don’t exist. That’s because I took the sim card out of her phone last night.
Without that, there isn’t much she can do with her mobile now.
I’d known that the only risk to the plan was if Laura decided to leave this cottage and go far enough away from it so that she could use her phone. But I also knew that simply hiding her mobile from her would be too suspicious. Therefore, I decided to allow her to keep thinking that she had her phone to hand at all times and that she could go and use it if she really wanted to.
She never has to know that it won’t work properly because it’s missing a vital part of its inventory.
I know there is a chance of her finding out the sim card is missing, but it’s a tiny one. I suspect she will have just walked down the road looking for a signal but eventually given up when she couldn’t get one and be on her way back now. The chances of her suspecting there is something more at play and taking her phone apart to look inside it are minimal. But it is possible. What if she does know that her sim card is missing? What if she figures out that was why she couldn’t find her phone when she woke up last night?
I’d taken her device from her bedside table and removed the sim card in the bathroom before I returned and found her already awake and looking for it. I was able to cover up what I’d done quite easily, and I’m sure Laura has no concerns about any of what happened, but she might do if she finds out the sim card has gone. She’ll know it was me who has taken it then because who else could it be? There’s only two of us in this cottage, after all.
But so what? Even if Laura has realised the sim card is missing, she won’t do anything about it. She certainly won’t go into the village and raise her concerns about her husband’s story with anybody, let alone the police. That’s because she trusts me, and most importantly, she needs me. She might be confused about what is going on, and she might have a few doubts about my version of events regarding the hit and run, but she still won’t do anything to risk us not being together. Not when she is only days away from giving birth and when I know the thought of her bringing a child into this world on her own is a terrifying one for her. Therefore, whatever she discovers while out on her little expedition tonight, I have no doubt that she will return to this cottage and get back into this bed beside me.
She can’t afford to take the risk of not doing.
I remain patient and vigilant in my position by the window, staring out into the darkness and waiting for the torchlight that will tell me Laura is returning to where I need her to be. I admire her enthusiasm and tenacity to go out there on this cold night, especially in her condition, but then she’s always had a resilience about her. She must have to have spent so much time in her youth travelling around far-flung parts of the world, much of it by herself. A little walk down a dark dirt track in the English countryside isn’t much when compared to pitching up in cities like Bangkok and Hong Kong where she didn’t know a single soul. But one thing she always did was return home, and I have no doubt she will do the same thing again now.
Sure enough, I see the flash of light in the distance, and I keep my eyes on it as it moves closer until I can tell t
hat it belongs to my wife’s mobile phone as she uses it to find her way back to the cottage. I watch the light getting closer until she is almost back before quickly running up the stairs and diving back under the duvet in the bedroom.
I lie on my pillow and listen as the front door is opened ever so cautiously before hearing the sound of the zipper being unfastened on her coat and finally, the soft padding of her footsteps coming up the stairs towards me.
I close my eyes as I hear Laura creep into the bedroom, and I remain still as I feel her getting into bed beside me. I pretend to stir a little as she wriggles herself into position, but I don’t open my eyes. I stay that way until I am sure that she is confident that her little trip has gone unnoticed.
But then I do try and focus on getting some sleep. I’ve got a big day coming up, and it’s the penultimate one before the finale of my grand plan. It’s not going to be easy to fall asleep when I feel so excited, but I eventually manage it.
I sleep soundly until the sun rises over this pretty little cottage on the hill.
28
LAURA
I barely recognise the person looking back at me in the mirror. My eyes are puffy. My skin is blotchy. The dark circles remind me that I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in a long time. And I look huge. Of course, most of it is just baby weight, and I’ll probably lose the majority of it once Samuel is born, but that isn’t making me feel much better right now.
Right now, I feel like an ugly, stressed, and seriously tired blob.
I decide to stop looking in the mirror for the sake of my fragile mental health and leave the bathroom, heading down the stairs and into the kitchen where I plan on making myself a drink. But then I open the fridge and notice that there isn’t much cranberry juice left in the carton.
I hadn’t realised I’d been drinking it so quickly.
‘Did you get any more juice?’ I ask Adam as he joins me downstairs dressed for the new day.
‘There was only one carton on the shelf,’ he replies, and I try to take that as the truth and not the potential lie that it might be. I’m already starting to doubt things enough as it is. I don’t need to start questioning something as simple as supermarket shopping.
‘We need to get more. We’ll have to go today,’ I tell him, testing him to see what his reaction will be.
‘Sure,’ he replies casually as he puts his trainers on, and I’m surprised he has agreed so easily. ‘But only if you’re feeling better.’
‘I feel fine,’ I reply, forcing a smile onto my face. ‘I’ll go and get dressed, and we can get going.’
I’m almost at the staircase when Adam stops me.
‘There’s something I have to tell you,’ he says to me, and the serious look on his face is enough to worry me even more.
‘What is it?’
Adam seems to think about it for a moment before answering me. He reaches into his jeans pocket and takes something out.
Something small.
It looks like a sim card.
My sim card.
‘I took this out of your phone the other day,’ Adam tells me, sheepishly avoiding making eye contact.
Of course, I knew that my sim card was missing, but I have to pretend that I wasn’t aware.
‘Why?’
Adam shakes his head. ‘I feel terrible for doing it. I was just afraid.’
‘Afraid of what?’
‘Afraid that you were going to sneak out of the cottage when I wasn’t around and try and phone somebody to tell them where you were.’
‘What? Why would I do that?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe you’re regretting running away with me. Maybe you want to go home.’
‘I want to be with you,’ I tell him, because it’s the truth.
‘I know that, and I’m sorry for doing it. I just got scared for a moment, and then I couldn’t find the right time to put it back.’
‘You honestly thought I would call the police on you?’ I ask him as he hands me the sim card.
‘Not necessarily the police. Just a friend. Or Kat. I wouldn’t blame you if you did, but then she might tell the police and they could find us.’
‘Adam, I would never do anything to risk losing you,’ I reply, taking his hand. ‘I came here with you, didn’t I? I’m willing to leave everything else behind for you if that’s what it takes for us all to be together as a family.’
I place his hand on my stomach and look into his eyes, and I see the flicker of emotion across his face as he touches my bump.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says, and I accept it, although I feel a little upset when he pulls his hand away from me.
‘It’s okay,’ I tell him, because it is. At least there is a perfectly good explanation behind why my sim card was missing. He’s not keeping secrets from me, and he’s not trying to keep me disconnected from the outside world.
He’s scared.
Just like I am.
Adam takes a seat on the sofa, so I go over and join him, putting my sim back into my phone as I lay my legs across his lap and relax down into the comfortable leather. This would be just the kind of relaxing getaway I needed before giving birth if only we were here for vacation purposes and not because there is a chance there is a warrant out for our arrest.
‘You need to start telling me what you are thinking,’ I say to Adam as he runs his hand over my bare legs.
I’m in shorts today because I’ve hidden the dirty jogging bottoms at the bottom of the wardrobe. I’ll bundle them in with a wash later when I can get them out and get them into the washing machine without Adam seeing them.
‘Trust me, you don’t want to know what’s going on in my head,’ Adam replies, looking like a broken man and I imagine that he is.
He probably sees that body hitting his car every time he closes his eyes.
I want to distract him with something, just to take his mind off his troubles if only for a minute, so I unlock my phone and open the app where I have all my downloaded music saved. Then I locate the song I’m looking for and press play, and a couple of seconds go by before the cottage is filled with the sound of a slow and emotional piece of music.
Adam hears it and sees the smile on my face. I’m playing the song that I walked down the aisle to on our wedding day. We haven’t listened to it in ages, but I feel like it’s just the thing we need to remind ourselves of the commitment we made to each other.
I leave the song to play until it’s about halfway through before I speak.
‘I meant every word of the vows I made that day,’ I say, my mind drifting back to that magical occasion when I got to wear a beautiful flowing dress and Adam looked dapper amongst his groomsmen in their suits. ‘I’m not going to bail out now. No matter how hard things are or how much worse they might get. I’m always going to be by your side.’
Adam nods his head as he continues to trace his fingers slowly up and down my legs, and we stay that way until the song finishes. I can feel a few tears in my eyes as it does because I always get a little emotional when I hear that song, but I compose myself as I put my phone away and reach out for Adam’s hand.
‘Are you not cold dressed like this?’ he asks me, referring to my choice of skimpy shorts instead of my usual jogging bottoms.
‘I’m fine,’ I reply, brushing over the topic of conversation because I don’t want him to offer to go and get my jogging bottoms from upstairs and then find them covered in mud.
‘What time shall we go into the village to get more supplies?’ I ask, changing the subject.
‘I’ll just go by myself. You can stay here and rest.’
‘No, I want to come. I need to get out.’
‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea.’
‘Why not?’
‘I don’t want anyone to see you. If they do and we end up getting caught, it will be harder to prove that you weren’t helping me try to evade the police.’
‘I think they’re going to know that I’m helping you if they go to our house a
nd find out we’re both gone,’ I reply which makes sense to me, but Adam shakes his head.
‘No. It doesn’t matter if you’re gone. It doesn’t mean that you are helping me. I could have forced you to leave. I could be making you run against your will.’
‘But you’re not.’
‘I know that, but the police don’t. It means if they are looking for me and they do find me, then you can just say that I made you go with me and then you won’t get in any trouble. But you can’t use that defence if you are seen with me in public.’
‘I don’t want a defence. If you get caught, then we get caught together.’
‘Don’t be silly. One of us has to be around to look after Samuel. It can’t be me after what I’ve done, so it has to be you.’
‘Why are you talking like this?’
‘Like what?’
‘Like you’re already planning for us to get caught and for you to go to prison.’
‘Because we have to be realistic, Laura. This cottage is a good place to hide out for a few days, but it can’t last forever. We’re idiots if we think it can. What are we going to do when you go into labour? We’ll have to go to hospital then, and it will be over.’
‘Not necessarily,’ I say.
‘What do you mean?’
‘What if you help me deliver the baby here? Then we don’t have to leave?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘I’m not. Why can’t we do it? Lots of people do.’
‘What people?’
‘You know, people who go into early labour. Babies get born all over the place, not just in hospitals. Do you know how many babies get born on the backseat of a car by the roadside? I do because I’ve looked it up.’
‘But we don’t need you to give birth on the back seat of a car.’