The Memory of Midnight

by Pamela Hartshorne

  It must be uncomfortable with that great slash under his chin.

  There was a roaring in Nell’s ears, and a dreadful keening filled the warehouse. Where was that terrible noise coming from, she wondered with that still detached part of her mind. Didn’t they know they had to be quiet?

  She turned to Meg who had moved stiffly beside her. She meant to shush her, but she couldn’t speak, and it was only then that Nell realized the noise was coming from her own throat.

  Vanessa took a step back as the howl erupted from Tess. ‘Tess, for heaven’s sake!’ she said, but she looked shaken. ‘Luke, what’s the matter with her?’

  ‘Tess.’ Luke’s voice was very gentle as he laid a hand on Tess’s arm. ‘Tess, can you hear me?’

  Tess stared at him, her pupils dilated with horror. ‘Tom,’ she stuttered. ‘Tom’s dead . . . Tom’s dead!’

  ‘Oh my God!’ Vanessa covered her mouth with her hands. ‘Did she just say dead? Who’s Tom? What’s she talking about? Luke, what’s going on?’

  Luke didn’t answer. He was too busy trying to deal with Tess who was bent over and sobbing, great retching, wrenching sobs that ripped up from deep in her belly. She flailed in distress as he gathered her to him as best he could. ‘Shh,’ he said. ‘You’re all right. It’s all right.’

  ‘It’s not all right!’ Vanessa’s voice rose shrilly. ‘Look at the state of her!’

  ‘Tess, listen to me.’ Luke took Tess’s chin in one hand and made her look at him. ‘Look at me. You’re safe, okay? You’re here.’

  Her eyes were dazed still, but she was beginning to focus. ‘Here,’ she repeated.

  ‘You have to focus now, Tess. You have to think about Oscar.’

  ‘Oscar?’ Horror stirred anew in her eyes. ‘I’m going to be sick,’ she said, and turned away to throw up in Vanessa’s freshly weeded rose bed.

  Revolted, Vanessa turned away. ‘Oh, for God’s sake . . .’

  ‘Vanessa, call the police,’ snapped Luke.

  ‘What?’ Vanessa grimaced as Tess continued to heave over the roses. ‘The police? Why?’

  ‘Tell them Martin has taken Oscar against his mother’s wishes.’

  ‘I can’t do that! Martin is Oscar’s father. He hasn’t done anything wrong.’

  ‘Tess didn’t want him to be alone with Oscar. You knew that.’

  Vanessa flushed guiltily. ‘Tess is overreacting – as usual. And you’re encouraging her,’ she added with a spiteful look. ‘Tess was fine until she got involved with you again.’

  ‘Oscar.’ Tess wasn’t even listening. She straightened on trembling legs and wiped her face with her hands. The thought of her son steadied her more than anything else could, and she forced the ghastly image of Tom’s half-severed head from her mind. ‘I have to find him.’

  She had dropped her handbag on the ground when she had turned away to be sick. It started to buzz as she reached for it, and all three of them paused as if transfixed.

  ‘My phone!’

  Tess scrabbled inside for it. Unknown caller. She pressed answer anyway. ‘Hello?’

  ‘There you are.’

  ‘Martin!’ She threw a frantic glance at Luke who spun his hand to indicate that she should keep talking as they hurried to his car, leaving Vanessa looking at them in outrage.

  ‘What about this mess?’ she called after them, eyeing the roses in disgust.

  Tess ignored her.

  ‘Where are you?’ she asked Martin as she scrambled into the passenger seat and Luke ran round to the driver’s side of the car.

  ‘In your flat, of course.’ Martin sounded surprised. ‘I’m packing for you.’ He chuckled. ‘Seems like I have to do everything around here nowadays!’

  As if they had never confronted each other in the middle of Stonegate. As if everything was normal. As if he had stepped gently over into insanity.

  Trying not to think about Oscar alone with him, Tess covered the phone with her hand. ‘Vanessa was right,’ she told Luke. ‘He’s at my flat.’

  ‘Call the police!’ Luke yelled to Vanessa over the roof of the car. ‘Tell them Martin is in Stonegate with Oscar. Do it, Vanessa!’ he shouted when Vanessa started to object.

  ‘Packing?’ Tess said into the phone, trying desperately to control the tremble in her voice as she hauled the seat belt across her and snapped it into place one-handed.

  ‘You won’t want to take much with you.’ She could hear him opening and closing drawers. ‘Where are all the pretty bras I bought you? Everything else in here might as well go straight in the bin. You know I hate you wearing these awful T-shirts and things,’ Martin clicked his tongue in distaste, and Tess pictured him grimacing as he held her tops out at arm’s length.

  Swallowing her disgust at the idea of his hands on her clothes, she took a breath and levelled the reediness from her voice.

  ‘Is . . . is Oscar there?’

  Luke had shoved the car into gear and the tyres were screaming on the tarmac as they shot down the road to where the traffic was flowing out of the city in a seemingly unstoppable stream. Swearing, Luke slammed on the brakes, jolting Tess forward against her seat belt before shoving her back into her seat.

  ‘Rush hour,’ Luke muttered, edging out as far as he dared and ignoring the blaring of horns and irritable flashing of headlights. ‘That’s all we need.’

  ‘Can’t you think of anything but Oscar?’ Martin sounded petulant. ‘It’s only ever Oscar, Oscar, Oscar with you.’

  ‘I need to know if he’s all right, Martin.’

  There was an exaggerated sigh. ‘Of course he’s all right. For now,’ he added almost as an afterthought.

  Tess went cold. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, I think it’s time for you to make a decision, don’t you?’

  Chapter Nineteen

  ‘Decision?’ she echoed numbly.

  ‘I’ve been very patient, but things can’t go on like this, I’m sure you’ll agree?’

  ‘Yes . . . yes, I do.’ Keep him talking, that was all Tess could think.

  ‘So it’s time to put things right,’ said Martin. ‘Isn’t that right, Oscar?’ he added and Tess flinched as she made out a whimpered agreement in the background.

  Oscar. Oscar who had been running around so happily earlier would be shrunk into himself, confused and scared, and she gestured frantically to Luke to get going. He put his hand on the horn and shoved the car out across the traffic, making a van swerve and blast its horn in return. Tess was flung around in her seat and the phone slipped out of her grasp, but she managed to grab it between her knees and put it back to her ear.

  ‘Are you still there, Theresa?’ Martin sounded peevish.

  ‘Yes, I’m still here.’ She swallowed hard past the constriction in her throat. ‘You . . . you were saying?’

  ‘Either we’re a family together or we’re not a family together.’

  ‘Wh-what do you mean, Martin?’

  ‘I mean it’s your choice, Theresa.’

  His voice was light, pleasant. Chilling. ‘Let’s talk about this when I get there,’ she managed as Luke accelerated.

  ‘That’s what I hoped you’d say,’ Martin said. ‘And this time we’ll have a proper talk, hmm?’

  ‘Whatever you want.’

  ‘That’s more like the Theresa I remember,’ he said approvingly. ‘But we don’t want anyone else. This is just between us, isn’t it? Don’t even think about bringing that oik who interfered earlier with you.’

  ‘I won’t. I’ll come alone, I promise,’ she said, ignoring Luke’s frown of protest.

  He was driving as fast as he could, flashing his lights at the drivers carefully sticking to the speed limit.

  ‘Can I speak to Oscar now, Martin?’ Tess tried.

  There was a pause. She could picture Martin, head to one side, considering. ‘No,’ he decided pleasantly. ‘I don’t think so. I think you should just get here as soon as possible.’

  ‘I’m coming, I’m coming . . . I’
ll be there any minute.’

  ‘I’ll be waiting for you,’ he said and cut the connection.

  Tess stared down at the phone. She was trapped in a nightmare, jerked between Nell’s horror and her own terror for her son. She couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. Could it really only be a few hours ago that she had sat in the Museum Gardens in the sunshine? It didn’t seem possible. Time itself was accelerating. Like a high-speed train that had pulled out of the station at normal speed, it was now rocketing uncontrollably along a track – no, along two tracks, past and present, with Tess torn between them.

  She wanted to jam in her heels, to make it stop so that she could make sense of the terrifying blur of images flying past. They span jaggedly, like shrieks in her head, one vivid picture after another: Meg’s face, stark with fear; Oscar, whispering in the background on the phone; Tom, his collar dark with blood; Martin, standing over his son, his hands full of her underwear.

  The eerie implacability in his voice had frightened her. He had sounded like a man who had stepped past the point of no return.

  ‘Hurry, Luke,’ she said.

  Luke kept his hand on the horn to warn the wandering pedestrians to move out of the way as the car hurtled along Monkgate, through the bar, careered down Goodramgate, and swung round towards the Minster. Tess was already opening her door as he came to a dead halt at the bollards blocking the way past the south transept. Before he could stop her, she was out and running blindly for Stonegate, careless of the tourists who turned to stare as she bolted past them.

  Luke caught up with her as she reached the flat and bent over, heaving for breath. ‘Tess, wait!’ He pulled her round. ‘Martin sounds like a psycho. I think we should wait for the police.’

  ‘I’m not waiting for anyone. My son’s in there.’ Tess forced herself upright and scrabbled for her keys. Her fingers were as unwieldy as sausages.

  ‘Then I’m coming in with you.’

  ‘No! That’ll just make him worse! You have to stay here and tell the police what’s happening.’ Desperately, she tried to get the key in the door one-handed but she kept dropping it, until Luke, grim-faced but accepting, took it from her and opened the door.

  ‘Be careful, Tess,’ he said, and she took a breath as she stepped past him and closed the door behind her. It was shadowy in the narrow hallway and the image of Tom’s body jumped into her mind with a scream of memory. She pressed her palms to her head as if she could physically push it away. She didn’t have time for Nell now. She had to get to Oscar.

  The stairs rose ahead of her. ‘Martin?’ she called. ‘I’m here.’

  The door at the top opened a crack. ‘Are you alone?’ he demanded suspiciously.

  ‘Yes. I’m coming up.’

  Martin opened the door as she reached the top of the stairs. He looked bizarrely normal in the clothes he had worn earlier. Tess was at the door before she noticed that there was something strapped to his chest, and her heart seemed to freeze in horrified disbelief.

  Dear God, he had some kind of explosive device, and he was holding Oscar tightly by the arm.

  He sounds like a psycho.

  Oscar began to cry when he saw Tess.

  ‘It’s okay, pip,’ she said, forcing down her panic and pinning a reassuring smile to her face. ‘I’m here now. Martin, why don’t you let Oscar go?’

  ‘No.’ Martin’s expression was petulant. He dragged Oscar back to the front room, leaving Tess to close the door and follow. ‘You only care about him.’

  She closed her eyes briefly, fought for calm. ‘He’s just a little boy, and you’re hurting him.’

  ‘What about you hurting me?’

  ‘I’m sorry if I’ve hurt you, Martin, but I’m here now.’ She didn’t want to look at the package on his chest. It was making the air shriek with danger. She had been afraid of Martin before, of his rage, of his silence, but she had never thought that he would do anything like this. ‘Why don’t we sit down and talk, just you and me like we said?’

  ‘You don’t want to talk,’ said Martin, his handsome face sulky. ‘You’re just humouring me. You wouldn’t even have come here if I hadn’t brought Oscar. You don’t want to be a family any more.’ He didn’t seem aware that Oscar’s mouth was still trembling violently as he tried to control his tears.

  Tess ached to snatch him up but she didn’t dare. It was bizarre to be standing there in the familiar room, where everything looked just as it should except for her terrified son and her husband with a bomb strapped to his chest and a sheen of insanity in his eyes.

  ‘I’ve done everything for you, Theresa.’ Martin began to pace, dragging Oscar with him. ‘I spoilt you, that’s the problem. I gave you a beautiful house. I showered you with presents. I sent you flowers. I paid every bill. You had nothing to worry about, nothing.’ He swung round, almost pleading. ‘You didn’t want for anything, did you? Did you?’

  Tess licked her lips, her mouth dry. ‘No, you were very generous.’

  ‘And what do I get in return? Nothing!’

  ‘Martin—’

  ‘You never used to be this cold.’ His voice broke. ‘You used to love me.’ He wiped the back of his hand under his nose. ‘You don’t love me any more. I booked us a beautiful holiday and you won’t go.’

  ‘I . . . I didn’t take time to look at it properly.’ Tess struggled to pick her way through a minefield of lies and evasions. ‘Look, why don’t I make tea and you can tell me about it?’

  Martin’s mood swung viciously, without warning. ‘Tea? Tea? Is that all you can suggest?’ He pointed at his chest. ‘Do you know what I’ve got here?’

  ‘No.’ Her throat was swollen with fear. ‘I was . . . wondering what that was.’

  ‘It’s a smart little explosive device. I put it together myself – one of the advantages of being in electronics.’ He laughed wildly and Oscar winced. ‘See this switch here? I flick this and poof! me and the boy and you and this grotty little flat will go sky high. So I suggest you stop wasting time with stupid suggestions about tea,’ he said as the colour drained from Tess’s face, ‘and think about what you want to do.’

  ‘You’d really kill all of us?’ she whispered.

  ‘At least we’d be together.’ He was sweating, his eyes glazed, and she wondered what he’d taken. His mood was lurching from the vicious to the pathetic to the sly and Tess groped for a way, any way, to break through and make him realize what he was doing.

  ‘We can be together here,’ she said unsteadily, even as her flesh shrank with revulsion.

  ‘That’s what I want. That’s all I want.’ His eyes filled with pathetic tears. ‘But I don’t know if it’s really what you want, Theresa. I just know that whatever happens we’re going to be together, the way we’re meant to be. The way you promised we’d be. Till death do us part . . . but it wouldn’t part us, would it? Not if we’re together.’

  Snivelling, he dragged his sleeve over his face. Tess struggled to think. She had to find a way out of this but Nell was too close. She could feel her scrabbling to break through and swamp Tess’s mind with her own horror, but Tess couldn’t let that happen, not when Oscar was whimpering and straining to get to her. His face was pinched with fear, his shoulders hunched against a blow.

  Somehow Tess managed a smile for him. ‘It is what I want, Martin,’ she tried. ‘Of course it’s what I want. We’ll be a family again. It’ll be just like it was before.’

  He stared at her, half hopeful, half sly. ‘Do you mean that?

  ‘Of course.’

  Pain was jabbing at her fingertips but Tess ignored it. She sank onto the arm of the sofa, trying to look relaxed, normal, and gave Oscar another smile that was meant to be reassuring but that probably looked ghastly. ‘We’re going home with Daddy. That’s good news, isn’t it?’

  In the past Oscar would simply have nodded dumbly, but the weeks away from his father had changed him more than Tess had realized.

  His voice trembled, but he was disastrously clear. ‘Don’
t want to,’ he said.

  His timing couldn’t have been worse, but Tess felt a flash of pride in him for standing up to Martin for the first time. There was an appalled pause before Martin jerked his arm furiously. ‘You don’t want to. Don’t want to be with your own father? Is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘I want Mummy,’ Oscar whispered defiantly.

  Martin put his face down close to his son’s. ‘Well, you can’t have her, because I want Mummy too, and if I’m not having her, nobody else is.’

  Instinctively, Tess got up and took a step towards Oscar, but Martin saw her coming and pulled him back towards the window, away from her again. His face worked. ‘I knew it! I knew it! You don’t want to be a family again at all!’

  Panic roared in her head. She needed to divert Martin’s attention from Oscar, but she was too scared to think. Where were the police? But what could they do? As long as Martin had Oscar as a shield, no one could touch him.

  ‘Martin, why are you doing this?’ she said, her voice wavering all over the place.

  ‘It’s all your fault,’ he spat at her, tiny flecks of spittle at the edges of his mouth. ‘I gave you every opportunity to be reasonable, but you wouldn’t.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Tell me what I can do to make it better. I’ll go on holiday. I’ll go home with you. I’ll do whatever you want.’

  ‘It’s a shame you didn’t think that way before, isn’t it?’ Sweat was trickling into his eyes and he swiped it away with the back of his hand. ‘A shame you didn’t care about your marriage vows. Till death do us part. That means something, Theresa. It’s not just words. I said them and I meant them. I’m not going to give up on my family the way you have.’

  ‘That . . . that’s one of the good things about you.’ Tess’s chest felt clogged and she was struggling to breathe, but she forced the words through. She had to try something and Martin had always been vain. ‘You don’t give up.’

  His expression flickered and she pressed her advantage. ‘And you’ll do whatever it takes to do what needs to be done. That was a clever idea, bringing a bomb.’ She almost gagged on the word, but at least Martin was listening and his hold on Oscar had relaxed a little. ‘No pussyfooting around, just getting straight to the point.’