The Memory of Midnight

by Pamela Hartshorne

  ‘I’d been indulgent long enough,’ he said, but she could tell he liked the admiration she was forcing into her voice.

  ‘Other men would have just given up when their wives left, but not you.’

  ‘What was the point of whimpering to a lawyer?’ said Martin. ‘Lawyers are all talk. I always say actions speak louder than words.’

  ‘I knew you would come after me. Nobody else would have been able to find me, but I knew you would.’ Tess had no idea where she was going. She just knew that this was her first chance to make a connection with Martin, and she couldn’t waste it. At least they were having a conversation. ‘It would take more than moving to another city to stop you finding me, wouldn’t it? I knew that was you in the flat, but I couldn’t work out how you could have been there when I’d locked the door.’

  ‘I had you watched right from the start.’ Martin preened himself, remembering. He seemed to have forgotten Oscar. ‘It’s easy to get hold of a key when you know the right people. But then you changed the locks.’ His smile thinned. ‘You shouldn’t have shut me out, Theresa. I had to get the key from your bossy friend, whatshername.’

  ‘Vanessa.’ Tess clenched her fists. Some friend Vanessa had been!

  ‘That’s it. I’ve been keeping an eye on her too. I thought she might be handy and it wasn’t too hard to track her down once you’d told me she had Oscar. I had to listen to her yapping, but she couldn’t wait to hand him over with a key. She knows what’s right, even if she does need to shut up for five seconds so a man can think.’

  ‘You . . . you’ve gone to a lot of trouble.’

  His face darkened. ‘Yes, I have. That’s your fault too, Theresa. You shouldn’t have left me. That was a very, very foolish thing for you to do.’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Did you really think I’d let you go?’

  Why hadn’t she realized before how like Ralph he was? Tess looked at her husband with sudden clarity. Ralph, who had been crueller, less unbalanced and more sure of his own desires, but who shared Martin’s need for utter control. Sex with Martin had been, in the end, a perfunctory business, but what if she could reach him by appealing to some of Ralph’s more twisted tastes?

  ‘It was stupid of me.’ Tess swallowed, willing to try anything. ‘But I knew you wouldn’t let me get away with it. I need you to keep me in line, Martin. I’ve been reckless and stupid, and I need to be punished.’

  She lowered her eyes submissively but not before she had seen his face light grotesquely. ‘Only you have the right to do that.’

  For a second she thought she had him, but a loudhailer crackled into life in the street below, startling them, and they both swung round.

  ‘Martin Nicholson, this is Sergeant Jim Myers. I’m a negotiator with the North Yorkshire police. We’re here to resolve this situation peacefully. We don’t want anyone to get hurt. I’m going to ring you now. Please answer the phone so that we can talk.’

  ‘Shit!’ Wrenching the terrified Oscar by the arm, Martin scuttled over to the window. ‘They’ve cleared the street.’ He ducked back out of sight and chewed his lip while his eyes darted around. ‘Now what are we going to do?’

  Tess was thinking frantically. The police didn’t know about the bomb. Martin was already erratic and the stress of the police presence was only going to make him worse. She had to get Oscar out of there.

  Martin’s phone began to ring in his blazer.

  Please, God, let the switch not be sensitive to vibrations, thought Tess. ‘Let me get rid of the police,’ she said to Martin above the sound of the phone. ‘I’ll talk to them, let them know you and I want to be alone.’

  Martin’s eyes flickered from side to side. His skin was sheened with sweat. ‘They won’t let us go.’

  ‘They will. I’ll tell them about the device, and that you want a car. They won’t dare do anything as long as you’ve got that. You’ve got the whip hand, Martin,’ she said urgently, moving closer to Oscar. She wasn’t sure if he would buy her sudden attempt at collusion, but she had to try. ‘We’ll pretend I’m your hostage, and we’ll go home. We’ll be husband and wife again, the way you said, and no one will interfere.’

  Martin’s face was twitching. Abruptly, he pulled out his phone and tossed it to her. ‘You tell them. We want a car. And nothing else! Don’t let them pretend to be your friend. I know how these people work.’

  ‘Okay.’ Tess’s hands were slippery on the phone. ‘Hello? Yes, this is Tess Nicholson. We’re all fine.’ She kept her eyes on Martin’s face while she spoke to Jim Myers. ‘My husband has an explosive device and he’s prepared to use it,’ she said, finding it no problem to sound terrified. ‘Please, just give him the car he’s asked for and let us go.’

  Martin gave her a nod of approval. He seemed to have calmed down and Tess risked covering the phone with her hand so that she could turn towards him, two conspirators together. ‘We don’t want the boy with us, do we? This is just between husband and wife. He’ll just get in the way of my . . . punishment.’ She made the word sound as lascivious as she could and was careful not to look at Oscar herself. She needed Martin to believe that she was bound up in his fantasy.

  Martin’s face worked. He was torn, she could tell, but in the end the fantasy she offered won out. She had Nell to thank for that inspiration, Tess realized in a distant part of her mind. The image of Tom’s lifeless blue gaze above his ghastly slit throat flashed across her brain again, and she squeezed her eyes shut briefly to push it away. She couldn’t think of Tom, not now.

  ‘All right, get rid of him,’ Martin decided abruptly. ‘But tell that lot outside I’m not taking off the bomb until we’re safely away. Tell them I’m a security expert and I know what I’m doing.’

  Tess was careful to conceal her relief as she relayed Martin’s decision to the police officers waiting outside in Stonegate. She couldn’t afford to remind Martin how much Oscar meant to her, so she didn’t look at him. ‘The boy’s coming out,’ she said. ‘We don’t want him with us when we go.’

  She cut Jim Myers off before he could respond and laid the phone down on the table, still being careful not to make any sudden moves.

  ‘I’ll send him out, shall I?’ she said, holding out her hand to Oscar but looking at Martin. ‘Then we can be alone.’

  There was a long pause and then Martin released his grip on Oscar’s arm. With a small cry, Oscar stumbled over to Tess and clutched at her legs.

  Tess longed to bend down and sweep him into a comforting hug, but she couldn’t afford to alienate Martin just yet. So she contented herself with resting a hand on the back of his head and pressing him to her.

  ‘Mummy and Daddy need some time alone together, Oscar,’ she said. ‘I want you to go downstairs and let yourself out the door. Can you do that?’

  He shook his head against her thighs. ‘Want to stay with you.’

  ‘I need to talk to Daddy.’

  ‘Come with me.’

  ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake!’ Martin exploded.

  Tess crouched down and kept her voice steady as she held Oscar away from her by the shoulders. ‘Listen to me, Oscar. It’s very important that you go downstairs – very important – so you need to be brave. There’s a policeman waiting to see you outside. His name’s Jim. Can you remember that?’

  Oscar nodded miserably.

  ‘Okay then.’ Not looking at Martin, Tess took Oscar by the hand and led him to the top of the stairs. She wanted to tell him that Luke would be there, that he would look after him, but she didn’t dare with Martin listening. But she pictured Luke holding Oscar, and the knot in her chest loosened a little. ‘I want you to tell Jim that Daddy and I are fine,’ she said instead, ‘and that we’re waiting for the car. Have you got that?’

  Martin was looming beside her. There was no chance of making a run for it. Tess permitted herself a stroke of Oscar’s hair and then she nudged him towards the stairs. ‘Off you go, pip.’

  Oscar put one hand on the
wall and went down the stairs slowly, taking one at a time. When he got to the bottom, he hesitated and looked back up at Tess. For as long as she lived, Tess would never forget the look on his face.

  ‘Go on,’ she said, pressing her lips into a straight line to stop them trembling. ‘Open the door.’

  With agonizing slowness, he fumbled with the door while Martin muttered beside her, and Tess’s throat closed when at last Oscar pulled it open. She saw a strong arm scoop her son to safety and then the door was shut once more.

  ‘You spoil that boy,’ said Martin.

  In the front room, the phone began ringing again.

  ‘Leave it,’ said Martin. ‘I’m not going back in there. They’ll have snipers aiming for me. I know these guys,’ he said again. His eyes were darting around and Tess was alarmed by how quickly the brief period of calm was unravelling into paranoia. She needed to find a balance again, to make him believe that he was just a man who wanted to be loved, that he just wanted his wife back.

  Maybe buried deep inside Martin that man really existed, struggling to get past the man who needed to bully, to frighten and to control.

  Now the police knew about the bomb, they would be working out a strategy to rescue her. Luke would be out there. He wouldn’t abandon her. The realization settled strong and steady in her stomach. All she needed was to keep Martin calm and make sure the police could reach him.

  She swallowed. ‘We should keep the phone. They’ll need to let us know when the car has arrived.’

  Martin rubbed his temple. ‘All right . . . we’ll get the phone, but then we’ll move back.’ He watched hawkishly as Tess picked up the phone from the table and grabbed her wrist when she came back. ‘We’ll go to your room. We’ll be safe there.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Tess steadily. At least Oscar was safe. She held onto the thought. ‘We can finish packing.’

  ‘Packing?’

  ‘To go home. You started packing for me.’

  ‘Yes . . .’ He frowned as if grasping at an elusive memory, and rubbed his forehead again. ‘Yes, I did . . .’

  ‘Have you got a headache?’ Tess asked. ‘It’ll take them some time to organize a car. Why don’t you lie down for a bit? You could take that thing off,’ she added casually. ‘It must be uncomfortable.’

  A shutter seemed to clang shut in Martin’s eyes. ‘Do you think I’m stupid?’ he asked with quiet venom in one of those lightning-quick changes of mood that Tess had always dreaded.

  ‘No, of course I don’t.’

  ‘I think you must do, or you’d never suggest that I take off the bomb!’ His voice rose to a shriek and Tess couldn’t help flinching. ‘The bomb’s the only thing that’s making you stay here, isn’t it? Isn’t it?’

  ‘N-no . . .’ Tess stuttered.

  ‘You sat in that ghastly tea room over the road and you told me you didn’t want to go to the Maldives with me, and now I’m supposed to believe you want to pack while I take the bomb off and “lie down”?’

  Martin’s hand shot out and fastened around Tess’s wrist. ‘I’ll show you packing,’ he said viciously as he dragged her down the corridor. ‘You wanted to be punished, I’ll punish you!’

  Sick with fear, she stumbled after him to her bedroom, pulling futilely at the cruel grip around her wrist.

  Martin kicked open the door and then everything seemed to happen at once. A thick cloud of horror rolled out of the room and enveloped them, wrapping itself around their faces like a physical thing, cold and black and terrifying.

  Ashrafar streaked between their legs with something between a screech and a yowl, making Martin, his mouth already open in terror, stumble and let go of her wrist. Tess watched as if in slow motion. She had time to think that if he fell on the switch they would both die, but the scream was blocked in her throat as the horror plucked her from the present and shoved her back into the past.

  ‘No!’ Nell groped for Meg’s hand as she backed away from Tom in horror. She still didn’t understand. She had been pitchforked into a nightmare, and she was tumbling and flailing, not knowing which way was up in the new reality. She grasped at the thought that this was only a dream, but it was all too real. She had been in too many warehouses not to recognize the harsh aroma of white cloth as it permeated the hessian bales it was wrapped in and mingled with the sour, damp smell of the river that seeped underneath the doors and clung to the brick walls. Underfoot, the floor was packed earth strewn with straw, crushed and mouldy now, and the scent of it all was overlaid with the metallic smell of blood.

  Tom’s blood.

  Beside her, she could hear Meg whimpering, inarticulate with terror. She should comfort her, Nell thought vaguely, but what could she say?

  ‘Oh, my dear, you were right.’ Ralph’s voice behind them made them both spin round. He was standing next to Janet and observing them with delight. He clapped his hands and laughed at their expressions. ‘It is better than the players! You said it would be, and so it is!’

  Still uncomprehending, Nell’s eyes went from Ralph to Janet, who gazed adoringly up at him.

  ‘Janet?’ Her voice sounded rusty and unused, as if it belonged to someone else.

  ‘Yes, Janet!’ Ralph was gleeful at her disbelief. ‘What a trusting soul you are, wife! You ran straight to the one person in York I account my soulmate.’

  ‘Janet?’ Nell whispered again as Janet leant towards Ralph and they kissed, a long, lascivious kiss. Nell could see their tongues each thrusting into the other’s mouth, twisting and twining, careless of the slobber of saliva, and when they broke apart, Janet’s plain, sandy face was alight with gluttonous satisfaction. She smiled at Nell, a smile at once contemptuous and terrifyingly normal.

  ‘You have no idea, do you?’

  ‘I don’t . . . I don’t . . .’ Nell stuttered.

  ‘You don’t understand? No, you don’t. For once, wife, you are quite correct. You do not understand true pleasure. You have no appreciation of the exquisite torment of a soul in ecstasy. Janet understands. We were drawn to each other straight away, but you, you had to spoil it. You had to send her away. That was a mistake, wife. You are rather prone to mistakes, I find,’ he added in a silky voice. ‘And the biggest mistake you made was trying to run away with Tom. You will have to be punished for that.’

  Janet sucked in a breath of avid anticipation, and Ralph chuckled, a light, inhuman noise that would have struck ice in Nell’s core if she were not already so numb she couldn’t feel anything.

  ‘I trusted you.’ Her voice as she spoke to Janet was empty of expression. She was almost surprised to hear the words coming out of her mouth. ‘I saved you from him.’

  ‘I didn’t want to be saved!’ There was a mad light in Janet’s eyes as she thrust her face towards Nell’s. ‘Only with Ralph can I be myself. We understand each other. And you, you ruined it! We couldn’t see each other every day any more. I had to go and live with that sot John Scott and be bedded by a man who thought to shove his prick in me was to show desire. There is a world of pleasure and desire that he and you know nothing of – nothing! You are married to a man who can show you the world, but do you honour him? No! You cringe and pule and weary him with the narrowness of your desires. Pah, what do you know of pleasing a man?’

  ‘I know everything of pleasure,’ said Nell, finding her voice. ‘I love a good man and am loved by him.’

  She couldn’t look at the bales behind her where Tom lay, grotesquely dead. Her mind refused to accept that it was true. Surely this was a terrible nightmare, and she would wake in the great chamber in Stonegate before long.

  Yes, that was all this could be, Nell told herself. She would wake and though Ralph might be snoring beside her, the knowledge that Tom was nearby and that they would be leaving soon would hum through her. Her lips would curve at the memory of him, of his hands warm on her skin and the laughter in his eyes and the desire, sharp and sure, that rose between them at every touch.

  She even closed her eyes, willing wakefulnes
s for once, but when she opened them again, she was still in the dank warehouse, and the smell of blood was rank in the air, a voice at the back of her mind shouting at her: Fool! This is no dream. Tom is dead and all is lost.

  Nell wouldn’t listen to it.

  ‘What Tom and I have is not blessed by law, but it is strong and clean and true,’ she said bravely. ‘Do not talk to me of desire. I know what desire is, and it is not the unnatural appetites you share with my husband.’

  ‘Well, which of us is the happier now?’ Janet tittered. ‘Oh, I wanted to laugh in your face when you knocked on my door that day and begged me to help you! As if I would help you dishonour Ralph so! But you, you were so sure I owed you, and you were right, but not in the way you meant.’

  ‘You told Ralph what we meant to do.’ If this was a dream, it was making a horrible kind of sense. No wonder Ralph had been in such a good mood.

  ‘He was all for killing Tom there and then, but I persuaded him it would be so much more entertaining this way. To let you think you were going to escape . . .’ Janet and Ralph laughed again, in fine good humour.

  ‘You are mad,’ Nell whispered.

  ‘Mad? Are we so? We are not the ones who planned to shame our families, to run off with a pirate brother in the night.’

  ‘You will burn in hell for what you have done this night.’ It was Meg, her voice swooping and surging with fear. Her fingers were holding onto Nell’s so tightly they were white to the bone.

  Nell looked down at them and the pain of her daughter’s grip digging into her flesh brought the truth crashing down at last.

  This was not a nightmare.

  This was real.

  Tom wasn’t going to spring to his feet and tell her this was only a trick. He wasn’t going to save her from Ralph. He was dead.

  ‘You have killed Tom.’ Her voice was dull, deadened with delayed shock.

  ‘Well, what was I to do with him?’ Ralph asked reasonably. ‘I could not have him making a fuss. And the world knows he sailed off on the ship. If he never returns to York . . .’ He shrugged. ‘Who will be surprised? York has done very well without Tom Maskewe these last few years; it will manage without him again. His mariner friend put up a little resistance, but I have learnt to deal with those who choose to put themselves in my way.’