I put my hand to my mouth. I was going to be sick. I went forward, as if to go to the toilet but my cast made it impossible. I couldn't understand, couldn't believe what he was telling me. Couldn't marry up what he was saying with Katie, our Katie, my little girl who was downstairs watching some Disney film. It just wasn't possible.
‘All I had to do was drive, Rachel,’ Phil said gripping my hand. ‘Drive and not stop.’ His eyes were wet, his face crumpled. ‘He was right in front of me, smiling at his phone, at this film he'd just sent of my daughter he'd forced into giving him oral sex.’ He was breathing hard, we both were. ‘At that moment, I wanted to kill him,’ he said quietly and I was silent, unable to respond.
‘I was passing the roundabout, turning onto the side streets toward Crewe before I thought about what I'd done, and how badly I'd done it. Before I realised what this would mean for our family, for you, Katie and Jessica. The window screen was smashed, but only in the left corner and I made it to the train station. I parked it over near the back of the football ground, there's no CCTV there and I put money in to last the week. I wiped the car down at the front, got rid of the blood and went to the station. I'd come up with a plan of sorts, a way that I could protect you all from how stupid I'd been. I was going to join my train to London and report my car stolen when I got to the office. But then, before I got on the train, I get this call from Della,’ he looked up at me, ‘and I realised you'd been there.’
22
Suzie
There was no change. The nurse repeated that they had her landline and should there be anything, anything at all different in Adam's condition, then she'd be the first to know. Even so, Suzie rang the hospital to check once she got home. She'd stayed at the hospital for the entire day and most of the night.
It had been just past nine in the evening when a consultant had finally popped his head around the door in Adam's hospital room, he walked in with a breeziness about him, not even looking at Suzie, just reading things off machines and charts. When he did finally turn to face her, he gave a brief smile before repeating what the nurse had been saying, using clichés and empty words and stressing that Adam should make a full recovery in time.
‘But how did it happen?’ Suzie had asked before he left the room, she'd stood up, her handbag dropping from her lap and landing with a soft thud on the floor and the consultant had looked at the nurse.
‘What did he do to be like this?’ Suzie looked at Adam. ‘What happened to him?’
The consultant had walked back over to the notes by Adam and studied them for a moment.
‘Collision,’ he'd said and looked up. ‘His injuries were caused by a car.’
Suzie had stared at him, stunned. Car accident. Adam had been in a car accident. She'd thought Adam's condition was the result of something else, something more unique. That he'd slipped on the icy roads and banged his head as he fell, or been attacked and hit with something, but to hear that a car accident was responsible, that bad driving and nothing more was to account for his state, it seemed to trivialise it somehow. Make it normal. As if it was something that could happen to anyone.
The consultant and nurse had both stressed that she needed to speak with the police, that they only had the briefest of answers as to how Adam came to be with them, they could only tell her how they were going to get him out of hospital, not how he got in and Suzie had nodded, suddenly exhausted. What difference did it make how he got to be lying in that bed after all? He was there, and knowing what put him there would make no difference to his recovery.
Something scratched at the back of her mind as the consultant gave her the contact name at the police department, something trying to come into focus, a question she should ask or a note she should make, but at that time she didn't have the energy. Adam was unconscious, he would wake up, but no one could give her a date and in the meantime, she had things to do so that when he did recover, everything could go on as planned.
‘I've got your laptop,’ she’d said earlier as she’d held Adam's hand. ‘I'm going to go home now and work out how to get to the safety deposit box. I'll get there first thing in the morning, get the cash and take it to the bank. And then I’ll pay back that horrid man Mark, you silly thing, taking money off him.’ She stroked his hand. ‘I don’t need to go on a fancy honeymoon if it means you dealing with people like that,’ she told him. ‘So I’ll sort this all out. I’ll find the money in the safety deposit box, pay everyone back and when you’re better we can do things properly. One bank account. A joint bank account.’ She stared at him but there was only the sound of the small electrical hum of the machines that he was wired to, the soft footsteps of nurses and visitors and their muffled voices.
Suzie smiled brightly at him, as if he could see her. ‘So!’ she said, ‘I'm going to get off home now and give you some rest. I'll be back tomorrow as soon as I've been to the bank.’
Later, back at her flat, as Suzie was closing the curtains against the night and switching on the central heating, she thought she would take her small speaker in to Adam the next day, or perhaps her headphones. She'd play their wedding song to him, the one they'd picked together. He'd feel something when he heard that, she was certain.
The night had turned into a vicious thing, after sleety snow all day, the wind had picked up and she could hear it rattle against the windows as she took a glass of wine and Adam's laptop into her small lounge to be by the fire. The lamplights did nothing to make the room cosy, it was cold with a thin carpet and hard sofa that had been in when she arrived. Adam had talked big about redecorating before selling it. ‘Character,’ was the word he’d used. Said it needed ‘bucketfuls of character’ and if he got rid of the gas fire and put in a log burner type thing, it would bring something of a cottage feel to it and sell quicker.
Suzie wasn't sure how a second floor flat in central Chester could have a ‘cottage feel’ but she went along with it and this time last month, she'd been toying with the idea of storing logs in a decorative basket to add to the deception. Now she fiddled to switch on the gas and wondered how long she had before the bank would start proceedings to evict her.
Picking up Adam's laptop, she took another gulp and opened it up to be greeted with a password screen. No matter, she'd be able to guess it. She was his fiancée. Of course she'd be able to work it out.
Smiling, she typed in her own name. The screen shuddered, and the password prompt reappeared. She typed in her full name, Suzie Marie McFadden, again it shuddered and she was back to the same page. She frowned, it would be something personal, that's the way Adam worked things, something like the name of his first pet or school. She bit her lip, trying to remember things about him and went into the kitchen to collect the wine bottle, the landline phone rang and she snatched it up.
‘Suzie?’
Her stomach plummeted. In her haste, she had forgotten to check caller ID.
‘Hi, Mum,’ she said, and walked back into the warmth of the lounge. ‘Everything alright?’
‘Well…’ her mother began and Suzie filled her glass to the brim. Her mum lived twenty-five minutes away in Frodsham. For ten years, Suzie had lived on a neighbouring street to her mother. She’d been able to walk to her house. Back when she was living with Carl, they’d all had ideas of pushing a pram through the streets that connected them. She still felt guilty that it never transpired, that the lack of grandchildren and her moving away was somehow her fault and not because of Carl's fixation with Tina's tits.
‘Your dad’s not so good,’ her mother went on and Suzie closed her eyes whilst she listened to the catalogue of horrors that her mother brought out and added to her guilt. Finally, after hearing about her father’s angina, the closure of a corner shop and the dog’s stiff back leg, her mother began to get to the real reason for her call.
‘So, everything on schedule with the wedding?’
Suzie opened her mouth to answer but no words came.
‘And your business?’ her mother cut in, thinking Suzi
e's silence was an affirmative answer. ‘That new thing you're doing with Rachel, how's that going? How is she, by the way, I often think about her mum down in Devon. Some kind of hippy, now isn't she?’
‘I don't know, Mum,’ Suzie said quickly. ‘We don't really talk about that kind of stuff.’
Her mum gave a laugh. ‘Of course you girls don't. I'm just so pleased it's going so well for you both. Who'd have thought, you two working together after all this time? And how is the lovely Rachel, still plotting world domination?’ she laughed again and Suzie cut in.
‘Mum, listen, I hate to cut you off but I'm really busy, we've a massive job on this weekend and I'm snowed under.’
‘Right, yes,’ her mother said and Suzie went to say goodbye when her mother interrupted. ‘It's your brother I'm calling about actually,’ she said and Suzie closed her eyes. ‘It looks like he didn’t get the job.’
Suzie swallowed. Of course Dave didn't get the job, of course he couldn't find any work, of course he was still looking for handouts.
‘He could do with a loan, just until he gets some work,’ her mother said. ‘His redundancy won’t last long, and with the kids starting secondary school, it’s all cost more than he thought.’
Suzie held her breath. Here it comes.
‘So I told him you were paying us back next week and he could have some of that.’
Suzie was quiet.
‘Shall I give you his account details?’ asked her mother. ‘He needs about five thousand and then you can transfer the rest to us.’
‘The thing is, Mum,’ Suzie began and she could feel the words slide back down her throat before she’d started to say them. She could hear her mother's breath on the other end of the line, see her expectant expression, know without question that if she told her the truth, right now, her mother would understand. Would do everything she could to help. ‘The thing is,’ she started again, ‘is that, I…’ she took a deep breath. ‘I might not be able to get to the bank next week after all, y’know with this big job we've got, it’s all hands on deck!’ she gave a tense little laugh.
‘Of course, of course,’ her mother said and Suzie felt sick at the kindness in her voice. ‘Whenever you get the chance, love, I know you’re busy with work and your wedding plans. Did I tell you that Auntie Sarah can make it now? But she's vegan, don't forget, not even fish.’ Her mother paused and Suzie felt a lump in her throat, tight and constricting. ‘I won't pester, love, I only called because of your brother and well, we would give it to you towards the wedding, you know we would, but as you're doing so well and now you’re working with Rachel and your business is growing…’
‘It's fine!’ Suzie said and then took a breath in. ‘Sorry, I mean, it's okay. I’ll transfer it as soon as I can, the week after next. I'll have the money to you then.’
She finished the call as quickly as possible and slumped on the sofa. Her wine glass was almost empty. She’d drunk more than half the bottle whilst speaking to her mother and her stomach churned in protest.
Suzie had borrowed seven thousand pounds from her parents when she first started working with Adam. He'd said she needed it for the new photography equipment he was selling to her, that she needed something to put toward the cost of the studio and that seven thousand, along with the loan she got from the bank, would be enough to make her his business partner. She was meant to pay them back this week, with the money she got from the Gatsby job and the rest from Adam, but now… Suzie swallowed. Now that wasn’t going to happen.
She thought about her parents in their small terrace, all their savings gone, her idiotic brother asking for money and how she could possibly tell them that Adam was in a coma in hospital and if she didn't work out how he ran the business, she'd lose everything.
Snatching the laptop, she opened it back up and the password screen greeted her. His face appeared in her mind, the first time they’d met. She had been wandering around Chester racecourse, the sun in her eyes, her new camera heavy in her hands. Adam had come over and asked her who she worked for. Asked what camera she used. Told her she should ditch Nikon and start using Canon. ‘Canon’, she typed in and the screen refreshed itself to the blue backdrop and the password prompt. Wrong answer.
After she'd visited his studio for the first time, he’d asked her out to dinner. She thought it was an interview, but when he put his hand on hers she realised that he wanted more. After three bottles of wine between them, Suzie had told him all about Carl and what he had done to her. She remembered Adam saying it was outrageous the way she’d been treated, to string her along like that. He talked about how he wanted a family, how he’d like to have children of his own someday, a family home somewhere out of the centre. He’d been so honest about it the conversation had made Suzie melt.
‘Family,’ Suzie typed in and again the screen refreshed itself to the prompt.
Squeezing her eyes shut, she pictured Adam's face, tried to hear his voice talking to her. There was something he liked to be called when they were having sex. What was the term he used? What did he like her to say to him? Something stupid, embarrassing. Something she thought was a bit odd when she was on her hands and knees with Adam going at it from behind, but she'd called him it because he wanted her to. She'd called him it because it turned him on and now she remembered.
She opened her eyes and typed in the words.
Sugar Daddy.
The screen jumped into action. She was in.
23
Rachel
I was numb. A chill swept the length of me and I could taste bile at the back of my mouth. I didn't want to think of it, but could think of nothing else.
‘You okay?’ Phil was rubbing my back. He had hold of the bin from the bedroom, a decorative little thing that I never used. He thought I was going to throw up and couldn't make it to the bathroom because of my cast. He was holding it in front of me as if I was drunk, as if I'd overindulged and was paying for it. I looked up at him, his face a mass of emotion and then I heaved, dry retching into the empty bin one more time.
‘I didn't want to tell you,’ he said as I wiped my mouth. ‘I wanted to protect you, to take care of it myself, take the bastard to the police and then let you know when I'd dealt with it. When we could speak to Katie together, form a plan of how to look after her. I wanted this to be different. You have to believe me, Rachel. I didn't plan to run him over.’
‘Oh God,’ I looked up to the ceiling, my eyes flooding. ‘What he did to her, our little girl? The film of her…’ I grabbed the bin and heaved over it again, Phil rubbing my back as I did so. ‘Katie,’ I said. ‘We need to get her up here. If he did anything else to her, oh Phil…’
He grabbed my hand. ‘Rachel. We can't. Listen to me, if we talk to Katie about this, if we let her know that I've seen that film, those pictures, and then she hears that the man who took them has been run over. Run over by my stolen car? She's not daft. She'll piece it together and then we'll be asking her to lie. To keep quiet. Not tell the police. The same with Jessica. We can’t tell either of them. Ever.’
I stared up at him; his face was pale. He looked ill.
‘But Phil,’ I said. ‘I can't not talk to Katie about this. She's been abused. She's been through something awful. We can't just…’
‘We can talk to her about it later,’ he said stopping me. ‘When this has all died down. I've thought about it, and we'll get her some counselling, some therapy. Hope it comes out that way, get her the help then.’
I shook my head, it was swimming. It was too much. I looked at him stunned, unable to respond. We sat in silence, the low drone from the television that the girls were watching downstairs the only sound.
‘You ran him over,’ I said finally. ‘Left the car in Crewe and that's where you were last night. To burn it out? Your clothes in the machine this morning, you were washing them because of the smoke?’
He nodded slowly and I squeezed my eyes shut.
‘What would you have done?’ he asked. ‘Rachel, if y
ou saw that film of her, if the person who'd taken it was in front of you and you had a gun in your hand…’
‘The parking ticket, that was for the car park at Crewe?’
‘Didn't even know I had it,’ Phil said. ‘You must've found the receipt. I never meant to, but Rachel, how could I not drive at him? When he'd just shown me that?’
I was quiet for a moment.
‘But your train ticket, the one you gave to the police?’
‘No time stamp,’ he said. ‘I printed out the tickets at Crewe station and wiped the ink on the time stamp as soon as they were printed. Smudged it.’
I remembered Sergeant Bailey running his finger along the top of the train ticket, the look he gave to his colleague and whimpered.
‘What were you thinking?’ I whispered and Phil grabbed my hands.
‘I wasn't thinking,’ he said. ‘I was reacting. I wanted to kill that bastard after what he'd shown me of Katie. After what he'd done to her.’ He gritted his teeth. ‘That morning I should've been on the train to London, I’d told the office I might be in late…’
‘Felix…?’
‘Telling the truth, although he does have a gambling addiction. But he was right, I’d cancelled the presentation but I hadn't yet cancelled my train tickets. I think part of me thought the meeting wouldn't happen, that he wouldn't turn up.’ He went to the window. ‘And then, afterwards, I thought I could use it as a sort of alibi. Tell the police that's where I was.’
‘But Phil,’ I shook my head. ‘There'll be CCTV in those stations, you'll be on camera. They'll find out that you weren't on that train…’
‘They haven’t yet have they?’ he asked quickly. ‘Otherwise I'd have been arrested. At the police station, they asked me questions but they didn't arrest me. Didn't even say I was a suspect. And why would I be? They don't know what he did to Katie. As far as the police are concerned I have no motive. No reason at all to run that man over. We are strangers. It's not a film, Rachel, this isn't television where the detectives are super sleuths. I dare say that Sergeant Bailey has got numerous other cases that he's working on. Other, more serious crimes that are taking his attention.’
If He Wakes Page 18