I sagged against the wall. I felt as if I'd been punched, I was winded. He was awake.
‘You should sit down!’ he said laughing. ‘You're not safe on those things.’ He held out his hand to offer support whilst I leaned against the doorframe and got myself as steady as I could. He turned to his partner and smiled. ‘She needs a learner sticker on those crutches.’
It was all I could do not to slide to the floor.
‘He’s awake?’ I asked and my voice was barely above a whisper.
‘He’s awake,’ confirmed Sergeant Bailey. ‘We’ll try to catch Mr Farrell at the office, but if we miss him and he comes back here, make sure he calls us.’ They went to leave and then he turned back. ‘And we’ll need to interview you, officially. So,’ he looked at my cast, ‘don't leave the country.’ He let out a laugh but I couldn't respond. ‘Good news,’ he said and studied my face. I couldn’t respond. I didn’t have it in me.
‘I’ll see you later,’ Sergeant Bailey’s words were a promise and as I watched them leave, I felt myself tremble.
He was awake.
27
Suzie
‘Can he talk?’ Suzie asked. ‘Can he speak? Is he speaking?’ Her breathing was shallow, she felt dizzy. As if she’d slipped into another dimension, an alternative reality where everything was nightmarish.
The nurse who had introduced herself as Janine took a short intake of breath. ‘Adam's not quite there yet,’ she said. ‘He's opened his eyes and is responding which are excellent signs of recovery.’
‘But he hasn’t said anything?’ Suzie asked and Janine made a sound like she was choosing her words, a soft click of the tongue against the roof of her mouth.
‘I'm afraid not, Ms McFadden,’ she said. ‘Adam is making significant steps to recovery but it's a process. The specialist will be available later this morning to talk to you in more detail, he'll be able to tell you what to expect.’
‘I'll be there as soon as I can,’ she told Janine and ended the conversation. She sat for a moment, gripping the phone, her breath short and quick.
Adam was awake.
Suzie tried unsuccessfully to force her brain to concentrate, to remember what they'd told her about the stages of recovery, the different states Adam was likely to go through before he was fully back with them. But for now, he was awake. His eyes were open.
She made her way out into the cold morning, wrapping her thin jacket around her. The van windscreen and windows were iced over. She climbed inside, her breath a white fog in front of her face. The engine started after the second turn, a choking, deep rumbling sound. She turned on the heaters that immediately blew out icy air and waited for the van to warm up. She pressed her foot down hard a couple of times on the accelerator and revved the engine, curtains of the surrounding terraces moved at the sound. People were leaving for work, bundling children into cars and she watched as a man tried to scrape bits of ice from his windscreen with what looked like a credit card.
She shivered and waited, cupping her hands in front of her face and blowing into them. He was awake but couldn't talk. She wondered if he could nod, if he would be able to understand questions and nod in response. She looked at her bag on the passenger seat beside her and thought about the memory stick in the side pocket and all it contained. If she told him, would he understand? And the money? She wondered if Adam would be able to nod his head about how he’d used all of her money before she ripped it off his neck.
The van slowly began to warm up, two small patches in the windscreen started to clear and although it wasn't quite enough, Suzie took off.
As she reached the end of the street, her indicator clicking loudly, it began to snow again. Blobs of white floated lazily down against the black sky, the windscreen wipers taking them out as they hit and as Suzie gained speed it was as if the snow was attacking her, flying directly into her path, and she had trouble keeping her focus on the road.
She headed out of the side streets and toward the centre of Chester. The windscreen wipers scraped against the glass as she crept forward. Christmas music was playing loudly from somewhere and Suzie couldn't work out if it was from a nearby car, and then, as she looked in the direction of the centre, she remembered. Tonight, the Christmas markets opened and the lights were switched on.
A horn cut loudly through the air and Suzie jumped. She changed gears and lurched forward. Stalled and then jerked ahead, going through the traffic lights just before they turned back to red leaving a trail of angry cars behind her.
By the time she got to Rachel's house, the snow was heavy and she was jittery.
As she got out of the van, Suzie realised she was wearing her Ugg boots. Fake Ugg boots, with the sides collapsed and the heel turning in on itself. They were the ones she used as slippers, she'd had her wedged boots out ready but must have left them in the hall. She stared at her feet for a moment, amazed that she'd come out of the house in her slippers and, for the first time since she was fifteen, had forgotten to put on a pair of heels. She felt small.
She put her hand out to the side of her and took tiny, even steps toward Rachel's front door, afraid of slipping and not being able to say what she needed to. Her bag was over her shoulder, held tightly against her rib cage, the memory sticks inside. Suzie felt like she could see them through the imitation leather, feel them and everything they held.
The front door was slightly open as she reached it and she gently pushed it.
‘Rachel?’
The house was silent. She walked into the hallway, stamping her boots on the mat and looked around. She held her breath for a moment and listened.
‘Rachel?’
Nothing. There was no one home, and then, from the kitchen was a faint sniffing noise. Pulling off her wet boots, she went through the French doors in her socks. She felt like a child, like an intruder, the smallest she had ever felt in her entire life.
‘Rachel?’
The dining room was empty and then, in the kitchen, she saw her, leaning over. Slumped against the sink for support, her cast sticking out at the side. Rachel was crying, messily. She was dabbing at her eyes with a piece of kitchen towel that was already black with mascara.
‘Oh,’ she said as Suzie came to the side of her. ‘Is it that time already? I heard you shout, but…’ she took a sniff, looked at her tissue that was full of tears and make-up. ‘I'm just tired,’ she said as if it were an explanation. ‘Just really, really tired.’
‘The door was open,’ Suzie said and took in the messy kitchen that was usually spotless. The discarded bowls and cups, the crumbs on the floor, the empty wrappers from what looked like the previous evening's meal and the state of Rachel. She put her hand around her shoulders. ‘Rachel…’ she began but Rachel shook her head at the tone of her voice.
‘I’m fine,’ she said stopping Suzie from continuing. She gave a false smile. ‘Just tired.’
Suzie took a moment. ‘Where are the girls?’ she asked. ‘Where’s Katie?’
‘Phil.’ Rachel nodded at his name, she was folding the sodden tissue, folding and refolding it. ‘He's taken them both.’ She looked at Suzie, tears brimming at the edges of her eyes. ‘The police have just left,’ she said. ‘And I've tried to ring him, but he's not picking up.’
Suzie took a deep breath. ‘The police?’ she asked slowly, it sounded ominous, it was the next port of call on her list.
Rachel nodded. ‘They wanted Phil,’ and her mouth made an ugly expression that she quickly tried to stop. ‘About his car, just routine questions.’
Suzie stared at her friend, it was almost as if she could see the pep talk going on in Rachel's mind, the rallying ‘get yourself together’ type words. Suzie watched her swallow, put her hand over her face and shake her head a little. She decided to come out with it, to tell her straight away what she knew, to tell her everything immediately.
‘I know who the messages were from,’ she said and Rachel looked up at her. ‘The Twitter messages,’ Suzie said. ‘The ones we fou
nd the other day? The ones we thought were from Phil? I know who they’re from. I know all of it, I came here to tell you. I know what happened, Rachel.’
They sat at the kitchen table. It was a replay of how they'd been three days earlier and if Suzie's sense of humour hadn't abandoned her, she would've found it somewhat comical. To be sitting in exactly the same place with Rachel, trying to explain what her fiancé had done.
* * *
On the journey to Rachel's, Suzie had told herself she would do this without emotion, she would try and detach herself and just tell Rachel. Just present it to her without anything else, without any of her own pain added, put forward what Adam had done and wait to be told the rest of it, but that was beyond her. She couldn't spare her friend her own agony, and as she took out the memory sticks, one clearly labelled ‘Katie’, she had to take a moment.
Rachel was shaking slightly, her face red and puffy, the sodden tissue still in her hand, even though there was a fresh box between them. Suzie thought they should perhaps make coffee first, or something a little stronger, but it was like putting off a firing squad. A sip of alcohol wouldn't make it go away.
Suzie pushed the memory stick toward Rachel, and as she did so, she saw that she was also shaking. There was a tremor to her fingers that she couldn't control.
‘Rachel, I don't know how to start.’
Rachel closed her eyes and tears fell onto her cheek.
‘I found this last night,’ Suzie began. ‘I was going through Adam’s laptop and I found,’ she looked at the stick, ‘pictures. Pictures of…’ she looked up at the ceiling, praying for a way to articulate it all. ‘Katie,’ she finished and Rachel made a painful sound.
‘The pictures, they’re photographs of Katie, and well, they’re not ordinary photographs. Not ones that you’d want to see. She’s… well, she’s posing in the pictures… and she isn't wearing any clothes, you see the pictures…’
‘Pictures?’ Rachel interrupted and Suzie stopped talking. Rachel's voice was alarming. It made Suzie's heart clench. ‘You've got the pictures of Katie?’ She looked at it, looked at Katie's name written in Suzie's handwriting.
‘They're not pictures I took,’ Suzie said. ‘They're not ones you'd want to see. Katie, she's…’ Suzie took a moment, ‘naked. She's almost naked on some. And there's a film, I think, I've not watched it, not looked at it, I don't know what…’
Rachel began to weep. Suzie couldn't continue. She watched as Rachel curled in on herself, and Suzie had to put her hand out in case she came too far forward.
‘Rachel, I didn't know,’ Suzie found herself saying, desperate to state her innocence, ‘I had no idea, I didn't know any of it. I came here as soon as I found them. As soon as I saw them on his laptop, I knew I had to come here first. Tell you about them. About him. About what he did, before I went to the police, to anyone. I came here. I came straight to you because I get it. I think I know what happened, what you saw on Tuesday. On the retail park and this is the reason,’ she pushed the memory stick toward her friend. ‘This is the reason why you saw Katie there, why you saw her at the hotel. Why she wasn’t at school.’
Rachel wiped at her face. She said nothing. Suzie was sweating, despite the cold, she was clammy.
‘Where did you see the pictures?’ Rachel's voice was quiet. ‘Phil said they weren't on the website. They weren't on the internet. Those pictures hadn’t been published. He said he had to get a special link,’ she looked up at Suzie, her eyes puffy and red. ‘Are they on the internet? Is Katie on the internet?’
‘No, no!’ Suzie shook her head. ‘She's not on the internet. The pictures aren't published, they're hidden.’
Rachel closed her eyes in gratitude then nodded. ‘Phil said he had to ask to see them,’ she almost whispered. ‘Said he had to ask for a link.’ She looked up. ‘So where did you…?’
‘That's why I'm here,’ Suzie swallowed. Her throat was dry. ‘To tell you how I found them. To tell you what I found.’
Suzie took a deep breath, then, as what Rachel had said penetrated, stopped.
‘Phil had to ask?’ Suzie leaned forward. ‘Rachel, you said Phil had to ask to see these pictures, so you know? You've seen them?’
Rachel was staring at the memory stick. She was biting her lower lip and it had become bloody, dotted with spots of red that she licked away before beginning to bite again.
‘Phil knew Katie was doing this?’ Suzie asked carefully. ‘Phil knew? He had to ask for a link?’
Rachel closed her eyes.
‘Rachel?’ Suzie prompted. ‘Phil knew Katie was modelling? Is that it? You're telling me that Phil let her…’
‘He didn't let her!’ Rachel almost shouted, her face blotchy and red. ‘He just found them last week. She has a smartphone, Katie, she has a smartphone we didn’t know about and Phil found her messages. On Twitter.’
Suzie nodded, ‘It was Katie arranging to meet Adam…’
‘Katie wasn't arranging to meet anyone,’ Rachel let out a wail. ‘That was Phil. He was pretending to be Katie. What we saw was Phil on Twitter. He was the one arranging to meet…’ she took a moment. ‘What did you say? Adam? His name is Rob.’
Suzie stared at her, then realised, she'd yet to confess what she'd found last night but first she had to get it straight.
Had to fully understand what Rachel was telling her.
‘It was Phil?’ she asked again slowly. ‘Those messages on Twitter? Arranging to meet at the hotel on Tuesday. That was Phil? Not Katie?’
Rachel nodded.
‘But Phil was in London. The other day, when I thought he’d been having an affair, you told me he was in London. That you hadn’t seen Phil.’
Rachel looked away and Suzie felt it begin to slowly unlock. Felt her mind begin to put the pieces in place and they slotted together perfectly.
She dipped her head. Swallowed. Took a deep breath.
‘It was Phil,’ she said quietly. ‘It was Phil pretending to be Katie on Twitter. He found out about what Adam had done to Katie, and got Adam to meet him at the retail park. It wasn’t Katie, it was Phil. He wasn't having an affair, he was finding Adam.’
‘Why do you keep saying Adam?’ Rachel asked and Suzie blinked at her.
‘They said at hospital it was a car accident,’ Suzie said and Rachel's face trembled, she looked away from her and down at her hands. She was shredding a tissue. Little bits of it fell on the wooden floor at the side of her cast.
‘And you saw it didn't you?’ asked Suzie. ‘You were trying to tell me yesterday. What Phil did to put Adam in a coma.’ Suzie thought back to Tuesday, when Phil had arrived at the hospital, not a scratch on him. ‘It was a car accident, but Adam wasn't in his car, was he?’ she asked. ‘I assumed it had been a crash, a great big smash between two vehicles, but I've been stupid, haven’t I? They called me about his abandoned car, not his damaged car.’
‘Adam?’ Rachel asked and Suzie put her hands up to her face. For a moment she couldn't talk, couldn't look at Rachel.
‘You saw him do it?’ she asked from behind her hands. ‘You saw Phil run Adam over.’
‘Adam?’ Rachel asked again.
‘And then Phil makes up the story that his car was stolen, when it was him all along.’
‘Suzie, who is Adam?’
‘You see Phil do that to Adam and you say nothing.’
‘It was Rob. Phil was meeting Rob, not Adam.’
‘It was my Adam,’ Suzie said pulling her hands away. ‘That's who Phil was arranging to meet. Adam did this.’
She pointed to the memory stick that was on the table between them.
‘He was calling himself Rob. He took those pictures of Katie, the film. He set up the modelling website.’ She took another breath, filling her lungs as much as she could. She looked up and kept her eyes heavenward. ‘I was looking for money,’ she said. ‘For his account. I'm broke, completely broke. I'm bankrupt. He took all my money, Rachel. He’s taken everything I had and used it all for t
his. To charm young girls, to look rich, to give the impression that he’s some kind of jet setter,’ she gave a hollow laugh. ‘I was looking for the details of his bank accounts, and so I went on his laptop. And then I find this site, this modelling site that he's set up. Full of young girls, doing all kinds of things,’ a sob caught in her throat and she pushed herself to go on. ‘And then, oh Rachel, I find Katie,’ tears fell as she said her name. ‘He did it to Katie and oh, Rachel. The stuff on there,’ she closed her eyes. ‘He must have been doing it the whole time, the whole time we were together. Before we were together. He must have seen me as a money tree, he must have seen me with Katie, he must have met me to…’ her words trailed off and Suzie hung her head. She'd lost control. She grabbed a tissue, knocking over the box as she did so and pushed it into her face to block the tears.
‘Adam?’ Rachel’s voice was not much louder than a whisper. ‘Your fiancé? That Adam?’
Suzie nodded.
They stared at each other.
‘And Phil ran him over didn't he?’ Suzie closed her eyes, ‘Phil found out what he'd done to Katie and ran him over. And you saw him do it.’
Suzie was about to say how there was a part of her that could understand what Phil had done, why he’d done it. That if she’d been sat behind a wheel with Adam in front of her when she found out last night, she might very well have ploughed her car into him. But instead, she was knocked on the side of her face. Rachel had slapped her. Hard.
Suzie's head reeled. She felt where Rachel's hand had been, the stinging sensation, the prickling hurt. It wasn't nearly as hard a slap as Suzie had given herself the night before, but it added to her already smarting cheek, and the shock of it jolted her.
She turned back to Rachel, who was staring at her with wide, fearful eyes and breathing hard. ‘We said he might not have been working alone,’ she said. ‘When we talked last night, we both agreed there could be others involved. How long have you known? How long?’ Rachel asked and raised her arm to hit Suzie again but she caught it, her hand gripping Rachel's wrist. They were still seated and Rachel tried to move but Suzie increased her grip and twisted it slightly, forcing Rachel to stay still.
If He Wakes Page 22