Safe at Home

by Lauren North

  Harrie’s head jerks to Elise and then back to me. ‘Both of us?’

  ‘Just you.’

  ‘I’m tired. Can it wait until tomorrow?’

  ‘Now please.’

  Harrie sighs, her head dropping, but she follows me anyway, feet dragging on the carpet.

  ‘Come sit down.’ I pat a space on the double bed beside me, but Harrie stays by the door, one hand resting on the handle as though ready to escape, to run, at the first opportunity. Our fight yesterday evening swirls in my head. She wouldn’t run out of the house again now, would she? It’s late, pitch black, bedtime. The truth is, I don’t know.

  I take a breath. ‘I found these trousers in your bedroom.’ I slide the carrier bag across the bed and watch Harrie’s eyes widen, her mouth open, terror play on her face.

  She says nothing and so I carry on pushing. ‘They’re a pair of your school trousers and they’re covered in blood.’ My throat pinches with my own fear now. ‘Whose blood is it? How did it get on your trousers?’

  Silence.

  ‘You have to tell me what’s going on. What happened to you last week? Why have you hidden a pair of blood-stained trousers in your bedroom? I’m your mother, Harrie. I am here for you and I want to help you, but you have to talk to me.’

  Silence.

  ‘Please.’ A single tear rolls down my cheek and I brush it away before Harrie sees it. I have to be strong.

  If it’s possible for Harrie to shrink closer to the wall, she does, squashing down within herself.

  ‘Harrie.’ I force a strength into my voice, an authority that feels false on my lips. ‘You will tell me why there is blood on your trousers and why I now need to buy a new pair for you because these are ruined.’ I slam my hand on the bag in a burst of frustration that makes us both jump. The regret is instant. This isn’t about buying new school trousers. This is about the blood, about what happened.

  Harrie lifts her gaze and our eyes meet. ‘They’re not mine,’ she says as though it’s a dirty cup in the living room that I’m asking her to take out.

  The blatant lie hangs between us and if I wasn’t so desperate for the truth I’d laugh at the audacity of it. ‘Your name is on the label.’

  She shrugs. ‘I’ve never seen that bag before. I don’t know anything about any blood. Nothing happened the other night. You didn’t come home. I went to bed. The end.’ Her eyes blaze, daring me to challenge her. The futility of our argument hits me.

  The seconds draw out between us. An electric silence.

  It’s Molly’s voice that breaks the stand-off. ‘Mummmeee?’

  And I relent. We’re going around in circles and no matter how desperate I am for answers, for the truth, I can’t force Harrie to talk to me.

  ‘I’m here for you,’ I say softly. ‘When you’re ready to talk, I’ll listen. I’ll always be on your side. I love you.’ I stand up, my arms open to hug her, but she shrinks away, opening the bedroom door.

  ‘I’m going to bed,’ she whispers. ‘Goodnight.’

  Molly scampers across the hallway as Harrie shuts herself away in her room. A moment later Elise’s voice rings out. ‘I’m tired, Mum. I’m going to bed too. Night.’ And then their light is off and it’s just me and Molly.

  It hurts – a physical ache – that I can’t be the mum Harrie needs me to be right now. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, how I can help her, just that I can’t. She won’t let me.

  CHAPTER 30

  Harrie

  The trousers. Her mum found the trousers. Harrie can’t believe it. She can’t believe she forgot to throw them away.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  Everything is unravelling. It feels like she’s slipped off the side of a cliff and is rolling, tumbling, falling down, down, down. She doesn’t know which way is up any more or what the world is going to look like when she eventually lands. The thought makes Harrie’s stomach hurt, a burning in the space below her ribs.

  At least her mum didn’t find the phone. Not that it matters now.

  From the bathroom, Harrie hears the rattling hum of the extractor fan and the taps clonking into life as her mum turns on the shower for Molly. It’s time to go.

  Now or never.

  Pulse racing, heart booming like a cannon in her chest, Harrie throws off the covers and moves to the door.

  ‘Don’t go,’ Elise pleads in the darkness. ‘Whatever it is, it can’t be worth it.’

  ‘I have to,’ Harrie replies.

  ‘Why? You can tell me. I promise I won’t tell Mum.’ Elise’s voice is thick with emotion. The sound of it pulls something deep inside Harrie. She wants to turn around, she really does, but she shakes her head in the dark. She has to keep quiet. It’s the only way to protect her family.

  ‘Just cover for me if you can,’ Harrie says, hurrying down the stairs and into the kitchen. She strips off her PJs, revealing the dark clothes underneath, the clothes she couldn’t let her mum feel the bulk of when she’d tried to hug her a few minutes ago. Wrapping them into a bundle, Harrie stuffs the PJs into the craft cupboard on top of a stack of Molly’s old colourings.

  Now or never.

  Never, never, never. The word circles her thoughts but still she grabs the things she needs and slips silently out the back door, running into the darkness again.

  Harrie doesn’t stop until she reaches the stable. Every second she’s here is another second her mum could find her empty bed. Five minutes in the bathroom helping Molly shower. Ten minutes of reading. That’s all Harrie has. As soon as Molly is tucked in bed, their mum will tiptoe across the hall, gently open Elise and Harrie’s bedroom door and check they’re both settled. Elise is poised to get up and distract her mum on the landing if Harrie isn’t back. But that only buys her another few minutes.

  ‘Who’s there?’ The voice is weaker tonight. A croak followed by a cough.

  Harrie swallows hard and steps inside. The smell makes her eyes water, as if a football has hit her in the face. She covers her nose and mouth with her sleeve, but it’s pointless.

  She places the torch upright on the floor. The light bounces off the rafters and casts a shadowy glow across the stable.

  ‘Please, help me,’ the man says, wincing as he sits up. His eyes squint as he looks past the torchlight to where Harrie stands. There’s a bucket in one corner of the cage and an empty plastic water bottle on the floor.

  One of the man’s cheeks is swollen and when he says, ‘Please,’ again it sounds like he’s talking with a lump of bread in his mouth.

  Harrie’s legs buckle at the plea.

  ‘Who are you?’ he asks again.

  Fear is holding her voice captive just as the cage is doing to the man.

  Harrie pulls out the water she’s brought with her and twists off the lid. The man picks up the empty plastic bottle and pushes the lip between the metal bars. Drops splash and spill on the floor as she pours from one bottle to another. It would be easier if she moved closer, but even with the locked cage between them, Harrie keeps her distance.

  ‘My name is Dean Stockton.’

  Harrie says nothing. She already knows his name, but the ache in her stomach turns from dull to sharp at his words and she bites back a yelp of pain. Does he think telling her his name is going to make this harder for her? It can’t get any harder. Surely he must know that. Surely he must see that she doesn’t want to do this.

  ‘I live in the village, on the corner of Normandy Road,’ the man says. ‘Do you know it? The house with the purple wisteria growing across the front.’ His voice sounds weird, like he’s trying to be normal, like he’s chatting away on the street instead of a prisoner in a cage. It’s the same voice Harrie’s mum uses when she’s upset but pretending not to be. All high and cheery.

  ‘I recognize you,’ he says with a frown. ‘You’re one of the twins, aren’t you? One of Rob and Anna’s kids?’

  Harrie can’t stop the involuntary step back, the widening of her eyes. The answer she inadvertently giv
es.

  ‘Are you Harrie or Elise?’

  ‘Harrie.’ Her reply is barely audible. She wishes she could stay silent, but she can’t keep ignoring his questions, his pleas for help. She can’t save this man, but at the very least she can talk to him.

  ‘So you do speak.’ He tries to smile and Harrie can see a gap where he’s missing a tooth. A memory smacks into her mind. The body. The blood.

  Dean’s clothes are creased and dirty and Harrie sees a stain on his trousers that makes her look quickly away. He must have wet himself at some point.

  ‘Why do you keep coming here? Why don’t you just let me die?’ he asks.

  Harrie shakes her head but inside she wonders. She wouldn’t have to keep coming here if he was dead. But if he was dead, then it would be murder, wouldn’t it?

  She shakes her head from side to side.

  ‘I didn’t have a choice,’ she says. It’s not an answer, but adults do that all the time. A question with a question, a sweeping statement.

  ‘You can choose to unlock the cage,’ he says softly.

  She shakes her head.

  ‘I won’t hurt you. I promise. Please.’ Dean’s voice wobbles, a deep rumble in his throat.

  ‘I can’t.’ Tears threaten behind her eyes. She wants to go now, but her feet won’t move.

  He sighs, and then catches sight of the bag in her hand. ‘What have you got there?’

  ‘A sandwich and some crisps,’ Harrie says. She pulls out the food she hid from her mum earlier. Dean shuffles nearer to the bars and Harrie steps closer too, dropping the sandwich into the cage, into Dean’s outstretched hands.

  ‘Got any chocolate?’

  She shakes her head. ‘I’ll try and get some next time.’ Harrie clamps her mouth shut before she can say any more. Why is she offering to bring him chocolate? It’s all so confusing. She shouldn’t be helping him, but she can’t stop herself.

  ‘And when is that going to be?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She shrugs. ‘Tomorrow.’

  This is the third time Harrie has come here and it isn’t getting any easier. If anything, it’s getting harder. Harder to get away and harder to be here.

  Dean drops his head into his hands. They’re covered with dirt, grazes and dried blood.

  ‘Talk to me, please. I’ve got no one to talk to.’

  Harrie opens her mouth to say no, but then she thinks about the cage in her nightmares and how horrible it felt to be trapped, alone.

  ‘I don’t know what to talk about.’

  ‘I’ve got a brother – Luke. He’s only a year younger than me. People used to think we were twins. What’s it like to have a twin?’

  ‘Really good.’ Harrie smiles despite herself. ‘We’re totally different though. Elise loves pink and girly stuff and gymnastics, but I’m not into any of that. I like sports. She’s really smart too. She wants to go to this private school in town, but our mum and dad can’t afford it so she’s trying to get a scholarship. She’s studying all the time. Mum’s always helping her.’

  ‘Don’t you want to go to that school?’ Dean asks.

  Harrie shrugs. No one has ever asked her that before. ‘I’m not as smart as Elise. She’s got a chance at the scholarship, but I haven’t.’

  ‘And you have another sister?’

  Harrie nods. ‘Molly. She’s seven. She’s a pain sometimes but she’s also really funny and totally obsessed with playing Guess Who?’

  ‘It must be hard for you, having one sister studying so much, and another one younger. Your mum can’t have much time left for you.’

  ‘I guess.’ She’s never thought about it like that before. Molly is the youngest and needs their mum more. Elise is the superstar always needing to be taken to gymnastics or helped with her extra work, which leaves Harrie. What does she have?

  ‘I grew up in this village too, you know?’ Dean says. ‘When Luke and I were younger we decided we wanted an adventure. I think we’d been reading too many Famous Five books.’

  ‘My mum’s reading The Famous Five to us right now.’

  ‘We went across the bridge over the river and into the fields. We thought we could walk all the way to London.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘We stopped for a break after ten minutes and ate all our food and then our mum came and got us.’

  They sit in silence for a moment before Harrie jumps to her feet with a start. What is she doing? She can’t sit here talking to this man.

  ‘I have to go.’

  ‘No, wait.’

  ‘I’ll come ba—’ Before she can finish Dean moves lightning fast, pushing his fingers through the bars and grabbing her hand in an icy claw.

  ‘Help me. I’ll die if you leave me here,’ he hisses.

  Harrie jumps back, yanking her hand free, stumbling back against the side of the stable.

  She’s stunned, the wind knocked out of her. All she can do is stare at the man in the cage.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Dean says, breaking the silence. His shoulders shake and he starts to cry. A pitiful whimper sounds from his throat. ‘I wasn’t trying to hurt you. I didn’t mean to scare you. Please let me out. Please, I’ll do anything, just let me out of here.’

  ‘No,’ she shouts before turning and running, skidding on the straw beneath her feet and almost falling in her desperation to get away.

  ‘Please,’ she hears him shout a final time.

  Harrie keeps running. She doesn’t know if she’ll ever come back, even if that makes her a murderer.

  CHAPTER 31

  Tuesday, four days until Halloween

  Anna

  As soon as I’m back from the school run, I throw myself into work. I crave the distraction. Without it, I will think only of Harrie and that grating feeling in the pit of my stomach that I’m missing something.

  Bloody trousers.

  Dean’s name shouted in her sleep.

  The bruise.

  The mud.

  The unlocked back door.

  I wish I knew what it all meant. I wish I could open Excel and file what I know in neat little rows and straight columns until answers appear, but I can’t. And so I work.

  I start with the maintenance jobs from the websites I’ve designed over the last three years. It’s little things. An extra page needed for a new service an accountancy firm is offering, an updated staff member profile for a public-relations company, a contact form for a local children’s charity.

  When it’s done, I move straight on to the Parish Council admin. Organized chaos, Kat called it on Saturday when she showed me how to access the files on Google Drive. She was half right. It’s chaos, but there’s no semblance of order, no folders, no dates. Just a higgledy-piggledy mishmash of Word documents and PDFs. Meeting minutes from five years ago next to an invoice for plumbing work at the village hall from last month, next to a denied planning application for a house extension. The disorder sucks me in just as I’m sure Kat hoped it would. I spend hours lost in creating dozens of folders and sub-folders. Spending suggestions, fete organization, school, playing field, village hall, invoices. I click on an invoice from Stockton’s for a repair on the village hall roof and wince at the cost. There are more invoices. £1,000 on maintenance of the horse field and stable. £5,000 on upkeep of the playing field. It’s a mess. Someone has loaded the invoice for the village hall roof twice on different dates, and there’s no record of meeting minutes from the last six months.

  On and on it goes until my finger aches from clicking with the mouse and my head is pounding. A dull, persistent throb. Like someone is banging two saucepans together inside my brain. A slow and steady clang, clang, clang.

  Finally, I open the Parish Council email account. It’s mostly junk – a new estate agent’s in town that wants to put posters on the village noticeboard, a request for clothes to be donated to a jumble sale. There’s an enquiry from a Mr and Mrs Randell about renting the empty horse field on the main road for their two ponies.

  I t
rawl through the documents until I find the right form and send it with a reply to the email. It’s a little thing, but it feels like I’ve made progress. It’s £200 a month to rent the field and I’m sure the Parish Council will be grateful for the extra income, especially as it’s been sat empty for so long.

  It’s lunchtime by the time I sit back in my chair, bleary-eyed and rubbing at the back of my neck. My mouth is dust dry, my stomach queasy from hunger. I let my gaze drift to the shelf above the table where I keep the cookery books and the little clay pots the children have made me in their art lessons over the years. Sitting beside them is a photo of Rob and the girls cuddled on the sofa at Christmas, wearing upside-down paper hats, Christmas jumpers and big smiles. A lump forms in my throat. Molly’s questions on the walk to school this morning prey on my mind.

  When is Daddy going to call again?

  Will he call this Sunday?

  Why didn’t he call last week?

  Can we give him two riddles to solve because he missed a week?

  I smiled brightly and told her what she wanted to hear, jollied her along so she wasn’t upset on the way to school. But now the questions return and there is no one to do the same for me. No one to tell me it’s going to be OK.

  Why did you have to miss the call this week, Rob? The one week when I really need you?

  Harrie looked exhausted this morning when she finally appeared for breakfast, like she hadn’t slept at all. I don’t know which is worse, night terrors or insomnia.

  If Rob were here he’d get through to Harrie. He’d take her out to the park or the garden and they’d boot a football back and forth until they were both red-faced and puffing, playing their made-up game, halfway between football and rugby with rules that seem to change every time they play.

  Then he’d flop on the ground beside her and would coax and charm the truth right out of her. I realize in that moment that if I can’t help Harrie then I must find a way to contact Rob. He will help her.

  CHAPTER 32

  Anna