by Mick Bose
“Because of this. Because I thought this would happen,” I wipe my eyes. “You would react in this way. But I told you, didn’t I?” Desperately, I search for some confirmation in his eyes, some fragment of hope that he sees it my way, that he understands. But his dark pupils are like a blank slate.
“You told me nothing. And now, this whole mess is being dumped on me.” He turns away, then starts to leave the kitchen.
I run after him and hold his hand. He shakes it free. Without looking at me, he says, “I need some time away from you. We need to take a break.”
Pain twists inside me, a steel vortex. “Don’t say that. I need you, Jeremy. Now, more than ever.”
He stares at me then, and opens his mouth to say something. But he doesn’t say it. He turns around and walks away. I want to run after him, but I know it won’t do any good.
But he comes back himself. “I’ll move my stuff out tomorrow morning. You two can stay here. I’ll carry on paying rent till you find somewhere to live.”
“Where will you go?” I ask.
“I have to stay in contact with the office, so not far. Maybe a BnB for a week, I don’t know.”
This time, I hear him walking up the steps. I lie down on the sofa, and curl myself up into a tight ball.
If this is what Clive and Eva wanted to do to me, then they’ve succeeded.
CHAPTER 44
Eight years ago
I had been in hospital for a week when they allowed me to leave. I hadn’t spoken to anyone, and didn’t want to. The aching emptiness I felt couldn’t be put into words. Nothing could help me.
I was shaking when I got back to the flat. Light had been snuffed out of the evening sky, and summer was giving way to autumn, a bony coldness in the air, stripping leaves off branches. I put the key in the lock, and stumbled in. The flat was dark, cold and empty. I trudged upstairs and lay down on the bed, still fully clothed. I curled up into a ball, trying not to think.
I never wanted to see Clive again. It was over, and I had been blind to the signs for so long. He had changed, turned into a vicious, cold monster. I didn’t know him anymore. Had I really known him? No, of course not. He was a stone-hearted, evil man.
I wasn’t sure how long I had spent lying, half-asleep, half awake. I daydreamt about going for dawn walks with my dad in the farm. I would help him to get the sheep out of the corral and into the stream at the bottom of the hill. Once they had grazed and fed, Pixie, Dad, and myself would put the sheep back into their pen again. In between, Dad would show me to how to use the telescope on the rifle. How to slide the breech back, load a bullet in the magazine, and push the safety catch. The wolves came occasionally, and larger cats. It was rare, but Dad always said it was best to be prepared.
I remembered the feeling of the rifle in my hand, heavy and solid. It was a pain to lift it to my shoulder, never mind sight through the telescope. But I slowly got used to it. When I helped Dad lift the bales of hay and clear the barn, as a reward, he would take me to the hills and we would practise shooting. He brought me an airgun, which was ridiculously light after handling his Remington breech action. That airgun, and the pony I got for my ninth birthday, were my favourite possessions.
I must have fallen asleep, but I woke up when I heard the front door close. It was pitch black dark, and I sat upright in bed. I could hear sounds downstairs.
“Clive!” I called out. There was no answer. Lights had come on, and I could hear him rummaging around downstairs. I gritted my teeth, and went down the stairs.
I met him in the hallway, as he was pulling out the suitcases. He looked at me and narrowed his eyes.
“Have you been sleeping?”
It was eight o’clock, I could see the clock on the wall. I stared at Clive. How could I once have been in love with this man? His face was still handsome, and he had a week’s stubble on his cheeks. But his eyes were cold and calculating. He hadn’t even bothered apologising for his awful behaviour.
I looked at him and shook my head slowly. “What happened to you, Clive?”
He sneered at me. “Happened to me? Look at yourself in the mirror. Who dragged you out of the rubbish bin?”
Anger flared inside me, running through my veins like lava. I stepped up to him. “Do you care about me anymore, Clive? Do you know what just happened to me?”
He must have seen something in my eyes, the hurt and indignation. His face changed as his eyes flickered all over me. “What?”
“I had a miscarriage.”
He frowned, thinking. I wonder if he actually knew what it meant. I decided to spell it out for him. “I lost the baby.”
He put the suitcases down, and ran a hand through his wavy, blond hair. It used to be smoothly gelled back always, but now it was long and unkempt, falling over his eyes.
“And that’s not all,” I said, my voice trembling. I told him everything. He was the first person I had told. I still didn’t have the strength to tell Dad. I needed to speak to Eva. She was the only one I wanted near me right now.
“Jeez, I’m sorry,” Clive said, not looking at me.
I balled my fists and bared my teeth. “Sorry. Sorry? Is that all you can say?”
He looked at me with a strange expression. “What do you want me to say? It’s not like it’s my fault, is it?”
I breathed out, trying to channel my anger into something. I wanted to scream at him, and rip his eyeballs out, but what good would that do? He was an insensitive, callous bastard, and stupid, idiotic me hadn’t seen that to begin with.
What a fool I had been.
“When you pushed and hit me, you caused the internal bleeding that led to all this. So yes, this is all your fault!” I shouted at the top of my voice.
“What the hell are you talking about?” he snarled, curling his lips upward.
“You need to treat yourself, Clive. You’re sick, and you need help. You bastard.”
“You’ve lost your marbles, you really have.” The anger was back in his face. He picked up the suitcases. “Get the fuck out of my way, you stupid bitch.”
With a scream, I flung myself on him. I clawed his face, pulled his hair, punched him. He showed a physical ability like he knew what to do in these situations. Calmly, he sidestepped, parrying my blows. He kicked my legs and I folded. He grabbed my hair and turned me around, pressing my face against the wall.
Standing behind me, he twisted my elbows till I thought the pain would make me pass out. I fought back, but he was too strong.
“Don’t push your luck, cupcake,” he whispered, tightening his grip on my neck. “All I have to do is squeeze harder, and your shoulder will dislocate. Then I’m going to chop you into smaller pieces. No one’s ever gonna find out. Do you understand?”
There was a cold finality in his voice that made by blood freeze into ice.
CHAPTER 45
Eight years ago
I retched on the floor, nauseated, angry, frustrated. I felt for my stitches, they were all intact. If I had a gun in my hands I would have shot him. I put a hand on the wall, and straightened up painfully. He had walked out with the suitcases, and I could hear him getting into the car. The trunk slammed down and the key turned in the ignition, but the car wouldn’t start.
An idea came to me. I had to follow him, see what this “merchandise” really was. Battling the ache in my body, I went out of the back door, and got my bike. I put a coat and helmet on. I was outside by the time the BMW’s engine had come to life, and I watched from the porch as he pulled out. There was traffic, and he would have to stop and start. I started to cycle after him, staying back so he wouldn’t recognise me.
The cycling actually made me feel better. Clive twisted in and out of backroads, and I kept up with him, not losing sight. We had left Putney behind, and entered a seedier part of town. No parks or green spaces here, just rows of grimy terraced houses, with the occasional tall council block.
The BMW stopped outside a row of houses that had seen better days. This was
Mitcham, in South London, an area that can be dangerous. And Clive had just driven into the worst part of it. I stopped far behind him, and got off my bike, crouching behind a car. I stayed out of the street lamp and hoped no one would see me.
I saw the overturned rubbish bins, and an empty shopping trolley in front of the decaying front lawn of a house. A burnt car, with its wheel missing, was parked opposite me. The night was close and humid, and I smelt danger in the air.
Clive got out of the BMW and looked around as I ducked. He opened the trunk and took out both of the suitcases. Then he wheeled them up to one of the houses. He pressed on the doorbell and waited. When the door opened and he was let in, I got up and walked towards the house.
The buildings were in various shades of disrepair. I walked past the rusting hulks of a washing machine and dishwasher. Keeping my head, I noted the number on the door. I wheeled my cycle past it quickly, heart beating fast. I couldn’t exactly go inside. Clive was dangerous, I knew that now. In truth, looking back now, what did I know of him? Everything he had told me about his life could have been just fabrications.
But there was one thing he couldn’t make up. The only thing that gave him some sort of humanity. His mother. I would get up early tomorrow and do two things. See Rita Connery, and take the new contract for the agency business that I had signed when I had given Clive my trust fund money, and see a lawyer.
*****
I went back to the apartment that night. I didn’t want Clive anywhere near me, but I had nowhere else to go. Eva had a job outside London, and she travelled often. I texted and called her, but she didn’t answer. She could be travelling. My dad was two hundred miles away, up north in Yorkshire.
I went to the kitchen, and took out one of the long kitchen knives. I had watched Dad butcher a sheep once, and while it had been disgusting, I remembered him wrapping black tape around the handle. “So it doesn’t slip when the hand gets sweaty,” he had told me. I did the same now, using duct tape. When I had finished putting two layers on, the knife felt firmer in my hand.
It sounded odd, but I felt safer with the knife in my hands. I went upstairs and locked the bedroom door.
I put the knife under my pillow. In front of the locked door, I put a chair, inclined to the handle. I lay down, one hand under the pillow. The night was full of sounds, and I could hear the cars rushing past on the road. I didn’t know when I had fallen asleep.
*****
Light was dancing across my eyelids. Scarred memories of my mind, bruised and scorched, suddenly came back to me, and I sat upright in bed. The door was shut, and the chair was leaning against the door still.
I got dressed quickly. I hadn’t been to work for almost a week, so I called in but no one picked up the phone. I spoke to my solicitors, who were also solicitors for the business, and made an appointment to see them later in the afternoon.
I rang Rita as well, but she didn’t pick up the phone. No surprise there, I thought, she might be sleeping, or not have the phone next to her. I hoped she hadn’t passed away. Rita was a sweet woman, and she was the only one who could help me now. Maybe she could talk some sense into her son. I felt nauseated when I thought I had just handed over my trust fund money to Clive without any reservation. I should have spoken to Rita’s doctor, and arranged to forward the money to her directly. But in any case, I could still get the money back by asking the solicitors to dissolve my share of the agency business.
CHAPTER 46
Present day
I hardly sleep that night, tossing and turning. I drank more G and T before going to bed. It lulled me to sleep which didn’t last long. Jeremy slept in the guest room on the sofa. I must have passed out in the early hours, because I come to when Molly is pushing me. I scramble to sit up on the bed, bleary-eyed.
“Mummy, I’m hungry,” Molly whines. Oh God. I feel like a terrible mother. My head is thumping and sounds are magnified in my ears. I get out and take Molly downstairs, still in my pyjamas. She has brushed and dressed herself, bless her. I fix her milk and cereals, then sort myself out. As I splash water on my face, I can see the dark shadows under my eyes, the pimples and marks next to them. Memories of last night float back. The cold light of day hides nothing.
I get ready as Molly comes into the bedroom. I brush her hair, and there’s no time for anything but a ponytail today. She’s not happy. It’s the last day before half-term and many of her friends will have bobs and plaits.
At school I am dreading seeing Eva, but I don’t see any sign of her, or Lottie. Suzy is there, and she comes over, but I’m not in any mood for talking. Only Eva knows what happened yesterday.
“Are you OK?” Suzy asks after a while. Molly has gone inside with the others. We walk out of the school gates, Suzy pushing the pram. Haltingly, I tell her what happened to Tim. I don’t tell her what I found out about Eva. I don’t know if I can tell anyone, right now.
I say goodbye to Suzy, who is understandably disturbed. I tell her I’ll be in touch over the half-term, which is only a week. When I get into the car, I make my mind up about something. I should see Joanne. We might not have seen eye-to-eye over the last few weeks, but she is grieving. I know she’s thinking about why I went to see her husband, and I need to set that straight.
I ring Suzy, who knows Joanne’s address. I drive up into the village, where the big detached houses are. Both cars are in the drive. I walk down the gravel drive, after parking behind them. I have to wait for a while after I ring the doorbell. A woman answers the door, who must be the maid.
“Is Joanne home?” I ask. I can hear the TV on in some distant part of the living room. It sounds like a cartoon, and Henrietta must be at home, I think. I can’t blame Joanne for keeping her off school today.
“Stay here please,” the maid says. She moves away, and in the hallway behind her I see a shadow fall on the expensive glossy tiles. Then Joanne appears. She doesn’t look good. There’s no make-up on her face, and the stains on her cheeks, and puffy eyes are plain to see. Her hair is breaking free, falling over her face.
She says nothing when she sees me. I guess there is nothing to say. After a while she says, “You better come in.”
We sit in the large, open-plan kitchen. It’s bigger than the entire ground floor of my house. A large number of concertina doors are closed at the moment, but through them I can see downhill. The trees give way to the golf course and lake, then the tennis stadium, and further away, the skyline of the city.
“Tea or coffee?” Joanne asks.
“Coffee please,” I say. She brings two steaming mugs over to us. We pull up bar stools and sit down on the long, L-shaped kitchen counter. White granite with flecks of stone.
Neither of us touch the coffee. The smoke curls between us. I say, “I’m sorry about what happened that day in school. I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“Don’t worry,” she says. “I was out of order as well.”
I nod. She sighs heavily. In a tired voice she asks, “He called you, didn’t he?”
“Yes. Said he wanted to talk about Molly. I didn’t know he was living in a hotel.”
“Yeah.” She offers no other explanation and I don’t ask.
“I want you to know I wasn’t sure about it. I wanted to meet him in the lobby, but when I got there, the place was shabby and weird. There was no lobby, just two chairs.”
Joanne grimaced, then lowered her head. “It’s where he went to…” She doesn’t finish her sentence. I can imagine what she was going to say.
Joanne examines her nails. “We’ve not had sex for more than a year.”
I don’t say anything. She says, “What did you see when you went up to his room?”
“Not sure if it’s good for you to know,” I say.
She looks at me directly, and for the first time, I see regret haunting her eyes. “He was my husband.”
“Yes, he was. Not anymore.”
“Just tell me. Please.”
I guess she needs to know for the sake of c
losure. I find this difficult, especially when her face crumples and she lowers it. I stop but she tells me to carry on.
When I’ve finished, she says, “And you don’t know who did it?”
“No.” That’s a white lie. I have a strong hunch who did it, but I don’t know for sure. “The police are looking,” I say.
She shakes her head slowly. “The type of place where he was, anything could have happened.”
We are quiet for a while, each nursing our own pain. I say, for no reason, “Jeremy and I are going through a break as well. As you can imagine, Tim was his senior partner. There’s been some fallout at work. It’s all getting on top of him.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
I hold her eyes and see that she means it.
“What’re you going to do?” she asks me. I have thought of this already, and I see no reason not to tell her.
“I’m going to live with my dad for a while. Take Molly with me. He lives outside London.”
It’s what I should have done to begin with, when this rubbish with Clive kicked off. I could have kept him away from Jeremy. Well, it’s time to do it now. Because Clive hasn’t given up. He’s still around with his demonic helper Eva. And I have no doubt he’ll make life hell for me again.
“Who do you think is doing this to Henrietta?” Joanne asks.
“I don’t know,” I answer honestly. “But I will ask around. I have been, and I’m sure the children know. But they don’t tell us everything, do they?”
Her shoulders sag and a look of utter defeat comes over her face. I reach out and touch her hands.
“We’ll find out. I promise,” I say. Joanne has her head resting on her palm, and she just nods.
CHAPTER 47
Eight years ago
It was raining when I stepped off the bus in Putney. I walked past a park with children still playing in the light drizzle, wearing their colourful raincoats. Beyond the park, the sluggish grey waters of the Thames flowed like a muscular ribbon. I had a small umbrella in my handbag, but the rain wasn’t hard enough, and I just pulled the hood of my jacket over, tucking the curls of my hair inside.