Before Her Eyes

by Jack Jordan

  FORTY-NINE

  Marcus stepped into his apartment building and let the silence wash over him. The keys trembled in his hand. He hadn’t eaten much; the tension in the office was so profound that he was reluctant to leave his desk.

  Lisa had chosen not to speak a single word to him since the fight. While she had locked herself in her room, Marcus and Blake had shared the open office in silence. If Marcus dared to look up from his work, he often saw Blake eyeing him from his desk before he quickly looked away. Around noon, he glanced through the window of Lisa’s office and met her glare. She continued to talk into the phone pressed to her ear without taking her eyes off him. When he finally looked away, he wondered who she was talking to, and whether they were discussing him.

  He faced the stairs and toyed with the idea of turning back and jumping in his car again. But exhaustion stung the backs of his eyes. He needed his own bed, even if it meant facing Natalie. He tried to remember the last time he’d seen her, and how they had left things between them. He often got home after she had fallen asleep, and woke before she did. They fought so often, he struggled to remember a time when they hadn’t been at each other’s throats.

  At the door to the flat, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath before turning the key in the lock. The door refused to open more than an inch. He pushed it, and heard the chain rattle and snap with the motion.

  ‘Natalie, you left the chain on,’ he called. He peered through the gap; she was sitting on the sofa in front of the television. ‘Natalie …’

  ‘Fuck off, Marcus,’ she spat over her shoulder. ‘You don’t live here any more.’

  ‘What? Natalie, let me in, it’s late.’

  ‘I don’t give a damn that it’s late.’ She spun round. ‘You don’t live here any more.’

  Even from where he was standing, he could see that her eyes were red raw.

  ‘You can’t decide that,’ he said, and pushed against the door. The links in the chain creaked. ‘Let me in.’

  ‘It’s not like you’re ever here anyway.’

  ‘Natalie, I’m not arguing through the door. I’ve had a shit day, all right? I just want to go to bed. We can talk about it in the morning.’

  ‘No, Marcus. I’m done talking.’

  ‘Natalie,’ he said. ‘Open this door.’

  ‘Or what?’

  ‘Or I’ll break it down.’

  ‘You’re a cop. Isn’t breaking and entering against the law?’

  ‘It isn’t if I own the bloody property!’ He glanced down the corridor towards his neighbour’s door and lowered his voice. ‘Open the door.’

  ‘I’ll make this easy for you.’ She stood up from the sofa with a glass of red wine in her hand. ‘There is no way in hell you’re getting in here.’ She stormed out of the room.

  Marcus pushed against the door again. The chain tugged at the frame until he heard paint chip away. Natalie came back into the room with a bundle of suits and shirts in her arms.

  ‘Here.’ She started to shove them through the gap. ‘It’s all you wear anyway, working day and night. You can sleep at your damn desk.’

  He reached through the gap and grabbed her wrist, pulling her against the door. ‘Open it!’

  ‘Get off!’ Her cheek was pressed against the door, distorting her face. The sight of it made him feel sick. ‘You’re hurting me!’

  He let go, then stood back and kicked the door. The chain ripped off the wall. Splinters of wood burst from the frame. Natalie screamed and staggered back. Red wine splashed across the carpet.

  ‘Trust me, I’ll be glad to go, but not without my stuff.’ He snatched up his suits and stormed past her towards the bedroom.

  ‘Good,’ she slurred, ‘because I’ll be changing the locks first thing tomorrow!’

  ‘Do what you like,’ he spat as he yanked open the wardrobe doors and threw clothes onto the bed.

  ‘I don’t even know you any more,’ she said. ‘You’re never home. I only know you’ve been here by the plates in the sink and the blanket on the sofa. It’s like living with a ghost.’

  Marcus grabbed toiletries from the cabinet above the basin and shoved them in the nearest washbag. Natalie stood in the doorway.

  ‘I hate you,’ she said. ‘I really hate you sometimes, Marcus.’

  He turned back towards the door, and she stepped aside and watched him stuff the toiletries in his overnight bag.

  ‘Do you even care? Four years of our lives gone, and you can’t even talk to me.’

  ‘What’s the point?’

  ‘You’re not even going to fight for it?’

  ‘I’m done fighting,’ he said, and started to close the bag. A shirt caught in the zip. He tugged it until the lining of the bag ripped. ‘I’m done with you.’

  He slung the overnight bag over his shoulder and walked out of the room. Natalie followed, breathing heavily.

  ‘You’re a worthless prick, Marcus,’ she spat. ‘You hear me? A worthless prick!’

  The glass smashed against the wall just inches from his head. Red wine bled down the wall and soaked into the carpet.

  He turned and looked at her. Tears rolled down her cheeks. Red wine stained her lips. He had spent four years of his life with this woman, but he couldn’t explain why. Loneliness, maybe. Maybe he’d believed he didn’t deserve any better and was destined to be with a woman who put him down so often that he was afraid to go home. But at this moment he realised that he didn’t love her, and that he never had.

  ‘Goodbye, Natalie.’

  He held his breath until he was outside the building, then gulped in lungfuls of the cold night air. He’d thought he would feel free, but all he could think of was the destruction the case had caused: his job, his home, his relationship, all of them gone or broken beyond repair.

  He walked towards his car and kicked a dent in the door. Then he ripped off his jacket and crawled onto the back seat.

  It was cold inside the car, bathed in yellow light from the street lamp above. He locked the door behind him, bunched his jacket up beneath his head to act as a pillow, and closed his eyes.

  FIFTY

  Naomi woke at dawn. The cool morning air whistled around the board on the bedroom window. Pain pulsed at her temples and her breath smelt of stale alcohol and something sour. She patted the bedside table for water, latched both hands around the glass, and drank until the last of the water dripped from her chin.

  She turned and felt the other side of the bed. Her fingertips grazed his arm below his rolled-up sleeve. George’s skin was soft and warm, decorated with silky hairs, unlike Dane’s, which were coarse. He was still dressed in his shirt and jeans.

  It all came back to her. They had just reached their street when the nausea had come. George had held the lid on a neighbour’s wheelie bin as she vomited up the brandy, the hot, sweet stench rising up to meet her. He had helped her into her house and up the stairs, and waited behind the bathroom door as she hugged the toilet bowl. He must have stayed to make sure she wasn’t sick during the night. Through all the hate the town gave, there was someone good, someone who cared.

  She remembered dressing herself for bed. The nightgown was back to front, the label digging into her chest.

  She inched from beneath the duvet and crept towards the door, flinching as the floorboards creaked under her weight. She wrapped herself in her dressing gown and fastened it with a double knot. The door handle was freezing. She stood at the top of the stairs, arms hugged around her body, listening to the silence of the house.

  The photographers wouldn’t be outside yet. It almost felt like everything had returned to normal, and that it had all been a dreadful dream. But Max wasn’t in his bed, and the boards on the windows still creaked against the wind, and come eight o’clock, she would hear the journalists’ cars grumbling up the road and the murmur of voices collecting outside.

  She made her way downstairs and sat in her chair by the fireplace.

  The house had been her home for sixteen ye
ars, but with Dane and Max gone, it was a shell of what it used to be. All the memories she had accumulated over the years had shattered. George had been right about making a fresh start. If she wanted to survive this, she had to take matters into her own hands.

  The police weren’t protecting her. She and Grace could barely occupy the same room. Her mother wanted to help her, but Naomi couldn’t put her at risk. The police, the town, they all wanted her to suffer. If they wanted to destroy her, she would make it difficult for them. As soon as George woke and left, she would pack a bag and run.

  FIFTY-ONE

  Marcus and Blake sat in the conference room in silence.

  Marcus hid a yawn behind his hand. He felt filthy after spending the night curled up on the back seat of the car, even after the quick wash he’d had in the gents’. His suit was creased from where Natalie had bundled it through the gap, and he remembered how he had kicked the door open. He had never been violent before. The memory of it twisted his stomach. He had acted just like his father.

  Lisa walked into the room with Sergeant Belinda Shaw, a hard-faced woman with thin lips and sandy blonde hair with hints of grey at the roots. As if Lisa didn’t have enough allies, she’d brought in another one to stare him down. She didn’t trust Marcus, she had said so. Now she had a witness in case he acted up again.

  Marcus almost craved her anger, wanting to hear every scathing, unrestrained word she had to say to him, but what she did instead was worse: she pretended he wasn’t there. If he spoke, she directed her answer to Blake. She wouldn’t even look at him any more.

  Lisa stood on the other side of the conference table. Belinda leaned against the wall and slowly tapped her fingernails against it, like a cat sharpening its claws.

  ‘I’ve had a meeting with the super,’ Lisa said, her eyes on Blake. ‘He has instructed that we keep Ms Hannah safe. Whether you believe this is the right way to go is irrelevant: the superintendent has spoken, so we must follow his word.

  ‘Need I remind you, I’m still your boss, and you both still report to me. I won’t tolerate backchat, going against orders, or fighting. One more step out of line and I will be taking disciplinary action. Do you both understand?’

  ‘Yes,’ Blake said.

  Tap, tap, tap, tap.

  Marcus looked at Belinda’s nails drumming against the wall and imagined snapping her fingers at the knuckles.

  ‘Marcus?’ Lisa asked, one eyebrow raised.

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘Good. Now, Blake, you’ll be with me. Marcus, man the office. Blake will call you if there is anything we need.’ She looked at Belinda. Their eyes met as though words flitted between them. Marcus’s cheeks burned.

  Blake rose and followed Lisa out of the room. Belinda lingered on, her fingers still tapping, her eyes on Marcus. He returned her gaze, steeling his muscles against the animosity. Belinda smirked and left the room.

  Marcus took a deep breath and flexed his hands, watching the blood seep back into his whitened fingers.

  You can survive this. Wait for the case to close and then request a transfer. You can stick it out.

  ‘What?’ he heard Lisa shout from her office. A door slammed, and she was back, leaning over the table. A lock of hair slipped from behind her ear and moved with her breaths.

  ‘Dane Hannah is missing.’

  No.

  ‘He didn’t report here this morning like he was supposed to. You still sure the Hannahs are innocent, Marcus?’

  She smirked and left the room.

  His phone began to vibrate in his jacket pocket. He didn’t even have time to catch his breath.

  ‘Detective Sergeant Marcus Campbell.’ Anger had clotted in his throat. He coughed.

  ‘Sir, it’s Edwards. I just passed the train station on patrol and saw Naomi Hannah walking inside with a suitcase.’

  Marcus covered his face with his spare hand. It was shaking.

  ‘You’re sure it was her?’

  ‘She had a cane and everything. You want me to go after her?’

  ‘Follow her inside and keep me updated. Don’t approach unless she is about to board a train. I’ll be there in ten.’

  He was about to hang up, but put the phone back to his ear.

  ‘And Billy …’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Don’t say anything to Lisa.’

  He rammed the phone into his pocket, then leapt from his chair and escaped through the fire exit to avoid being seen.

  For the first time since the investigation had begun, a new possibility clawed at the back of his mind. He wondered if he was wrong. He wondered if Naomi and Dane really were guilty.

  FIFTY-TWO

  Naomi stood on the platform with her head down. It was a cold day. Her eyes watered with the wind and her cheeks were flushed. She hid her collapsible cane behind her back. She never had got her other cane back after the ordeal at Cassie’s procession. If she lost this one, she would be completely helpless.

  The last time she had gone to a railway station to escape, she had been intending to jump onto the tracks, but now escape meant something entirely new to her: it meant hope.

  She thought of the haunted woman she had once been, the woman who had had nothing left to live for until Dane had slipped his hand into hers. She and her younger self seemed like such different people now.

  A woman laughed across the tracks. Naomi imagined being spotted, the Blind Widow fleeing her crimes, and lowered her hood.

  Doubt lingered beneath her new-found strength. Maybe she would always be running, fleeing crimes she hadn’t committed. The plan was to travel into London and take the tube to Paddington, where she would head for the Welsh coast. At first, the idea of stowing away in a cottage by the sea felt peaceful, but as she stood on the platform, she couldn’t escape the thought that she was simply exchanging one small town for another, facing a different ocean that made the same sounds, and that the loneliness she was trying to flee would be waiting for her wherever she went. And in a new town, she wouldn’t know anyone. She would truly be alone. But she had faced so much since she first went to the cliff all those weeks ago. The old Naomi was dead, as though she really had leapt from the edge. Once she boarded the train, the town would be dead to her too.

  Each time she considered turning back and returning home, she thought of Amber dead in the ground; of the jagged scar fused into Josie’s neck. Her sister couldn’t even look at her – Naomi reminded her of something she couldn’t face. Her mother was too fragile and had to be protected. Naomi couldn’t go home.

  ‘The next train to arrive at Platform Three is the Greater Anglia service to London Liverpool Street.’

  Naomi took a deep breath and listened as the train approached in the distance.

  There was something exhilarating about finally leaving Balkerne Heights, but it was a mere simmer beneath the fear of all the new obstacles she had to face: the countless escalators, the rush of strangers pushing past her, the numerous platforms she had to find; and that was just the journey. All the while, she would need to keep her head down. The story of the Blind Widow had spread further than the town she had always known. National newspapers had caught onto the story. She would lose the security that came with Balkerne Heights. She knew which doors led to the ladies’ in restaurants and pubs; how many steps to walk down to get from the high street to East Hill. She knew every step to take. With her new hope came an old fear: she would be lost in the dark again, like she had been at the bus stop, but this time there would be no one to find her.

  She listened to the approaching train, the chug and whine of its wheels, and thought of how just a month before, she would have longed to step off the edge of the platform.

  The train pulled in with a cold gust of wind and the piercing squeal of its brakes. Her heart beat faster.

  The doors opened. Naomi felt the step up with her cane and placed one foot inside.

  A hand landed on her shoulder.

  She froze with her hand on the railing insi
de the train. One foot on the platform, the other aboard.

  ‘Don’t do this, Naomi.’ It was Marcus.

  ‘I can’t stay here, Marcus. It’s not safe.’

  ‘I’ll make it safe, I promise.’

  She gripped the railing until the blood was squeezed from her hand and pins and needles pricked her fingertips. Her escape was right in front of her, but her past was there to drag her back.

  ‘I’m sick of your promises, Marcus. You don’t know what might happen to me if I stay.’

  ‘I know what will happen if you go. You’ll look guilty. You’ll have broken the bail conditions and you’ll be confined to a cell until the court date. They’ll come looking for you.’

  Naomi lingered. Her legs began to shake.

  ‘If you stay, I can protect you. If you go, you’ll always be running.’ He sighed. She felt the heat of it on the side of her neck, smelt the coffee he’d drunk. ‘We can’t find Dane, Naomi. We think he’s gone. He looks guiltier than ever, and I can’t protect him any more. If you go too, I can’t protect you either.’

  Even though she too was planning her escape, hearing that Dane had fled without her made her heart jolt with an irregular beat. The man she had trusted with her life for so many years had left her behind.

  ‘You gettin’ on, lady?’ a man called from down the platform. ‘This train’s gotta leave.’

  With Dane gone, she had all the more reason to step aboard the train and make her fresh start. There was nothing left for her in Balkerne Heights. She wondered what Marcus would do. Would he let her go? Or would he drag her away in handcuffs?

  She stepped away from the edge of the platform to the sound of the conductor’s whistle. The doors closed behind her, breathing a puff of air on her back.

  ‘I’ll make sure you’re safe, Naomi. You’ll have police protection outside your house around the clock while I find out who is behind all this.’