Do Me No Harm

by Julie Corbin

  ‘Kirsty won’t stop,’ she says, and for the first time there’s conviction in her eyes. ‘Not until she gets what she wants.’

  ‘The person Kirsty wants to hurt is me,’ I say. ‘I’m sure she’ll leave you alone now.’

  ‘You’re wrong.’ It’s barely a whisper and I lean forward to hear more. ‘You don’t know what she’s like.’

  ‘Why does Kirsty have such a hold over you?’ I say.

  ‘She knows about me.’

  ‘Knows what about you?’

  Her eyes dart across to the window and then over to the door. ‘She saw me doing something and she said she’d put it on Facebook.’

  ‘What sort of thing?’

  ‘I can’t say, but she has pictures.’ Her face flushes. ‘My parents, they just wouldn’t . . . I mean, I couldn’t . . .’ She gives up, defeated.

  ‘Tess, I can see that life is tough for you at the moment,’ I say slowly. ‘So it’s no wonder your confidence has taken a knocking, but—’

  ‘It’ll be over soon,’ she says, standing up beside me. ‘I know it will be.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘I just do.’ She shrugs. ‘She has more in store for you, you know.’ Her expression is pitying. ‘You should be careful.’

  When I get back to work, I’m feeling brittle enough to break. I can’t get Tess’s final comment out of my head. I know she’s only sixteen and I know teenage girls are prone to melodrama, but in this case I don’t think her reaction was an exaggeration. I try calling O’Reilly but he isn’t available and once more I wish I had Leila to talk to. Her phone is switched off so I call Archie. It isn’t good news. He tells me that Jasmine’s fracture was complicated and she’s been given a general anaesthetic to insert a metal pin. She has to stay in hospital overnight and Leila will stay with her. ‘So Leila won’t be in to work tomorrow, I’m afraid,’ he says. ‘I’d take time off but we’re backed up here.’

  ‘Give them both my love, won’t you?’ I say to Archie. ‘I won’t bother Leila today. I’ll wait and talk to her when she’s home.’

  It’s my evening for volunteering at the centre but I’m wishing now that I’d cancelled. Lauren is never far from my mind and I hope she hasn’t had too miserable a day at school. I think about the impact my confession will have had on her. Nothing’s ever as simple with Lauren as it is with Robbie. Even when he was small, Robbie was able to shrug his shoulders and make the best of things. But Lauren has sensitive feelings and a strong sense of right and wrong. She wants everything to be fair and just, and so learning that her mother is only human – she makes mistakes; fatal ones that have ongoing consequences – will be a challenge for her.

  I need to try to speak to her again, see whether I can help her to understand. I call Martin at the centre to cancel my evening surgery. ‘I have a lot going on at home at the moment and really need to be with my kids.’ Buoyed up by our recent success, nothing can dampen his mood and he tells me that it’s not a problem. We have a small list of volunteer doctors who’ll cover for me and he’ll start making calls at once.

  Lauren should be at Amber’s house by now and I call her mother Elizabeth to tell her that I’m coming to collect her early. ‘Lauren’s not here, Liv,’ Elizabeth tells me. ‘She says there was a change of plan and that she was going to her dad’s today.’

  ‘But it’s Thursday. She always comes to you on a Thursday.’

  ‘That’s what I said, but she told me she’ll be spending more time with her dad now.’

  I shut my eyes.

  ‘Sorry, Liv. Should I have said no?’

  ‘It’s not your fault. It’s mine. I should have warned you she was in a foul mood this morning and she’s doing this to punish me.’

  ‘I rang Phil to check, of course, and he said he’d come down to the hospital entrance to meet her. I dropped her off there. She was with him when I left.’

  Great. Can my life grow any more difficult? I grab my keys and bag and head out to my car. I’m sure Phil was delighted to get the call. More power to his campaign to have shared custody of the children. I don’t want to make a scene – goodness knows I’m in Lauren’s bad books enough as it is – but I want her to see that I’m making an effort to speak with her. I just need to make sure that I don’t end up having a full-blown argument with Phil.

  I’ll be calm, I tell myself. I will.

  There’s a space in the hospital car park – first stroke of luck – and I’m feeling like fate might just give me a little bit more of the same, when I bump into Erika in the corridor. ‘Hello,’ I say. ‘I’m looking for Lauren and Phil. Are they in his office?’

  ‘Olivia.’ She smiles. I wait. ‘Yes, Philip is in his office but—’

  ‘Thank you.’ I run past her and up the stairs, feeling rude for not listening to the end of the sentence but I can’t bear the slow rhythm of her speech. When I get to Phil’s office, I don’t bother knocking; I just go straight in. Phil’s the only person in the room and is sitting behind his desk talking on the phone. ‘Where’s Lauren?’ I ask him.

  He puts his hand over the mouthpiece. ‘She’s in the canteen with her friend.’

  ‘What friend? Elizabeth didn’t mention that she had one of her classmates with her.’ Phil ignores me and resumes talking to whoever’s on the end of the line. ‘What friend?’ I say, much louder this time, and he frowns across at me.

  ‘I’ll call you back later, Ed. Thank you for your advice.’ He puts the phone back on the cradle and stands up. ‘Olivia, I don’t appreciate you barging into my office like this.’

  ‘And I don’t appreciate you allowing Lauren to come here when she’s supposed to be at Amber’s.’

  ‘She’s my daughter and she was upset. What did you expect me to say? No?’

  ‘Well you don’t appear to be looking after her!’

  ‘She met a friend downstairs and they’ve gone to have a Coke.’

  ‘What friend? And how could she have met a friend here?’

  ‘The girl was visiting a relative.’

  ‘And Lauren knows her? Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes. She was playing with Lauren on Sunday, at Leila’s.’

  A queasy panic fills the spaces inside my skull. ‘What’s the girl’s name?’

  ‘Emily, I think she said.’

  ‘Sweet Jesus.’ I hold my hand over my mouth to contain the maelstrom of sound that’s building in my chest.

  ‘Erika’s just gone down to fetch Lauren,’ Phil says. ‘She’s going to do her homework with her. Ah! – here she is.’

  The door to Phil’s office is still open and Erika glides in. ‘Lauren isn’t downstairs, Philip.’ Pause. ‘I looked in the toilets too but—’

  I have my phone out of my bag and am calling Lauren’s mobile before Erika finishes her sentence. It goes straight to answering service. ‘Lauren, it’s me,’ I say. ‘Please call me at once. Or call Dad or Robbie. We’re extremely worried. Please call.’

  ‘What’s going on?’ Phil says.

  ‘That girl is Kirsty Stewart!’ I shout. ‘Trevor Stewart’s baby from all those years ago. The baby that you and Leila told me was dead.’

  ‘What are you talking about? She said her name was Emily.’

  ‘She was lying!’

  ‘How would Lauren know her?’

  ‘Hello?’ I’m on the phone again. ‘I need to speak to DI O’Reilly. It’s extremely urgent.’ I keep the phone to my ear but look at Phil. ‘Lauren knows her as Emily Jones, a friend of Robbie’s.’

  ‘Dr Somers?’ The sound of O’Reilly’s voice releases some of my tension. I fill him in on what’s happened and he says he’ll come to the hospital immediately. ‘Get hold of Robbie,’ he tells me. ‘He should come to the hospital too. Better to keep you all in one place.’

  ‘Okay.’ I end the call and give Erika my mobile. ‘Could you call Robbie for me, please?’ I say. ‘The police want him to come here immediately. Ask him to get a taxi. Perhaps you could meet him at the door and pay
for it.’

  ‘Of course.’

  She leaves the room and I close the door behind her. There’s a hollow ache inside my throat and I reach for the glass of water on Phil’s desk and drink it down. ‘Please call Lauren’s mobile,’ I say to Phil. ‘She might answer when she sees it’s you.’

  He does it without question, his jaw tight and his face pale, but she doesn’t answer him either, so he leaves a message. Panic is building inside me, a pressure cooker of fear and trepidation. Tess warned me that Kirsty had more in store for me, but she couldn’t have known that Lauren would be coming here instead of going to Amber’s. It has to have been a chance meeting which means that Kirsty won’t have planned anything and that must be good, mustn’t it?

  Phil is pacing the floor, up and down, up and down, and then he stops beside his desk and bangs a book down hard on the surface. ‘Why didn’t I know about this connection with the two girls?’

  ‘Why didn’t you know? Why didn’t you know?’ I step right into his personal space. ‘Because you don’t live with us any more. And because you buggered off from the police station instead of sticking around to listen to what I had to say!’

  ‘You weren’t making any sense in the police station!’ He throws his arms out. ‘Now, will you please tell me what’s going on?’

  ‘Okay.’ I fold my arms across my chest and tell him about the Kirsty/Emily connection, the fact that she befriended Robbie and the fact that she admitted to spiking his drink and painting on the wall.

  ‘Why didn’t you warn the children that this girl was dangerous?’

  ‘I did! I told them last night. But I also had to tell them about Sandy Stewart and how she died. Robbie was okay with it but Lauren was angry and shocked. She could barely look at me this morning.’

  ‘So help me God, Olivia,’ he says, his expression steely. ‘If Lauren is hurt because you’ve kept me in the dark—’

  ‘Yes! Let’s talk about keeping people in the dark!’ I walk a few short steps around in a circle and come back to face him again. ‘I found out that you went to see Trevor Stewart and told him he shouldn’t call our house any more.’

  He doesn’t even falter. ‘That was to protect you.’

  ‘Protect me from what?’

  ‘From yourself !’ he shouts, uncharacteristically venting his anger. ‘God knows you needed protecting!’

  ‘Really?’ I say. ‘You honestly think that interfering in my life was about protecting me?’

  ‘Hard as you find it to believe, throughout our marriage I did my best to protect you.’

  ‘Well, in your protecting of me, you told Trevor I was the person who made the drug error that ended up killing his wife and that’s the only reason Kirsty knows to take revenge on me and the children.’ Fear washes across his face. ‘So look to yourself, Phil. Look to your bloody self.’

  The door opens. Erika again. ‘Robbie is on his way,’ she says. ‘I had to come back upstairs because I forgot . . . my purse.’

  ‘Erika?’ I say loudly.

  ‘Yes?’ Her expression is startled.

  ‘You should be very careful of marrying Phil. Soon he’ll be deciding what you eat and drink, who your friends are, and when and where you’re allowed to spend time with them.’ I’m addressing Erika but I’m eyeball to eyeball with Phil. ‘And if you do something he really doesn’t like, then he’ll start lying to you. He’ll tell you it’s for your own protection but it won’t feel like that. It’ll feel like a betrayal.’ I should stop now because the air is beginning to crackle around us. ‘You’ll never be enough for him and you’ll always have to try harder than he does because love isn’t about giving for Phil, it’s about control.’

  Phil raises his hand then, and before I have time to react, he slaps me, quick and hard across my face. His signet ring is embossed, and the raised edge tears the skin across my cheekbone.

  ‘Philip!’ Erika shouts, and I stumble to one side, almost falling over with the unexpected force of his anger. Erika helps me right myself and Phil shrinks back towards the window. I haven’t been hurt like this since my mother last hit me, and I’m shocked by the intensity of the pain and the humiliation. My skin is on fire, the sensation similar to a burn, and when I cup my aching cheek, I feel blood on my palm.

  ‘You have a cut,’ Erika says, frowning at my face with a concern that feels comforting and motherly. ‘Philip, go down and meet Robbie,’ Erika says, her tone surprisingly stern. ‘He will be arriving in a moment.’

  Phil walks towards the door and, as he passes me, he throws me a vicious stare. Erika takes my hand and leads me towards one of the two soft seats at the side of the room, then she busies herself in the small alcove where there’s a fridge and a sink. When she comes across to sit next to me, she’s carrying an ice pack, a glass of water and some painkillers. ‘Anti-inflammatories,’ she tells me.

  I try to smile my thanks but can’t locate the necessary muscles because my face pulses with an all-over pain that leaves no room for directed movement. She holds the ice pack against my swollen cheek and I flinch away from the intense cold, but she persuades me back towards it, making soft clucking noises with her tongue. Her kindness is so unexpected that I feel humbled. As I swallow the pills, my tongue gets in the way and my hands shake and some of the water spills down the side of the glass on to my top. And that’s it. I’ve reached my threshold. I start crying loud, gulping tears, bigger than the biggest raindrops. I sound like a crazy person – a confused, tormented patient who has suffered more than she can bear. Erika holds my hands and supplies me with tissues and doesn’t let up on her support until I empty my eyes. ‘Thank you, Erika,’ I say.

  ‘You’re most welcome.’ She holds my hand. ‘Is there anything else I can do to help you?’

  ‘Do you still have my mobile?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I want to call Lauren again.’ My left eye is watering, my vision blurred, so Erika presses the buttons for me. Once again, Lauren’s number goes straight to answering service. And then I remember that I have Kirsty’s number too, so Erika connects me to her – ‘this mobile is switched off.’

  ‘Shit. It’s hopeless.’ My eyes fill up again just as the door opens and Phil, Robbie, O’Reilly and PC Bullworks come in to the room. ‘What happened to your face?’ O’Reilly says at once, and Robbie echoes him.

  ‘I was dizzy. I fell and bashed my cheek on the table.’

  Robbie puts his arm round me and O’Reilly turns narrowed eyes on Phil, who’s in the corner whispering with Erika. O’Reilly and Bullworks seem to have mobilised half of the Edinburgh police force, and uniformed officers come in and out of the room, their radios crackling high up on the front of their stab vests. Every few minutes O’Reilly gives me an update – the hospital grounds have been searched and the girls are nowhere to be found; they’re not at my house or Phil’s flat; police officers have gone to Kirsty’s flat but there’s no sign of them there; no joy at the hockey club either – on and on, until my head is bursting with information that only increases my anxiety to a high-pitched scream. Robbie is holding my hands, agitating his legs up and down. ‘Don’t worry, Mum,’ he keeps saying. ‘She’ll be fine.’

  I nod as though I believe him. ‘I’m going to the toilet,’ I say, slipping out quietly before I draw more attention and have to listen to more bad news. There’s a staff toilet at the end of the corridor and I walk there on shaky legs. A large, well-lit mirror reflects my face back at me. The left side is puffed up, my cheek pushing outward and upward to meet my bloodshot and watering eye. The cut along the crest of my cheekbone has stopped bleeding, the edges already coming together and, bad as it looks, I’m sure it’s only soft tissue injury and will completely heal within a couple of days.

  I’m still holding the ice pack and I take it with me into the cubicle, locking the door behind me before sitting down on the lid of the toilet. The numbness from the ice pack spreads from my cheek right through my head until I don’t think or feel anything. I’m not me
. I’m not here. Lauren is not in danger. I sit so still that I lose all sense of future and past and exist in an emotion-free state where my surroundings have flat-lined.

  When my mobile rings, I jerk upright and my heart kicks in a rapid rhythm to remind me that I’m still alive. I’m both relieved and afraid to see that the name flashing on the screen is Emily. I answer at once. ‘Kirsty? Is Lauren with you?’

  ‘Yes.’ There’s a smile in her voice. ‘Do you want her back?’

  15

  ‘Is Lauren okay?’ I ask Kirsty, my mobile wedged to my ear.

  ‘Lauren’s fine. We’re out walking. She’s playing frisbee with Benson.’

  I hadn’t thought to ask the police whether Benson was at home. ‘Can I talk to her?’

  ‘She doesn’t want to talk to you. She’s a nicer kid than you deserve.’

  I shut my eyes. ‘Kirsty, please—’

  ‘She asked me about my mother and I told her what you’d done.’

  ‘Kirsty—’

  ‘I know you went to visit Tess.’

  ‘I wasn’t visiting Tess. Her mother requested a home visit for herself.’

  ‘You were supposed to call me today.’

  ‘I couldn’t call you.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It’s complicated.’

  ‘I had this foster mother once, and she always used to say that. But what she really meant was that she didn’t have time for me.’

  There’s no answer to that. I’ve told her I’m sorry and I know it isn’t enough. I feel as though there’s nothing else I can do or say, so I just let her talk.

  ‘I was straight with you and I thought you were being straight with me. But all you’ve done is pass the buck to the police. My flatmates told me the police have been looking for me all day today so I couldn’t even go up to the ward to visit my dad in case the nurses had been told to report on me.’ She gives a shaky laugh. ‘But I have something else up my sleeve and I was about to set it off when Lauren texted me. She said she needed to speak to me and I thought – well, why not? She said she wasn’t living with you any more and that I could meet her at the entrance to her dad’s hospital. My dad’s a burnt-out wreck taking up space on one of the wards while hers is a kingpin, but hey! As you pointed out, life isn’t fair, is it?’