Strangers

by C. L. Taylor

  ‘What if the stalker’s got a knife? They could do way worse than sniff your hair.’

  To be fair to Simon, he said no, straight away, when Alice suggested laying a trap. It was too dangerous, he said, and there was no way he was going to agree to her setting herself up as bait. She explained that it wasn’t just about him any more. Now she was going to be looking over her shoulder too, regardless of whether she saw him again. If either of them were ever going to move on with their lives they had to find out who the stalker was. Her plan was for Simon to reactivate his social media with a tweet saying he was taking his date to a certain restaurant in town. Alice would arrive early, sit at the back and take photos of everyone who walked in. When Simon arrived, she’d be able to show him the photos to see if he recognised anyone.

  ‘That’s a shit plan,’ Emily said. ‘Whoever spotted you going into the cinema and knew you were wearing a blue skirt, could have been anywhere. They could have been on a bench or in the car park, or they might have been in the lounge area of the cinema drinking coffee. Same when your car was scratched. They weren’t necessarily in the restaurant, were they? But they knew where you’d parked.’

  ‘Oh.’ Alice felt deflated. ‘Lynne thought it was a good plan.’

  ‘Lynne agrees with everything you say, Mum.’

  ‘So? What’s the alternative?’

  ‘Look, if you were right and someone was following us home from the pub the other night then he, or she, knows where we live. And that’s where we lure them. Simon should put a post on his Twitter account saying he’s looking forward to a romantic dinner at his girlfriend’s house. I’ll go and speak to Helen across the street, explain what’s going on, and ask if I can camp out in their front bedroom for the night. If anyone does hang around our house or park up their car I’ll take photos with my phone. Then we show them to Simon, and if he doesn’t recognise them, we take them to the police.’

  ‘What if the stalker tries to break in?’

  ‘Into our flat? Good luck with that on the second floor!’

  ‘Okay then, what if they don’t show up at all and just send another message?’

  Emily grinned. ‘They’ll come, because Simon’s going to tweet something that will really wind them up.’

  Now Alice glances at her watch. Seven hours until he comes to the shop to pick her up. She wonders if their hello will be as awkward as their goodbye was last night. She’s not angry with him any more, not like she was in the pub. She understands why he cut off all contact with her, but her feelings have definitely shifted. She wants to help him, not rip off his clothes and drag him to bed. As she hangs another pale pink jumper on the rack and pulls off the plastic dust jacket, she wonders what they’ll talk about in her house and whether it would be a better idea to put on a film instead.

  Nothing violent, she thinks as she reaches into the cardboard box for another pink jumper. Something funny. Something that won’t make them jump out of their skins if they hear a noise.

  Chapter 44

  Ursula

  Ursula barely recognises the woman staring back at her from the mirror: her eyes are so swollen they look like two hard-boiled eggs, covered with a red, shiny skin. She spent all of Sunday hidden away in her room, packing and crying. The force of her grief for Nathan, and the life that they’d shared, was as raw and as powerful as the day she’d sat with Barry and Pearl in a pastel-painted room, clutching hands, barely breathing as they waited for news. The brain damage Nathan had suffered as a result of the attack was irreversible, the consultant told them. His battered body was being kept alive with machines and tubes and he would never regain consciousness. Never open his eyes. Never speak. Never smile. The man she’d loved was gone, and no matter how much she prayed, bargained or raged, he was never coming back.

  She remembers kissing Nathan on the lips, she remembers the rough callous on the side of his thumb, she remembers Pearl’s soft sob and then … nothing, no memory at all. It is as though the grief that raged through her scorched her neurons, as well as her heart. Her brain would not remember, it wouldn’t make her live through that kind of pain again. Somehow she made it to the funeral, with Charlotte beside her, pale-faced and red-eyed as they walked hand in hand up the aisle, the grief-etched faces around them a blur. When Nathan’s coffin was brought in, Ursula doubled over, a fist pressed to her solar plexus as the air left her lungs. She felt Charlotte’s hand around her waist and a soft shushing sound and then … then … her brain shut down again. As the congregation sat and stood, listened and sung, she kept her eyes fixed on one single shiny brass handle on the coffin that held the man she loved.

  It’s not real.

  She stared at the shiny brass handle.

  Albi it is.

  You’re not in there.

  I am.

  Push the lid off. Get out.

  Albi, I love you.

  She stared at the shiny brass handle.

  This isn’t happening. It’s not real.

  Afterwards, as she followed Nathan’s coffin out of the church, she’d trailed a hand along the slim table near the door. She ran her fingertips over the soft leather of hymn books and orders of service, the words embossed in gold. She stroked pamphlets and booklets and A4 sheets advertising fayres and bring and buy sales. Then her fingers moved over something different, something solid and jewelled rather than smooth and cool. It was a broken brooch in the shape of a flower, one petal snapped off. It had been abandoned by its owner, maybe because it was broken, or perhaps a cleaner had found it by a prayer cushion and put it on the side. Either way Ursula closed her hand around it and carried it, the first thing she’d ever stolen, out of the dark chapel and into the cool brightness of the churchyard. She transferred it to her pocket as the procession moved to Nathan’s plot and, as the coffin was lowered, she pressed her thumb pad into the sharp brooch pin. Then she pressed it again and again and again.

  A soft, tinging sound snaps Ursula away from her reflection and she hurries out of the bathroom and back to her room. Is it Charlotte? She texted her late last night begging for her room back. There was no reply by the time she passed out, but maybe Charlotte was asleep or she wanted some time to think.

  Ursula snatches her phone up from the bed. Missed call from a Bristol number, but not one she recognises. Jackie? she thinks hopefully. Maybe they’re busy and she wants her to come back to work. She hits the button to call voicemail then presses the phone to her ear.

  It isn’t Jackie’s voice that speaks breathily into her ear.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ the woman gasps between sobs. ‘I’m so sorry. He made me do it. I couldn’t say no. He threatened to hurt … he said he’d hurt Bess if I didn’t. But he … he … please … I don’t know who else to call … please, I’m sorry. Please help me before he comes back.’

  As the call ends, Ursula is already halfway down the stairs with her keys in her hand.

  All the curtains are drawn at the windows of number six The Crest but when Ursula taps lightly on the glass, one of them is yanked back so sharply she jumps. Nicki stares out at her but it’s not the same pale, wan face Ursula saw the day before. This face is a riot of colours: mottled red on the cheekbones, one eye, squeezed shut, a deep black and purple, a yellow bloom across the bridge of the nose.

  Ursula presses a hand to her mouth as she looks from the woman to the child in her arms. Dressed in a nappy and clinging to her mother’s neck, the child’s back is exposed. Dotted on either side of her spine are dozens of dark bruises and there’s a deep red bite mark at the top of her thigh.

  ‘Open the window!’ Ursula slaps a hand against the glass, then instantly regrets it as Nicki’s face pinches with fear and she backs away, disappearing into the gloom of the darkened room.

  Ursula tries the door handle but it’s locked. ‘Nicki, can you open the door? Have you got the key?’

  Nicki shakes her head but she’s not looking at Ursula, she’s looking beyond her, her eyes darting this way and that. Ursula snaps round
, arms raised, muscles tensed. If this is another trap she’s not going to let Paul intimidate her again. But there’s no one behind her and when she runs back down the steps to the gate there are no men in any of the parked cars.

  ‘I’m going to ring the police.’ She takes her phone out of her back pocket as she returns to the house, but before she can get it to her ear, Nicki slams a hand against the glass. ‘No,’ she mouths. ‘No, no, no.’

  Ursula’s heart is pounding so hard she feels like her chest might burst. ‘Hospital,’ she says.

  Nicki shakes her head and waggles her hand frantically, signalling for Ursula to leave. Whatever drove her to beg for help has been replaced with a fear so powerful she can’t move.

  Ursula points at the baby. ‘Hospital,’ she says again.

  Nicki’s demeanour changes. If fear made her rigid then love collapses her and she folds herself around the child and buries her face in Bess’s dark, curly hair.

  Ursula taps gently on the base of the window, then waggles a forefinger at the handle on the other side of the glass.

  Nicki glances at it.

  You can do this, Ursula urges. You can escape.

  She can see Nicki wrestling with the decision, looking from the child to the window, looking back into the house and then outside. The last time Ursula came to this house, the front door was open. Nicki could have slid back the security chain and walked straight out but she didn’t because it’s not a door or a window holding her prisoner. It’s something far stronger than either of those things.

  Ursula wants to look over her shoulder, to check that Paul Wilson isn’t silently sneaking up behind her. She resists the urge. She knows instinctively that if she shows the slightest hint of fear Nicki will snatch back the curtain and never come out.

  ‘Nicki.’ She touches the glass again. ‘Nicki open the window.’

  For one terrible second, as Nicki bends at the waist, Ursula thinks she’s going to pull the curtain closed. Instead she whips a blanket off the sofa and wraps it around the child. She shifts the baby further up her shoulder, reaches for the handle and pushes the window open.

  As she drives, Ursula snatches glances at Nicki, sitting in the passenger seat with the baby in her arms. Nicki hasn’t said a word in the last ten minutes. There was a moment, after she passed the child through the open living room window, when Ursula worried that she was going to remain inside. But then she hooked a leg over the sill and clambered out.

  ‘Are you okay, Nicki?’ she asks.

  She nods but the terrified look on her face remains.

  ‘Have you got anywhere you can go?’ Ursula asks. ‘After you’ve seen a doctor?’

  A small, sharp shake of the head.

  ‘No family, friends?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Me neither,’ Ursula says. ‘I’d let you stay with me but I’m being kicked out today.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘It’s a long story. Basically I fucked up.’

  There’s a pause, a shift of the atmosphere but Nicki doesn’t say a word and Ursula keeps her eyes on the road as she navigates her way through the mess of roadworks and fused traffic lanes in the centre of Bristol.

  ‘I fucked up too,’ Nicki says as Ursula swings the van off the roundabout onto Victoria Street.

  ‘How come?’

  ‘I let him talk me into leaving Gloucester after Bess was born.’

  A pause hangs in the air as Ursula ponders what to say next. Every question she thinks of feels loaded. She needs to be careful. One wrong word and she’ll frighten her passenger into running the moment she parks up. She’s got to get her to a doctor. Her and the child. She couldn’t live with herself if Nicki lost her nerve and went back to Paul.

  ‘Do you have family there?’ she asks. ‘In Gloucester?’

  ‘My mum and my sister.’ The tension at the edges of Nicki’s eyes softens, just the tiniest bit. ‘Bess doesn’t even know who they are.’

  Regret diffuses through the cab like perfume. It’s a scent Ursula knows only too well.

  ‘There’s someone I care for,’ Ursula says softly as they cross Bristol Bridge, ‘that I haven’t seen in a very long time.’

  ‘How come?’ Nicki asks as the child in her arms squirms and moans. The little girl is still dressed in a nappy and blanket. Neither Nicki nor Ursula wanted to waste time at the house looking for clothes.

  Ursula rolls down her window and inhales a deep lungful of cold, traffic-fumed air. No one ever asked her why she ran back into the pub. Not the landlord. Not the police. Not Pearl. Nathan was on the floor outside, being kicked and punched to death – of course she’d go to get help, that’s what everyone thought. But what if she’d stayed? What if she’d remained outside and fought? Some of the blows rained down on Nathan would have been turned on her instead. Twelve. Ten. Six. Four. One. What if one blow was the difference between life and death? What if the kick that shook his brain from his skull had been aimed at her instead?

  She loved Nathan’s mum Pearl. She was the kind of mum that Ursula had always longed for – supportive, kind, complimentary and loving. She’d been grateful to sit beside her in the family room in the hospital and later, at Nathan’s funeral. Not because she gained any comfort from the physical proximity but because it meant she didn’t have to look her in the eye. If Ursula had just been braver her son might not be dead. As much as she wishes she could rewind time, she can’t. But she can help Nicki and Bess now.

  Chapter 45

  Gareth

  Gareth is hanging his mum’s clothes back up in the wardrobe when his phone rings. He snatches it up from the bed, registers a Bristol number that he doesn’t recognise, and presses the mobile to his ear.

  ‘Hello? Who is this?’

  There’s a pause then he hears a deep, rattling cough. ‘It’s Tony. Has there been any word on your mum?’’

  Gareth drops down onto the bed then relays the latest police update about her getting the bus to Park Street. ‘Can you think of anywhere nearby she might have been heading?’ he asks. ‘Anywhere with special significance to her or Dad?’

  As Tony considers the question, Gareth stares at his mum’s slippers, tucked under the wardrobe, and mentally urges his uncle to remember something, anything, that might help.

  ‘No, sorry, mate.’ There’s a sag in his uncle’s voice. ‘I haven’t got the first clue, but your auntie Ruth might.’

  ‘Ruth? I thought she was in the hospital.’

  ‘She is. There’s where I’m at now. She’s not well – paralaysed down her right side and having trouble talking and eating and whatnot, but your cousin Maureen says you’re welcome to pop in and see her. Don’t tell Ruth that Joanie’s missing though; Maureen doesn’t want her upset.’

  As Gareth scans the faces of the largely elderly patients on the Acute Stroke Ward he realises that he doesn’t have the first clue what Auntie Ruth looks like, or his cousin Maureen. After what feels like an age, he spots an old bloke with a ruddy face waving at him from the corner of the room and hurries over.

  Tony presses a finger to his lips as Gareth begins to say hello. An old lady with a mop of white curly hair and heavily lined cheeks is fast asleep in the bed.

  ‘She’s sleeping,’ Tony whispers. ‘I said I’d sit with her for a bit while Maureen goes to get a cup of tea.’

  ‘Okay, no worries.’ Gareth slips into the seat beside him and casts his eyes over the aunt he’s never met. He can’t tell if Ruth shares his mum’s cornflower-blue eyes but there’s a similarity in the shape of their noses and the hue of their skin. Neither woman is very tall but his mum is weightier, carrying her fat around her belly and under her chin.

  Tony taps him on the back of the hand. ‘You doing okay?’

  ‘Yes,’ he says instinctively, then shakes his head. ‘No. I’m not. I’m worried sick.’

  ‘How long’s it been now?’

  ‘Too long.’

  ‘She’ll be okay. We Halpins are made of stern stuff.’
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br />   He considers whether or not to tell Tony what happened at the police station earlier. He still can’t quite believe that he was interviewed under caution about Liam’s disappearance. Couldn’t you hate a bloke’s guts without wanting him dead?

  He sits back in his plastic chair and crosses his arms over his chest. No, he decides, he won’t share what happened. Tony’s a gossip and it’ll spread through South Bristol before he even gets home. Gareth shifts in his chair, sitting forward with his hands on his knees. It’s as though his body has completely forgotten how to be at rest. He sneaks another look at his auntie Ruth. Would it be out of order to feign a coughing fit to wake her up?

  He stands up, ignoring Uncle Tony’s questioning look. He needs a walk, to stretch his legs while he waits. Was it a David Attenborough documentary he once saw that said sharks have to keep moving or they die? At least if he’s moving he won’t feel like he’s completely wasting his time. He strolls down to the end of the ward then, aware of a nurse watching him, strolls all the way back. He stands at the end of Ruth’s bed, arms crossed over his chest. He’s just about to ask Tony how long she’s been asleep when he spots something on the side table at the top of the bed.

  There are two silver-framed photos angled towards Ruth. Gareth picks one up, holds it out at arm’s length and squints. It’s some kind of bright party scene with balloons and banners. ‘Is this her family?’ he asks Tony.

  ‘That was taken at Ruth and Martin’s 40th wedding anniversary. That’s them with the kids – Maureen, Grant and Keith. Don’t bother asking what the grandkids are called. I haven’t got a clue.’

  Gareth puts it back down and reaches for the other photo, of three kids playing in a garden. Unlike the multicoloured party photo this one is sepia-toned and faded. He can make out a weeping willow and a greenhouse in the corner of the photo, but when he tries to focus in on the faded faces of the kids his long-sightedness gives him three little beige blobs instead.

  ‘Tony.’ He walks back to his uncle and holds out a hand. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got any reading glasses?’