Guilty

by Siobhan MacDonald

  ‘Hi, Soph. I’m on my way. It was pretty chaotic at the airport. I’m leaving there just now. I’ll see you shortly.’

  Revving the engine he pulled out of the short-term car park. Wipers on, headlights on, he took off, heading for the city. He couldn’t work out how Nina had ended up with Sophie, but he’d find out soon enough. The main thing was she was safe. He couldn’t wait to see her.

  The light was poor as he pulled into Sophie’s front yard. It wasn’t quite 8 p.m. but in the rain it was hard to see. He’d expected to see lights on, but from the front, the bungalow appeared to be unlit.

  He drove around the side. No lights there either. And no sign of her car. That was strange. Walking around the back, he knocked on a window pane on the back door. He stood on the step waiting for an answer. A neighbouring dog barked at the disturbance. He knocked again. More vigorously this time. A second dog joined in the barking. The evening air thickened with yelps and snarls.

  Edging towards the kitchen window, he stood on his toes trying to see in over the high sill. The blind was halfway down. All he could see were jars of herbs, the same miniature tea set he had seen previously, and what looked like a necklace. No, wait. A set of rosary beads. And on the kitchen table sat an open toolbox. There was no one here. He’d have to phone her.

  Returning to the car, he opened the door, put the umbrella down and shook off the water. He looked down the garden as he did so and his eyes caught sight of something out of place. Walking the short distance over the grass, he stood, finding himself staring down at what looked like a mound of recently dug earth staked with a cross.

  He walked around the cross, the mucky grass, the ground making a sucking, squelching sound at his feet. He stopped. He examined the mound. One or two tufts of grass were beginning to take over the new soil. On one end was a small cross made of wood. Carved into the wood was the word, Fidget.

  Luke knelt, extending a finger to the neck collar that hung around the simple cross. The animal was not long dead, but already the leather was beginning to rot in the wet. The name disk, however, was intact and he turned it over in his hand. The shock was instant.

  My name is Fidget Sweetman. If found please call 0888 56455.

  He stood and stumbled towards the house.

  Breaking and Entering

  He stood in the quiet of the kitchen. Listening. Broken glass had skittered all across the floor. He squinted as if in doing so he might hear better. There was no alarm. No footsteps. No sound except the steady ticking of the clock above the cooker, next to the crucifix.

  His raincoat sleeve and the shirt underneath had ripped. Blood stained the fabric. There were splinters of glass in the wound where he’d gashed himself breaking in through the back door. It hurt. The pain kept him focused.

  An empty cat basket sat in the corner next to the fridge. Kitchen utensils were set on a draining rack next to the sink – a frying pan, some saucepans, a wooden spoon. The work surface was tidy and a cookbook was propped open on a stand. The recipe said Potato Pie. There was the recent smell of cooking. The smell of baking herbs and garlic.

  He needed proof. Where would she keep her post? He imagined she filed bills, kept receipts and categorised everything. She was a tidy, organised person. He needed a utility bill, a payslip, a personal letter, a credit card bill. Anything. Anything to prove that he was wrong. He wanted to be wrong.

  He pulled open a drawer. Tea towels. Another drawer. Cello-wrap and lining for cat litter. He bent down to pull at the lower drawer, not caring that it came crashing out all over the floor. No sign of any correspondence. He’d try the other rooms.

  He entered the hallway and listened. The hallway was dark with no natural light. He flicked a light switch. All the doors leading from the hallway were shut except for one. Sophie’s bedroom door at the end. It was open.

  He proceeded down the hall. He pushed it wide open. Clothes and hangers were strewn across the bed. The same bed where they’d lain together. Wardrobe doors stood open. She’d cleared most of her clothes.

  He stepped back into the hallway. He tried the doorway on the left. It was locked. Above the doorframe was a small hook with a key. He reached up, took the key and cautiously opened the door. The room was in gloom. Unnaturally dark. Heavy curtains were drawn. He flicked the light switch.

  The shock hit him first in the chest like a punch. It was small, the room mainly taken up with a single bed. There was a Disney poster, 101 Dalmatians. The bed was dressed with a pink duvet and on the bed was a number of soft toys, carefully arranged. He recognised them.

  These were the toys he’d seen hanging on the line the day he’d called unannounced. The day he’d collected that hideous parcel from the post depot. The toys he assumed were Fidget’s playthings. Above the bed in cross-stitched lettering was a wall hanging. Maisie’s Room.

  The bedroom was pristine, a shrine. He edged around the bed to the small white dressing table. Plastic necklaces were draped over a wing of the mirror. There was a photograph on the table. A battery-operated candle flickered in front of it.

  The photograph showed a sunny day. Sophie smiling, her husband Kevin in short sleeves, between them both a young girl of about seven or eight, wearing a white dress with a full skirt. On her head, a tiara. The metal frame was engraved, My First Communion Day. The light from the candle cast a ghostly light on the long-dead child.

  Luke stepped back and forced himself to the wardrobe. He opened it. Inside, clothes hung neatly from a rail. Sets of school pinafores, casual clothes and dresses. Small shoes and training shoes were in a neat line underneath. He shut it gently. He returned to the door and turned off the light. Locking the room, he placed the key back on the hook above the doorframe. He had come face to face with his crime.

  Something struck him. Those rusted stumps in the garden that he’d assumed were the remnants of a greenhouse – were they the remains of a garden swing? And Sophie’s tea set? Had that too belonged to a child?

  He tried the next door to the left. It opened into a sitting room. It was small. He’d never been in there before. There was an open fireplace and a TV. There was a sofa and an armchair and a roll-top writing desk. And on the mantelpiece was a photograph of a child holding a kitten. Above her head was a banner reading Welcome Fidget.

  He made for the roll-top desk. Inside were pigeonholes with letters. He pulled out a wad. There was a credit card bill addressed to a Ms Sophie Ellingham. An electricity bill. That too addressed to Ms Sophie Ellingham. He pulled a selection from another pigeonhole. Older letters, personal and yellowed. Handwritten. All addressed to a Mr and Mrs Sweetman. A name he would never forget. He tried the drawer beneath but it jammed. He shoved it home before yanking it again.

  The drawer was packed with cards. Sympathy cards. He read one. Then another. And another. All the same. Each one extending condolences to Kevin and Sophie on the loss of their daughter, Maisie. Cold evidence of the devastation he had wreaked.

  Luke was standing in the home of Sophie Sweetman. Once the childhood home of Maisie Sweetman. The child who on her first communion day, a day of celebration, had gone for a ride on her bicycle. The child Luke had abandoned on a deserted road, fifteen years ago. He had no idea how long he stood there before his phone rang. He pulled it from his pocket.

  It was her.

  Sophie.

  ‘Hello?’ he answered.

  ‘Luke, you said you were on the way ages ago. Where are you?’

  ‘I thought you meant to come to yours.’

  ‘You’re at mine?’

  ‘Yes.’ He paused. Then more deliberately, ‘I’m in the house.’

  A pause.

  ‘How did you get in? Where are you now?’

  ‘I broke the glass in your back door. I’m in the kitchen but I’ve been all through the house. I know who you are, Sophie.’

  Silence.

  ‘Where are you?’ he asked.

  In the background was the sound of barking.

  ‘At the Glasshou
se. I have a key, remember?’

  Of course she had a key. He’d given it to her before their third date. She had the alarm code too.

  More barking.

  He heard a shout. A cry of distress. His grip tightened on the phone.

  ‘I promised you a special dinner on Nina’s return, didn’t I?’ Sophie said softly.

  His knees went weak.

  ‘Nina’s there with you?’

  ‘I said so in my text. And Luke, one more thing …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘We’re looking forward to seeing you. But come alone.’

  Out of Hours

  He checked the dashboard: 20:15. Terence would have left the office hours ago. He had given Luke a mobile number back in the early days, anticipating he might want to talk out of hours.

  ‘Luke, how are you?’ Terence sounded as if he was eating. ‘Everything OK?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I see … what can I do to help?’

  ‘What do you know about Sophie?’

  ‘Sophie? You mean Sophie Ellingham, my secretary?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘It’s important, Terence. I haven’t got much time. I don’t suppose you know that Sophie and I have been seeing each other?’

  There was a pause. This was one disclosure he had felt the therapist didn’t need to know. The one thing he hadn’t shared with Terence during his sessions.

  ‘No, Luke. I did not.’ Terence sounded unhappy to hear this, just like Luke thought he might be. ‘When did this start?’

  ‘It’s a recent thing. I don’t have time to go into it at the moment. And I know now I’ve made a huge mistake. Can you tell me what you know about her?’

  ‘I sense from your voice that you’re agitated, Luke. Are you driving?’

  ‘It’s OK. I have you on hands-free.’

  ‘Listen, do you want to meet at the office?’

  ‘No. There isn’t time … this is really very important. How did Sophie come to be your secretary?’

  He could hear Terence breathing, thinking.

  ‘She’s been with me for years …’ Terence began, unsure. ‘She worked for my predecessor, Tom Slater. He had the practice before me. She attended him for some counselling and then I believe he took her on as his secretary sometime later.’

  ‘And when you took over the practice, you asked Sophie to stay on?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Do you know why Sophie was attending Tom Slater?’

  ‘I don’t think that would be ethical of me to say,’ he said after a few seconds. ‘I took Sophie on as a secretary, not a client.’

  ‘Look, I’m not asking you to breach a confidence here. But if you have any idea at all, can you give me a rough pointer? It’s really very important.’

  ‘I suppose she did speak openly about it afterwards …’ Terence sounded unsure.

  ‘Please, I really need to know.’

  ‘I think it may have been something to do with her divorce.’

  ‘OK. And you’ve always known her as Sophie Ellingham?’

  ‘Yes, why?’

  ‘You’ve never known her as Sophie Sweetman?’

  ‘What’s all this about, Luke?’

  ‘Please, just answer me.’

  He could hear Terence breathing.

  ‘That’s correct,’ he said, slowly. ‘I’ve always known her as Sophie Ellingham. That was her maiden name. I think she mentioned that she’d gone back to her maiden name after the divorce.’

  ‘This is a disaster, Terence. A complete disaster. Do you think the woman could be dangerous?’

  ‘Dangerous?’

  ‘Sophie Ellingham is Sophie Sweetman. They’re the same person.’

  Terence took a few moments to digest this.

  ‘I don’t see why any of this is a problem.’

  ‘OK. I’ll spell it out. Sophie Sweetman is Maisie Sweetman’s mother.’

  ‘And Maisie Sweetman is …?’

  ‘Maisie Sweetman was the child … the child killed in the hit-and-run.’

  There it was. Luke had said it aloud. He’d voiced those words. Hit-and-run. He’d said her name aloud. Maisie Sweetman. Even in the painful honesty of his sessions with Terence, he’d never used her name before. He’d called her ‘the child’, as if in not naming her, he might somehow distance himself from what he’d done.

  ‘Good God,’ said Terence softly. ‘How do you know this?’

  Luke ignored the question. ‘Did you ever tell Sophie why I was attending you?’

  ‘Of course not. Did you?’

  ‘No. Not the real reason. I think she assumed it was down to my marriage falling apart. And she didn’t ask. Did she have access to my notes?’

  ‘Let’s think …’ said Terence. ‘In all our sessions you never mentioned this child’s name. Even if you had, it’s not something I would record. It wouldn’t be relevant to the therapy.’ He paused. ‘I jot down the odd thought or doodle as it occurs to me throughout a session. And I might do a mind map and revisit it as a client’s sessions progress.’

  ‘What do you do with those notes?’

  ‘Some are purely for the duration of the session. Those, I put in a box for shredding. The notes I want to revisit, I usually give to Sophie to file. And if I record notes on a Dictaphone, I get her to transcribe them to a Word document.’

  ‘So, you never recorded any specific information about the … the accident? You wouldn’t have recorded that it was a … a hitand-run?’ Luke had a gagging reflex as he uttered the words again.

  This time around Terence was slow to respond.

  ‘The honest answer is that I don’t know. I may have done. But even if I had, they would have gone into a box for shredding on the same day.’

  ‘And you do that yourself, the shredding?’

  ‘Generally, yes.’

  This didn’t sound good. Luke knew how disorganised Terence could be.

  ‘Off the top of my head, there’s nothing specifically linking you to the accident,’ Terence added.

  ‘I don’t know how, but I think you’re wrong, Terence. Sophie has taken Nina. She’s holding her at my house. I’m on my way there now.’

  Now We Can Start

  From the road above, Luke could make out pools of light coming from the direction of the kitchen in the Glasshouse. Oddly too, he could see the lights on in the glass corridor between the house and the boathouse. Swinging into the drive, he saw Sophie’s car parked at the front door. He was startled to also see Alison’s soft-top BMW.

  Jumping down from the car, he ran for the door, squeezing the housekeys in his fist. The rain soaked through him in seconds. As he passed Sophie’s car, he noticed suitcases and travel bags in the back.

  At the door, he cupped his hands around his eyes and peered through the glass side panels. The hallway lay in gloom. Some light seeped through from the back of the house. All was eerily quiet. He put the key in the lock. As quietly as he could, he turned the key. Listening, he held his breath before pushing against the door.

  Without warning, he found himself on the floor. He couldn’t breathe. The kick to his groin had been delivered with devastating force. He twisted to his knees. He barely had time to register what was happening before he was kicked again, this time the kick was delivered between his shoulder blades. He crumpled to the floor, disabled. His scalp burned as someone grabbed a fistful of hair and pushed his face into the marble floor.

  He was stunned. He felt someone grab his wrists. He was powerless. Whoever it was, was working fast, behind him now, wordless. He winced at the force of the knee on his back. He felt breathing on his neck, panting.

  ‘Jesus,’ he moaned. ‘What the—’

  ‘Quiet,’ she said.

  He recognised the voice. It was Sophie.

  He felt something hard cutting into his wrists. She pulled even tighter. He wondered did she mean to break the skin.

  ‘Get up.’

  ‘I c
an’t,’ he mumbled. Waves of nausea washed over him.

  ‘Try.’

  The pain was too much. He rolled onto his side and curled his knees towards him.

  ‘Luke?’ a panicked voice called out. ‘Is that you?’

  Alison.

  She sounded terrified. He’d never heard her like that before. Craning his neck, he could see her sitting at the kitchen table. From the position of her body, he could tell she was tied up, her arms behind her at an unnatural angle.

  ‘Where’s Nina?’ he asked.

  From the hall, Luke could see the laptop open on the table, the screen facing Alison. He guessed they had been watching the driveway camera, waiting for him to arrive.

  ‘Come on,’ said Sophie, less roughly this time. ‘Time to join your wife. Happy families. I took the liberty of inviting her to join us for dinner. An invitation she clearly couldn’t refuse.’

  ‘You’ll need to help me up.’

  ‘Knees first …’ Sophie pushed him into a kneeling position. ‘One foot on the ground … yes, like that … then the other. There we go.’

  Luke could now see Sophie. Her hair was tied up and she was dressed in black. A black zip-up Lycra jacket. Black Lycra leggings. Black runners.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. She sounded oddly sincere, as if pained by the assault she’d just inflicted on him. ‘The force was necessary,’ she added, a hardness closing in across her face.

  ‘Where’s Nina?’ he asked shakily.

  ‘Come to the table,’ she commanded. She guided him by the arm.

  ‘Is Nina here?’

  She ignored him. ‘You must eat.’

  The thought of eating made him feel even more nauseous. His head was thumping and his groin throbbed. The scene was surreal. The domesticity so completely at odds with Sophie’s violent behaviour. The smell of hot food assailed him.

  ‘Here, next to your wife …’ Sophie pointed.

  Alison’s eyes bulged. He sat clumsily, trying not to lose his balance as he collapsed onto the chair. Alison stared. They were separated by only a few feet. He felt the weight of her glare accusing him as she shook her head from side to side.

  ‘What in God’s name are you involved in?’ she hissed.