Deliver Me

by Karen Cole

  ‘Wait, please!’ Abby says desperately, running to catch up with him as he strides down the stairs towards the exit. ‘Would you be willing to take a DNA test to prove that you’re not the father?’

  He stops in his tracks; swerves round angrily. ‘What?’ His voice rises until he’s almost shouting. ‘No! Look, I’m telling you nothing happened that night. Read my lips. We did not have sex. Now leave me alone.’ Everyone in the café is staring at them now; even the guy behind the counter has stopped taking orders and is watching them in shock. It probably seems like an episode of The Jeremy Kyle Show to them, Abby thinks, but she’s really past caring.

  ‘Wait,’ she says, grabbing Andrew’s arm. ‘It’s really easy. All you need to do is sign a form and give me a swab. Your wife need never know.’

  He shakes his arm free. ‘I said, no.’

  She runs to the door, blocking his exit. ‘You won’t do it because you know the result will be positive. You’re the father of this baby.’

  ‘Get out of my way,’ he raises his voice, shouting now. ‘Leave me alone or I’ll call the police. This is harassment. You’re insane.’

  Abby reluctantly moves aside, and he marches out, leaving Abby standing in the café. A customer stares at her.

  ‘Are you okay?’ he asks.

  ‘Yes, fine,’ she says.

  It’s the second time in a short space of time she’s been called insane. Perhaps she really is going crazy.

  *

  But she’s not. Abby knows that in her heart, and she’s now sure that Andrew Wilson is the man who’s been tormenting her. She’s determined to make him stop – to make him face justice if she can. So, before she can change her mind, she heads across town to the police station.

  ‘Andrew Wilson,’ she says as she marches up to the glass screen in reception.

  ‘What?’ PC Whittaker blinks in surprise.

  ‘That’s the name of my stalker and rapist. He works at Brown and Lowe’s. He’s an estate agent.’ Abby is still shaking from her encounter with Andrew Wilson but she tries to speak clearly and calmly. She needs to convince PC Whittaker, at least, that she’s not insane.

  ‘Hold on,’ he says. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘He’s been following me and he’s the only one who could have done it. He gave me a lift home that night – the night I was raped.’

  ‘Do you know if he came into your house?’

  ‘No, he didn’t,’ she admits. ‘But I remember him stopping somewhere on the way.’

  ‘I see,’ PC Whittaker says. ‘I suppose we could check the CCTV. Do you know the registration of his car?’

  ‘No, but he drives a black BMW and he would have been leaving Queen’s Street at about two o’clock on New Year’s Eve and driving towards the Chesterton estate.’

  ‘Okay, leave it with me. We’ll have a word with him. In the meantime, I suggest you get some rest. It’s not good for you to be stressing yourself in your condition.’

  Twenty-Five

  The confrontation with Andrew Wilson has taken it out of her and by the time she gets home Abby is drained emotionally and physically. She runs herself a bath and lies in the water, her belly floating above the bubbles like an iceberg. The water is warm and relaxing, but she can’t switch off her thoughts. They swarm in her head like angry insects. Andrew Wilson’s outraged face keeps surfacing in her mind. What if she’s made a mistake? What if it wasn’t him? She was so sure, but now all her certainty seems to be slipping away. She pulls the plug and watches the water get sucked down the plughole. Then she heaves herself out. She’s sick and tired of thinking about the whole thing.

  She needs to clear her mind, so she does what she often does when she needs to relax. She takes out her easel and sketch pad and begins a drawing of Hector, but she can’t get him to sit still long enough to get a good likeness, so she takes some photos on her phone and then flicks back through. As she’s scrolling through images, she stops, arrested by the picture of the ultrasound she saved to her phone. She gazes at it, fascinated. The grainy image, the ethereal light, the sense of other-worldliness. This is what she wants to draw, she realizes, scrabbling in her box for a charcoal pencil.

  She draws for hours, losing track of the time, totally absorbed, trying to capture the translucent quality of the skin, the ribs, the sense of isolation and mystery. At last it’s finished and she steps away from her work. It’s very good, she thinks, some of the best she’s ever done. It almost seems to be breathing, it’s so real. But there’s a disturbing quality that has crept in unintentionally. It seems almost as if it’s trapped, trying to claw its way out. The face is distorted, and the eyes are dark, menacing smudges of charcoal.

  She turns the picture to face the wall and wanders into the kitchen. She heats up a packet of noodles, feeling defiant. It’s liberating without Ellie breathing down her neck, trying to force-feed her carefully balanced meals. One meal full of E-numbers and additives is not going to kill it.

  She eats in front of the TV, feet up on the coffee table, and flicks through the channels. She’s watching the news when she hears the front gate squeaking. Hector pricks up his ears and growls softly. Abby looks at her watch. It’s just past ten o’clock and it’s getting dark.

  Who could be calling at this time in the evening?

  She waits for the doorbell to ring but nothing happens. Just a faint rustle, then the sound of receding footsteps. Somebody dropping off a flyer? But it’s late in the evening for that. She swallows a feeling of unease, and goes to the door and looks out. There’s no one there. The sky is dark blue, a pale crescent moon peeping out between the roofs of the house opposite.

  The front gate is open. She’s sure she shut it earlier. She walks up the path and shuts it in case Hector decides to run off. Then she looks up and down the street. It’s empty. She must have imagined the footsteps. What’s wrong with her? Maybe Andrew Wilson is right. Maybe she’s losing her mind.

  But as she walks back down the path she notices the flowers wrapped in cellophane to the side of the doorstep. Roses this time. Red and pink roses. There’s a note attached.

  Moments that take your breath away: The first time I saw you naked. That mole on your right shoulder. The first time you smiled at me. I knew then that we were meant for each other.

  She stops reading, snatches up the flowers and slams the door, locking it and bolting it behind her. Then she rushes around the house checking all the doors and windows are locked. In the kitchen, she pauses at the window and looks out at the garden, half swallowed by creeping shadows. There’s something moving underneath the apple tree. Just a cat, she tells herself firmly, and closes the blinds, breathing deeply, trying to control her racing heart.

  Then she sits at the kitchen table and snaps the stems of the flowers, one by one, and shoves them in the bin.

  How long has he been outside watching her? She shudders, thinking about the way she was drawing with the light on, the curtains open – so exposed. Was he watching the house this morning? Did he see Rob and Ellie leave? Does he know she’s here on her own? She picks up her phone and tries to ring Danny, but he doesn’t answer. Then she tries Thea, but her phone is switched off. Jesus, does nobody answer their phone? She just needs to talk to someone, to quell the rising panic.

  The boiler gurgles, upstairs a floorboard creaks. It’s an old house, she tells herself. It always makes these noises. There’s no one in the house. It’s not possible. But anyway, she shuts herself in the living room and turns the TV up loud, watching old comedy re-runs and panel shows. She curls up on the sofa clutching a cushion.

  She must have dropped off, because the next thing she knows, she’s jolted awake by the sound of the phone ringing in the hallway. It’s the landline. As she stumbles sleepily to her feet and out into the hall she wonders vaguely who it could be. Only a handful of people have the number, mostly family members. It’s 11.30. Co
uld it be Ellie phoning to say they’ve arrived? Or maybe Dad – though it seems very late for him to call.

  Abby grabs the phone. ‘Hello?’

  Silence.

  ‘Hello, Ellie? . . . Dad, is that you?’ There’s a long, empty pause, a ragged breath, then the click of the phone at the other end.

  Just a wrong number, Abby tells herself. But why did they take so long to hang up? She switches off the TV in the living room, turns off the Wi-Fi, double-checks the doors and windows. Hector is asleep in his basket. He opens his eyes and wags his tail listlessly as she pats him. Then he rolls over onto his back, feet in the air, to have his tummy tickled. He’s useless as a guard dog, she thinks, friendly to everyone, scared even of cats. But would he protect her if push came to shove? She doubts it very much.

  ‘Well, goodnight then, Hector,’ she says, climbing the stairs to her room. In her bedroom she can hear the clack of heels and the cackle of drunken laughter outside. People walking back from the pub. Then the footsteps recede and there’s silence.

  She’s brushing her teeth when the phone rings again. Loud and shrill. Her first instinct is to ignore it. But what if it’s Ellie? She runs downstairs.

  ‘Yes, hello?’

  Silence. This time there’s definite breathing, the soft smack of lips.

  She slams down the phone, takes it off the hook. Then she heads back upstairs and curls up in bed. She lies there for a while, her nerves on edge, before she finally drifts into an uneasy sleep.

  Twenty-Six

  ‘You don’t look too good, Abby.’

  ‘Well, thanks a lot, Danny.’ Abby smiles weakly.

  It’s the next day, a bright sunny afternoon, and they’re sitting in the garden, sipping iced coffee, their faces turned to the sun. Everything is quiet and peaceful. The only sounds are the low hum of a bumblebee in the flowerbed, the chatter of birds and the drone of a distant aeroplane flying overhead. The fear of last night seems far away and unreal.

  Danny laughs. ‘I mean, you look lovely as ever, but you’re a bit pale and you’ve got dark rings under your eyes. I thought pregnant women were supposed to glow. Are you sickening for something?’

  ‘No, I just didn’t sleep well last night.’ She does feel awful – dizzy and foggy headed. She must have only slept about three hours, altogether. She kept waking up in a panic, convinced he was in the house. When she did finally get to sleep the baby kicked her so hard that she woke up again.

  ‘Why didn’t you sleep?’

  ‘He’s started again.’ Abby grips the side of her chair, remembering how frightened she was last night.

  Danny stares at her. ‘Who has?’

  ‘My stalker. Only it’s worse this time.’

  Danny takes a sip of coffee. ‘I thought all that stopped when you changed your phone number.’

  ‘The texts have stopped, but he’s started sending flowers again, and last night . . .’ Abby pauses to steady her breathing. Talking about it is bringing it all back, the feeling of terror and helplessness. ‘Last night he was outside my house. I heard him. He left flowers on the doorstep. Then later he phoned me on the landline.’

  ‘Did you recognize his voice?’

  She shakes her head. ‘He didn’t speak. I could just hear him breathing.’

  Danny sips his coffee and frowns. ‘How do you know it was him if he didn’t speak? It could’ve just been a wrong number.’

  ‘I just know, alright?’ Abby puts her face in her hands, rubs her eyes. ‘I’m so scared, Danny. I don’t know what to do.’

  Danny sighs and pats her hand. ‘Oh, sweetheart. I don’t think you need to be scared. A few flowers, a couple of messages, that’s all. He’s probably harmless. I mean he’s an annoying creep, sure, but I doubt he’s really dangerous. I don’t think this could be the guy you slept with.’

  Abby shakes her head. ‘Danny, I know you don’t think it’s likely, but someone raped me, and it’s him, I know it.’ She pulls the note that came with the flowers from her back pocket and hands it to Danny. ‘This came with the flowers.’

  Danny shields his eyes from the sun, examining the note. ‘It’s pretty creepy,’ he admits. ‘That mole on your right shoulder . . .’ he reads out loud thoughtfully. ‘Have you got a mole on your right shoulder?’

  ‘Yes.’ She shivers. ‘That’s what makes it so frightening. And I got a text quoting my tattoo. Word for word. How could he know what it says? He must have seen me naked. He wants me to know, he’s taunting me.’ She takes a deep, shuddering breath. ‘With Ellie and Rob away, I feel so vulnerable all alone here in the house.’

  Danny presses her hand gently. ‘I could come over tonight if you like,’ he says. ‘I mean, I can’t stay all night, I’m afraid. I’ve got to leave early in the morning.’

  It’s his sister’s wedding in Liverpool. Danny is going up a couple of days early to help with all the preparations. Abby had completely forgotten.

  ‘But I can stay until one or two o’clock . . . Would that help?’

  ‘That would be great,’ says Abby gratefully. ‘You’re a star, Danny.’

  She sits back and shuts her eyes, feeling the warmth of the sun on her face. Perhaps everything will be okay after all. With Danny here, she feels safe and if the stalker tries to contact her again, Danny will be a witness. She’ll know that she’s not going crazy.

  They chat for a while about school and about a new man called Will who Danny has met. He makes her laugh when he describes their first date; how he was so nervous he spilt wine all over his shirt and then knocked the glass off the table as he was trying to mop it up. Danny has a way of telling a story that is hilarious, and by the time he leaves at four o’clock to sort some things at home and pack his bag for Liverpool, Abby is in a much better mood. He’ll be back soon, and in the meantime, she tidies the house, with a new burst of energy and hopefulness. For the first time in a while she doesn’t feel so afraid.

  *

  Good as his word, Danny turns up two hours later with pizza and a bottle of wine. ‘I know you can’t drink this –’ he grins – ‘so I’ll just have to do the decent thing and drink it myself.’

  ‘How selfless of you.’ Abby chuckles.

  They eat the pizza on the sofa in front of an old black-and-white movie Abby has never seen before. She tries to concentrate, but the movie is slow, and Abby is exhausted. She drops off to sleep halfway through and wakes up just as the credits are rolling.

  ‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘I’m not much company, am I?’

  Danny purses his lips. ‘You missed the ending. It’s a classic.’

  Abby sits up and looks at her watch. It’s nine o’clock already. ‘Did anyone ring?’

  ‘Nope. It’s been quiet as a church. I’m beginning to think you must have imagined the whole thing.’

  Abby is fully awake now and she turns on him angrily. ‘What? What about the note then, do you think I imagined that?’

  ‘I was just kidding, Abby, calm down. Of course I believe you.’ He’s slurring his words and Abby realizes he’s getting drunk. The bottle of wine he bought is empty and he’s started on another.

  He catches her looking at it. ‘I took another bottle from your kitchen cupboard, hope that’s okay? I got a bit bored while you were asleep.’

  ‘I’m sure it’s fine. I’m sorry. I’ll try to stay awake.’

  Danny pours himself another drink, Abby makes herself a cup of tea, and they are just starting another movie, when the phone rings, loud and shrill in the quiet night.

  They look at each other. Abby’s heart is beating out of her chest. At least now Danny will know she hasn’t been making it up.

  ‘Do you want me to answer?’ he slurs.

  She nods and follows him into the hallway where he picks up the phone.

  ‘Hello, Abigail Brooke’s residence.’ He winks at Abby. ‘Hello?’ He’s
silent for a second or two, and then he puts the receiver down. ‘He hung up on me, the bastard.’

  ‘Did he say anything?’

  ‘Nope. Are you sure it isn’t just someone getting a wrong number? I used to get loads of calls for the cinema when I lived in my old flat.’

  ‘I just know it’s him.’ She thinks of the feeling she got when he phoned last night, the way the hairs on the back of her neck stood up, the way her throat got dry.

  They have just settled back in the living room when the phone rings again.

  ‘This is starting to piss me off,’ says Danny, and he strides out to the hallway. Abby can hear him from the living room.

  ‘Fuck off, you pervert, and leave her alone!’ he shouts.

  There’s a pause, and then he slams down the phone. ‘That told him,’ he says triumphantly as he comes back and flings himself on the sofa.

  But Abby feels uneasy. Danny shouting at the caller has probably wound him up and she doesn’t want to think about what he might do if he’s angry. But it does seem to do the trick. There are no more phone calls for the next hour and a half. They watch the rest of the movie uninterrupted and then start a boxset until, at about half past two, Danny staggers to his feet.

  ‘I’ve got to go home now, Abs,’ he says. ‘I don’t think that idiot will be bothering you again, not tonight at least.’

  Abby wishes she could be so sure.

  ‘Just make sure all the doors are locked. I’ll keep my mobile on. Call me if there’s a problem, okay?’

  Abby nods. She’s far from okay. But she doesn’t want to be the needy friend who is always taking and never giving. ‘Have a good time in Liverpool,’ she says.

  ‘See you later,’ he says, kissing her sloppily on the cheek.

  As she watches him lurch down the pathway she realizes that he’s even drunker than she thought. Maybe she should have called a taxi for him. But she doesn’t have enough mental energy to worry about Danny. She’s got enough on her plate.