The Promise You Made

by A J McDine

  My heart was heavy as I drove into Faversham an hour later. I hadn’t wanted to leave Eloise on her own, but she’d insisted, assuring me she would be all right.

  ‘They can manage without me for one morning,’ I told her.

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ she said firmly. ‘Anyway, you need to see if you’ve got the job.’

  Rhona was in with Eddie when I arrived, so I busied myself by tackling the inbox and drafting a press release for a joint initiative with the police in which we were planning to visit schools to talk to students about identifying people in crisis. But I’d barely written the first paragraph when the door to Eddie’s office flew open and Rhona stalked out, thin-lipped and frowning.

  A couple of minutes later, Eddie popped her head around the door.

  ‘Rose, do you have a minute?’

  I saved my document and followed her into her office, pulling up a chair. She regarded me for a moment.

  ‘You look tired,’ she said.

  Taken aback, I took my glasses off and cleaned them on the corner of my cardigan.

  ‘I’m not sleeping very well at the moment,’ I admitted. ‘I keep waking up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat with my heart racing nineteen to the dozen.’

  ‘Bloody menopause,’ Eddie said, shaking her head. ‘Men don’t know how lucky they are. Anyway, that’s not why I asked you in. I wanted to let you know that Dorothy and I have reached a decision about the chief executive role and we’re delighted to offer you the position.’

  Happiness stole my voice for a moment, and I tipped my head back and stared at the ceiling while I composed myself.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said at last. ‘You don’t know how much this means to me.’

  Eddie smiled. ‘It was a unanimous decision. We both felt you’re exactly what we need to take the charity to a new level. I’ll email your formal offer with all the terms and so on. As you know, the post is currently vacant, so from our point of view the sooner you start the better.’

  ‘Of course. How did Rhona take the news?’

  ‘How did you know Rhona was the other candidate?’ Eddie asked.

  ‘Call it a lucky guess.’

  She nodded and glanced at the door. ‘Not terribly well.’

  ‘I can imagine,’ I said, trying to hide my smile. ‘Poor Rhona.’

  ‘Quite. I’ll announce our decision shortly, so if you could keep the news to yourself until then I’d appreciate it.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ I said, standing and drawing my thumb and forefinger across my mouth. ‘My lips are sealed.’

  At eleven, Eddie came out of her office and called for everyone’s attention.

  ‘I wanted to share some wonderful news with you all. Sisterline has a new chief executive, and she’s one of our own. We had some excellent candidates.’ She glanced at Rhona, who was staring blankly out of the window. ‘But after much deliberation, we have asked Rose to join the leadership team as chief exec. She’ll be starting proper on Monday. Rose,’ she said, beckoning me to join her, ‘come and say a few words to the team.’

  Shit, I wasn’t expecting that. I made my way to Eddie, cleared my throat and said, ‘Someone once said that the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.’ I paused. A couple of the volunteers exchanged glances and beside me, Eddie shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

  ‘What I’m trying to say is that we need to embrace change when it happens, for another wise soul, Winston Churchill in fact, said, “To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often”. And I’m aiming for perfection at Sisterline. Nothing else will do. So, expect some changes. But they will all be for the greater good.’

  My gaze flickered to Rhona, who was no longer staring out of the window but was scowling at me, her eyes filled with hatred.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Any jubilance I’d felt about getting the chief executive’s job leached away as I left the office just after half-past four. Dusk was already falling, and instead of taking the direct route along the alley to the car park, I walked through town, my eyes darting left and right.

  Bravado was easily come by in a strip-lit room full of people. It was harder to find in a deserted town centre on a murky November afternoon. Fear fluttered in my chest as I scurried along the road. I didn’t think for a moment that Rhona would attack me, but Roy Matthews was another matter. He was a convicted criminal who hadn’t thought twice about assaulting his heavily pregnant neighbour. My skin prickling, I quickened my pace. Hearing a scrabbling noise, I glanced to my right, but it was only a couple of pigeons tussling in the guttering of the Oxfam shop. My gaze fell to the hunched, timid-looking woman reflected in the shop window, then I realised with a start that it was me.

  I recalled a talk given by a self-defence expert at the women’s refuge I’d volunteered at years ago. He was a former police officer and judo coach and he’d spent a couple of hours teaching us tactics to use if we were attacked.

  He’d also drilled into us the importance of not walking like a victim.

  ‘Someone with a slumped posture and a lowered gaze who drags their steps and has their arms pressed to their sides sends out a message that they are less likely to fight back,’ he said. ‘But if you hold your chin high, straighten your back, swing your arms and take forceful, dynamic steps while looking around and taking notice of your surroundings, you are telling people you are assertive and confident.

  ‘It takes seconds for a seasoned criminal to size someone up and decide if they would be easy to rob, assault, or worse. Don’t take my word for it. Remember the serial killer Ted Bundy? No? He was executed after confessing to thirty murders in the States in the seventies. He claimed he could tell a victim by the way she walked down the street, the tilt of her head, the manner in which she carried herself…’

  ‘Excuse me,’ I’d said, raising my arm.

  He looked at me in surprise.

  ‘I know you’re trying to be helpful, but I take exception to what you’re saying. It isn’t a woman’s responsibility to defend herself. It’s a man’s responsibility not to attack her in the first place.’

  My outburst was greeted with murmurs of assent. Many of the women in the room had suffered at the hands of their husbands or boyfriends.

  ‘I agree with you a hundred per cent,’ he replied. ‘And in an ideal world, I wouldn’t need to stand here and tell you how to defend yourselves against attack. No one’s arguing that we need to make a cultural shift, but we need to be realistic. It won’t happen overnight. I want to give you the skills to protect yourselves in the meantime. After all,’ he said mildly, ‘telling a woman not to learn self-defence because it’s not her responsibility is like saying don’t lock your doors because burglars shouldn’t steal. Yet we all lock our doors when we go out. It’s common sense.’

  I couldn’t argue with that, so I flopped back in my chair and listened to the rest of the talk without passing comment.

  Remembering his advice now, I hitched my shoulders back, lifted my chin and lengthened my stride, my arms swinging by my sides. A couple of decades on, society was still fucked up and women were still worrying about their personal safety. We shouldn’t have to. But I wasn’t taking any chances.

  I reached the Land Rover without incident and had the key in the ignition when my phone rang. I checked the screen. Home.

  ‘Rose?’ said a breathless voice before I had a chance to speak. ‘Someone’s here.’

  ‘Who?’

  There was a clunk and an intake of breath. ‘Someone’s in the house!’ Eloise whispered. ‘I can hear them.’

  Terror tightened like a noose around my neck. He wouldn’t, would he?

  ‘Where are you?’ I said urgently.

  ‘In my room. But I can hear them, Rose. They’re downstairs…’ her voice tailed off, and I heard a muffled sob.

  ‘Eloise,’ I said. ‘El. Listen to me. I want you to run into the bathroom and lock the door. Do you understan
d? Lock the door and drag the chair in front of it,’ I instructed.

  ‘Now?’ she gasped.

  ‘Yes. I’ll stay on the line.’

  She whimpered, then everything went quiet. I clutched my phone with trembling fingers. Common sense told me I should end the call and dial 999, but gut instinct screamed at me to wait until I knew she was safely in the bathroom. I held my breath and listened, but the only sound was the pounding of my heart.

  Then, finally, Eloise’s voice. ‘I’m here. I’ve locked the door.’

  ‘The chair?’

  ‘Yes, it’s jammed against the door handle.’

  ‘Stand back from the door just in case he…’ I broke off.

  ‘Just in case he what?’

  ‘Just do it,’ I said. ‘The window opens onto the flat roof over the kitchen. You can get out that way if you have to. I’ll be home in ten minutes.’

  Another sob escaped her lips. ‘Rose?’

  ‘Yes?’

  Her voice cracked. ‘Please hurry.’

  The 20mph speed limit was forgotten as I drove home like the clappers, every sinew of my body desperate to protect my goddaughter. But from who - Theo or Roy Matthews?

  I could only hope it was Matthews, because his hatred was focussed on me, not Eloise. It was another story if Theo had somehow broken out of the pillbox and come crashing through the woods to the house. I gripped the steering wheel tighter. Letting him live was the biggest mistake I’d ever made. I should have finished him off for good when I’d had the chance.

  After what felt like the longest journey of my life, I arrived home. The Land Rover rattled as it negotiated the bumpy drive and slew to a stop in front of the coal bunker. My gaze swivelled this way and that. There was no sign of a white SUV. I glanced at the back door. It was swinging open.

  ‘Shit,’ I muttered, yanking the handbrake up. I blundered out and was about to race into the house when I stopped and changed direction to the shed. I threw open the metal trunk, snatched my father’s air rifle, and ran back to the house. Stopping at the back door, I cocked my head, listening for signs of life. Silence. I tip-toed through the kitchen and into the hall. Still nothing. I ducked under the stairs and texted Eloise.

  I’m downstairs. You OK?

  The text immediately showed as read and I watched the ellipsis in the speech bubble as Eloise typed her reply.

  Still in bathroom. Haven’t heard him for a bit. Should I come out?

  No. Wait till I’ve checked the house.

  Happy that she was safe, I crept into the front room. My eyes widened as I took in the upended furniture, the smashed lamp and the broken mirror above the log burner. I could almost taste the loathing, the rage, behind the shattered glass, the overturned coffee tables, the ripped cushions, and I turned away before the image burnt on my retinas.

  The scrape of a chair on the wooden floor above my head galvanised me, but before I headed upstairs, I checked the dining room and library. Both rooms had been ransacked: books ripped off shelves, chairs pulled over and pictures wrenched from walls. It was carnage, and as I went from room to room, my hand tightened on the air rifle, but there was no sign of our intruder.

  I climbed stiffly up the stairs, checking each bedroom, relieved to see these hadn’t been touched. Once I was satisfied we were alone, I knocked quietly on the bathroom door.

  ‘Eloise, it’s me, Rose. It’s all right. It’s safe to come out.’

  The door opened at once, and Eloise peered around the jamb.

  ‘Are you sure?’ she whispered.

  ‘I’ve checked the whole house.’

  Nodding, she pulled open the door, then her mouth fell open when she saw the rifle.

  ‘Christ, Rose, you’ve got a fucking shotgun!’

  I stared at the gun bent over my arm.

  ‘It’s only an air rifle. Are you OK?’

  She sniffed. ‘I haven’t heard him since I rang you. Either he heard me phoning for help or he couldn’t find what he was looking for and cleared off.’ Her voice quivered. ‘I was so scared.’

  I held out my free arm and she flung her arms around me, burying her face in my neck. A wave of tenderness threatened to overwhelm me, and, in that moment, I realised I would do anything for my complicated, unworldly goddaughter.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Eloise looked at me in surprise when I was the first to pull away. I smiled to show her nothing was wrong.

  ‘I need to put the gun back. Will you be all right on your own?’

  She sniffed, then nodded.

  Promising not to be long, I hurried downstairs, shoved a couple of bananas, half a packet of digestives and more water in the pockets of my coat, grabbed a torch and set off through the garden to the woods. As I neared the pillbox, I stopped and shone the torch at the door, letting out a breath when I saw the bolts were closed.

  But that didn’t mean Theo hadn’t kicked down the door and bolted it closed from the outside to fool me. I battled through the brambles to the nearest window slit and was about to shine the torch inside when something fluttered past my face. I dropped the torch and swallowed a scream, flapping my hand in front of my face as I felt another swish of air that stiffened the hairs on the back of my neck.

  It was only when I caught a movement in the corner of my eye that I remembered the pipistrelles. I’d assumed they’d be hibernating, but perhaps the mild night and the promise of food had lured them out.

  I pricked my thumb on a thorn as I scrabbled around at my feet for the torch and swore under my breath.

  ‘Who is that?’ Theo called. He sounded groggy, as if he’d just woken up.

  I pushed the food and water through the slit with the muzzle of the gun, careful to keep my finger well away from the trigger. I rechecked the bolts and turned back to the house.

  After I’d put the rifle back in its trunk in the shed, I went in search of Eloise, finding her in the library.

  ‘It’s not as bad as it looks,’ she said, a copy of Maigret’s Dead Man in her hand. She slotted the book neatly into the bookshelf. ‘Why don’t I make us a cup of tea before we start on the lounge?’

  As we sat at the kitchen table nursing our mugs, she said, ‘Since when have you had a gun?’

  ‘It’s my father’s. He used it to shoot rabbits. I should have handed it in with his shotgun when he died, but it wasn’t on his firearms certificate, so I kept it. Don’t look at me like that.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘All disapproving. I live on my own in the middle of the woods. It’s a deterrent. You can’t be too careful these days. And, anyway, it’s pretty harmless. It only shoots pellets. And I don’t keep it in the house. It lives in a trunk in the shed.’ I eyed her. ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’

  She nodded, then looked as if she was about to say something.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked.

  She shook her head. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Come on, Eloise. Spill.’

  Sighing, she said, ‘I was wondering who the intruder was.’

  ‘An opportunist burglar, I’d imagine. Maybe Jaden and his dodgy mate?’

  ‘But nothing’s been stolen. Whoever did this was sending you a message, a warning.’ She paused. Scratched the side of her neck. ‘I think it might be the road rage guy.’

  ‘SUV Man?’ I tried to keep my voice light. ‘Don’t be silly. And, anyway, he doesn’t know where I live.’

  ‘You keep saying he doesn’t, but someone was downstairs, Rose. And someone left those lilies on your doorstep. If it wasn’t him, who was it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said, draining my cup. ‘But sitting here talking about it won’t get the front room shipshape, will it?’

  Eloise took the two mugs, rinsed them under the tap, then turned back to me. ‘I just think you need to be careful, that’s all.’ To my surprise, a tear rolled down her cheek. She wiped it away with the back of her hand and gave me a watery smile. ‘Because I couldn’t bear to lose you, too.’

  That
night, as I tossed and turned in bed, it was hard to downplay Eloise’s fears. What if she was right? What if the intruder had been Roy Matthews seeking vengeance? What would he have done if I’d been home? He’d threatened Kerry Davis with a baseball bat for complaining to the council about his music. What would he do to the woman he clearly blamed for his precious daughter’s suicide?

  I shivered under my duvet as an unwelcome thought struck me. What if Matthews was prowling around the house right now, biding his time before he broke in, crept up the stairs and attacked me in my bed? My breathing quickened as I pictured the door crashing open and Matthews bursting in, his face tight with rage, his baseball bat swinging by his side. Raising a muscular arm, bringing the bat down in an arc. It would be like swatting a fly.

  But I was being ridiculous. Paranoid. Of course he wasn’t outside. But if it wasn’t Theo, and it wasn’t Roy Matthews, who was it? Who trashed the house? Who left the lilies?

  Now the doubt had taken root in my brain I knew sleep was impossible. I threw the duvet off, swung my legs out of bed and clomped over to the window, peering through a crack in the curtains. A full moon blinked back at me, its pale yellow light casting long, undulating shadows on the grass. Funny how the trees seemed to press into the old house at night, squeezing the oxygen out of the place like the hug of an overbearing aunt. My house, caught in a stranglehold. Even though I knew that by morning the trees would have retreated to a respectful distance, it didn’t stop my scalp tingling.

  I scanned the garden left to right, checking everything was where it should be. The Land Rover, its bulk reassuringly solid. Three wheelie bins. The squat squareness of the coal bunker. A row of hydrangeas with flower heads like crinkly brown greaseproof paper. Nothing untoward. I was about to head back to bed when a movement in the trees caught my eye. The flit of a shadow, dark, menacing. For a moment, I was rooted to the spot, paralysed by fear. But then I felt a rush of something hot, fierce, pulse through my veins.