by C. L. Taylor
Six-fourteen! I shoot up into a sitting position then wince and press a hand to my lower back. Six fourteen! I should have been at the nursery for five-thirty to pick up Elise. Oh my God! A cold chill courses through me as I snatch up my mobile. Five missed calls: three of them from the nursery, two of them from Max.
I ease myself onto my feet and grab my coat from the banister. I hit the voicemail button on my phone and press it to my ear as I stumble out the front door and half hobble, half run down the street.
‘Hello, Jo. It’s Sharon from nursery. You were due to pick up Elise fifteen minutes ago. I’m sorry to have to remind you about timekeeping again but you really should let us know if you’re going to be this late.’
‘Hello, Jo. It’s Sharon again. Could you give us a ring as soon as you get this?’
‘Hello, Jo. It’s nearly six o’clock and Elise is really quite distressed that no one has come to collect her. We’ve rung your husband.’
‘Jo, it’s Max. Where are you? I just got your message about Paula, and the nursery just rang me to say that you haven’t picked up Elise. Where are you? Ring me! Please! As soon as you get this!’
‘I’m going to get Elise. Ring me the second you get this.’
My hand shakes as I run a hand over my face, pushing the hair off my damp forehead. The nursery is only a couple of blocks away but it feels miles away. Six hours! I passed out for six hours. My phone rang five times and I didn’t hear a thing. Shit. I should never have taken Dad’s pills. I should have gone to the chemist. I should have—
I stop short outside the nursery. There are no cars parked up outside and no lights on inside. The entrance hall is empty of buggies. The coat rack, normally heaving with tiny jackets and bags, is bare. I wrap a hand around one of the metal bars on the gate but I don’t bother opening it. I’m too late. Elise is gone.
Chapter 10
When his phone rings at 6.35 p.m. Max snatches it up and presses the call answer button. For over half an hour he’s been pacing the room as call after call all ended in the same way – ‘No, I haven’t seen Jo all day,’ ‘No, I haven’t heard from her’ and ‘I hope she’s OK. Let me know.’
He gives Elise a reassuring smile as he presses the phone to his ear but she’s too busy to notice. She’s playing on the double bed with a plastic doll he found in her nursery bag.
‘Jo?’ He keeps his voice low, so as not to worry his daughter. ‘Jo, are you there?’
‘Where’s Elise? Is she with you?’ He can hear the fear in his wife’s voice.
‘Yes. Where the hell are you?’
His wife sighs with relief then promptly bursts into tears. ‘Oh my God,’ she cries between sobs. ‘Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.’
Max stands up and carries the phone into the bathroom. He can still see Elise through the open door but she’s nearly out of earshot now. ‘Jo, can you tell me where you are?’
‘I’m … at home.’
‘Are you OK?’
‘Yes.’ He hears her take a deep breath. It’s punctuated by short sharp sobs but she’s calming down.
‘What happened?’
There is silence apart from a sniff followed by a soft hoo-hoo sound as his wife breathes in through her nose and out through her mouth.
‘Jo, what happened?’ Max asks again.
‘I woke up and it was dark. I overslept. I came back from work earlier because my back was hurting and I fell asleep on the sofa. Oh God. I feel so—’
‘You were asleep?’ He’d seen her calls flash up on his screen earlier in the day but he’d ignored them. He was in court, covering a domestic battery case, and it wasn’t until he was back in the office and the nursery rang that he realised something was wrong. He’d tried to ring Jo and, when she didn’t answer her phone, he started to worry. Had something happened at work or was she marooned somewhere, caught in the grip of a panic attack? Then he remembered what she’d told him about Paula.
‘You were asleep?’ he says again, unable to keep the incredulity out of his voice. ‘Jo, we went back to the house but it was locked from the inside. I banged on the door and shouted through the letter box. Didn’t you hear me?’
‘No.’ Her voice quavers. ‘I didn’t hear a thing.’
‘I’ve been ringing all your friends. I was going to call the police.’
‘Oh God. I’m sorry. Where are you? Can you bring Elise home? I need to see her.’
‘I …’ Max pauses. He can’t dismiss the niggling thought at the back of his brain. ‘I made a lot of noise, Jo. I banged and banged. No one could have slept through that.’
‘That’s because I … I took something.’
His grip on the phone tightens. ‘What?’
‘Some muscle relaxants my mum gave me. They were Dad’s. I was in so much pain, Max, and the doctor wouldn’t see me.’
‘You took prescription drugs meant for a man who’s dying from motor neurone disease? Are you mad?’
‘I was desperate! I was in pain. You have no idea—’
‘No, Jo. You have no idea. Did Sharon tell you that Elise wet herself when no one came to pick her up?’
‘No. I—’
‘Or that she had to put her in another child’s knickers because you forgot to take her bag in this morning? And she was filthy, Jo. Her top was dirty, her hair hadn’t been brushed—’
‘Please, Max. Don’t make me feel worse than I already do. I could barely move this morning but I still got Elise ready the best I could. I didn’t mean to forget her. I didn’t do it on purpose!’
Jo continues to try and explain herself but Max has stopped listening. He’s thinking about his dad. He was twelve the first time he found him passed out on the sofa. He’d just got in from school and there was a strange, bittersweet, almost vinegary scent in the air when he opened the front door. He found the tinfoil, sticky with brown liquid, on the bathroom floor.
‘Have you done it before?’ he asks.
‘What?’
‘Taken drugs. At home?’
‘Are you serious?’
‘I wouldn’t have asked if I wasn’t.’
Over the last couple of months Jo’s behaviour has become increasingly erratic. He’d put it down to her agoraphobia and mental health. No, she’d put it down to that. Neither of them could pinpoint why she was getting worse instead of better. Unless she was self-medicating …
His wife sighs. ‘I can’t believe you’re even asking me that.’
‘Sharon said you seemed out of it when you picked up Elise the other day.’
‘That was after Paula threatened me! Jesus, Max. Would you listen to yourself? You’re being ridiculous. Just bring Elise home.’
‘She also said you deliberately dropped Elise when she was a baby.’
‘I was breastfeeding and she bit me! I didn’t do it on purpose. Jesus, Max. Why are we even having this conversation? Just bring Elise home or I–I’ll—’
‘Do what? Take her to Chester? Make sure I never see her again?’ Max is shaking with anger. Jo didn’t see the state their daughter was in when he turned up to collect her. The nursery staff had done the best they could to keep her occupied but her eyes were red and puffy, her cheeks tear-stained. As if she hadn’t been through enough – being kept indoors all the time when other little kids were laughing and playing in the sunshine. He’d done his best to understand what Jo was going through. He’d supported her, he’d listened to her, he’d put his own needs last, telling himself that all Jo needed was a bit of time. But she was turning into someone he didn’t recognise.
‘Max, don’t. I said I was sorry about that. I sent you a text and—’
‘Have you got any idea how worried I’ve been, Jo? I thought that Paula had hurt you. Have you rung the police yet?’
Jo pauses for a beat. ‘No.’
There’s something about the hesitation in her voice as she says the word ‘no’ that makes Max frown.
‘Why the hell not? Last night you had a go at me because I wasn�
��t taking you seriously and now …’ he sighs. ‘We’re going round in circles here. Look, we’re in the Holiday Inn and Elise is fine. She can sleep here with me tonight and I’ll take her to nursery in the morning. If you pick her up after work we can talk more then. OK?’
‘I … I don’t know. I really want to see her, Max.’
‘She’s fine. Honestly.’ He watches as his daughter clambers off the bed and toddles towards him, arms reaching for a hug, a huge smile on her face. ‘I’m sorry for going off the deep end but I was worried, OK, for you and Elise.’
‘I’m sorry too. I didn’t mean to scare you. Honestly, Max. When I woke up and realised what had happened I …’ She pauses. ‘Can I talk to Elise? Please. I need to hear her voice.’
‘Sure.’ He places the phone against his daughter’s ear. ‘Elise, sweetie. It’s Mummy. Say hello.’
He listens as his daughter has a garbled conversation with her mother then he wrangles the phone away from her again.
‘I need to go. There’s a Tesco down the road and I need to grab some overnight things for Elise and some clean clothes for nursery tomorrow.’
‘You could come home. There are clothes here,’ Jo says, but the fight has gone out of her voice. She’s accepted that they won’t be coming home tonight.
‘Sleep well, sweetheart,’ Max says. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow evening.’
‘OK. Bye.’
The line goes dead and Max slumps against the bathroom doorway, completely spent. His daughter, still standing beside him, reaches out her arms to be picked up and he swoops her up. He presses his face into her blonde curls and closes his eyes as her tiny hands wind their way around his neck.
Chapter 11
I saw you, Jo. I watched as you slept, flat on your back, your hands folded on your stomach like a corpse. A nice sleep, was it? Restful? You need to stay awake, Jo. You need to watch what’s happening around you because, if you don’t, if you close your eyes for one second, you’ll lose everything that’s ever mattered to you. Oh wait, too late. That’s already happening.
Chapter 12
Max leaves the Bristol News building through the revolving glass front door, his laptop bag swinging from his shoulder, his mobile phone in his hand. He’s running late for his interview with an elderly woman who is the most recent victim of a con by two men masquerading as council drain inspectors. One of them ransacked her house while the other one kept her talking in the living room. He’s keen to run a story to warn the public about the scam but, whenever he mentally runs through the questions he needs to ask, he’s distracted by other thoughts: a niggling worry about his conversation with Jo the night before.
He’d dropped Elise off at nursery in the morning, as planned, then gone to work. When he went home afterwards, Elise threw herself at him the second he walked through the door but Jo barely reacted. She didn’t stand up from the sofa when he walked into the living room, and stiffened when he bent to kiss her hello. He wasn’t sure if she felt bad for leaving Elise at nursery the night before or if she was angry with him for the way he’d reacted, but he didn’t force a conversation. Instead he waited until they’d put Elise to bed then he reached into his messenger bag and handed Jo a bottle of her favourite wine.
‘Peace offering.’
‘Thank you.’
He followed his wife into the kitchen and watched as she opened the bottle, poured the wine and handed him a glass.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said as they settled themselves on the sofa. ‘For everything. For losing my shit when I saw you’d been looking for houses in Chester. That was out of order. So was my reaction when you said you’d taken your dad’s medication.
‘It’s the investigation,’ he went on. ‘It’s left me feeling wired and jumpy. And I know that’s no excuse but, after spending six months with low-life scum, I assume the worst about people. I overreacted. I’m really sorry, Jo. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.’
Jo maintained eye contact with him throughout his apology but there was a strange, distant look in her eyes. It didn’t fade once, not even when he offered to move to Chester with her and Elise. He’d expected her to be excited. He’d imagined her face lighting up. But, instead of throwing her arms around his neck and squealing, she leaned away from him and said, ‘I think we both need some space after everything that’s happened.’
His instinct was to panic, to tell her that was the last thing they needed. But he didn’t. He kept calm and told her he understood. It was fine, he’d stay at the hotel for a couple of nights. Only it wasn’t fine, was it? He didn’t want to be apart from his family.
‘Hello, Martin.’
He is vaguely aware of a woman’s voice as he turns right outside the Bristol News building and heads towards the multi-storey car park where his car is, but he ignores it.
‘Or should that be Max?’
He turns sharply. A woman with bleached blonde hair, a black Puffa jacket and plastered-on make-up smiles tightly.
‘You look surprised to see me, Max.’
‘Do I know you?’
‘Nice, I see what you did there.’ The woman makes a big show of looking to the left, then the right, as though she’s checking who’s listening. ‘Or was that for your wife’s benefit? Is she here? It would be lovely to see her again.’
Max grabs her by the shoulders. ‘Stay away from my wife.’
Paula doesn’t flinch. She doesn’t squeal. Instead she looks him straight in the eyes. ‘What did you expect me to do when you’ve been ignoring my calls?’
‘Leave her alone.’
‘Take your hands off me. Now,’ she adds as a middle-aged couple overtake them on the pavement. The man glances back, a concerned look on his face.
‘I’ll make this very simple for you,’ Paula says in a low voice. ‘You give me what you stole and neither of us ever have to see each other again.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Is that what you told your wife?’
‘Are you mentally ill?’ Max glances back at the glass doors of the Bristol News building. Amy is behind the desk at reception but there’s no sign of Scott, the heavily tattooed security guard. He’s probably secretly eating pizza in the back office or watching porn on his phone while he takes an extended shit.
‘You can play this game all you want,’ Paula says softly from behind him. ‘Claiming not to know who I am or what I want, but you don’t know the first thing about me, Max. You don’t even know my last name.’
‘But the police will.’ He turns to face her. ‘Jo’s filed a complaint. Go anywhere near her again and you’ll be arrested.’
It’s a lie, but he’s not about to admit that. God knows why Jo didn’t call the police. Any sane person would have. But Jo’s not well. She starts at shadows. She overreacts. She sees danger where there isn’t any.
‘The police?’ Paula tilts her head to one side and smiles. Beneath her plump red lips are tobacco-stained teeth. Straight, but yellow. ‘That was a gutsy move, Max, considering they’ll arrest you too once they see the CCTV footage.’
‘CCTV footage? Really? Do the characters on EastEnders give you messages from God too? Perhaps I should give your carer a call? Or a doctor? See you, Paula.’ He raises a hand as he walks away.
She may have scared his wife but she doesn’t scare him. Delusional or not, she can’t be more than five foot three and nine stone whilst he’s six foot two and thirteen stone.
‘You’ll regret ignoring me,’ Paula shouts after him as he steps into the car park. ‘I’ll get what’s mine, even if I have to destroy your family to do it.’
Max takes a sip of his pint and sits back in his chair. The glass judders on the table as he sets it back down. His interview with Mrs Jacobs went well. He got some nice quotes and the photographer who met him at her house snapped some emotive shots of her – vulnerable but brave – but he hasn’t been able to stop thinking about his encounter with Paula outside work. Her shouted threat as he walked
into the car park has unsettled him. At the time he shrugged it off but it’s worked its way into his body and it’s sitting under his skin making him feel prickly and uncomfortable.
He takes another swig of his pint then reaches for his phone. He needs to discuss moving back in with Jo – personal space or no personal space.
He calls her number but it’s engaged. He waits a couple of seconds then tries again. Still engaged. He could text her instead, but texts can be misconstrued. They need to talk. Max logs into Facebook to while away a couple of minutes while he waits for Jo to finish her phone call. As he scrolls through his news feed, he sees the usual humble bragging, food shots, health updates and political rants but nothing that piques his interest. He scrolls, scrolls, scrolls through his friends’ updates then pauses at one of Jo’s posts. Elise gazes up at him from the screen. She’s sitting at the kitchen table with a plate of scrambled eggs in front of her and ketchup smeared all over her mouth. And she’s laughing, really laughing. He checks the time stamp – 7.31 a.m. – and his heart twists with pain. While his wife and daughter were bonding over breakfast he was waking up in a grotty hotel room, alone.
As he continues to stare at the photo an unsettling thought pricks at the front of his brain. It’s been nearly 24 hours since he mentioned moving to Chester to Jo and she hasn’t said a thing about it. He had a text that morning to say that she’d dropped Elise at nursery on her way to work, but nothing else. What’s going on in her head? She should be thrilled that he’s suggested moving to Chester. Isn’t that what she’s wanted all along? Or was it only ever the plan for her and Elise to go? Jo had asked for space and he’d agreed to it – they both need to cool down after everything that’s happened – but it’s killing him, not knowing how she’s feeling.
He logs out of Facebook then logs back in, using Jo’s email address and password instead. He’d watched her tap it into her phone well over a year ago, when she was checking Facebook in a restaurant they’d taken Elise to for lunch one weekend. LiLi1108 – his daughter’s name and the first four digits of her date of birth. He’d almost told her to change it, that it was too easy to guess, but he’d kept quiet instead.
