by C. L. Taylor
She was a mother for two glorious years. They were the happiest years of her life. And then Liam O’Brien stole them away.
Mary stands up so quickly all the blood rushes from her head and black spots swim in front of her eyes. She grips the windowsill and waits for them to disappear then hurries to the front door. She wrenches it open and looks up and down the street but Max and the red car have disappeared. The wind whistles into the house and, out of the corner of her eye, Mary notices something small and white fluttering along the hallway floor. She ducks down and picks it up. It’s a business card.
Max Blackmore, it says on the front.
Crime Reporter
Bristol News
There’s a mobile telephone number and an email address in the corner of the piece of paper.
The more she stares at it the more her head swims. What should she do?
Chapter 64
The wind whips my hair around my face. Red tendrils wrap themselves over my cheeks, nose and throat. I brush them back with both hands, only for them to attack me again a split second later. Elise prods the rock pool with her net and says something I can’t hear because it’s carried away by the wind. I wipe my damp palms on my jeans but they’re wet too. I twist round, expecting to see several large rocks and a large expanse of beach behind us. But it’s gone. The sea, which was at least a hundred metres away the last time I looked, has travelled so far up the beach that waves are crashing against the rocks we’re playing on. When we arrived it was flat, almost serene, with the sun glinting off the water, but grey clouds have gathered in the sky, and the sea – striped with the crest of huge waves – has turned black.
Smack! Another wave hits the rocks – suddenly, ferociously. It’s all I can do to grab Elise under the armpits and whip her up and into my arms before white surf leaps into the air and curves towards us. It misses, just, and smashes against limestone less than a metre away from us. There’s another wave right behind it, taller and darker. We have to move. Now.
I glance at my watch as I hurry across the damp rocks, towards the mainland and safety. The tide doesn’t come in until midday and it was only ten o’clock the last time I looked and—
Ten o’clock.
How can it still be ten o’clock?
I tap the glass face.
The second hand doesn’t move.
I glance back at the sea as a wave hits the rocks, with more force than the last one, and this time we’re sprayed with seawater. Elise screams and tightens her grip around my neck. As she does, her net slips out of her hand.
‘Net!’ she screams in my ear and she tries to twist out of my grip. ‘Net, Mummy!’
I don’t reach for the net but I do stop running, my heart thundering in my chest. Where do we go now? I reached the end of the rock face but a high stone wall separates the beach from the safety of a grassy verge. Sharp, jagged pieces of stone are embedded in the top. There’s no way I could get over it. The only way off the beach is to scramble across the rocks until I reach the small patch of beach at the end of Main Road. Once we’re on the road we’ll be safe.
Elise continues to shout for her abandoned net as I take off again. Her screams cut through the wind, deafening me as I carefully pick my way across the rocks. The sea spray has made them damp and slippery, and my daughter lurches in my arms as my left foot slides away from me. I fight to keep my balance but, violently twisting to one side, I wrench my right knee and it nearly gives way. I wince as I take another step.
‘Mummy!’ Elise shouts in my ear. ‘I’m scared!’
I pull her even closer, locking her against my body. The sea is raging and thrashing now. Huge grey waves roll towards us, leaping and crashing, gathering speed and height the closer they get. I feel like we’re standing near the jaws of an enormous dark monster that wants to swallow us whole. ‘It’s OK. I’ve got you. We’re nearly—’ I sense someone watching us and turn to look.
Mary is standing on the beach at the edge of the rocks, her navy woollen coat buttoned up to her neck, her paisley scarf twisted around her throat and her grey knitted hat pulled down over her ears. Her gloved hands twist together as she stares at us. She’s come down to warn us about the tide.
‘Mary!’ I jump down off the last rock and land heavily on the sand. My landlady doesn’t reach out a hand to steady my fall. She doesn’t move an inch, not even when the wind snatches the scarf from her neck and lifts it up in the air. Elise watches it as it twirls and dances above our heads before the wind whips it further down the beach.
‘Mary?’ I shift Elise onto my hip. ‘What’s wrong? What is it?’
She blinks, but her eyes are glassy and blank, staring right through me.
‘Mary, come on.’ I touch her elbow. ‘We have to get going. The tide’s coming in. We need to—’
She whips her arm away from my touch and grabs my wrist in one lightning-fast move.
‘Mary?’ I try to pull my hand away but she’s surprisingly strong and, with my other arm around Elise, there’s no way I can break her hold without dropping my child. ‘Mary, you’re hurting me. Let go, please.’
‘Who are you?’
‘You know who I am.’
‘I know who you pretended to be.’ The glassy look in her eyes vanishes as she spits the words at me.
‘Mary!’ I pull away but she still has a tight grip on my wrist and a jolt of pain shoots through my shoulders as she yanks me back towards her. Her eyes are steely behind her rain-misted glasses.
‘I know all about you, Joanne Blackmore. I know that you have a husband called Max. I know you snatched Elise from him. I know you have drug and mental health problems—’
‘That’s not true.’
‘No? You’ve got enough medication in your bedside drawer to knock out a horse.’
‘That’s for my agoraphobia and anxiety.’
‘Do agoraphobics spend a lot of time on the beach?’
‘Please,’ I beg. The sea is creeping nearer and nearer. There’s only a thin strip of rocks left that aren’t submerged and a tiny stretch of beach ahead of us. ‘Let’s go back to the B&B. I’ll explain everything. I promise.’
‘Why’d you come here, Joanne? Why’d you come to my house?’
‘Because Sean gave me a lift and said you had rooms available.’
‘Are you lying again, Joanne? I heard you were good at that.’
‘Mary, I don’t know what you’ve heard or what you’ve read in the papers but you’ve got it wrong. I’m not a bad person, I promise. I—’
‘Curiosity, was it? Was that what brought you here? You wanted to see for yourself how much damage your daddy did?’
I start at the mention of my father. What’s she talking about? I was sweating under my thick winter coat with Elise pressed up against me, but now I can’t stop shivering.
‘Forgotten, have you, Joanne? Blocked it out of your head?’
‘I don’t know what you mean. Please, Mary,’ – I drop my voice – ‘you’re scaring me. And I need to get Elise to safety.’
Mary’s eyes don’t soften. My plea was snatched away by the wind. Either that or she deliberately ignores it.
‘You were in the car. Remember? Your daddy’s white Ford Escort. You’d been to the football with him. He made you sit outside in the car with a book, a can of pop and some Tayto crisps while he went in to watch the match. He had a few beers. A lot of beers. Don’t you remember, Joanne? Don’t you remember how strongly his breath smelled when he finally got back into the car?’
‘No.’ I shake my head but it’s a lie. I can remember. I remember countless occasions when I’d wait in the car while my dad hung out with his friends. I remember how bored I was. How I’d wander into the club to ask him whether it was time to go, only to be told, ‘I’ll be out shortly.’ But shortly seemed to last for ever and, when I finished my book, I fell asleep on the back seat. I remember being surprised, when I woke up, that it wasn’t dark outside and that my dad was sitting in the driving seat, star
ting the engine. He was smoking a John Player Special cigarette and it stank.
‘Do you remember him going fast, Joanne? Putting his foot down and swinging around corners. Remember that?’
I nod, dumbly, too terrified to speak.
‘He was going to take you down to the beach to meet your mother and some of her friends, wasn’t he? But he was late and he put his foot down. He must have been going fifty miles an hour down Strand Street.’
‘No, Mary.’ My eyes fill with tears. ‘No, Mary, please.’
‘Did you feel a little bump, did you? As your da was driving down Main Road? Did he tell you it was a cat?’
I don’t want to hear this. I can’t. All my life I’ve been told that my dad was a bad man and I never believed it. I couldn’t. How could the man who gave me rides on his shoulders, who made me laugh with his stupid jokes, who gave me bags of sweets when Mum wasn’t looking, be a bad man? Bad men had scars on their faces and strange, uneven teeth. They didn’t have bright-blue eyes and thick pale hair. OK, so he stank of booze and fags sometimes, he didn’t take me down the park and he wouldn’t talk to me when he was watching the telly, but wasn’t everyone’s dad like that? When I hit my teens I thought maybe he’d cheated on my mum. He left her to be with another woman. Or, worse, had a baby with another woman, and it was such a scandal that she had to leave Clogherhead. But not this. I know what Mary’s about to say. There’s only one thing she can say.
‘That was my little girl, Joanne,’ Mary says. ‘That was my baby your daddy killed, not a cat.’
Tears stream down my cheeks as I place my hand on top of Elise’s head, feeling the dampness of her woollen bobble hat as I press her warm face into my neck. I close my eyes but I can still see her – the little girl smiling up from the photo. I can still smell the musty red coat. My dad killed her. He killed a child. She wasn’t much more than a baby. She was almost as old as Elise. I fight to control the pain that’s ripping through my chest but I can’t do it – I can’t bear the anguish in Mary’s voice – and a strangled sob escapes from my lips.
‘My best friend’s husband killed my baby, Joanne. He dropped you at the beach, then he drove home and he opened a beer like nothing had happened. And all the while Niamh was lying broken and bleeding in the road.’
‘Oh God, Mary. I didn’t know. I swear I didn’t know.’ My landlady has loosened her grip on my wrist but I can’t bring myself to pull away. The big, empty house, the shrine in the nursery, the loneliness and sadness that follow Mary round like a cloud – my dad caused that. He ran over her child and he didn’t stop. What kind of man does that? What kind of monster?
‘Mummy?’ Elise looks at me curiously. ‘Mummy cry?’
She dabs at my cheeks with her mittened hand then looks at Mary. ‘Mary cry.’
She reaches a hand towards Mary’s face but the older woman jumps away as though burned. She touches a hand to her throat, as though feeling for her scarf, and looks surprised to find it isn’t there.
‘Mary,’ I say, ‘I swear I didn’t know. I never would have stayed with you if I had. I wouldn’t have come back to Clogherhead. I’m so, so sorry. Honestly, I—’
‘But your mammy knew, didn’t she, Joanne? He was her husband. How could she not know something like that?’
‘She didn’t. She can’t have. She hates Liam. I saw it in her eyes whenever I tried to talk about him. She told me he was a bad man. She told me never to talk about him in her house.’
The light in Mary’s eyes changes. The hatred dims, ever so slightly. She wants to believe me.
‘Mary,’ I say as the surf breaks over my shoes. ‘Mary, we need to go!’
But my landlady doesn’t react. Instead she stares at Elise, a strange, fixed smile on her face, and reaches out her hands.
‘Give the child to me.’
‘No.’ I take a step backwards but there’s nowhere to run to. Mary’s trapped me between the rocks and the road. I’ll have to swerve around her or push her out of the way to get past her.
‘Give her to me,’ she says again. ‘You nearly fooled me, Joanne – with the tears and the apology and the talk of Brigid. You’re as clever as your husband said.’
Fear courses through me. ‘Max? When did you speak to Max?’
‘You can’t steal a child.’ She lurches forward and grips Elise by one arm. ‘You can’t take her away from a parent who loves her. I won’t let it happen again.’
‘No, Mary.’ I try to twist away but Mary doesn’t let go and Elise screams. ‘Whatever Max told you is a lie. He’s the liar. He’s the one that forced me to run. I had to do it to protect my daughter.’
‘You’re not well,’ Mary says softly. ‘That’s a trait you share with your father. How could you hurt a child and pretend it didn’t happen unless there’s something wrong with your brain—’
She breaks off, startled by the sound of a car speeding along the beach towards us. The tide is so high now there’s barely space for it to travel along the sand. As the tyres splash through the surf the left indicator light flashes. It wants to turn left onto Main Road and we’re in the way. I react instinctively, grabbing Mary’s forearm, yanking her out of the way of the car, and onto the rocks. The car flashes past us, missing us by a couple of inches as it turns into the road.
Mary stares at me, wide-eyed and panting. As the surf rains down on us, Elise screams and sharp rocks press into my back. He could have hit us. That idiot could have killed us al—
The sound of brakes squealing cuts through the roar of the sea and the howl of the wind. Red tail lights flash. The car hasn’t disappeared up Main Road. It’s parked up sideways, cutting off access to the street, trapping us on the beach.
The driver’s door opens and a man steps out.
It’s Max.
Chapter 65
‘Hello, Jo.’ My husband stands beside the car and crosses his arms over his chest. He’s wearing a grey quilted jacket and smart brown shoes but his jaw is stubbly and there are dark circles under his eyes.
He smiles. After everything he’s done to me. To our family. To Elise.
He smiles.
And I am paralysed with shock and fear. All this time I thought I was running from the police and Paula when all along it was Max I should have feared. Max who lied, stole and deceived. Max who put our daughter in danger and then convinced the world that her biggest threat was me.
‘Come on, sweetheart.’ Before I have a chance to react, Mary yanks Elise out of my arms and heads straight for Max and the car. His smile widens as she draws closer and he opens his arms wide, his eyes fixed on Elise.
‘No! Mary, no!’
I take off after her, pumping my arms as I lean into the wind. Each icy breath stings my lungs, each step through the heavy, sodden sand is slow and laboured. It’s as though I’m running through treacle.
I’m nearly thirty years younger than Mary but she had the element of surprise on her side and she reaches Max before I do. He holds out his hands for her to give Elise to him. His fingertips graze the front of Elise’s coat. It’s as though I’m watching a horror film in slow motion. Or I’m in a nightmare where, no matter how fast I run, I don’t leave the same spot. I have to stop him taking my daughter but I can’t move fast enough. Max’s hands curl as he slips them around Elise’s waist and Mary shifts her up and towards him.
‘No!’ I scream. ‘No!’
This time the wind doesn’t steal my voice and Elise, startled, twists towards me.
Three metres away.
Max’s hands fall away from Elise’s waist as he snaps round to look at me.
Two metres away.
He shoves Mary’s shoulder, pushing her and Elise away from him and to the side.
One metre away.
His hands twitch at his sides and he raises his arms but he’s too slow to defend himself and I smash straight into him, hitting him full force in the chest with both hands. He stumbles backwards and smacks against the closed passenger door. Before he can reco
ver I run towards Mary, who’s standing near the boot of the car trying and failing to console a wailing Elise.
‘Give her to me!’ I snatch at my daughter but, before I can touch her, Max grabs a handful of my coat, right between my shoulder blades. It tightens over my chest as he yanks me away from Elise.
‘Get off me!’ I twist to my right and try and elbow him in the side but he steps away. I kick out at him and feel my boot make contact with his knee or shin but he doesn’t so much as flinch. Instead he wraps his arms around my shoulders, pulling my back against his chest, locking me into his body.
‘No!’ I jerk my head backwards but I’m too close and there’s no power behind the blow to his chest. When I try and kick him again he hooks his ankles around my feet and leans back against the car. I’m trapped. My body is completely encased by his.
‘Jo,’ Max hisses in my ear. ‘You need to calm down. Elise just saw all that and she’s crying. You’re scaring her.’
‘I’m scaring her?’ I can just about twist my neck to stare up at him. ‘I’m her mum, Max. She loves me and you … you—’
‘I did what was right, to protect her. You’re not well, Jo. You’ve been ill for a long time. I was only ever trying to help you.’
‘By taking my daughter away from me? By …’ I swallow the rest of my sentence. He doesn’t realise that I’ve discovered what he did. He thinks I still believe that Paula was behind everything. I can’t let him know yet. It’s the only weapon I have.
We both stiffen as we hear the noise at the same time. Elise is howling with frustration.
‘It’s OK, sweetheart,’ Max says. ‘Daddy’s here.’
I arch my back, just enough to be able to turn my head to the side. Mary, still by the boot of the car, is desperately wrestling to keep Elise in her arms. My daughter’s face is red and blotchy and her hair plastered to her skull.
