When I’ve calmed down and we’ve nearly finished eating, Nikki asks me, ‘Have you got any idea why your cards might have been refused?’
I shake my head. ‘It’s odd that neither of them work, though.’
‘They haven’t expired?’
‘Nope.’
‘You’ve definitely got money in your account?’
‘Funnily enough, I’ve been a bit too tied up to go on any spending sprees recently,’ I say, my voice dripping with sarcasm. I bite my lip. ‘God, I’m sorry, Nikki. I’m tired and frustrated. I didn’t mean to take it out on you.’
‘No, that’s fine. You’ve been through a lot. Don’t worry about that.’
The way she says that seems to imply I should be worrying about something else entirely.
‘What? What is it?’
‘Do you remember I told you my mum paid the deposit for my house because I’d lost my money?’
A vague memory stirs in a recess of my mind.
‘Well, Alex stole all my money. I had a savings account but he said he had a high-interest account in some building society and persuaded me to transfer my money.’
My stomach lurches. The money from the sale of the house in Minehead. The house I used to live in with Kevin. I let Alex handle the money. He said he’d pay it into a building society.
‘Stupid of me, really,’ Nikki continues, ‘but we were engaged and I trusted him.’
‘Oh God.’
A wave of nausea suddenly rises inside me and I leap up, thrusting Chloe into Nikki’s arms. I dash to the toilets. There, I retch and retch until I’ve brought up everything I’ve just swallowed. When I’ve finished, Nikki appears juggling Chloe, two handbags and the baby bag in her arms.
‘How are you feeling now?’ she asks as I splash cold water on my face.
I look at her in the mirror, trying to keep my eyes on her and avoid looking at my own bruised ashen face. ‘Not great,’ I say.
‘It’s the shock, I expect.’
A plump middle-aged lady emerges from a toilet cubicle, accompanied by the noise of the flush, and washes her hands at the sink next to mine. She glances nervously at me in the mirror and when I glare at her, she looks away. I wait until she’s at the hand dryer before I turn to Nikki and tell her what I suspect happened to the money from the sale of my house.
‘You really must go to the police as soon as possible,’ she says as we make our way out of the loos and towards the exit. ‘Tell them that Alex beat you up, locked you up and emptied your bank accounts. They’ll protect you and Chloe.’
Alex is the father of my child. Somehow it seems wrong to report him to the police. But I suppose sometimes doing the right thing feels wrong and it has to be done anyway.
‘I will.’
We pass the chairs we were sitting in a few minutes ago. There’s a couple there now, holding hands across the table while steam rises from their styrofoam cups. They look happy and carefree. Nikki strides on towards the sliding doors and I almost have to run to keep pace with her even though she’s the one carrying Chloe and all the bags.
Once we’re back on the motorway, Nikki picks up the conversation from where we left off. ‘I didn’t report Alex for taking my money. I should have gone to the police, but … I don’t know, at first I was stupid enough to hope he might come back to me. That was what I wanted. I was completely … in love.’ Her voice cracks a little and a lump forms in my own throat.
‘Then I was ashamed,’ she continues. ‘I imagined telling the police, seeing them roll their eyes at each other, thinking how gullible and naive I’d been. We hadn’t even been together that long before we got engaged. It was a bit of a whirlwind romance.’
Now why doesn’t that surprise me?
In the half-light, I notice Nikki’s knuckles whitening as she tightens her grip on the steering wheel.
‘Then I thought maybe he’d threaten me,’ she continues, ‘although he’d never been violent when we were … together. Controlling, yes. Violent, no. Perhaps we simply hadn’t got to that stage.’
She pauses for a second, lost in her thoughts, maybe playing out a scene further along the road she’d have taken in a parallel universe. I wait without prompting her.
‘In the end, my mum said to leave it, that it was best to put it all behind me. She said it was a small price to pay for … for escaping from the bastard before it was too late. Sorry, Kaitlyn.’
‘No! Don’t be!’
We say nothing for a second or two. Then something occurs to me. I don’t like to ask Nikki how much money Alex took from her. But I know how much my half of the sale of the house in Minehead amounted to, and that in itself is already quite a large sum.
‘What the hell has he done with all that money? He’s not particularly materialistic. He inherited the Old Vicarage. He owns a successful shop. He earns a good living. What does he spend it on?’
Nikki turns and looks at me. ‘He doesn’t earn much. It’s not his shop,’ she says. ‘He just works there. And he didn’t inherit the Old Vicarage.’ Nikki pauses, her eyes fixed on the road as she pulls into the middle lane to overtake a van. When she has finished this manoeuvre, she resumes speaking. ‘Alex’s parents rented the Old Vicarage when they married. About fifteen years ago, when the owners decided to sell it, Alex bought it, but I think he’s always had difficulty paying the mortgage.’
‘He told me it had been in his family for years!’ I realise now Alex lied about the Old Vicarage and his job so there would be no question of him leaving the Lake District. I had to come to him. ‘How do you know all this?’ I ask Nikki.
‘His mother told me.’
I realise that I’ve never really talked to Sandy – apart from when she told me about Alex’s father. I’ve never tried to get to know her. I was put off by her obsession with cleanliness and jealous of her close relationship with Alex. She tried to help me with Chloe and I resented her for meddling. I should feel bad about that now, particularly given the support she showed me earlier today, but instead a solitary tear for my own mother rolls down my cheek.
‘I just wanted to say, if it helps, you can mention me,’ Nikki says, ‘to the police, I mean.’
I’m so choked up now I don’t trust myself to speak. I reach out and touch her shoulder.
Staring out of the window a few minutes later, I see a sign for Gordano Services. We’re near Bristol. Poor Nikki has done all the driving so far, I realise.
‘Stop at the services, Nikki, if you like,’ I say. ‘I’ll take the wheel from here.’
Nikki indicates and pulls off the motorway. As we get out of the car and swap sides, I ask her to lend me her mobile so I can ring my dad.
The home number for the house in Porlock, the house I grew up in, is one of the few I know by heart. I keep the call short. I don’t want to alarm Dad, but I can tell from his voice he’s worried. He must be wondering what our unexpected visit is all about. I promise Dad I’ll fill him in when we get there – or in the morning as we’re going to arrive very late.
Gripping my phone against my ear with my shoulder while I fasten my seatbelt, I glance at the satnav. If everything runs smoothly, I tell my dad, we’ll be there in a couple of hours’ time.
Chapter 24
~
As we pull up in front of Dad’s house, I feel like a teenager again. Although it’s well past midnight when we arrive, there are lights on inside and I know he’s waiting up for me, just as he did when I first started staying out late at parties.
Dad opens the door before we reach it and when he sees me, I see his smile vanish for the first time in years. He kisses me on my good cheek and then helps us in with all the bags and suitcases.
‘The cot’s in Julie’s room for now,’ he says, ‘and I’ve made up a bed for Nikki in the boys’ room.’
Chloe slept in the boys’ room last time I came down. It used to be my bedroom. Mine and Louisa’s. When we lost Louisa, Mum wouldn’t allow anyone to touch it. She made me move into Julie’
s room as soon as Julie had moved out to live with Daniel. Mum would sleep in Louisa’s bed for days and nights on end and I was no longer allowed to go in there. Even Dad was only permitted occasionally when he’d made her tea or soup.
After Mum died and Oscar and Archie came along, Dad and I moved my things into Julie’s room and redecorated my mum’s shrine to my twin sister, transforming it into ‘the boys’ room’. Julie hasn’t slept at Dad’s house for years – she doesn’t live far away and she says the Si Chi energy vibes are too strong – but the room I sleep in at Dad’s is still ‘Julie’s room’, even though there is hardly anything of hers anywhere in our childhood home.
Dad goes into the kitchen to make tea, cradling his sleepy granddaughter in his arms, while Nikki and I trundle upstairs with the luggage. It’s only as we’re coming back downstairs that I realise Jet hasn’t come to greet us. He usually comes rushing to jump up on me, his tail wagging so hard that it’s a wonder he doesn’t put his back out.
Jet’s bed is still in the hall, though, near the kitchen door. I look closely at it as we walk past because it’s black, like Jet, and when he’s asleep, you don’t always realise he’s there, as if the bed provides him with camouflage.
But his bed is empty.
‘Dad, where’s Jet?’ I ask, entering the kitchen.
Still holding Chloe in one arm, Dad hands me my tea with a little shake of his head.
‘Oh, no. When?’
‘This morning. I left you a message on your mobile.’
‘I haven’t … I didn’t get it. I’m so sorry, Dad.’
We all carry our mugs through to the sitting room and Dad changes the subject to focus on me. He wants to know what’s going on.
‘Did Alex do that to you?’ His eyes are looking over the top of his glasses at my face.
‘Yes.’
‘The bastard.’
Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Nikki vigorously nodding her agreement at this description of my husband, having used the same word herself only a few hours earlier. I’m struck by the realisation that I’ve never heard my father swear before. Not once.
‘Did he … treat you badly often?’
‘It was the first time he’d hit me, if that’s what you mean,’ I say, ‘but he could be manipulative and mean.’
I don’t want to tell Dad that Alex kept me captive and handcuffed me to the bed. I don’t want him to worry more than necessary. Nikki seems to understand this. She sips at her tea silently, sitting next to me on the sofa.
Dad gazes at Chloe, who has now fallen asleep on his chest. He strokes her blonde head. ‘What are you going to do?’ he asks without looking up.
‘I’m going to go to the police station in Minehead first thing tomorrow morning and report him.’
‘I’ll drive you,’ my Dad offers. ‘Chloe and I can go for a walk along the promenade while you’re talking to the police.’
As I’m getting ready for bed, there’s a knock at the bedroom door. It’s Nikki.
‘I thought it would be a good idea to take some photos of your face,’ she says. ‘You can give them to the police.’
I remember my mother-in-law using her photos to make sure her husband wouldn’t come back. I can use mine as evidence to make sure my husband doesn’t get away with what he has done.
‘I’ll email them to you seeing as you haven’t got your mobile,’ she continues, waving her mobile at me as she waltzes barefoot into Julie’s room wearing a nightdress with the logo Don’t judge my dogs and I won’t judge your kids on it.
‘OK,’ I agree, my lips twitching. It’s the closest I’ve come to a genuine smile for a while.
‘I think you should look a bit more serious,’ she says, aiming the camera of her phone at me.
‘Sorry. It’s your nightie. It’s great.’
She smiles at that while I keep a straight face as she snaps a few shots.
When I wake up the next morning, I’m glad she came up with that idea as the bruising on my face has gone down and it’s not nearly so noticeable. For which I’m also glad.
Nikki leaves at around nine o’clock with a large packed lunch that my dad made her for the journey. When she has gone, I boot up my dad’s desk computer to check my bank accounts. I always use the same password for everything, which I know is a mistake. I’m sure Alex knows it, too. It would have given him easy access to my money. But it turns out my password is no longer valid for our joint account.
I try my current account and discover to my horror that the balance totals only £3.20. I was expecting something like that, but it still makes me feel sick from the pit of my stomach up to my chest. Scrolling down through the most recent transactions, I can see that several fairly large sums of money have been transferred out of that account into Alex’s. I print out the online statements.
Next I use Dad’s landline to ring the emergency number and cancel my bankcards. I’m not sure why as they’re useless anyway. At some stage I’ll close down my current account and open another one here and inform the university so that I continue to get my maternity pay.
Finally, I access my emails and print out a couple of the photos Nikki took of my face.
Dad pops his head around the door to see how I’m getting on. ‘I’ve just rung the police station,’ he says, waving his mobile. ‘I’ve made an appointment for ten-thirty this morning. You were on the phone, so I just told them what I knew and they said to come in then. We need to get going.’
Just before half past ten, Dad drops me at the police station in Townsend Road. I’ve been past this building before, of course – I used to live in Minehead. But this is the first time I’ve noticed the white wooden bars on all the windows. It’s a building built of reddish brick, nothing like the cold grey stone of the Old Vicarage, but for a moment I’m reluctant to go in.
‘Here’s my mobile number,’ my dad says, pushing a scrap of paper into the palm of my hand. ‘Ask to use their phone and give me a ring when you’ve finished. There’s no hurry. Chloe and I will find a café along the Esplanade.’
I give my dad a kiss and watch him as he walks back to his car. Then I examine the piece of paper in my hand. My heart skips a beat as the coincidence strikes me. He has written his number – very neatly – on an orange Post-it. Just like the one Alex pretended to have written a message on. The message I didn’t get. About his mum’s accident, which I know now was no accident.
My legs are weak and heavy as I go up the steps to the entrance.
A few minutes later, I find myself face to face with a stocky man with dark hair gelled to one side. I’m not sure if it’s the uniform, or the hairstyle or his stance with his arms by his sides, but he reminds me of one of the Playmobil figures Oscar and Archie used to play with. I’d assumed I would be talking to a female officer and I’m thrown for a second. I also find the fact that he’s smaller than me disconcerting, even though a lot of men are. But he has a firm handshake and a friendly face and I warm to him instantly.
‘Kaitlyn Best? I’m Detective Constable Nigel Bryant.’ He has a surprisingly deep voice for his build, I notice. ‘Would you like to follow me?’
I don’t know whether Dad did that deliberately when he rang the police station this morning or if it was a slip, but I feel bolstered by the officer’s use of my maiden name, as if, by assuming my old identity, I’ve taken a baby step towards mending myself.
I follow him into a small office and he sits down, gesturing for me to take the seat opposite him. He asks me to tell him what happened in my own words and he types on his computer as I do, prompting me or asking specific questions from time to time. He rephrases some of what I say, translating my words into his jargon.
‘Domestic abuse … coercive behaviour … false imprisonment …’
I don’t know how much time goes by. I’m exhausted by the time we’ve finished. DC Bryant reads back what he has typed up and I elaborate on a few things or try to clarify others. Then he amends a few sentences and prints out my stateme
nt for me to sign.
Reading it over, I realise I’ve mentioned Nikki, but only for her role in helping me escape. What happened to her and the nature of her relationship with Alex just didn’t come up. DC Bryant asked me if Alex had hit me before, not if I knew whether he had a history of controlling behaviour or previous relationship problems.
I wonder now if I should add that, but decide against it. Nikki didn’t want to report it when it happened to her after all. And I don’t want to come over as a bitter wife intent on discrediting her husband. The last thing I need is for the police to think my statement is defamatory. So I stick to the facts as I know them. The rest may come out later.
I haven’t brought up Alex’s ex-wife and daughters, either. I can’t get Nikki’s belief – that they’re buried underneath the damson tree – out of my head, but she has no proof of that. Although I think I would have starved to death if Nikki hadn’t come to my rescue, I don’t truly believe Alex is capable of killing in cold blood.
I have told DC Bryant that Alex drugged our daughter. I’m scared that Alex will claim I was the one who drugged her, as he threatened to, and turn the tables on me. His word against mine. But this is part of my story, so I’ve told it, although I realise it will be impossible to prove.
But I can prove that Alex took my money. DC Bryant takes my bank statements and he also keeps Nikki’s pictures of my face that I printed out this morning.
‘What happens next?’ I ask him, signing my statement.
‘The Avon and Somerset Police take domestic abuse very seriously,’ he says, ‘and we do everything in our power to protect victims from this crime. We can involve a specialist Domestic Violence team to place you somewhere where you’ll be safe, until––’
‘No,’ I say firmly. DC Bryant tries to insist, but I’m not having it. I’ve been kept prisoner for several days and I was cooped up in the Old Vicarage for far too long. I don’t want to feel confined to a women’s refuge.
‘I don’t think I’m in any immediate danger,’ I say. ‘I’d much rather be with my family. Anyway, my husband won’t know I’ve got away until he gets back on Friday.’
He Will Find You Page 24
