by Nina Manning
‘He said the police are coming. He drove all the way out here to tell me that,’ I said.
Todd shook his head, I fumbled into his pocket so I could grab what he had shoved in there and throw it down the toilet or empty it into a bush. He realised, too late, what I was doing.
Kiefer looked at me and grabbed my arm.
‘Frankie. We have to—’
But before he could finish his sentence there was a huge commotion at the front of the warehouse. People were being pushed out of the way. Huge bright torches were being shone into the building, almost completely illuminating it. The police were here.
‘Shit, Frankie!’ Kiefer said and grabbed my arm. He pulled me and I jerked away from Todd who didn’t seem to notice what was going on. Kiefer pulled me towards the DJ’s booth where there was a back door. We pushed it open and there a policewoman in body armour stood in front of us. We both shot past her, Kiefer must have bashed his body against hers as she stumbled backwards. There were three other policemen heading our way but we shot past them and veered to the left where there was the old abandoned coach park, now brimming with cars. We weaved our way in and out of the cars until we found ourselves next to a small brook. We jumped across some rocks, with Kiefer leading the way all the time until we were on the other side and then we were on a small towpath next to a canal. Opposite us was a bridge which took us to the other side of the towpath where some steps lead up to a small dark street.
‘How the hell do you know where we are?’ I said, out of breath.
‘I know these streets, Frankie, more than you know. I parked the car up there, look.’
He pointed to his green Mini a few feet away.
‘Okay,’ I said, barely able to speak, I was so out of breath.
We got into Kiefer’s car and immediately heard the sound of sirens.
Kiefer started the engine and I went to put my seatbelt on when I realised I was still holding the drugs that Todd had been given.
‘Kiefer, look.’ I held out the plastic bag in my hand which contained some brown powder.
We were both startled by a loud rapping on the window. I turned in the darkness to see a figure outside but even with no lights in the street I could see it was a copper.
‘Shit,’ Kiefer said again and accelerated really hard so the wheels spun. I watched as the policeman stepped back in alarm and started hurrying in the other direction.
‘Fuck, fuck, fuck, what do I do with this gear?’ I said.
‘In five minutes open the window and throw it out.’ Kiefer instructed.
‘Okay.’ I sat tight. I could hear Kiefer breathing hard as he manoeuvred the car, changing gear and turning. He was still driving carefully but he was going faster than I had ever seen him drive before. We drove round some small village streets for a few more minutes until we reached a junction which would lead us onto a country road that would take us back into town. We sat at the junction as Kiefer looked left and right and then we heard the siren.
‘Go!’ I screamed and Kiefer accelerated out into the road.
‘How did you know?’ I said quietly once we were safely on a straight bit of country road.
‘I just knew, Frankie, when will you ever learn to trust me?’
I looked down at my white boots which now had splodges of mud all over them. I thought about how I had put them on a few hours earlier all ready to enjoy a night out. Now here I was being driven away from chaos and potentially with a police car on our tail.
‘Is it bad?’ I asked.
‘Yes, Frankie, it’s bad. All those lot are bad. Todd has fallen in with a bad crowd, he has been for a long time, Soames and Lofty are dodgy as anything. You need to stay away from all of them, do you understand?’
I was beginning to but the thought of never being able to speak to Todd again was heart-breaking.
We drove along the country road for what felt like a long time. I didn’t speak and neither did Kiefer. I looked over at him, I was worried about him having not really driven on these country roads much before, even though he said he knew them; he had only been driving for a few months. I could feel the car clinging to the road as we hurtled around the corners. Kiefer looked focused, not tearing his eyes from the road for a second. I needed to trust him. He took a sudden swerve to the left as we hit a corner that Kiefer hadn’t seen coming.
‘Shit,’ Kiefer mumbled under his breath. I could feel the tension rising in the car. We couldn’t hear any sirens any more.
‘Can I throw the gear?’ I asked with a wobble to my voice.
‘Yes,’ came Keifer’s tight reply. I wound the window down two inches and posted the bag out of it.
Kiefer took another hard corner and I clung to my seat. We were still five miles from the town.
He was staring hard at the road and wouldn’t take his eyes away from it. I felt him hit the brakes for a second and my body was flung to the side of the car as he took another corner. Once we had rounded that one we were still travelling at some speed and then I saw it, the mass of trees and bushes and then I knew it was too late. I was thrown forward. I felt the seatbelt cut itself across my neck as the car slammed into something and the windshield imploded. And then… nothing.
51
Now
I sat in the house cradling a cup of coffee and considered swapping it for something stronger when my phone rang. It was Damian.
‘What the bloody hell is going on? Harriet has just rung to tell me there are two police cars outside the house.’
‘We had a scare; I witnessed a crime and they needed to come and get a statement,’ I said off the top of my head.
‘This is bollocks, Frankie. I’m coming over.’
‘No, Damian. You can’t. I don’t want to see you,’ I hissed. ‘I know what you’ve been up to, leaving spliffs around for Maddox to pick up and play with, putting dead mice in the coffee cupboard, loosening all the screws on Pixie’s bed so she nearly broke her neck the other night!’
‘What? What happened? Is she okay? Frankie, you have lost the plot. Okay, I admit the spliff was mine. Harriet has been giving me some for free to help me while I try and figure stuff out.’
Then coming down the receiver at Damian’s end I hear a, ‘Hiiiii, I’m back!’ really loud and Damian’s muffled voice as he tried to talk to the person who just announced their entrance.
But it was too late, I already knew there’s only one person who walks into a room and announces their entrance as loudly and as boldly as that. Damian came back on the line, trying to continue the conversation.
‘Is that Nancy with you?’ I asked, already knowing it was.
‘What? No.’
‘Damian, shut up, you’re lying. I know my best friend’s voice anywhere.’
Damian let out a sigh and started talking in a hushed tone.
‘Fine. I’ve been staying here. Rob’s place wasn’t available. Harry has been away, and Nancy said it was fine to stay. I can go to Rob’s next week. It’s just temporary.’
‘But you’ve been at Nancy’s all this time?’
‘Yes and she said she was going to tell you and she obviously hasn’t so that’s not my—’
‘But you hate her?’ I interrupted Damian.
‘I don’t hate her, Frankie, I just found her to be a bit over the top, but she’s been really helpful and a real listening ear since you and I, well, since you started this job and you have barely been here.’
‘Has she, now.’
‘Listen, Frankie, don’t think anything of this, it’s just—’
‘Was she in our house? In our bedroom?’
‘What? I don’t know – maybe? I was showing her where you keep your diaries. We’ve both been worried about you. I have wanted to try and help you and I just don’t know how to any more.’
‘I knew there was something dodgy going on when Nancy knew all the details of Mason’s dinner party and I hadn’t told her anything. Then she was cagey on the phone and when she came here she could barely look a
t me. The pair of you deserve each other.’
‘Oh, come on, Frankie, this is a massive issue between us that has been going on for far too long and we needed to find a way to sort it out. Nancy was just stepping in to help.’
‘I know exactly what she was doing. I found her earring in the bedroom. I know what you got up to when I was away. Well she can have you, Damian, ’cos I’m done with the pair of you.’
‘I—’ Damian tried to interrupt.
‘Oh, and I’ve changed the locks on the doors, Damian, so don’t try coming back here ’cos if you do I’ll call the police and tell them you tried to murder our daughter.’
‘Frankie, what the – you’ve lost your mind, you need help!’
‘No, Damian, I do not. Now leave us alone.’
I pressed the red button to end the call, longing for the days of the landline so I could smash the receiver down as hard as I could.
That night, once I had the kids in bed, I went to the fridge and poured myself a glass of wine. My head was spinning. There were text messages all over my phone from Damian asking me to call him because we needed to talk this through and then some from Nancy apologising for not saying Damian was staying there and that they were both worried about me. It was such tripe. I turned my phone off but not before a text came through from Mason.
Hope you feel better. Let me know if you need anything. I want to help M x
I looked at the text for a good minute or so, my finger hovering over the reply bar, a thousand thoughts racing though my head about what I could say to him, without making my life sound like the total disaster that it was right now.
I’m feeling better. See you on Monday x
* * *
Ok, if you’re sure. Thinking of you. Take care M x
I put the phone down and went upstairs to take a shower. The day had run away with me and I had been sweating non-stop. I stopped by the spare room I had made up for Todd, and I stared at how he had made the bed neatly, then my eyes were drawn to some bits of debris on the duvet. I wondered where they could have come from. I looked up at the ceiling. To the left of the bed was the hatch to the attic. I couldn’t tell if it was slightly on an angle as though it had been opened recently or if I was imagining it. Perhaps Damian had been up there when he came over to collect things, but thinking back, Damian wouldn’t have had much time to do anything if he had spent so long dismantling Pixie’s bed. Maybe Todd had looked up there for a nose around. I didn’t like attics. I found them to be such sad places. I had only poked my head into ours once when we moved in to agree with Damian that indeed it was very roomy and could one day make a very nice conversion. I looked at the neat bed again. I didn’t need to worry any more. Todd wasn’t here and the locks had been changed.
I hadn’t slept in my room last night and when I went in I looked at the floor where I had left the notebooks, one open on the page where I had written in it. I looked at the words and how they were such a contrast to my diary entries from twenty years ago. I was angry then. I felt a terrible sense of injustice about what happened on that night and I thought bringing Todd into my house would help repair what I had been feeling and would try to bring some balance back to all the chaos, but it hadn’t. I should have known Todd still held a grudge against me for what happened that night, for Kiefer and I running away and leaving him there to get arrested. Was I then to blame for his rapid decline and for why he was on the streets? Yes, I felt some responsibility, but who was the biggest loser of all from that night? Not Todd. But Kiefer.
Kiefer, who lost his life trying to rescue me.
52
October 1998
I lay crumpled on one side. I touched my lip, it was bleeding. I looked over at Kiefer, his head tilted to one side, blood coming from his mouth. His eyes were slightly open. I reached out, I tried to touch him. I didn’t dare touch him. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak.
I could hear a siren coming closer and closer and then the shattering sound of glass and metal hitting metal. Then silence.
53
Now
I tried to lie in bed in the dark and sleep, but my mind was whirring with a million thoughts about Todd and where he was now. I knew it was past midnight but I couldn’t help but wonder about him; I didn’t know him at all any more. I was a fool to let him in after so long.
I heard a loud thump and my heart leapt into my mouth. Perhaps one of the kids had fallen out of bed, but they hadn’t done so for so long. I sat silently for a minute, waiting to hear one of them cry out. But they didn’t.
All I could think of was Todd. Of course, he was going to come back. I should have called Mason; I should have brought someone round. I could still alert the police. I looked to my bedside table and my phone wasn’t there. I remembered my anger from earlier when Damian was trying to contact me, and I realised I had switched it off and left it downstairs.
Eventually, after another minute, I slipped out of bed and took the baseball bat from Damian’s side of the bed.
I went out into the hallway and peeked around the door of each child’s bedroom and saw them sleeping.
I stood at the top of the stairs, staring down into the darkness. Something I felt I had been doing for so long and I was starting to tire of it. I had been a sitting duck all this time. I should have taken more precautions to keep me and the kids safe, not just changed the stupid locks, but involved people, brought in backup. I had been denying what had been happening, my senses hadn’t been alert enough to the fact that someone had been bothering me, stalking me even. Why hadn’t I reached out and taken the help Mason had offered? Because I felt silly? Because I felt I could manage on my own the way I had been doing for twenty years? I realised it was too late. I was stranded at the top of the stairs; my phone was downstairs. I was alone with my kids and there was someone in the house.
54
October 1998
I unclipped my seat belt and pushed open the passenger door. The car was at an angle so I clung to the roof to pull myself out. I clambered through bracken that cut through my trousers. Sharp pain resonated through my legs, adding to the dull aches and tenderness I could feel in other parts of my body, my neck, my right arm. I found myself on an empty road; silence penetrated my ears. I shivered in my jumpsuit. I looked backwards. I could see Kiefer’s car, smoke billowing around it as one headlamp remained alight, casting a misty glow. I was unable to decipher if I had just come from there or I was never there at all. Maybe I was dead and this was me, my spirit walking away from the wreckage. Was I in a dream? I needed to go to sleep. Then I could wake up from this nightmare. I turned round fully and saw, just beyond the wreckage, the woods. They looked so inviting, so warm. I stumbled across a ditch I had just scrambled up, past the car, fell down into the soft springy moss and leant back against a tree. I couldn’t stop shivering, but I would be okay. I just needed to close my eyes and then it would all be over.
Suddenly there was a bright light shining at my face and I heard muffled words. It sounded as though someone was talking into a tin can. But it was just a dream so I kept my eyes closed and waited to wake up.
‘Yes, the ambulance that was sent to the scene has been in a collision with another vehicle on the same road. Please send another ambulance,’ came a loud female voice and then, ‘Hello there, are you okay?’
I heard a few grunts and the torch light wavered as someone made their way closer to me.
I felt a hand on my arm. ‘It’s okay, love, just hang on in there, darling. Another ambulance will be along soon.’
I prised my eyes open and all I could see, illuminated by the torch light, just inches away from my eyes were four numbers, bright and white on the shoulder of a faceless woman. I couldn’t take my eyes off them as her soothing words came at me. I started repeating the four numbers over and over: 2461, 2461, 2461, 2461, 2461… until eventually I heard a siren. This time it got louder and closer until I was being slowly lifted and carried. Suddenly weightless.
55
Now
I walked down the stairs. I expected to see a broken pane of glass, but nothing. The kitchen light streamed bright, but I saw no evidence of anything.
I looked round the kitchen and then saw my phone on the island where I had left it. I grabbed it, turned it on and within a few seconds I was alerted to several text messages from Damian telling me to damn well pick up and reply to him.
Then there was another text, this time from an unrecognised sender. It wasn’t from the same number I had been used to seeing messages from.
All it said was the same 4 digits over and over again.
2461, 2461, 2461, 2461…
56
October 1998
I spent three days in hospital. Minor injuries really. But I was mostly in shock. I had seen doctors, nurses, psychologists, police, they had all been through to speak to me, but I had barely said a word. Then, on the final day before I left, a lady from a charity arrived; it was a charity for people who had lost loved ones in a road accident. She handed me a stack of coloured notepads.
‘Take these. Write in them every day. Anything that comes to your head. Don’t worry if it doesn’t make sense, you just need to document your feelings. These are your diaries. Keep them to yourself. But this is part of your healing process. It will take some time, but these will help and you can look back on them some day and see how far you have come.’
I took them from her, tears welling up that hadn’t left my eyes for three days. Just before she went, she handed me a pen.
