by Jane Holland
I click on the light so I can see what I’m doing. He goes into the bedroom first, and walks about for a bit. Then comes back out and hesitates on the landing. I know he’s not going to give up that easily. He’ll want to try to wheedle me out of my decision. I’m not stupid though. I’ve won this round. And I’m not going to give him the chance to hit me again.
‘Meghan?’ He knocks on the bathroom door. A tentative rap, almost respectful. ‘Are you okay?’
I hold my breath, and say nothing.
‘May I come in?’ He tries the door handle, finding it locked. ‘I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to talk.’
I stare at nothing, waiting.
‘I’m sorry I hit you. I don’t know why I did that. I just . . .’ His voice turns pleading. He rattles the door handle again. ‘Meghan? Please, darling, let me in.’
I trace the swelling on my cheek with one exploratory finger, and wonder how bad it will look by tomorrow morning. I may need to find some concealer.
Jon waits another moment, bending down to the bathroom keyhole as though trying to look inside. But the key is in place on my side. He won’t be able to see a thing. I hear his breathing though, deep and rapid, right on the other side of the wood panel. Like having a wild animal prowling about outside your door.
‘Fuck you,’ he finally snarls, then goes into the bedroom and slams the door. A moment later, I hear the scrape of drawers noisily opening and closing.
I hope he is genuinely packing and not trying to trick me into coming out.
Shaking with reaction, I turn my back to the door, then slide slowly down it until my bottom hits the cold lino. I draw up my knees and hug my arms about them, turning my hurt cheek upwards and resting the other against my knee.
I cry then, but in as near-silence as I can manage, muffling the sobs against the back of my trembling hand. I taste salt on my sore lip, and remember how I cried the night Harry was taken. Only a few days ago, yet already it feels like another century. Like a time far in my past, when I was still a child and thought nothing could be worse than walking into his nursery and seeing that cot standing empty.
I wonder about Tom’s parents, how they’re coping; how anyone copes with the death of a child. Not just their death, but murder. I don’t believe in God, but find myself praying anyway. I need to hold my baby again. Just one more time. Please, please.
I rock back and forth. It’s like being a little girl again, hiding in the bathroom after a terrible row with one of my friends. Except I don’t have any friends to argue with. Not anymore. I lost them all, or left them behind when I got married.
Now it’s just me and Jon.
And Harry.
Only Harry’s gone. And soon Jon will be too.
He takes his time packing, as I feared he might. He is not going quietly either. I catch violent expletives as he moves about the bedroom for what feels like hours, rattling coat hangers, knocking stuff to the floor, and even mysteriously ripping up papers at one stage. Credit card receipts? Bank statements? Old letters?
‘Selfish, ungrateful bitch,’ he shouts from time to time. ‘Is this what Harry has to come home to now? A single-parent family?’
I silence the angry words in my head. He is not ready to hear them anyway.
‘You stopped being any good in bed years ago,’ Jon throws at me through the dividing walls. His voice is sneering now, deliberately cruel. ‘I had to fake enjoying it.’
Ditto, I think coldly.
I hear the bang-bang-bang of his suitcase down each stair about two hours later, then the jarring thud of the front door behind him.
Letting out a deep breath, I decide to give it another half an hour, just to be certain. I know Jon and his ways. But there’s no sound.
I don’t know what the time is. But it’s getting dark outside; the light has faded against the window blind.
At last, I decide it must be safe to move. I clamber up unsteadily and stumble across to the sink. My legs and feet have gone numb with pins and needles. I stare at myself and suck in my breath in disbelief. The classic battered-wife look. Straggling hair, wide eyes, pale, waxen face, and a dark, shoehorn-shaped bruise across my cheek, exactly like I have walked into the proverbial door. This is what everyone is going to see tomorrow. This is what he’s done to me.
What I have allowed him to do to me, I correct myself. Over too many years, and behind too many discreetly closed doors.
I desperately want to phone my mum, tell her what’s happened. She can’t help, but she could comfort me, at least. The problem is, she would panic and tell my dad how badly things are going, and I can’t stand to think of him getting upset. Not with his angina. She would also insist on flying home to England to stay with me, and while I love them, I’m not ready for that stress right now. Having to worry about my dad’s heart as well as Harry.
Not until I know for sure if my son is still alive.
Wearily, I strip and step naked into the shower cubicle. I turn on the hot water and stand beneath it with head bowed and eyes closed, letting everything sluice away from me like blood: the stress, the unhappiness, the terrible grief, even the rage I have been feeling towards my husband.
Fifteen minutes later, I rinse off, every inch of me shiny and smooth and ready for life, and stand under the dripping showerhead for a few moments in contemplative silence. I am clean again at last. But all the time, I’m aware of this tiny black seed in my heart, purpling and growing like a cancer, threatening to kill me.
Harry’s absence.
I have to believe he’s still alive, I decide. If I allow him to be dead in my imagination, then his chances of being alive in reality will diminish too. More than ever, I need some purpose to cling to, something to believe in. Besides, it feels like a kind of betrayal to assume he is dead.
Harry isn’t dead, I tell myself firmly. My baby is alive and well, and I’m going to find him and bring him back home.
I step out of the shower cubicle and reach for a clean towel from the rail. Which is when I hear it. A tiny, barely perceptible noise from below. A creaking sound, like someone opening the front door.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
I stand perfectly still, my hand on the towel rail. What the hell was that? But the creaking sound does not come again, and after a few seconds, I begin to breathe more easily.
How ridiculous. It’s ages since Jon left the house. How likely is it that he would come back without announcing himself and start creeping around downstairs? If he had forgotten something, he would hardly be behaving so covertly. He would stride back in, bang about furiously, and then leave again.
It’s more likely I’m jumpy because I’m alone in the house.
I’m suddenly aware of my nakedness, my hair dripping coldly down my back. It’s not the most comfortable position. I am just beginning to wrap the towel around me when something happens that takes my breath away.
The bathroom light goes out.
And I stand there in the darkness, my heart thudding under my breastbone.
Don’t panic, I tell myself. But it’s too late, I’m already panicking. I try to stay calm and think logically. There’s probably a simple explanation.
Maybe the bulb is dead.
I try to recall when the bathroom light bulb was last changed. Maybe it’s not been changed since we first moved in. I stare down at my feet in the darkness, hoping to see light under the door. But there is nothing.
I struggle against the tide of fear rising inside me. If I just wait a few more seconds, my eyes will adjust to the dark, and then I should see a glimmer under the door.
The darkness continues to mock me, black and stifling.
My hand hesitates on the key, not turning it. Some internal bat-squeak of caution warns me to stay put another few seconds.
Then I hear it.
It’s the creaking sound I heard before, only now it’s like a foot pressing down on a loose stair board, then releasing it. It’s louder too, closer at hand. One creak, then an
other, then a long pause, and then a third.
Like someone coming up the stairs as slowly and quietly as possible.
I withdraw my hand and take a step back from the door. The floor creaks under me too. My heart gives a jolt, then shudders on, beating hard.
Someone is outside on the landing. I can hear them breathing.
I almost say, ‘Jon?’
But my brain tells me it’s not Jon even before the word forms on my lips. I know what Jon sounds like in the dark and this is not his light, easy breathing. It’s harsher, deeper, faster . . .
It’s a man though, I’m sure of it.
A strange man is standing outside my bathroom in the dark, breathing as he listens. But listens to what?
To me, breathing.
My free hand curls into an instinctive fist, nails biting into my palms. The other grips my towel at my breasts, as though he can see me through the locked door.
Stay calm, stay calm. Don’t give yourself away.
The listener outside the bathroom shifts. Tries the door handle.
I can’t move, my whole being rooted in horror.
Then I hear a creak to my right. Whoever it is has gone into my bedroom. But only for a few seconds. Then they’re on the landing again, passing the bathroom and going into the nursery.
My eyes widen at a scuffling and rustling from Harry’s room.
Are they touching my child’s things? Taking them away?
I tense up, trying to make sense of the little noises I can hear. Is this the same person who came in and stole Harry from us? Or is this intruder some kind of accomplice to the Snatcher, perhaps? But why come back to the scene of the crime? Why not wait until the house is empty? Unless they didn’t know I would be here?
But then why cut the lights?
To frighten me.
The door to the nursery clicks shut.
I hear the breathing again as they pass the door. Then another tiny creak, this time at the top of the stairs. Then another, further down, softer.
They are leaving.
Something snaps inside me. How dare somebody come in here and abduct my child? Then come back and terrorise me when I’m on my own? What kind of fucked-up person is this anyway, taking a baby away from his mother, wandering about my house in the dark, scaring the shit out of me?
I lean into the steamed-up door panel and scream, ‘Where’s my son, you fucker?’ I bang on the door, then kick it, barefooted. ‘Hey, you bastard. I want Harry back. I want him back right now. Or I’m going to kill you.’
I fumble to unlock the door and stumble out on to the landing, clutching at my towel, my hair still dripping, my body wet.
It’s pitch-black. I can’t see a thing.
‘You hear me?’ I yell down the stairs, and hear the ghostly thud of the front door below. ‘Yeah, you run. Because I’m going to fucking kill you.’
I step back and hear a tiny crunch underfoot. Pain shoots through my heel, and I cry out.
I bend down and feel about on the carpet. There are two or three small objects there, plastic by the feel of them, sharp and hard. Broken too, judging by the pain in my foot. I want to see what I’ve trodden on, but when I grope along the wall for the light switch, it doesn’t work. No power.
The possibility strikes me that it’s a power cut. Pure and simple.
Even so, that would not explain my intruder.
I make my way down the stairs, limping, grimacing, holding on to the banister. At least there’s a vague glow from the street lights in the hall at the bottom. None of the light switches downstairs seem to be working either. I stand there in the glimmering darkness and listen, feeling foolish now that it’s all over. The silence in the house is thick and oppressive, but I do seem to be alone.
I hear a car start up somewhere nearby, and see the faint trace of headlights through the frosted glass of the door. I nudge my way outside, still wearing nothing but my bath towel, and limp to the garden gate. The car has gone by the time I get there, but at least there’s light outside, a gentle rain falling, and I don’t feel so shut in.
Our car is still parked outside.
That surprises me. It’s Jon’s car, not mine. I’m the one who uses it most, but only because of Harry. Now that Harry is not here, I assumed Jon would have taken it.
Perhaps he walked into town instead. Or used his mobile to ring for a minicab.
I realise that I have no idea what the time is. Dinner time, maybe.
There’s a light on downstairs next door at Treve and Camilla’s. I see its gleam through the lounge curtains. So it’s unlikely that the whole street has lost power.
I hesitate.
There’s nobody about. Nobody to see me.
I run down the garden path and ring the doorbell.
A long, excruciating moment goes by while I stand there, shivering in my towel, balanced on my toes, then I see a light go on in the hall.
Definitely not a power cut.
The front door opens and it’s Treve in the doorway, tartan slippers on his feet, staring at me. He’s in faded blue jeans and a tight-fitting black T-shirt, and for the first time I can see the tattoos on his upper arms close-up. I’d spotted the tattoos before, of course, but I’ve never seen them up close.
Snake-like, Celtic-looking, the strange, dark, matching patterns writhe about both biceps, accentuating the muscular bulge below the short black sleeve of his T-shirt.
I remember Camilla telling me Treve used to be in the navy, years before he met her. No doubt that’s when he got them done. At least, I seem to recall that tattoos and the navy go together. Which makes sense: Treve’s such a quiet, domestic type, he doesn’t strike me as the kind of man who would go in for tattooing otherwise.
‘So sorry to disturb you,’ I begin, but he interrupts me.
‘Meghan?’ His brows jerk together in a frown, and he looks me up and down, making me very aware that I’m wearing nothing but a bath towel. ‘Are you okay? What on earth’s happened?’
Chapter Twenty-Nine
‘Nothing, I’m fine. It’s just the power has gone down next door,’ I tell him hurriedly, ‘and I think someone . . .’ It seems ludicrous now, not quite believable somehow, yet I finish anyway. ‘I think someone was in the house.’
‘What?’
‘I heard someone creeping about upstairs. While I was in the shower.’
‘Fucking hell.’ He sounds really shocked, which makes me feel better. Less like I’m losing my mind. His eyes narrow on my face. ‘Where’s Jon?’
I feel heat come into my cheeks. ‘Gone out.’
To my relief, Treve does not question my explanation. He turns and grabs his house key, then nods at me to go first. ‘Right, better take a look, then.’
‘But your slippers,’ I protest, glancing down at his feet. My own feet are bare and very uncomfortable. ‘It’s wet out here.’
‘Don’t worry about that.’
‘What about Camilla? Shouldn’t you tell her where—’
‘She’s gone to her mum’s for the night.’ Treve’s face seems to close up, his mouth tightening. ‘Dot’s had another bad turn. She needed someone to sit with her.’
I remember then that Camilla’s mum has been struggling against breast cancer for the past few years. Dot used to come round quite often, and sit out in the garden with them when the weather was good. Now she’s in and out of the local hospice, poor woman. Such a horrible disease.
‘I’m so sorry.’
He manages a thin smile as he closes the door, but says nothing.
I lead the way next door and push our front door slowly open. Everything is dark and silent, just as I left it. I was lucky the door did not swing shut while I was gone, I realise, as I forgot to take the key with me; it’s still on the hall table. I can see the metal glinting in the faint light from the street.
Treve tells me to wait by the door, then feels along the wall for the hall light switch. He flicks it on and off a few times. Nothing happens. Methodically, he mo
ves further into the house, and does the same with the light switch in the lounge.
‘Have you checked the fuse box?’ he asks, coming back into the hall.
The fuse box.
In my panic, that had not even occurred to me. I feel stupid as I shake my head.
‘Where is it?’ he asks patiently.
‘Up there,’ I say, and point into the dark space behind the front door where a closed box hangs about six feet up the wall.
He hesitates. ‘There’s a torch in the kitchen, isn’t there?’
‘Should be one in the drawer here too.’
I reach into the small drawer under the hall table and grope about for the slim, metal cylinder of the torch. Of course, it is still in there. As it always is, waiting for moments like these. But my brain never thought of it, nor the one hanging behind the back door in the kitchen. That’s what fear does to you.
I check that the batteries are still working, then hand him the torch.
‘Thanks.’ Treve tries to close the front door, but it won’t shut. He frowns, bending. ‘What’s this?’
He holds something out to me, and I take it. He shines the torch over it.
‘It’s a sock,’ I say blankly.
Then I remember Jon banging downstairs with his suitcase. I don’t know what to say. Clearly Jon dropped it in his hurry to get out.
‘I imagine that’s how your intruder got in. The door wasn’t shut properly.’ Closing the front door, Treve reaches up to the fuse box in the corner behind it. He opens the cover, then runs the torch beam across the confusing rows of fuses. ‘Ah, as I thought. The trip switch has gone.’
He pulls the large red switch down with a heavy clunk. Lights go on at once throughout the house. The fridge starts up again with a whirring hum. He closes the fuse box, then clicks off the torch and returns it to the drawer.
‘There you go, all sorted.’
He’s smiling.
‘Thanks,’ I say, suddenly very aware that I’m wearing nothing but a towel. I can only imagine what Jon would say if he could see me now. Alone with Treve.
‘You’re welcome.’
