The Exes' Revenge

by Jo Jakeman

  “Don’t torment yourself,” I said. “It takes more than one argument for someone to take their own life. You can’t blame yourself for what happened.”

  “To this day I don’t know whether it was because of that argument or because there was some truth to my accusations. Or perhaps it had nothing to do with any of it. I just wish we’d talked.”

  When I became old enough to think of such things, I’d come to the conclusion that my father had committed suicide because of depression in a time when men didn’t talk about their emotions. Nothing Mother had told me changed any of that.

  She shuddered against my chest as if she were crying, but she made no sound.

  “What’s this got to do with Phillip? Did he know?” I asked gently.

  She laughed bitterly. “Of course he knew. He did background checks on you before he proposed. I saw how he was controlling you. I always said he was no good for you. I tried to warn him off, but he said I should keep my nose out and that it wouldn’t take much to reopen old cases of abuse and join the dots to your father.”

  “You should have told me.”

  “And broken your heart? You adored Phillip, but you idolized your father. He was the one who left us, but I was the one you despised. He never did anything wrong; I wouldn’t have that man sullying his memory. It was all that you had left.”

  “But there was no evidence, surely? Otherwise they’d have arrested him.”

  “Of course not. But that husband of yours made it sound like all he needed to do was to place your father in certain places at certain times and, well, he wouldn’t be around to deny it, would he?”

  She stood back, her moment of weakness over, and wiped under her eyes. I sat down on the arm of the chair. Phillip had known about the accusations against my father and yet he hadn’t mentioned a thing. I would have thought it was the perfect information for him to attack me with. He must have been waiting for a special occasion. Either that, or the information was more important as a way to control Mother than as a stick to beat me with.

  She looked at a picture on the wall. It was a watercolor of the Lake District. She went to it and straightened it—though, to my eye, it was straight enough.

  “Mother?”

  “Can we stop talking about this, please?”

  “Get your bag,” I said. “The sooner we get to the airport, the better. And then, once I know you’re safe, I’m going to come back and deal with Phillip. He won’t get away with this.”

  CHAPTER 21

  10 days before the funeral

  Naomi met us in the departure hall, carrying a small bag of clothes for Alistair and his passport. There’d been no sign of Phillip at the house, and as far as she could tell, she hadn’t been followed. Ruby said she’d call if he turned up.

  We swerved around shorts-wearing holidaymakers dragging suitcases and looking vacantly at the departures board. Alistair and I hadn’t been on holiday since Phillip left. I was disappointed that I wouldn’t be with him to see his eyes light up when the airplane took to the skies or to hold his hand as he ran across the beach. But then I remembered that this wasn’t a normal holiday.

  I was wearing a mixture of Mother’s and Bill’s clothes so that attention wouldn’t be drawn to my bloodied clothing. I’d wiped my face and tied my hair back, and tentatively applied powder to my bruises. Naomi had changed her ripped top, and she had her long red hair over her face so that the worst of her injuries were hidden from view.

  Rachel said she was looking forward to reequipping her wardrobe. She acted as if it were a wonderful adventure, but her scared eyes gave her away. Her passport was always in her bag, ready for last-minute getaways and romantic weekends. A mad dash out of the country to flee a friend’s unstable ex wasn’t quite in the same league.

  Naomi hung back, looking over her shoulder for any sign of Phillip. I held Alistair’s hand tightly.

  “Isn’t this exciting?” I said.

  Mustn’t cry. Mustn’t cry. Mustn’t cry.

  “Mummy? You said I was going to holiday club with Jacob.”

  If he could see through my false smile, he didn’t show it.

  “I know, sweetie, but then Rachel suggested that you all go on a special holiday to Aunty Margaret’s. She’s got her own swimming pool.”

  This seemed to please him, and I hauled him onto my hip. He was getting heavy, and I didn’t know how much longer I was going to be able to lift him.

  There was a slight delay at the barriers as Mother had difficulty working out how to scan her boarding pass. I made the most of the gifted seconds and told Alistair how much I loved him. He wriggled out of my grasp and Rachel squeezed my hand.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll look after him. You look after you.”

  I kept my voice low so Alistair wouldn’t hear. “Rach, I’m scared.”

  “Then come with us. I’ll pay for your flight.” Her words were urgent and eager but I shook my head.

  I hugged her. “You’re a good friend. Thank you. But I have to do this now or he’ll always be a threat.”

  And then Mother was through the barrier, and it was Alistair’s turn. I gave him the briefest of kisses on his head, the tightest of hugs, and then he was beyond the barrier where I couldn’t touch him. And neither could Phillip.

  They vanished around the corner, and I stood there for a moment longer, expecting, hoping even, that Alistair would dash back to me, refuse to go without me. But he didn’t, and Naomi and I were jostled to one side by a steady stream of travelers.

  “What now?” Naomi asked.

  “We go home and wait for Phillip to come to us.”

  We didn’t want to alert him to the fact that Alistair was out of the country. As long as he was still looking for him, he wouldn’t look far from where I was. For my plan to work, Phillip had to believe that we were still in the cellar and he had to be arrogant enough to return to the house. And if there was one thing Phillip wasn’t short of, it was arrogance.

  He was a danger to us and, if he could get to him, to Alistair. He wasn’t going to skulk away quietly with his tail between his legs. We could all go back to living our lives as usual, but we would be looking over our shoulders. And I couldn’t be with Alistair again until Phillip was no longer a problem.

  “But what if he’s already there? Waiting for us?” she asked.

  “We’d have heard from Ruby if he’d turned up. Besides, he’ll still be searching for Rachel and Alistair. He won’t want to come back empty-handed until he knows he has no other choice.”

  And by that time, we’d be ready for him.

  * * *

  • • •

  I was desperate to shower the stench of Phillip off me. I ran the water as hot as it would go and scrubbed at my body. I could have spent hours in there but I didn’t have time for such a luxury.

  Ruby and Naomi took turns in the bathroom. We made sure that there was always one of us at the bedroom window keeping watch. The sun was slipping away but the streetlights hadn’t come on yet. There were already shadows for Phillip to hide in.

  While Ruby was in the bathroom, Naomi stood at my shoulder.

  “I didn’t tell her what I was doing,” she said.

  “Hmm?”

  “When I came back for the passport, I didn’t tell Ruby. I just said I was picking up some clothes for Alistair. Said he’d stay with Rachel for a bit longer.”

  Without taking my eyes off the rose-gold street, I said, “You don’t trust her.”

  “Don’t trust anyone, duck. The way I see it, she’s the weak link. She’ll blab as soon as he raises his voice. The less she knows, the better.”

  Ruby was withdrawn. Her face was pinched and her hands trembled. It wasn’t like her to be so quiet. She wanted us to go and look for her dogs, but when I told her she had to stay put in case Phillip saw her, she didn’t argue. She
hadn’t called the police because, she said, it had slipped her mind. I doubted that. Even with what she’d seen him do, she wasn’t ready to give Phillip up yet. Still, it suited us to keep the police out of it for now, at least.

  The police couldn’t help us. For one thing, they would wonder why we’d left it so long to report it. For another, the main reason for calling them—Alistair’s safety—had already been dealt with. To involve them now would mean having to let them know where he was, and Phillip would be likely to hear about it.

  And finally, there was the same reason as always. The one that had stopped Naomi and me from picking up the phone countless times. Phillip was the police.

  From bitter experience, I knew that they would be inclined to believe him over us. Me: the bitter ex who had a history of depression, who had a vengeful vendetta against Saint Phillip. It was all too easy to see how he would spin it. And Naomi, who knew better than to trust the police—she’d been in trouble before, had a mark against her name; who would believe her over him? And then there was Ruby, who just so happened to turn up just as her ex had been locked in the cellar. It was a coincidence that was unlikely to be believed.

  We were on our own.

  “We wait for Phillip to come to us,” I said to Ruby. “By now, he’ll know that Rachel isn’t at home and that she’s not going to hand Alistair over. There’s been too much of a delay. He’ll know it’s not just a cinema trip or a visit to Pizza Express. He’s going to be pissed off. Where else is he going to go? He’ll watch her house for a while, maybe go to Mother’s, but in the end he’ll come here. He’ll come here to look at us, gloat, remind himself of how powerful he is. That’s what men like him do.”

  “What if you’re wrong?” asked Ruby. “What if he isn’t going to do any of those things? What if he plans to leave us in the cellar? What if he’s come to his senses and is on his way to let us out? He could have calmed down, he could’ve—”

  “I don’t know who you’re trying to convince,” I snapped. “Open your eyes, Ruby. He tried to kill Naomi. You got off lightly, but you saw what he did to us and what he’s like when he’s angry. Stop making excuses for him.”

  I explained how we would wait for him to check on us in the cellar and then lock the door. I told her that she would be free to leave after that, but until we had Phillip where we wanted, she was to stay.

  We made the house look just as it did when he left, put the keys to the handcuffs back on the table, put Naomi’s mobile back where we’d found it. We opened the back door and locked the door to the cellar, leaving the key in the outside of the lock just as it was before.

  I could picture his smug face as he unlocked the door. I imagined his feet on the cellar steps, expecting to see us when he rounded the corner, and then the confusion when the door behind him slammed and locked. Only when he was back where he’d started would I be able to breathe freely again and put phase two of our plan into action.

  Phillip, so proud of the power of the law, would find himself suffocated by it. If he didn’t agree to our demands, I would get a restraining order against him. I might not have enough evidence to get charges brought against him, but I was confident that I had enough for a restraining order. And if he broke the order to stay away from me, he would be arrested—and Phillip would rather die than let that happen.

  Ruby sat by an upstairs window close enough to the glass to be able to see the street and far enough away to be hidden by the shadows. She would see anyone approaching the front of the house. Naomi took up position behind the door in the living room. She wanted to be the one to lock him in. I pulled together some food, to keep our strength up.

  I had no appetite, but the only thing I’d eaten had been ejected from my stomach in the cellar. I’d not seen the other two eat all day. I opened the drawer for the big knife, my favorite one with the thick silver handle. It wasn’t there. I glanced about, hoping to see it on the table, but I couldn’t see it. I opened the dishwasher, but apart from two mugs and a bowl it was empty. I was about to ask the others whether they’d seen it anywhere when there was a hiss from upstairs; Ruby’s voice was urgent and low. I pushed myself against the kitchen wall, out of view from the hallway, wondering whether I had time to hide and glancing at the door to see if he was coming in the front or the back.

  There were furtive sounds at the front of the house, but, as yet, no key in the lock. I risked a quick glance down the hallway. A shape moved beyond the door. Crouched, half hidden. I was breathing heavily, ready to creep out the back door if he came in the front.

  The letter box opened and I saw gloved fingers groping at the air. The fingers disappeared but the flap stayed open. I held my breath as the hand appeared again and dropped something rectangular onto the mat. I jumped as the letter box snapped shut and the figure moved away from the doorstep. It was a leaflet for the local Chinese takeaway.

  * * *

  • • •

  We picked at the food and then sat in relative silence: Ruby upstairs, Naomi down, and I moving silently between the two. We jumped each time a car went by or we heard voices in the street. Naomi went to get a drink and I looked at my newly shaped face in the large mirror above the fireplace. My nose was swollen and my eyes were puffy. They were the color of stormy skies.

  The phone rang. One in the kitchen and one upstairs on the landing. It sounded too loud. I felt nervous, wondering who it was and why they had chosen this moment to call me, thinking of all the things it could be.

  The ringing stopped abruptly and I relaxed. Let them think that no one was in. But then I heard a voice say, “Hello?”

  I rushed from the room to stop Naomi, to tell her to hang up, but it was too late.

  The light from the open fridge door showed Naomi’s face was rigid with . . . what? Fear? Anger?

  “Naomi?”

  She jolted when she heard me and dropped the phone. She reached out for a chair to steady herself. It scraped across the terra-cotta floor, like an orchestra warming up for a performance, and then toppled with a clatter.

  “Sorry,” she whispered. “I wasn’t thinking—I—”

  I picked up the phone, which had spun across the floor and come to a stop by the dishwasher.

  “Hello?” I said.

  Silence.

  I tried again. “Hello?”

  My heart was pounding so loudly that I couldn’t hear the person on the other end of the line.

  A familiar voice slithered into my ear.

  “Look who made it out of the cellar. Aren’t you a clever girl?”

  CHAPTER 22

  7 years, 19 weeks, and 5 days before the funeral

  Imogen was putting the finishing touches to dinner when she heard the front door slam. She’d had to cook in stages. So much for morning sickness only lasting for the first three months.

  Phillip was over an hour late and she was close to bursting with her news. She’d been waiting for him in a cocoon of excitement all afternoon, watching as her stomach hiccupped and shook. It was doing it again. A family of eels somersaulting in her stomach.

  She was wearing a summer dress and a thin cardigan even though winter was waiting in the wings. She was hot all of the time and she didn’t own many clothes that stretched around her expanding stomach. This little bundle was a furnace in her belly. At least she looked pregnant now, rather than like the consumer of too much chocolate.

  She bounded into the hallway ready to throw her arms around him. He was already on the stairs and all she saw was his hand sliding up the banister.

  “You’re home,” she said.

  “Nice detective work, Sherlock.”

  Imogen’s smile slipped a little. He was in a bad mood, like so many days of late. She listened as his heavy feet drummed into the bathroom. She waited a moment, heard the shower start to run, and then disappeared into the kitchen to cook the spaghetti. She lifted the lid on the Bolognese
sauce and nearly gagged at the smell. Baby appeared to be a vegetarian.

  She’d used a splash of red wine in the orange Le Creuset pan but hadn’t let a sip of alcohol pass her lips since the day the blue line had appeared on the magic wand in the bathroom.

  She poured some of the wine into a large glass when she heard Phillip exit the bathroom, and arranged herself at the table. It was like a 1950s advert for a good wife. Take fifteen minutes to prepare yourself and put a fresh ribbon in your hair. Be a little gay, as your husband will have spent the day with work-weary people. There was no ribbon, though there was a little gaiety and a genuine willingness to not throw up at the dinner table.

  She had pictures from today’s scan and she knew the sex of the baby. Phillip would be over the moon. It was what he’d been wanting all along, and she couldn’t wait to share it with him. Today, for the first time, she had seen her stomach move with heels and knees and was confident that he would be able to feel it. Her.

  Phillip was wearing his robe with nothing on underneath. The message was clear. He was done for the day. He took the wine from her fiercely and, in doing so, slopped some over the terra-cotta floor.

  He sniffed at the air. “What’s that?”

  Imogen jumped up and grabbed a tea towel to wipe up the spillage, finding it difficult to bend around her growing belly.

  “In the pan?” she asked as Phillip lifted the heavy lid. “Spag Bol.”

  “You said we were having chili.”

  “Changed my mind. I didn’t fancy the spice. That’s okay, isn’t it?”

  Phillip clanged the pan lid down heavily, leaving it at an angle, steam escaping from the crescent gap.