by Lucy Atkins
‘Can anyone hear me?’ she shouts. ‘I can’t get out!’ She hits the door again. She heaves at it from below. ‘I’m trapped! Hey? Help!’ She rattles the door, her panic rising.
And then someone is tugging at it from outside. She steps back, covering her mouth with both hands.
‘Tess?’ It is a man’s voice – familiar – Josh. It is Josh! ‘Tess? Is that you?’
‘Yes! It’s me. Can you open it? I’m stuck. I can’t get out!’
‘It’s OK. Wait a moment.’ The door rattles and then its hinges shriek and a rectangle of grey light appears by her feet, grows taller – she sees Timberland boots, jeans, a puffy coat, and finally Josh’s concerned face.
‘It’s OK,’ he says, ‘you’re out.’
‘I couldn’t open it; there’s no handle on this side.’ She is breathless, shaky.
‘There’s usually a pull mechanism on the ceiling – over there, behind you, look.’
‘Someone was in my house.’
‘They were? When?’
‘Just now – literally just now – but she’s gone. I heard her leave. She locked me in the basement.’
‘She? Who’s she?’
‘I didn’t see her, I just heard her voice but I think I know who she is – did you see her? Coming out of the front door?’
‘I didn’t see her coming out, but …’
‘I’m sure it’s the woman I saw before – remember – red hair?’ She gestures as if she can somehow convey colour with her hands. ‘Thin face, ragged-looking features?’
‘OK, listen, Tess, let’s get you inside and warm you up; you’re shivering. Come with me; I just put coffee on. Come on.’
He guides her across the icy ground, through the leylandii branches, which poke at her face with spiny fingers, dropping clumps of snow into her hair, and into the backyard. A bird’s feet have made sharp little rail-track prints across the snowy patio.
She stops. ‘Where’s Helena?’
‘She’s at her clinic.’ He steers her to the French windows, peeling them open. ‘Come on, come on in.’
The house smells of fresh coffee. The dining room is minimalist and tidy, with tasteful red-and-white themed Christmas decorations. There is a garland of fake fir on the mantelpiece above the fireplace. She glimpses a front room through an archway, the edge of a cream sofa, a pinkish Turkish rug, a limb of a Christmas tree, white baubles.
‘I heard you from my kitchen and I couldn’t think what it was at first,’ he says. ‘Here, sit.’ He pushes a stool towards her, goes to the coffee machine and pours some into a Grand Canyon mug, putting in her hands. She takes a sip – it is hot, powerful and bitter. Josh and Helena’s kitchen is familiar from having peered in so many times – she recognizes the green mosaic tiles, the shining blender. It is more spacious than it looked. From where she is sitting she can see directly into her own dining room. She knows that if she were to go to the window and peer up she would be looking right into her own bedroom.
Josh says, ‘So you’re sure that a woman was in your house?’
‘Yes, I was in the basement and I could hear her, going through the house, calling for me.’
‘So you know her?’
‘Not really.’
‘You want me to go check in there for you?’
‘No, it’s OK, she’s gone. I heard her leave – the front door slammed.’
‘So she broke in then? You want to call the police?’
‘I don’t know … maybe.’
‘Who is this woman, Tess?’
‘It’s complicated. We think she’s someone Greg treated, years and years ago – or actually not her, but her child. I need to call Greg and tell him she was here.’
‘But wasn’t he just here? That’s what I was going to say.’ Josh wipes his hands on the tea towel. ‘His car was out front just a moment ago.’
‘What?’
‘Just before I heard you in the garage, I saw it out there, but then when I came out it was gone.’
‘You can’t have.’ If Greg had been home, he would have heard her battering on the garage door – he would have let her out.
‘Tess?’ Josh folds the tea towel and puts it down, resting his hand on it. ‘Did something happen just now between you and Greg?’
‘No, no, I haven’t even seen him.’
‘You two didn’t just have a fight?’
‘No. Look, are you sure you just saw his car?’
‘Pretty sure, yeah, out front, just before I heard you.’
‘OK, look, I have to go. Thanks for getting me out – and thanks for the coffee. I’m fine, honestly, but I have to go and call Greg.’
As he shows her out, and she thanks him, it occurs to her that she and Josh have something in common: neither of them trusts the person they love. But that is where the similarity ends because Josh, at least, seems to understand Helena; he knows what’s going on and is doing his best to fix it, whereas she has no idea what she is dealing with. She feels like Alex in the underwater cave, blinded by silt, feeling for the guide-rope, panic rising.
Somewhere, far off, she hears distant sirens. She needs to call the police even though she is not sure what they can do other than tell her not to leave her front door open. But she’ll report this anyway. Whatever Greg says, she is not going to ignore this anymore. The woman needs urgent psychiatric help.
Her belly feels like a huge, tight fist, clenched in front of her as she walks out into the freezing air. She can feel Josh watching her from the porch as she crosses the icy lawn in her thick socks. He obviously doesn’t believe that there was an intruder. He thinks it is Greg who is the threat. He will be wondering whether he should intervene. She crunches across the snow to the front porch and shakes her feet angrily, watching clods of dirty snow cling to the woollen soles.
She hasn’t got keys, but the door pushes open. She must have left it on the latch when she was washing the floors earlier, which is how the woman got in.
She steps inside and looks around. The living and dining rooms are definitely empty. She heard the front door slam, the woman left. She could, of course, have come back. But the house feels empty. Everything in the hall seems intact. Her keys are in the blue ceramic bowl on the radiator cover. As she gazes at them it occurs to her that it might not have been Helena who duplicated the key. The red-haired woman might have got in. She might have been coming in and out all this time, looking through mail, opening the jewellery box, putting hairclasps into Greg’s pockets, or simply standing in the shadows, leaving that sickly, odd scent.
She feels a coldness spread up her spine and goes down the hall, forcing herself to look through the arch into the kitchen. The appliances shine back at her. She grabs her phone from the countertop and goes back down the corridor, listening at the bottom of the stairs.
She goes halfway up, listens again. She can hear the wind thudding against the bricks and the creak of pipes, but nothing else. She forces herself to go all the way up to the landing, pushing the bathroom door open with a straight arm and peering round it. She goes and looks through Joe’s door, then into the room that will be the baby’s – empty – and then, finally, she goes into the master bedroom.
The bed is unmade, her T-shirt is on the floor where she left it this morning. She stands outside the en suite and takes a breath. A dripping tap makes a slow plink-plink in the sink. She shoves the door open with one foot and jumps back. The tiny room is empty. She lets out the breath and moves away. Then she sees the walk-in closet. The door is only open a crack and she usually leaves it wide open. Her heart pumps, and she stands very still. There is the faintest, sweet, off-smell. And then, all at once, she is sick of being afraid, sick of creeping round her own house. She lifts her foot and slams it into the door. It bounces back against the wall, revealing lines of shoes, Greg’s hanging jackets, shelves with jumpers folded on them: nothing more. The closet is empty. There is nobody in the house.
The blanket on the end of the bed has slipped onto the floor.
She picks it up, with a shaking hand, and puts it back on the rumpled duvet – and that’s when she notices a small face on the pillow. It is staring up at her. She jumps backwards and hears herself yelp.
It is not real, not a real baby – just a doll. She takes a step closer: a doll’s head, a small, china-faced doll’s head. One broken eyelid droops, sickeningly, over a bright-blue eye and the other eye is open, fixed on her. The cheeks are stained lurid pink, there are chips and scratches in the painted skin. The head is not attached to a body.
She lifts her phone. There are four missed calls from Greg. She does not even listen to them – she calls his number.
He answers on the first ring. ‘Tess? Where are you?’ He sounds breathless. ‘Are you all right?’ There is fear in his voice – she has never heard Greg sound afraid before and it shocks her.
‘I’m at home; where are you?’
‘I’m just round the corner, sweetheart; I’m on my way back to find you.’ He is on speakerphone in the car, his voice is echoey and blurred.
‘Were you here? Did you come home just now?’
‘I’m on my way – where are you?’
‘I’m in our bedroom. That woman was here!’ Her voice rises. ‘She’s been in the house. She’s left this … this doll head on our bed. She locked me in the basement, I got stuck in the garage. For Christ’s sake, Greg, I’m calling the police. This is too much. I’m reporting this.’
‘No!’ he barks. ‘No, wait, Tess, don’t, OK? Just don’t. I’m almost there.’
‘She was here! In our bedroom! I’m looking at a doll’s head on my pillow right now. This time I’m calling the police—’
‘She won’t come back, Tess, she just – something just happened, literally just now. Wait, OK? Wait there for me and I’ll explain in a minute – please – I’m almost there. You’re totally safe, I promise.’
‘How can you possibly promise me that?’ She looks at the head, nestled on the big white pillow, the single blue eye staring up at her.
‘Hang up now. Don’t call the police – I’m almost there.’
She hangs up. She can’t bring herself to pick up the doll’s head so she leaves it where it is and goes back downstairs. She picks up the kettle and fills it with water – a reflex; she is trembling, from cold or anger or shock, or perhaps all three. Then she hears Greg on the porch, his key in the door. She steps into the hallway.
He bursts in and sweeps down the corridor towards her, stretching out his arms for her. She lets him hold her for a moment and he squeezes her so tight that she feels the baby squashed against her spine. ‘OK,’ he says, as if talking to himself. ‘It’s OK.’ He kisses her head. She pulls away.
‘What the hell’s happening, Greg? Why are you even here? Why aren’t you at the hospital?’
He guides her to the kitchen, to a stool.
‘I got your voicemail and you sounded … I know we said we’d talk today. I tried to call you back, but you weren’t answering your phone and I had an hour free so I just came home.’ He pushes back his hair. His fingers, she notices, are trembling too. ‘I saw her in the street.’
‘You saw her?’
‘Just now, round the corner – she spotted me and took off, so I turned the car around and went after her. She crossed the road and I had to wait to get out, so she was ahead of me, crossing Walnut, she was looking back at me – the poor guy couldn’t have stopped, she just looked at me, then stepped out and he went right into her. She’s been taken to hospital – I need to go and find out what’s happening but I had to come and make sure you were OK first. Jesus, Tess.’ He leans his forehead against hers and his grey scarf slithers to the floor. He does not pick it up.
She tries to absorb what he has just said. ‘A car hit her? Is she dead?’
‘No, she was unconscious – but she’s alive. An ambulance was there in just a few minutes. She’s pretty bashed up.’
‘How bashed up?’ She remembers hearing sirens as she drank Josh’s coffee. In the snow-refracted light from the kitchen windows Greg looks ghastly: unwell, shocked, his face ashen.
‘I don’t know. Broken pelvis, I think, probably some other broken bones. I don’t know, maybe worse. But she’s in good hands, the best.’
She shakes her head. ‘But she was just here …’
‘She’s not coming back,’ he says. ‘I promise.’
‘Jesus – this is horrible, this is terrible. Will she be OK?’
‘I think so.’
‘She put a doll’s head on our pillow! Go and look! My God, Greg, what if Joe had been here?’
‘But he wasn’t, OK? He wasn’t.’ He tries to reach for her, but she pulls away. ‘I know we have to talk about this—’
‘Too right we do.’ Carlo Novak had been briefly a long way off, like a one-time enemy, but now suddenly he is back, filling the space between them.
‘I’m going to go and look in our bedroom.’ He runs up the stairs and comes back a moment or two later with the doll’s head in his hand.
‘OK, listen.’ He sounds suddenly efficient. ‘I have patients to see this afternoon and I need to go check what’s happening to her in the ER first, but you’re safe, that’s the main thing, you’re all right. She’s going to be in hospital for a long time, she isn’t going anywhere, I promise; she’s no danger to you whatsoever.’ He drops the doll’s head into the kitchen bin. The lid clangs shut.
‘I can’t do this anymore.’ She shakes her head. ‘I just can’t.’
‘Please – please, Tess. The last thing on earth that I want to do is leave you right now, but I have to go back, for my patients, their families – I have to take care of them, too. I need you to hang in there till this evening, and when I get home we will talk … about all of this, OK – about everything.’
‘But—’
‘Tess,’ he presses her hand, ‘I know. We’ll talk about everything tonight, I promise, everything. There are things I need to tell you too. Can you rest for a bit now? Go lie down till you have to go get Joe, OK? You look pale, you’ve had a shock. You need something sweet – can you eat a cookie? Have some tea.’ He takes her wrist and she realizes, after a second, that he is checking her pulse. She rips her hand away.
‘The moment you have finished – the very moment – you come back home. OK?’
‘I will, I will. Eight at the very latest. But remember, the woman is in the hospital, she’s in bad shape, she’s not a threat. Just hang on till I get home, OK? I’ll call you or have someone call you the moment I can get an update on her condition; the second I know anything, you’ll know too.’ He bends to pick up his scarf, then kisses her.
‘I don’t even know her name.’
‘What?’ He is making for the door.
She stands up, calling after him, ‘What’s her name, Greg?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘Of course it matters!’
‘Sarah,’ he calls over his shoulder. ‘Her name’s Sarah.’ But before she can ask for a surname, he has gone.
Chapter Nineteen
She waits for the sound of Greg’s feet coming up the basements steps. It is 8.55 p.m. and he has texted her twice in the last half hour: he is on his way. It is probably a good thing that he is later than he said he would be because Joe is, thankfully, asleep now – exhausted by whatever unspoken conflicts he has been through today.
The house is quiet. She has taken the bag containing the doll’s head down to the outdoor bin, but even now she can feel it down there, nestling in the darkness. The wind has dropped and snow is no longer tumbling, but it feels as if a great thumb is pressing down on the suburb, keeping everything still.
There is a persistent, burning ache in her lower back. The baby’s head rests heavy on her pelvis and from time to time her abdomen tightens – a Braxton Hicks contraction; she remembers these, but she also feels as if her body is bracing itself for Greg’s homecoming.
After she made the call to the hospital, her first impulse had been to call Nell
– she picked up her phone, but then she hung up before the call could be connected. The conversation with the ER receptionist had only confirmed what she already knew: Greg is tangled in lies. Nell can’t help. The only person who can straighten this out is Greg.
She has had two updates from him on Sarah’s condition: a broken pelvis, broken tibia, smashed knee, three fractured ribs, but no internal or serious head injuries. She was very agitated and is now under sedation. They have traced her out-of-state records and the psychiatrist is with her. Greg was right, in other words: the poor woman is going nowhere. At least she is getting help.
Her phone vibrates on the marble countertop. She peers at the screen – not Greg this time but Alex Kingman. She waits for it stop ringing. It shudders to signal a voicemail has been left. She picks it up and deletes the message. She does not want to hear from Alex Kingman, she does not want to know what he has to say. He is the last person on earth whose voice she wants to listen to right now.
She hears the buzz of the garage doors beneath the kitchen and, after a moment, Greg’s footsteps coming up the stairs.
‘Tess?’ His voice at the basement door, his fingers tapping. ‘Honey? It’s just me. Can you open the door?’
Her belly contracts again as she gets up and unbolts it, letting him in. He looks uncertain, exhausted, and for a second everything falls away and it is just Greg: she has the urge to sink into his arms, feel his chest against her cheek, breathe him in, let all of this melt away.
But she will not allow herself to do that. If she does, he will somehow persuade her that the call she made to the ER this afternoon was a misunderstanding, that the photos and reports she has seen online are errors and muddles, that Alex Kingman is deluded.
She has to get answers now because whatever Greg is hiding it cannot be worse than the fact of its concealment.
He steps towards her, frowning. ‘Are you OK?’ He sounds nervous and the faint nausea she has been feeling all evening moves closer to the surface. He pulls off his coat. He is wearing a black roll-neck jumper that she doesn’t recognize. His body seems to expand to fill the space in front of her.
