by Jo Jakeman
Ruby was withdrawn.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, for she’d been in trouble before, had a mark against her name; who would believe her over him? And then there was Ruby, who 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 on him. 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 like it did when he left; put the keys to the handcuffs back on the side, put Naomi’s mobile back where we found it. We opened the back door and locked the door to the cellar, leaving the key in the outside of the lock, just like 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 favourite one with the thick silver handle. It wasn’t there. I glanced about, hoping to see it on the side, but I couldn’t spot 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 Phillip 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 of 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 downstairs, and me 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 fire-place. My nose was swollen and my eyes were puffy. They were the colour 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 terracotta 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?’
TWENTY-THREE
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 hic-coughed 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 the consumer of too much chocolate.
She bounded into the hallway, ready to throw her arms around him. Phillip was already on the stairs, and all she saw was his hand sliding up the bannister.
‘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 show
er 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 not to 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 able to feel it. Her.
Phillip was wearing his dressing gown 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 terracotta 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 chilli.’
‘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.
‘I was looking forward to chilli.’ His voice wasn’t accusing, not even annoyed. It just … was.
‘I can do a chilli at the weekend if you like?’ Imogen asked, throwing the cloth on the side and standing up on tiptoe behind him to reach over his shoulder and kiss his cheek. She snaked her arms about his waist and laid her cheek on his back.
‘I’ve been looking forward to that all day, and you just change your mind? I suppose this is to do with your bloody pregnancy hormones and the baby, is it?’
‘The baby’s been kicking a lot today. Here, give me your hand, I think you’ll be able to feel it.’
Imogen stepped back from him and pulled back her cardigan to expose her bump. Phillip turned round to look at her. He seemed hurt, like she’d missed something important.
‘What?’ she asked.
‘Jesus, Immie, you’re not the first pregnant woman in the world.’
‘Hey,’ she said softly, ‘don’t be like that. I know I’ve been preoccupied with the baby, but I’ve got some good news. I had the scan today.’
She steepled her hands together in front of her face. She would have clapped and jumped on the spot, but Phillip’s face was darkening.
She reached out to him, but he turned away and looked at the pan again.
‘I’ve had a hell of a day. The things I’ve …’ He threw his head back and blinked at the ceiling. ‘God, I’m tired. Can we just not talk about this now? I’m going to watch a film.’
He took the wine bottle and added more liquid to the glass, even though it was still more than half-full.
‘Don’t you want to know about the baby?’ Imogen was getting impatient with him. This wasn’t how she’d imagined the evening playing out.
He held up his hand as he began to walk away. She clenched her fists.
‘Wait! Everyone else had someone with them today. All the other women were with their partners. Do you know how it felt to be sitting there on my own? The least you can do is pretend to be interested in your own baby!’
Her voice rang round the kitchen. She knew she should stop, but the anger in her had awoken now. ‘I’m sick of this, Phillip. You say I shouldn’t be preoccupied with the baby, but what about you? Perhaps if you weren’t at work all the time—’
‘That’s enough!’ he shouted, and took two long paces towards her until their faces were inches apart. He slammed his glass down on the kitchen table without looking. The stem broke and spilt the contents over the table.
‘That’s enough,’ he said again, quieter this time. ‘Enough.’
Imogen held her breath, as startled by her own outburst as she was by his.
She instinctively wrapped her arms around her stomach. It wasn’t like her to argue with Phillip, and not like him to be so dismissive of the baby.
He sighed, ‘I’ll be downstairs watching a film. Don’t wait up.’ He turned, picked up the wine bottle and stalked down into the cellar, his sanctuary, where she wasn’t allowed to go. The only place he could get some bloody peace.
The outburst echoed in Imogen’s chest. She was panting as if she had run up stairs. She started picking up sharp polygons of glass amongst the sticky liquid. She sucked in air through her teeth as a piece of glass slipped over her fingers, causing them to split in a wide red grin. Tears blurred her vision, though they were nothing to do with the pain from the cut. She took the pans off the heat and finished cleaning up the mess with a cloth. The smell of the wine, mixed with cleaning fluid, was overpowering and her face hovered over the sink for a moment, waiting for the nausea to pass.
Perhaps Phillip had forgotten she was at the hospital today for her anomaly scan. She was bursting to tell him that all was well with the baby, and that the baby was a girl. A daughter. A sweet pink bundle. They were going to be parents to a girl. Phillip had told her he wanted a girl more than anything. A child who would adore him and admire him. He would be so proud when she told him. But she’d leave him to calm down a little first. She sat. She stood. She couldn’t settle. The news would burst from her if she didn’t tell someone.
Imogen closed the kitchen door and dialled her mother’s number, a smile already on her face as she listened to the ringing.
‘Yes?’
‘Mother, it’s me.’
‘Oh, Imogen, I thought you were someone else. I’m expecting a call from the boiler people. It’s on the ruddy blink again. Can you get off the line? They might be trying to get through at this moment.’
‘Oh. Well, it’s just a quick call. I was at the hospital today, for my scan.’
‘Lovely, dear, can you tell me about it tomorrow?’
‘Sure. Yes. Tomorrow.’
She placed the receiver back in its cradle. She refused to be brought low. She was bursting with the desire to tell someone – anyone. It was all she could do not to run into the street and tell the first person she saw. She went to the cellar door and could see a film flashing around the dark room.
‘Honey? Phillip? I’m sorry about dinner. Okay? You’re so right. I wasn’t thinking. I’m happy to get you something else. Let me make it up to you. I could go down the chippy?’
He grunted and she took that to mean ‘yes’.
‘Okay then, I won’t be long. I’ll get haddock, yeah? And mushy peas?’
‘Battered sausage,’ he said.
‘Righty-ho. I shan’t be long.’
He grunted again and she shut the door on him. By making this gesture, perhaps he would come out of his sanctuary and talk with her while they ate. She was determined to get this evening back on track.
Imogen was as glad of his cinema room as Phillip was. He wasn’t a bad man, but sometimes the weight of the world got to him. As a policeman, he dealt with death, rape and assault on an almost daily basis. It was too much to expect him to leave it all at the station. He said that he was surrounded by people who lied to him and attempted to mislead him. It made it difficult for him to trust anyone.
Her winter coat no longer fitted her, so she took Phillip’s from the coat stand. It smelled of his aftershave, musky and woody, and made her smile. She took his scarf too, but only because it was soft, not because she needed the warmth. She slid her arms into his sleeves and imagin
ed that she was wrapping his arms around her as she closed the door behind her.
Outside, in the dark street, she saw her next-door neighbour with the bonnet of his car up.
‘Hi, Roger.’
‘Antifreeze,’ he said, raising the bottle in his hand. ‘There’s a frost coming.’
‘Yes, the temperature has dropped today, hasn’t it?’
‘Not long now,’ he said pointing at her belly.
‘Four more months yet,’ she said rubbing the bump. ‘I’ll be the size of a whale by the end. I was at the hospital today actually, finding out about the sex of the baby.’
‘Jane was too. Ingrowing toenails. Gone septic, they have.’
‘Oh. Sounds painful.’ She paused, wondering how she could get the conversation back to the topic of the baby, but decided against it. ‘Well, I suppose I’d better get on,’ she said.
It was pleasurable to be in the cool evening air, watching people scurry into their houses, their breath clouding the cold air before their faces. Cyclists blinked past her with only their eyes poking out of balaclavas and scarves. Ice crystals glistened like diamonds on the pavement and lit her way to the high street. The journey that used to take her five minutes on foot now took twice as long. Her hips and her back ached. She’d stiffened up from sitting in the hospital waiting room for so long.
As she stopped at the crossing, Imogen could see that the queue for the chip shop was snaking out of the door. A man in a donkey jacket was stamping his feet against the cold, looking for all the world like he was doing an ancient war dance. A car slowed to let her cross and she waved it onwards with an apology, turning instead to walk along the pavement and away from the lights. She would come back in ten minutes when the queue had gone down. She was anxious to see the shimmering sky-diamonds but the village lights masked the sky’s clarity. Beyond the edge of the town they would be waiting for her in the cloudless black.
She harboured a childish dream that her dad looked down on her from the sky, part guardian angel, part heavenly body. The thought had her quickening her step away from the cars and the people. She wanted a quiet moment alone with him to tell him her news. He’d listen. He always did.
