by Jo Jakeman
I wondered what their plan was and why Ruby would help him at my expense. I’d never been unkind to her, but not welcoming, either. I would never have expected her capable of subterfuge, which showed what a terrible judge of character I was. My mind kept going back to the accident. Had she been responsible? If she was, then surely Phillip would know? Was this what he held over her? Was this why Ruby was doing his bidding?
As I looked at her slack face in the darkness I tried to picture her playing happy families with Phillip and my son. Had she planned to take my son as her own? I’d always known she’d wanted a child, but she bloody well couldn’t have mine.
I couldn’t recall having spoken about Spain in front of her, so I was as sure as I could be that she hadn’t told Phillip where Alistair was. Even if she had, he couldn’t have got a replacement passport yet. I’d checked online; even if Phillip paid to get one processed in twenty-four hours, the earliest appointment he could get was Tuesday. I had until then to build a case against him. And I’d personally watched Bill burn Phillip’s old passport in his fire-pit in the garden.
It occurred to me that this could be the reason Ruby was still here. Listening, waiting to find out where we’d hidden Alistair. And the brick through the window was just an excuse so that she had to stay. They were cleverer than I’d given them credit for.
If Ruby was feeding information to Phillip, then I’d make sure she had the wrong information. I’d send him to the ends of the country, perhaps even abroad. I could start dropping hints about Alistair enjoying French food, and how the weather was nice in the south of France. I needed Phillip to leave us alone. At my meeting with Chris Miller on Monday morning I would see what kind of a case we had against Phillip. I would have to tell him the whole story, which would mean admitting to locking him up in the first place.
A shaft of orange light fell across the bed, growing brighter as infrequent cars sped down the road. Since the accident I had feared cars at night. I rarely drove in the dark and never walked anywhere after dark. I slid out of bed and went to look out of the window. The street below was still.
A door opened somewhere and I heard the familiar rattle of milk bottles being put on the step, ready for dawn and the milkman. I wondered who would be awake so late. None of the neighbours looked like they outstayed the ten o’clock news. Sensible families, not hiding out from psychotic husbands, slumbered sweetly under their eider-downs. And somewhere my sweet boy Alistair was sleeping under a warmer sky than this. The pain of being separated from him hit me like a blow to the guts. When I thought of him I ached. He was so precious to me – so perfect – I could scarcely believe he was mine. It was miraculous that someone like me, damaged and weak, could have created something so stunningly flawless. Being separated from him was worth it, if it restored our future. I had to be strong, for a few days more, if I were to make it safe for Alistair to come back to me.
A sound, like the click of a light switch, had me snapping my head round. The lights in the bedroom were still off, and neither Naomi nor Ruby had moved. I looked out of the window again, half-expecting to see a shadowy figure running from the house, but everything was silent and all the houses surrounding me were in darkness. I cocked my head, but there was no sound. I perched on the end of the bed and alternately scrunched and relaxed my toes, waiting for something else – a sound to confirm my fears or to tell me that it was something perfectly, and easily, explainable.
I thought I heard a door shut and I concentrated, to feel whether anything was out of place. How much was real and how much was my mind playing tricks on me? My heart was pounding too loudly for me to pick out the sounds that didn’t belong there. I tiptoed to the door. Everything was the same, just as I hoped it would be. There was only emptiness, stillness and paranoia.
I told myself to get a grip. Phillip couldn’t get in the house unless one of us opened the door for him, and no one had left the room. I closed the door a little too firmly and a gust of air ruffled my hair. Something was on the breeze, an unfamiliar scent; it was dry and scratchy at my throat. I opened the door once more and inhaled deeply, but couldn’t grab hold of the scent that had slipped past me a moment before.
‘What is it?’ mumbled Naomi from behind me in the darkness.
‘I don’t know. Maybe nothing. Can you smell anything?’
She sniffed the air audibly. I heard the rustle of sheets as she sat up.
‘What am I smelling for?’
‘I don’t know. I thought I …’ I couldn’t smell it now and was unsure whether I was imagining things. I was tired; I had had little sleep all week. My weak mind was playing tricks on me. But still …
Naomi came to my side, dressed in a long T-shirt, and looked out onto the landing. The glare had us squinting and blinking.
‘Can’t smell anything, can’t see anything,’ she said.
Ruby muttered something unintelligible in her sleep.
‘No,’ I said. ‘You’re right. It’s probably nothing.’
Naomi yawned.
‘Still, I’m just going to check downstairs,’ I said. ‘Otherwise I’ll never settle.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ she said.
We looked over the bannister, but there was no sign of light or life. I hoped my imagination was getting the better of me. We started our way downstairs and I asked, ‘Can you smell gas?’
Naomi shook her head.
‘You’re only thinking that because of the fella from the Gas Board earlier.’
‘Maybe,’ I said.
The front door was still locked and bolted and there were no signs of an open window. There was something in the air, a scent that wasn’t quite there, but just on the outskirts of my senses.
‘I’m sure I can smell something,’ I said.
‘It’s probably outside,’ Naomi replied.
The smell hit me again and I put the back of my hand over my mouth.
‘Shit!’ I said. ‘It is gas!’ I dashed into the kitchen. ‘Don’t switch on the lights,’ I shouted.
The gas hob was hissing to itself from the two front rings. I switched it off, and the whispering, which I hadn’t even realised was in my ears, stopped. I pulled at the back door to open it, groped in the dark for where the keys should be. My fingers felt for the drawer handle and found the hole where the keys were kept. But they weren’t there.
‘The keys! Where are they?’
I held my breath against the smell of gas. I fumbled with the kitchen window and flung it open, taking in big gulps of air. The security light blinked on overhead and brought the length of the garden to life.
I opened the drawer where I kept the spare keys, but they were gone.
‘Naomi, he’s in the house. I know he is.’
‘Don’t be daft,’ she said, though her voice lacked the conviction of her words. ‘One of us banged into the cooker or something. Either that or Ruby …’
‘She’s not moved all night, and the keys are missing!’
Neither of us had an answer.
Something behind Naomi caught my eye. Indistinct and unfamiliar.
‘What?’ she said.
I raised my hand to silence her and gently pushed her to one side.
From the light spilling from the hallway, I could just make out the word BITCH in twelve-inch letters on the kitchen wall.
TWENTY-EIGHT
9 days before the funeral
I groped my way around the kitchen until I found the handle of the knife drawer. I picked the largest knife in there, not the largest one I had – either Phillip or Ruby had that one – and held it out in front of me.
‘What are you doing?’ whispered Naomi.
‘Here’s in here, Naomi. He’s in the house.’
‘But the doors are locked,’ she said.
I looked at the wall, which was covered in script from knee level to ceiling height.
‘He’s been here all along.’
The brick through the window had been the perfect distraction – the endle
ss stream of people coming to the door giving Phillip the opportunity to get settled, hide somewhere and wait. And he had been listening to every word.
I pictured him lingering around corners, laughing at us. Hearing our hopes and fears. Using them to get at us. Phillip Rochester was still pulling our strings and controlling the game.
‘We can get out of the window,’ whispered Naomi.
I shook my head. I wasn’t running from him again. I tiptoed into the hallway and checked that the cellar was still locked. It was.
‘Imogen! What’re you doing?’ hissed Naomi.
‘He’s here somewhere.’
‘That’s why we need to get out of the house,’ she said urgently.
‘No.’
I could still smell the tangy scent of gas in the air, but I could breathe freely now. My jaw ached and I realised I was clenching my teeth together. I was as alert as I was angry. Come out, come out, wherever you are.
Naomi pulled at the back of my top and I glanced over my shoulder at her.
‘I don’t want to do this,’ she said.
Neither did I.
Phillip had been in my house all evening. Hearing every word, watching every movement. His presence was everywhere: in corners, behind doors, and I didn’t know how I’d missed it.
Always one step ahead.
I put my finger on the kitchen light switch, nervous about switching it on, too many movies making me think the whole house would explode because of the gas, but I needed to see what lurked in the corners.
The light flared above me and showed the kitchen as it had always been. Cluttered with paintings and notes from school, and carrier bags that needed recycling and wilting pots of herbs on the windowsill. But the wall. The wall was covered.
Thick black letters, gone over again, and again, and again. The boldest words were at eye level, the rest written thinly at full stretch. In red, the word DIE was the bulls-eye that everything else radiated from. I reeled in shock. I could understand that Phillip wanted to hurt me, but why would he want me to die? There was still a piece of the puzzle missing. His behaviour and violence had escalated to a point that didn’t correspond with what I’d done. This was Phillip – a law-bending, controlling, narcissistic man, but not a killer.
Footsteps overhead. A door opened. Closed. A steady, even-paced stride, trying not to make a noise, but hitting every creaking floorboard. Naomi and I looked at each other and she looked wildly around the room for a weapon. She settled on a breadknife and nodded to me.
The steps were quieter on the stairs. A dry hand on the bannister brushing skin against chipped paint. They took three steps and then stopped. We listened and they listened. The steps began again. Sounds were amplified; they came to me on the back of the hiss of air in my ears. They were getting closer. Bare feet landed on the floor tiles at the base of the stairs and slap-slapped cautiously, slowly, towards us.
Naomi was at my shoulder. I could feel her shaking behind me, as if the air around her was reverberating. I held the knife outstretched and took long sideways steps so that I was out of view of the hallway. Naomi stepped with me.
I held the knife tightly, imagining Phillip’s face. Would I stab him? Would I hold a knife against his jugular and get him back into the cellar? Would he attack me first? And if I killed him in self-defence, would anyone blame me?
I waited. I was neither hot nor cold, could feel no pain, no sensations other than a pulsing of adrenaline through my body giving me energy to attack.
A hand snaked around the doorframe – I adjusted my grip on the knife – followed cautiously by a head of grey-brown curls.
‘Shit, Ruby! You scared us!’ hissed Naomi.
Ruby reared back and recovered herself, speaking in the same hushed voice as Naomi had.
‘What are you doing? I woke up and you were gone.’
I sank into myself. The tension that had been holding me up suddenly drained, and I lowered the knife.
Ruby stepped warily away from me, her eyes on the knife.
‘What’s going on?’ she asked.
‘Do you expect me to believe that you don’t know?’ I turned from her in disgust.
Her face was worried, but I didn’t know it well enough to tell whether it was genuine. She couldn’t take her eyes off the blade in my hand, and I placed it on the table to show her it wasn’t intended for her.
‘Can I smell gas?’ she asked.
‘Gas hobs were on,’ said Naomi. ‘Who did it? Were it you or him?’
‘What do you—’
‘It can’t have been her,’ I said. ‘It had only just been switched on, and she hasn’t left the bedroom all night.’
The black letters caught Ruby’s eye and she stepped closer to look at the wall.
‘What’s this?’ Her finger reached out to touch the writing, as if to check whether it was real. She traced the word DIE with her index finger. ‘Why would Pip …?’
I kept my voice low as I spoke, not knowing if Phillip could hear us.
‘We know he’s here, and we know you’ve been helping him. Tell us what you know.’
‘But it doesn’t make any sense,’ she said without taking her eyes off the wall. ‘He said he only wanted to …’ Her voice trailed off.
‘What, Ruby? What?’ I whispered. ‘Ruby, have you seen Phillip since we got out of the cellar?’
She shook her head vigorously, but didn’t meet my eye.
‘No, but …’
‘But?’
‘There was a phone pushed through the letter box. It rang and Pip’s name flashed up. I gave him a right earful, told him to turn himself in to the police, if he knew what was good for him. He was sorry, so sorry. He was crying on the phone and asking me to help him. He said he’d never ask for anything from me again. He said you’d been trying to keep him from his son. He said there were other things too: the amount of stress he was under, there was something going on at work and he said he snapped. He couldn’t take it any more.
‘I was to persuade you not to press charges. He knew he’d done wrong and said he had nothing to live for any more. I was worried he might hurt himself if he thought I’d turned against him too.
‘He asked me to unlock the back door and, when he created a diversion outside, get you both out front, so he could creep in and work out for himself where you’d sent Alistair.’
‘The car,’ I said.
‘Yes, but I didn’t know that’s what he was going to do. That’s when I realised Pip was angry with me too. I left your phone where you could find it. I didn’t want him contacting me again.’
It was hard to know if she was telling the truth, but she seemed genuine. But then hadn’t I thought that earlier too?
‘Where is he now, Ruby?’
‘I honestly don’t know. I had a peek around earlier and couldn’t find him. I assumed he’d already left. But this …’ She gestured to the wall.
I picked up the knife again and, without a word, moved quietly along the hallway. The living room was empty; spaces behind sofas, door, under tables gave no sign that Phillip had been here. There was no other graffiti, no disorder, no menace. There was nowhere he could hide.
I thought of him upstairs, close to where we were sleeping, or trying to, and I shuddered. I pointed my finger up the stairs and Ruby and Naomi nodded. I went first. Eight heartbeats to every step.
I put the knife in my other hand and wiped my palm on my shorts. Nerves were making me perspire. I craned my neck to peer up onto the landing. There were five doors, two of them closed; the bathroom door was open, with the light still on. I could see that it was empty. The other open doors were Alistair’s room and my bedroom.
The first closed door was Mother’s rosebud room. I looked at Naomi and hesitated. Perhaps she was right. Would it really be so wrong to run from the house now? To leave Phillip behind and never come back?
Before I could explore this thought, there was a sound from downstairs. I moved away from the bedroom door, towards the noi
se. It sounded like running water. A splatter. A steady stream.
I frowned and looked down the stairs into the hallway below. Liquid was dashing against the tiled floor. I struggled to make sense of it. I put my hand on the bannister and eased myself down two steps, toe first, then softly placed heel. There was water in the hallway, but I had no idea where it was coming from. It reflected the overhead lights and shone golden, turning gilt everything it touched, like Midas.
There was a sweet familiar smell that I couldn’t place. It reminded me of cars; of traffic jams; of setting out on holiday at pre-dawn o’clock. I tried to swallow but the scent lay cloying on my tongue. Thick. I couldn’t smell the gas any more, but this felt like an add-on; an escalation of the same. My heart tremored and I clenched until my nails dug into the palms of my hands. My mouth was dry and my throat starting to prickle. I wanted to cough, but didn’t want to make a sound. I still couldn’t be sure where Phillip was or if he was acting alone. I swallowed deeply.
I should have known that Phillip would have more up his sleeve than pizza deliveries, bricks through car windows and childish games of hide-and-seek. It was stupid of me to think that I had the upper hand, just because I’d managed to get Alistair safely away from him. Phillip would make me pay. He always had.
The slick by the front door was spreading, slowly and thickly, finding channels in the tiles and diving down them. I took another step, my feet diagonally across the steps; firm-footed, yet still cautious.
‘What is it?’ asked Ruby.
I started. I’d almost forgotten they were there. It was difficult to believe this was anything but a personal attack; Phillip coming for me, and me alone.
‘Shhhh!’ My finger went to my lips like I was berating a child. ‘Phillip,’ I mouthed.
I took two more steps. I was halfway down the stairs now, exposed, too far from safety, too close to Phillip. The front door was still locked and closed, but there was a dark tube sticking through the letter box. Clear liquid was flowing into a rippling puddle, which jumped and then smoothed out with every glug. He wasn’t in the house any more. He was outside, watching and listening; laughing as we searched for him.
