I Choose You

by Gayle Curtis

  The front doorbell rang, and Elise got up from the table, ignoring the question.

  ‘Do you want me to get that?’ DC Chilvers asked.

  ‘I’m quite capable of answering the door, Detective. My daughter has been murdered, I haven’t had my legs cut off.’

  Elise was expecting to hear Nathaniel or her father on the intercom but it was someone totally unexpected.

  ‘Elise, please let me in. It’s your mother.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  NOW

  It was the last day of Ray’s trial and Elise was nowhere to be seen – she was missing, along with the Patons’ son Louis. A police search had been set up and it was breaking news on two major news channels. Elise knew they’d be even more hated than they were before. No one would understand what had happened in the house with Mark Paton. Instead of going where the media speculated, which was her mother’s place in Norway, Elise went straight to the house where she had lived with her mother a few miles away. It was where Ingrid had survived her fate and taken a new path, one that didn’t involve her daughter. Elise had spent years believing her mother might have been a victim of the Suicide Watcher, and it had all been an excuse, a way of covering up what had really happened. Ingrid simply hadn’t wanted Elise, and Ray couldn’t accept that. Elise had never told her father about the many times Ingrid had told her she would be better off without her, that she was an awful mother, or the time just before she’d faked her suicide when she’d taken a shot at the bathroom mirror while she stared straight at Elise’s reflection.

  At least one day a week, Elise remembered, Ingrid would spend the morning washing, curling and styling her hair. She had beautiful, long blonde hair that hung down her back like an elongated bird’s wing. It was heavy and thick, curled at the ends where her rollers had kinked it. Whilst her hair was setting, she would work on her make-up and nails, and Elise would sit and watch her, mesmerised.

  Elise would always ask her mother where they were going, and she always replied with the same answer. A special place, just for me and you. Ingrid would bathe her, pay more attention to Elise’s hair and lay a dress out on her bed. It was as though they were dressing each week for an occasion, but they always went to the same place.

  There was another ritual before they left the house, and Elise would observe this routine as she followed Ingrid around. Her mother would run her hand along the kitchen table, the backs of the chairs, straighten the post she’d collected from the doormat and laid on the hall table, wipe the already sparkling surfaces for the fifth time. Then, upstairs, Elise would trundle behind her, awkward in her uncharacteristic clothing, and she would watch her mother straighten the bedclothes and the toilet roll, and make sure the shower curtain was symmetrical within its folds. Ingrid would linger, hover in each room much longer than when they went out for a walk or to the shops. Elise loved these days, they were such a treat for her – her mother was so present in her company, so focused on the two of them. But there was an underlying finality that Elise didn’t identify until she was an adult. She now believed her mother was preparing to kill herself on these occasions, and it wasn’t lost on Elise that she was probably part of these plans, but Ingrid always changed her mind.

  Ingrid would hold Elise’s hand tighter than normal as they would walk, and she’d tell her stories of when she was little, her life in Norway, somewhere Elise had never been.

  They always went to the same place: a large hall that looked like a castle. They would pay to go in and make their way along the roped path, up the stone spiral staircase, the wind whistling down its cylindrical shape – even in the summer it was cold.

  At the top, Ingrid and Elise would stand on the lead-lined roof and stare out across the landscape. If she was feeling brave, Elise would look over the turret wall on to the courtyard below, or run to the other side and stare down at the moat.

  Not many people stayed up there for long; it was very high and usually quite windy. When there was no one up there and they were alone, her mother would lean forward, spreading her arms out like an eagle as she stared out across the vast landscape, her beautiful hair blowing in the breeze. She would hold Elise up in her arms, telling her to look straight ahead and not down.

  For whatever reason, only known to herself, Ingrid decided it wasn’t going to be the place they would die. Elise now knew that’s what the ritual was about. They were in their Sunday best ready for their last journey once each week, and for some reason that last journey would be postponed, and they would always visit one of Ingrid’s friends instead and return home, destined to repeat the ritual the following week, her mother a little more sombre than when they’d first set out.

  Their old house was boarded up; Elise hadn’t been there for many years and she guessed Ray had been silently dealing with its upkeep. It was her house, Ray had transferred the deeds, but Elise couldn’t bring herself to sell it.

  The sweep of the road made the houses look like a hand fan; they were duplicates, but the one they had lived in stood out from the rest, and not just because of its untidy and unkempt appearance.

  Staring at the house, Elise began to wonder if the neighbours had been told the same story her father had spun her, or if he and Ingrid had just fled without saying a word.

  Elise used to walk past on her way home from school, and sometimes she’d go in. Her desperate need to sit outside that bathroom door would drench her in a heavy grief, making her nauseous. Elise wanted to re-enact those last moments with Ingrid; she’d kid herself into thinking her mother would reappear and she’d hear her whispering through the bathroom door again.

  Elise had found her old door key, which she had kept all these years, the hardness of it in her hand now reminding her of the days she used to return here, filled with a nervous excitement that Ingrid might be there, having momentarily blocked out the memory of her death.

  Entering the house now, Elise found all the curtains partly drawn, casting shadows across the walls and floor, as though they were respecting the dead. Elise looked down at Louis, who had been very quiet for the entire walk there, thumb barely in his mouth.

  ‘You okay, little man?’

  Louis nodded but didn’t speak. Elise wasn’t surprised; she had no idea what he’d witnessed, on top of the horror that had occurred in her own home.

  Elise squeezed her eyes shut when she reached the top of the stairs, breathing in the scent of the woman who for so many years had lived in her head – her voice, her skin, her hair, her laughter. Ingrid.

  Louis temporarily removed his thumb and spoke. ‘I don’t like it here.’

  ‘Neither do I. Let’s go outside.’ Elise reached for Louis and carried him downstairs.

  The same sliding doors were still in situ in the lounge at the back of the house. The latch had always been faulty when Elise was a child, and if she pulled the handle hard enough the door would slide open. It was always handy when she’d forgotten her door key while Ingrid was at work.

  Elise sat on the low brick wall that surrounded the patio and stared up at the windows. The bathroom still contained the opaque glass with a leafy pattern, the same one from when they lived there. The entire place was falling apart; she hadn’t realised the state of the building. It reminded her of the old psychiatric hospital where Ingrid had occasionally worked, where she’d first met Ray. The hospital was an old, stately pile with turrets, surrounded by walled gardens. Elise had loved to spot it in the distance through the trees whenever her parents drove along the main road. The place had begun to crumble and there were no funds to maintain it. Eventually it was condemned, all the patients moved to other facilities, and it was bulldozed – a cricket pitch built in its place. Elise had cried that day, at the lost memories the building must have carried.

  Sitting outside, the sound of the gunshot still cracked around the back of Elise’s mind, ricocheting like a ball in a squash court. It was similar to the start of a panic attack, and however much she tried to stop it, the sound would still grip
her by the arms and shake her violently. When Ida was first born, Nathaniel had suggested moving to the countryside for some peace and quiet but there had been too many random noises tearing through Elise’s head. The peace was interrupted with a bullet-sprayed atmosphere, crow scarers banging in the distance, and they quickly moved back to the city. To the constant noise which muffled their own and allowed them the peace Elise required within its never-ending hum.

  Louis slowly stood up from where he had been sitting on the patio wall and crouched down in the grass, where he’d spotted something shiny. He picked it up and handed it to Elise, a glimmer of a smile on his face. It was a marble; the largest one in the set she’d played with. Looking at the swirl of colour running through it, that had always fascinated her as a child, brought back all sorts of memories.

  Elise remembered how Ingrid had talked to her through the bathroom door, her voice followed by the clunk of the marbles, bouncing down the stairs to the hallway below. Her mother told her it would be over soon and not to get upset. Don’t cry sweetheart; her voice had been faint and alien to Elise. It felt like forever, but of course it wasn’t. ‘Nothing lasts forever’ was something Ingrid often said. Elise wondered now, in light of the fact it had all been a lie, how two people could be so cruel.

  Elise had been determined to be a good parent, so unlike her own, and she’d fought against her conditioning for years until, one day, it had drifted around her ankles like mist that eventually crept up over her body, up to her nostrils, her mouth, like a hand suffocating her, depriving her of oxygen. Elise grappled with it, this ghostly murderer threatening to kill her, until she and it settled in a gripping embrace where she was supposed to take her last breath. A stillness descended, as it does around prey and its predator, but instead of drowning, Elise’s head pierced the surface and a rush of air filled her lungs. She was swimming again. From that point on, death was not her enemy, but a very dear friend.

  Later that day, Elise took Louis to the police station and handed herself in. She knew it was the right thing to do. Seeing the old house, realising she was turning into her parents, had made her see she needed to start at the beginning and embark on the long process of changing her life.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  We had a connection, my quixotic paramour and me. And when I say that, I don’t mean in the transparent, weak sense that deniers understand.

  When I wasn’t in her presence, I could feel her. I only had to stand still for a few moments and missing her threatened to suffocate me, and I could feel her heart beating along with mine, hear her thoughts, feel her emotions. I didn’t need to be with her physically to know her presence was there. I would hear her silky, gentle whisper – ‘I miss you’ – and know she was standing outside, as I was, hand to her chest, releasing the ache for me that I had for her.

  Talking about everything has made me think of her more than I have for many years. It has unsettled me, filled my head with her presence, something I had worked hard to suppress but I am now questioning why. Why would I force away an emotion that I should have just accepted? We agreed to desire one another forever, whatever happened, because it’s an essential part of life. It makes you feel alive. The deniers desire something and then immediately focus on how they are going to make it happen, and then all too quickly satiate that need. To yearn for something and not have it is a wonderful experience. The desire becomes stronger and almost sickeningly unbearable, and it fills your every thought. I would spend hours thinking of her, about her, a deliciously beautiful experience. Wanting her but not always being able to have her. But I knew, as happens with most of my lovers, as different as she was, that we would become too familiar with one another and the inevitable would occur; we would grow bored of each other. I used to try to convince myself it wouldn’t be like that, as though I had a separate voice in my mind pushing me to fulfil my needs. A bloody denier had invaded my head, that’s what it felt like. But I kept a hold of the mystery, languished in the desire when I couldn’t be with her, torturing myself in the most exciting way by allowing time to lapse between us, and the joy in her face when she saw me was even more worth it.

  It wasn’t long after that that I met my next volunteer. Colin had lived with his mother all his life until she died recently. He’d never been married, and his father had left when he was a small boy. It was all so evident, and no surprise to me when he told me all of this. He talked freely, openly, as though he was nervous, and I discovered it was his first time on a long journey without the company of his mother, or anyone else for that matter.

  It always amazed me how people, during a chat on the train, will give away so many facts about themselves. It never took me long to find out where they lived, and I would follow and watch them for a few days, sometimes weeks. I knew Colin was going to be on the train the same time the following week, so I made sure I was there to meet him. During that second encounter, he gave me his address and an invitation to visit for a cup of tea.

  Colin was going to die, I knew that immediately. There was no way he was going to save himself – he just didn’t have it in him, everything was an effort. Life was an effort for Colin. When I visited, and he presented me with a report about himself, which was to be his obituary, he said it had made him feel more positive about his life. That said, he still didn’t work out the game. The only joy for me was the brief brush with Death that was always apparent.

  Surprisingly, when I went to Colin’s funeral, apart from his mother’s friends of course, there was a woman there who had travelled from France to pay her respects. Sabine had been his penpal since they were teenagers at school. Even though she had never met him, they had been writing to one another three or four times a month. She painted a very different picture of Colin. In her mind, he was a very successful businessman who was married with two children. Talking to her at length I discovered he had created a monumental fantasy about himself, had lived a different life in Sabine’s mind, through her eyes. It was sad and poignant that Colin had felt he couldn’t achieve all these things in reality. Sabine had been his lifelong love via letter, making her promises he could never keep over the years. Now? Sabine was free. She was grieving but already making plans she’d kept on hold for so many years while she waited for Colin, a man who didn’t exist.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  THEN

  You can’t go anywhere when you’re in the media spotlight, and Elise knew this only too well, having experienced it several times throughout her life. Ray had caused a few controversial stirs with the social experiments he’d been involved with and because he’d been on a popular chat show. The press was never far behind, waiting for one of the country’s best-known psychiatrists to make a mistake or cause another scandal, and Elise had got used to dodging them.

  Walking at night was a way to release the pressures the days brought her; especially now, with everything that was going on, Elise regularly wandered the streets in the small hours. It was an activity Nathaniel didn’t approve of – he thought it was dangerous – but he was asleep during the many times she left the apartment.

  In the summer months, she liked to walk barefoot, to feel the smooth, cool concrete beneath her feet. Summer was her favourite time of year because it was so easy for her to walk straight out the door – there was no need to find boots and a coat. After learning that her father had been charged with several counts of murder, including her own daughter, she needed this walk more than ever – her head felt like it was going to crack open. Nathaniel was still in custody; another family liaison officer, Greg someone – she couldn’t remember his name – had arrived at the house; and her mother, Ingrid, was insistent they meet and talk, after Elise had slammed the door in her face when she’d made an unexpected appearance. In Elise’s opinion, she’d survived this long without her, so why did she need her now? And on top of that, she was so very, very angry at her parents for the lies they’d told. Elise had immediately alerted DC Chilvers to Ingrid’s presence outside their apartment, and sh
e’d been arrested and taken into custody for questioning about trafficking offences. Elise was going to explode, and she needed some freedom.

  It was harder to walk freely now with journalists camped outside the door and family liaison officers who watched your every move. Elise hadn’t clicked with DC Chilvers, and thought she looked like she’d just changed careers from army officer to police sergeant, and lived alone in a starchy, minimalistic terraced house. Elise had neither the energy nor the inclination to make her feel welcome. In fact, she’d tried ignoring her in the hopes she’d go away. So, without telling anyone, Elise crept out of the apartment, making her way out of the fire exit at the back and down to the communal garden, finding relief in the cold damp grass beneath her feet, and then began to make her way to the park.

  ‘Where are you going? It’s almost midnight.’ DC Chilvers fell into step next to Elise, startling her.

  ‘I need to walk, clear my head. Why don’t you go home for the night?’

  ‘Not tonight. I have to stay here.’ DC Chilvers was dressed in some sort of sports gear, as if she were about to go for a run. ‘Mind if I walk with you?’

  ‘Whatever you like.’ Elise pulled up her hood and began walking her usual route through the park. Ignoring her abrasive manner, DC Chilvers kept pace beside her, shivering as she zipped up her fleece.

  ‘How come you have to stay at ours?’ Elise focused on the concrete ahead of her.

  ‘When things get a little fractious during an investigation, we always stay overnight, make sure everything’s okay, especially now Ingrid has turned up. It’s a very volatile situation. That’s why Greg is there as well. You’ve all had a lot of news to take in over the last few days.’

  ‘In other words, we’re all being observed.’

  ‘Partly, but we’re here for your safety too and to offer support.’

  Elise stopped walking. ‘I don’t need protecting from my own family.’