I Will Make You Pay

by Driscoll, Teresa

  He leans forward and seems to examine my face. ‘You still not getting it?’ Again there is a low laugh. ‘I am simply going to leave you here, Alice. I’m going to text the guard to confirm I’m out. And they are going to blow this place up. Boom. With you in it.’

  Suddenly my heart is thumping even harder. The demolition. Oh dear Lord.

  ‘After all, it’s what you wanted, Alice, isn’t it? This place gone.’

  And now, all of a sudden, I start to see it. I have no idea why he’s doing this. I have no idea how this version of Tom even exists. This narrative about his grandmother. This background so far from the story he told me. But I do understand where I am now. Maple Field House. I also know what is going to happen.

  There is a pause in which he just stares at me as if trying to read my reaction. But the bigger shock for me is that my fear does not grow. I picture what is going to happen and with that picture comes the shock of relief that it is going to be quick. Somehow, blackly and bizarrely, this helps. Yes. Knowing at last – after all these weeks – what I am dealing with.

  There is a long silence, and in the hole of stillness, my next thoughts are another complete surprise to me. There is this jolt. A chemical surge. Almost like euphoria. Like a cloud lifting.

  If he is here, seeing this through, he cannot be with my mother; he cannot hurt my mother. That is not what this is about. It’s about me, not her.

  The realisation that it is just about me is both terrifying and strangely reassuring. So that the next emotion is the final and the biggest shock. Relief.

  Yes. Relief that he is not going to hurt my mother.

  I feel tears welling in my eyes because I realise suddenly that I love her so much more than I care about myself.

  I am afraid – yes. But my fear is suddenly less significant. Because it matters so much more to me that she is OK. That he is not going to hurt her.

  I feel something I never thought I would feel. Especially not here. Like this.

  I feel brave.

  Yes. I am actually trembling with the shock of discovering that I am not a coward after all.

  This man, this twisted version of Tom, cannot do any more to me. Because he does not understand the relief I feel. He doesn’t understand love.

  I picture my mother with her nurse and her cosy room. White roses on the table and Wuthering Heights on the shelf.

  I feel strangely jubilant now. Resigned. Relieved. Nothing matters now. My mother is safe. And so I start kicking with my foot against the table in front of me to make a noise. Maybe someone will hear. I don’t know. I don’t care. It doesn’t actually matter anymore.

  ‘You need to stop that, Alice.’

  I kick some more, harder and louder. He moves to pull the table away from me but I twist to reach to the left to kick the sideboard instead.

  ‘Stop that, Alice. I’m warning you.’

  I kick louder and louder until he roars like a wounded animal. He leaps forward and puts his hands around my throat but still I kick.

  His grasp around my neck is tighter but I don’t care. My mother is safe. My mother is safe. I don’t care about him.

  Kick, kick, kick.

  And then suddenly there is this huge crashing noise. For a moment I fear it is one of the explosions being triggered too early. I feel faint from the struggle to breathe. My neck is so very sore and I want it to be over.

  I manage to move my head to the right. Is it the explosion? Is it all happening early? But there is no dust. No. It is not the demolition. It’s the door. Something is smashing – bang, bang, bang – against the door. Three huge blows until the wood is finally splintered.

  I am fading now. It feels like falling. Blackness on the periphery of my vision. I can’t see. I can’t breathe. I am falling, falling, and when I manage to open my eyes again, I still can’t take it in.

  Somehow, Matthew is in the room now. Yes – it’s Matthew with a fire extinguisher in his hand. He swings it to hit Tom in the back.

  The hands around my neck are released but I feel giddy. Trying to get enough oxygen. Falling still.

  Through a haze I watch them fighting. I see Tom strike Matthew hard and then pull away. Tom is trying to open the window in the kitchen. I see him stepping up on the sink. I think he is going to jump and I think: Good. Jump.

  But Matthew pulls him back down. There is more struggling. They are on the floor. The sound of blows. Flesh hitting flesh. Groaning. And finally, through the haze and the dimness, I hear Matthew talking to me. He has Tom pinned to the floor, over by the kitchen units now.

  ‘Alice. You need to try to breathe slowly for me. Can you do that, Alice?’

  I can hear sirens. Still I am falling. Fading. Through the gag across my mouth, I call out for her. For my mother . . .

  ‘The police are here. It’s going to be all right, Alice. You need to breathe slowly and hang in there, Alice.’

  Not his voice now. My mother’s hand stroking my hair. Her voice in my ear.

  It’s going to be all right, darling.

  EPILOGUE

  ALICE

  It is one of those classic October days – a mostly clear sky but surprisingly cold, with a strong breeze that sends the few clouds scurrying across the blue as if late for an appointment. I watch them in their billowy haste as laughter ripples through the small crowd.

  The mayor is still speaking; he must have told a joke but I am no longer listening. I am mesmerised by the sunlight catching his chain and also the steel of the scissors in his hand, sending starbursts of gold patterning across the coats of the children, huddled near the front and clearly eager to be allowed to play.

  There is a yellow ribbon waiting for those scissors. It is tied in an ostentatious bow across the entrance to the new park – the final phase of the redevelopment project for the former residents of Maple Field House.

  There is applause, and at last the ribbon is cut and the children are ushered through the entrance by smiling parents. I watch the photographer from the paper that was once mine calling for smiles and posing little groups at each piece of new equipment. A double slide set on a tasteful bed of bark clippings. Little wooden animals on huge springs with handles shaped as ears. All carved in muted shades. Yes. All so beautifully designed, and a million miles from the rising damp and the boarded-up shops of Maple Field House.

  And now, as the crowd begins to scatter, I see Matthew approaching and he gives me a small wave. Ah. He said he might come along but I did wonder. He has his daughter with him. She is quite lovely – golden ringlets to her shoulders. She is pointing, eager to try the slide, but Matthew is telling the photographer: ‘No pictures. Not my daughter. Sorry.’

  I move towards them. ‘You came.’

  ‘I wanted to see how it turned out. And to see you too, Alice. How are you doing?’

  I shrug. ‘Better.’

  ‘Good.’

  We watch his daughter negotiate the steps to the smaller of the slides. Matthew moves closer, saying, ‘Sorry, Alice. Excuse me.’ He is all at once distracted and stands protectively behind the wooden ladder, then rushes around to the front to greet her at the bottom of the shiny steel. His daughter repeats the cycle three times and then agrees to try the swing where it is a little easier for us to talk.

  ‘So are you still staying locally, Alice?’

  ‘Some of the time. I’ve been travelling a bit. With my sister and her children.’

  ‘Good. Yes. I remember you saying.’

  ‘How’s Melanie, by the way? Did you give her my best?’

  ‘I did. In fact – here.’ He takes his phone from his pocket and skims through several pages before holding the screen out to me. The picture is a close-up – Melanie laughing with a smiling, chubby-faced baby on her knee.

  ‘Oh wow. He looks gorgeous. Big.’ I laugh. ‘So how is Melanie coping?’

  ‘She’s exhausted, permanently covered in sick. And very, very happy.’

  ‘I’m so pleased.’

  We pause as
he puts the phone away and pushes the swing higher still.

  ‘You know, I’ve never really thanked you, Matthew. I mean – not properly. I was a bit of state through the court case.’ It’s been a long haul – the legal process moving so slowly. Matthew turns away from me, his gaze fixed on the swing.

  I watch him, guessing what he’s thinking. At first, he wouldn’t even let Leanne settle his bill. He blamed himself for not seeing through Tom. But it was no one’s fault. Even the judge said that.

  An unlucky cycle of trust. Matthew trusted in DI Sanders’ checks on Tom. But she’d delegated the background checks on Tom to a DS. He said he’d done a thorough job but in truth cut corners; he made the mistake of allowing Tom’s lawyer colleagues to vouch for him. A single phone call to the private school Tom never attended would have rumbled him.

  ‘It wasn’t your fault and it wasn’t Melanie Sanders’ fault either. He was very clever,’ I say. ‘He fooled everyone, Matthew. Even the judge commented on that in his summing up.’ I remember the words. You went to extraordinary lengths to reinvent yourself and to weave a particularly wicked web of lies.

  Tom had been in the drama society at university, we learned, and had taken voice coaching to achieve a middle England tone. None of his legal pals rumbled him.

  ‘Not everyone would have come in to that building after me. I am grateful, Matthew.’

  He keeps pushing the swing and then at last reaches between beats to gently touch my arm. ‘No need for thanks, Alice.’

  The gesture – touching my arm – makes tears prick the back of my eyes and so I say nothing more. Just nod.

  I see a counsellor still – once a fortnight, struggling to trust my judgement. Taken in by Alex then Tom. Leanne and my counsellor say it’s because I’m a good person and see the best in people. They say the self-doubt will pass.

  I also have this terrible phobia now about colds. Anything blocking my nose. I have become a bit obsessive about it – every night using sprays to try to keep my nose as clear as possible.

  Breathe, two, three. Breathe, two, three.

  Tom is serving life now but the trial was terrible. He pleaded not guilty to everything and simply refused to answer any questions at all. As if his silence could somehow defeat us.

  At first we could only surmise Tom’s motive. He refused in all police interviews to fully explain himself. His grandmother did indeed kill herself, just as he told me in the flat, but initially no one understood why. The grandmother had some of my cuttings in a file but that’s all anyone knew. The only link to me. Her inquest wasn’t covered by the paper as we were short of staff that day. But the inquest records were checked and the motive for the grandmother’s suicide was never clear.

  Then a search of Tom’s home found a letter and the gran’s diary, which finally explained it all. Tom’s grandmother apparently loved her flat and desperately wanted to stay there. It sent a shiver right through me when I found that out. We honestly had no idea that anyone opposed the demolition campaign. I knocked on so many doors to get the full picture but don’t remember ever speaking to her. The campaigners were certainly never aware of any opposition.

  The diary suggests only Tom knew his gran’s true feelings. And the timing confirms Tom targeted me quite deliberately. We started dating just a few weeks after his gran’s inquest. I go cold when I think of it. Those early dates. Me in his flat. Me in his bed. Unaware of the mask. All that hatred . . .

  He used accomplices, the police discovered. Mostly young criminals he met through his early years as a duty lawyer. Turns out he paid someone to spray that water in my face. To buy the plant for my mother. To call that morning at his flat, pretending to be a courier. And he paid off the security guards so he could drag me into the building. CCTV shows a large diving bag – a huge zip-up affair on wheels. I feel faint just thinking about it. I could have died in that bag.

  And then came the even bigger shock that stalking was not the only charge. When Tom’s DNA was taken, it matched evidence at the scene of an unsolved murder. Some loner who lived next door to his gran – bludgeoned in an alley a few years back.

  We have no idea why.

  Just as we still don’t know why Wednesdays. Why did he have a thing about Wednesday? The police asked over and over. But he refused to say.

  The breeze is suddenly stronger, blowing my hair across my face. I move a strand and then find myself staring at my right hand.

  Now there’s this shudder right through me as I picture it exactly. Her hand in mine . . .

  I was called to London just three days after Tom attacked me. We stayed by Mum’s bed – Leanne on a little camp bed on the left and me on the right. I held one hand and she held the other.

  They had to give Mum a lot of drugs to keep her comfortable and so she slipped into a coma. I lay on my little bed on the floor, reaching up to hold her hand. All night I watched her chest rise and fall and I was counting and chanting in my head. Breathe, one, two. Breathe, one, two.

  When the chest was finally still, I was utterly bereft. I thought I would be relieved for her but I wasn’t. I made so much noise that people came running.

  ‘You have to calm down, darling.’ Leanne was distraught to see me like that. ‘Please, Alice. You have to calm down.’

  I put my hand in my pocket now and look up to see Matthew signalling with his head that I should look behind me.

  Goodness. Jack.

  Matthew lifts his daughter from the swing and says his goodbyes. They are meeting Sally, his wife, for lunch. Have to hurry.

  I watch them leave, Amelie on her father’s hip, as Jack moves over, putting his notebook and pen in his pocket.

  ‘So you’re covering this?’

  ‘Yeah. Got everything I need. Nice pictures.’ He glances at the park, a dozen children still enjoying the new equipment, some of the parents sitting on the smart new benches.

  ‘It’s nice that there’s plenty of seating,’ I say.

  ‘Yes. They transferred some plaques from those rickety benches in the centre of the grass at the old place. Nice touch. Dedicated to some of the first residents, apparently.’

  I just nod. I didn’t know that. I am taking in how well Jack looks. It’s an odd sensation. He looks so familiar and yet it feels strange to be in the same space as him again. I get this a lot – a sense of not quite fitting in the world as I should. Some days it feels as if I drift through scenes, watching them rather than taking part. The counsellor says it is a phase of adjustment and will pass.

  ‘Thank you for all your texts, Jack. I’m sorry I don’t always reply. I’ve been travelling a bit.’

  ‘That’s OK. I saw your piece, by the way, in the Sunday Herald. The exposé on that stalker charity. The alarm scam. Really good work, Alice.’

  ‘Thank you. It was nice to have something to do. Take my mind off the trial.’

  ‘Right. Good. Yes, of course. So – have you been offered a contract off the back of that? In London, I mean?’

  ‘No, no. Not sure journalism is right for me anymore, actually.’ I am very aware that Jack must know, as everyone knows now, about my name change. About Alex and what happened in my past. It all came out in the media coverage of Tom’s case. Not quite sure how, but it doesn’t matter now.

  ‘Really? So what are your plans then? Are you still local?’ He sounds wary. Maybe disappointed. I can’t tell.

  ‘I’m using Leanne’s place in Dorset at the moment.’

  ‘Ah. Slumming it, then?’

  I laugh. He smiles.

  ‘I’m doing some comms work with a charity now. A proper charity, supporting research into lung disease.’

  ‘Oh, right.’

  ‘Want to put something back for a bit. While I work out what to do long-term.’

  He just nods.

  Once again the wind whips up suddenly and I have to take my hands out of my pockets again to tuck my hair into the back of my coat collar.

  ‘Look, Alice, you must absolutely say if this is
too soon. Or inappropriate. Or a bad idea.’

  I clench my right hand so that the nails are just digging into the palm; I am thinking once again of how terribly I behaved with Jack at that Italian restaurant all that time ago. I think of him losing his wife. Letting go of her hand as I had to let go of my mother’s. You need to calm down, Alice. Please.

  What was I thinking? How crass of me. I want to interrupt him to say sorry again; that I understand a little better now.

  But he’s blushing. ‘Look, if it’s too soon you must say, but I was wondering if we could meet up. Try dinner again?’

  I am a little shaken now and stare into his face. ‘Dinner?’

  Surprised – yes. So that I don’t know quite what to say. I look down at my left hand. It looks pale in the cold. Jack’s right hand is alongside mine. Pinker.

  ‘As friends, you mean?’ I desperately want him to know that I’m sorry I upset him that last time. That I truly understand a little better now.

  ‘Well, no. Actually.’ The flush on his neck deepens so that you can see the red emerge just above his tartan scarf, creeping upwards towards his chin. ‘I meant like a date, actually. Like I say – if it’s too soon, you must absolutely say, Alice.’ He is talking much too quickly. Gabbling almost. ‘I bolted the last time because I wasn’t ready. I mean – I still miss my wife, Alice. I’m not going to lie. But the thing is, I really care about you very much. And I’d really like to see if—’

  I move my hand just a fraction and he clasps it suddenly. Tight. His flesh so much warmer than mine.

  ‘Sorry. Cold hands . . .’ I say.

  ‘Warm heart. Is that a yes, Alice?’

  I just nod and look down at our two hands, joined.

  Grief, I learn, is the strangest thing. Sometimes I am convinced that I see her. My mother. I conjure up her ghost and I fancy that she turns to wave at me from across the street. And sometimes in the quiet and the stillness of the night, I am certain that I hear her voice.

  Jack is staring at me and I am listening hard because deep inside me I fancy that I hear her voice right this minute. A whisper like a shell held up tight, tight to my ear.