Finding Grace

by K. L. Slater

  My skin is crawling, every inch of it. My sense of terror is a physical thing, but I have to find a way rise above it.

  He’s just a man, I tell myself. He’s fallible, he makes mistakes. My love and determination to get Grace home safely is strong enough to face him now. It is.

  Movement catches my eye again. A figure – a different one than I saw before – comes into focus and my breath catches in my throat.

  It’s time.

  I stand up, pressing my feet down hard in an effort to ground myself and stop my knees wobbling.

  But the realisation of who is in front of me nearly knocks me off my feet altogether.

  It isn’t Stefan at all… it’s Angela. My old housemate at university.

  I stand, frozen to the spot, as she walks towards me.

  ‘Hello, Lucie,’ she says, her mouth twisting horribly to the side. ‘I’ve waited a long time to see you again.’

  I glance around. Stefan will be here somewhere, I’m certain of it.

  ‘Who are you looking for?’

  ‘My daughter… Grace. You know she’s the reason I’m here.’

  ‘All in good time. If you want your daughter back, you have to pay the price.’

  ‘Which is?’

  Her mouth twists up at one side.

  ‘Let’s just say you’ve a surprise coming.’

  ‘How do you know the police haven’t followed me?’ I say, pressing my hands into my pockets to hide the shaking.

  ‘Because I know about Rhonda’s murder. Stefan told me what you did to her and I was on the stairs that day when he told me you two were having trouble handling the drugs. I’m sure, even years later, the police would be very interested in that.’

  So it had been Angela on the stairs that day, who Stefan had spoken to.

  I don’t tell her I already know he staged the murder, thanks to Barbara Charterhouse. Let her think I’m afraid of it still. I know instinctively that getting Grace back will be like a game of chess. I’ve chosen to do this alone, without my husband, without the police to support… or hinder the process.

  ‘Is Stefan here?’ I feel sick with nerves at facing him again but I know I must. Somehow, he’s recovered his health enough to be involved in this.

  Her sarcastic smile melts away. ‘Sadly not. Stefan’s dead, and you as good as killed him.’

  Dead? My immediate instinct is not to believe her. How can I have anything to do with his death? Unless she’s referring to the car accident the night he attacked me that was nothing to do with me.

  ‘He committed suicide six months ago. They told him he’d be paralysed for good but he was such a fighter. He worked so hard on his exercises, every day for years, and got back some movement in his hands and arms but it wasn’t enough for him. Couldn’t live with being a virtual vegetable any longer, he told me.’ She takes a step towards me and her face contorts in pure malice. ‘He never stopped loving you, you know. God knows why.’

  The relief that it might be true, that finally he might be dead, is tempered by the tangle of stuff that no longer makes sense. If Angela is here, then who has Grace?

  Her eyes look deranged. I have to try and get her to talk.

  ‘So you… and Stefan… did you get together after university?’

  She gave a bitter laugh. ‘We were always together, you stupid cow. You always were blind as a bat, swallowed every lie he ever fed you.’

  ‘You were in a relationship with him?’

  ‘Way before you.’ She nodded, stepping nearer to me. ‘And while he was with you, too. I devoted myself to him. He didn’t always treat me well but we understood each other. He was always truthful with me about the others, put it that way. He told me he’d marry me one day.’

  ‘The others?’

  ‘There were scores of women. That’s how he recruited the people who worked for him, too. But they never meant anything to him. Until you.’

  I could laugh, if I didn’t want to sob with desperation to see my daughter. She seriously believes he cared about me? But I have to keep my cool here.

  ‘I don’t know why he loved you. But he told me he did. Before he died.’

  ‘Loved me! Rape, murder, blackmail and lies – that’s a funny way to show it. Where’s Grace?’

  ‘You’re lying. He never raped you.’ Her eyes look wild. ‘But let’s talk about Stefan, shall we?’

  My eyes endlessly search the surrounding trees as she speaks. I don’t trust a word that comes out of her mouth. She can’t have done this alone. I remember her as a bit of a mouse, scared of her own shadow.

  ‘They thought they’d found him in time after he managed to overdose, thought they could save him,’ Angela says vaguely. ‘I went to see him in hospital. He wanted to talk to me, you see. I thought that at last he would tell me he loved me, but no. He only wanted to say a few words. “Make her pay for how she’s ruined me.” That was his dying wish. It’s the one last thing I can do for him.’

  I feel nothing for that lowlife. So far as I’m concerned, if he’s dead, then the world is a better place. But I stay quiet in the light of her obvious crazy infatuation.

  ‘Where’s Grace?’ No sooner have the words left my lips than a figure dashes through the sparse trees to my left. I turn towards it.

  ‘Wait!’ Angela calls, but I ignore her.

  I rush towards the trees but there is no more movement. Grace isn’t here.

  ‘Did you really think it would be that easy? That I’d bring her here?’ Angela spits out the words. ‘If you want her back, I’m going to need money. A lot of it.’

  ‘If Stefan is dead, why carry this on?’ I’m starting to unravel inside. I can feel it. I need my daughter, I want to see Grace more than I want to breathe.

  ‘To have you suffer, like he suffered at the end. Mission accomplished. But there’s more to come.’ She looks around the park furtively. ‘Walk to the car with me. Any funny business and your daughter will die. One phone call from me is all it will take.’

  A phone call to who, if Stefan is dead?

  ‘I – I’ll follow you in my car,’ I stammer. I really don’t want to be in a vehicle with crazy Angela. I need to stay as much in control as I can.

  ‘No. The deal is, you do everything I say without question. You want to see your daughter? Then you come in my car.’

  She starts to walk towards the park exit and I follow her.

  ‘How far away is she?’ I ask, dreading the answer is Newcastle.

  ‘Not far,’ is all she’ll say.

  Fifty-Nine

  ‘Put this over your eyes.’ She throws a stretchy thick black headband over to me. ‘And put your hood up. Head down.’

  I pull it over my head and position it across my eyes slightly lopsided so I still have a slice of vision. But she pushes the back of my neck so I’m forced to dip my face and all I can see is the gear stick and my left knee.

  ‘Remember what I said. Any funny business and you’ll never see your daughter again.’

  My heart is banging so hard against my chest and I feel hot, light-headed. But I have to keep it together.

  I push away my own self-critical admonishments: I should never have come alone, I should’ve told Blake, the police…

  It’s too late now. I’m here. And I’m going to see my daughter. Nothing matters so long as I can find Grace.

  Angela embarks on a rant as soon as the car begins to move. I try and take it all in but I can only absorb snippets because I’m focusing so hard on not having a full-blown panic attack.

  ‘When Stefan died, his benefits stopped. His savings were swallowed up paying off debts… We… I realised you were the answer. To getting the revenge he longed for and a much-needed injection of cash.’

  She’s clearly unhinged, babbling senselessly half the time to herself, completely incoherent. Then she starts talking about the day Grace went missing.

  ‘I’d been watching you for a few weeks. Watching you and the house. That was my job and I did it well. You ne
ver spotted me, did you?’

  She thumps my arm, hard, when I don’t answer. ‘Did you?’

  ‘No,’ I gasp, thinking about what Jefferey said, that he’d spotted someone skulking around.

  ‘I’ve always hated being ordinary looking. Nobody ever notices me, looks at me appreciatively… I guess I finally found a use for it.’ She laughs. ‘Anyway, I got to know your routines, I even got to speak to Grace at the playground fence twice, told her that mummy was a liar and had hurt someone very badly.’

  The diary entry. It was Angela, not Stefan!

  ‘So when I saw her walking home that day, she knew my face. Just hopped in the car within a second of me pulling up on the side street, happy as anything when I told her I’d call and see Mummy with her, apologise that I’d been wrong about her lying after all.’

  My darling, trusting Grace. No matter how much we tell our kids not to talk to strangers, not to fall for their lies… in reality, if the person is friendly and believable, they’ll trust them every time.

  After about ten minutes, the car makes several sharp turns – I assume we’re in a warren of small streets – and it finally stops.

  We sit in silence for a few seconds and then she pulls off my hood and whips the blindfold off. We’re sitting in a narrow street lined with terraced houses. Looking at the badly maintained front doors and sheets up at lots of the windows, I’m guessing we’re in student territory.

  We get out of the car and she leads me down one of the dingy alleyways that lead to the back yards, spaced out every three or four houses.

  Then we’re in the kitchen of one of them. It stinks in here, rancid food and caked-up dishes piled high in the sink and on the side.

  She pushes me through a door leading to steep stairs covered in patterned, torn carpet without answering.

  ‘And just in case you’re thinking of causing trouble…’ She waves a long, glinting blade in front of me. ‘One plunge from me and it’s in your kidneys,’ she says and jabs me with it as I start to climb in front of her.

  I can hardly breathe, terrified what I’ll find as we move along the landing. She stops at one of the doors and pulls a key out of her pocket.

  ‘Grace! Grace, are you in there?’ I call.

  She bares her teeth and holds the knife up at my throat.

  ‘Shut the fuck up. Don’t speak unless I tell you, or she’s dead meat.’

  I think I hear a very faint whimper from inside the room but I can’t be sure. For all her bluster, I see her hands are shaking so much, it takes three attempts before she can successfully insert the key properly into the roughly hewn lock.

  The key turns and she pushes open the door.

  The room is dim. The heavy, lined curtains are closed and my nose wrinkles at the smell in here.

  She reaches in front of me and snaps on the light, before rushing over to a tangled bundle of clothes and blankets that moves slightly on the floor.

  ‘Grace?’ I whisper, almost too scared to hope against hope it’s her.

  A small hand weaves up out of the pile and as I dash forward, my daughter’s fearful, tear-stained face appears.

  ‘Stay where you are!’ Angela brandishes the knife close to Grace.

  My beautiful girl looks thin and pale. She is dressed exactly as she was when she left home three days ago.

  ‘It’s OK, baby, I’m here now. It’s over.’

  Except it looks far from over when someone hisses words into my ear from behind.

  ‘Hello, Lucinda. Long time, no see.’

  Breath leaves my body as if someone punched it out of my lungs.

  The last time I saw this woman, she lay, naked and comatose, on Stefan’s bed, having the life apparently smothered out of her. Now, here she is, standing in front of me and very much alive.

  Rhonda is heavier now. Her hair is dark and the extra weight around her face makes me shiver because she looks uncannily like Stefan himself.

  ‘Why?’ I whisper. ‘Why did you go along with his sick murder plan… why take my daughter?’

  She stares at me with hollow eyes, but stays silent.

  ‘You loved him,’ I say. ‘You were always watching us. I felt your jealousy.’

  ‘I still do love him,’ she says coldly. ‘You don’t just stop loving someone because they’re dead.’

  I glance at Grace. Her colour, her vague expression… her blood sugar is low, I can see just by looking.

  ‘My daughter needs medical attention, please let me—’

  ‘The quicker we get this done, the better,’ Rhonda snaps.

  ‘Just tell me what you want. Money? How much?’

  ‘If only it were that simple.’ Rhonda smiles over at Grace.

  Angela’s chest is rising and falling too fast. The knife shines in the fluorescent light, reflecting in her mad stare. I have to get Grace out of here.

  ‘Why? Why take my daughter… after all this time?’ I say anything, to play for time.

  Rhonda shakes her head incredulously. ‘Angela told me you were dumb, but I thought even you’d have worked it out.’

  Nothing is making sense. I just want to get Grace and go home. I feel sick and dizzy with the horrible feeling that they don’t intend letting us go. I wish I hadn’t come here alone, I wish…

  ‘I loved Stefan because he is my brother.’ Her voice shakes. ‘Was my brother, until you took his will to live.’

  ‘What?’ My mouth is so dry I have to force out the words. ‘He told me his sister died… she had leukaemia.’

  ‘He told you a lot of other things you just blindly believed too, Lucinda,’ Angela remarks.

  She’s even closer to Grace now, pressing the knife up close to her throat. My daughter is not crying, not showing any recognition of the fact I’m even here. She’s very close to collapsing.

  ‘Ever lost anyone you love so much it feels like a piece of you has been torn away?’ Angela taunts me.

  ‘No!’ I jerk forward but Rhonda holds me back. I try to shrug her off but her grip is firm.

  ‘Angela will do it, she will stab her,’ Rhonda whispers in my ear. ‘Stay calm or you’ll get your daughter killed.’

  Stay calm? My legs feel like melting wax, as if they’ll not hold me up much longer and a bubble of panic is rising fast in my chest.

  ‘What do you want?’ I shriek.

  ‘A hundred grand. In cash. That’s what we want,’ Rhonda says slowly. ‘That’s what Angela wants, anyway. But me… I want something different.’

  ‘Anything,’ I whisper. ‘Anything! I just want my baby back.’

  ‘Sweet. But you see, you need to suffer, too. Suffer like I’ve suffered all these years. You need to experience the empty wasteland of utter loss, Lucinda.’

  Rhonda applies pressure to the knife and Grace cries out in pain.

  ‘For God’s sake!’

  I try to leap forward but Rhonda pulls me back and I feel the ultra-sharp point of a knife pierce through my thin cotton top and into my skin. I cry out, stop struggling.

  A wave of hopelessness engulfs me. I feel like I’m drowning, I can’t keep my head above water.

  I’m going down… and then I remember. I remember the one thing that nearly destroyed me, can save us both.

  ‘You can’t hurt Grace,’ I whisper. ‘She’s Stefan’s daughter. She’s your flesh and blood, Rhonda.’

  I feel her freeze at my back and Angela looks like someone hit her with a stun gun.

  ‘She’s lying!’ Angela yells and Grace screams as the knife blade bites into her again.

  ‘I’m telling the truth.’ I half turn so I can see Rhonda and she doesn’t force my face away. ‘Stefan came to Nottingham and found me again, ten years ago. He raped me.’ I’m speaking so fast I’m not sure I’m making any sense. ‘I found out I was pregnant but I never told him. I thought he was finished, after the car accident… I… I… I just wanted to get on with my life. I thought he’d go to the police about your supposed death, so I just tried to put it behind me.’ />
  I want to say how much I hated him. How I would never give him the satisfaction of knowing he had a daughter… but now is hardly the time.

  Rhonda pulls the knife away and steps forward in front of me, staring into Grace’s vacant face.

  I begin to babble desperately. ‘See her nose, the fullness of her top lip? Tell me that’s not your brother! He’s still alive, Rhonda… through Grace.’

  She believes it. I can see a beam of new hope shining through the dull misery of her face.

  ‘You’re her auntie, Rhonda,’ I sob. ‘You have to protect her. Let me take her home.’

  ‘Don’t fall for it!’ Angela growls. ‘She’s lying! Stefan would’ve known if he’d got a kid, he would’ve—’

  ‘You were different to the others in his eyes,’ Rhonda says softly. ‘I don’t know why, but that’s why I hated you so much.’

  ‘She was no different,’ Angela snaps, shoving at the knife as Grace screams out again. ‘She was always just another one of his tarts. It’s all lies, you silly bitch!’

  ‘Get her away from my daughter!’ I scream at Rhonda, suddenly full of fury. ‘She’s Stefan’s child!’

  ‘Don’t get any closer,’ Rhonda warns Angela.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Angela shrieks. ‘Don’t believe her lies… think of the money.’

  ‘The last time I saw you, I thought Stefan had killed you,’ I whisper. ‘You don’t have to do this, Rhonda. It’s not too late to make a fresh start.’

  Her eyes brim with tears and her expression is wretched.

  ‘I wish I had died that day.’

  Grace is quiet and terrified. I’m desperate to hold her, to check she’s OK.

  ‘Shut up, you stupid bitch,’ Angela spits and jabs the knife hard into Grace’s shoulder. My daughter screams and I dash forward… but Rhonda gets there before me.

  I watch in horror as she snatches the knife and plunges it into Angela’s neck.

  I rush to Grace and she buries her face in my chest as I turn to protect her from the gruesome scene before us.

  Suddenly, I lose my balance as something hard thuds into me from behind.

  ‘Jeffery!’ I yelp, rigid with shock.