by Adam Croft
‘None of it was your fault, Tom. Erin’s death wasn’t your fault. Jess leaving you was her choice. You weren’t compatible. She didn’t know you. Not like I know you.’
‘You’re the only one who has,’ he says, his voice hoarse. ‘You’re the only one who knows the truth now.’
‘I know. And that means so much to me, Tom.’
‘You must think I’m crazy,’ Tom says, running his finger along the blade of the knife, the metal glinting occasionally as it catches the light of the moon.
‘No, not at all,’ I say. ‘Don’t forget I know you. I understand you.’
‘Where did you get the photo from?’ he asks, his voice calm and quiet.
‘Jess gave it to me. I don’t know where she got it.’
Tom nods slowly.
‘Tom, will you tell me everything? About Jess. Erin. The necklace. The email.’
‘Why? What’s the point?’
‘Because we’re being open and honest now. You can tell me everything, and I can tell you everything.’
‘You don’t need to tell me anything,’ Tom says.
‘I know. But I want to.’
‘No, I mean you don’t need to. I already know. You drove down to Bodmin to find Jess, but you stopped at Bideford for a bit first. And Chieveley Services on the way.’
I don’t know how he knows this, but I see absolutely no point in denying it. That’ll only rile him.
‘Yeah. Yeah I did. I mis-remembered the email and thought she’d said Bideford. It was gone when I woke up. How did you manage to get in and delete it?’
‘I work in online security, Grace,’ he replies, a deadpan on his face. ‘It’s our job to stop people getting in. To stop someone doing something, the first thing you need to know is how they’re going to do it.’
‘You put a tracker on my car, didn’t you?’
‘Easily done. Ten minutes on eBay, that one.’
‘Did you think I hadn’t seen the email?’
‘Honestly?’ he says, looking at me. I nod. ‘Yeah. Yeah, I thought I’d got there before you. You were absolutely steaming and I assumed you’d just crash out. It was showing as unread when I saw it. I called you when I landed and you seemed fine. A bit hungover and pissed off, but you definitely didn’t sound like you’d read that email.’
My acting skills haven’t faded too much over the years, then.
‘When did you realise I’d seen it?’ I ask.
‘I checked the tracker after we spoke on the phone. That’s when I saw you’d gone to Cornwall.’
‘And what did you do?’
Tom stays silent for a few moments, and I don’t push him for an answer.
‘I explained I had a family emergency back home and booked onto the next available flight.’
My breath catches as I hear Tom say this. I know where it’s leading. ‘You were in the UK?’
‘Only a day or so before I was meant to be coming back anyway. By then I knew you were home again.’
‘So you went to Cornwall?’
Tom nods.
‘Did you kill Jess because she knew the truth? Because she told me?’
Tom stands up. ‘I think we should go now.’
‘Tom, please. I want to know. I need to know. If we’re going to be together, we both have to be completely open and honest with each other.’
He looks at me, his eyes almost like a puppy’s. In that moment I see something vulnerable, lost.
‘Please, Tom. Let’s do this properly. You and me.’
He sits back down on the log, slowly. He’s silent for a while, before he starts to talk.
‘I’m not a bad person, Grace. I don’t do things to people just because they’ve upset me. It’s not about that. Jess ruined my life twice. I adored her. I lost her. I had to leave my home town. My friends. And then I found you.’
I put my hand on top of his, trying desperately to ensure I’m not shaking with nerves.
‘I’d let it go, you see. Jess. Time to start afresh. When I saw your profile, I couldn’t breathe. I knew I’d found you. And when I saw the picture of you in the butterfly dress, it suddenly all made sense. It was almost too good to be true. You were perfect. My butterfly. Delicate. Beautiful.’
‘Like Erin?’
Tom nods. ‘And then she tried to ruin that for me, too. That’s when I knew she was never going to back down. She was never going to give up. I knew she’d probably ended us, and if I ever found happiness again she’d end that too. She had to go. I had no choice.’
‘I understand,’ I say, fighting every cell of my body urging me to run. ‘But you haven’t lost me. I’m still here.’
‘You didn’t want to be here. I saw the look in your eyes.’
‘I was scared, Tom. This is all new to me. I didn’t know your reasons. All I knew is you hurt me, told me things that weren’t true and then killed Jess. And yes, I thought you were crazy. Insane. But I didn’t know the truth, did I? I didn’t know you were only doing it to protect me. To protect us.’
Tom looks at me, and I give him the most loving, understanding look I can muster in that moment.
‘Do you really mean it?’ he asks.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Yes, I do.’
He leans over and kisses me, gently at first, as if testing the water. I respond, closing my eyes and putting myself in different shoes, with a different person. A short while later, he puts his forehead against mine and looks into my eyes, before pulling me into a tight embrace.
‘I love you,’ he says.
‘I love you too.’
‘Do you?’ he asks.
‘Yes. Absolutely.’
Tom lets out a huge breath and his body seems to relax, losing all its pent-up tension. He puts his head in his hands and seems to cry.
I kneel down in the dirt and stones, trying to show some concern.
‘I thought I’d lost you,’ he says. ‘I really thought I’d lost you.’
I stroke his hair and pull him in towards me, ensuring we don’t make eye contact. Then I lift the rock from the ground and swing it through the air, bringing it crashing down on the back of his skull.
55
Tom crumples to the ground with the slightest of grunts, and his head hits the floor with a sickening thud. I’d planned to hit him and run, but then again I was expecting him only to be injured and set back a few seconds. I wasn’t expecting him to be completely unconscious, bleeding profusely onto the dirt.
In the silence of the night, I hear the slightest of gurgles escaping his lips and I decide I need to run. Need to call the police. I shove my hand into his jacket pocket and grab my phone. Then I turn on my heels as suddenly as I can, and dart off back in the direction we came from.
I run as fast as my legs can carry me, the bones and joints searing with pain as the sudden strenuous exercise fights against my freezing cold legs. The muscles feel fit to burst, but I push through. I have to. I need to.
As I run, I fumble in my coat pocket for my mobile phone. It’s still switched off from when Tom grabbed me in the car park, and I force my frozen fingers to hold the right buttons to turn it on.
I glance behind me, just to check I’m not being followed, and wait an eternity for my phone to spring to life. When it finally does, I look in the corner of the screen. There’s no signal.
Shit.
I slow down, moving in one direction, desperately willing my phone to pick up a signal from somewhere. I’m focused completely on the screen, clenching my jaw as I wait for one — just one — tiny little bar to appear to let me know I can make a call.
I don’t know how long I move around for, or in which direction, but when that signal finally appears I’m overjoyed.
I tap in 999 and press Call. The call connects almost instantly.
‘Emergency services, which service do you require?’
‘Police. Quickly.’
‘Please hold. Connecting you.’
The next couple of seconds are the longest in my life.<
br />
‘Hello, where are you calling from?’ says a new voice.
‘Uh, I don’t know. I’m in the middle of some woods. It’s down a lane outside of town. I don’t know where I am. My ex has kidnapped me and brought me out here. He’s got a knife. He’s trying to kill me. I managed to hit him with a rock and I’ve run away, but I don’t know where I am or where he is.’
‘Okay, we’re going to try and locate your call. Can you see any distinctive features around you?’
‘Trees. Just trees.’
‘Alright. Are you injured?’
‘No.’
‘And you mentioned there was a weapon involved, is that right?’
‘Yes, he’s got a knife.’
‘Okay. We’ve located your call and officers are on their way. What’s your name?’
I want to answer. I want to tell him my name. But I can’t. Because I’ve got sight of the clearing where Tom and I sat on the log a few minutes ago. I can see the log. I can see the rock. I can see the pool of blood. But I can’t see Tom.
56
I’m frozen to the spot. I have no idea where Tom is. There’s no sign of him. No sound. Nothing.
Has he run away? I didn’t hear him get up, didn’t have any indication he went in the same direction as me. If he was conscious enough to have got up a few seconds later, he must have been conscious enough to have noticed which direction I’d run in. He must have escaped. At the very least, that means he’s not after me. I hope.
But something tells me I shouldn’t be so sure. Tom’s clever. Manipulative. This is just his sort of game. Just the sort of thing he thrives on. If he can see me, scared out of my mind, panicking, he’ll be in his element.
He’ll want me dead. I know he will. But if he knows I’ve called the police there’s a greater chance he’ll have fled. He disappeared when Jess threatened him with her position, and he’s in even deeper shit now. There’s no way he’ll have risked sticking around, is there?
I can’t take any chances. I spot an opening in some bushes and I quietly manoeuvre myself inside them.
‘My name’s Grace,’ I whisper gently into the phone. ‘Grace O’Sullivan. My ex is Tom Ramsay. DI Jane McKenna knows everything. Please hurry, please.’
There’s no response from the other end of the phone. I take it away from my ear and look at the screen. Fuck. The signal’s gone again.
I squeeze my eyes shut and pull myself into a ball, praying to whatever god exists that they’ve taken me seriously, that the police are on their way.
I don’t know how long I sit there — time is the first of my senses to have disappeared — but after a short while the interminable silence and darkness is broken by a distant movement of light.
It takes me a few moments to work out what it is, but then it dawns on me. Flashing blue lights. The police. They’re here.
I move onto my knees and shuffle out of the bush as quietly as I can, my ankles frozen solid as I rise to my feet and make a run in the direction of the lights. If I can reach the police, I’ll be safe.
Every bone in my legs feels like it’s about to snap, my muscles tight with the freezing cold, but I’m running, heading for the flashing blue lights. Heading for freedom.
Until, out of the darkness of the night, steps Tom.
The first thing I feel is a dull sensation in my abdomen.
My body crumples, unable to take the weight, and I land on my back in the wet leaves with a thud.
The dull sensation in my abdomen becomes a fierce, fiery pain.
The warm blood trickles around my sides, tickling them, as it pools around my back.
I hear other noises. Shouting. Angry voices.
Get down on the floor! Drop the knife!
Tom’s eyes meet mine as mine meet darkness.
57
Saturday 22 February
The bright light burns my eyes and I squint and fight against opening them, but there’s just enough detail coming through to know I’m not at home in my bed.
My throat feels swollen. No, not swollen. Odd. Like I can’t swallow. Like there’s something there. My stomach feels like it’s been torn open. My legs are tight and fiery. The thirst is unreal. I need water.
Bright lights.
‘Grace?’
A voice. One I recognise. It’s my dad.
‘I’ll fetch the nurse.’
Mum.
I fade back out again, back to replaying memories of childhood, stretched out on the living room floor, playing with Lego. It feels like I’m there for an age. An entire childhood. But then I’m yanked back to the bright lights.
‘You’re alright, Grace.’ I don’t know this voice. It’s male. Youngish. American. ‘Grace, you’re at the General. There’s no need to be alarmed, because you’re doing great.’ Not American. Canadian. ‘We’re just going to run a few tests on you, okay? Try not to move for us. You’ve just had a major operation, which went really well, but we need to check a few things now that you’re awake.’
I try to nod, but can’t. Groan, but that’s not happening either.
The nurse runs his tests, pokes and prods me, then removes the tube from my throat. The first time I swallow, it feels as if my oesophagus has stuck together, and I desperately sip at the water they’ve given me, slurping at the straw like a woman possessed.
The nurse leaves the room, leaving me with Mum and Dad.
‘How do you feel?’ Mum asks me.
I can’t answer that question in fewer than five thousand words, so I settle for ‘Shit’.
‘We’re just so glad you made it through,’ she says. ‘There were moments when they thought you wouldn’t. You lost a lot of blood.’
‘Five pints,’ Dad says. ‘Hope they don’t charge you for it. That’d set you back twenty quid at the Fox and Badger.’
I hear the distinctive sound of Mum slapping Dad’s wrist.
‘What do you remember?’ she asks me.
‘Not a lot. Tom. Running. Falling.’
‘Little shit stabbed you,’ Dad says. ‘In the belly. He was trying to finish you off when the coppers turned up. Bloody good job they did, too. You’d be brown bread otherwise.’
‘I think that’s his way of saying he loves you,’ Mum adds.
‘Okay to come in?’ another voice says. McKenna.
She walks over and sits down on a spare chair beside my bed.
‘How you feeling?’ she asks.
‘Shit.’
‘You look it. The doctors say you’re lucid, so I thought it’d be best if I popped in to update you on what’s happened. Tom’s been arrested for your attempted murder plus the murder of Jessica Caton. We’ve not gone to the Crown Prosecution Service yet, but we’re hopeful they’ll agree to authorise both charges.’
‘Hopeful?’ Dad asks. ‘That doesn’t sound promising.’
‘It’s all we can say at this stage. We’ve got officers gathering physical evidence as we speak. The more we have before we go to the CPS, the better.’
‘But he tried to kill me. And he admitted to killing Jess,’ I say, forcing my words out through a hoarse whisper.
‘I know. But the CPS’s job is to make sure the case is pretty much watertight before it gets to court. Their remit is to make sure public money isn’t wasted on trials that won’t go anywhere. We need to make sure we’ve got all our ducks in a row so we don’t come a cropper in court.’
‘So there’s a chance he might get away with it?’ Dad asks. I can hear the anger rising in his voice.
‘Well, I wouldn’t say that. He was standing over Grace, holding the knife that had just been used to stab her, and was trying to attack her again when officers arrived. I’m not saying there’s not enough evidence. I’m quite sure there’ll be plenty. I’m just keeping you abreast of the procedure and where we are at this present moment. But there’s something else you should know.’ McKenna’s words are met with silence and held breath. It doesn’t sound like she’s about to deliver good news. ‘He’s requeste
d a psych eval. A psychiatric evaluation.’
‘What does that mean?’ Mum asks.
‘It means he’s requested — or his solicitor has, anyway — for him to be evaluated by a mental health professional.’
Dad makes a snorting noise. ‘So he can get away with it and spend a few years in a cosy hospital instead of rotting in a prison cell where he belongs?’
‘That’s one way of looking at it. Of course, I couldn’t possibly comment. That’s for the professionals to decide. My job is to make sure we’ve gathered as much evidence as we can and that we achieve a successful prosecution. For what it’s worth, I don’t think diminished responsibility on the grounds of mental ill health goes hand in hand with that.’
‘He clearly needs help,’ Mum says.
‘Well, yes. The point we’d like to get to is a sentence that reflects the severity of what he’s done and the lives he’s ruined, with access to psychiatric support in prison. The two don’t have to be mutually exclusive, and we’ll be pushing for that option. He’s clearly more than capable of operating as a human being and coming across as perfectly normal. He’s extremely high functioning.’
‘He’s insane,’ Dad murmurs.
‘Not the sort of thing we want to be saying out loud, if I’m honest. Especially if we’re pushing for him to be declared psychologically sound. Grace, your friend’s been waiting outside most of the night. Cath Baker? Do you want me to let her in?’
I nod, slowly, the joints in my neck creaking as I do so.
McKenna stands up and walks towards the door. A few moments later, Cath comes in.
‘Hey you,’ she says. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Shit.’
‘You want to try sitting on a plastic chair all night surviving on nothing but cheap vending machine coffee and Twixes. We’ve been waiting outside since your mum called last night.’
I didn’t realise she’d brought Ben with her. I turn my head towards her. There’s no-one else there. Just Cath.
‘We?’ I ask.
‘Yeah. There’s someone here who wants to see you.’
