24 Hours: An intense, suspenseful psychological thriller (13 page)

W
hen Emily brought Polly home
that evening, I was still a little dishevelled; a whole lot discombobulated.

I put my daughter to bed and then I opened a bottle of Becks for Em at the kitchen table.

‘You look funny,’ she said. ‘Different.’

I flushed. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I don’t know really.’ She eyed me quizzically. ‘You have a look about you I haven’t seen for a while. Have you been drinking?’

‘No.’ The vodka was tucked safely into the cupboard. Chastely, I sipped tea now.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes.’ She knew me too well. I changed the subject. ‘I’ve been thinking. Worrying. Am I wrong to let Sid see her? To see Polly?’

‘Why?’ Emily took a slug of beer. ‘What’s prompted this? Are you getting maudlin?’

‘No. It’s just … my neighbour came round earlier.’

‘So?’

Now I felt reticent. ‘I haven’t seen her for a while.’

‘And?’ Emily was impatient. ‘What are you getting at?’

I warmed my hands on my mug.

‘I was embarrassed,’ I said quietly. ‘About something that happened a while ago.’

‘Why?’ She looked at me directly; tiger eyes that took in everything. ‘What happened?’

The lump in my throat stopped me speaking.

‘Sid?’

I nodded.

‘What?’ She moved towards me, about to hug me.

‘Don’t,’ I hid my face in my hands, but the tears spilt again.

‘What?’

‘Don’t be nice to me. It makes it worse.’

‘Oh, you silly cow,’ Emily hugged me. She still smelt of sandalwood. ‘It’s okay to cry. You hold it in all the time. I see you, so held together, so bloody stoic, but it’s bloody bad for you. It scares me, Laurie. You need to let it out, lovely.’

But the tears dissipated quickly, absorbed by the mention of stoicism. I fetched a tissue and blew my nose.

‘So,’ Emily was careful now, not looking at me. ‘What did she see? Your nosey neighbour.’

‘What did she
think
she saw, you mean?’

‘Okay,’ she shrugged, ‘what did she
think
she saw?’

Months ago, when Sid still lived here, in the middle of a cold March night, Margaret Henderson saw me half-naked in my front porch, dressed only in a t-shirt. Roused by my frantic hammering on the door for Sid to let me back into the house again, she had walked along the pavement to ask if I was all right, by which time I was crying with rage and frustration and pain. And as soon as she had approached, Sid had opened the door. He must have been watching from a window the whole time. Tormenting me.

Tormented by me.

I didn’t speak to the woman that night; I just fled inside when he opened up, up the stairs, checking first that Polly was asleep before locking myself into her bedroom and crawling into her bed. Waking the next morning so bruised I could hardly move, I pretended I was fine to my sleepy, surprised daughter. Realised this could not continue.

Margaret Henderson had, however, missed the exact moment that Sid had shoved me out of the house, so hard my breath had been expelled from my body. I had fallen down the front stairs onto my knees, stunned and winded, landing on all fours like an animal, frozen for a moment, so dazed I couldn’t move. I still remember looking up at the soapy whorls of the camellia flowers before me, and thinking how perfect they were.

Eventually I’d managed to pull myself inelegantly to my feet – almost naked, utterly humiliated, my nose bleeding, my shins grazed. Praying no one had seen me, I’d managed to scramble up into the porch as quickly as possible, alternately banging on the door and flattening myself against the porch wall, trying to hide myself.

‘She saw me after I had rowed with Sid,’ I said carefully, sitting again. ‘Last Easter. When things got so bad. After his mother turned up. Again.’

How the hell had it come to this, I had thought, in between sobs, in between my desperate knocking; the pain in my left ribs sharp, fingerprint bruises already flowering on my arms.

‘Bad?’ Emily frowned.

The first time he had left real marks on me, intentionally.

‘She saw me after …’ I cleared my throat. ‘After he’d shoved me outside in … in just a …’ I trailed off.

If you didn’t count the split lip.

‘In just a what?’ she shook her head.

‘In just a … a t-shirt.’

‘Why?’

‘Oh I don’t know, Em. To teach me a lesson, I suppose.’

‘Oh right,’ Emily’s eyes were dark with anger. ‘And what lesson would that have been, then?’

‘I don’t know really. I think it was to do with speaking to someone at school.’ I had blocked out the incident as best I could. ‘A dad.’

‘Oh, that old chestnut. Of course.’

‘Yup.’ I really didn’t want to talk about it – and it was also reminding me of things I’d rather not think about now. Like Mal.

‘Best rid, darling,’ Emily knew me so well. She saluted me with her beer. ‘Best rid.’

‘But when she came round earlier, that Margaret woman, oh, I don’t know. It just made me think. She said she’d seen Sid and she … she seemed to be worried about Polly,’ I feel a suffocating clutch of fear now. ‘Oh God. Do you think I’m mad, Em? Letting him see Polly?’

‘No.’ She was firm. ‘I don’t think you’re mad. For all his faults, Sid adores Pol, we all know that.’

She was right, and that was why I still let him see her. He’d never raised a hand to our daughter; of that much I was quite sure. Apparently, it was only me that riled him. And recently, my solicitor had warned me to ‘play nice’ if I wanted to retain full custody.

‘But, having said that,’ Emily finished her beer and stood now, pulling her old Afghan coat around her. ‘Well, really, lovely, you’re the best judge of Sid’s behaviour. It has to be your decision.’

Oh God. Maybe I
was
making all the wrong choices.

‘I don’t feel like a good judge of anything much right now,’ I said quietly, thinking about earlier, after Margaret Henderson had returned to her neat house and I had made my phone call. Thinking about the few hours I wasn’t sure yet if I regretted.

I followed Emily up the stairs, watching her flick her hair over her collar. For once, I was glad she was heading home. I wasn’t ready to share what I’d done.

M
al was much heavier
than Sid. Less fine-boned, less ethereal – more … male, I guess. I realised that properly when he unbuttoned his shirt that first time, a big, slightly shambolic man, silhouetted in the winter afternoon light slanting through the sitting-room window.

Half-unbuttoned myself, my mouth already burning from his stubble, I had stood and shut the curtains as he undid his belt. The back garden was sheltered and not visible from the other houses, but I was still unnerved by the thought that someone had been prowling … and this, here, now, on my old sofa, this was only between us.

Mal was nervous, I could tell; and I was a little drunk. I’d had two large vodkas even before he’d arrived, and when he had finally kissed me, which had taken some time to orchestrate, he was a little clumsy, our teeth clashing for a moment. We laughed awkwardly but the truth was, at first, we weren’t a natural fit. I was anticipating already, to be honest, that the sex wouldn’t be great.

But it was the first time, I reminded myself. Albeit quite likely the last.

And was it ever great the first time?

I tried desperately not to think of Sid; the fact I hadn’t slept with another man since the day I’d met him at the art school. Sid had been enough; more than enough. He had taken every ounce of my energy, and then more; had utterly sapped me.

And my body was different now; marked by him. I had borne his child; no other man had seen me naked since before I had been pregnant with Polly. How had I changed? I didn’t know; I was just impatient to get on with it.

I pulled Mal down to me.

At first I found myself thinking he didn’t do things quite right. But that wasn’t fair really. He just did things differently to Sid.

After a while, I stopped thinking about anything much.

And once I gave into it, it became less about the memory of Sid and more about me and Mal. About this moment, and a moment I badly needed. To remember I was still living. That life hadn’t stopped because Sid and I had parted.

A
fterwards
, I just felt a huge sense of relief that it was done; that the void between Sid and no one had finally been bridged.

Mal pulled me into a rather awkward hug, there on the sofa, my chin almost in his ear, my arm twisted between us uncomfortably. I let myself lie motionless for a moment, before pins and needles set in and I had to move.

‘Drink?’ I said brightly, grabbing for my dress on the floor.

‘Oh,’ he said, sitting up. ‘Yes. Please.’

He looked a little bewildered, so I leant forward and kissed him on the cheek.

‘Thank you.’

He grinned. ‘No, Laurie. Thank
you
. That was … well.’ He looked around for his shirt. ‘Not quite what I was expecting to do this Sunday afternoon – especially after such a— ’

'What?’

‘Reticent start, I was going to say.’

‘Well,’ I found his shirt behind the sofa and handed it to him. ‘We have to live in the moment sometimes, don’t we? Or that’s what all the silly ‘mindfulness’ experts bang on about, anyway.’

We grinned at each other, rather awkwardly.

In the kitchen, I put the kettle on, found him a beer and put the vodka away. It had served its purpose.

We sat in comfortable silence, looking at the garden, at a squirrel trying to fathom out how to steal the birdseed.

‘Cheeky little buggers,’ Mal said.

‘Aren’t they,’ I agreed. I wondered what would happen next; surprised by how calm I felt about the situation.

When he left he kissed me on the mouth, and I put my arms around him and hugged him, and felt his arms around my back, and it was nice to feel the warmth and strength of a man. I had not hugged anyone really apart from Polly for months and months; Emily occasionally, maybe, but there is a difference between women and children.

We are animals, I found myself thinking. We need animal things; like touch and sex and brutal force to remind us we’re alive. Maybe what I’d done wasn’t such a bad thing, after all.

T
he next day
, leaving in the morning for school with Polly, passing Mrs Henderson’s glossy-leaved camellias, I remembered briefly that I meant to give her my number.

For some reason, I never got round to it.

Maybe I’d have been safer if I had.

I
open
the passenger door for Saul and manhandle him into the car as gently as I’m able. He doesn’t argue. I get in the other side; look for the key to turn the ignition. My hands are shaking. Of course there is no key. With a grunt of pain, Saul leans over me, and reattaches the wires he hot-wired earlier. I can feel the heat of his body across my legs, the wet of the blood from his lip on my hand.

After a grumble or two, the engine fires.

I don’t look behind me, or in the mirror, as I pull off. I try to steady my hands on the wheel, taking several deep breaths, waiting for the roar of a motorbike – but I don’t hear one.

‘Where are we?’ I say after a minute or two, trying to steady my voice. The road is very straight, skirting the coast. Beyond the shingle beach, the sea is a great dark sigh.

‘Dungeness,’ Saul mutters, his voice indistinct. His lip is split badly, blood trails from his eyebrow and glistens on his cheek, darkening by the second.

‘Power station?’ I say.

‘Artists, my dear,’ Saul affects a posh voice. ‘Yeah, and power stations and steam railways and BNP.’

Before I can respond, Saul starts to cough. It’s an odd, guttural sound.

I glance at him and fear rises in me again. I pull the car into a bus stop.

‘Don’t let the engine stall,’ he says, but pain is etched on his face.

‘God, that looks nasty,’ I move my hand towards his cheek. ‘Let me see.’

He flinches, but still he lets me take his chin gently and manoeuvre it round so I can see him properly. At least he’s stopped coughing.

‘You shouldn’t have …’ he starts to say, and then he gags – on his own blood, I think.

‘Don’t talk,’ I say. I search in the car for something to staunch the blood, but everything is grimy and covered in dog hair. I find a serviette from the train in a pocket; I hold it gently to his lip and then his brow.

‘I think you need stitches.’ The idea of another hospital is anathema to me, but Saul is hurt.

‘Fuck that.’ To him too, apparently. He coughs, opens the door, spits. Groans, clutches his sides. ‘Christ. My ribs.’ He looks at me and manages a weak grin. ‘Again.’

‘Oh, Saul.’ I stare into the night, at the Union Jack that flaps in the wind above the pub on our left.

Broken ribs. I open my mouth to empathise; to tell him something – and then—

There is a buzz; a deafening roar.

A flank of motorbikes appears out of the darkness behind us, Harleys, low to the ground; a coterie of scarved and bearded riders. They pull up next to the pub. I search frantically for Barrel Man and his woman, but it’s too difficult to distinguish them in this group.

‘Let’s go, Laurie,’ Saul is urgent. ‘GO, for fuck’s sake!’

We go.

I
don’t know
how it happens, because I must have blacked out. I remember fixing my eyes on the ribbon of road before us, the window open for the cold air; I remember thinking, if I don’t sleep, we will crash; watching Saul from the corner of my eye drifting in and out of consciousness; from exhaustion, I prayed, rather than his injuries. He is still refusing to let me take him to the hospital and when I see the look in his eye at my last suggestion, I don’t dare argue again. So I keep driving, out of the town, away from the buildings, and then the next thing I know, there is a massive noise in my head and a huge juddering jolt and my cheek whacks against something hard and cold and I rebound; I think I stop breathing for a second just because the breath is knocked out of me and because I am so shocked.

The car is tilted, rammed up against something. I think we’re in a ditch, and I hear a scrabbling noise: it’s Saul, opening his door. I give my own door a nudge but it’s wedged hard, I realise after a minute, and then a hand grabs my arm.

‘We need to move fast, Laurie,’ Saul instructs. ‘Come on, hurry up.’

I resist his pressure. I am so stunned I can’t compute anything; I just want to sit here and wait for someone to come and look after me.

‘Laurie,’ he urges. ‘I need to go before the feds arrive. Are you coming?’

And this is the moment I think – it is time. Time to stop running and give up. I’ve done nothing wrong and they can take me in, the police – think of me what they will, but surely they will help me and it will all be over.

But then I think of the policeman near Sherborne who said I was wanted for arson; I think of the fact that I’ve been running, which will only make things look worse – and I think about whoever it was who shut Emily’s door, who stopped her from escaping from the fire. I could hear them, I know I could, in the room, though none of it makes any sense. I think of the injunction threats and the craziness even before this past twelve hours. And I think – they will lock me up. Like they threatened before: they will lock me up and I will be powerless.

And I think of Polly, my little Polly and I imagine Sid – or someone, if it’s not Sid, though I’m convinced it must be – I think of that person getting to her before me, and my mother, what will my mother do, she will panic and she won’t know what to do: what if she can’t save Polly; what if Polly might not be safe?

It is down to me to save my daughter.

And so I give up the idea of giving in. Instead, I let Saul haul me from the car. Scrambling across the seats, I clamber out, nearly falling as my feet meet the dirt verge, and Saul holds me up. He takes my hand again and we cross the road, and lights are coming on in a house near the car, and then as we take the first turning we come to, as Saul drags me after him, I hear another vehicle pulling up.

‘Where are we going?’ I say to Saul, but he isn’t listening, he’s pulling his phone out of his pocket and dialling.

Eventually, someone picks up.

‘You need to come and get me,’ he says. He starts to cough again. ‘My car’s totalled.’

Then, ‘I don’t fucking care. I need your help
now
. I’ll text you the address in a minute, but I know we’re down by the Broad Marsh.’

The person on the other end speaks; Saul listens.

‘If you don’t help me now I will tell Dean where you are.’

Pause; he listens again.

‘Yeah, I will,’ he snarls eventually, ‘and you’d better fucking believe it.’

Saul snaps the phone off.

‘Wait here,’ he says. He lollops off to check the road sign; he’s limping badly. I am shivering with shock and with cold that bites into my very bones. My bandaged hand throbs, my shoulder burns.

He returns, texting.

‘She’ll be here in a minute,’ he says.

‘Who?’

‘Janie’s friend.’

I don’t bother to ask who Janie is. It seems pointless right now.

‘Will she help me too?’ I do say, after a while.

‘Dunno.’ He grimaces, his face flat planes of shadow in the darkness. ‘If she thinks it’ll serve her. But she’ll get us out of here, at least. If she’s not so fucked she can’t drive.’

‘Oh.’

He looks down at me. ‘You’re shaking.’

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I’m cold.’

He wraps his arms around me, he leans on me a little. I can feel his heart beating. We stand like that, stock still in the darkness, and we wait.