Try Not to Breathe (37 page)

W
ell, I know how the dream ends now. It wasn’t a surprise, really. The writing has been on the wall with every previous “showing,” but that didn’t make it any less horrible.

It was like I was watching it happen to someone else, like a horror film. And I was screaming “Run! No!” But my voice just bounced off like there was a glass screen in the way. For all my screaming, it changed nothing.

Now it’s clinging to me like a stink. I can’t shake the feeling the way I can with a normal dream and maybe I shouldn’t shake it just yet. Maybe I need to face it. Problem is, I’m just too scared to face it alone and I don’t have anyone to help me.

“H
e’s so perfect, I just want to eat him,” Fiona said, sleepily.

Jacob held his new son like he was woven from tiny twine and could unravel at any moment. “I didn’t think anything could be so tiny and beautiful,” he said, eyes welling up again.

“And so hungry.” Fiona closed her eyes and sank her head into the hospital pillow.

Jacob smiled and traced his son’s round, pink cheek with the tip of his finger. He looked across at his wife. He’d never seen anyone do anything so brave before. He loved Fiona, liked her too, but he’d never stopped to consider her as strong until he watched her deliver their child into the world, almost in silence save for a low, rumbling moan.

He felt like he’d been pulled into the present and anchored there by the tiny little fist wrapped around his smallest finger.

“I can’t believe how many times you’ve been in this hospital before,” Fiona said, suddenly. “I wish you’d told me. I would have understood, you know. I really would have.”

“I just couldn’t risk it. I couldn’t risk losing you,” he said, kissing his baby’s light blue knitted bonnet, which was slipping down over his scrunched-up eyes. “I don’t know if this makes any sense,” Jacob said quietly as his son fell back to sleep, “but the more I fell for you, the more guilty I felt. Like I was getting to move on and she wasn’t and it wasn’t her fault.”

“Do you still love her?” Fiona asked.

“You never forget your first love,” Jacob answered carefully. “But I never loved her like I love you. It was different, it was kids’ stuff, I just didn’t let it go when I should have and then I thought I was all she had.”

“I can’t keep sharing you, J, not like before. Not now.”

“I know you can’t. I don’t want you to. I just want to be with you and this guy. I don’t even want to go to the loo without him.”

Fiona smiled. “You don’t have to not see her again, but just, I don’t know, just from time to time. What do you think? Can you do that?”

“I think I should have done that a long time ago.”

“Listen,” Fiona said, propping herself up. “You’re here in the hospital anyway. He’s sleeping now and won’t be doing much of that soon, so why don’t you go and tell Amy your news while you have the chance? Tell her about the baby and explain that things need to change. Explain that you won’t be back so often…like maybe only a couple of times a year.”

“I don’t know, Fi, I think I need to make a clean break. Alex is visiting Amy regularly and trying to get some kind of justice for her. I can’t help with any of that so I should just leave Amy in her hands. Amy doesn’t actually need me, but you both do.”

Jacob lay his tiny baby in the transparent cot at Fiona’s side. A burst of warmth in his chest nearly knocked him over. He kissed Fiona on the lips for longer than he had in months, maybe years.

“I love you so much,” he said.

“We love you too,” she answered, already half-asleep.

A
lex called Matt from the train to Tunbridge Wells.
Please answer, please answer, please answer,
she chanted silently.

He didn’t seem entirely surprised to hear from her.

“I spoke to Caroline,” she said, excitedly.

“Alex,” he whispered, “be careful with that name, please.”

“But you need to hear this, Matt. I know who did it. I know who did it for sure.”

“Is this another hunch?”

“No. This is cast iron and I’m certain that the same person who attacked Amy also attacked Caroline. Caroline’s willing to identify him but only if you’ll handle the case. She doesn’t want anything to do with the local police; I’ve convinced her that she can trust you.”

A door clicked, the sound of the outside came whistling down the line.

“Okay,” he said, “tell me everything.”

Matt was due to come to Tunbridge Wells the next day once he had taken Caroline’s statement. Now Alex had to reach Jacob and fill him in before anyone else did.

She’d called Jacob’s mobile six times and left three messages, but no reply.

There was only one place he could be. Alex got in her car at the station and broke every speed limit on the way to the hospital.

J
acob took the steps two at a time up toward Bramble Ward, adrenaline pumping through his still wonky leg. He passed the spot where he’d fallen a month before and rushed on.

Amy’s cubicle curtains were closed and there were no nurses on reception. In the background, the radio babbled with the sounds of old pop music. It was No Doubt or someone like that, someone he wasn’t sure at the time if he should like, and hadn’t had Amy around to ask.

The office door was shut tight and Jacob was about to knock when he saw a man’s black shoes and black trousers through the gap under Amy’s curtain. His heart thumped and his head spun a little, thick with the exhaustion of a new parent.

He coughed but no one came. He watched the black legs and feet. No orderly or nurse wore black, he slowly realized, they all wore scrubs of different colors. Suddenly he saw the feet walk quickly in the direction of Amy’s head. Jacob instinctively strode over and pulled back the curtain to see a dark-haired man leaning far too close to Amy, his hands denting the pillow heavily on either side of her face.

I
’m still running over the dream in my head when a familiar voice breaks my thoughts.

It’s low, too deep to be a boy’s voice but soft for a man. At first, I can’t make out what he’s saying. I want to say to him, “Take a deep breath and speak clearly,” but I can’t. So I have to concentrate really hard to cut out background sounds like swooshes and beeps that I’ve barely noticed before.

Coating everything is the sound of music, a song I don’t know, with lyrics that are interfering with the man’s voice and crowding out my own thoughts.

I finally manage to focus a little on what he’s saying, I think I must have missed the most important bit—the bit that explains what on earth he’s on about.

“I shouldn’t have let it happen,” he’s saying. “It should never have gone that far.

“Can you hear me? I don’t know if you can hear me,” he adds, sounding worried but still whispering.

Who are you? I can’t place you.

“Amy, I’m just…I’m so sorry I didn’t stop it before it went that far,” he’s saying. “I knew deep down what would happen, I just didn’t want to face up to it. And now look where we are.”

I wish someone would turn the bloody radio off. He stops talking for a bit, and even over the radio, I can hear him breathing. His breaths are almost louder than his words.

“You still look like an angel,” he says, “but—” he whispers the last words so I can’t make them out.

Maybe I should concentrate on his breathing instead, try to make sense of that. Why is he breathing hard? Why do people breathe hard? Exertion—maybe he ran here? Or excitement; but he doesn’t sound excited. Fear? Why would he be scared? I’m not scared. Maybe I should be scared.

“They said you might be able to talk soon.”

Who are “they”? And how do they know I can’t talk? Oh God, I really can’t talk.

“And I wanted you to know that, if you can talk, you should say…”

Why can’t I talk? Why the hell can’t I talk?

“Amy, you need to tell…”

I can hear curtains whooshing open and a man starts to yell loudly.

But what do I need to tell? Who do I need to tell it to? What the hell is going on on the other side of my eyes?