Dying for Christmas (5 page)

* * *

In. Out. In – just the slightest of pauses – out. In. Out.

Kim thought she could watch her daughter breathing all night and not get tired of it. Sometimes when she looked at her children sleeping, she felt like her heart would explode with love.

At five, Katy was no longer the chubby toddler she’d once been, but she still had the plump pink lips of babyhood. Kim lowered her face so it was just a few centimetres from her daughter’s and she could feel her hot breath on her cheek. She inhaled deeply, taking in the smell of toothpaste and bathtime and that other scent that was uniquely Katy’s.

If only they could always be asleep, none of this would be happening.

Instantly she berated herself for the thought. What sort of mother was she?

The sort that was about to lose her children.

Though she was objectively aware of Sean’s ultimatum, and knew he wasn’t the type to deliver empty threats, still she would not allow herself to believe it. He wouldn’t take them away from her. Not when she was just doing her job. He would see sense. It wasn’t her fault she had to work tomorrow. ‘Crime doesn’t stop just because it’s bloody Christmas,’ she’d yelled at him earlier. ‘Burglars and rapists don’t just decide to give themselves the day off.’

But her face had burned with guilt.

Tearing herself away from Katy’s bedside, she crossed the landing and nudged open the door of Rory’s room. He’d insisted he was staying up all night, so he could prove Father Christmas was actually his mum and dad, but he’d been exhausted by eight and asleep by nine thirty. Now he lay splayed out on his bed, one pyjama-clad leg clear of the covers, his hair damp around his rosy cheeks. He’d never been able to stand being too hot. Even as a baby, he’d wriggled free from his blankets. She and Sean would find him in the morning on his tummy with his bottom in the air, arms spread wide and the bedcovers in a twisted heap at the bottom of the cot. ‘How did we get this lucky?’ Sean had whispered once as they stood side by side looking down on their sleeping son.

It was never, ever a question of not loving them enough. If only she could be sure they knew that. No matter how difficult she’d found the rest of it – the questions (
Why this? Why that? But why?
), the dull games, the picture books, the messy mealtimes, the naps, the arguments, the endless repetition that makes up a young child’s life – her love had never wavered. Not for a second.

In the final judgement that would count for something.

Chapter Eight

‘Poor Jessica Gold.’

Dominic was standing at the door of the bathroom, watching me hunched over the toilet on my hands and knees.

‘Has all the excitement been too much for you?’

He strode across the slate-tiled floor and crouched behind me stroking my back. Despite everything, I had the strangest urge to arch into his caress like a cat. Already I craved comfort. I’d just thrown up so violently I thought it possible my liver and kidneys had come up along with everything else and now I felt empty and weak. I was shaking all over, so the warmth of his hand on my back felt like the sun after a long, harsh winter.

‘We can’t have you peaking too early, sweetheart. Not when this is just the beginning of our adventure.’ He was cooing in my ear like a woodpigeon. ‘I bet you’re tired out.’

I nodded, almost too weak to move my own head.

‘Then we must get you to bed.’

Relief washed through me. He would unlock the door to one of those other two rooms. And there would be a bed that I could fall into. Maybe even another bathroom with a lock on the door.

I ignored the tinkling laughter that drifted down around me like snowflakes.

Dominic helped me up off the floor with one hand under my elbow. Now the image of a bed was in my mind, it was all I could think of. I imagined my bed at home, with the kingsize duvet and the fake-fur throw that I needed to keep me properly warm and which Travis made a huge deal of if it encroached over even so much as his little toe. I imagined how it would be to crawl into that familiar nest where everything was safe. If only I could be back there, I’d never again complain about the sponge earplugs I had to wear to cut out Travis’ snoring (‘I don’t snore, I have a sinus disorder’), or the way the mattress dipped slightly on my side, or next door’s baby crying through the paper-thin walls. I was still trembling and felt colder than I’d ever been in my life. My teeth were properly chattering.

In the inner hallway, Dominic paused to withdraw that same bunch of keys with the multicoloured fobs from the front pocket of his jeans. His other hand was still supporting me like a courteous Southern gentleman seeing a lady home after a date.

The first key he tried – green – didn’t work.

‘Wrong one,’ he said crossly under his breath. Clearly that was the key to the other room. His bedroom, I’d already labelled it in my mind.

‘Ah, here we go.’

He pushed open the door with a kind of coyness, as if he was a normal man showing his new date around his flat. Inside there was a smallish bedroom dominated by a huge iron-framed bed, behind which was a high window covered up by a Venetian blind. To the left of the bed was a dressing table, its surface completely clear, with three drawers underneath and a plain mirror on top. To the right of the bed was a door, slightly ajar, and my heart leapt when I saw it did indeed lead into an ensuite bathroom.

At the foot of the bed was a kennel.

‘I didn’t realize you had a dog.’

Dominic threw back his head and laughed.

Then I saw the thick chain coiled loosely at the entrance to the large wooden kennel, attached at one end to the iron frame of the bed and at the other to a thick metal cuff. Too small for a dog’s neck.

Dominic’s hand tightened under my elbow and I could feel his breath, moist in my ear.

‘You’ll be snug as a bug in a rug in there,’ he said, indicating the small archway that led into the kennel. ‘I’ve put in a blanket, and a bowl of water.’

I sagged as if my bones had turned instantly to liquid.

‘Please,’ I begged him. ‘Please let me go home now. I’ve had a lovely day’ – again that tinkle of laughter around me – ‘but I need to see my family and my boyfriend.’

He stiffened then, and I could feel the tension in his body passing through his hand on my elbow into mine.

‘Boyfriend?’ His voice was soft as lambswool. ‘Are you lying to me, Jessica? Are you telling porky pies?’

‘I
have
got a boyfriend. I live with him. I don’t know why I didn’t tell you earlier. He’ll be going out of his head with worry.’

Travis in truth isn’t the kind of man who goes out of his head with anything. Travis is very much in his head at all times.

Now Dominic was shaking his head sorrowfully. ‘Oh dear, Jessica Gold. Just when I thought we were getting somewhere. What did I tell you I most wanted? What was my single greatest reason for bringing you here, huh?’

I tried to remember. ‘Because you’re lonely?’ I ventured.

Instantly I knew it was the wrong answer. He took his hand away from under my arm so abruptly I staggered backwards.

‘To be known,’ I yelled, suddenly remembering. ‘You want to be fully known.’

‘It’s not a pub quiz, Jessica. You’re not down your local Wetherspoon’s now.’ But his voice had lost a little of its hardness. ‘I have to say I’m disappointed in you. I felt we’d reached an understanding. Now we’re going to have to start all over again. From scratch. Why would you lie about something like that?’

He seemed so genuinely hurt I almost felt guilty.

In the end, the only thing I could come up with was the truth. ‘I didn’t want to put you off.’

Clearly it was a good thing to say because his hand resumed its hold on my elbow.

‘I suppose I can see why you might think that, but you know your lies have really set us back, Jessica.’ He paused. ‘So, I’m afraid I have no option but to punish you. It certainly isn’t how I’d planned for things to go this evening, not with it being Christmas Eve and your first night, but you leave me no choice.’

I asked him what he meant by punish. My trembling had returned with a vengeance. I knew he could feel it because his voice was almost kind when he said, ‘I’m going to have to remove the blanket. It’s a privilege, you see. It’s not a right.’

No blanket. So was I to sleep on the hard floor of the kennel? In chains?

This time my legs did give way under me. He just about kept me upright.

‘I know it’s hard, sweetheart, but I don’t have a choice.’

But now my attention was overtaken by something else, something far more pressing. My system, rarified by ten years of vegetable and dairy matter, was rebelling against the meat that had somehow survived the earlier purging in the bathroom. I froze as some long-dormant part of my gut groaned into action.

‘I need the toilet,’ I said in a high-pitched voice.

His hand tightened around my arm like a vice.

‘I really, really need the toilet.’ I was almost shouting now.

He steered me from the doorway around the kennel towards the ensuite. Only when we were inside the grey and black bathroom did I notice that he was still there.

‘I need …’

‘I know. You need the toilet. Which is here. Go ahead.’

I turned so I was facing him. ‘You’re not really going to …’

‘Please don’t tell me what I can and can’t be or do, Jessica.’ That edge was back in his voice, rough enough to cut yourself on. ‘You lied. You set us back and now you’ve lost all your privileges. If you want the toilet badly enough, you’ll go. Fully known, remember? That means no secrets, no hiding, no private places.’

Just then my stomach made a noise like it was tearing itself loose from the rest of me and I lunged for the toilet, yanking my jeans down just in time.

‘God, that’s
disgusting
,’ said my own voice in my head. I kept my eyes fixed on the grey floor tiles at my feet, but even without looking I could tell he was staring at me.

And smiling.

Chapter Nine

In the dog kennel was a tartan wool blanket. At least there was when I first looked in there. By the time I actually crawled inside, feeling hollowed out like a butternut squash, the blanket had vanished, leaving only the bowl on the wooden floor. There was just about enough room for me to sit upright in the centre of the space where the gable cut across, but even there the top of my head was grazing the roof.

‘Give me your leg,’ Dominic commanded from outside the arch.

I was silent.

‘Your leg. Stick it out through the opening.’

So weakened was I that I’d forgotten about the chain and the metal cuff. I began to beg.

‘Don’t plead, Jessica. It isn’t attractive. I’ve told you, privileges must be earned. Now, your leg.’

I stuck my right ankle out of the archway and heard the sound of a key turning in a lock. I felt Dominic’s fingers on the bare skin under my jeans.

‘You might want to take these off,’ he suggested.

‘No!’ The word shot out of me like a bullet.

I heard him chuckling. ‘OK. I just thought you might be more comfortable. These jeans seem a little restrictive. Don’t you understand about blood circulation? We can’t have you clotting up. Not on my watch.’

That seemed to tickle him for some reason. I told him I was fine.

‘OK, sweetie. Just for tonight, though, while you’re getting used to things.’

Sitting just inside the kennel I couldn’t see his face, only my leg attached by a thick chain to the metal cuff which was itself attached to the heavy frame of the bed.

Then I laughed. I couldn’t help it. And once I started laughing, I couldn’t stop. When I’d got up that morning and put those clothes on – the jumper, the jeans, the thick stripy socks – I’d thought the most interesting thing that could possibly happen that day would be if I bought myself some knickers from the lingerie section. Yet here I was, still wearing those same clothes, sitting in a dog kennel and chained to a stranger’s bed.

‘That’s enough, Jessica,’ he said after a while in a flat voice I hadn’t heard before.

Laughter is a nervous thing with me. I used to do it whenever I was called in to see the head teacher at school, which was quite often. Every time she kicked off with a ‘it saddens me to see you here again, Jessica’ or a ‘how disappointing when I thought we’d turned over a new leaf’ or even just a wordless sigh, I’d start to giggle, and wouldn’t be able to stop.

I even did it once when Travis and I were held up at gunpoint. We were in a bank in Madrid, standing facing the wall at the end furthest from the door, leaning against a counter and arguing about whether it was better to transfer money from the UK or withdraw it straight from a cashpoint, when all of a sudden I became aware that the rest of the room had fallen silent. I turned slowly round and found that all the other customers were kneeling with their hands on their heads and expressions of terror on their faces, and that there was a man a few feet away with a gun pointing at my head. His eyes were bloodshot and unfocused, and the hand holding the gun was shaking. Slowly I turned back to Travis. And then I started laughing. ‘Shut up!’ Travis urged. But I couldn’t work out how. Luckily for me, the bank teller nearest to us thrust a black bin bag with notes in it at the gunman and he legged it out of the door. Afterwards Travis had looked at me like I’d done it on purpose. ‘You could have got us both killed,’ he said.

I was remembering that hold-up and Travis’ outrage when Dominic suddenly yanked the chain around my ankle, dragging me through the archway before I even had a chance to register what was happening.

‘Do you think this is a game, Jessica?’ His face was inches from mine. ‘Am I a figure of fun to you?’

There was a glint of metal in his hand. The long blade of a flick knife.