The Waiting Game (32 page)

Raj’s phone rang while he was driving. When he pulled over, he saw a missed call from Ellen. Before he could call her back, his phone rang again. Abby this time. He answered the call as he got out of the car and walked towards Ellen’s house.

While he listened to Abby – she’d spoken to Ellen, a search was underway for Monica – his phone beeped with a text. Hanging up, his heart soared when he saw who it was from and what it said.

In Greenwich this afternoon. Any chance you’re free? A x

A white van was parked badly so it blocked Ellen’s driveway. Raj stopped beside it. He didn’t need to go any further. Ellen was fine. Monica would be found and brought in for questioning. Everything was going to be okay.

He sent a text back, asking where Aidan was, said wherever it was, he’d be there within thirty minutes. Tops. Aidan replied straightaway. Raj read the reply, smiling. He knew the pub. Knew it was less than a ten-minute drive from here. He put his phone away, still smiling as he went back to his car.

She should have kept quiet. Ellen was winning. She’d heard every bit of the fight, her ear pressed against the door, too scared at first to make a sound in case he hurt Ellen. And then, when she thought it was all over, she thought it would be okay and she called her daughter’s name. Big mistake. Now she couldn’t hear Ellen at all, just the man, banging around in the kitchen, doing God knows what.

For the last four months, Pat had been asking for a mobile phone. Ellen kept promising him one for his next birthday. Bridget thought Ellen was being too soft. The boy was only eleven. What did he need a phone for? Now she saw how wrong she’d been.

She’d made a lot of mistakes over the years, some she regretted more than others. Right now, there was nothing in the world she regretted more than telling Ellen it was okay not to give in and buy him a phone.

Bridget didn’t have one. Told herself she was too old for such nonsense. The real reason she didn’t want a phone, though, was the same reason she didn’t want Pat to have one. Because she
hated the steady, determined way technology was taking over every aspect of her life. If it carried on like this, before you knew it there’d be no room in the world for someone like her. As it was, with things the way they were, she felt her own importance diminishing in the lives of those who mattered most to her.

Her grandchildren were getting older. These days, when they were with her, so much of their play involved gadgets she didn’t understand and she lived with an underlying sense of being excluded. Michael told her she was being silly. Said the kids would always need their grandparents, just as Sean and Ellen would always need their parents.

But that was Michael. Always so sure of himself. Never doubting anything. Which was good, of course. Because if it wasn’t for that single-minded certainty, they’d never have ended up with Sean and Ellen.

He thought she didn’t know. She would never tell him because she knew he wouldn’t forgive her for colluding in it. That the only way he’d been able to live with what he’d done was the illusion that he’d done it to protect her. That she was a better person than him because if she knew, she’d surely never have agreed to it.

But she knew. And still she’d let it happen. Most of the time – like her husband, she suspected – Bridget told herself what they’d done was for the best. But sometimes a sense of dread would creep over her, a feeling of unease she couldn’t shake off. At those moments, she knew what they’d done was wrong.

She had confessed. Of course she had. Many times. Each time,
the priest granted her absolution, forgiving her for that and all other sins. She wasn’t sure that was enough. Now, locked in this dark room, she knew. Whatever happened to her this afternoon, it was no more than she deserved.

But not Pat and Ellen.

She prayed, not sure her God was listening, but there was nothing else she could do. She whispered the prayers she’d learned as a child, lips moving over the familiar words, repeating them.
Hail Mary, Our Father, Angel of God my Guardian Dear
. Listen to me Lord, she begged. Save my family. Don’t let them suffer for the sins of others. It’s not their fault.

The prayers made Bridget feel stronger. She had to believe He was listening. Her faith wouldn’t allow for anything else. The punishment was hers and hers alone. By Jesus, though, she wasn’t about to let Pat and Ellen suffer as well. She would save them. She didn’t know how, but He would show her the way. All she had to do was believe.

She had lost something important. Not a thing. A person. A child was missing. Pat. She didn’t know where he was. She swung around, looking everywhere. She was in the middle of a street, lined either side with identical Victorian terraced houses. Behind one of those doors, someone was hiding her son. She ran to the first house, fists banging on the door, shouting out her son’s name. Did the same to all the other houses. No one
answered. It was as if all the people in all the houses were stone deaf. Or dead.

She screamed his name, over and over, as she ran down the narrow, empty street. The further she ran, the narrower the street became, until the houses on either side were so close, she could reach out her hands as she ran and touch them.

‘Mummy!’

His voice came from further ahead. She peered into the dark gap between the rows of houses, trying to see him. He was down there somewhere. She ran faster. Except it didn’t seem to make any difference. No matter how fast she ran, she never moved. And then she fell, face smashing onto the hard concrete. Stunned, she lay where she was, waiting for the first shock of pain to subside.

She woke up.

It was only a dream. Except her face still hurt. She tried to sit up. Couldn’t move; hands and legs bound tight behind her back. Her fingers brushed the edge of a wall.

Then she remembered.

She was lying face-down on the kitchen floor. Every time she moved, it felt like she was being stabbed, repeatedly. A broken rib. She’d had one before, remembered the pain. Almost as bad as childbirth.

Her left eye wouldn’t open, and the front of her face, across her nose, felt as if someone had smashed it with an iron bar. Grunting, trying to ignore the pain, she managed to manoeuvre her body until she was sitting up. Exhausted from the effort, she
lay against the wall, panting.

She could see his feet, moving around the kitchen. He was holding something, shaking it over the floor, sloshing liquid everywhere. Blood blocked her nose and it took a while for the smell to hit her. When it did, the fear was so all-consuming, at first all she could do was concentrate on being able to breathe.

She tried not to make any noise but he must have sensed she was awake because he came over, crouched down beside her, looked at her face and emptied the rest of the petrol on her head and body.

The smell and taste of it was everywhere. Up her nose, down her throat, making her choke and cough and retch, her body slippy-sliding in the oily mess of it. Her eyes burned and she couldn’t see properly. Shapes filtered through a grey film. She blinked, but it made no difference.

When he moved, she tensed, thinking he was going to start hurting her again. Instead, he sat down on the ground and slid further back until he reached the island in the centre of the kitchen. Never once taking his eyes from her.

He was breathing heavily, like the effort of pouring all the petrol had exhausted him.

‘I’m going to kill you.’

His voice was calm. Surprisingly calm. He didn’t look calm. He looked like he was on the edge of something very bad.

So fucking tired. Feels like I’m shutting down, all the power inside me being switched off, bit by bit. The music’s stopped and everything’s gone quiet. I feel distant from it. Like I’m watching it but not part of it. Like I’m having some sort of weird out-of-body experience and the real me is up there somewhere, looking down on this.

I try to remember how it got this far. All the anger I was feeling has gone. Like I kicked it out of me when I was doing her over and now there’s nothing left. Like it was the anger that was the only part of me still alive and without it, there’s nothing.

I’m not sure now this is what I want. There’s only one thing in the world I want and that’s to be with her. But she’s gone.

‘I loved her.’

Suddenly I’m talking. Telling this woman about Mon and why she means so much to me. And why I’m so fucking angry that I can’t be with her anymore.

‘She was so scared,’ I’m saying. ‘She knew you wouldn’t stop.’

The woman on the ground is frowning, like she doesn’t know what I’m talking about. And that does it. I can feel it building up again. The tiredness replaced by an angry energy I need if I’m going to see this through.

‘You hated her! You fucking bitch. Wouldn’t leave her alone. Police harassment. You hear about it all the time. You had it in for her and you were going to make her suffer. She told me what you did. Coming on to her like that, closet fucking dyke. And because she didn’t feel the same way, you turned nasty. She was scared of you, do you know that? Every time you showed up, she was in bits afterwards.’

And the stupid cunt is trying to tell me I’ve got it all wrong, but what else is she going to say? I lift up the empty can and wave it at her. Then I tell her what’s going to happen next.

There was a small, rectangle-shaped window over the toilet. Bridget took her shoes off, closed the toilet lid and climbed on top. She wasn’t too steady and the effort of getting up here hurt her hip. A deep throbbing in her side that she recognised and knew would get worse until she sat down with her legs propped up on something.

Ellen kept this window locked and Bridget knew there was no key for it. The glass didn’t look like it would break easy. She’d kept one of her shoes in her hand. A thick Clark’s brogue. The only shoes she ever wore. Using every bit of energy she had, she lifted her arm back and aimed for the glass. The impact, when the shoe connected with the glass, was hard. Waves of pain vibrated through her hand and up her arm. She nearly fell, but managed
to steady herself by grabbing hold of the window frame.

The second time, the same thing. A sore arm and the window still intact. Desperate, she looked around for something else. She’d started to smell petrol. At first, she’d thought it was her imagination but the longer she stayed in here, the stronger the smell got, until she knew it was real.

Beside the toilet, a chrome toilet brush sat inside a matching chrome container. Bridget bent down and picked this up. It was heavy, much heavier than her shoe. Awkward to handle, too. Water sloshed out of it, drenching her sleeves, making the lid of the toilet slippy. More water soaked through her tights.

She lifted it and threw it at the window with an almighty roar. The chrome connected with the glass and smashed right through it. The glass shattered, the noise of it mixing with her own voice, still shouting, unable to stop now she’d started. Chunks of glass landed on the floor. She dropped the brush and container, covered her face to protect it.

So much noise she didn’t hear the door open. Didn’t notice he was there until he grabbed her, pulled her off the seat and dragged her out of the room. Her left foot caught a piece of glass that cut through the soft sole. A trail of blood followed her from the cloakroom, through the hall and into the kitchen where her daughter lay on the ground, face bruised and swollen, with her arms and legs tied behind her.

‘Don’t hurt her!’

The way he was holding her mother, manhandling her like she was freight instead of a frail old lady. Ellen thought she knew fear, but this was something new. Her poor mother. The look of terror etched into every line of her dear face. It was unbearable.

Ignoring the pain, Ellen manoeuvred herself into a sitting position. For a moment, the agony blacked out everything else. When she could focus again, she saw he’d pushed her mother onto one of the kitchen chairs and was wrapping the same thick rope around her that he’d used on Ellen.

There was blood on the ground. A trail of red that filtered through the rainbow colours over her eyes. The blood was from her mother’s foot. Ellen remembered the sound of glass shattering. She’d thought someone was coming to rescue them. That hope was gone.

Ellen swallowed a few times and licked her lips.

‘Please,’ she said. ‘I understand you’re angry with me, but it’s nothing to do with my mother. Please, Harry.’

He swung around, angry she knew his name. As soon as he’d started talking about Monica, she’d remembered. The young boyfriend. Deluded fool.

‘Where’s Pat?’ The question was for her mother, but Harry got there first.

‘I’ve already dealt with him.’

A different agony this time. Worse. Ellen shook her head. She wouldn’t believe it. Couldn’t let herself. Not for a second. Pat.
Her boy. She told herself Harry wasn’t capable of something like that, even though she had no idea what he was capable of. She told herself Pat was like her, a survivor. He would find a way to be fine. She would find a way to make him fine.

‘If you’ve hurt that boy,’ her mother said, ‘I promise I will kill you.’

Harry laughed, but it sounded false to Ellen and she realised how scared he was. That gave her hope.

‘Harry,’ she said. ‘Talk to me. Please?’

Finished with her mother, he turned back to Ellen.

‘I’m done talking.’

‘If you go through with this,’ Ellen said, ‘it will be the end of everything for you. Do you think that’s what Monica would want?’

It was the wrong thing to say. The moment the words were out she wished she could swallow them back. His face creased into anger, all the softness gone. Cheeks flushed red as he strode over, crouched down in front of her and shoved his face up close to hers.

‘Don’t you dare, don’t you dare pretend to know what she wants. You don’t know the first thing about her. If you did, you’d never have hurt her the way you did. You should have left her alone, but you couldn’t do that. And because of you, you stupid, interfering bitch, she’s gone.’

She thought he was going to hit her again and tensed. It never came. Instead, he stood and moved away. Almost like he
couldn’t bear to be near her. Monica had certainly done some job on him. Ellen swore that if she got out of here alive, she would find Monica Telford and make her pay for what she’d caused to happen here today.

Harry sat at the table, took a packet of tobacco from his shirt pocket and some cigarette papers. Pulled out three papers and put them together to make a single, longer paper. He sprinkled tobacco into this, then took a small, black, greasy lump of hash from the same pocket.

When he produced the cigarette lighter, Ellen shouted at him not to do it.

‘You think I’m going to do it in here?’ he asked. ‘I’m not stupid.’

He lit the lighter and she had to bite down on her lip to stop herself screaming. The smell of burning hash mixed with the petrol, the air thick with smells that should never be in her house.

Fear, loathing and rage surged inside her.

‘Where is she?’ Ellen asked.

He’d finished with the joint and put it in his mouth, ready to light. If he lit it in here, if one single bit of burning ash landed on the petrol-drenched ground, it would all be over.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Why not?’

‘She doesn’t want anyone to know,’ he said. ‘She’s scared, don’t you get that? Scared of the pigs, scared of everything. Scared of her old man more than anything else.’

‘She killed him,’ Ellen said. ‘You know that, don’t you? She killed him and then she fucked off and left you. If you mean so much to her, Harry, why would she do that? Why wouldn’t she take you with her?’

He shook his head. ‘She didn’t kill him.’

‘How can you be so sure?’

‘Because she’s not like that,’ he shouted. ‘She’s kind and gentle and she’d never do something like that.’

‘She did it.’

‘Shut up!’ He had his hands over his ears, his face scrunched up in agony. As if Ellen’s words were physically hurting him. ‘She didn’t kill anyone! It was me. I killed him, you stupid cow.’

He was lying. She wanted to get him to admit it, but he pushed the chair back and she jerked back, afraid. He stood up, joint hanging out the side of his mouth, lighter still in his hand. He was playing with the lighter. Flicking the lid open and closed. Every now and then, the spark of a flame caused Ellen and her mother to jump.

He walked to the door, turned and looked at Ellen one last time.

‘Just remember,’ he said. ‘This is for her.’

He left the door open and disappeared.

Nothing happened at first. Ellen waited, not daring to breathe.

‘Pat,’ her mother said. ‘He’s upstairs, Ellen.’

Ellen pushed herself onto her knees. Every movement was agony but no pain could stop her getting to her son. She shuffled
forward. The knife rack was by the sink. Three more big, sharp knives apart from the one Harry had taken.

She didn’t know how she’d manage to get them down from the worktop, but she’d find a way. She was nearly there when Harry roared. She thought he’d come back, seen what she was trying to do and turned her head, ready to defend herself.

He wasn’t there. Instead, she heard him fall, body crashing to the ground.

And the sudden, shocking whoosh of petrol igniting.