‘In the garage,’ he says, his voice close to breaking. ‘I just locked her in there.’
Sarah nods and waits.
‘I looked everywhere,’ Will says. ‘I tried all her friends, all the places she might have gone. I phoned the hospitals but they wouldn’t tell me anything.’
‘Wouldn’t it be better to leave her in peace for a while, and let her come back when she’s ready?’
‘You don’t understand,’ he wails. ‘George is a mean bastard. He wants everything his own way, and if things don’t go right for him he gets nasty. You know what he did? He turned up at the place where I was staying. He told me if I didn’t leave Sophie alone he’d get someone to sort me out. He’s a crazy piece of shit, Sarah. He might have done something to her… maybe she can’t come back?’
‘Will,’ Sarah says, more calmly than she feels, ‘that really isn’t very likely. You know Sophie as well as I do. She’s probably gone off for a relaxing retreat somewhere and turned her phone off. And your behaviour towards us really isn’t helping, is it? Now you need to cut these ties so we can start thinking of how we’re going to put things right.’
She holds out her wrists towards him.
And then the doorbell rings.
‘You need to answer the door,’ Sarah says.
‘No,’ Will says. His face is wet with tears and there is blood on his hands, all over his shirt. ‘No, no, no, I can’t, Sarah, don’t make me.’
‘It’s the only way,’ she says. ‘You have to answer the door, now. And then come back here and untie me. It might be Sophie; maybe she forgot her key.’
‘What if it’s the police?’
‘Then you have to let them in and we can start to explain things,’ Sarah says, as though this is easy, straightforward, as though there is nothing else to consider.
‘I can’t!’
‘If you don’t, they’ll break the door down and then they won’t even give you a chance to explain. Do it the easy way, Will. Have some sense.’
Despite the confidence in her words, she’s surprised when he gets to his feet awkwardly. He towers over her. The doorbell rings again, and is followed by a sharp knock. He picks up the knife from the coffee table. Kitty flinches back, as if he is about to threaten her with it again.
‘Leave the knife where it is.’
‘I’m scared,’ he whines.
‘I know. But it will be okay. Put the knife down.’
‘Promise?’
Open the fucking door, she wants to shout.
‘I promise.’
But he still takes the knife with him.
Even with her wrists tied together, she manages to cross her fingers. As if it matters, lying to this man. Of course it won’t be okay. It will never, ever be okay again. But she knows now that this is the only way to deal with him, the only way to get through to the terrified little boy who wants nothing more than for someone to love him, no matter what. Sarah gets to her knees awkwardly so that she can see over the back of the sofa to the hallway.
Will gets to the front door and opens it a tiny crack.
Sarah hears voices, shouts. Will tries to shut the door again, but he is sent flying across the tiled floor of the hallway as the door is flung open, and two police officers come into the house. The knife skitters away.
Kitty screams with relief.
‘Please,’ Sarah says, ‘you don’t understand, I need to get back to the house.’
‘We need to get you checked over,’ the male officer says again. ‘Another patrol is going to your house, I explained that.’
‘He’s in the cottage, not in the house,’ she says, for what must be the third time. Her teeth are chattering and she cannot seem to get the words out properly. The paramedics are dealing with George and a second ambulance has now arrived. Kitty is inside it.
‘Where’s Will?’ Sarah asks.
But in that moment one of the paramedics approaches her; it’s her turn.
‘I think she’s just in shock,’ the police officer says. ‘There’s blood all over her, but I don’t think any of it is hers.’
His radio starts up again and he does something to turn the volume down, leaves Sarah in the care of the paramedics. But she still hears his reply to the crackling voice, just as he walks out of the front door. ‘Right… right. And is he still alive?’
Part Seven
Sarah
The police officer who seems to have been tasked with keeping an eye on Sarah and Kitty is called Aiden. Under any other circumstances Sarah might have found this amusing, but given the situation she cannot bring herself to laugh. The A&E department at James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough is busy, of course, but it doesn’t take long before they have both been checked over and found to be in good health.
Sarah is still shaky, but now she is beginning to feel better. Kitty is here, with her, and she is alive.
She asks everyone she sees if they have heard how Aiden is, but nobody seems to know anything.
Photographs have been taken of their injuries by a forensic nurse practitioner and, once that’s done, they are free to leave. The officer who has been waiting for them takes Sarah to one side. ‘You were asking about your friend Mr Beck? He’s been brought in; he’s in resus. The doctor just told me you can go in for a few minutes – they’re going to take him up for a CT scan. They’re asking about next of kin.’
‘I don’t think he has anyone,’ Sarah says.
Kitty comes too, because Sarah does not want to leave her alone. The pair of them are taken into Bay Three, where Aiden is on a trolley, lying flat with his head between blocks, a cellular cotton blanket covering him. Sarah can see dried blood and bruises and it’s hard to tell where the injuries are. His right eye is black, swollen shut.
‘Aiden?’ Sarah says, looking down so he can see her face.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says. His mouth is an odd shape, his lower lip cut and swollen.
‘Jesus,’ Kitty says.
‘It’s okay,’ Sarah says. She is trying not to cry at the sight of him. ‘I’m sorry this happened to you. Are you going to be okay?’
‘He was threatening Sophie,’ he said. ‘She was scared of him.’
‘She’s still missing, Aiden, we don’t know where she is…’
And then, suddenly, he smiles, then winces at the effort of it.
‘I do,’ he says.
‘I’ve forgotten your name,’ Sarah says to the officer, who has been waiting for them outside.
‘Oh, it’s Aiden,’ he replies. He looks very young, which makes her feel old.
‘I meant your last name.’
‘Arnold. PC Arnold. I can give you a lift.’
‘Is it possible to collect my dog?’ Tess has been released from the garage, and at the moment is being looked after by the police. Sarah wants her back before she gets taken to the emergency kennels.
‘I’ll check. Can you wait here a minute?’
Sarah stops him before he goes off.
‘While you do that, I want to go and see George. Is that all right?’
‘Ah…’ The police officer looks at the registrar, who is finishing the notes next to him.
‘I think he’s been taken upstairs to the HDU,’ she says.
PC Aiden Arnold offers to take Sarah and Kitty up there. George has been brought here by air ambulance, so, even though he was still in the care of the paramedics when the ambulance took Kitty and Sarah, he was in the hospital and being treated well before they were.
‘I won’t be long,’ Sarah says to Kitty. ‘Why don’t you wait here with PC Arnold and I’ll meet you in the foyer in a few minutes? I just want to see how he is before I leave.’
Kitty looks relieved. She is exhausted, Sarah realises, and traumatised by what’s happened.
The HDU is on the first floor, and, as expected, she isn’t allowed in. ‘Are you a relative?’ the staff nurse wants to know.
‘A friend. I was with him… I just want to know he’s okay.’
/> The nurse’s voice softens a little when she sees the marks around Sarah’s throat, her swollen, cut ear. ‘He’s stable at the moment. You can phone in the morning, if you like.’ She passes over a leaflet, Information for Patients and Visitors to the High Dependency/Intensive Care Unit. The phone number and key members of staff are listed on the back.
‘Thanks,’ Sarah says.
‘You’re welcome. Goodnight.’
Sarah stares at the leaflet for a minute, not reading it. In truth, she doesn’t particularly want to go home. Aiden is here. George is here. Kitty is safe.
‘I’m sorry they won’t let you in,’ says a voice behind her. ‘They asked me to wait a few minutes while they do something. I’m going back in a minute.’
Sarah turns to see Sophie sitting on a set of three chairs bolted to the floor in the corridor. Has she been there all along? She must have walked straight past her. Sophie looks pale and shattered, as though someone has picked her up and dropped her.
‘Sophie!’
Sophie stands and Sarah rushes to hold her, squeezing her as tightly as she possibly can. Sophie is shaking and for a moment Sarah wonders if she’s ill, but then she realises she is crying. They both are.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Sarah says, over and over again, although she’s not sure exactly what it is she’s sorry for. For not being able to help George. For not being a better friend. For introducing Sophie to Will in the first place.
‘I’m sorry – no, I’m really sorry…’ Sophie is saying, crying into Sarah’s hair. ‘I fucked everything up. It’s all my fault, everything’s my fault. And now George is… he’s…’
‘He’ll be fine – he will. George is strong, Soph; he’ll get through this. You both will.’
‘I don’t know, I don’t know. He’s in a bad way… they – they’ve put him in an induced coma. He’s got swelling on the brain.’
Sarah breathes in. Same as Jim. She doesn’t say this, of course.
‘And they told me what you did,’ Sophie adds.
‘Me?’
‘That you found my phone. That you dialled 999. You saved him, Sarah, you saved his life.’
But I never even spoke to them, Sarah thinks. When Will had shouted for her, she had shoved the phone down her top into her bra, hoping to use it later, to phone the police, and not realising that the line was still open.
They must have traced the number to Sophie’s address; maybe they heard something of what was going on.
‘I’m sorry about Aiden,’ Sophie says. ‘Is he going to be okay?’
‘I think so. Did the police tell you?’
‘No, Aiden did. When he regained consciousness, he got the police to call the hotel where I was staying and told me about George. He didn’t want me to hear it from anyone else.’
‘He knew where you were?’
‘I told him about it when we chatting once, this little place George and I used to go to. He worked out where I was, and came to see me. He was worried about you because of how much Will was hanging around the farm.’
‘He tried to warn me,’ Sarah says. ‘I’m glad he knew where you were, though.’
‘Me too. Otherwise I would still be there now. Where is Will?’ Sophie says.
Sarah stares at her for a moment, wondering what she’s been told. Wondering what she can possibly say. ‘I don’t know,’ she says at last.
‘He’s been arrested?’
‘Yes. They took him away.’
‘Thank God,’ Sophie says. ‘Thank God for that.’ She starts crying again, her shoulders shaking.
‘They’re taking us to a hotel for the night,’ Sarah says. ‘Come with us?’
‘I want to stay here, with George.’
‘They’ll call you if they need you, won’t they? He’s unconscious. Come on. You shouldn’t be on your own.’
‘I’ll come for a while,’ Sophie says. ‘Then I’ll come back here. I want to sit with him.’
‘Okay, then,’ Sarah says. She threads her arm through Sophie’s, and steers her towards the stairs.
It’s snowing again, just a few small flakes tumbling from a dark sky, when the police car drops them off at the hotel. Tess isn’t allowed, but PC Aiden Arnold has been in touch with the officers still at Sophie’s house, and one of them has agreed to drop Tess off at Daniel and Becca’s house. They have a dog, a cantankerous one-toothed Jack Russell called Vic, so it’s not ideal, far from it, but, as Louis is not answering his phone, Sarah has no one else she can think to ask. Ian and Diana have cats. Three of them.
Sophie is too tired to object to where they’ve been put for the night, although she is still insisting that she is going to go back to the hospital in an hour or so. They are allocated a twin room and a double, and almost immediately Kitty crawls into one of the twin beds and closes her eyes.
‘I wish I could have a drink,’ Sophie says, looking at her.
‘Let’s go next door,’ Sarah says.
While Sophie sits on the bed, Sarah fills the plastic kettle and puts teabags in the two mugs. ‘I know it’s not quite what you had in mind,’ she says, ‘but a cup of tea is better than nothing.’
‘I’d still rather have a vodka,’ Sophie says dolefully. ‘Or a gin. Or even a tequila.’
‘Me too,’ Sarah says.
Sarah makes the tea, sharing one of the little plastic UHT milk tubs between the two mugs. It will have to do. She passes one mug to Sophie and sits on the foam sofa.
‘Why did you go, Sophie? What happened?’
Sophie’s dark eyes are wide.
‘I got scared, that’s all. Will was being so difficult; he’d been… I don’t know… forceful, I guess, ever since that night I picked him up from the pub. He was telling me what to do, how I was going to leave George, how we were going to start a family. I thought it was quite sweet at first but then I realised he meant it: he was completely focused on this future we were going to have.’
‘And you told him it wasn’t going to happen?’
‘I tried. He got… scary.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
Sophie’s bottom lip quivers. ‘I thought… I don’t know. I was going to tell you, over that lunch we never had. But you seemed to be fond of him. I thought it would make things awkward for you, too, especially with Louis.’
‘Oh, Soph.’
‘And besides, I thought it would just be easier if I went away for a bit, to think.’
‘I was worried about you,’ Sarah says. ‘George was beside himself.’
Sophie manages a bark of a laugh. ‘George knew where I was. It was more or less his idea.’
‘What? I don’t understand.’
‘He was furious when he found out about my fling with Will. You know what he’s like – he has to manage everything. He wasn’t even bothered until the Lexus got scratched. And then, when Will started threatening me, George was fabulous. He said I should disappear for a while. We thought he’d get bored eventually, that he’d give up. We never thought for one moment that he’d get violent.’
‘You know George didn’t give the game away,’ Sarah says. ‘Even when Will hurt him, he never revealed where you were. He didn’t even tell me.’
Sophie smiles again, and looks down at her fingers, clasped in her lap. ‘Funny old bastard, he is. He can be a bloody arse to me, but when someone else has a go he’s the first one to leap to my defence.’
‘His heart’s in the right place.’
‘Yes, or more probably it’s that being a bastard to me is his prerogative. You know what men are like – so territorial. They can’t bear the thought of anyone pissing on their bonfire, can they?’
‘Aiden didn’t tell, either.’
The thought of Aiden makes Sarah feel suddenly sick. She’d thought he was dead, that Will had killed him. All that time he was unconscious in the cottage; it’s a wonder he survived.
‘He was kind to me, Sarah,’ says Sophie, looking at her seriously. ‘He’s a good man.’
‘Yes. He is.’
Despite her little smile, Sophie is grey-faced. Sarah is struck by how changed she is – the bright, vibrant Sophie has disappeared completely.
Sarah puts her mug down on the desk, takes Sophie’s out of her hands, and folds her friend into a hug. ‘It’s okay now. We’re safe.’
Aiden
You manage to sleep a little and that is good because then, at least, everything stops hurting for a while. When you wake up again – they are constantly checking you’re not dead – the pain starts up again, everywhere at once. The stabbing pain in the back of your head is the worst of all. They have put stitches in it, and the local anaesthetic wears off far too quickly.
Still, the pain means you are still alive. You are still here.
At some point in the night they move you up to a ward, and there, at least, you manage to sleep in half-hour bursts, until finally you see daylight from the windows at the end of the bay and they sit you up and give you something to drink. Tea, toast. How are you feeling?
Awesome.
A doctor tells you you are fine. Nothing broken. Cuts and bruises. They are keeping you in for observation because of the head injury, but if you continue to look perky they will let you go home.
Home, you think. You’ve never properly had one of those.
The painkillers they gave you are beginning to wear off, the comforting numbness is lifting, and what’s left is a thumping ache and the stinging in the back of your head. You ease yourself into an upright position, hoping to see a nurse, and instead you see a tall young man standing by the nurses’ station.
He’s looking at you.
When he sees you’re awake he approaches, and he’s familiar in a strange sort of way, ghost-like, someone you know from a dream. And then you see he has Jim’s eyes, Jim’s crooked smile, and Sarah’s fair hair.
‘Louis,’ you say.