49

For a short time everything seemed to be going well. Even her knee was less painful now she could rest her leg. But Ella knew she couldn’t stay with Christine indefinitely. Having arrived late on Friday afternoon, there had been little time for them to talk about much except practicalities like who was going to feed the baby, and where Ella and Lily would sleep. Christine had two bedrooms in her flat, the smaller of which barely had space for a bed. The original second bedroom had been partitioned into a small bathroom and a box room. Ella assured her hostess that she and Lily would be fine in the smaller of the two rooms, but Christine insisted on giving up her own bedroom for them. They spent more than an hour changing the bedding on Christine’s bed and carting junk from the box room into the living room so that Christine could sleep in the small second bedroom where a bed was concealed beneath piles of clothes, obsolete kitchen appliances, boxes of washing powder and cleaning materials, old framed photographs, a hoover, an iron and ironing board which she admitted she never used, along with all sorts of random bric-a-brac she had gathered over several years of living alone in the flat.

‘I don’t like to throw anything away,’ she explained. ‘You never know when you might need something.’

Ella wondered what use a blind person might ever have for old photographs, but she merely grunted in agreement. Once she was settled in Christine’s bed for the night, with Lily asleep in a makeshift cot on the floor, Ella began to make plans. Christine was evidently unused to living with a baby. She seemed to be enthralled with Lily, constantly enquiring what the baby was doing, and asking to hold her, but the novelty might wear off after a few disturbed nights. Ella had a feeling she had read somewhere that blind people had a very heightened sense of hearing. But more worrying was the thought that Ella could hardly insist that Christine keep her guest’s presence secret. Ella had done her best to drum into Christine that she did not want her violent husband to be able to track her down, but Christine was bound to blab to someone. Even if Ella insisted she was sharing the news in confidence, it only took one person to suspect that Christine’s unexpected visitor was the woman who was plastered all over the news for disappearing with a baby, and the police would be knocking on the door to investigate, and then everything would be over. They were bound to take Lily away from her, and that would be worse than the prison sentence she might have to serve.

Christine spent most of the next day holding the baby and giving her the bottle which Ella prepared, handing her to Ella only when her nappy needed changing. Ella tolerated Christine’s hogging the baby. Not only did it help to cement a relationship between Christine and the baby, making Christine less likely to expose Ella, but it kept Christine indoors. If she went out, there was no knowing who she might meet and what she might say.

‘What’s she doing now?’ Christine asked repeatedly.

Swallowing her irritation, Ella would reply with various fibs. ‘She’s looking at you’, or ‘She’s following you with her eyes’, and ‘She’s watching your lips really closely when you talk’.

Her lies were rewarded with a smile from Christine. Ella was not spinning her falsehoods out of an altruistic wish to make Christine happy. It suited Ella to persuade Christine to allow them to stay in her home as long as possible. But it was wearing, pretending to befriend Christine and having to be grateful to her all the time. However easy or difficult Christine proved to manipulate, there were other considerations. Sooner or later her neighbours were bound to notice there was a baby living in the house next door, and their curiosity might be aroused. Besides which, Christine had friends who visited her. It was going to be impossible to keep the baby’s presence secret for long.

On Monday morning, the doorbell rang. Ella was instantly on her guard.

‘Don’t answer it,’ she hissed.

‘It’s only Gina,’ Christine replied.

‘I don’t want anyone to know I’m here.’

Christine laughed. ‘Don’t worry, Gina won’t tell anyone.’

‘If she finds out I’m here, I’m leaving and taking Lily with me. You won’t see her – you’ll never hold her again. You don’t want that, do you?’

But it was impossible to dissuade Christine from opening the door. Having made Christine promise not to tell Gina about her new housemate, Ella took Lily upstairs. She cuddled her and fed her and soothed her, desperate to keep her from crying and betraying their presence upstairs. Christine’s visitor seemed to stay for hours, but at last Ella heard the front door slam. She was glad she had invented her cover story about a violent husband who was hunting for her, without which it would have been very difficult to explain why she wanted her presence in the house kept secret. But she knew she couldn’t continue to rely on Christine remaining silent about her visitors. Leaving Lily downstairs with Christine, she announced she needed a shower. With the water running, she crept silently along the landing to the box room where Christine was now sleeping, and searched until she found over two hundred pounds in cash stuffed in a wallet in a drawer beside the bed. Pocketing it, along with a pair of sunglasses belonging to Christine, she went downstairs.

Moving as quietly as she could, she made up a bottle of milk. While the kettle was boiling she filled two carrier bags with food that was ready to eat: apples, bananas, biscuits, cereal, cheese, bread, and a large bottle of lemonade. She also grabbed a handful of tea spoons which she dropped into one of the bags.

‘I have to pop out to the shops,’ she said, returning to the living room and putting the bags down as quietly as she could.

Fortunately, the baby began gurgling loudly, distracting Christine.

‘You can leave Lily here.’

‘No, she’s been inside for long enough. She could do with some fresh air. It’ll do her good to go out in the pushchair.’

‘What if he sees you?’ Christine asked.

‘He won’t. He’ll be at work. We won’t be gone long, I promise, but I have to get out for a bit. I haven’t been out of the house all weekend, and nor has Lily.’

‘I’ll come with you.’ Christine heaved herself to her feet.

‘No, you stay here and get some lunch ready. We won’t be long. Do you want anything from the shops?’

To Ella’s relief, Christine subsided into her chair again and reached for her bag.

‘Here,’ she said, holding out her purse. ‘Take some money and you can bring back the change. There should be more than enough there to get whatever you need for Lily.’

Ella opened the purse and removed fifty pounds in notes as silently as she could, before putting the purse down on a chair. ‘Thanks, I’m sure that’s way more than I need.’

Shoving the money in her pocket, she bundled Lily into her pushchair as quickly as she could, slipped the bags of food on the handles, put on the sunglasses and left. Visiting Christine had bought her some time, but now she had to find somewhere else to stay where no one would recognise her. At least she had enough money to buy a store of jars of baby food and nappies to keep them going while she was looking for somewhere to hide out.