Mum and I look at each other, horror freezing our faces into identical masks.
“He knows you’re here.” It’s out before I can stop it.
Mark looks between us. “Who does? What’s going on?”
Neither of us answers. I doubt either of us knows how.
“I’m calling the police.”
“No!” In unison.
I glance outside. Is he there? Watching us? Seeing our reaction? I shut the front door, pull the chain across with fingers that shake so much I drop it twice. Buying myself time.
Mark picks up the phone.
“Please don’t.”
I should never have gone to the police station when the anniversary card arrived; it only made things worse.
“Why on earth not? Anna, someone just tried to set fire to the house!”
Because my mum will go to prison. Because I’ll be arrested for hiding her.
“First a brick through the window, now this . . .” His fingers hover over the keys. He stares at me, reading my expression, then looks between me and my mother. “There’s something I don’t know, isn’t there?”
My dad isn’t dead. He sent the anniversary card because he knew my mum wasn’t either, but when he realized I’d gone to the police, he tried to stop me. He put a dead rabbit on our doorstep. He threw a brick through our daughter’s bedroom window. He’s unstable, and he’s dangerous, and he’s watching the house.
“Yes . . .” I look at Mum. I have to tell him. I never wanted to drag him into this mess, but I can’t lie to him anymore—it isn’t fair. I do my best to convey this to Mum, who steps forward, one hand in front of her, as though she can physically stop the words leaving my mouth.
“I haven’t been honest with you about why I’m in Eastbourne.” She speaks quickly, before I’ve even managed to formulate the explanation Mark is long overdue. She holds my gaze. Please.
It’s all too much. Helping Mum pack; preparing to lose her for the second time; Murray Mackenzie stopping just short of accusing me of conspiracy.
Now this.
It feels as though my nerve endings are outside my body, each revelation a series of electric shocks.
“Then you better explain. Now.” Mark moves the phone from one hand to the other and back again, a call to the police just seconds away. The coldness in his eyes makes me shiver, even though I know it is only worry putting it there. I take Ella from Mum, for the reassurance of her weight in my arms, the feeling of a warm body against mine.
Mum glances at me. She shakes her head almost imperceptibly. Don’t.
I keep quiet.
“I’m running away,” she says. “My marriage broke down last year, and I’ve been hiding from my husband ever since.”
I keep my eyes trained on Mark. There’s no sign that he doesn’t believe Mum, and why wouldn’t he? It’s the truth.
“Just before Christmas he found out where I was living. I didn’t know where to go. I thought if I laid low for a bit . . .”
“You should have told us, Angela.” The words are admonishing, but Mark’s tone is soft. Many of his patients have come from—or are still in—abusive relationships. Perhaps some are abusers themselves; I’ve never asked, and Mark would never say. “If there was a chance he could follow you here—that you might put us at risk, too—you should have told us.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“I suppose it was him who put the brick through the window?”
“I bought a train ticket online. He must have looked at my e-mails; it’s the only way he would have known where I was headed. Caroline’s was the only Eastbourne address in my contacts.”
Mark looks at the phone in his hand, then back at the door, where the letters show back to front. “We need to tell the police.”
“No!” Mum and I, together.
“Yes.”
“You don’t know what he’s like. Who you’re dealing with.”
Mark looks at me. “Have you met him?”
I nod. “He . . . he’s dangerous. If we report him to the police we can’t stay here, not when he knows we’re here. He could do anything.” I’m still shaking. I rock Ella from side to side, more to expel some of the adrenaline coursing through my veins than to soothe her. Mark paces the hall, tapping the phone against his thigh as he walks.
“I’ll go.” Mum has her bag in her hand. “It’s me he wants. I should never have come here—it’s not fair to involve you.” She takes a step toward the door and I grab her arm.
“You can’t go!”
“I was leaving anyway. You knew that.” She takes my hand off her arm and gives it a gentle squeeze.
“It’s different now. He knows where you are. He’ll hurt you.”
“And if I stay, he’ll hurt you.”
It’s Mark who breaks the ensuing silence. “You both need to go.” He’s decisive, rummaging in the dresser drawer for a set of keys he hands to me. “Go to my flat. I’ll wait here and call the police.”
“What flat? No, I can’t involve you both in this. I need to go.” Mum tries to open the door, but Mark’s quicker than her. He puts one hand flat against the door.
“You’ve already involved us, Angela. And much as I sympathize with your situation, my priority is keeping Anna and our daughter safe, which means getting them the hell away from this house until your ex is safely behind bars.”
“He’s right,” I say. “Mark’s flat’s in London—no one will know we’re there.” Ella squirms in my arms, awake and hungry.
Mum’s face is pale. She’s searching for an argument but there are none to be had. This is the best way forward. Once we’re safely out of Eastbourne, Mark can call the police, and I’ll convince Mum that we have to come clean. There’s no other way.
“I don’t want Anna and the baby with me,” Mum says. “It’s not safe.”
“Given that your ex has just tried to set fire to our house, it’s hardly safe for them here.” Mark holds out the keys. “Go.”
“Listen to him.” I put a hand on Mum’s arm. “Take us.” All I can think about is getting far away from Eastbourne. From Dad. From Murray Mackenzie and questions that circle around the truth.
She sighs, relenting. “I’ll drive. You sit with Ella—we don’t want to have to stop.” She looks at Mark. “Be careful, won’t you? He’s dangerous.”
“Call me when you’re at the flat. And don’t let anyone in except me. Understood?”
Mum grips the steering wheel, her eyes intent on the road. I’m in the back, Ella strapped into her seat beside me, sucking furiously on the knuckle of my thumb, in lieu of the breast she wants. It won’t be long before she starts crying for milk. Perhaps we can pull over once we’re safely away from Eastbourne.
“Dad doesn’t even know Mark’s flat exists,” I repeat when I see Mum check the rearview mirror for the hundredth time since we left. “It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay.” She’s close to tears. “Nothing’s going to be okay.”
I feel my own eyes stinging. I need her to be strong. I need her strong so that I can be strong. That’s the way it’s always been.
I remember falling over as a child, feeling the searing pain in my skinned knee.
“Upsy-daisy!” Mum would sing, pulling me to my feet. I’d read her face and see her smile, and without actively thinking whether it hurt more or less, I would feel the pain of my skinned knee slipping away.
“The police were always going to find out, Mum.”
In the mirror, her face is ashen.
“It’s Dad they’ll go for. They’ll go easy on you—they’ll see you were forced into it. You probably won’t even go to prison; you’ll get a suspended sentence . . .”
She’s not listening. She’s scanning the street, looking for something—looking for Dad?—and suddenly she slams on the hand brake and I shoot forward, the lap strap in the middle seat of my car doing little to hold me back.
“Get out.”
“What?” We’re on the outskirts of Eastbourne.
“There’s a bus stop, just there. Or you can ring Mark to come and pick you up.” Her foot rests on the clutch, her hand on the brake. She’s crying now. “It was never meant to be like this, Anna. I never meant for anyone to get hurt. I never meant for you to be involved.”
I don’t move. “I’m not leaving you.”
“Please, Anna—it’s for your own good.”
“We’re in this together.”
She waits a full ten seconds. Then, with a sound that is midway between a cry and a moan, she releases the hand brake and carries on driving.
“I’m sorry.”
“I know you are.” All those years of her mopping up my tears and sticking Band-Aids on my knees, and now I am the strong one. It’s Mum who needs me. I wonder if this metamorphosis has taken place only because of the extraordinary circumstances in which we find ourselves, or whether this is the natural progression of women as they move from daughter to mother.
We drive in silence, except for Ella, who has progressed from fractious squawks to full-blown wails.
“Can we stop again?”
“We can’t.” Mum’s checking the rearview mirror again. And again.
“Just for five minutes. She won’t stop if I don’t feed her.”
Mum’s eyes flick from the mirror to the road and back. She’s seen something.
“What is it?”
“There’s a black Mitsubishi behind us.” She presses hard on the accelerator and the burst of speed pushes me against my seat. “It’s following us.”