‘He’ll be back soon,’ Kathleen says over and over to whoever enters the room and we nod as if we haven’t already heard her say it at least ten times. She has a large industrial kettle bubbling with boiling water ready to make as many cups of tea as necessary and a huge pot of home-made vegetable soup on the go. For when he is home. For when the mourners come.
She’s still a little dazed, probably still has traces of whatever tranquillisers Dr Sweeney gave her last night in her system. She asks the same question over and over again. ‘What exactly did the police say?’
Her repetitive questioning is starting to grate on me, though. Each question ties a knot tighter in my stomach. I don’t want to think about what the police might find, but I can’t escape it with her constant commentary. That’s without even taking into account the conversation Ciara and I had in the kitchen, when she made it clear where her suspicions lay. I know she will have no qualms at all about using my past against me if the police need to ask more questions. My secrets could all be laid bare.
The need to get away washes over me again and I feel it settle on my chest. I will my breath to stay settled, my heart to not race and my inner panic to stay contained, but I know I’m fighting a losing battle.
I make my excuses in a room where I’m sure no one is really listening to me and climb the stairs, past his room to my old bedroom. Two doors away from Joe’s room. On the left-hand side of the landing.
We’ll be sleeping here tonight, in this room. I don’t want to, but I’m nervous about leaving Ciara alone in the house. I don’t trust her. I don’t want to leave her here to start telling anyone who calls to the house, be it mourners or the police or nosy neighbours, just how much ‘trouble’ followed me around.
I wish Alex was here, but he has taken Lily out for a walk around the block in her pram. I think he feels as hemmed in as I do and he doesn’t even know a fraction of what went on this house.
I sense that something’s wrong as soon as I walk into my bedroom. Not quite as it should be. There is a feeling that someone has been in here. Looking through my things, perhaps. Looking for something to use to pin Joe’s death on me. Planting evidence. An uneasy feeling prickles at the back of my neck. ‘You’re being paranoid,’ I whisper to myself.
But then I see that there are only three porcelain dolls on the shelf, where there should be four. Scarlett isn’t standing where she should.
I spot a whisper of green velvet poking out from under the legs of the chest of drawers. On my knees, I reach under the drawers and pull her out, skirt first.
Her face, once perfectly porcelain, flawless with green glass eyes set against the palest of skin, is a mess of sharp edges and dust. Someone has very deliberately applied brute force to her face and crushed it. She is broken beyond all hope of repair.
I touch my hand to the crooked edges where her cheek is now hollowed out, her green glass eye forced inwards, and yelp as the sharp porcelain slices the side of my hand. Watching the blood pool then drip on her clear white skin, I wait for the stinging sensation to take hold.
When it does I allow myself to cry, but only a little. I’m scared. I’m scared that someone – most likely Ciara – is deliberately targeting me. Someone is pushing me because they know that I do have a breaking point.
Someone is creating their own narrative of whatever happened in this house and they firmly believe, or want people to believe, that I snapped. That I killed Joe.
They want me to snap again. To show myself in all my flawed, unhinged, damaged glory. But I won’t do that. I’m better now. I can control my emotions. I have a husband who loves me and a daughter who needs me, and I won’t show either of them just how broken I was.
Broken just like Scarlett. She may be only a doll. A stupid remnant from my childhood to anyone looking in. But she is the last one my mother bought for me. She is symbolic of happy times – more innocent times. And the one person left alive who knows this more than anyone is downstairs right now painting herself as a grief-stricken daughter.
I reach into the pocket of my cardigan, pull out a spare tissue and wrap it around my hand, feeling my nerve endings throb and sting, a welcome distraction from the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I look down and see there is blood on my cardigan and more has run up my arm, leaving a red tide in its wake.
The door to my room opens just as I reach for the handle and Alex is there, Lily in his arms, looking first at me, my eyes wet with tears, my cardigan stained with blood, then at the broken doll.
He glances to my hand, the tissue I have held to my cut already becoming sodden with yet more blood. I don’t think it’s a deep cut, but it doesn’t seem to want to stop bleeding, or throbbing with pain.
‘Jesus, Heidi, what happened? Are you okay?’
‘I’ll live,’ I say, trying to give him a watery smile, which I’m sure looks less than convincing. ‘I don’t think Scarlett will, though.’
‘What happened? Did you drop her?’ he asks.
‘No. I found her like this. Half hidden under the chest of drawers. Someone broke her and then tried to hide the evidence.’
‘Someone?’
‘I’d put my money on Ciara,’ I tell him.
His eyes widen just a little. I want to take Lily from him, to hold her, but I know my hand is still aching. Still bleeding. I lift one of her muslin cloths from her changing bag and wrap it around my hand.
‘I’ll need to clean this out to get a good look at it,’ I say.
‘You don’t really think it was Ciara, do you? Don’t you think it might have just been knocked off the shelf by a breeze or something? These things happen. It doesn’t have to be malicious.’
‘There’s no breeze in here,’ I say, wanting him to be on my side. No, needing him to be on my side. ‘Look at how her face is smashed in, Alex. That doesn’t come from a tumble from a shelf!’
‘But if she hit the drawers on her way down,’ Alex says, lifting the doll and carrying her back to where I found her. ‘Look, there’s debris on the top here.’
There is a small smattering of porcelain-coloured dust, a few chips. But I’m still sure that someone has done this deliberately. Or am I? I look at Alex and he has a look of sympathy, or pity, or something in his eyes.
‘I’m not making it up,’ I tell him. ‘You think I’m unhinged, don’t you?’ I ask, aware that right at this moment, my hand bleeding, my eyes red with tiredness and tears, I do in fact look unhinged.
‘I think, Heidi, that you’re exhausted and stuck in this strange limbo that would drive anyone to distraction. But accidents do happen.’
I don’t know if there’s any point in arguing back. What would it achieve, after all?
‘Look, maybe you’ll feel better after we get that cleaned and you can have a rest. I’ll go and get the first-aid kit and we’ll get you sorted, then you can grab a few hours’ sleep. I’ll wake you if we get the call about Joe. I’ll see if maybe this doll can be repaired, too,’ he says, gesturing at Scarlett, but I know she’s beyond fixing. No amount of glue and patience in the world will put her back together again.