6 SEPTEMBER

Twelve days after abandonment

31

Ruth took a taxi to the police station alone, leaving the car, leaving everything. Adrian sat in the caravan waiting for the kids to wake, working over the words he and Ruth had chosen to explain to them what had happened. Mostly, though, he was thinking of Barry Mason on the night of the storm.

He and Janis must’ve thought it was a miracle, the kids sleeping through all that noise – through the wind and rain whipping at the windows. The baby, especially. Then the power cut and one of them decided they’d better check on Sasha who wasn’t a light sleeper at the best of times or perhaps it was time for her feed, Barry’s turn, but Sasha wouldn’t wake and when Janis checked on Felix and Chloe – that’s when the screaming started. Ruth had reached for her coat when she heard the screams. ‘I’d better go and see if they’re okay,’ she’d said. She hadn’t needed to wake Adrian. He was already up. He hadn’t slept in days, not since the street party, Luke’s arm sizzling on the barbecue. He’d gone to Silverthorn the following morning, to see if Emma needed anything and to plead with her about his paradise lost. That was his mistake, thinking it was his private hell when it was everyone’s, they were all lost.

She hadn’t answered his knock on the door or his call from the hallway when he ventured inside, fearful for no good reason. He could still smell Luke’s arm burning.

‘Emma?’ Climbing the stairs, scared by the silence in the house, carrying his peace offering tenderly in both hands. ‘Mrs Dearman?’

She’d come out of the master bedroom to stand at the top of the stairs, wrapped in an old red fleece dressing gown and a new rage.

‘You’re a pathetic puppy, aren’t you?’ Her eyes raking his face before dropping to his hands. ‘Bringing that ridiculous brick in here like a dead rat.’

Another mistake. He’d thought the brick would move her, proof of how deeply his whole family was invested in Blackthorn Ashes.

Christie’s name was on the brick, for pity’s sake.

Instead, ‘You’ve failed.’ Nothing but contempt in her voice, just like her husband. ‘This place is ruined. You’re a failure. Everyone can see it, even your own family.’

‘Please don’t bring my family into this.’

‘That daughter of yours with her shaved head, I’ve seen her, smoking drugs with that black boy who wears women’s clothes . . .’

‘Mrs Dearman, please. I came here to see if there was anything I could do—’

‘You? You can’t even sort out your own family. What kind of father are you, exactly? Your boy’s a thief, I told your wife but she wouldn’t have it. You’re lucky Luke doesn’t know about that.’ Her mouth twisted, mocking him. ‘My husband’s a man. He doesn’t hide behind his wife.’

‘I’ve tried.’ He turned his back. ‘I’m going now, before I say something I’ll regret.’

But, ‘Don’t turn your back on me, you pathetic puppy!’

Grabbing for his arm and missing, her fingers snagging in his sleeve, shoving him so the pair of them lost their balance and fell, no time to scream or shriek, thudding down the stairs, thumping, a clumsy slow-motion mess until that single, sickening crack as her head hit the bottom.

He was underneath, thought for a second he’d broken her fall. But when he moved his arms he found Christie’s brick in his fist, as if he’d glued it there, refusing to let go. He could smell talcum powder and toothpaste and her blood, hot.

His heart punched in his chest. He couldn’t catch his breath – soaked right through with horror and shock and relief. Appalling, wonderful, eclipsing relief. Because everything had stopped. The madness and anger that’d been battering inside his skull for weeks – stopped. Silence, deep and black, drifted him like a sea.

It didn’t last, of course. How could it?

In the caravan, he blinked, steadying his hands on the lip of the table, listening for sounds from the room where his children were sleeping. He was certain they must have heard the violence in his head, that awful crack as she landed. It was so loud, even now.

‘That happened.’

He made himself say it out loud because he’d kept it inside too long. Buried under the wreckage of the days that followed. The storm, the children. Hiding it, even from himself. Until Iris Edison came with her questions.

At the hospital, they were told carbon monoxide poisoning causes confusion and paranoia, even hallucinations. That’s how it’d felt, in Silverthorn. He’d convinced himself he couldn’t be sure how it happened so what hope was there of explaining it, or describing it to the police? He would never be free, though. He knew that now. Until he faced it and was made to pay. He wanted to be made to pay.

He twisted his fingers together, raising the fist they made and hitting his forehead dully, again and again.

Ruth was gone. She’d taken it with her, his chance to be made to pay. If he confessed now, she’d go to prison for perjury. The kids would be left alone and Ruth was wrong about Christie being a killer but she wasn’t wrong about everything. It would all fall on Agnes. Ruth didn’t believe Agnes could carry that, or else she’d have come up with a different plan.

He forced his hands down, listening.

By some miracle, the kids were sleeping through this. But that’s what Barry Mason had believed, the night of the storm, and he was wrong.

Perhaps Adrian was wrong too, and Ruth. Agnes was here. She’d come home to them and she’d stayed, even when everything was smashed to pieces right in front of her. He felt a fresh surge of rage at Emma, her contempt for them all, even Agnes.

That daughter of yours with her shaved head . . .

Her face a mask of disgust. What kind of father are you?