Sam didn’t respond right away and it worried me.
I got why he might be hesitant. I understood that he was shocked and scared, and I guessed he was afraid that if he told Donovan the police were on their way he might panic and attack us with the knife.
Perhaps he thought that if he delayed until the police got here, they’d know how to handle the situation better than we would.
Or perhaps he was trying to get a read on Donovan, assess him, understand him. Sam had an analytical mind and he had experience of dealing with people suffering from fears and delusions. I knew he’d been in rooms before with individuals who could be unpredictable and dangerous.
But I needed him to speak up.
I needed him to back me on this.
‘Sam?’
He shot me a furtive look, then swallowed audibly and peered at Donovan again, searching his face as if he was looking for a secret meaning behind Donovan’s words.
Something flitted behind his eyes. Something I couldn’t quite interpret.
‘Sam?’
He swallowed again and when he spoke his voice was hoarse and afraid.
‘I’m sorry, Lucy.’
I stared at him, feeling a rumbling deep inside. A warning quake.
I hadn’t moved. My stool hadn’t moved. I knew that for certain, but for a crazy second it felt as if my stool was wobbling wildly.
‘Sam?’
‘Shit. Oh, shit.’ He tugged his hair by the roots, ran his hands down over his face. ‘I . . . messed up. I didn’t call them. I just thought . . .’
He didn’t say any more. He didn’t have to.
I understood the terrible miscalculation he’d made.
‘It’s just with the way you’ve been lately, your panic attacks and your anxiety about the house viewings . . . you know how you spiral and obsess and . . . you were just looking so out of it when I got home.’
I didn’t respond.
I didn’t say a word.
My mind flashed on the phone call Sam had made outside. I thought of how he’d stepped away from me while I’d bent forwards and clutched the railings as he’d talked to the emergency services.
Except he hadn’t talked to the emergency services.
He’d faked the call.
I felt light-headed, glancing towards our front door again, then staring in a ringing daze towards our living area.
I thought of the way Sam had stalked inside ahead of me as I’d gripped his shirt from behind, how he’d contemplated the displaced coffee table and the smashed vase and the blood and how he’d asked me again how I’d hit my head.
He didn’t believe you.
He didn’t believe you from the very start.
It rocked me.
‘Nobody is coming?’ I was still struggling to wrap my head around it. ‘We’re on our own?’
‘Well, that’s not quite true,’ Donovan said.
He transferred the hatchet knife to his other hand as he fished his phone out of his trouser pocket. When he glanced at the screen, he made a small appreciative noise at the back of his throat without explaining why.
‘What are you talking about?’ Sam asked him.
‘Why I’m here,’ Donovan told him. ‘Why you’re here, Sam. And why Louise is here with us, too.’