One number. Again. And again. And again.
Freya sank onto the boot edge, metal cold through her jeans, holding the sheet of paper in her hands. Jesus. Hung there, for long moments, wondering what the hell you did next. She glanced back over her shoulder, back into the bag, her eyes wandering as her brain worked to calculate her next move. There was a patch of darkness, a ball of material that she hadn’t seen before, tucked into one of the side pockets. She reached in, pulling it free. A glove, the solitary one of a pair of dark grey Thinsulate ones, large, so as to encompass her mother’s long fingers. Her mother had laughed that she could never wear dainty women’s gloves. She held it up into the light, her stomach flipping. She recognised them. Had seen them last as a pair. When she gave them to her mother for Christmas.
She sat there, in the cold, holding the phone bill, the glove. Her mother’s glove. If it was there…what the hell did that mean? That she’d been in the Mercedes, in this bag, had seen the phone bills, the receipts, the clumped together evidence of her father’s infidelity?
Freya didn’t think about what she did next. If she had, perhaps she wouldn’t have done it. Punched the numbers into her mobile phone, fingers trembling. She told herself that it was from the cold. Then suddenly it was ringing, and she knew what she was going to say. That man, the one you’ve been fucking? Well, he’s a liar. And he’s dead.
Then the ringing stopped, the phone answered, and she held her breath. But it wasn’t the soft woman’s voice she was expecting, full of hope, fear.
“Hello?” A man. Tired. Heavy.
Heart thundering, Freya hung up the phone.
Chapter 38
Cecilia – Sunday, 25th March – 6.25pm
Cecilia walked, even though her head floated, ground shifting beneath her. She was dimly aware of a hollow sound, a clack, clack, clack. Her heart thrumming a little faster, looking for that sound in amongst the cacophony of a ruined plane. But it was just her shoes, heels against scuffed hospital linoleum. There were people, so many of them.
It was the first time she had left the house, the first time she had left her bed, since the memorial. Hadn’t spoken to Tom on the drive home, had stared out of the window at the plunging mountains and the patchwork snow. She had opened the car door almost before it had stopped, engine thrumming in their half empty street. Everyone in work or shopping or just living. And there she was, a ghost cutting through the middle of them. She had been out of the car, stepping too quickly, inappropriate shoes on slick tarmac. But then, it felt like she was always falling now. She hadn’t said goodbye to her husband, hadn’t looked at him. Her head was still too full of the people waiting for the ones never coming back.
She had wanted a shower. Needed one. The grief clung to her skin like cigarette smoke. Skin crawling. Seemed like she couldn’t breathe. If she could just take a shower. But the key shook in her hand, the lock moving so that she couldn’t catch it. The revving of an engine, loud, then growing softer and softer, until Tom was gone and she was alone, standing in the snow.
She shouldn’t be here. Shouldn’t be anywhere. Shouldn’t have been one of the thirteen survivors. The lucky thirteen, the media were calling them. Lucky.
She had finally managed to open the front door. Had stumbled up the stairs, across the landing, into the bedroom that was now her bedroom. Had swallowed two of the tablets, the ones they gave her at the hospital. Looked longingly at the rest. Then the world was swimming, fuzzy at the edges.
She had slept, on and off, through the intervening days. Waking just to use the bathroom, take another couple of tablets and wait for them to sink her into unconsciousness again. Had a dim recollection of Tom coming into the room, leaving behind a plate of toast, butter pooling on its surface, tea, curls of steam dancing from it.
Then, this morning, she had awoken with a start. Maisie. She had forgotten Maisie. She had said that she would visit, was supposed to have gone yesterday, or was it the day before? And she hadn’t, hadn’t even rung. Cecilia had felt a splurge of guilt, that unsettling feeling of yet another failure settling in her stomach.
She was in the car and driving before she realised what she was doing. Hadn’t really paid attention to the journey, the car steering itself into the hospital car park. Back to the place where she could be a better version of herself. Where there was some hope, chance that she could do something, be someone worthy of the title. Lucky thirteen.
She didn’t wait for the lift. Turned into the stairwell. Quiet here, footsteps echoing. She could have rung the helpline, should have rung the helpline. Found out the latest information, a gift for Maisie in lieu of flowers. Instead she was going empty handed, a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, wondering if her presence alone could possibly be enough.
Through the double doors. Nurses with brittle bright faces. Visitors smiling, because you have to make an effort after all, even here. They glance at her, curious, at her arm and the bruising, a sickening yellow now above her eye. Quiet mutters. It’s another one. One of the lucky thirteen. They look at her, judging, and they can see that something has gone wrong, that a mistake has been made. Shouldn’t be her. Should have been the stewardess with the fiancee who’s crumbling from grief without her. Or the mother and her little girl. Or Ernie.
She turned into the ward.
The curtain was closed around Maisie’s bed. Visitors huddled across the ward, quiet conversations punctured by the sobs that tore from behind the curtain. They were trying not to look up, not wanting to intrude. But their gazes struggled, straining to wander back to the sound of crying.
Cecilia’s feet had sunk, drowning in linoleum. Wanting to move, because people were looking at her now, and the whispers have chased her in here as well, only now they seem to be louder, so loud that they almost drown out the sobbing. Watching as the curtain twitched, a nurse, rail thin, stepping out. Her lips were pursed, but then she realised that she was being watched, pulling them into a tight smile.
“You’re here to see Maisie?”
Cecilia wondered why the woman didn’t wear make-up. Foundation to cover the splaying fingers of rosacea. Lipstick to fill out famine thin lips. Then she wondered what would be the point. She nodded, couldn’t seem to speak.
“That’s good. That’s good.” She lowered her voice, leaning closer to Cecilia, so that all she could smell was breath mints and grandmother perfume. “Just had some bad news. She’ll be glad to see you. Needs her friends.”
The sobbing had blurred now, becoming a low moaning.
Cecilia stared at her, and it seemed that her brain wasn’t working, that she couldn’t seem to piece things together. “What?”
The nurse looked at her, hard, as if struggling to believe that anyone could be so stupid. Then glancing down at the arm and up at the bruise, and realising. Face softening, taking her companionably by the arm, the good one, pulling her further away from the bed.
“It’s her husband. Ernie? They found him. Poor love. We guessed that this was coming. I mean, you try to prepare them, but what can you say? She really thought that he would make it.”
Looking at Cecilia, expectant. As if she thinks that she can do something. As if anything she could ever do could make a difference.
Cecilia stepped back, pulling her arm free.
“Are you all right?”
She stared at her, almost laughed. Am I all right? Lucky thirteen. An entire life swamped in the guilt of a dead baby, the recollection of Eddie’s rough hands violently pulling at her, breath sweet with alcohol, so close to her that she would wake up, night after night after night, and want to scream, but she couldn’t scream because there’s another man asleep next to her, and another child, one who lived, asleep down the corridor. And she’s awoken in a life she barely recognises, with someone else calling her mummy, and what the hell is she supposed to do with that? Then, when it all finally gets too much, when there’s no sleep at all anymore and food chokes her and touch makes her want to die, she runs away, only to tumble from the sky like a wounded bird, falling straight back into the life she has tried so hard to escape.
“No. I’m not.”
Cecilia turned away from her, walking quickly towards the sound of Maisie’s sobs.
Chapter 39
Tom – Sunday, 25th March – 6.26pm
There were flames, climbing their way up the red wood door, tongues of fire licking, tasting. The snow lit up crimson, scarred an acrid black. The heat rolled, barrelling outwards so that the knot of people gathered in the street recoiled, turning their heads towards the cold night. A sound like champagne corks popping, the tinkle of glass and clouds of thicket dense smoke billowed from the now shattered windows. The police tape had been taken down this morning.
“Shit.” Tom pulled his radio free from his jacket pocket, toggling it to send. “DC Allison, I’ve got a fire at the residence of Libby Hanover. We just released it as a crime scene. I’m going to need the fire service, quick as they can.”
The crinkle of static. “Received. Casualties?”
“Negative. House was empty.” But there was something, a nudge at the edge of his consciousness that made him hesitate. Scanning the street. What had he seen? Then a break in the crowd, a tiny movement, and he saw the car. A silver Audi, an A5, paintwork bubbling under the force of the heat. “Shit.”
“Repeat last, please?”
“There’s, shit, there’s someone inside.”
“Oh my god!” He had forgotten that Hannah was there, standing in the snow, hand clasped to her mouth. “That’s Jim’s car. He’s not…”
“Is there a back way?”
Seemed to take her a lifetime to answer, the nod, and she turned, hurrying through her own house, the living room, kitchen, footsteps clacking on tiles, pushing open the back door, down in the garden, still ankle deep in snow. Quieter, just the distant crackle of flames. Hannah tugged on the back garden gate, frozen shut, one final tug and it fell open, dislodging a flurry of snow, spitting them into a private car park, small, lined with garden gates made from cheap wood, warping with the weather.
“That one, on the left.”
Tom pushed past her, slushing through thick snow. Tried the gate handle, twisting, then pressing his shoulder against the wood, bracing, a shove and it tumbled inwards. The garden was quiet, quilted heavy with white. There was a light on in the kitchen, the blinds open, pooling the patio with an orange glow. Tom’s stomach lurched, and he strained, trying to see signs of life through fingers of smoke. There was the spike of a chair back, folds of fabric hanging down until they scrape the ground. A glint of light, metal reflecting. Car keys left on the table.
Tom’s stomach knotted, fingers grasping the handle of the patio doors, pressing down as hard as he could, but there was nothing, no give. “Shit.” He banged hard on the glass with balled up fists. “Hey. Jim? Jim.”
There was a patio, concrete slabs buried in white. Snowdrifts clambering over twisted iron furniture. Tom turned, pushing his way through the snow. There must be something. Fingers questing in the dark.
The chimnea was heavy, ice cold wrought iron. Tom grabbed for it, fingers burning from the touch of the cold metal. Hefted it and swung, bringing the chimnea down hard on the glass of the doors. Hitting with a whump, a line of fracture creeping across the glass. Swinging it back again so that his shoulders scream in their sockets, back around, whump. The glass gave in, shattering, clouds of grey barrelling outwards, smothering Tom in acrid smoke. He heaved, fingernails clawing at the inside of his throat. Turning, swinging the chimnea again, widening the hole. Dark smoke flooded outwards, the dam breaking. Tom pulled at his jacket, yanking it up over his mouth, trying not to breathe. Ducked in through the opening.
There was no light. No air. Just black smoke. A searing heat that burned him on the inside. He tried to call out, but when he opened his mouth the smoke poured in, an avalanche of poison.
Grabbing onto anything he could, fingers wrapping themselves around the back of a chair, running across walls, questing, an opening, a doorway. Hotter here, unbearably hot. Dropping, whether because he chooses it or because he simply cannot remain upright he doesn’t know, onto his hands and knees, crawling on linoleum that burns when he touches it, carpet.
So hot, the house itself seemed to be shoving him backwards, driving him out. Tom ducked lower to the ground, pushing onwards.
Can’t breathe. Seemed like he couldn’t think. And now he’s gripped with fear that he’s made a terrible error, that there’s no-one here at all, that he will die needlessly, that he will leave Ben alone.
Then he saw it, a movement so small that he shouldn’t have been able to see it at all. Pulled himself forward, towards it. Fingers crawling across carpet, feeling the tread of the staircase, then something soft, yielding. A hand that closed around his.
Tom gripped the hand, lifting himself up, even though it’s hotter and now there’s a pillow over his face, pressing down on him. Questing his fingers forward until he feels arms, the hard line of a chin. Gripped the arms, wrapping his fingers so tight that they scream with pain, and then pulling, pulling.
Seems like nothing’s happening, that there’s no movement, and he feels a moment of despair, that he’s too late. Then Jim’s body gives, so suddenly that Tom almost tumbles backwards.
Tom’s chest was trapped in a vice. Couldn’t see, didn’t bother trying, just inching backwards the way he had come, away from the worst of the heat, back to where there was air. Arms, shoulders, back, all screaming that he can’t do this, he’s too heavy, you can’t breathe, just drop, just give up, get out. He gripped Jim’s arms tighter, pulled harder. Inching backwards, carpet giving way to tile, and then, finally, the smoke becoming lighter, grey not black.
Tiles grainy under his feet, crunching on shards of glass then a searing pain across his arm, and he stumbled against the doorframe. Almost falling, catching himself.