I knew from the beginning that wherever I chose for our new home, we would have to visit it long before our final escape. A woman alone with three children, no matter what we had done to change our appearance, would stand out like a sore thumb if we had arrived out of the blue. So we’ve been here twice before, and made ourselves as visible as possible. When the police inevitably report that we’re missing, they will have no photos and nobody here believes we are newcomers.
The children haven’t asked many questions. Billy – no, I must call him Ben – asked me why I’d decorated my bedroom in our new house so that it exactly matches the bedroom at home in Manchester. I couldn’t tell him the truth, and I hate lying to them. I said it made the house feel more like home. That time is over now, but for seven nights last week I had to lie on the bed pretending I was in Manchester while I spoke to Robert on FaceTime. I can’t wait to rip the room to bits and change every single plum-coloured cushion from the colours of my nightmare. Tomorrow I’m going to get a big box and stuff every identifying feature out of sight.
I even had to kit out one room so that it looked bland enough to be a typical bed and breakfast room with the requisite pair of patterned cushions in a colour not too masculine and not too feminine – a nice mid blue – placed at an angle against the pillows and the matching throw over the bottom third of the bed piled high with neatly folded clean towels. I knew that when I spoke to Robert he would want to look around the room and see the view from the window, so thank goodness I was able to show him a strip of beach. There was nothing to make him think I was anywhere other than Anglesey. Not so much as an ice-cream van. Just a long stretch of bright, pale sand. He had to be reassured that everything was exactly as it should be, and I’d chosen my fake location well. Robert had never been to Cemaes Bay, so he wouldn’t know the difference.
The children can’t believe how lucky they are to be living this close to the beach every single day, and not just for holidays. It pushes everything else to the backs of their minds, and they will have had three or four months of this before the reality of winter takes the shine off. Perhaps by then I will be able to send them to school. But I don’t know. While Robert is on this earth, I am not sure we will ever be safe, because he has made it very clear that he isn’t prepared to live without me.
For now, though, I feel secure. There is nothing to guide him to us here, and gradually I
am beginning to relax.
39
‘Liv? Oh thank the Lord for that. I can’t tell you how relieved I am to hear your voice.’
Sophie hadn’t realised that she had been holding her breath.
‘Are you okay, Soph?’ Liv asked. ‘I’ve been worried about you. You’re usually so prompt. I nearly called you, but I didn’t know for sure if it would be safe. Are you okay? Is your mum okay? I thought maybe she’d had another fall, or something.’
Liv was rambling, and Sophie knew she had to shut her up. But she didn’t know how to tell her what had happened. Thank God she had left her special pay-as-you-go phone – or ‘Liv phone’ as she called it – in the car when she’d unpacked the shopping. At least Robert hadn’t got his filthy hands on it.
‘Listen – I don’t want you to panic, but he was here.
Robert
. The arsehole was here. In my fucking house.’
Sophie could have kicked herself. She didn’t mean to sound so angry. She had planned to be calm. But as soon as she mentioned his name her anger and hatred boiled over. She heard a gasp and realised how stupid she’d been. Liv had so much to worry about and she didn’t need to add to her distress.
‘Oh Sophie, no. Oh God, I’m so very sorry. What did he say?’
How could she tell her that it wasn’t so much what he
said
?
‘He’s not going to give up, Liv. I’m sorry, but you’ve got to believe me. He was mental, incensed, practically foaming at the mouth. Look, I’d spare you this if I could, but he’s going to move heaven and earth to find you. Are you sure you’re safe?’
‘Never mind me, what about you? Did he hurt you? Is your mum okay? Please tell me Robert didn’t hurt her? I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean you to suffer.’
Sophie heard a sob from the other end of the phone, and screwed her eyes tight.
Bugger
.
‘Mum’s fine. Don’t worry. We’re both fine – but Liv, are you sure you’re safe?’
‘I think so. I don’t know how he could find us here. There was one little slip at home, but Robert wasn’t paying much attention. We’ll be fine. But it’s you I’m worried about. How the hell did Robert find you? Why did he even come looking for you?’
‘Listen, I need you to calm down because I’ve got quite a bit to tell you. So, first of all, where are the kids? Are they okay?’ Sophie asked.
‘They’re fine. Actually, they’re having a whale of a time.’ There was a pause from the other end of the phone, and Sophie could practically see her friend trying to pull herself together. ‘They’re playing on the beach. I’m sitting on a bench nestled in the sand dunes, watching them. If it wasn’t for everything else, I’d feel like I was in heaven. I just need to watch the waves for a moment and listen to them gently whooshing on to the shore, and I’m calm again. It’s amazing how soporific it is.’
Sophie relaxed. Liv clearly felt she was in a safe place, and right now that was the priority.
‘Well, don’t fall asleep on me. I need to tell you what’s been happening. First of all, Robert knows I’m the one who’s been staying at Mrs Evans’ place in Anglesey.’ Sophie waited, expecting an explosion of sound from Liv.
‘Oh,’ was all she got. She waited to see if Liv would say more, but it seemed to take her a while to gather her thoughts. ‘How did that happen? Do you know?’ Liv said with remarkable calm. This wasn’t supposed to have happened.
‘I think I’ve worked it out. There was a dreadful couple staying at the place. The wife never had her stupid camera out of her pudgy little hands, and I’d been dodging around for a couple of days to avoid the silly cow. Anyway, I was coming out of the front door, and she got me. I turned back quickly, but apparently she’d managed to capture my profile. She sent the photo to Mrs Evans at the guest house. God, I’m a stupid idiot. I should have snatched the camera and thrown it in the sea. I’m so sorry, Liv.’
Sophie couldn’t help thinking that she’d let Liv down.
‘Sophie, darling, please don’t apologise for anything. You’ve been amazing. You’ve done more than I could ever have asked of anybody. Just tell me what happened.’
‘Your creep of a husband came a-calling.’ Sophie told Liv the rest, leaving out anything to do with tying to chairs or knives in wounds. Liv listened without saying a word.
‘Then finally, he asked me where you were.’
‘And what did you say?’ Liv responded quietly.
She couldn’t tell Liv she had passed out at that moment so wouldn’t have been able to answer even if she had known.
‘Well, I don’t bloody know where you are, do I, so I didn’t tell him anything. You made the right call there. I wouldn’t have told him, but it’s better that I really don’t have a clue.’
Sophie paused. She was now going to have to explain about the police. But before she did, Liv started talking.
‘But how did he know where you live, Sophie?’
Sophie sighed. Liv had still failed to completely grasp the depths of Robert’s early obsession, in spite of all that had happened since.
‘Liv – listen to me. Robert wasn’t just some guy who had a crush on you all those years ago. He was as obsessed then as he is now. You came with me to see my mum lots of times, and Robert being who he is, there’s more than an outside chance he was following you,
watching
you. It’s what he does. So he would know
exactly
where my mum lives. He couldn’t have known I’d be here, but he had a pretty good idea that she might actually know where I was – and I guess he just hit the jackpot.’
‘Did he know about your visitor in Anglesey, though?’
‘Yes – that bit worked as planned. Of course, because it was me and not you that was staying there, it didn’t have quite the result we’d expected. I had to talk to the police too. They found me from the picture, but I think I handled that okay.’
‘It’s fine, Soph. We knew they would be looking for me and the kids. What did they say?’
Slowly Sophie went through her conversations with the police, making sure she didn’t slip up and mention the hospital.
‘So did they ask about your visitor?’
‘Yes, of course they did.’
‘And what did you tell them? I really need to know.’
‘I told them it was Dan.’
40
The choice of Alderney as my hiding place came about by chance. I needed to find an island because I wanted the children – Billy and Freddie at least – to believe that they were still in Anglesey. Silly, really, because Anglesey is so big that I’m not sure they were ever aware that it
is
an island. But still, that was how my fevered brain was working. And there is something safe about an island. Particularly one with no car ferry service. Surrounded by water, it feels as if the sea is protecting us from harm. One minute the water shimmers calmly in warm sunlight, but the next it can be raging, boiling, as if to ward off invaders.
I knew I wouldn’t be able to fool Jaz about where we were, but I came up with an explanation that I thought would satisfy her. I’d been talking to her a lot about her real father, ever since Robert took her and the boys from me two years ago. I wanted her to know about the other half of her life – the other culture that her father had loved so much. I had learned that Jaz was making up all kinds of stories about Danush, as if he were still a part of her life, as if any day now she was going to be with him. This worried me. Whatever actions I was prepared to take, I needed Jasmine to understand how things stood with her father. I had to teach her about him, make her understand who he was and why he couldn’t be with us – without telling her everything, naturally. She was too young to grasp the harsh realities.
I had to explain Alderney to her in such a way that she would keep it a secret. I told her we were going to spend some holidays on a different island – one that I had been to with her father when we had been happy. But she wasn’t to tell a soul. She understood she couldn’t talk about her father if Robert was around. She’d tried once or twice, and Robert had gone berserk, shouting that
he
was her father.
He
was the one who was paying for her upbringing.
He
was the only father she had – and she'd better believe it.
After those incidents Jaz had never mentioned her father again in front of Robert. I told her we were coming here – to Alderney – so we could remember things about her father together, in a place where I had my best memories of him.
I’m ashamed to say that this was a lie. I hate the fact that I have lied to my beloved daughter, but Jasmine can read – she knows Alderney isn’t Anglesey. Hopefully the two words are close enough for the boys. Billy is six, but his reading hasn’t been going too well and the school were talking about testing him for dyslexia next year.
So yes – I’ve lied. But the lies are necessary not just for me, but for my children.
Especially
for my children.
The biggest problem I had to overcome was the travel. We couldn’t fly, because the boys would have been so excited they would have been bound to tell Robert. So we had to drive as far as Poole, where we left the car and picked up the boat I had chartered. Of course Robert would check my mileometer, as he did every week, and Poole is considerably further than Anglesey, but I managed to make up stories to account for the extra miles. I even took the children to one of the ruined forts on Alderney and told them it was Caernarfon castle. I don’t think Robert has ever been, so if their description on our return was a little wide of the mark it would have passed him by even if he were listening; but he would know that Caernarfon was at least an eighty-mile round trip from the guest house.
The children were conscious that the journey took longer, but Robert knew Cemaes Bay was further away than Moelfre, and when the boys said it took ages and ages, he put it down to the ‘Are we nearly there?’ syndrome and didn’t take much notice.
The boat trip was harder to explain, but easier than an aeroplane. I researched some tourist boat trips around Anglesey, which made it less problematic than I’d first feared. I told Robert about the tours when we spoke on FaceTime, so that when we got home and the children mentioned their sea journey, it was old news and Robert just tuned out.
It was a huge risk, but we couldn’t just turn up on Alderney on the very day that we escaped. We had to appear familiar to everybody. And for that, we needed to establish ourselves.
Thanks to Sophie, I have various pieces of documentation in my new name, Lynn Meadows, including a fake passport. Not so hard, it turns out – especially as it was never going to have to pass muster at border control.
By now I’m sure our
real
passports will have been found. I wonder if Robert will believe that I went to Iran? I hope so, but what he believes doesn’t matter so much. It’s what the police believe that counts.
It was hard to contain my excitement after our first trip here in October. I didn’t want to leave. I just wanted to move everything along more quickly and establish our new lives, but I couldn’t. There was too much to plan. Too much to organise. And it had to be perfect.
I found a house to rent that is sufficiently isolated. Nobody will notice our comings and goings. Not that anybody would think much about it anyway. It turns out that a lot of people
come and go all the time. The house is right by the beach and, best of all, it has a ready-made escape route for the children. I am sure we won’t need it, but it gives me an added sense of security.
During the October and Easter visits, I made sure we were as visible as possible. I had to avoid any children-only events, of course, until my three are confident in their new names. But we joined in some of the group activities such as the Great Shark Egg Hunt at Easter, although the children were more interested in finding the chocolate varieties than the real thing. And we made a point of regular visits to the main shopping street, stopping off for a drink at the busy café and choosing a prominent outdoor table, smiling and nodding a greeting to anybody who looked our way.