No Longer Safe(107)

I hurried back to the front wall and leapt on the box again. The police were congregating by the van. One of the officers nodded and looked at his watch. They started loading up their gear.

No – wait!

I was desperate. I hurried back to the bench with the hacksaw and sat on the handle, then worked the wire around my wrists up and down across the blade. Nothing seemed to be happening and I was about to give up when it broke in two. I peeled the gummy tape away from my mouth and spat to get rid of the industrial taste.

The police were leaving. I had to find some way to alert them. What could I do? I screamed at the top of my voice, but I knew it would never reach them. I needed something louder. What would they be able to hear way down the track?

I’d seen a bell from a bicycle earlier, but that was useless. Then I had an idea. I’d spotted them when I’d looked down here for the phone. I rummaged in the first box, doing everything by touch as there was so little light left. Wrong one. I nudged it aside and tried the next. I found them under what felt like a pair of curtains.

I picked one out and went back to the peephole in the wall. I took off the lid and prayed it wasn’t empty. I stuck the nozzle against the tiny gap in the wall and pressed with all my might. There was a fizzle, then a splutter. I was firing it the wrong way. I tried again and this time there was a hearty hiss. I kept pressing until it choked to a halt. Then I grabbed the first thing I could find – a cricket bat – and began walloping it against the wall with both hands. It sounded deafening to me, but I knew that fifteen, twenty metres down the track, it was probably inaudible.

Look back at the cottage – please look back…

Sobbing in great surges, I reached up again to the peephole. Two officers were already in the van, another was talking to the woman with an apron under her coat.

Please look up.

The woman – presumably Mrs Ellington – shook the officer’s hand and stood back. He got in the passenger side and shut the door.

No – you can’t go. This is it. This is my last chance…

Mrs Ellington took one final look at the cottage.

She stopped and put her hand up to shield her eyes from the dying sun. The police van was reversing. She stepped forward and tapped on the bonnet. The vehicle stopped and the passenger window slipped down. Mrs Ellington leaned in and then pointed at the cottage – she was moving her arms from side to side looking straight at me.

Had they seen it?

Two officers got out of the van and the three of them, Mrs Ellington in the middle, tramped up the track towards the cottage.

I could hear their voices now. ‘…wasn’t there earlier…’

‘No – it’s bright red – it looks like blood.’

‘That’s the cellar…’ said Mrs Ellington, sounding baffled.

‘Can we have your key, Mrs Ellington? I think we need to take a look.’

I had to move fast. I grabbed the cricket bat, got up the steps and walloped it as hard as I could against the door to the hall – slam, slam – over and over.



I don’t remember a great deal after that. I rushed back to Stuart’s body, but they dragged me away. It was a crime scene, so they had to leave him where he was and call out a pathologist. I recall only the words of one of the younger officers as the ambulance arrived: ‘Just as well it had been snowing, Miss,’ he said. ‘That red spray paint would never have shown up like that on brown soil.’





Chapter 51




As soon as we reached the hospital, I was fast-tracked through A&E. I’m not sure why I got to see a doctor so quickly – I wasn’t injured – just a bit cold and stiff from being stuck in the damp for a few hours. And devastated about what had happened to Stuart. He’d been innocently caught up in Karen’s audacious plan and she was going to pay for it.

The doctor checked my pulse, my heart rate, looked in my ears, my eyes and held fingers up in front of me. He asked about the bruise on my forehead.

‘That looks nasty,’ he said, peering at it. ‘How did you do it?’

‘Oh – it’s completely innocent. Just banged my head under the sink. I was checking a leak.’

‘When was that?’

‘The day I got here. November the thirtieth.’ It felt like months ago.

‘Did you get to see anyone about it?’

‘No. We were a bit too far from anywhere…’

He gave me a look that suggested he wasn’t happy with me.

‘I think we might need to do more tests, but the police will need to speak to you first, okay?’

I let myself be led to the police car. I was feeling fairly blasé about everything at that point. Perhaps it was relief at being rescued, but I was also elated to be away from Karen, to be finally going home.