A House Without Windows (26 page)

Treading carefully in case there were any loose floorboards, he quietly opened the door of the spare room and crept out onto the landing.  All the bedrooms had their doors closed, but he knew she would not be in either of the two rooms at the far end. 

Quietly turning the handle of the door nearest to him the dimmed landing light picked out the faces of a slumbering middle-aged couple, both with short grey hair.  Edwin closed the door again noiselessly and felt a wave of irritation wash over him. 
She just had to be in the next room!

When he eased open the next door along, he had to stand still for a moment and take some deep calming breaths.  The woman that had never left his thoughts for even a minute all the time he was in hospital lay before him in the bed, her long blonde hair spread out all over her pillow.  In the place where he should have been lay a man, bare-chested and with his right arm around Beth’s shoulder.  He saw Beth’s head on the man’s chest and all reason left him.

He took the knife from his pocket and crept along the end of the bed.  As he changed direction and moved towards the man his boot disturbed a loose floorboard, which let out a loud creak.   He stopped in his tracks momentarily, but it was too late; he saw the noise had woken up Beth, who opened her eyes and let out a high-pitched shriek of fright:

“Paul! Wake up!”

Edwin’s brain raced as he saw Beth shaking the man awake and screaming for help. He made a dive for his bare chest with the knife, but the man was young and too quick.  In a second he had thrown himself on top of Beth as the knife plunged harmlessly into the mattress.  He saw Beth and the man scramble out of bed and make for the en-suite, slamming the door behind them and bolting it.  He could hear them shouting, trying to alert the rest of the family. One of them began banging on the door with something.

He stood by the locked en-suite door, knife in hand.  The man would not get out of the bedroom alive; Edwin would see to it. 
Beth was his, and would always be his!

CHAPTER 67

Beth awoke at the sound of hammering and shouting. She got out of bed and put on a dressing gown.

“What’s going on?”  Liam sat up in bed, rubbing his eyes.

“Something’s happening in Amy and Paul’s room.” She fished around for her slippers.

“Leave them alone.  They’re young and in love.”  Liam lay back down on the pillow.

“No, it’s not that.  Amy sounds as though she’s screaming.” 

She started for the door, but then came face to face with her son in the doorway:

“What’s happening, Mum?  Joss looked towards the closed bedroom door behind which still came the sound of thumping and muffled shouts.

“Stay here, Beth.  I’ll go.”  Liam was at his daughter’s bedroom door in seconds. 

“Get back!  I’ve got a knife!  I’ve come to take what’s rightfully mine!”  Edwin brandished the knife, and Liam stepped back into the hallway.”

“Who are you?  What do you want?”  Liam could see nobody in the bed.  He took a breath and shouted:

“Amy! Paul!  Are you ok?”  He could hardly believe what was happening to his family on Christmas Day.”

“Dad!  We’ve locked ourselves in the bathroom. Get the police!”  Amy’s terrified voice came from behind the en-suite bathroom door.

“I’ll ring them!”  Joss raced back to his bedroom and phoned the emergency services, alerting Toby at the same time, who had fallen asleep listening to music with headphones on.

The two boys stood behind Liam and Beth at the bedroom door.  Joss took a look at the man, who had taken down the hood of his duffel coat and was sweating profusely.  He had a feeling a scene like this would have happened sooner or later.  He swallowed the lump in his throat and ignored the pounding of his heart:

“Hello Dad.  It’s Joss.”  He took a step into the bedroom, hearing his mother’s gasp of terror coming from behind him.

“Get back, you little fucker.  I told you before; it’s Beth I want, not you.”

Joss stood his ground:

“You’ve got Amy and her fiancée Paul in there, Dad.  Mum’s out here with me.”

For a brief second Edwin looked confused, but then the black eyes glittered:

“You’re lying!  I saw her with my own eyes! I know Beth’s in here!”  Edwin gestured with the knife towards the en-suite door.  The hammering stopped.

“No, Dad, you’re wrong.  Amy’s not a little girl any more.  You haven’t seen her since I was born, nearly seventeen
years’ ago.  She’s twenty six today and all grown up.  She’s getting married next year.”

“Shut up!  I saw her hair.  She’s Beth; you can’t fool me!”  He began to kick at the door to the en-suite. “Come out!  Come out now!  This has gone on long enough!”  He felt sweat dripping down from his forehead with the effort of trying to kick the door in.

Amy screams could be heard again as the door began to give way.  With her daughter’s cries and the police sirens outside in her ears, Beth pulled her son back into the hallway, motioned to Toby to turn off the alarm and open the front door, and shaking, she took Joss’s place in the bedroom with Liam at her side:

“Edwin, I’m Beth.  Stop what you’re doing and look at me! I’m Beth. Can’t you see?”  Her legs felt like jelly at the sight of him.

“You’re an old woman.  There’s no way you’re Beth!”  Edwin ceased kicking and waved the knife around in the air.

“Remember when you brought Amy the book?  Remember when we sat at the table together and ate?  You used to bring us sandwiches if you were going out to work and wouldn’t be back for a long time.  You looked after us, Edwin.  Thank you for looking after us.”  Beth’s voice shook with emotion.

Edwin was silent as he gazed at the woman standing in front of him:

“You brought us a torch in case the light went out.  Do you remember, Edwin? And sometimes you’d bring us a new light bulb.” Beth moved an inch or so forward, holding onto Liam’s hand for support.

Edwin’s eyes filled with tears at the precious memories:

“What have you done to your hair?  What’s he done to you?  Let me take you home.  You look terrible!”  He pointed the knife at Liam, and moved closer.

“It was all such a long time ago.  Joss w
as a baby; he’s nearly eighteen now.  I’ll be fifty four in April, Edwin.  We’ve all changed; your hair’s turned grey now too.”  Beth could hear the police coming upstairs and talking to the boys in the hallway. “Give me the knife, Edwin, and I’ll come home with you.”

She felt emboldened with the power she had over him.  She let go of Liam’s hand and moved closer to the madman.  She kept her eyes locked on his and saw the knife go slack in his hand.  She remembered those chilling beady eyes that used to bore into hers, but suddenly she felt no fear; she was in control. 

“Give me the knife, Edwin.  We’ll miss our train back unless we go home now.”  She heard the bolt on the en-suite door sliding quietly open, but kept her gaze focused on the man she’d been terrified of for so long.  “Put the knife in my hand.”  She could smell his sweat.  She held out her hand and took the weapon from his unprotesting fingers, all the while keeping her unblinking eyes focused on his.

The en-suite door opened a crack.  Paul sidled out, and saw the man and Beth face-to-face, with Beth holding the knife and the man’s back towards him.  He threw himself at the intruder, pinning him to the ground with the help of Liam and Toby.  Beth held the knife tightly and sank down onto the bed in relief, as Amy ran out of the en-suite towards her mother.

Joss looked at his father, overcome and powerless on the floor.  The bedroom was suddenly swarming with police.  He looked at Liam holding his father down.  He felt wretched:

“I’m so sorry, Dad.  This has all been my fault.  I gave the bastard an idea of where we lived.”

“You weren’t to know.  It was as much my fault as yours; I forgot to lock the garage door, but it’s all over now, eh?” Liam smiled at Joss, and suddenly the boy knew that blood was not necessarily thicker than water; he had realised just in the nick of time who his real father was.

EPILOGUE

“Happy Christmas, and happy birthday Amy!”  Liam held his glass of champagne up to his daughter’s.

“Happy Christmas Dad, and thanks so much Mum for rescuing us!”  Amy clinked her glass against her parents’ best lead crystal champagne flutes.

“I don’t know if I could ever do anything like that again though.  It just seemed the right thing to do at the time.”  Beth passed around hot plates and tried to put it out of her mind.

“I’d like to give Amy her birthday present now.”  Paul took a plate, fished in his pocket for a small wrapped box, put the box on the plate and passed it on to Amy.

“What is it?”  Amy smiled and turned the box over in her hands.

“Well, you won’t find out unless you open it, eh?  Toby laughed.

“Yeah, hurry up; I want to eat my dinner!”  Joss looked hungrily at the steaming turkey in the middle of the table.

“You and your stomach.”  Tara leaned over and gave Joss a kiss on the cheek.

Amy looked quizzically at the contents of the box:

“What’s the key for?”

“You know that house you said you liked in Bury?  Well, you now own half of it. I know I said it was too much money, but then we er…. got a little bit of help as a Christmas present.”  Paul held up his thumb. “Cheers, Beth and Liam; we couldn’t have done it without you!”

Amy stood up from her chair and threw her arms around her parents and then around her fiancée, burying her head in Paul’s shoulder as the tears came:

“I don’t know what to say!” 

“You don’t have to say anything, darling.”  Beth sat back on her chair, thankful that her family were all together.

“Tara, do you want to pull my cracker?”  Toby winked at Tara and lightened the mood.

“No she doesn’t.  She’s only going to pull mine.”  Joss made a face at his brother.

“I’ll pull both of them.  How’s that?”  Tara giggled and reached for the crackers.

“Keep it clean. Keep it clean.  This is a family show, eh?”  Liam smiled as he began to carve the turkey.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about Dad, but I’m talking about crackers.”  Joss reached over and took a spare sliver of meat.

“I heard from the police earlier on that the little black book was very useful to them in finding the main counterfeiters.” Liam looked towards Joss. “It seems that there might be a reward coming your way, son.  Perhaps your little escapade might bear fruit after all?”

Joss looked up in surprise with a mouthful of turkey.

“Wow.” 

“Is that all you can say?”  Beth looked at her son and laughed.

“For the moment.  I’m temporarily speechless.”

“That makes a change.”  Tara reached over to Joss and ruffled his hair.

“Let’s all have a toast.  To family!”  Liam stood up and raised his glass in the air.

Beth, Amy, Paul, Toby, Joss and Tara stood up in unison and clinked their glasses together:

“To family!”

Beth looked around at her loved ones and at that moment knew without a doubt that she was the luckiest woman
alive in the whole wide world.

THE END

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