The Red House (18 page)

My favourite part had even happened before we got all the way there. ‘Look!’ I’d said, pointing out of the bus window at the warehouses along the road. They were painted gradations of blue on up until they precisely matched the shade of the sky at the top. ‘How did they do that?’ I’d wondered. ‘How did they know that the sky would be exactly that blue?’ They’d looked like they were evaporating away.

‘What did she mean, she locked me in?’ Dora asks.

She’s looking down. Her ankles are crossed and tucked under her chair. Her shoulders are curled. She’s trying to get smaller, and looks like she’s disappearing right in front of me.

We’re still in the hospital, in a waiting area. Dora just wants to be near Fiona. There’s been talk about the chances of getting a matching liver for Fiona, or even just part of one. Rowena’s been dead too long. Fiona’s mother is the wrong blood type. Dora’s a match but too young. She’d tried convincing the doctors, but they said no, rightly so. Any surgery can go wrong. We have to protect her from herself.

Gwen puts her arms around Dora’s shoulders to rock her. Dora lets herself be nudged back and forth, back and forth, her neck hurting from it, because the motion comforts Gwen who says, ‘Fiona wasn’t in her right mind, sweetheart. Don’t think about it.’

‘If she locked me in, what was that man doing?’

‘Don’t think about it.’

Dora stiffens, resists the tidal movement of the embrace, and wriggles out of it. ‘Stop it!’ she says, loud enough that nurses’ heads swivel towards us and purposeful footsteps pause. She holds still until the world resumes its normal spin, then repeats it in a whisper, ‘Stop it, stop it, stop it.’ Gwen touches her hand and Dora pulls her hand away. Gwen reaches again and Dora pushes against her chest.

Dora’s face twists up and spurts tears like a squeezed sponge. ‘I’m thinking about it whether you want me to or not! I’m thinking about it and I can’t stop. If he didn’t lock me in, he wasn’t going to hurt me. If he wasn’t going to hurt me, then I did it for nothing. I’m the bad one.
I
hurt
him
. Is he okay? Is he here? I have to tell him I’m sorry …’

She knows he’s not. He didn’t come out of the barn alive.

‘Fiona said …’ she tries.

I shake my head. ‘Dora.’

I pull her up to standing, and she lets me. I don’t rock, just squeeze in a kind of pulsing way. Dora cries, every breath pushing her shoulders up because I’m holding her too tight.

‘Did I really think that that man was going to kill me?’ she asks herself out loud.

‘Shhh. Of course you did.’

‘I wasn’t sure he would kill me. I thought that maybe he’d …’

‘That’s enough,’ I say, hard, with a full stop in my voice. I mean two things: Whatever she thought, that was enough to justify what she did, and what’s she’s saying out loud has
to stop right there. ‘It was self-defence. Even if he wasn’t going to hurt you, it was self-defence
to you
.’

She covers her eyes. Whatever he intended in that barn, he has a terrible power over her now: in her mind, what she did is only ‘good’ if he was going to hurt her. Whether what she did is good or bad is out of her hands, depending only on him.

I push her hands off her face and hold her cheeks with my palms and make her look right at me, bending to get eye-to-eye. ‘What you thought at the time is what counts. That’s the only thing that counts …’ I straighten, and look beyond her. Dora turns. We see Chloe. ‘Listen, Dora, you need to not say anything else right now …’

Chloe’s walking in that brisk way I used to walk when I had the same job. She’s holding a phone to her ear and looking straight ahead. She passes, down the long, long hallway. The walking has a pounding rhythm that echoes off the hard walls:
ta-tum, ta-tum, ta-tum, ta-tum
…

I grab Dora’s upper arm and pull. ‘We’re leaving.’

‘What?’ she says, pulling back.

‘Dora, we need to leave. Now.’ It’s not the I’m-angry-at-you voice; it’s the get-out-of-the-road-a-car’s-coming voice.

The car is too fast, however, and in the form of Fiona’s mother, spilling out into the corridor, apparently propelled by rage.

‘You!’ she says, aiming the word at Dora. Dora flinches as if the word’s hit her in the back.

‘I’m sorry,’ Dora says as she turns, and I wish I could stop her. Apologising just gives Mrs Davies another rock to throw.

‘She admits it!’ Mrs Davies flings up her hands and
turns to take in all of the surprised, slack-mouthed looks around us.

Dora swallows. ‘I didn’t do anything,’ she says. She adds, carefully, ‘on purpose. I didn’t do anything on purpose.’

‘Come on, Dora,’ I say.

‘No! I won’t come on. I didn’t cover for Fiona. I—’

‘Liar,’ says the mother.

I put myself between them. ‘Mrs Davies, we’re leaving. We’re very sorry for your loss.’

The pat acknowledgement of mourning triggers her. ‘Fiona’s not gone yet!’ she howls. A young nurse at the desk calls security. An older nurse puts an arm around her and steers her towards the chairs.

We get into the lift to downstairs. The doors slide open to reveal the busy and bright food court and cheerful balloon-and-flower shop. Everyone eating or shopping there must have a reason to be sad, otherwise they wouldn’t be in a hospital, but the colours force a pretence of optimism.

‘Mrs Davies is in no state to be making accusations,’ I assure Dora. ‘Chloe will understand that.’

Dora swallows. ‘I didn’t know that Fiona had taken any pills! If I’d guessed I would have done something about it.’ Her eyes are wet again. ‘I thought she had at first, but—’

I pull her by the arm. ‘In the car,’ I hiss. ‘Do you understand? Not in public.’

We get to the car. We get in. I don’t start it.

‘Dora?’ Gwen prompts.

‘Last night … Fiona woke up after you left the room. We talked a little. She didn’t tell me anything! But I thought I’d figured it out. Rowena had been trying to die. I thought that Fiona had helped her with the pills. I was angry that
she’d tricked me into giving them to her, and made me be part of it. I—’

‘Stop. You gave her the pills?’ I clarify.

Gwen looks like she might faint.

‘For headaches! For PMS! She wasn’t supposed to … to …
collect
them! I didn’t know what she’d done until I found the empty packets in the barn, and then …’ Dora breathed and swallowed and rubbed her head. ‘I thought, well, she’d done it. To Rowena. And that she must have had a reason, a kind reason, because Fiona is kind. Last night I saw how messed up she was by it, how much it had taken out of her to do it. I knew she’d only been helping Ro to do what she wanted. So I told her, “I know what you did.” I meant that I knew she’d given the pills to Grandma Ro. I didn’t think she’d taken them herself! I mean, I … I
had
thought that, at rehearsal yesterday, which is why I went after her, but then I found Ro and …’ Dora lifts her shoulders then lets them drop.

‘But you didn’t have anything directly to do with what happened to Rowena Davies,’ I clarify. ‘Yes? I need you to say yes, Dora.’
Whether it’s true or not.

‘I didn’t touch Grandma Ro! It had already happened when I got there! And if I’d known it was going to happen I would have tried to stop it.’

Good. That’s the right thing to say.
I start the car. ‘Mrs Davies is understandably upset. Her ravings won’t hold up, but we should stay away from her.’

Gwen latches on to one phrase. ‘What do you mean, “hold up”? In court? Is that what you’re saying? This is going to go to court?’

I brake, blocking the parking structure exit lane.

‘It’s not. Nothing bad is going to happen,’ I declare, overriding any further speculation, at least the kind that’s said out loud.

‘If I’d told someone,’ Dora says anyway. ‘If we’d come to the hospital last night instead of today …’

‘Dora, you have to stop. Please.’

She stops talking. I watch her in the rear-view mirror. I can tell she’s still thinking. She’s still accusing herself inside her head.

I don’t feel pain, just pressure, my eyelids seemingly too heavy to open. Inside that darkness, I only remember flashes of decisions and consequences:

Push. Jump.
Impact. Agony.

Black smoke had followed me out of the hole near the roof but, unlike me, it got to waft away. I’d only been able to fall. I’d forced myself to roll from the burning building, gibbering from pain. My femur had cracked inside my leg when I landed; when I let myself stop I saw that one sharp, ragged end had broken through my thigh. Time passed. Wind sheared a mist off from the firefighters’ spray; it fell over me like a cool sheet.

It takes full minutes of adjustment now to register that the cool sheet over me here is a literal one. I’m in hospital, with oxygen tubes up my nose and my leg is suspended. It’s darkish and quiet, so it must be evening or night. There’s another bed in the room, occupied by a woman who appears to be sleeping or unconscious. I squint to see
if I recognise the face. No. But the position is familiar: she’s posed like the skeleton. I scan for a lump of baby in her lap, but of course there is none. I look for a rise in the chest. I pray that this other woman, whoever she is, isn’t dead. I worry, briefly, that this isn’t a ward, but the morgue.

Maxwell shocks me. He’s suddenly at my other side, whispering, ‘Im, it’s all right. You’re all right.’ His words smell like old coffee. He pets my hair.

‘Who is she?’ I whisper, my eyes sliding towards the other bed.

It takes a moment for Maxwell to figure out who I’m talking about. ‘Nothing to do with you. Nothing to do with the fire.’ Hospitals are crowded, is all. There are a lot of hurt people in the world.

‘Maxwell, he tried to kill me!’

‘What? Who? The fire was an accident.’

‘No. I’m not crazy. He passed me in his car.’ A tear slips out over my lower lashes. ‘I didn’t want to have to tell you!’ I wail.

The woman in the other bed turns over.

Maxwell grips my hands. ‘Who tried to hurt you? Was it Patrick Bell?’

I turn my head. I feel guilty. ‘No.’ I flinch, and Maxwell turns to follow my gaze.

The Inspector’s in the doorway. She recites the caution to me, precisely and dully. According to the law, I don’t have to say anything, but if I’m going to use something as an excuse later, I’d better bring it up now.

Maxwell gets between me and her. ‘I don’t know what you’re thinking, Inspector, but this is not appropriate.’

‘I’m thinking that a building and a crime scene have been
recklessly destroyed for the sake of attention-seeking at best and criminal cover-up at worst. Ms Wright-Llewellyn, I urge you to explain yourself.’

I pull the sheet up to my chin. ‘I haven’t done anything.’

‘You were trespassing,’ the Inspector points out.

‘I only came to see where my old house had been! Then I saw the … the bones.’ I shiver. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ I demand of Maxwell. ‘You said a man died, but you didn’t say anything about a baby!’

Maxwell stammers, claims he doesn’t know anything about a baby.

‘I saw the skeletons,’ I spit. Then, sadness overtaking anger: ‘Do you know who they are?’

The Inspector shakes her head. ‘Not yet.’

‘That poor family. The old woman’s daughter – your student’s mother,’ I clarify to Maxwell – ‘was kind to me once. I’ve remembered.’

‘Morgan Davies?’ asks the Inspector. ‘You knew her?’

‘Only briefly.’

‘Last night you claimed you didn’t know the Davies.’

‘I said I
remembered
. Thick blond hair. Sunburnt shoulders. Masses of freckles. She let me brush her hair.’

‘That’s not Morgan Davies,’ Maxwell says. The Inspector raises her eyebrow at him. He explains primly: ‘I met her when she picked up her daughter from the concert hall. She has black hair and olive skin. And a sharp voice,’ he adds ruefully. I remember now that he’d mentioned that parent; she’d cornered him with some ‘concerns’. He’d described her as brittle and thin and sharp, not rounded and fair like the woman in my memory.

‘She must have been a family friend, then. Just ask Mrs
Davies. Just ask her,’ I insist, embarrassed at the belligerence in my own voice.

‘When was this?’ the Inspector wants to know.

‘I don’t know. I was … I was five?’

‘Was this woman pregnant?’ the Inspector asks.

‘No!’ I shout. My pulse speeds up. That woman couldn’t be the skeleton in the grave, she couldn’t. She’d been kind and warm and very much alive. She’d been so much more than bones.

Maxwell interrupts. ‘Imogen’s the victim here,’ he reminds the Inspector. ‘She could have been killed in that fire. She told me that she knows who’s responsible. Imogen?’

I blink fast, but don’t say anything.

The Inspector repeats from the caution: ‘It may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned, something which you later rely on in court.’

‘All right!’ I say, struggling to sit up higher. The pillow is thin, and my leg is stuck. ‘All right. Maxwell, I’m sorry. I need to say that first. I’m sorry.’

He’s round-eyed with worry. That tells me everything I need to know about where we are as a couple. He thinks I’m going to hurt him.
He’s right.

‘We were planning the wedding. We were inviting people. We were inviting
family
. Right? That’s how weddings work.’ I’m telling the Inspector, not Maxwell. I’m appealing to what I hope is a shared feminine view. ‘Maxwell was only inviting his mother. It wasn’t going to be fair if I was going to have my adopted family and my brothers – my older brothers – there for me. Maxwell needed more. He deserved more. His dad had left him when he was little, but people change. People regret.’

The Inspector says, ‘I don’t see how this—’

‘Regret what?’ Maxwell says at the same time, baffled.

I allow the words to fall out of my mouth. ‘He had to regret losing you. I knew it. So I found his address. It wasn’t so hard. I found it and I thought if I could just … tell him. Just remind him that you exist and that you love him …’

Maxwell is shaking his head and pinching his lips together.

‘That’s where I first saw the green car,’ I tell the Inspector. ‘Bright green. It’s not a common colour. It was a four-door and … I don’t know cars very well … but it was the same car today. I know it was.’

The Inspector leans closer. ‘Where exactly did you see this car?’

‘In front of his father’s house.’ I turn to Maxwell. ‘I’m sorry, Max.’

‘You went to my father’s house?’ He’s stuck there, unable to move on to the green car and the accusation that comes with it.

‘He didn’t phone me back, so I went. I had work in Southampton and I thought … I thought that maybe he was embarrassed. Or had a wife who was erasing my messages. Sometimes that happens with my work. A client’s girlfriend used to erase my messages because she thought I sounded pretty. That’s what she said, “sounded pretty”. But now I have my engagement ring. I wear it all the time, and it puts other women at ease.’ I hold out my hand. White tape is wrapped around my finger.

The Inspector explains. ‘They taped your ring for surgery. It’s standard practice.’

I nod, slowly. I didn’t realise – I just hadn’t thought
about it – that my leg had been operated on. ‘See, I always wear it. Even in the hospital. Even in a fire …’ I squeeze Maxwell’s hand.

‘Inspector, I think you should leave,’ he says.

‘No! I need her help!’ I protest. ‘I think he’s trying to kill me.’

‘Who, Imogen?’ the Inspector asks.

Maxwell overrides: ‘Inspector, it’s plain that she’s delirious from the medication. It’s unethical to continue questioning her right now.’

‘She’s not questioning me; she’s going to protect me,’ I insist, leaning forward. ‘Aren’t you?’

‘Who’s trying to hurt you, Imogen?’ the Inspector asks. Maxwell throws his hands up in frustration.

Now that I’ve gone this far, I’m eager to get it all out. ‘I confirmed who he was, and explained who I was. He let me in. He even gave me a drink. A glass of water,’ I clarify, in case anyone mistakes a kind gesture for a pick-up. ‘I noticed photographs all over the walls. Two little girls. His girls. Your sisters, Maxwell. You have baby sisters …’ I wipe my cheek and keep going. ‘I told him about you, but he said … He said that you’re not his child; only his girls are his children. It was cruel of him and I hated him for it. I realised that you were right, and that you were lucky that he left all those years ago. He’s a horrible person. I told him so, I just … I told him what I thought. I … I yelled at him and a woman came from upstairs wanting to know what was going on. She said that the baby was sleeping so I left. I’d taken a taxi there, so to leave I just ran. When I got tired, I walked. I was on a straight road then, so it’s not like there was a blind curve. This green car came up behind me
and sped up. I turned and saw it coming. I – This is going to sound crazy, but I knew it was coming for me. I just knew. So I jumped. I jumped into the road, because the green car was aiming for me on the pavement. And I can prove it was, because it jumped onto the kerb and went right into where I’d been standing just seconds before. I ran across the road and into an empty park. I heard the car drive off. The worst part was, I’d seen that car before, parked near his house. Near your father’s house, Maxwell. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’ I slump and fall back.

As the words had come out, I’d seen Occam’s razor in the Inspector’s eyes: the more obvious explanation is that the car had gone up onto the kerb to avoid hitting me after I’d jumped into the road. I need to express the certainty I’d had before I made any move, a certainty no doubt triggered by a hundred subtle observations too small to be consciously named. The car had aimed for me first. I’m sure of it.

‘You think my father tried to run you down?’ Maxwell asks carefully. ‘Why?’

My voice cracks. ‘He was angry with me. I should never have done it. Should never have forced his past onto him. That’s why I didn’t tell you, Maxwell. Because I deserved it. Not deserved to be hit by a car, but I deserved his anger. I deserve
your
anger. That’s why I didn’t tell you. But now …’

‘Now, what?’ demands the Inspector.

‘I told you. I saw the green car again. In Caldecote. It tried to hit me, just like before. He’s followed me! He must be the one who blocked the barn entrance and set the fire!’

‘Ms Wright-Llewellyn …’

‘You have to believe me! I wouldn’t admit it if it weren’t true! Maxwell hates me now. I wouldn’t make the man I love hate me if I didn’t have to to save my own life!’

Maxwell avoids my pleading eyes and speaks directly to the Inspector about me. ‘Imogen’s clearly not in her right mind. I insist that you leave.’

‘I am in my right mind!’ I raise my voice, futilely trying to force him to face me. ‘This was two weeks ago, on my trip to that shipping company in Southampton. The Isle of Wight is just a ferry journey away.’

I can feel the energy in the room shift. It’s the Inspector. It’s as if her antennae have twitched.

‘Wight?’ the Inspector says through Maxwell’s cross-armed attempt to block her. ‘You’re saying this happened on the Isle of Wight? Did you file a report with the police there?’

‘Of course not. I didn’t want Maxwell to know what I’d done.’

The Inspector nods once, as if confirming something to herself.

I reach out, wincing from the effort, but the Inspector has gone.

‘Maxwell?’ I say, unreasonably hopeful.

He hesitates.

I look at him through my lashes, but it doesn’t work, not here, not in this antiseptic place, not using this bruised and rough version of myself.

He follows the Inspector out of the door.