One wrong turn, p.4
One Wrong Turn, page 4
She startled as Paul appeared next to her at the exit to the motorway services, hoisting two takeaway coffee cups in the air.
‘Thought we could both use some caffeine.’
Samantha glanced outside, her heart pounding wildly, instantly spooked by the change to their plans. It was such a strange and disorientating thing to no longer be sure she could trust her husband.
‘It’s OK,’ he reassured her. ‘I’ve been keeping an eye on the car. Nobody has been near it. Everything is fine.’
7
I didn’t acknowledge or respond to what Samantha had said about Bristol and I silently willed Ben not to either. In the quiet that followed I became overly conscious of how still my body had become, of the weight of my tongue in my mouth, the way my hands were perspiring on the steering wheel.
Was it rude not to say anything?
I supposed so, but I told myself not to care. After we dropped them at the hospital, we’d never see them again.
I reached down and turned a dial on the central console, upping the rate of air being blown towards the windscreen, the vents roaring along with my thoughts.
Don’t tell them anything else.
It’s not safe to tell them anything else.
A set of fog lights appeared coming towards us, dazzling me, and I jerked the wheel, veering towards the knotted hedge at the side of the road as a muddy Land Rover thundered by. It was the first vehicle we’d seen since we’d picked them up and I found myself wishing it had come along sooner. Maybe the driver would have stopped to check if Samantha was OK and saved us the trouble.
‘OK?’ Ben asked me, touching my leg.
‘Yes. Glad they missed us.’
‘We’re based in Clifton,’ Samantha said, talking over the blowers. ‘It’s really important we get home by first thing tomorrow morning.’
For a second, my hearing went funny, as if my head had been dunked under cold water. Why was she telling us that? What was it she expected us to do about it?
Dimly, I became aware of Samantha asking where we lived.
‘We have an apartment in Hotwells,’ Ben said. Rented, he could have added, although I didn’t doubt that Paul and Samantha could guess that. ‘Whereabouts in Clifton are you based?’
‘Near the old zoo,’ Paul cut in, before Samantha could respond.
It struck me as a deliberately vague answer. Paul could have named the street. There was every chance we would have known it. But he’d opted not to do that. I suspected he’d jumped in ahead of Samantha to make sure she didn’t tell us.
Why? I wondered.
And then it hit me.
Was Paul as wary of us as I was of them?
My hearing returned in a rush, the roar of the blowers suddenly deafening. I dialled them down and looked over at Ben, but his attention was fixed on the fog outside, a dreamy cast to his expression. He was probably picturing the house and the lifestyle Paul and Samantha shared. I knew he’d be envious of their Clifton address. A lot of the partners at Ben’s firm lived in grand period townhouses in the area, and it was a lifestyle he aspired to.
I was different. Partly it was because a lot of the families I’d worked for in the past had lived in similar places and I’d often found their lavish homes to be cold and uninviting. But mostly it was because I didn’t care in the same way about money or material things. If the past few years had taught me anything, it was that family and friends were what mattered most in my life.
That’s when the digitized female voice on the satnav kicked in, telling me to turn right in a quarter of a mile, and I experienced another tremor of disquiet as something else occurred to me.
I reduced my speed, aware of a fast ticking in my bloodstream, a clamminess to my skin.
‘Why were you in a hire car?’ I asked, looking up at Paul’s shadowed face in the rear mirror.
‘I’m sorry?’ he asked me.
‘I just thought you might have your own car in Bristol.’
My experience of couples like Paul and Samantha who lived in a desirable area like Clifton was that they usually owned several cars. Most of the families I’d worked for in the past had driven top-of-the-range SUVs or BMWs.
‘Our car had to go into the garage for its service,’ Paul said. ‘They found a fault with its suspension.’
I couldn’t tell for sure, but I got the impression he was lying, and I couldn’t think of a good reason he would do that.
‘You’re not having a lot of luck with cars,’ Ben replied.
I turned over what Paul had said, trying to understand what it was about his explanation that didn’t quite ring true to me.
Gradually, the stop junction appeared from the murk and I eased to a halt, my indicator ticking in the silence.
I couldn’t see any sign of other vehicles approaching but I didn’t pull forward. I stayed where I was.
For just a second, I pictured myself listening to my instincts, asking them to get out of my car and creating a scene if they refused. But if I was just being paranoid, I’d be abandoning them and their baby miles from a hospital. And if I was right, would they even agree?
‘Abi?’ Ben spoke softly. ‘I think you’re OK to go. It seems clear on my side.’
I still didn’t move.
What to do?
In another ten minutes, this could all be forgotten. I could drop Paul and Samantha at the hospital and discuss it with Ben afterwards, see if he thought it was somehow fishy, too. Maybe he’d even have figured out what it was that felt odd about the situation and then—
‘Couldn’t they have given you a courtesy car?’ I asked.
Silence.
‘I’m talking about the garage that found the fault with your car,’ I pressed, looking up into my mirror. ‘Couldn’t they have given you a courtesy vehicle, saved you from hiring something?’
‘Would you mind if we talked about this once you’ve pulled forwards?’ Samantha asked, craning her neck to survey the road. ‘I’m not sure it’s safe to be just sitting here like this.’
I ignored her, fixing on Paul. I tried to make it clear from the look I was giving him that I wouldn’t move until he answered me.
‘They didn’t have any available,’ he said.
‘None at all?’
‘That’s right.’
I glanced at Ben, who gave me an understanding smile and a small nod that seemed designed to let me know that he thought it all made sense.
Reluctantly, I put the car into gear and began to pull out.
Saturday Afternoon
1.29 p.m.
Samantha didn’t expect to cry as they whipped along the coastal lanes towards the beach, but the tears came anyway.
‘What is it?’ Paul asked. ‘Do you want me to stop?’
She shook her head and felt herself shrink. Because stopping wouldn’t help. Nothing could. The fear was inside her, trapped in her veins.
The photograph had been just the beginning. There had been a lot more to come.
First, when Paul had rushed home, he’d gone very still and very pale when she’d shown him what had been left in Lila’s cot, and then, when he’d told her to sit and he’d taken her hands in his, she’d watched and listened in rigid disbelief as her whole life was torn apart at the seams. He’d explained who the photograph was from and what it meant and why they couldn’t – under any circumstances – go to the police. He’d been very clear about that and she’d believed him.
Especially when it got worse.
It had started with the young man with the crew cut who had followed her when she’d gone to the bank later that afternoon. Then she’d returned home to find that Paul’s car had been keyed. After that had come the silent phone calls when she was alone in the house; the time the front door had been unlocked and left ajar when she was sure she’d locked it; the toxic posts on her Facebook page that appeared under her name even though she hadn’t made them.
She’d had to endure it all, knowing Paul was the only one she could confide in, all the while secretly tormented by the fear there was more he wasn’t telling her.
And then finally the kicker, when they’d been woken early one morning by—
‘Crap!’ Paul said, startling her.
‘What is it?’
Her stomach dropped and she gripped the sides of her seat as the car began to decelerate and drift towards the middle of the road. Paul grappled with the ignition key, shaking his head.
‘I don’t know. The engine just cut out. I think the power steering’s gone. All the lights have gone out on the dash and—’
They blinked back on as he said it. There was a sudden roar from the engine. He gripped the steering wheel and realigned the car on the road.
‘Weird,’ Paul muttered.
‘What happened?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘Could it have been them?’
‘No.’ Then he said it again, as if trying to convince himself. ‘No, I don’t think so.’ He tested the steering. Cleared his throat. ‘I think we’re all right. Everything seems to be OK again now.’
8
Outside the fog was thicker than ever. The satnav told me to take the next turn on my left and it seemed to take an age until the junction emerged from the dim. After I’d made the turn, I glanced up into my mirror at Samantha, who was looking downwards, her hand wrapped around the moulded plastic handle that had been hollowed out of her door, her shoulders seeming to sag.
There was definitely some tension between her and Paul, I thought. They were hardly talking to each other. And then when you factored in everything else, like the way Paul had abandoned Samantha and Lila on the road in the fog, or the injury to Samantha’s hand, even the way she’d introduced us to Paul when he’d first shown up, calling us ‘this nice young couple’, as if she was trying to head off a confrontation before it had time to develop.
Could Paul have a temper?
They’d both appeared frazzled and stressed when we’d stopped, so perhaps they’d fallen out. I supposed that might explain why Paul had wedged Lila’s car seat between them in the back of my car. Maybe they couldn’t bear to sit next to each other.
‘What brought you to Cornwall?’ I asked.
Paul inhaled deeply and then let out a sigh. ‘Visiting family.’
‘Yours?’
‘No, my in-laws.’
Samantha stirred a little, as though she was only now tuning into the conversation, or as if she was hesitant about where it might go.
‘Are they based somewhere nice?’
‘They have a place overlooking the estuary.’
Which was about as vague as Paul saying that he and Samantha had a home near the old zoo in Clifton.
‘Couldn’t you have called them?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘When you broke down. Couldn’t you have called them for help?’
‘Abi,’ Ben muttered.
‘No, that’s all right.’ Paul shifted in his seat as the road dipped ahead of us. I couldn’t see what he was doing with his hand, but he appeared to be tucking Lila’s blanket in around her. His body language remained stiff and antagonistic to Samantha, as if he was silently judging her for not having done it herself. ‘We could have called them, you’re right. If we’d been stuck much longer. But it’s late and it wouldn’t have been safe for my father-in-law to drive in these conditions – his eyesight’s not what it was – and we didn’t want to concern them unduly.’
We didn’t want to.
I wondered about that.
On the face of it, it sounded reasonable enough. But there could be other explanations. If there were issues in Paul and Samantha’s marriage, say, and if Samantha’s parents were aware of them.
‘How long were you staying with them for?’
Paul made an exasperated noise through his teeth. ‘We weren’t.’
‘So why the late-night drive home? That wouldn’t have been easy with Lila.’
I waited.
I was aware of Ben shifting restlessly beside me, rubbing his hands on his thighs, probably concerned I was making things awkward, but I didn’t look at him, choosing to keep glancing into the mirror at Paul instead.
At first, I thought that he was going to refuse to answer or give me a half-answer at best, but then he sighed again and said, ‘Look, this is an odd situation, isn’t it? For all of us, I’m thinking. Nasty weather, late at night, lonely roads. So I get it, OK? I can understand why you might have concerns about who you’ve picked up. I’m going to be honest and tell you we had our concerns, too. Back in the lay-by, we were wondering if it was safe to get in this car with you at all.’
For a second I flashed on the trouble he’d had getting the car seat fixture out, but now I wondered if he was telling me that he hadn’t had any difficulty. Perhaps he’d been stalling and whispering to Samantha, in much the same way that I’d pulled Ben to one side and expressed my doubts to him.
‘It’s not ideal travelling so late with Lila, that’s true,’ Paul continued. ‘But we had our reasons for leaving when we did. Just as I’m assuming you had your reasons, and they probably involve something a bit more complicated than Ben needing to work tomorrow. But I imagine you wouldn’t like me to pry into your relationship, just as I don’t particularly appreciate you prying into ours. So how about this? How about you simply take us to the hospital and let us be on our way, and we’ll leave you undisturbed?’
Saturday Afternoon
2.18 p.m.
They’d spent thirty minutes on the windswept beach, huddled together on a blanket, before Samantha told Paul to dig a sandcastle for Lila while she trudged across the sand towards the cafe. She doubted she could eat. She’d had barely any appetite for days. But once inside, she ordered two takeaway sandwiches and some soft drinks, then asked the woman behind the counter if she wouldn’t mind warming the baby bottle she’d made up.
While she waited, she looked absently through the cafe window at the way Paul was kneeling in the sand with his hands on his hips, staring out to sea like a man trying to hold back the tide of his own life, and she felt a sharp, serrated twisting in her side.
They’d both agreed they couldn’t run from this. They didn’t have the finances – not any longer – and they didn’t have the desire or the skills. She and Paul weren’t criminals or spies. They were just two ordinary people caught in a horrible mess.
‘I think your bottle might be ready.’
‘Thank you, that’s really kind.’
Samantha took the bottle from the woman and carefully tested the temperature of the milk by splashing it on the inside of her wrist before packing everything back inside the changing bag and making her way across the beach.
Paul stood and watched her as she got closer, gingerly toeing the ground and brushing the sand from his palms onto the seat of his trousers.
‘Do you think your dad will have got it?’ he asked her, as she handed him his sandwich.
This was the part they’d debated over and over, because, she thought, it was the only part that was beyond their direct control – as if, really, they were in control of anything at all.
‘He said he would,’ she replied, which was as much as she could tell him. They both knew Paul had a complicated relationship with her parents. She’d always understood deep down, despite how often she’d reassured Paul over the years, that her father had never really liked her husband.
‘And you’re sure he hasn’t said anything to the police?’
She wasn’t sure, but she couldn’t tell Paul that. Perhaps, secretly, part of her even hoped that her dad had called the police. Not because she believed it would help them. Not ultimately. But because, for a short spell at least, she could have pretended it might.
‘What other choice do we have?’
9
I drove on, shaken by what Paul had just said to me.
What would it mean if he didn’t leave us undisturbed? How might he disturb us?
Or maybe I was reading too much into it. Maybe I was reading too much into everything lately. The past few months had been so difficult. I’d been so broken. I knew I’d lost perspective on a lot of things.
I was constantly frightened that having a baby wasn’t in the stars for us and I’d pushed Ben away because of it. I’d crumpled in on myself. I’d stopped working or seeing friends. I’d become isolated, depressed, anxious, lost.
It was definitely possible that my judgement was off. I had a meditation app I listened to which sometimes helped, and I knew I had a tendency to catastrophize.
But Paul was right about one thing. This was an odd situation, and the circumstances we’d found ourselves in really didn’t help. I sensed from the way he was talking and behaving that he’d been pushed close to the edge by the breakdown before we’d even picked him up tonight.
And what happened when he went over that edge?
Again, I glanced at Samantha, but this time I found her looking back at me with a pinched and longing expression that wasn’t very different from how she’d looked when I’d first seen her standing in the dark by the side of the road. I could see her more clearly now. She was leaning forwards a little into the faint, bluish glow from the satnav.
I held her gaze for a jangling beat, thinking about saying something to her.
Then she blinked.
Both eyes.
Slowly.
I froze.
It was only the smallest movement, but it struck me that she did it deliberately.
Again, I thought of the uncomfortable vibe I’d picked up between them. The sense that they’d had an argument or a disagreement of some kind.
I pulled my eyes away from the mirror for a second and gazed out through the windscreen, unsure what to do. Then I adjusted my grip on the steering wheel and looked into my mirror once more.
Where Samantha was waiting for me in the sketchy dark.
Where she held my gaze.
And blinked.
Both eyes.
Slowly.
Oh, God.
I wasn’t imagining it. She was trying to communicate with me.
‘Thought we could both use some caffeine.’
Samantha glanced outside, her heart pounding wildly, instantly spooked by the change to their plans. It was such a strange and disorientating thing to no longer be sure she could trust her husband.
‘It’s OK,’ he reassured her. ‘I’ve been keeping an eye on the car. Nobody has been near it. Everything is fine.’
7
I didn’t acknowledge or respond to what Samantha had said about Bristol and I silently willed Ben not to either. In the quiet that followed I became overly conscious of how still my body had become, of the weight of my tongue in my mouth, the way my hands were perspiring on the steering wheel.
Was it rude not to say anything?
I supposed so, but I told myself not to care. After we dropped them at the hospital, we’d never see them again.
I reached down and turned a dial on the central console, upping the rate of air being blown towards the windscreen, the vents roaring along with my thoughts.
Don’t tell them anything else.
It’s not safe to tell them anything else.
A set of fog lights appeared coming towards us, dazzling me, and I jerked the wheel, veering towards the knotted hedge at the side of the road as a muddy Land Rover thundered by. It was the first vehicle we’d seen since we’d picked them up and I found myself wishing it had come along sooner. Maybe the driver would have stopped to check if Samantha was OK and saved us the trouble.
‘OK?’ Ben asked me, touching my leg.
‘Yes. Glad they missed us.’
‘We’re based in Clifton,’ Samantha said, talking over the blowers. ‘It’s really important we get home by first thing tomorrow morning.’
For a second, my hearing went funny, as if my head had been dunked under cold water. Why was she telling us that? What was it she expected us to do about it?
Dimly, I became aware of Samantha asking where we lived.
‘We have an apartment in Hotwells,’ Ben said. Rented, he could have added, although I didn’t doubt that Paul and Samantha could guess that. ‘Whereabouts in Clifton are you based?’
‘Near the old zoo,’ Paul cut in, before Samantha could respond.
It struck me as a deliberately vague answer. Paul could have named the street. There was every chance we would have known it. But he’d opted not to do that. I suspected he’d jumped in ahead of Samantha to make sure she didn’t tell us.
Why? I wondered.
And then it hit me.
Was Paul as wary of us as I was of them?
My hearing returned in a rush, the roar of the blowers suddenly deafening. I dialled them down and looked over at Ben, but his attention was fixed on the fog outside, a dreamy cast to his expression. He was probably picturing the house and the lifestyle Paul and Samantha shared. I knew he’d be envious of their Clifton address. A lot of the partners at Ben’s firm lived in grand period townhouses in the area, and it was a lifestyle he aspired to.
I was different. Partly it was because a lot of the families I’d worked for in the past had lived in similar places and I’d often found their lavish homes to be cold and uninviting. But mostly it was because I didn’t care in the same way about money or material things. If the past few years had taught me anything, it was that family and friends were what mattered most in my life.
That’s when the digitized female voice on the satnav kicked in, telling me to turn right in a quarter of a mile, and I experienced another tremor of disquiet as something else occurred to me.
I reduced my speed, aware of a fast ticking in my bloodstream, a clamminess to my skin.
‘Why were you in a hire car?’ I asked, looking up at Paul’s shadowed face in the rear mirror.
‘I’m sorry?’ he asked me.
‘I just thought you might have your own car in Bristol.’
My experience of couples like Paul and Samantha who lived in a desirable area like Clifton was that they usually owned several cars. Most of the families I’d worked for in the past had driven top-of-the-range SUVs or BMWs.
‘Our car had to go into the garage for its service,’ Paul said. ‘They found a fault with its suspension.’
I couldn’t tell for sure, but I got the impression he was lying, and I couldn’t think of a good reason he would do that.
‘You’re not having a lot of luck with cars,’ Ben replied.
I turned over what Paul had said, trying to understand what it was about his explanation that didn’t quite ring true to me.
Gradually, the stop junction appeared from the murk and I eased to a halt, my indicator ticking in the silence.
I couldn’t see any sign of other vehicles approaching but I didn’t pull forward. I stayed where I was.
For just a second, I pictured myself listening to my instincts, asking them to get out of my car and creating a scene if they refused. But if I was just being paranoid, I’d be abandoning them and their baby miles from a hospital. And if I was right, would they even agree?
‘Abi?’ Ben spoke softly. ‘I think you’re OK to go. It seems clear on my side.’
I still didn’t move.
What to do?
In another ten minutes, this could all be forgotten. I could drop Paul and Samantha at the hospital and discuss it with Ben afterwards, see if he thought it was somehow fishy, too. Maybe he’d even have figured out what it was that felt odd about the situation and then—
‘Couldn’t they have given you a courtesy car?’ I asked.
Silence.
‘I’m talking about the garage that found the fault with your car,’ I pressed, looking up into my mirror. ‘Couldn’t they have given you a courtesy vehicle, saved you from hiring something?’
‘Would you mind if we talked about this once you’ve pulled forwards?’ Samantha asked, craning her neck to survey the road. ‘I’m not sure it’s safe to be just sitting here like this.’
I ignored her, fixing on Paul. I tried to make it clear from the look I was giving him that I wouldn’t move until he answered me.
‘They didn’t have any available,’ he said.
‘None at all?’
‘That’s right.’
I glanced at Ben, who gave me an understanding smile and a small nod that seemed designed to let me know that he thought it all made sense.
Reluctantly, I put the car into gear and began to pull out.
Saturday Afternoon
1.29 p.m.
Samantha didn’t expect to cry as they whipped along the coastal lanes towards the beach, but the tears came anyway.
‘What is it?’ Paul asked. ‘Do you want me to stop?’
She shook her head and felt herself shrink. Because stopping wouldn’t help. Nothing could. The fear was inside her, trapped in her veins.
The photograph had been just the beginning. There had been a lot more to come.
First, when Paul had rushed home, he’d gone very still and very pale when she’d shown him what had been left in Lila’s cot, and then, when he’d told her to sit and he’d taken her hands in his, she’d watched and listened in rigid disbelief as her whole life was torn apart at the seams. He’d explained who the photograph was from and what it meant and why they couldn’t – under any circumstances – go to the police. He’d been very clear about that and she’d believed him.
Especially when it got worse.
It had started with the young man with the crew cut who had followed her when she’d gone to the bank later that afternoon. Then she’d returned home to find that Paul’s car had been keyed. After that had come the silent phone calls when she was alone in the house; the time the front door had been unlocked and left ajar when she was sure she’d locked it; the toxic posts on her Facebook page that appeared under her name even though she hadn’t made them.
She’d had to endure it all, knowing Paul was the only one she could confide in, all the while secretly tormented by the fear there was more he wasn’t telling her.
And then finally the kicker, when they’d been woken early one morning by—
‘Crap!’ Paul said, startling her.
‘What is it?’
Her stomach dropped and she gripped the sides of her seat as the car began to decelerate and drift towards the middle of the road. Paul grappled with the ignition key, shaking his head.
‘I don’t know. The engine just cut out. I think the power steering’s gone. All the lights have gone out on the dash and—’
They blinked back on as he said it. There was a sudden roar from the engine. He gripped the steering wheel and realigned the car on the road.
‘Weird,’ Paul muttered.
‘What happened?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘Could it have been them?’
‘No.’ Then he said it again, as if trying to convince himself. ‘No, I don’t think so.’ He tested the steering. Cleared his throat. ‘I think we’re all right. Everything seems to be OK again now.’
8
Outside the fog was thicker than ever. The satnav told me to take the next turn on my left and it seemed to take an age until the junction emerged from the dim. After I’d made the turn, I glanced up into my mirror at Samantha, who was looking downwards, her hand wrapped around the moulded plastic handle that had been hollowed out of her door, her shoulders seeming to sag.
There was definitely some tension between her and Paul, I thought. They were hardly talking to each other. And then when you factored in everything else, like the way Paul had abandoned Samantha and Lila on the road in the fog, or the injury to Samantha’s hand, even the way she’d introduced us to Paul when he’d first shown up, calling us ‘this nice young couple’, as if she was trying to head off a confrontation before it had time to develop.
Could Paul have a temper?
They’d both appeared frazzled and stressed when we’d stopped, so perhaps they’d fallen out. I supposed that might explain why Paul had wedged Lila’s car seat between them in the back of my car. Maybe they couldn’t bear to sit next to each other.
‘What brought you to Cornwall?’ I asked.
Paul inhaled deeply and then let out a sigh. ‘Visiting family.’
‘Yours?’
‘No, my in-laws.’
Samantha stirred a little, as though she was only now tuning into the conversation, or as if she was hesitant about where it might go.
‘Are they based somewhere nice?’
‘They have a place overlooking the estuary.’
Which was about as vague as Paul saying that he and Samantha had a home near the old zoo in Clifton.
‘Couldn’t you have called them?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘When you broke down. Couldn’t you have called them for help?’
‘Abi,’ Ben muttered.
‘No, that’s all right.’ Paul shifted in his seat as the road dipped ahead of us. I couldn’t see what he was doing with his hand, but he appeared to be tucking Lila’s blanket in around her. His body language remained stiff and antagonistic to Samantha, as if he was silently judging her for not having done it herself. ‘We could have called them, you’re right. If we’d been stuck much longer. But it’s late and it wouldn’t have been safe for my father-in-law to drive in these conditions – his eyesight’s not what it was – and we didn’t want to concern them unduly.’
We didn’t want to.
I wondered about that.
On the face of it, it sounded reasonable enough. But there could be other explanations. If there were issues in Paul and Samantha’s marriage, say, and if Samantha’s parents were aware of them.
‘How long were you staying with them for?’
Paul made an exasperated noise through his teeth. ‘We weren’t.’
‘So why the late-night drive home? That wouldn’t have been easy with Lila.’
I waited.
I was aware of Ben shifting restlessly beside me, rubbing his hands on his thighs, probably concerned I was making things awkward, but I didn’t look at him, choosing to keep glancing into the mirror at Paul instead.
At first, I thought that he was going to refuse to answer or give me a half-answer at best, but then he sighed again and said, ‘Look, this is an odd situation, isn’t it? For all of us, I’m thinking. Nasty weather, late at night, lonely roads. So I get it, OK? I can understand why you might have concerns about who you’ve picked up. I’m going to be honest and tell you we had our concerns, too. Back in the lay-by, we were wondering if it was safe to get in this car with you at all.’
For a second I flashed on the trouble he’d had getting the car seat fixture out, but now I wondered if he was telling me that he hadn’t had any difficulty. Perhaps he’d been stalling and whispering to Samantha, in much the same way that I’d pulled Ben to one side and expressed my doubts to him.
‘It’s not ideal travelling so late with Lila, that’s true,’ Paul continued. ‘But we had our reasons for leaving when we did. Just as I’m assuming you had your reasons, and they probably involve something a bit more complicated than Ben needing to work tomorrow. But I imagine you wouldn’t like me to pry into your relationship, just as I don’t particularly appreciate you prying into ours. So how about this? How about you simply take us to the hospital and let us be on our way, and we’ll leave you undisturbed?’
Saturday Afternoon
2.18 p.m.
They’d spent thirty minutes on the windswept beach, huddled together on a blanket, before Samantha told Paul to dig a sandcastle for Lila while she trudged across the sand towards the cafe. She doubted she could eat. She’d had barely any appetite for days. But once inside, she ordered two takeaway sandwiches and some soft drinks, then asked the woman behind the counter if she wouldn’t mind warming the baby bottle she’d made up.
While she waited, she looked absently through the cafe window at the way Paul was kneeling in the sand with his hands on his hips, staring out to sea like a man trying to hold back the tide of his own life, and she felt a sharp, serrated twisting in her side.
They’d both agreed they couldn’t run from this. They didn’t have the finances – not any longer – and they didn’t have the desire or the skills. She and Paul weren’t criminals or spies. They were just two ordinary people caught in a horrible mess.
‘I think your bottle might be ready.’
‘Thank you, that’s really kind.’
Samantha took the bottle from the woman and carefully tested the temperature of the milk by splashing it on the inside of her wrist before packing everything back inside the changing bag and making her way across the beach.
Paul stood and watched her as she got closer, gingerly toeing the ground and brushing the sand from his palms onto the seat of his trousers.
‘Do you think your dad will have got it?’ he asked her, as she handed him his sandwich.
This was the part they’d debated over and over, because, she thought, it was the only part that was beyond their direct control – as if, really, they were in control of anything at all.
‘He said he would,’ she replied, which was as much as she could tell him. They both knew Paul had a complicated relationship with her parents. She’d always understood deep down, despite how often she’d reassured Paul over the years, that her father had never really liked her husband.
‘And you’re sure he hasn’t said anything to the police?’
She wasn’t sure, but she couldn’t tell Paul that. Perhaps, secretly, part of her even hoped that her dad had called the police. Not because she believed it would help them. Not ultimately. But because, for a short spell at least, she could have pretended it might.
‘What other choice do we have?’
9
I drove on, shaken by what Paul had just said to me.
What would it mean if he didn’t leave us undisturbed? How might he disturb us?
Or maybe I was reading too much into it. Maybe I was reading too much into everything lately. The past few months had been so difficult. I’d been so broken. I knew I’d lost perspective on a lot of things.
I was constantly frightened that having a baby wasn’t in the stars for us and I’d pushed Ben away because of it. I’d crumpled in on myself. I’d stopped working or seeing friends. I’d become isolated, depressed, anxious, lost.
It was definitely possible that my judgement was off. I had a meditation app I listened to which sometimes helped, and I knew I had a tendency to catastrophize.
But Paul was right about one thing. This was an odd situation, and the circumstances we’d found ourselves in really didn’t help. I sensed from the way he was talking and behaving that he’d been pushed close to the edge by the breakdown before we’d even picked him up tonight.
And what happened when he went over that edge?
Again, I glanced at Samantha, but this time I found her looking back at me with a pinched and longing expression that wasn’t very different from how she’d looked when I’d first seen her standing in the dark by the side of the road. I could see her more clearly now. She was leaning forwards a little into the faint, bluish glow from the satnav.
I held her gaze for a jangling beat, thinking about saying something to her.
Then she blinked.
Both eyes.
Slowly.
I froze.
It was only the smallest movement, but it struck me that she did it deliberately.
Again, I thought of the uncomfortable vibe I’d picked up between them. The sense that they’d had an argument or a disagreement of some kind.
I pulled my eyes away from the mirror for a second and gazed out through the windscreen, unsure what to do. Then I adjusted my grip on the steering wheel and looked into my mirror once more.
Where Samantha was waiting for me in the sketchy dark.
Where she held my gaze.
And blinked.
Both eyes.
Slowly.
Oh, God.
I wasn’t imagining it. She was trying to communicate with me.
