Let Me Lie(96)

In her car seat, Ella wakes with a start and stares at me with unblinking eyes.

‘I … I was angry. I lashed out. He slipped. I …’ She breaks off and screws up her face, as though pushing away whatever images are inside her head. ‘It was an accident.’

‘Did you call an ambulance? The police?’

Silence.

‘Why come back? You’d got away with it. Everyone thought Dad had committed suicide. You too.’

She chews on her lip. Checks her mirrors and moves into the right-hand lane, ready to turn. ‘Robert’s extension. He’d been planning it for months, but I didn’t know he’d need to dig up the sewers, otherwise we’d never have …’ She stops short.

‘We?’ Fear wraps itself around my insides.

‘I tried to block it. He was refused permission, and then he went to appeal. I put in an objection, but I needed to see … I needed to see …’

‘You needed to see what?’

The response is a whisper. ‘If there was anything left of the body.’

Bile rises in my throat. ‘You said we.’ I think of the Mitsubishi. My mother’s fear was real. ‘Who was following us? Who are you so frightened of?’

She doesn’t answer.

The sat nav sends us left. We’re almost there.

I start to panic. Once we’re in the flat, escape will be impossible.

Surreptitiously I unbuckle Ella’s straps so I can grab her the second Mum opens the car door. I picture the underground car park beneath Mark’s Putney flat. The electric door opens with a code and closes automatically, rolling slowly shut with a creaking groan that used to set my teeth on edge when I visited Mark here. The space for his apartment is on the opposite side of the car park. How fast does the door close? I think back, remembering the way the natural light shrinks as you walk from the car to the lift, disappearing altogether as the door clunks to the ground. There will be time. I’ll have to be fast, but there will be time.

Blood is thudding so fiercely in my head I’m convinced I can hear it out loud. I slide one arm under Ella. I daren’t pick her up too soon, daren’t give my mother any reason to believe I might make a run for it. She’ll come after us, of course, but even out of shape and with a baby, I can run faster than her. I can make it. I have to be able to make it.

My mother hesitates, unsure where the sat nav is taking her. I can see the entrance to the underground parking but I say nothing. I don’t want her to know I’ve been here before and that I’m familiar with the layout. I need every advantage I can get.

She crawls forward, peering at each entrance until she sees the right one. It takes her three attempts to enter the code Mark gave her on a slip of paper, her fingers shaking so much they slip from the keys.

Slowly, the metal door slides upwards. It’s slower than I remember, and I’m glad, because it will descend at the same pace. I picture the distance between the parking space and the exit, mentally preparing myself for the sprint, imagining Ella in my arms.

The car park is dark, lit only by sporadic fluorescent lamps in the absence of daylight. The roller door grinds as it opens.

We are through the entrance and down the ramp before I hear the clunk of the door hitting the top of the mechanism. There’s a pause, and then the grinding resumes. The door is closing.

I can’t help myself. ‘I think the space is over there.’

She manoeuvres the car to the next row, and along to the bay. I start to lift Ella from her car seat. She stiffens, complaining, and I silently beseech her to comply. My mother hesitates, contemplating whether to reverse in, then changes her mind and slots the car neatly into the space.

Ella is in my arms. Mum’s out of the car. Come on, come on! I glance behind, see the rectangular shaft of open air squaring off as the door descends.

Her hand on the car door handle.

Come on!

There must be twenty metres between the car and the exit. Ten seconds before the gate hits the ground. It’s possible. It has to be possible.

She opens my car door.

I don’t hesitate. I kick out, hard. The door slams into my mother and sends her flying backwards. I scramble out of the car, Ella clutched to my chest, and run.





FIFTY-NINE


I would have let them out. Anna and Ella.

When I stopped the car, and told Anna to get out, I really meant it. Not just because I could have gone – disappeared somewhere too far to be found – but because I never wanted either of them to get hurt.

Now it’s too late. I’ll have to keep them. As insurance. Collateral.

If only I’d got rid of your body on my own, this wouldn’t have happened. But I couldn’t.

I kneeled on the floor, your blood seeping into my jeans. I was feeling for a pulse – looking for the rise and fall of your chest – even though the bubble of blood between your lips told me everything I needed to know. There was no coming back from this. For either of us.

I couldn’t have told you whether I was crying for you or for me. Maybe it was for both of us. All I know is I sobered up fast. I put my arms either side of you, tried to heave you into a sitting position, but my hands were slick with blood, and you slipped from my grasp and smashed once more against the tiles.

I screamed. Rolled you over and saw the tissue between the crack in your skull. Vomited once. Twice.