The Couple at No. 9(70)

I could hear voices in the hallway but they were muffled, although I was sure one of the voices was male. My heart began to beat faster. We never had callers. I finished tucking you up and closed your bedroom door behind me, sweat pooling under my armpits at the thought of who could be at the front door. Was it the man Daphne was so afraid of? Had he found us?

I rushed downstairs, different scenarios playing out in my head. But Daphne wasn’t with anyone, she was alone.

‘Who was that?’ I asked quietly, not wanting to scare you. ‘I heard you talking to someone.’

She shook her head and walked into the living room. I followed. She stood in the middle of the room, wrapping her arms around herself. Her face was so pale she looked as if she might faint. ‘It’s him,’ she whispered. ‘Oh, God, Rose, he’s found me. He’s found me …’

Coldness washed over me. ‘Where … where is he now?’

‘He’s gone around the side. To the garden. I said I’d talk to him there. I didn’t know what to do.’

‘We need to call the police.’ I headed for the orange phone by the sofa. But she stopped me before I could reach it.

‘We can’t. Don’t you see? That will make no difference. It never has before. They didn’t help me then. Why would they now?’

I hung my head.

How I wished I had just called the police. Then maybe none of this would have happened. Fear. It makes you do strange things. It clouds the brain. And I had been so scared for so long. You have to believe me on that.

Daphne put her hand on my shoulder. ‘I need to talk to him, try to convince him to leave me alone. I don’t know if it’ll work.’ She let out a small sob. ‘I’m scared, Rose. He … he’s not a nice man.’

Her words conjured up images of your father, and the things he did to me. What would I do if he decided to turn up here, unannounced, like this Neil?

I pulled Daphne into my arms, kissing the top of her head. ‘It’ll be okay. I won’t let anything happen to you,’ I said fiercely. ‘We’ll sort this out together. Come on.’ I pulled away from her and took her hand, leading her into the kitchen. I could see a man standing in the garden, smoking. I didn’t think about my safety, or even, I’m ashamed to admit, yours in that moment. I told myself Neil wasn’t interested in us. It was Daphne he wanted. Daphne he had been looking for.

I opened the back door and Daphne stepped in front of me and out onto the patio.

‘Hello, Jean,’ he said to her. Light spilled from the kitchen, illuminating his face. He was very fair with translucent eyelashes. He had on a black Harrington jacket with a white T-shirt underneath and jeans. He smelt of stale alcohol.

Jean?

‘Who’s this?’ He inclined his head towards me.

‘My best friend,’ she replied, turning back to look at me. Her eyes locked with mine and something unsaid passed between us. We were two thirty-something women who had known each other for four months – I hadn’t had a best friend since school – yet it was still not enough to encapsulate the intensity of my feelings for her.

‘You’d better be careful,’ he said to me, his eyes narrowed, but a smug expression on his face. ‘Don’t you know what this woman is capable of?’

Here we go, I thought. Trying to make out that Daphne was the bad person. The one in the wrong. I’d seen a black-and-white film about it once. What did they call men like him? Gaslighters?

I stood there, shivering in my cardigan and long skirt, not saying anything, just glaring at him in response. He took a puff of his cigarette and blew it out slowly and deliberately in my direction. I felt an intense hatred towards him in that moment. Daphne moved towards him, but I grabbed her hand and tried to pull her back. ‘You don’t have to,’ I said.

She shook her head. I was surprised at her compliance. After all her talk of standing up to men. She shrugged me off, walking towards him. She looked thin in a cotton jumper and flared jeans. She had on her trusty boots and they sank into the grass as she stood next to him, their backs to me. I could smell the hint of a bonfire from a neighbouring garden and, other than the light from the kitchen, it was pitch black outside, the kind of darkness you only get in the countryside with no pollution, hardly any lights and the thick, dense wood at the back. The hedges on either side were high, eclipsing any views from neighbours.

Was I thinking of it then? Planning it? I think on some level I must have been.

I waited by the back door. Watching. Listening. Like an animal ready to pounce. Their voices floated towards me.

‘After all these years,’ I heard him say. I could see the tip of his cigarette; a dot of amber against the darkness, like a firefly. ‘I knew I’d find you. Even with that fucking ugly hairstyle. You can’t hide from me. Jean.’

‘My name is Daphne,’ she said firmly. I noticed how her shoulders tensed. Her neck looked long and elegant with her hair so short. ‘I don’t know why you keep referring to me as Jean. I’m not who you think I am.’

He lowered his voice but I could still hear him. ‘We both know you are.’ His words sounded threatening although I wasn’t sure why. Not then anyhow. ‘Exposing you is going to make my career.’

I wondered what he meant. And then it made sense. He was a policeman. No wonder Daphne didn’t want me to ring them. He was one of them. Men who abused their power. Men others automatically believed.