The Dead Ex(51)

‘It’s all right, love,’ said Dee, gathering up the broken china. ‘We understand. Don’t we, Robert? Be careful not to cut yourself. Let me help you.’

But the nicer Dee was, the angrier Scarlet became. Every minute she spent here made her feel even more disloyal towards Mum. ‘I’d rather live with someone else,’ she told the social worker during the next visit.

The woman looked worried. ‘Why? Don’t they treat you well?’

‘Yes but …’

‘Then you’ll have to stay. We usually only organize moves if the foster families or the children do something wrong.’

Scarlet felt a leap of hope. Dee and Robert wouldn’t ‘do something wrong’.

But she could.

The fire started at night. When Scarlet looked out of the window, there was a ball of flames flickering up into the sky. It was just like Bonfire Night, except it wasn’t the right time of the year.

‘FIRE,’ she yelled out, running onto the landing. ‘HELP!’

Robert stumbled out of their bedroom, his eyes wild with terror. ‘Where?’

‘Your studio,’ cried Scarlet.

‘I’ve got to get my stuff out,’ he yelled.

‘No!’

They raced after him and only just managed to hold him back as the shed roof came crashing down. The heat was fiercer than anything she’d ever known. Lumps of wood – lit up like giant matchsticks – came hurtling towards her.

‘Careful,’ Dee implored. ‘Robert – stand back. We’ve got to get Scarlet into the house. Be sensible.’

The three of them watched from the kitchen window in stunned silence as the final plank was consumed by the flames just as the fire engine came screaming down the lane.

It was only when the police came round to talk to them that they found the small can of petrol under Scarlet’s bed along with a box of matches.

‘How could you,’ wept Dee, ‘after everything we did for you? I loved you like my own daughter.’

Robert refused to speak to her. In a way, that was worse.

‘What will happen to me?’ asked Scarlet in a small voice as she was led out in handcuffs.

‘Youth court,’ snapped the policewoman. ‘Then, if there’s any justice, to a juvenile centre. With any luck, you won’t be out for some time.’





23



Vicki


The train from Paddington to Penzance is as busy as it was when I came up this morning. Someone bumps against my bruised wrist as I search for a seat, and I wince. Maybe I should get it checked out, but then if I do, it will go on my medical file.

I’m not sure I can risk that.

As we leave London, I run over the last few hours in my head. None of it seems quite real.

For a minute, back in Tanya’s house, I’d really thought she was going to seriously hurt me when she’d flown at me. If it hadn’t been for the self-defence course all those years ago, she might have succeeded. Instead, she was the one who had ended up on the ground.

I’m still shaking. Glad to be on my way home.

On the other side of the aisle is a family, chattering about catching the ferry to the Scilly Isles. I’d tried to persuade David to go there during our marriage but then I’d got pregnant, and he said I needed to rest more.

Patrick.

The seat next to me is marked ‘Exeter’. I’m reminded of the time I lived there before moving to a village near Totnes in the belief that I could start again. Then it was Cornwall.

Now it looks as though I am going to have to find somewhere else. Shame. I could have put down roots.

Even when David eventually turns up – please may there be a ‘when’ – I can’t stay in a place where the neighbours will have seen the police going in and out or gawped at me fitting under a bench.

The very memory makes me nervous. I begin to massage my wrist and gasp with pain again. The man on the other side of me looks up curiously.

I glance away, watching the countryside whizz past. An ox-bow lake catches my eye. An outlying farm comes into view and then goes in a flash. A perfect place to hide a body. Then I shiver. The thought of David lying dead somewhere is simply too awful to contemplate.

‘How long now?’ squeals one of the children in the carriage, snub nose pressed against the window.

I feel a ‘what-might-have-been’ stab in my chest. As soon as I get home, I will call Inspector Vine. This time I’ll show him the evidence. And when he asks why I didn’t hand it over before, I’ll try to explain that when you love someone – even if they’ve crushed you – it isn’t always easy to betray them.

Will the detective believe me? Who knows? At times, I don’t believe myself. Epilepsy does that. It makes you wonder who the real ‘you’ is. The person that others see, thrashing around. Or the one who looks back at you in the mirror?

We’re in Devon now. My mind turns to Dartmoor. One tor after another. Once, in my old life, I’d climbed up Haytor.

I must have dozed off for some time because, when I wake, the train is slowing down. The man next to me is staring in a concerned way, just like the elderly woman on the way up to London had done. A hot and cold bolt of fear shoots through me. Was it possible I really had had a seizure this time?

‘I was just wondering whether to wake you,’ he says. ‘Penzance is the next stop. We’re nearly there.’