What Lies Between Us(88)

CHAPTER 73





MAGGIE


TWENTY-THREE YEARS EARLIER


The speed at which I burst through the basement door startles Elsie. Thinking the worst, I push the mattress out of the way in my haste to get through the door, and find her bottle-feeding Dylan. He is tucked safely in the crook of her arm. Music plays quietly from the radio I left her.

‘Whatever’s the matter?’ she asks.

I want to tell her about the knife and that I thought Nina had hurt the two of them, but I don’t. I do not want to scare her and there’s only so much madness I can lay at Elsie’s feet. Whatever Nina has done now, I must shoulder it alone.

‘I’m sorry,’ I reply. ‘The house was quiet and I panicked.’

‘We’re okay, don’t you worry,’ Elsie says. ‘He had a little bit of a cry earlier but it’s only because he was hungry. How’s Nina?’

‘I need to spend some time with her. Are you okay on your own with Dylan for a little bit longer?’

She nods and I close the door and catch Elsie kissing my grandson’s forehead. She is going to miss him as much as I am. I return to the bathroom where I left Nina. I step over the knife and crouch in front of her, placing her hands in mine. There’s dried blood on her fingers and sleeves.

She speaks without warning and it makes me jump. ‘Jon,’ she says, her voice deadpan.

‘What about him?’ I ask.

‘I’ve seen him,’ she says, and I hold my eyes shut for a moment.

‘Where?’

‘At his place.’

‘Did something happen? Is he okay?’

I wait for reassurance but the bloody knife tells me everything she is not. I clean her up, dress her in fresh clothing, feed her two more sleeping tablets and put her to bed. Then I search her coat pocket and find an address on a scrap of paper. There’s a spot of blood on it. I can only assume this is where she has been. I clean the handle and blade, then carefully slip it into my own pocket.



Within the hour I am standing in Hunter’s flat, staring at his unconscious body sprawled across the sofa.

His legs are spread wide, his head is drooped forward and there is drug paraphernalia scattered across a coffee table. In the flickering of the television’s light, I spot a needle still wedged into a vein in his forearm. No matter how much I hate him, I’m relieved to hear him breathing. It means Nina hasn’t hurt him.

Suddenly, I’m startled by a noise behind me. My head turns quickly to face it. A door in the hall is slightly ajar and from here, it looks like the bathroom. I’m no fighter but I have Nina’s vegetable knife poised and I’m prepared to lash out and protect myself if necessary. However, the noise doesn’t appear to be coming any closer. The sound is like that of a deflating tyre, only more infrequent. I make my way towards it, pushing the door open with my foot.

The hinges creak before it stops. Something is blocking it from opening completely. I enter and that’s when I see her on the floor. Sally Ann Mitchell, the sweet young girl I’ve chatted to at the surgery, is staring back at me, her big blue eyes as wide open and panicked as they can be. For a moment, neither of us moves, each waiting for the other to react first.

I have little choice but to make my move. With Nina’s knife in my pocket I go swiftly towards her and kneel down for a closer look. She is lying on her left side; her arm is stretched out in front of her as if she is trying to grab for something out of reach.

Her right cheek has a two-inch-long gash across it. Her bare arms and hands are dripping with blood from open slash and stab wounds. Some are surface lacerations, others are so deep I spot muscle tissue. But as I look down at her, it’s her pregnant stomach that has borne the brunt of the attack. My daughter has done this. My Nina. I lean over the bath and vomit. There’s only coffee and toast inside me but I repeat the action twice more before wiping my mouth, taking a step backwards and assessing the situation.

I see hope in Sally Ann’s eyes now. She recognises me through her haze; she doesn’t know how or why I am here but she is grateful. She thinks I am going to help her. Her bottom lip moves as if she is trying to talk. I put my fingers on her wrist but I can barely find a pulse. She is bleeding out and within minutes she will be dead if I don’t help her.

‘Say aye be,’ she whispers, and a small trickle of blood falls from the corner of her mouth and drips to the floor.

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ I reply gently.

‘Say aye be,’ she repeats. ‘Save aye be.’ Gradually I understand her. She’s saying, ‘Save my baby.’

It breaks my heart to see the poor girl like this. I move quickly back into the lounge and locate a telephone. I’m about to lift the receiver and call for help when it strikes me that I can’t. It goes against all my instincts. But I have done a lot of things I’m not proud of lately. More than anything in the world I want to help her and her child. Almost more than anything. Because I want to protect Nina more. And getting Sally Ann help will have a catastrophic effect on my daughter.

If Sally Ann survives this, how do I explain my presence in her home? If she knows my daughter and can offer a description that leads to Nina’s identification, then that is it for her. She will be locked away indefinitely in a young offenders’ institute, a prison or a psychiatric facility. I cannot do that to her, so I leave the phone where it is. I remind myself that Nina isn’t to blame for this; her dad is, Hunter is, I am. And we are also responsible for what’s going to happen to Sally Ann and her baby. I cannot help you, I think as I weep. God knows I want to, but I can’t.