No Safe Place(Detective Lottie Parker #4)(36)
Bridie felt Paddy leaving their bed. Heard the buzz of his electric razor and the soft thud of the door closing as he went out. He hadn’t spoken a word to her. The clock flashed 3.46. She fell back into a fitful sleep.
A loud crack woke her. She sat up. Was it a tree falling down on the roof? But there was no wind and no tree. The clock said 4.25.
Jumping out of bed, she checked on her baby. Tommy was fast asleep. The first night in weeks, and now she was awake. Drawing back the curtain, her eyes met the ugly graveyard wall, but the sky above it was lit up with stars.
The door burst open. She swirled round on the ball of one foot, her mouth open in a silent scream.
A figure stood in the doorway, highlighted by the night light.
‘Who … who are you? Fuck off away.’
As Bridie made to rush to the cot, a leather-gloved fist smashed into the side of her face. She raised her arms to shield her head, but the second blow knocked her to the floor. Crouching into a ball, like Paddy had once told her to do if she was ever attacked, she cried, ‘Don’t touch my baby!’
A boot stamped on her back as she rolled over. When the second boot landed on her stomach, pain flashed up through her chest into her head, and something hard crashed down on her skull.
She thought she heard a voice, somewhere in the distance. What was he saying? If she concentrated, maybe he wouldn’t hurt Tommy. But even as his words began to register, the blows continued to rain down in quick succession, and darkness fell.
Day Two
Thursday 11 February 2016
Twenty-Nine
He didn’t like the reflection he saw in the mirror above the washbasin. Even allowing for the fact that it was cracked, with a brown line cutting diagonally across the glass, splitting his face in two, he knew he looked bad. He leaned in closer and ran a finger under the black bags sagging beneath his tired eyes. His pupils were so dilated they appeared to be dark buttons, masking the true colour of his irises. Not a bad thing in one way, he supposed. Perhaps he could use some of her make-up to lessen the pallor, to add a highlight to otherwise chalk-white cheeks. Perhaps not.
With his teeth brushed and the scum of last night’s alcohol swirling down the drain, he splashed water on his face and dried it using the only clean towel he could find. Dressing quickly, he picked up the bundle of flyers from the table and took the stapling gun from the cupboard beneath the sink.
It was 5.25 a.m., and the morning was dark and bitterly cold. Not like spring at all. A shower of rain during the night, followed by frost, had resulted in treacherous footpaths. He parked his car and started walking around town, putting up the A4-sized posters on every lamp post and pole he could find. It was a job he had done at this time every year for the last ten years. And it was one he would continue to do, though he knew there was no prospect of her ever returning. Appearances had to be maintained. And so far, he’d been doing okay on that score.
A car drove by, heading over the bridge towards the train station, lighting up the sheen of ice on the road. With his mind distracted, his hand slipped and the staple pierced the bridge of her nose, directly between her eyes.
He smirked. That felt good. Too good.
Shaking off the sensation of fire in his belly, he moved on to the next post.
Thirty
Grace Boyd settled into her usual seat on the train. Waiting for Mollie, she glanced out of the window, rubbing at the frost stuck to the glass like the spines of dead animals. Mollie would want to hurry up or she’d be late. The whistle sounded. The guard waved a small green baton and the doors whooshed shut.
Maybe she’d got on a different carriage. But no. Grace had been at the station at 5.50 a.m. She had checked the clock in Boyd’s car before she got out. She looked at her phone screen: 6.01.
Sighing, she tried to relax. Maybe Mollie was avoiding her. Quite possible, she thought. She’d never had any bother making friends; it was keeping them that was the unworkable trick.
She looked over at the adjacent seats. The man was there again, with his designer stubble, but his eyes looked darker, and red-rimmed. Further down the aisle she noticed another man. The reason she supposed she noticed these two was that they were both wide awake. Everyone else was already asleep.
She rocked in rhythm to the sway of the train, wishing her brain could shut off for at least five minutes. But she knew it never shut off. Not even when she was asleep.
Should she ring her brother? Now why on earth would you do that, Grace? He would say she was nuts. Maybe she was. But she didn’t think so. She liked to have silent conversations with herself. They comforted her when no one else would listen.
Grace eyed the man who had sat opposite Mollie yesterday; the man who had caused her to move seats. Maybe she was sick, or had she slept in? Why hadn’t she asked for her phone number?
The train stopped at Enfield and more people crowded onto it. Hadn’t Mollie said she lived alone? What if she’d fallen down the stairs and no one knew? Stop! Grace didn’t even know if there were any stairs in Mollie’s house, so why was she thinking these thoughts?
She took her phone from her bag and kept pressing buttons until her contacts appeared. All two of them. Mark and her mother. If she told Mark, at least she would feel better.
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