The Babysitter(100)

Jade’s faced darkened as she watched another squad car screeching towards the house, her supposed hero spilling from the passenger door as it careered to a halt halfway across the lawn.

‘Too late, copper,’ Jade spat, clutching Poppy’s hand tighter and stepping back.





Seventy-Eight





MARK





Undiluted terror gripped Mark’s stomach as he took in the scene before him in surreal slow motion. Splintering wood. He could hear beams falling. Hear his house burning.

Windows shattering. Flames crackling. People shouting. Sirens screaming. His daughter’s cries – he sucked in a breath, couldn’t breathe out – they reached inside him and ripped his heart right out of his chest.

He tumbled forwards, his emotions colliding, his world exploding.

And then he ran.

Wrestling free of the arms that tried to hold him back, ignoring his DCI yelling behind him, he ran.

He kicked at the door, ramming his shoulder, his whole body weight against it – ‘Give, you fucking thing!’ – and then he was in. Falling into the hall, choking back the fumes that seared the back of his throat, he righted himself, pressing his arm to his mouth as he made his way through the smoke to the stairs.

Noting the open doors on the landing, he didn’t pause, but he prayed, a prayer that came from his soul, as he crashed into the main bedroom, his lungs raw from the effort of trying to breathe. Needing to assess the situation, to think strategically through the debilitating panic, Mark closed the door to buy some time, and registered the horror in front of him.

Lisa, face down on the floor, bleeding from a head wound, unconscious at best.

Poppy… alive. Mark silently thanked God. She was sobbing, tugging hard on Mel’s arm. ‘Mummy, please, you have to get out of bed.’

Mel was barely responsive.

A potent mixture of fear and fury raging inside him, Mark snapped his gaze to the tall casement window where, standing precariously on the ledge, her back to the concrete drive twenty long feet below, was Jade. The smile on her face was triumphant, her movements controlled. She knew that Mark knew he had a decision to make: her or his wife? If she fell, if she died, his baby’s whereabouts would die with her.

Mark took a faltering step forwards. She edged dangerously back.

‘Don’t do this, Jade,’ Mark begged her, his voice hoarse. ‘Please, don’t do this.’

‘Why?’ she snarled. Her face, illuminated by the sweeping blue lights outside, was twisted with rage. ‘Because you care?’

‘I care.’ Marked took another cautious step. ‘I care very much. You need help, Jade. Please, let me—’

‘Liar! You pretended you did, but you didn’t! You promised me you’d always be there. Made me an absolute promise. And you weren’t!’

‘When? Talk to me, Jade.’ Mark moved closer. ‘Tell me, I don’t understand.’

‘Oh, here we go.’ Jade laughed. ‘The “I’m sorry, I never meant to hurt you” crap.’

‘I am sorry!’ Mark said, fear slicing through him afresh as she teetered. ‘If I did something—’

‘I’d lost everything! My whole life burned to ashes! You told me it was going to be all right. You held me and you told me, and it wasn’t! You lied to me! You left me. You left me to be with that slut of a wife because she was pregnant!’

Mark stopped, bewildered. There was no reasoning with her, no talking to her. She was utterly insane.

‘I was pregnant! Made pregnant by him!’

‘Who?’ Mark shouted, groping desperately for some comprehension, some inkling of what she was talking about.

‘It was her fault! That spoiled brat of a sister, always whining and seeking attention.’

Mark ran a hand over his face. No idea what to say. What to do.

‘It was only a blister from a sparkler, and she screamed like she was being murdered!’ she ranted on, sounding more insane by the second. ‘She asked for one, over and over, she kept whining: I want to play sparklers. I want to play sparklers. I only gave it to her to shut her up, stop her moaning and tittle-tattling, telling tales. She told them I’d given it to her. She knew I’d get in trouble. She was always getting me into trouble. She told them I burned her, so I fucking well did!’

‘Your sister?’ She…? Mark reeled incredulously, as the horrific implication of her disjointed ramblings became clearer to him.

‘Yes, my sister,’ she spat. ‘Their perfect little princess, who could do no wrong. All of them! Tucked up in their beds, snoring away like they hadn’t got a care in the world: her, Miss Goody-two-shoes, lying there with her pathetic thumb stuck in her mouth, looking like butter wouldn’t melt. And her, that bitch-mother. She knew! She knew what he was doing. Every time she left me he did it, touching me, hurting me, grunting and thrusting and apologising – and that whore of a mother just let him! She took that snivelling little brat to the hospital with a tiny little blister, and she let him.’

Oh, Jesus. Mark was beginning to see… the images from his dreams, recollections from a call-out he could never quite forget. A little girl curled into a foetal ball in her child-sized bed, her one-eyed Pooh Bear clutched close to her chest. Her older sister, still dressed in her unicorn-print pyjamas when they’d found her, had been shaking from head to foot. Her cheeks, smeared in soot from the fire, had been tear-stained, her cognac-coloured eyes wide and utterly petrified.