Bring Me Back (B.A. Paris)(20)
She wasn’t dead, but she had to have twenty stitches to the cut in her head. To my relief, she didn’t press charges. Instead, her four brothers came round for a visit. I left Ireland soon after, not because of what they did to me, not because I was scared they would carry out their threat to kneecap me if they ever saw me again, but because I was worried about what I might do the next time I lost my temper. That’s when I moved in with Harry.
My temper led me into two more scrapes, one of which led to me being charged with GBH after I beat up a colleague who called me Paddy one time too many. After that, I managed to more or less stay out of trouble, until the night I attacked Harry.
And until the night I lost my temper with you.
SEVENTEEN
Now
I walk into the kitchen and see Ellen standing at the worktop. At the sound of my arrival she moves away quickly, her right hand hidden guiltily behind her back. I don’t have to look at the row of Russian dolls to know that the little one is missing.
‘Sorry,’ she mumbles, as if I’ve caught her doing something terrible, and my heart goes out to her, hating that she feels guilty for holding a piece of her past in her hand.
‘What was Layla like as a child?’ I ask, wanting to give her something. Nevertheless, my question surprises me as much as it surprises her because she turns around, a frown on her face.
‘That’s something you’ve never asked me.’ She lets it hang in the air for a moment. ‘A free spirit. She loved being outside, she hated having to go to school because it meant being indoors. She loved drawing. We both did,’ she adds.
‘It must have been hard for you both when your mother died,’ I say, realising that we’re having the conversation we should have had years ago.
‘It was, especially for Layla. I knew how ill Mum was but I kept it from Layla to protect her. So her death affected her badly.’
‘In what way?’
She gives a small laugh. ‘She sort of became Mum.’
‘You mean she took on her role?’
‘No, it was more than that. It was as if she was her. She spoke like her, took on all her mannerisms.’
‘Wasn’t that uncomfortable for you and your father?’
‘Yes, especially when she was both herself and Mum at the same time – you know, asking a question then replying in Mum’s voice. Sometimes she had whole conversations with her.’
‘Weren’t you worried?’
She shrugs. ‘I had other things to worry about. Dad tried to knock it out of her, though, and eventually she stopped, at least in his presence.’
‘Do you mean he was violent?’ I ask, shocked.
She nods reluctantly. ‘He could be. It was awful that final Christmas. That’s why she left. She was afraid of what might happen.’ Her face becomes suddenly bleak. ‘I miss her so much.’
I want to tell her that I do too. Instead, I change the subject.
‘Have you seen the garden this morning? The lilies are out.’
She nods. ‘They’re beautiful. I’ve actually been wondering if we should have our reception in the garden,’ she goes on.
I look at her, then realise she’s talking about our wedding.
‘The garden won’t look as good in September,’ I warn. ‘But we could, if that’s what you’d like.’
‘I’ll think about it,’ she says, smiling. ‘Shouldn’t you be leaving? Didn’t you say your meeting with Grant is at eleven?’
‘I’m going now,’ I say, giving her a kiss. ‘I was waiting for rush hour to be over.’
‘Drive carefully,’ she says. ‘Text me when you’re leaving London, then I’ll know what time to expect you.’
I leave the house and get in my car. I sit for a moment then type St Mary’s into the satnav. I hate that I’ve lied to Ellen, that she believes I’m going to see Grant James to finalise his investment. But I’m not. Today, I’m going back to my past, back to where I used to live with Layla, so that I can ask Thomas Winter why he thought it was Layla he saw standing outside the cottage.
I haven’t been able to sleep for the last few nights, not after that last email from Rudolph Hill. Those two little words – Right here – have sent me to hell and back. If – and it’s a huge if – Layla is alive and it’s not some cruel hoax, then Rudolph Hill has to be Layla’s kidnapper. I try not to let my mind go there, I try not to imagine her kept prisoner for the last twelve years. It’s a hoax, I tell myself, it has to be.
It’s hard driving along the roads that were once so familiar to me. The nearer I get to St Mary’s, the more I find myself thinking about Layla. The hardest thing over the last twelve years has been the absence of a body. I know it sounds terrible, that I should want her body to be found, but at least I’d have had closure, instead of lying awake in the dead of the night, torturing myself with images of her being held prisoner, having to endure God knows what at the hands of some maniac. It’s the not knowing that’s the hardest, the reason I’ve preferred to accept that she’s dead.
I park in front of the little station, needing the walk to the cottage to calm me. As I get out of the car, I see the ghost of myself walking through the station entrance and onto the platform, waiting for the train that will bring Layla back from her weekend in London. Unable to stop myself, I follow him onto the platform and watch as Layla steps off the train, beautiful in a flowing red dress, and runs down the platform into his arms, her red hair streaming out behind her. Suddenly tearful, she clings onto him, murmuring that she missed him and when she whispers over and over again that she’s sorry, he thinks, in his stupid innocence, that she regrets having gone to London and leaving him behind.