‘Yes,’ she croaked.
He took the phones from her hand and laid them down, side by side, on the windowsill.
‘Come on then, let’s get you sorted.’
It was like she’d stepped into one of her nightmares. This couldn’t actually be happening, could it? Numbly, she walked at his side, feeling the heat of his body against hers, willing him not to challenge her, not to ask her anything about the phones. She just had to go along with him, with anything he suggested, pretend she didn’t suspect anything.
And hope she got a chance to run.
22
Maggie - November 1997
They sat round Michael and Yvonne’s big kitchen table, the four of them, to have what Yvonne called a ‘crisis meeting’ while Nick was at school. Maggie had put Isla down in one of the spare bedrooms, and the baby monitor sat on the worktop behind her. It was a grey, misty, gloomy morning, and Yvonne had put on all the wee lights under the high-level cupboards as well as the overhead ones.
‘We locked ourselves in the bedroom last night,’ went Duncan, looking down into his mug of coffee. ‘Locked ourselves away from Nick.’
‘Well, you’re the only one here who finds anything strange in that,’ said Yvonne briskly. ‘Thank God Maggie had the sense to buy a bolt for the door.’
‘But . . .’ Duncan was hanging on by a thread. ‘What were we thinking he’d do? Come in while we slept and . . . what?’
‘Hurt Isla, maybe,’ said Yvonne. ‘Who knows what he’s capable of? For God’s sake, Duncan, he tried to kill your baby! You have to keep remembering that. Remembering what you saw. Nick pushing the pram into the path of that timber lorry. He wants her dead.’
As if on cue, a mewing sound came from the monitor, then stopped.
Maggie jumped up.
She’d become dead paranoid about Isla. She was up those stairs in record time, grabbing her up from her carry cot, hugging her close as she grizzled. ‘Come on, then, wee one. Come on and join the party. Bunny can come too.’
She took her down to the kitchen, and Duncan went back for the carry cot and set it up between him and Maggie. They settled her back in it, but Maggie kept a hold of Bunny, smoothing his matted fur, while they talked.
‘You can’t go on living like this,’ said Michael.
Michael, Maggie was discovering, was one of those folk who, ninety per cent of the time, bored the pants off of you, but in a crisis he had the knack of hitting the nail on the head.
Thank God he’d saved her from saying it herself.
‘You’re right,’ she agreed. ‘But going to the authorities won’t get us anywhere.’
‘So trying to get him sectioned or something . . .’ Michael grimaced. ‘You don’t think that’s an option?’
‘Look what happened when we took him to that psychiatrist, supposedly eminent in his field,’ went Duncan in a tight voice. ‘Nothing to worry about, we were told.’
‘And he’s bamboozled the police too.’ Yvonne nodded. ‘Oh, he’s clever, all right.’
Making out like she really didn’t want to have to reveal this, Maggie told them about the fake identities she’d asked Liam to get for her and Isla. ‘I didn’t want to leave you.’ She blinked at Duncan. ‘But you just weren’t listening to me.’
‘Oh God.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, Maggie. I’m so sorry you had to go through that alone. I’m such an idiot.’ He slapped a hand down on the table, making the plate of biscuits jump.
Maggie took a deep breath. This was a wee bit of a risky strategy, but surely Duncan wouldn’t agree to what she was about to suggest? She made her voice weak and scared. ‘If he gets what he wants, that’ll be the problem solved. If I go away with Isla, using Liam’s fake identities, so Nick will never find us –’
‘No!’ went Duncan, at the same time as Yvonne puffed, ‘We can’t let him win!’
‘What other option do we have, eh? I can rent a flat somewhere, open another coffee shop.’
‘Absolutely not.’ Duncan’s voice rang round the kitchen. It was his parade ground voice, as Yvonne called it, full of authority, the voice Maggie remembered from the programme when he was wrangling all those hard nuts, but she’d never heard him use it at home before. ‘I may be a pushover when it comes to Nick, but I’m not having that. Why should you and Isla suffer just because I’ve – I’ve let my son grow up to be . . .’