Until now.
‘When I finally regained consciousness, do you know what I woke up to? The night of my baby girl’s funeral. The night I lost everything. Oh, this will really crack you up. I woke up to a group of lads all taking a piss on me.’ He spat the words out, the shock and the humiliation that he’d felt that night still leaving a bitter taste inside his mouth.
‘It was stupid really. They were just a group of young lads. No more than just kids. They couldn’t have been any more than twenty years old. And you do stupid shit when you’re that age, don’t you? They were all drunk and egging each other on. Just lads being lads on the way home from a night out. But I lost it. I don’t even remember what or how, but I was on my feet and I was lashing out. And some of them ran off. But one of them wasn’t fast enough, and I must have just blanked out. Because all my anger, all my pain, just erupted from inside of me. I remember pinning this poor fucking kid to the floor and I just punched him. Over and over and over again. And I didn’t stop until it was already too late. Until the kid was dead. Just lying there, lifeless on the ground. A bloody pulp in place of what used to be his face. And do you know what I did, Alex? I took a leaf out of your book and I just ran.’
He looked her dead in the eye, his expression full of hatred for all that she was and all that she’d made him become.
‘And that’s what sickens me the most about that night. That I became just like you. You did that to me. You! You made me like that. You made me into a monster. I left that young lad, somebody’s son, there on the pavement like a dog, to die on his own. Just like you left my Jessica.’ He rubs his eyes, feeling the tension building behind them, his pulse quickening as he spoke. ‘I never slept in another shop doorway after that. I made a point of only staying in squats. Old abandoned houses, with all the other junkies and down and outs. Places with no windows or doors that stunk of stale piss. I found a bedsit, eventually. Nothing anywhere near as grand or pretentious as this place. But at least I could spend my days on my own, not worrying about someone attacking me or trying to rob me… or worse.’
He falters. ‘You murdered her and then you left her for dead, Alex. How could you? All you thought about was yourself that night.’
‘No!’ Rebecca shouts, finally finding the strength to speak, her tears coming fast now. ‘I couldn’t save her. She was already dead. The crash killed her. And when I managed to get out, I couldn’t get to her. I tried, but the car had caved in, she was trapped. And even if I could have got her out, there was nothing I could do for her. She was already gone…’
The blow came from nowhere.
Fierce and stinging, his fist locking with her jaw with a force that snapped her head backwards, a loud ringing echoing in her ears.
But she knows she deserved that and so much more.
‘So you just left her there to fucking burn?’ he spat. ‘Her tiny body trapped in the back of the car. While you saved yourself, like the selfish bitch you are!’
Pacing the room now as his rage tore through him, Mark clenched his fists, fighting every urge inside his body to lash out. He wanted to hurt her. To make her suffer. Just like she’d made him suffer, every single day of his life since.
‘I was in shock. I wasn’t thinking straight. I wasn’t thinking at all…’
‘No!’ he shouts. ‘You don’t get to do that, Alex. You don’t get to sit here and give me your pathetic excuses. You knew what you were doing. You always knew exactly what you were doing. Don’t play dumb with me. I’m not your fucking husband. I see straight through your little act. You tried to take her from me that day. Remember. You packed the car up and you tried to fucking take her from me. She shouldn’t have even been with you.’
‘I loved her, Mark. Jessica. I loved her too, as if she were mine. And I’ve had to live with what I’ve done every day of my life.’
‘She was my daughter. Not yours, MINE. You had no right to take her…’
Shouting now, he’s back up on his feet, picking up the heavy silver photo frame, the picture of Ella. He hurls it across the room and watches as it slams against the wall, smashing into pieces, jagged shards of glass all over the floor.
‘She was EVERYTHING to me, and when you took her, you destroyed my life.’
His face is puce, the spittle spraying from his lips, and she’s back there again, that night in the car. Only now he’s past angry. He’s unhinged.
‘And now I’m going to destroy yours.’
He holds up the knife he’d tucked into the back of his belt, walking up to the sofa and bringing it down in front of her face. Close. Just inches from her skin.
She was trying so hard to keep deadly still, her breathing was heavy and laboured.
He moved the knife downwards. A sickening gleam in his eyes.
‘Now, you’re going to do as you’re told. You’re going to write this letter and you’re going to tell them who you really are. You’re going to tell them all what you did. Then you’re going to take all these tablets.’
Scooping up a pile of pills, Mark shoved them into Rebecca’s mouth, before picking up the glass of water and forcing her to drink it down, to show her that he meant every word.
Carefully, so that he wouldn’t leave a mark on her skin, he sliced the metal blade through the plastic cable tie, before holding the knife back out in front of her. A promised threat.
‘Swallow,’ he shouted, moving closer, the blade just inches from her chest. Rebecca did as she was told, wincing as the tablets caught in the back of her throat, but choking them down.
‘That’s enough for now. I don’t want you falling into a deep sleep before you’ve written the letter.’ He pushes the notepad to her now and Rebecca holds the pen, trying not to draw attention to the shadow that she can see moving behind the door in the kitchen.
They are not alone.
There’s hope.
But she needs to buy some time.
Chapter Forty
‘Thanks for coming over.’ Unable to hide the concern in her voice, Lisa leads Officer Blythe into the kitchen, closing the door so that they don’t wake Ella, who is asleep in the travel cot in the living room.
‘Like I said on the phone, I don’t even know where to start, really. It might be nothing but…’ She pauses, a small part of her not wanting to get her brother in trouble, but she’s also worried about Rebecca.
‘Just tell me what you know, and we can go from there,’ Officer Blythe says, knowing that if it really was nothing, Lisa wouldn’t have called him.
‘They discharged Rebecca from the hospital this afternoon, I take it you know that?’ She paused then, wondering if she should go on. Officer Blythe nodded his head.
‘And you’d have thought Jamie would have been happy about it but he wasn’t, at all. He seemed angry almost…’ The words pouring out of her now as she tries to make sense of it all. As if somehow saying it out loud will make it resonate inside her head.
‘Jamie’s been here all day. He said that he just wanted some space. That Rebecca could do with some time on her own too. That he’d just stay a few days, with Ella. Only he didn’t want me to tell Rebecca where he was,’ Lisa said now, feeling wracked with guilt that she’d lied to her sister-in-law. ‘And well, he’s my brother, so I went along with it. Only…’ Lisa tails off, staring out of the window, still trying to make sense of what she saw on Jamie’s laptop.