‘If Max cared about you, or me, he’d do what he could to protect me during this audit regardless of whether I agree to see him,’ I said, my voice rising. ‘Is this really the man you look up to – someone who is using threats to make me see him?’

  ‘Poppy, calm down,’ Harriet said quietly, hovering by my side. ‘Think of the–’ she waved at my stomach.

  ‘He’s just desperate,’ Dom said, before pausing. ‘Is someone else there, Mum? I thought I heard somebody.’

  ‘Never mind about that. Max is manipulative. Please, can’t you see it? He’s saying he wants to see me one more time to give him closure, but I’ve already met with him since we split. I went for dinner with him, but it didn’t help at all. It didn’t give him closure, if anything it gave him false hope. He needs to understand that there is no me and him, and making threats is certainly not going to change that.’

  His voice was angry now. ‘At least he tells me the truth.’

  ‘No he doesn’t!’ I said. I took a deep breath, trying to calm down. ‘Come and stay with me,’ I said. Harriet began frantically shaking her head, and I ignored her. ‘I’ll explain everything, I promise.’

  ‘I can’t just leave,’ he said. ‘I’ve got lectures, and shifts at the restaurant. If you want to tell me something, just tell me now.’

  ‘It’s too much for a phone call. Come and see me. I’ll message you the address and we can talk properly. You’ll understand everything then.’

  He was silent for a while, and eventually he mumbled his agreement.

  I ended the call and Harriet fixed her eyes on me. ‘He can’t come here.’

  ‘Not when you look like you’ve got a beach ball up your top,’ Jessica said.

  ‘Yes, well, obviously I will have to tell him about the baby.’

  ‘Poppy, no one needs telling,’ Jessica said, warming to her theme of discussing my current size. She seemed positively cheerful. Was it really just an hour or so earlier that she was crying inconsolably?

  ‘This will ruin our plan,’ Harriet said. ‘You can’t be sure that Dominic won’t tell Max you’re pregnant. It’s a huge risk.’

  ‘He’s my son. I trust him.’

  ‘Then why have you kept it secret for this long?’

  ‘You know why!’ I cried. ‘Telling him about how Max has been behaving, about the threats he was making to turn me and Dominic in to the police, it would have terrified him! I wanted to give him a chance to get settled at university and have a normal life. I wanted to wait until I could make sure we were all safe, but… well, Max has forced my hand. I am not letting him turn my own son against me. If I wait until I’ve had the baby, it might already be too late to salvage things.’

  ‘You’re making a big mistake,’ Harriet said darkly.

  ‘Dominic needs to be wherever is safest,’ I said, growing angry with her. How dare she question me? Acting as if it was for my sake that she cared about our plan, when I knew all she cared about was my baby! ‘For a while that was at university away from everything, but now he needs to be with me and hear the truth.’

  ‘Poppy, you should call him back. Explain that if he can hang on just a little longer–’

  ‘No!’ I exploded. ‘Dominic is my son, I know what’s best. And the baby is mine too!’

  The words hung in the air. ‘And what is that supposed to mean?’ Harriet said, her voice brittle. ‘Is this about the hospital bag? I knew you weren’t happy about it.’

  I was so angry that I lost all reason and blurted it out. ‘No, it’s about you looking up how to get a passport for a baby!’

  42

  ‘She won’t come out,’ Jessica said, finding me in the kitchen having spent the last twenty minutes knocking on Harriet’s door.

  ‘She’s not even going to try and deny that she wants to take my baby out of the country then?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Jessica said. ‘The only thing she said was “after everything I’ve done for her.”’

  ‘I’m more than happy to hear her out,’ I said angrily as I shoved the things Harriet had bought for me into the hospital bag. Much as her actions in buying this stuff for the birth sickened me, I wasn’t going to let things I needed go to waste. ‘But the fact she has nothing to say just shows I was right. Jess, she was going to take the baby and run. There’s no other explanation. If there was, she would have just told me.’

  Jessica looked miserable. ‘I never thought she would really do something like this.’

  ‘You tried to warn me, remember.’

  ‘I didn’t mean it. I was just angry.’

  I sighed as I zipped the bag closed. ‘I’m going to have to leave.’

  ‘When is Dominic coming?’

  ‘He’s getting the train tomorrow morning. So it should be early afternoon that he arrives. I’ll have the rest of my bags packed ready to go.’

  ‘But where will you go? What will you do?’

  ‘I don’t know. But it’s not the first time I’ve had to run away.’

  ‘Poppy, how did you get away from Max? And didn’t he still have the knife that Dominic used? Wasn’t it a big risk to leave while he had that? Isn’t it still a risk now?’

  The baby kicked vigorously a few times and I let out a little gasp.

  ‘He’s an active one isn’t he?’ Jessica said, gesturing at my bump. ‘Always up to something.’

  ‘Max never had the knife,’ I said wearily, steadying myself against the kitchen worktop. ‘I found that out, eventually. But not before he’d brought me to the brink of insanity.’

  Habmouth

  I’ve given you enough chances Poppy.

  How do you think it felt for me, sat on my own over Christmas, knowing you and Dom chose to be cooped up in that disgusting little flat when you could have been with me?

  What have I got to lose? I could destroy your life, and Dominic’s. It’s only love for you both that’s stopping me, but if you don’t want me then why should I keep either of you safe?

  I swear to God Poppy I will do it. I will send Dominic down. And you too.

  I had to reply to that one, and with shaking fingers I typed back, What do you want me to do?

  His reply was predictable enough. Come back home.

  I started to tremble all over. I had to take his threat seriously; I couldn’t possibly risk him turning Dominic in. But I couldn’t go back to Max’s house either. When would it end? I’d have to stay with him forever because he’d always have this threat to use against me.

  I began to pace back and forth in my flat, my footsteps punctuating my thoughts. The knife. That was the key. After all, without that he couldn’t prove anything. Yes, he could still tell the police that Dominic had killed Kevin, but with no evidence, what would they really do? Kevin’s body was in the river, as far as I knew it hadn’t been found. Without that knife, he really didn’t have a lot to link Dominic to Kevin’s death, and as my ex the police would surely be suspicious of anything he said against my son that he couldn’t prove.

  I paused at the window and glared down at Max’s car, sat in its usual spot just in front of the graffitied railway bridge down the road. Could I go back to his house and try to find the knife? Was there any chance that would work?

  If I come home with you, you need to stop all of this, I replied.

  I will! he typed back quickly, and I could sense the joy in his words. It will be so good Poppy. We’ll be happy like we were to start with. We’ll put it all behind us.

  I picked up a bag, acting quickly before I changed my mind, but soon my body began to disobey me. I opened the drawer containing my socks and underwear, ready to scoop it all up and shove it in the bag, but my hands wouldn’t move. It didn’t matter what my mind said, I couldn’t bring myself to pack, not when Max’s house was the destination. I slumped down onto the sofa bed, staring listlessly across the room. If I go back to him, I’ll never be free.

  I must have sat there for a long time, because my phone chimed and I picked it up.

  Are you leaving yet? I’m outside waiting for you.

  My skin started to crawl. As if I didn’t already know he was sat outside waiting for me. He was always sat outside waiting for me.

  I’m still packing, I told him.

  Are you sure you haven’t changed your mind?

  Of course I haven’t changed my mind, I replied desperately.

  Because you know what’s at stake

  My emotions overwhelmed me and I picked up my pillow and screamed into it. I couldn’t go to him. I couldn’t let him take over my life, and the life of the baby growing inside me. I just couldn’t. But I couldn’t not, either.

  I’m sick of this Poppy. You’ve got twenty minutes.

  I fidgeted around with my bag, my mind screaming. Twenty minutes. How could I solve this in twenty minutes? I stood and started pacing again, and soon my phoned chimed.

  19 minutes

  I covered my face with my hands. Think! There had to be some other option. Could I call the police and tell them I had killed Kevin to protect Dominic? No, that wasn’t the answer. All it would do is draw attention to Kevin’s death. Right now, as far as I knew, they weren’t even investigating it.

  18

  This was a nightmare. If I got in that car, I might as well be saying my life was over. But if it was my life for Dominic’s, there was no question. His would always come first. But there is another life. There’s a baby. I wouldn’t bring up a baby in Max’s house. Not when I knew how he treated the people he claimed to love.

  17 Come on Poppy. This is stupid. Just come with me and all your worries will be over.

  I tugged at my hair in frustration, and strands came away in my fingers. In a desperate fit of emotion, I attacked my hair in a vicious fury, more strands coming away in my hands until I finally stopped and ran to the bathroom mirror. I barely recognised the face staring back at me. I was pale and my cheeks had lost the last of the fullness which had returned during my time in Max’s house eating proper meals. My eyes were wild, hair a birds’ nest – though thankfully it was not visibly obvious that it had started coming out over the past few weeks. I placed my hands on the edge of the basin, staring at that face. I’d ruined my life. I’d ruined my son’s life. I’d ruined my baby’s life. What do I do? I asked the mirror – or maybe not just the mirror. I was asking the world. Perhaps I was asking God. Whoever I was asking, no answer came.

  I darted back out of the bathroom and picked up my phone. I’d missed the last three messages from Max, and my stomach lurched when I saw the number in the most recent message.

  14 minutes Poppy.

  Think, think, think! There had to be something I could say to him to make him stop this. Some way to get him to see sense. He didn’t really want to do this – I knew in my heart that he cared about Dominic in his own twisted way.

  Max, please, I typed to him. Dominic looks up to you. You said yourself that if you don’t have me at least you have a son. Why destroy that as well?

  I don’t really have him, do I? He’s not going to come and stay with me in the holidays. He’s always going to go to you. He’s always going to worry about you. We should be a proper family, together. Why make him choose?

  Do you really want to be the person that destroys his life? I asked him.

  If I have to. I don’t want to, but I will. It’s down to 11 minutes Poppy and I swear on Dominic’s life, if you don’t get down here before I get to 0, I will go straight to the police and turn him in.

  I threw my phone down. There was no getting around it. I couldn’t talk any sense into him. I tried to think logically. If he was saying he would go straight to the police, did that mean he had the knife in the car with him? Perhaps he did – maybe he didn’t want to give himself a chance to change his mind. If I was right and he had it with him, could I grab it somehow? Maybe if I finished packing a bag and went downstairs I could give the impression I was cooperating, but at the last minute, rather than go with him I could grab the knife and get rid of his means to torment me. Yes, he could still threaten to expose the fraud, but at least that didn’t involve Dominic.

  10 minutes. There’s no way out of this except my way.

  I picked up my bag. How the hell was I going to grab the knife from the car without him stopping me? It would be hard even if I knew exactly where it was, but he was hardly going to have it sat right there on the seat beside him. He probably didn’t even have it with him anyway. I was just clutching at straws.

  9 minutes. Tick tock.

  I let out a cry of frustration.

  I am not messing around Poppy. Don’t test me.

  8

  With a sudden flash of inspiration I grabbed my phone, and almost cried out with relief when Dominic answered my call straight away.

  ‘The knife,’ I gasped. ‘What happened to it?’

  43

  ‘Mum?’ he said, his voice betraying his fear. ‘Why are you asking me that? We can’t talk about this on the phone–’

  ‘Just tell me!’ I virtually screamed.

  ‘It’s… it’s in the river,’ he said.

  I gasped. Could it be true? All this time, had Max been bluffing? ‘Are you sure?’ I asked.

  ‘You’re scaring me,’ he said, ‘why are you asking about it? Has something happened? Have the police–’

  ‘No. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you.’ It took everything I had to keep my voice calm, especially when another message from Max came through.

  7 minutes

  I pressed the phone back against my ear. ‘Could you tell me exactly how you know it’s in the river? Did you see Max throw it in?’

  ‘Why do you want to know?’ Dominic asked me yet again. ‘Something must have happened.’

  ‘Nothing has happened. I’m probably being silly, I just started worrying and I want to put my mind at rest. Do you remember exactly what happened to it? Did you see Max get rid of it?’

  ‘No,’ he said, and I had to dig my nails into my palms to stop myself crying out in dismay. ‘I threw it in,’ he continued, and hope surged inside me.

  ‘You – you did? You’re sure?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure. A lot of it is a blur, but I remember that clearly. I wanted it away from me; it was a relief to hear it hit the water.’

  ‘So there’s no doubt at all? You kept hold of it the whole time until you got rid of it? Please just tell me!’

  My phone vibrated. 6 minutes

  ‘Yes, sort of. It was in my jacket pocket – the big, deep pocket on the inside – I had to put it somewhere when I helped Max carry the – you know – he was heavy–’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘Then once we’d got rid of… him, I took the knife out of my pocket and threw it in the river.’

  5 minutes

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, ‘I’m so sorry I frightened you. It’s just being here on my own, it was making me think weird things.’

  ‘I’ll come and see you again soon.’

  ‘It’s okay, Dom, don’t worry. You’ve only been back a week after visiting me at Christmas.’

  ‘Mum–’

  ‘I love you,’ I said, ‘I’ll call you again soon.’

  I know you don’t have it, I messaged Max, so please leave me alone now.

  I waited, barely breathing, for his reply. It took a while, but finally he did respond.

  I have these messages.

  Hundreds and hundreds of messages where you harass me and make vague threats? I replied. I hurriedly scrolled through the messages he’d sent me that evening. There was nothing concrete in them. He’d not said specifically what he was going to turn Dominic in for, or what evidence he supposedly had, and neither had I. Showing these messages to the police would prove nothing except that he was stalking me and making my life a misery.

  I’ll ask you one more time Max. Leave me alone.

  For once, he was silent, and I dropped to my knees on the floor, tears streaming down my cheeks as I laughed and cried simultaneously with pure relief.

  Cattleford

  ‘Was that really it?’ Jessica asked me, her blue eyes wide. ‘Did he really just leave you alone after that?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Of course he didn’t. I was naive to think it would make any difference. Not having the knife meant he had less leverage, and I didn’t have to worry about him going to the police over Dominic, but I still had to find a way to escape. Max knew he couldn’t get me to go and live with him again, but he didn’t want to let me go. He still doesn’t. But when Dominic comes here tomorrow I’ll tell him the truth and we’ll decide together what to do.’

  ‘What about Harriet?’

  ‘What about her?’ I said, my voice rising. ‘I don’t want to see her. I don’t want to speak to her. She made out that she wanted to help me, concocting this mad plan for me to turn myself in, but she doesn’t care about me! She wanted me gone. I… she was going to kidnap my baby Jess. My baby. I don’t even want to be in the same house as her. In fact, I can’t be. I’m going to go and get a room somewhere. The pub has rooms, doesn’t it?’

  Jessica took my arm gently as I tried to leave the kitchen. ‘Poppy, stop,’ she said. ‘It’s gone midnight, you can’t possibly go anywhere now. Harriet can’t do anything to you tonight, can she? Get some rest, and Dominic will be here tomorrow.’ She put her arms around me and her hair tickled my face. I closed my eyes. Dominic. I needed him. We needed to be together.

  Jessica let go of me and looked at me closely. ‘You’re probably not going to be able to get to sleep are you?’

  ‘Probably not.’

  She looked thoughtful. ‘Max told you he had a wife once, didn’t he?’

  ‘Yes. She was called Caitlyn. It was years and years ago.’

  ‘Come with me,’ Jess said, and I followed her as she grabbed Harriet’s laptop from the living room and went through to the conservatory. Sweeping some fabric aside she put the laptop down on the table. ‘Let’s try and find Caitlyn,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t know anything about her. And what could she tell me now, after all these years?’

  ‘You won’t know until you ask, will you?’

 

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