فصل بیست و چهارم

After Rhiannon walked out, I stood for a long moment in the hallway, watching the lights of the van disappear down the drive, and trying to figure out what I should do. Should I phone Sandra? And say what? Confess? Brazen it out?

I looked at my watch. It was just half past nine. The line from Sandra’s email floated into my head—Bill is off to Dubai tonight, and I’m at a client dinner, but do text if anything urgent.

There was no way I could ambush her with all this in the middle of a client dinner, still less, text it through.

Oh, hi, Sandra, hope all is good. FYI, Rhiannon has gone out with a strange bloke, and I applied for this job under a fake name. Speak soon!

The idea would have been laughable if the whole situation hadn’t been so serious. Shit. Shit. Could I email her and explain the situation properly? Maybe. Though if I were going to do that, I should really have done it earlier, before Rhiannon sent that fake update. It would be even harder to explain myself now.

But as I pulled the tablet towards myself, I realized I couldn’t really email. That was the coward’s way out. I owed her a call—to explain myself, if not face-to-face, then at least in person. But what the hell could I say?

Shit.

The bottle of wine was there on the kitchen counter, like an invitation, and I poured out a glass, trying to steady my nerves, and then another, this time with a glance at the camera squatting in the corner. But I no longer cared. The shit was about to hit the fan, and soon whatever footage Sandra and Bill had on me would be the least of my worries.

It was deliberate self-sabotage, I knew that really, in my heart of hearts, as I filled the glass for the third time. By the time there was only one glass left in the bottle I knew the truth—I was too drunk to call Sandra now, too drunk to do anything sensible at all, except go to bed.

Up on the top landing, I stood for a long time, my hand on the rounded knob to my bedroom, summoning up the courage to enter. But I could not do it. There was a dark crack at the bottom of the door, and I had a sudden, unsettling image of something loathsome and shadowy slithering out from beneath it, following me down the stairs, enveloping me in its darkness . . .

Instead, I found myself letting my hand drop and then backing away, almost as if that dark something might indeed come after me if I turned my back. Then, at the top of the stairs, I turned resolutely and all but ran back downstairs to the warmth of the kitchen, ashamed of myself, of my own cowardice, of everything.

The kitchen was cozy and bright, but when I shut my eyes I could still smell the chilly breath of the attic air coursing out beneath my bedroom door—and as I stood, irresolute, wondering whether to make up a bed on the sofa or try to stay awake for Rhiannon’s return, I could feel the throb of my finger where I had sliced it on that vile broken doll’s head. I had put a bandage over it, but the skin beneath felt fat and swollen, as if infection was setting in.

Walking over to the sink, I pulled off the dressing, and then jumped, convulsively, as there was a thud at the back door.

“Wh-who is it?” I called out, trying not to let my voice shake.

“It’s me, Jack.” The voice came from outside, muffled by the wind. “I’ve got the dogs.” “Come in, I’m just—”

The door opened, letting in a gust of cold air, and I heard his footsteps in the utility room, and the thud of his boots as he pulled them off and let them drop onto the mat, and the barking of the dogs as they capered around him while he tried to hush them. At last they settled into their baskets, and he came into the kitchen.

“I don’t normally walk them so late, but I got caught up. I’m surprised you’re still awake. Good day?” “Not really,” I said. My head was swimming, and I realized afresh how drunk I was. Would Jack notice?

“No?” Jack raised an eyebrow. “What happened?”

“I had a . . .” Jesus, where to start. “I had a bit of a run-in with Rhiannon.”

“What kind of a run-in?”

“She came back and we—” I stopped, unsure how to put this. It felt completely wrong to put the full picture to Jack before I confessed to Sandra, and I was pretty sure I would be breaking all sorts of confidentiality guidelines if I discussed Rhiannon’s problems with someone who was not her parent. But on the other hand, I felt that I might go crazy if I didn’t confide at least some of this in another adult. And perhaps there was history here, for it was becoming clearer and clearer that not everything had been included in that big red binder. “We argued,” I said at last. “And I threatened to call Sandra and she—she just—” But I couldn’t finish.

“What happened?” Jack pulled out a chair, and I sank into it, feeling despair wash over me again.

“She’s gone. She’s gone out by herself—with some awful unsuitable friend. I told her not to, but she went anyway, and I don’t know what to do—what to tell Sandra.” “Look, don’t worry about Rhiannon. She’s a canny wee thing, pretty independent, and I highly doubt she’ll come to any harm, much as Sandra and Bill might disapprove.” “But what if she does? What if something happens to her and it’s on my watch?”

“You’re a nanny, not a jailer. What were you supposed to do—chain her to her bed?” “You’re right,” I said at last. “I know you’re right, it’s just— Oh God,” the words burst out of me of their own accord. “I’m so tired, Jack. I can’t think, and it doesn’t help that my hand hurts like a bastard every time I touch anything.” “What happened to your hand?”

I looked down at it, cradled in my lap, feeling it throb in time with my pulse.

“I cut it.” I didn’t want to go into the hows and whys now, but the thought of that grinning, evil little face made me shudder, involuntarily.

Jack frowned.

“Can I take a look?”

I said nothing, just nodded, and held out my hand, and he took it very gently, angling it towards the light. Very lightly, he pressed the puffy skin either side of the cut, and made a face.

“It doesn’t look too good, if you don’t mind me saying. Did you put anything on it, when you cut it?” “Just a bandage.”

“I didn’t mean that, I meant, antiseptic. Anything like that?”

“Do you think it really needs it?”

He nodded.

“It’s deep, and I don’t like the way it’s puffed up like that, looks like it could be getting infected. Let me go and see what Sandra’s got.” He stood, pushing back his chair with a screech, and walked through to the utility room, where there was a small medicine cabinet on the wall. I had found the bandages in there earlier, and hadn’t noticed anything like antiseptic or rubbing alcohol, just a jumble of Peppa Pig bandages and bottles of children’s liquid paracetamol.

“Nothing,” Jack said, coming back through into the kitchen. “Or at least, nothing except six different flavors of Calpol. Come back to mine, I’ve got a proper first aid kit in the flat.” “I—I can’t.” I straightened up, pulled my hand away, curled my injured finger to my palm, feeling it throb with pain. “I can’t leave the kids.” “You’re not leaving anyone,” Jack said patiently. “You’re right across the courtyard, you can take the baby monitor. Sandra and Bill sit out in the garden all the time in the summer. It’s no different. If you hear a peep you can be back there before they even wake up.” “Well . . .” I said slowly. Thoughts flickered through the back of my head, their edges softened and blurred by the amount of wine I’d drunk earlier. I could ask him to bring the first aid supplies back here, couldn’t I? But a little part of me . . . okay, no, a big part of me . . . that part was curious. I wanted to go with Jack. I wanted to see inside his flat.

And, to be completely truthful, Mr. Wrexham, I wanted to get out of this house.

If you really thought there was a threat, how could you leave the kids to deal with it? It was the woman police officer who asked me that, barely trying to conceal her disgust as she asked the question.

And I tried to explain. I tried to tell her how the kids had seen nothing, heard nothing. How every little bit of malevolence had seemed to be directed solely at me. I had heard the footsteps. I was the one who had read those messages. I had been kept awake, night after night, by the noises and the doorbells and the cold.

None of the others, even Jack, had seen or heard what I had.

If there was something in that house, and even now I only half believed that there could be, in spite of everything that had happened, if there was, then it was out to get me. Me and the other four nannies who had packed up and left in a hurry.

And I just wanted five minutes out from its influence. Just five minutes, with the baby monitor in my pocket and the tablet with its surveillance cameras under my arm. Was that too much to ask?

The police officer didn’t seem to buy it. She just stood, shaking her head in disbelief, her lip curled with contempt for the stupid, selfish, careless bitch sitting opposite her.

But do you buy it, Mr. Wrexham? Do you understand, how hard it was, shut up there, night after night with nothing but the sound of pacing footsteps? Do you understand why just those few yards across the courtyard seemed like both nothing at all, and everything?

I don’t know. I’m not sure if I’ve managed to convince you, to explain what it was like, what it was really like.

All I can tell you is that I picked up the monitor, and the tablet, and I followed Jack as he crossed the kitchen and held open the back door for me, shutting it behind us both. I felt the warmth of his skin, as he shepherded me across the dark, uneven cobblestoned courtyard to the stairs up to his flat. And I mounted the stairs after him, watching the flex and shift of his muscles under his T-shirt as he climbed.

At the top he pulled a key out of his pocket, twisted it in the lock, and then stood back to let me pass inside.