The Back Road (40 page)

‘I wish I’d never met her. If Georgia hadn’t found out, everything would’ve been fine. But she got some anonymous text. Mimi swore it wasn’t her, but now we know differently I suppose. I never asked Mimi much about herself. If she hadn’t been pregnant, I was going to move out this week.’

Tom was getting slightly sick of Pat feeling sorry for himself. This wasn’t about him and Georgia.

Where the hell was his mobile?

‘Sorry, Pat, but I need to phone the police and I need to do it now. You’ve got to stop thinking about what might have been, and think about where Mimi might have gone.
And
where she came from,’ Tom said.

Tom tried his other pocket, attempting to stem his irritation at Pat’s feeble behaviour. In the end, he gave up the search.

‘We have a problem. I must have left my phone in the car. We can’t use yours because we mustn’t alert Mimi. Do you have any idea at all where she is, because if she comes home we’re going to have to keep her here until the police arrive.’

‘She went out at about six, and I haven’t seen her since. We weren’t speaking. She was mad about something, and I just assumed it was something that I’d done. I didn’t bother to ask.’

‘Right, well you wait there and I’ll go and get my phone.’

* * *

‘Drive, Leo, or I’ll kill you now.’

‘No you won’t. If you didn’t need me, you’d have killed me already.’

Leo could feel Mimi’s sweaty body as she manoeuvred herself farther into the gap between the front seats. She felt hot breath, fetid with nerves, settling damply on the side of her face, and the knife was pressed harder against her throat. Leo knew she was going to die, but not yet if she could help it.

Mimi’s voice had turned brittle with emotion.

‘All you smug bastards did everything possible to break me and Patrick up, didn’t you? He wasn’t part of the plan, but he was a bonus - until I found out what he’s really like. But if Gary hadn’t wrecked everything, I could have made it work - all of it. Me and Patrick. Me and Abbie. I could have seen my Abbie in secret. She’d have liked that.’

Abbie?
What could this possibly have to do with Abbie?

‘You didn’t know, did you? None of you guessed that she was mine. My little girl. I was going to make it up to her, all of it. She was my baby. I just wanted to see her - to show that that her mother isn’t a monster. It wasn’t my fault Jessica died – none of it was my fault. I wanted her to understand.’

Mimi was Abbie’s
mother?
Leo had no idea who Jessica was, but she knew that time was running out.

‘Abbie liked me when I was Chloe. But the real me wasn’t good enough, was it? Not good enough for Abbie, not good enough for Jessica, not good enough for Patrick. She said she hated me, do you know that? She
screamed
when I tried to touch her. I wish she hadn’t done that.’

Leo could sense a blistering anger, tinged with the heartbreak of a woman who had no illusions left.

‘Get moving, Leo, or I’ll enjoy every moment of watching you die. You won’t be the first person I’ve killed tonight.’ The knife was prodded harder, and Leo felt a new stab of pain as the point penetrated farther into her flesh.

‘I’m not driving anywhere with a knife pressed against my neck. If I go over a bump in the road, you’ll slice through my carotid artery. Move the knife, and I’ll drive you wherever you want to go.’

There was a pause.

‘Hands on the wheel. The top. Hold it tight, and lean your head against your hands.
Now
, Leo.’

She felt a new stab of pain as the knife twisted in the open wound. She did as she was told. But she wanted to keep Mimi talking.

‘Why Sean? Why did he have to die?’ Leo asked, her voice muffled as it rested on her arms.

The knife never leaving her neck, she felt a shuffling, and realised that Mimi was climbing through the gap in the seats and into the front. If she could just time it right…

‘Don’t move a muscle - I know what you’re thinking,’ Mimi growled as the knife jabbed harder. Leo winced in pain, but Mimi was too busy talking. ‘Sean was a case of mistaken identity. I was sure Ellie was screwing that cold blooded, murdering bastard Gary, and only she could deliver him to me on a plate. It was
Gary
I wanted. He knew I was there. He knew I was the one that had taken Abbie.’

Mimi had only needed seconds to climb into the front seat, and the pressure on the knife never eased up all the time she was talking. Had Mimi slipped, Leo knew it would all have been over.

‘Sit back. Seatbelt on,’ came the voice.

‘Why?’ Leo asked.

‘I keep telling you I’m not stupid. You can’t leap out of the car at traffic lights if you’ve got your seat belt on. And I’ll be watching. You’re my insurance if we get stopped.’

The position of the knife was adjusted so that it hovered over Leo’s hand as she fastened the seatbelt.

‘Where do you want me to drive to?’ Leo asked.

‘Put the car in gear, and leave your left hand on the gear stick. Just get off this crummy estate, and then I’ll tell you.’

Leo put the car into reverse, and felt a piercing pain as the knife cut into the thin skin on the back of her hand. Steering one handed and without looking to her left for fear of seeing the madness in those watching eyes, just inches from her own face, she backed out of the space using mirrors and a lot of hope. She knew beyond doubt that as soon as she had driven to whatever destination was chosen, she would be dead.

She had to think.

Then she remembered something that Tom had said to her when they left his house earlier this evening. She had one chance. It was going to hurt, but there was only one thing she could do.

She put the car into gear, and slammed her foot hard on the accelerator.

* * *

Tom had only taken two steps towards the door when they heard the sound of a car revving loudly and accelerating down the road. The noise lasted no more than five seconds before there was an explosion of sound as metal hit brick with considerable force.

He finally knew what it meant when somebody says their heart leapt into their throat, and he was out of the door and running in an instant. All he could see were the taillights of his Jeep, and smoke pouring from the bonnet, which was buckled to half its size against the brick wall that marked the entrance to this part of the estate.

“Leo!’ he shouted, fear giving him speed he didn’t know he still had.

‘Pat, call an ambulance. Don’t just stand there. Call a fucking ambulance,’ he yelled over his shoulder as he ran. And yet he knew that Pat would be standing watching, open-mouthed.

Fortunately the noise had brought other people from their homes, and out of the corner of his eye he saw a more alert neighbour grab his phone as Tom covered the four hundred yards to the car. He raced towards the passenger door. That’s where he’d left Leo. He gulped back of cry of dismay when he was still fifty yards away. He could see that she hadn’t been wearing a seat belt, and with no airbag her head was protruding through a hole in the windscreen, her neck at an odd angle that in Tom’s experience meant only one thing.

‘Oh no,’ he whispered. ‘Oh God,
no
.’

He made it to the car and scrambled onto the twisted metal of the bonnet. He could see little but the upper half of a body, and blood. He was blocking out the light from the street lamp behind him, and he tried to pull himself round, sliding all the time on the hot surface. He needed to move so that the light shone on Leo’s face, so he could get to her and check if she was alive. Then he saw it. The hair covering the face was blond and limp, not Leo’s thick dark tresses. He knew instantly who this was, and a brief hope flared in his chest.

He slithered across the bonnet and dropped down at the driver’s side, frantically pulling on the handle. The door wouldn’t budge, but he could just make out Leo’s crumpled form behind the steering wheel. She wasn’t moving, and her head had lolled forward onto the now deflated airbag.

Tom tried the rear door. It only opened inches, but he yanked it as hard as he could, and slid in through the gap. He heard his shirt rip, and felt a sharp sting of pain as a piece of exposed metal tore into the flesh covering his ribs, but he barely noticed. Climbing onto his knees on the back seat, he leaned forward very gently so as not to disturb Leo’s body or the seat in case her spine was injured.

He held onto the grab bar with his right hand to steady himself, and with his left hand felt for Leo’s neck, and her pulse.

51

I’m awake. I can’t speak, but I can hear sounds - people talking, and I can feel soft hands stroking my arm. I know I’m going to get better.

I still have dreams though. I dream about Jessica and the day she died
.

We’re on our own in the room. The Mother has gone out and we’re making a den. But Jessica is frightened.

‘It’s okay, Jess - it’s just a den. It won’t be like the cupboard, I promise. We’ve got to play quietly or we’ll be reported.’

I don’t know what that means, but I think it’s bad.

Jess is crying. Her arm is sore. The Mother doesn’t like it when we cry. She pushed me down the stairs the day before, and now my arm looks funny and really hurts. But it’ll get better. It did last time. I won’t cry again.

I hear her coming, and know that we have to be very, very good. I pull Jess close to me.

Then we’re in the cupboard. We’ve been good, but it doesn’t matter – we still have to hide away. Jess doesn’t look right. There’s something wrong. And suddenly I’m kicking, kicking, kicking.

Somebody is screaming. I’m being dragged across the floor by my ankles. The fat, greasy man is pulling the tape off Jess’s mouth and sick is pouring out. Jessica isn’t moving.

The man is getting dressed - and nobody’s helping Jess. I try to shout, but he runs out of the door as if he’s being chased by The Bogeyman. The Mother is wrapping Jessica in a dirty sheet. I try to scream ‘Help her, help her’ but I can’t. My mouth is taped shut.

I can’t run for help. My legs are tied together, but The Grunter’s left the door open, so I roll towards it. The mother sees me.

‘Come here, you little bastard,’ she shouts.

I can hear somebody on the stairs. The Mother drops Jessica, my little Jess, on the floor and runs towards me. She’s got my feet, and she’s pulling me away from the door. But she’s too late. Somebody’s got hold of me. Somebody’s taking the tape off my mouth and hugging me close to their body. There is only one word that I can say.

‘Jessica’

I remember now. I remember it all. Each time I dream about Jess and what happened, Mum tells me I’m safe. I’ll never hear that voice again.

But I did. Chloe’s mum. It was her.

In the end, it was the voice that I recognised.

I thought I’d escaped, but then she was here - here in the hospital where I was safe. That voice – again, whispering in my ear, so close to my head.

‘My little Abbie. I didn’t want to hurt you - I wanted to be friends - our secret.’

I couldn’t speak, but I wanted to scream and scream.

‘I shouldn’t have come for you on Friday. I got greedy. Chloe could have been your best friend, and as long as we never met, you would never have known it was me.’

A hand reached out and stroked the hair back from my face. Those dry lips brushed my forehead. I was trying to cry out, but I couldn’t. I knew the sounds weren’t coming out.

‘And each day when you told me what you were doing, where you were going, I could have watched you. I’ve been watching you for months, but you never saw me.’

I tried to move my body, to turn away from those horrible hands. The voice turned harsh.

‘You didn’t want me, though, did you? You wouldn’t let me explain. You were just like everybody else, judging me and finding me wanting. You’re the reason I went to prison, but I forgave you for that. Now it’ll be just like last time. You’ll tell lies about me, won’t you? You’ll say that I abducted you – but that’s not true. We were friends, you and me.’

I felt a pillow being yanked from under my head.

‘You left me no choice, Abbie. You should have loved me. It wasn’t much to ask.’

Suddenly there was a lot of noise, a breeze as the curtain was whisked back, and then she was gone.

Or that’s what I thought.

I heard a voice saying, “Be still. Be quiet.” A hand was stroking my head. I knew it wasn’t the same voice, but for a moment I thought she was back. I thought The Mother was back
.

52

Two weeks later

For the first time since the day of Sean’s death and Leo’s accident, Ellie felt the remnants of her optimistic nature fighting their way back to the surface. Perhaps it was because Leo was showing signs of returning to normal. This was the first time she’d displayed any interest in updating her blog since the accident, and her words were so appropriate that Ellie couldn’t help wishing that Leo had written the post sooner – and insisted that they all read it.

Or perhaps the improvement in the weather was making her feel more cheerful. It had been vile - constant rain, and not what anybody could call summer. But today, for a change, the sun was shining. Ellie took two cups of cappuccino out into the garden, and put one down on the table close to Leo on her right side. Her left arm was in a sling. As Mimi had catapulted forward through the gap in the seats, her knife had gone straight through Leo’s hand and the damage still needed some further treatment.

‘Did you manage to sleep any better last night?’ Ellie asked her sister.

‘Not really. I don’t want to start taking sleeping tablets, though, because I’m sure I’d get hooked and we know what problems
that
can cause. I’ve never been the world’s best sleeper, so while I can I’ll doze on and off throughout the day. I’ll be fine.’

‘Does your hand hurt much now? I can probably get Sam to prescribe you something for the pain, if you like.’

‘Yes it hurts. But it does serve as a reminder that I actually killed somebody, and I think I need that.’

Ellie looked at her in astonishment.

‘Leo, what you did was incredibly brave. Mimi would have killed you. You didn’t have a choice. She’d already murdered Sean, and tried to kill Gary. And we mustn’t forget that Mimi had already killed one daughter, and got pretty close to killing the other one.’

‘Do you think she really would have killed Abbie? I know she managed to get as far as her hospital bed - but would she have gone through with it?’

‘I guess that’s something we’ll never know. She had a lot to lose if her daughter lived, and apparently Abbie had made it abundantly clear that she was horrified at the thought of having Mimi back in her life.’

‘At least Abbie’s recovered,’ Leo said. ‘Do you think she’s going to be okay?’

‘She’s traumatised, and not for the first time in her young life. Kath says she was terrified when she found out who ‘Chloe’s mum’ really was. She’d been told she would never have to see her birth mother again after her tortuous early years. And if that wasn’t enough, then that bastard Gary knocked her over.’

Ellie was glad that the whole episode had given Penny the strength to kick Gary out. She’d said that when she realised she was more concerned about Smudge’s recovery than Gary’s, she knew it was time to say goodbye. And Leo had provided Penny with a whole host of contacts to help her to deal with the inevitable aftermath of so many years of abuse.

‘Tom’s told me why they believe Mimi went after Gary,’ Leo said. ‘Gary says she was raving on about him seeing her in the woods, but he didn’t see a thing. He thought he heard a noise, but when he turned to look, his headlights were shining straight into his eyes. I guess he wanted to get out of there pretty quickly too.’

Leo’s lip curled in disgust, as it did every time she mentioned Gary’s name. She picked up her coffee cup, and the sisters were quiet for a moment, each lost in her own thoughts.

‘Does Tom know how Mimi tracked Abbie down?’ Ellie asked.

‘There’s only so much he’s prepared to tell me, but he did say that although Abbie’s surname had changed, her birthday was the same. Just one Facebook app apparently, and the rest was easy, especially for somebody who had spent their years in prison studying IT. They think she’d never planned to meet Abbie, just be her friend in disguise. “Chloe” could have stayed in touch for years with nobody being any the wiser. She’d just intended to stalk her daughter - on and offline. The opportunity on that Friday just fell into her lap. But Abbie rejected her. God knows what Mimi would have done if Abbie hadn’t escaped.’

Ellie was stirring her coffee entirely unnecessarily, but there was something she wanted to ask Leo and she wasn’t sure how she was going to take it.

‘I was wondering, Leo, whether you were struggling to sleep because of the baby.’

Leo turned to Ellie with a puzzled look.

‘What baby?’

‘Mimi’s baby. Oh, we know
now
that there wasn’t a baby, but when you crashed the car you knew that you were probably going to kill a baby, and that must have been incredibly hard.’

To Ellie’s amazement, Leo laughed.

‘I knew there was no baby, Ellie. I’d known since the day before but hadn’t got round to telling you. There was always so much else going on. Mimi had a giant pack of Tampax in her shopping bag. It was a Mimi type con to keep Pat with her until it was too late for him to do anything else. I don’t know what I would have done if she’d actually been pregnant, but I’d rather not think about it. I didn’t intend to kill her either, you know. I thought I could knock her unconscious so that I could get away. But she would have killed me without hesitation.’

‘I can’t believe that Pat actually lived with her. Slept with her even.’ Ellie shuddered. ‘What the hell was he thinking? There’s no way that Georgia’s going to take him back now, even though she feels sorry for him. But sympathy doesn’t seem such a good basis for a marriage.’

Ellie leant down and moved the small table away so she could shuffle along the bench to sit closer to Leo. She leaned slightly against her sister’s good arm, and was pleased that Leo didn’t move away. If anything, she moved nearer.

‘Thanks for finding out about Dad, Leo. I know you’ve not told me everything, but that’s fine. I don’t want to hear it just now. I’ll let you know when I’m ready to hear the rest. I trust you, and I know you won’t hold anything back when the time is right. At least I can stop expecting him to make an appearance, and we can decide whether to carry on living here, or to move. I know you didn’t think much of him, but he’s the only dad we’ll ever have. Don’t you mourn him - not even a bit?’

Ellie knew immediately she shouldn’t have asked that question. Leo’s face appeared to be carved of stone.

‘No. He was married to your mother, but in spite of that he came and swept my mum off her feet. Ellie, she was only seventeen when he got her pregnant with me. Seven
teen
. That’s only three years older than Abbie. And he was thirty-six. Then he went through a mock marriage and lived a lie for all those years. I don’t think my mum had a clue.’

Ellie nodded her head. She knew that Leo was going to take some persuading to see a good side in him.

‘But he made a mistake, Leo. Look at Max and me recently. We’ve made mistakes, but you don’t think that we’re devils in disguise, do you?’

‘Of course I don’t. But there are mistakes and mistakes. I might have forgiven him that one, because my mum was so very special, but I couldn’t forgive his neglect. He handed me over to your mother and then ignored me. He didn’t care what happened to me. After my mum died, I was
distraught
. My world had ended. You tried to comfort me, but how many times did he try? Never. Not once. Too busy out doing whatever he was doing all the time.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean? Come on, sis. He was working.’

Leo didn’t respond and Ellie was quiet for a moment.

‘I suppose if he’d been more of a role model, I might have been less suspicious of Max. I instantly leapt to a conclusion - the wrong one. Poor Max.’

Ellie felt a slight increase in pressure from Leo in mute sympathy.

‘Am I allowed to ask? What have you told him?’ Leo said.

‘It was a hard decision. I did wonder whether telling him everything would be just an effective way of giving me absolution, and whether I shouldn’t live with the guilt. But Max and I had, until recently, been so close that we could practically see into each other’s minds. My mind would have permanently had a shutter in place, and I knew he would be able to see it and not understand what was behind it. So I had to tell him. I told him everything while you were in hospital.’

‘And…?’

‘And nothing. He’s angry, but partly at himself. He’d put up quite a few shutters too with that sodding Alannah. And God knows what he thought he was doing, going into property development with Sean!’

The two women were quiet for a moment.

But they’d had enough tension in the last weeks, and Ellie needed to help Leo to lighten up a bit. She gave her a gentle nudge in the ribs.

‘Anyway, how about you and your dashing policeman then? I hear he has a job offer in Manchester - is that right?’

Leo laughed.

‘He’s not
my
policeman, but yes. He has been offered a job, and I think he’s going to take it. He doesn’t want a promotion, he says, because he doesn’t want to be too office bound, and he doesn’t need the money. He’ll keep the cottage for weekends, but it’s a bit far for a daily commute so he’s going to look for something else for during the week.’

‘Leo, that man was a complete star in all this. What would we have done without him? Do you think that you and he might…?’

Leo nudged her sister back.

‘Enough, Ellie. We get on well, it has to be said, and he does have a few redeeming features.’

‘What, you mean apart from his good looks and his calm demeanour?’ Ellie asked with a grin.

‘For the record he can be a stroppy bugger so don’t let that Mr Nice Guy act fool you. But apart from that, he’s not the kind of guy to just jump me, if you know what I mean.’

‘Pity,’ Ellie said with a grin. ‘Anything else?’

‘Well… he cooks a mean curry, and I don’t think he’s ever likely to call me ‘Babes’. Two huge points in his favour.’

Ellie laughed and tucked herself in a bit near to her sister, making the most of the moment of closeness and wondering if it could last.

* * *

It was good to laugh after the previous two weeks, because there had been so much to cry about. The laughter was almost painful, as if it was something they’d forgotten how to do, and was forcing them to exercise muscles that were weak from lack of use.

Leo was relieved that they had changed the subject from her father. She had come so close to telling Ellie, but she knew that her sister was still very vulnerable. So despite her blog post, she was going to abide by Ellie’s wishes. Not keep anything from her, but wait until her sister decided she was ready to hear it. For now, it was too much.

Leo felt sorry about Sean, though. Whatever his crimes and however much he had confused Ellie, he hadn’t deserved to die. Ellie had told her all about the blackmail texts, and how she had ignored them because she believed they came from him. But Mimi had been getting into the house all the time, driven no doubt by her hatred of Ellie as Georgia’s best friend and greatest ally, mixed with her belief that Ellie was having an affair with the person who had knocked Abbie over and ruined all her plans.

Nobody knew even now why Mimi had thought that Gary was Ellie’s lover, and Leo had never admitted that she had believed the same thing.

They had found the keys to Willow Farm, which was a huge relief. Pat discovered them when he was clearing out Mimi’s stuff. As Ellie first suspected, Max had put the keys down on the worktop, and Mimi had picked them up.

It was going to take time for them all to recover, but things were - at least on the face of it - gradually returning to normal. The twins were watching sport with their dad - only the best bits, they said - which for Ruby meant cycling as she was now so proficient without her stabilisers. So it was good to have a bit of time alone with Ellie, sitting in the sunshine.

No sooner had this thought passed through her head than she heard the hum of an expensive car coming up the drive. They caught a glimpse of Charles’ Aston Martin as it pulled up at the front of the house.

‘We’re round the side,’ shouted Ellie, as she heard the car door slam.

A very different looking Charles and Fiona approached across the lawn. Leo couldn’t quite put her finger on the difference, but somehow Fiona looked more relaxed and at ease with herself, and for once was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. A very smart one, but nevertheless, a T-shirt. The biggest surprise was that they were actually holding hands.

‘Hello, you two,’ said Ellie with a welcoming smile. ‘It’s good to see you. Pull up a couple of chairs. I’ll make some coffee in a second.’

Charles scurried round organising the seating, seeming a bit flustered.

‘We thought we’d see how you all are,’ he said.

‘We’re fine, thanks,’ Leo said. ‘I’m on the mend.’ She gave them her best smile. Nobody needed to know how she was feeling inside. As she remembered the suspicions she’d had about Charles, she cringed inwardly.