‘I thought you said she wasn’t well enough to travel,’ Ed says flatly.
‘I don’t think she is, but…’ I trail off, exhausted. ‘Maybe you’re right, perhaps I should see how she is in the morning. Seriously, I can’t think straight, Ed.’
‘You need something to eat. I’ll make us a sandwich.’ Ed reaches over to the bread bin, grabs the board down, and pulls a knife out of the block again as I sit down at the table.
‘In other bad news,’ he continues, ‘I checked online again while you were upstairs and the amount of ￡548 definitely has been charged to our card. So the woman from the toy company was right; as far as they were concerned, we ordered the climbing frame on Tuesday morning, including ￡25 express delivery charge to have it arrive here today before 5.30 p.m.’
‘Tuesday morning when I was at the library with James, you mean?’
‘Yes – while someone was busy stealing your keys they were also using your credit card. Whoa!’ We both jump at a horrible grating sound of metal on metal as he starts to cut the bread. I spin round to look, but he’s already lifted the loaf up and is staring down at the wooden board in confusion.
‘What is it?’ I ask.
He peers at it. ‘There’s something stuck in it.’ He sets the bread knife and loaf to one side, picks the board up and angles it next to the window. Something silver and roughly an inch long does indeed glint in the light. ‘It looks like a large staple,’ he says, puzzled.
I wrinkle my nose. ‘Why have you stapled the bread board?’
‘I haven’t done anything,’ he corrects. ‘Hang on a minute.’ He walks over to the knife block and pulls out a smaller vegetable blade, returning and starting to dig at the wood.
I watch him in disbelief. ‘Is that really necessary, Ed? If you gouge a hole in it we’ll have to chuck it out.’
He turns around to face me, holding a sharp metal point, gripping it carefully between finger and thumb. It looks like a shark tooth from a kid’s drawing.
I look up at him blankly. ‘What is it?’
‘It’s the broken tip of a blade.’ He clears his throat. ‘Have you snapped a knife by mistake?’
‘No? Have you?’
He shakes his head. ‘We’ve pretty much only got that set, haven’t we?’ He points over to the block. ‘And they’re all there. So how did this get in the chopping board?’
I stand up, pull open the kitchen drawer and start to rifle through the jumble of vegetable spoons, fish slices, roasting forks, peelers, the pizza slicer – and some random knives that don’t sit on the side. Despite the apparent disorder, I know exactly what should be there, and nothing is missing. ‘That doesn’t belong to us.’ I nod at it, still between his finger and thumb.
There’s a moment of uneasy silence. ‘You’re saying someone’s brought a knife into the house?’
‘I don’t see how else it could get here.’
We look at each other worriedly.
Ed puts the sharp piece of metal down on the side, steps back over to the knife block and pulls out the eight-inch chef’s blade. Returning to the board and standing over it, he suddenly jabs it down, lets go and stands back to reveal the knife stuck on end in the wood. He hesitates. ‘You’d have to be going some for it to be hard enough to snap the tip of a blade clean off and leave it embedded in the board.’
‘You mean, really stab it?’
‘Jess, are you sure this isn’t ours?’ Ed is trying to keep his voice steady, I can tell. ‘It hasn’t been there for ages and we just haven’t noticed?’
‘I do detail for a living. Of course I’m sure.’ Suddenly I’m unable to stop looking at the knife tip. ‘Someone has been practising their stabbing technique? So do you still think we’re not in any physical danger?’
He doesn’t answer. Just stares at the lethally sharp scrap of steel.
‘Ed, this has already gone much too far. A malicious campaign designed to traumatise me is one thing, hanging around outside and then breaking into the house quite another – now we have proof whoever it is intends to do actual harm. We HAVE to call the police.’
‘We can’t,’ he says immediately. ‘You know why we can’t. And whoever is doing this knows that too.’
‘This isn’t a game of brinkmanship!’ I look at Ed incredulously.
He is still staring at the knife. ‘I really don’t think they intend to do anything at all. It’s all smoke and mirrors. This was just another stunt designed to disturb and upset you. And you’re letting it work.’
‘“Letting it work”?’ I repeat, amazed.
‘Or,’ he says slowly, raising a finger and wagging it as if he’s just made a breakthrough, ‘I’m letting it work. Maybe this isn’t about you at all. He’s “hurting” you to get at me. He knows I can’t go to the police, and he knows what this will be doing to me, watching you sweat like this. The gutless fucker. He couldn’t just come and punch me one, like an actual bloke?’
‘You still think this is Simon doing this.’
‘Yes,’ he says simply, ‘I do.’
‘Ed – try and forget who is doing this, or why. It doesn’t concern you that someone brought a knife into this house full stop? Because it scares the shit out of me,’ I say urgently. ‘In three hours I have to collect our son and bring him back to this house. We also have someone else’s ill child upstairs, who we are responsible for. We cannot possibly sleep here tonight. It’s not safe. We’re not safe. Even if the police had been here, I wouldn’t sleep in this house tonight.’
‘I’m telling you, he’s got no intention of actually hurting you at all. He’d have done it by now if he had, but if it would make you feel happier, we’ll find you somewhere to stay tonight. What about at my parents’? What could we tell them?…’ He pauses. ‘How about that we have a gas leak here? That it’s sorted, but to be on the safe side we don’t want James and Sandrine staying in the house? That’s plausible, isn’t it?’
What on earth is he talking about? ‘I honestly think you’re losing a grip on what is actually happening here,’ I say quietly. ‘This isn’t a game.’
‘Of course I know it isn’t a game! I should never, ever have sent someone round to their house that evening. I’ve let you and James down so badly, I can’t even begin to think about it. I’m so ashamed. All I can tell you is what I’ve already said. I was I trying to protect you from that woman, that’s it. I swear. If I’d have known for one second that it was going to result in Simon doing this—’
‘It’s not Simon.’
‘Sorry, I don’t believe you.’
‘He was Beth’s father!’ I exclaim. ‘Our daughter fell to her death from a climbing frame exactly the same as the one that arrived here this afternoon. You honestly believe he’d do that to me, just to hurt you? I’ve already said; he has his faults, but that would be an utterly sick thing to do. He loves me, Ed. I know you don’t want to hear that, but it’s true. He wouldn’t do this to me.’
‘Oh, I know he loves you, alright,’ Ed says immediately. ‘It’s how much he loves you that’s the problem.’
‘What?’ I’m completely confused. ‘So now you’re saying this is about driving a wedge between you and me? To be honest, Ed, you’re starting to sound like the obsessive one here.’ I stand up. ‘I’m going to pack some stuff and tell Sandrine what we’re doing. Will you do your bag?’
He shakes his head firmly. ‘I’m staying. If he sees us all taking overnight stuff out of the house, he’ll know he’s got plenty of time to do God knows what in here before we come back.’
‘You think he’s watching us?’ I’m stunned.
‘I’m not going to stand by and hand him access to our house on a plate, I’ll tell you that much for free. Fuck that – and fuck him. He won’t try anything if I’m here, but I get why you don’t want to take that risk with James and Sandrine. Don’t worry about me though, I’ll be fine.’