‘Sorry, darling,’ Lulu said softly, taking Nick’s arm.
This is on you, she wanted to yell at the woman with the pursed little mouth in the neat navy trouser suit. You should have taken him in, you should have helped him through it, you should have loved him.
You should, you should, you should.
She really didn’t want to do this.
But she had to, for Nick’s sake. For both their sakes.
They waited until dusk had fallen, to more closely replicate the dark November evening when Nick had returned to Sunnyside with Carol and Andy Jardine. In June in Scotland, Lulu discovered, the days were long, and it was after ten o’clock when she and Nick stepped out of the house and onto the big area of gravel in front of it.
‘Mr Nutter takes a holiday,’ Nick murmured. ‘One of those silent French films. Lots of close-ups of my face girning as ghosts and ghoulies chase me about a haunted house.’
Lulu shivered. ‘Stop it.’ She wasn’t going to let him sabotage this with his usual facetiousness.
‘And poor old Mrs Nutter is wondering what the hell she’s let herself in for. Lots of close-ups of you rolling your eyes.’
Lulu took his hand. ‘I’m going to hold on to your hand the whole time, okay? So you know I’m with you, wherever you might go in your head. You’re with me and you’re safe.’ But there was also, she admitted to herself, a reassurance for Lulu in holding Nick’s hand.
‘Oh God, Lu. I’m not sure about this.’
‘I know. We can stop any time.’ She squeezed his hand. ‘Think of it like being in a waking dream.’ Her specialist subject, she reflected dryly. ‘It’s thought that dreams are a way for the brain to process what’s gone on during the previous day but also sometimes stuff that’s happened in our lives a while ago but still troubles us. Dreams are a way of going back through events to make sense of them and take whatever we need from them, as we consign what we’ve been through to memory.’
‘But how will it help, reliving it all yet again?’ He turned and looked up at the house silhouetted against the evening sky.
‘We’re going to ground you in the present so we can force your brain to process what happened as past events, to integrate your repressed memories into your “normal” memory bank, so you can acknowledge the trauma and move on. We need to really examine each thing you remember. Do you think you can do that?’
A curt nod. ‘Let’s just get it over with.’
They got as far as the hall.
‘Keep breathing in and out and noticing those breaths,’ said Lulu, ‘while you think about what happened.’
He exhaled slowly. ‘The whole house was in darkness. It smelt . . . This sounds weird, but it smelt empty. I switched on the lights . . .’ He moved to the switch, and Lulu went with him, keeping hold of his hand. ‘And I shouted. I shouted for Dad.’
‘Okay. Take a deep breath and let how you were feeling then come back.’
She felt him tense. And suddenly he gripped her hand so tight it hurt.
‘Dad!’ he screamed. ‘Dad!’
‘Okay, Nick, you’re okay.’ She put her arms around him. ‘I’m here! You’re okay! I’m here, I’m here, my darling!’
The house was dark. Lulu knew she had to find the kitchen – it was really, really important she find the kitchen where Mum and Dad and her brothers were – but this wasn’t the old farmhouse at Braemar Station, this was a strange warehouse of a place full of huge antique furniture that loomed over her as she ran from one room to the next, calling their names.
The kitchen.
Where was the kitchen?
Where were Mum and Dad and Dennis and John?
And then she was awake, and Nick was stroking her hair and telling her it was all right, she was all right, it was just another bad dream.
10
Maggie - September 1997
Maggie didn’t know what to do.
At least they were safe in here. She’d bought a bolt and fixed it to the bedroom door so Nick couldn’t get in while she was asleep. And she had brought up to the room a supply of food and nappies and bin bags. The one good thing about the situation was that Isla had discovered her appetite, latching on like a wee limpet, as if she was picking up on what was happening and was getting comfort from Maggie in the only way she knew how.
Maggie waited until she heard Nick’s footsteps brattling down the stairs, and then she got up from the chair, wincing at the pull on her C-section scar and the sore skin on her thigh. She took Isla into the bathroom across the corridor, which overlooked the drive, carefully locking the door behind them. When Nick appeared in his school blazer, bag slung over his shoulder as he jogged off down the drive, she unlocked the bathroom door and carefully went downstairs, Isla held safe against her body.
‘Oh, Duncan, Duncan,’ she groaned, collapsing into her rocking chair in the kitchen and undoing the buttons on her top with her unbandaged left hand so Isla could feed again.
Duncan was in prison in Dumfries. He’d been denied bail because of the seriousness of the charge. And Nick was raging about this too, of course. He obviously blamed Maggie for wriggling out of it and putting Duncan in the frame.
Michael and Yvonne were visiting Duncan today, and Maggie was going tomorrow. It would be brilliant to see him, but she was dreading it, too. Dreading speaking to him about Nick.
Should she go back to the cops and admit that her alibi was false, that she’d been there at The Phoenix Centre, that she’d found Dean? That she was set up by Nick? Then they would have to look more closely at Nick’s alibi. But what if it really was watertight? What if Nick had got someone else to do the dirty work, as Yvonne suspected? And if Maggie got arrested and banged up, that would leave Isla at Nick’s mercy. Duncan was a total diddy when it came to Nick. In his eyes, Nick was a fine young man with just a few ‘typical teenage issues’. Duncan wouldn’t be able to protect Isla from him.
She looked down into her daughter’s big blue eyes and smiled, stroking the soft skin of her cheek.