Accidents Happen A Novel

CHAPTER TWENTY



After saying goodnight to Jack, it took Saskia twenty minutes to race to Kate’s house in east Oxford. She pulled across the bottom of the driveway. Kate’s car was there. Good.

The car clock said 10.15 p.m. Saskia blinked. It was late to burst in, but this couldn’t wait. If Mum caught a whisper that Kate was planning to move back to London all hell was going to break loose.

Saskia glanced up at Kate’s house and pulled on her handbrake crossly. How come she had been elected intermediary in all this? She had her own problems. Lights were on in the sitting room and upstairs. As Saskia turned off the engine, she saw a shadow cross past the curtain in Jack’s room.

Good. At least Kate wasn’t in bed.

Exiting her car, she looked around. Hubert Street always felt so quiet at night, despite its closeness to the bars and restaurants of Cowley Road.

‘Right,’ Saskia muttered, marching up to Kate’s front door. A security light burst into life as she rang the bell. What was the option? The last thing any of them, including Jack, needed was Social Services accusing Kate of emotional neglect or asking for a mental health assessment.

The upstairs hall light shone dimly through the glass of the front door. She waited, tapping her foot, for Kate to arrive.

Nothing happened.

Saskia pressed the bell again, then followed it with a rap of knuckles on the glass.

Seconds passed. ‘Kate?’ she called, irritated, through the letterbox. ‘It’s me – Sass.’

Saskia opened the letterbox wide, only to find that Kate had fixed a plastic cowl on the other side to stop people reaching in to take keys.

‘Kate!’ she shouted, aggravated.

Saskia walked backwards and took another look up.

The light in Jack’s room had gone off.

What was Kate playing at?

Scowling, Saskia fumbled in her bag, took out her phone and rang the house number. A second later, she heard Kate’s phone ring out in the hallway. Five times, before the faint rumble of the answer machine reached her ears beyond the front door.

Either Kate was ignoring her or something had happened. Had she accidentally locked herself in behind that stupid gate?

‘You OK there?’ a man’s voice said, right behind her.

Saskia jumped about two feet in the air. She whipped round, and found the weirdo from next door standing in Kate’s driveway.

‘Yes,’ she said abruptly, her heart hammering. ‘I’m fine.’

He was so tall close up. Towering above her, with his weird pale eyes staring through greasy glasses.

‘I thought you were maybe a burglar,’ he said, grinning. ‘Lot of burglars in this street, you know? I keep an . . .’ He pointed his fingers at his eyes, then at Kate’s house. ‘For her. You know?’

Saskia could smell beer. She looked out again at the silent street.

‘Er. I’m not a burglar, but thanks,’ she said, turning her back on him and rummaging desperately in her bag for Kate’s spare keys.

‘It’s nice to help people, you know?’ the man said, a tone of defensiveness creeping into his voice. He put out a hand and leaned against the doorway as if to steady himself. The action brought him a couple of inches closer to Saskia.

‘Yes, well, thanks, but, as I said, I’m fine,’ she said coldly.

‘Hey.’ A jokey tone entered his voice. ‘Hang on. How do I know you’re not a burglar, huh?’

‘Listen,’ said Saskia, employing her finest public school accent. ‘I’m her sister-in-law. But thank you. Goodbye.’

To her horror, the man didn’t move. Mouthing a swear word to herself, she turned and jammed the key into the door, blinking. Thankfully, it slipped in on the first attempt, and Saskia shoved the door open with relief.

Beep beep beep.

Saskia jumped again. The alarm was on!

Shit. Now she was going to have to leave the front door open while she turned it off, with him outside. Pulling the door as close as she could behind her, and shouting ‘Kate! I’m here!’ She dashed to the hall cupboard, desperately trying to remember the code. What was the f*cking number? Hugo’s birthday. Third of March. 0303? Or was it the month and the year. 0375? She turned on the cupboard light and battered at the box with fluttering fingers, then pressed ‘reset’.

The alarm stopped.

Quickly, she turned around.

The weirdo was standing right behind her in the hall.

‘What are you doing?’ she gasped. ‘Can you get out, please?’

‘You want me to look around?’ he said, pointing upstairs.

‘No, I don’t,’ she said firmly, trying to hold her nerve as she herded him out of the house with a hand held in front of her. ‘Really. I’m fine. I’d like you to go, please.’

‘OK. Bye,’ he called.

‘OK, f*ck off,’ she whispered as she slammed the door behind him.

Her heart was thumping. What a freak.

Now, where the hell was Kate? Saskia turned and saw that all the inner doors were closed.

‘KATE?’ she called crossly up the stairs.

Tentatively, Saskia switched on all the lights and climbed the stairs.

The cage door lay wide open at the top.

‘Kate?’ she called more quietly. ‘Answer me. You’re creeping me out.’

She crept into the spare front room first, but there was just an empty single bed and chair, lit by a lamp on a timer switch. Next, Jack’s room, which was still dark. She switched the main light on and looked around. Nothing. Ten seconds later, it was clear that there was no one in Kate’s bedroom or the study, either.

Saskia crept back downstairs.

‘Kate?’ she said more timidly, nervously scanning the downstairs hall.

Had she fallen? Saskia reached up above the doorframe of the dining room and used the key to unlock each inner door, one by one, checking behind sofas and tables.

Finally, Saskia opened the kitchen door.

Another lamp on a timer switch was on in here, too.

Saskia’s eyes roamed the room until they settled on the kitchen table.

There was a note.

She read it, then lifted her eyes angrily to the back door.

The journey back to Oxford was quick, the roads quiet at this time of night. They drove back from Chumsley Norton to the dual carriageway, and then when they reached the city centre, Kate guided Jago over Magdalen Bridge and back through east Oxford. Gratefully, she noted that Jago had switched on a device that heated her seat. She stretched back against it, drained. The heat felt good on her bones. She watched students in evening dress, running through the streets.

Tonight she didn’t feel so different from them.

She’d had an adventure too.

She rubbed her lips together, fascinated by the musky taste of Jago’s lips that still lingered there.

‘Better?’ Jago asked.

She nodded, and curled up further into the seat. ‘I still can’t believe you did that.’

‘Sorry. I just felt we had to take the risk.’

She sighed. ‘So you know about Hugo?’

‘I’m really sorry, Kate. I’m not surprised it’s left you with this kind of anxiety. It would do that to any of us.’

Kate shook her head sadly. ‘You know, the irony was that Hugo wasn’t bothered about money, not like his dad. Richard’s a businessman, totally money and power obsessed. Hugo just wanted to do something he loved. But, probably because he did love it, he was good at it and, this one time, he made a lot of money unexpectedly just when the property boom happened. And he’d grown up with Richard having all these nice cars, and I think it was just a whim left over from his childhood.’

Kate’s hand moved automatically to below her ribcage for the thousandth time.

Jago tapped the wheel. ‘And they tried to steal it?’

She nodded.

‘I’m sorry. That’s shit, Kate. For you and your little boy. The newspaper said they got the guys?’

‘Yeah, but the trial was horrible. Their DNA was at the scene so they couldn’t deny the car theft – but they wouldn’t plead guilty to Hugo’s murder, and when they were found guilty, they shouted these awful things at us in court. Honestly, Jago, I can’t tell you how awful it was for me and Hugo’s family. They were evil. It was terrifying.’

Jago turned into Iffley Road, nodding. ‘Well, I’m not surprised it left you feeling scared. Not many people ever see real evil. You hear about it, but you don’t see it.’

The kindness in his tone belied his boxer’s looks. She liked watching him drive. He was a confident driver. She felt safe with him.

‘How did you know to choose that pub, by the way?’

He shifted gear as they accelerated up the long stretch of road. ‘Ah, well, that was a bit of luck. One of the visiting American professors made me go there one night with him. He’d seen it on a website with a thatched roof and had some romantic idea of English villages. Of course, we turned up and met the tosser who runs it. I remembered I couldn’t get a phone signal and there was no payphone, so it seemed perfect.’

Kate pointed ahead to Hubert Street. Jago indicated and pulled in right, parking in an empty space.

‘That’s weird,’ he said, looking around. ‘This looks like my road in Edinburgh. So . . .’

‘So . . .’ she said. Her limbs felt as if they were made of cloth. She waited, wondering what she would do if he asked if he could come in.

‘So,’ Jago said, leaning over towards her and taking her hand. ‘Seriously, are you OK?’

‘I think so. No. I am.’

He pushed away a damp strand of her hair from her face. ‘Listen. Kate. I promise, you were never in any danger.’

She sat, mesmerized at the touch of his fingers on her skin, the sensation familiar from old in some ways, brand new in others. ‘I know. I do actually believe you.’

‘Good. Out of interest, what did it feel like when it was happening? What you saw, what you smelled, saw . . .?’

Kate looked out at her house. ‘It’s funny you say that. I smelt things so strongly I almost gagged. Like the holly bush and the silage. And sounds, too. Even though I was behind the hedge, I could sort of tell where each of the scooters was by sound.’

‘Like all your senses were on alert. Hypersensitive?’

She nodded.

‘Like an animal under attack.’

‘I suppose so.’

‘That’s interesting.’

His hand was resting on the gear stick. He saw her look at it, and raised his fingers up. Tentatively, she brought her own hand to meet his. Their fingers entwined for a second, before he sighed a little and leaned over, and she lifted her lips to meet his again.

Inside the car, it was a longer kiss. Kate didn’t know where she wanted it to go, she just knew she didn’t want it to stop. Jago pulled her into him as her breathing deepened.

Suddenly, however, he broke free from her lips.

‘Kate,’ he whispered into her ear.

‘Hmm?’

‘I’m going to go.’

She hesitated, not sure if she was relieved or disappointed. ‘Is it the cat poo?’

‘Maybe a little.’ He smiled. ‘But, seriously, you’ve had a fright tonight, it wouldn’t be fair of me to, well, not to go.’ He grimaced. ‘If you know what I mean? I don’t want you to think I’m, well . . .’

She nodded, gratefully. ‘No, you’re right.’

‘Sorry. Didn’t say that very well.’ He lifted her hand with his. ‘This is a bit weird for me, too, you know.’ On an impulse, she lifted her other hand and hesitantly touched the side of his head, letting the stubble of his crewcut run lightly under her fingertips. He leaned his head into it like a cat. ‘That’s nice.’

‘Did you and your girlfriend go out for a long time?’ Kate said, doing it again, remembering the photo of the girl on the internet.

‘Felt like it, sometimes,’ Jago replied. ‘No. I’m joking. About five years.’

‘When did you split up?’

‘About three months ago. We were . . .’

She saw his eyes drift over her shoulder, in the direction of her house. He leaned his head to the side, a curious expression on his face.

‘Is that someone looking for you?’

Kate turned swiftly and, with a start, saw Saskia peering out of the curtains in Jack’s bedroom.

‘Oh, my God.’ She pushed Jago away abruptly. ‘Oh, God. Jago. You’ve got to go. Sorry.’ Kate grabbed the door handle, panicked. ‘Jago. She can’t see you.’ She saw an uncertain look on his face. ‘It’s Hugo’s sister, my sister-in-law. It’s complicated. But listen, ring me, OK?’

He placed a hand on her shoulder. ‘OK. But wait till she goes back inside. She’ll see you when you open the car door and the light comes on.’

Kate waited till Saskia disappeared behind the curtains.

‘OK. I’m going. So, thanks for going to all that effort to completely petrify me,’ she said sarcastically, leaning back to kiss him briefly.

‘You’re very welcome,’ he grinned. ‘I’ll ring you tomorrow to check you’re OK. But you did well. Stick with it. We’ll get there. I’m convinced this will help you.’

‘Thank you,’ she repeated, this time without the sarcasm, because she meant it. And with that, Kate jumped out and ran to find out what her bloody sister-in-law was doing in her bloody house.