“It’s beautiful,” she said. “I really thought her house would be a riot of colour – something like the café, all rustic and arty. I didn’t see her as the white picket fence type at all.”
She was right, I suppose. It didn’t really fit with Bridget’s hippy persona, but it was still her. The white weatherboard villa was pure elegance, even down to the white picket fence and the white standard miniature roses lining the driveway. In the dark like this, the villa had a type of quiet grandeur, with its bay windows and grey corrugated iron roof. I had helped her plant the gardens that framed the house myself, mostly in old roses. Bridget loved roses.
“Are you sure you want to come in?” I asked, unclipping my seat-belt. “You don’t have to. You can stay here if you want. In fact, it might be better if you do.”
“I want to come in,” she said firmly, reaching for my hand and enclosing it in hers. “I’ll be okay. Maybe it’ll help if I’m there? He doesn’t know me.”
She didn’t know Alex like I did. Like we did, Bridget and I. He’d been in a bad enough state in the pub earlier. God only knew what he’d be like now, a couple of hours later. I’d assumed he’d gone back to his place to lick his wounds, but apparently I’d been wrong.
I squeezed her hand. If she was as stressed as it seemed, whatever was inside this house wasn’t going to help her relax any. In fact, just the opposite might be true.
“Look, I don’t know what’s going on in there, but when Alex gets like this, he can be completely unpredictable. I saw him at the pub earlier, and he was pissed then. Just try to stay behind me and away from him, okay?”
She nodded and I released her hand as we both got out of the car. We walked up the driveway, towards the house.
“Is that his car?” she asked, indicating the clapped-out red CRV parked haphazardly at the end of the drive.
“Yeah, that’s his alright. Look at it – looks like he abandoned it there. Jesus, I can’t believe he drove. I should’ve called the cops on him from the pub – if I’d known he was driving, I bloody would’ve. He’s gonna kill someone one of these days.”
A crash rang out from inside the house, followed by a lot of shouting. One-sided. Male. Alex. Where the hell was Bridget?
We hurried to the front door, and I knocked loudly, calling for Bridget. The door didn’t open but my cellphone chirped with an incoming text and I dug it out of my pocket.
“What the hell’s going on here?” I mumbled, shoving it back in my pocket a second later. “That was Bridget – she said the back door’s unlocked.”
“She texted you? Why doesn’t she just open the front door?”
“I have no idea,” I said, as we made our way around to the back of the house.
Sure enough, the door was unlocked, and we let ourselves into the now quiet house. The silence was worse. We stood at the door, and I looked down the hall towards the kitchen at the back of the house. There were remnants of a broken vase or bowl or something on the floor in the hallway. I could hear someone moving around in the kitchen, and what sounded like mumbling, with the odd expletive thrown in. Alex, by the sound of it. I motioned to Maia to stay behind me. I had no idea what was going on here but all was obviously not well.
“Heath!”
We turned to find Bridget peering out at us from behind the bathroom door. I went to her immediately.
“Jesus – what’s going on?” I hissed, trying to keep my voice down. “Are you okay?”
She nodded, but it looked like she’d been crying.
“Let me in,” I said, trying to push the door open.
“No, love, I… “
I ignored her, pushing the door open a crack wider. As soon as I saw the ugly red mark on her cheekbone, my blood pressure sky-rocketed.
Bridget was almost apologetic. “I’m sorry, I didn’t want you to –”
“You’re sorry? What the fuck happened?” I hissed, pushing the door open wider still and carefully tilting her face into the light to get a better look.
It looked painful. And recent.
“I wouldn’t give him his keys,” she said, trying to smile but looking more like she wanted to cry. “I didn’t want him to drive, not like this.”
“So he hit you?”
“No, he pushed me – I fell and hit my head on the table.”
Yeah, I bet he did. Gutless bastard. “Are you okay? Did he hurt you anywhere else?”
“No, no, I’m fine – really. I just fell, and… he didn’t do it on purpose.”
I stood there, silently debating which of his bones to break first. He had crossed a line now, a line that should never be crossed. It looked like his luck had run out. I was just in the right frame of mind now to knock him straight into next week.
“What’s he on?” I demanded. “Is he drunk or is it something else?”
“I don’t know. I think he’s just drunk. He’s not thinking straight – he started smashing up the place because I took his keys and hid them from him. I thought it best to get out of his way. I thought he’d calm down if I left him alone,” she said miserably. “I thought maybe he’d just lie down on the couch and sleep it off.”