Page 17 of The Perfect Son
Fear grips my body. It’s the kind of fear that makes you realize that all those other times you thought you were scared, were just pretend.
This is real. It’s the middle of the night. I’m alone in this giant bloody house, just me, and Jamie asleep down the hall, and there is someone walking around on my driveway.
I gasp for air and hold it in my lungs as I try to listen over the sound of my heart pounding in my ears.
Stop, Tessie. Stop worrying. It’s just cats.
Cats? Come off it, Mark; since when do cats tread with the same force as footsteps? Human footsteps.
Or foxes fighting. This is the countryside, Tessie.
You don’t need to remind me. I only need to open my eyes to know I’m not on the estate in Chelmsford anymore. There is no orange glow from streetlights here, no car doors slamming and people walking by on their way to town. The only noise is the low hum of the A12 a mile away and the hoot of an owl somewhere nearby.
I know I’m in the countryside, and I know what I heard.
I listen again, waiting to prove you wrong, but the silence of the night is deafening.
I told you—foxes.
I’m up and by the window before I can stop myself, half-naked in just knickers and one of your T-shirts skirting the tops of my thighs. Fear pricks my skin as I peer through the gap in the curtains, primed for any movement, any sound, but there’s nothing but darkness.
I pad along the hallway and check on Jamie. He’s cocooned inside his duvet, with only his mop of curls poking out the top. His hair looks almost white in the blue glow of the nightlight.
The creak of the stairs seems too loud in the silence as I make my way to the front door and check that it’s bolted. Then to the nook and the side door. They are both locked. In the hallway I dither for a minute. What do I do now? There’ll be no more sleep for me tonight, but I can’t bear the thought of rattling around the house for five hours either, so I slump back into our bed for warmth as much as anything. I listen for any sound but all I hear is silence.
I can’t even hear the wind in the fireplaces.
See—it was just an animal. A wild deer looking for food.
It was footsteps. I’m sure of it. Someone was walking on our driveway in the middle of the night.
An image of the tulips by the side door floats through my thoughts. No cellophane. No note. I threw them in the bin before the schoolpickup. I couldn’t look at them, let alone put them in a vase, and I didn’t want Jamie to see them and ask who they were from.
If Ian didn’t leave them, then who did? I know no one in this village. Who would leave flowers like that without a note? And by the side door too. The front door is right there—dark oak, the centerpiece of the house, but we always use the small white painted door to the side that leads right into the nook and the kitchen. Who would know that?
Who would be walking around on our driveway in the middle of the night?
I close my eyes and feel my heartbeat slow. A deer, you say? Fine, a deer it is.
Somewhere nearby an engine strains for a beat and roars into life.
My eyes shoot open and the fear is back, pressing down like a force crushing my chest. There’s a flash of white light in the crack of the curtains. Headlights. A car. I want to jump out of bed and see the driver, but I can’t. The fear is a beast holding me down.
Last time I checked, deer don’t drive cars, Mark.
CHAPTER 11
Thursday, February 22
45 DAYS TO JAMIE’S BIRTHDAY
Itook a tablet this morning.
After lying awake half the night, listening to any and every sound and scaring myself silly with thoughts of someone breaking in and taking Jamie. After the milk bottle had dropped on the floor at breakfast and it had clattered and bounced on the tiles and spilled the last of the milk everywhere.
After I screamed at Jamie at the top of my voice for being so bloody careless and he hadn’t flinched or told me not to swear. He just stared at me with steely blue eyes, prodding his tongue out against the tooth at the top that’s about to fall out. After I came back from the school drop-off and cried. Pitiful fat tears that dripped onto the kitchen tiles I was supposed to be cleaning, until I was half drowning in self-loathing and guilt.
I took it quick. Like the time you ripped off the bandage above Jamie’s eye when he was three. Remember?
