Page 77 of The Perfect Son
“No, it wasn’t.” She shakes her head and smiles. The sadness shifts and the Shelley with the grinning face who knocked on my door nearly two months ago is back. “How are you feeling, Tess? Everything OK?”
“Um.” I nod. “I guess.” It seems as though her question has another meaning that I can’t decipher. I pause and think of the menacing threat of the voice on the phone, the man in the lane, the secret project, the figure in the garden, someone in our house, eyes watching me, the loan from Ian you didn’t tell me about. The questions and clues I’m so close to answering. I think of the days I couldn’t get out of bed, and the days I cried and cried. I think of Jamie sitting beside me in the sand and the perfect day we’ve had.
“I think I’m still a bit shaken from the other night, but I’m getting there. It’s like you said—low tides and high tides,” I say, staring out to the sea where the color is dark, almost black. “I’ve been sorting some of the finances out.”
“That’s good.” She’s looking at Jamie now and it’s clear from the expression on her face that she’s missing Dylan. I run the sand through my fingers and I think about Shelley’s son and her desire to be a mother again.
The thought unnerves me and I stand suddenly just as a gust of wind sprinkles us with salt water. The sea is inching up the beach. The place where the family were sitting before is underwater now, and I watch a forgotten spade bob in the waves.
“We should go,” I mumble, throwing things into bags and looking around for my flip-flops.
—
The weather turns quickly. By the time we’ve packed up and made it to the cars the sky is as dark as night, and a strong wind buffets against the open driver’s door. Jamie is in the back seat, his eyes half-closed.
“Thanks for today,” Shelley says.
“I’m glad you could come. It’s been fun. I certainly won’t be forgetting that swim for a while.”
Shelley smiles but there’s something off about her expression and I wonder if she’s still thinking of Dylan. “Tess?”
“Yeah?”
Rain spatters in fat drops from the sky.
“I’d better go. I’ll call you later,” I shout over a rumble of thunder, diving into my car and starting the engine before I get soaked through, before Shelley can say whatever it is she wants to say.
Jamie is asleep before we’ve turned off the coastal road. I glance at the sea a final time. Dark green waves are smashing and frothing against the groins. It’s hard to believe it’s the same sea I swam in today. Rain is pattering down on the windscreen and I flick on the lights and wipers and head for home.
CHAPTER 48
It’s not yet four p.m. but the sky is inky black with storm clouds by the time we’re almost home. Jamie is still asleep and the only noise is the squeak of my windscreen wipers and the roll of my tires on the wet road.
Dread is turning like sour milk in my stomach at the thought of the dark house, the empty rooms, the ringing phone. Will his gravelly voice be waiting for me on the answerphone? Will I smell the odd cologne again? I shiver and flick the indicator, turning off the A12 and onto the country road that winds down into the village.
I’m so busy worrying about the house that I don’t hear the rev of the engine at first. It’s like the 4x4 comes from nowhere—a huge monster of a thing with a metal grille as high as my back windscreen and tinted don’t-mess-with-me windows that drives up close behind me. It’s like it was waiting by the turning for me.
It looks like a Land Rover or something similar, but it’s too dark to be sure.
I stop breathing. Panic is clenching every muscle in my body and roaring in my ears. It’s him, I’m sure it is. The man in the black baseball cap with his menacing threats.“I know everything about you, Tess.”
I’m scared, Mark.
It’ll be OK, Tessie. I promise.
Every part of my being wills my foot to hit the accelerator and race away, but I can’t give in to the mounting fear with Jamie asleep in the back. Instead I hunch forward, my hands gripping the wheel as I peer ahead for any sign of another car and help, but the road ahead is empty.
I ease off the accelerator, praying the monster behind me will whip into the other lane and fly up the road, praying he’s just an impatient wanker wanting to get by, praying I’m wrong.
But I’m not wrong. The 4x4 slows too, closing the gap between my boot and his silver grille until my entire rear window is blocked by its huge mass. It’s so close that I can’t see it in my wing mirrors.
The purr of his engine is reverberating through the metal frame of my car and I’m sure at any moment he will simply tap the accelerator and run us off the road without a moment of thought.
He flicks his lights from low to full beam. Two spotlights brighter than the sun fill my car’s interior with piercing light. I yelp from the pain hitting my eyes and the sudden blindness of it. The road ahead has gone. All I see is white light. I shove the rearview mirror away and the rebounding light out of my eye line.
Shit, shit, shit.
“You wouldn’t want anything to happen to that darling child of yours.”
