Sam’s neck muscles were straining but he reined it in, took a breath before he spoke. ‘That was different, that was after. Can you blame me, after what had happened? But I know what I saw. You think I’d just go around stabbing my dad for nothing?’ He looked at his sister. ‘Tell her, Lib.’
Libby wiped her tears on the cuff of her cardie, the material pulled down over her hands.
‘I told you already what he’s been doing,’ she said. ‘When you walked me back to the house. I wasn’t lying. I promise.’
‘That’s fine. I had to ask. I have to be clear, you understand?’
Libby nodded.
Ellie put a hand on her thigh. ‘We have to go and report this, though, you realise that? Nothing will change unless we get the police involved. It doesn’t matter that your dad’s a cop. If you tell them what you told me, they’ll arrest him, I promise.’
‘What about Sam?’ Libby said, looking up.
Ellie looked too. ‘That depends.’
‘On what?’ Sam said.
‘On what Jack tells the investigating officers.’
‘You mean he hasn’t told them that it was me who stabbed him?’
Ellie shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. He said he hadn’t. And they never mentioned it when they questioned me. Obviously you being missing is suspicious, but there’s no law against leaving home and not getting in touch if you’re over sixteen. If Jack doesn’t drop you in it you could be OK.’
‘Will he drop me in it?’
Ellie thought about that. If Jack was arrested, what would he do? Fight it? Retaliate against Sam? Cut his losses and admit what he’d done? She couldn’t untangle it in her mind. He said he just wanted his family back. But he’d been raping his own daughter.
‘I don’t honestly know,’ she said. ‘I hope not.’
This was the only way forward. If Libby reported Jack, he’d surely be taken into custody, then Libby and Sam could go home. Ellie tried to imagine the atmosphere in that house, between the two of them and their mum, under the cloud of Libby’s accusations. It wouldn’t be easy, but whatever path they took now wouldn’t be easy.
Ellie put an arm around Libby, who hunched up under the touch.
‘The pair of you stay here tonight,’ she said. ‘Then first thing tomorrow I’ll come and get Libby, and we can go to the police station together. You won’t have to see your dad. We’ll talk to someone there and they’ll deal with it. OK?’
Libby nodded. ‘OK.’
Ellie stood up and walked towards the stairs. Sam walked with her.
‘Just sit tight,’ Ellie said, then turned to look at Libby. ‘Will she be OK?’
Sam nodded. ‘I’ll look after her.’
‘You’re a good brother,’ Ellie said.
She reached up and stroked his cheek, felt him flinch.
‘See you tomorrow,’ she said.
29
It was dark now as Ellie stood at her front door. She brushed the familiar black wood with her fingers. She’d lived here for so long she knew every knot and whorl, every grain in the surface, every loose floorboard in the hallway, every cracked tile in the bathroom. The dent in the living-room wall where the Wii remote had flown out of Logan’s hand, narrowly missing Ben and the television. The stiff drawer on the wardrobe in her room where he’d stuffed a piece of Lego into the mechanism.
Her home was made up of a million reminders, its character shaped by the people who had lived in it. The house at Inchcolm Terrace must be the same. What did Sam and Libby know about that place that no one else did, what secrets did they have from the world?
She closed her eyes and imagined the front door opening, Logan bustling past with his bag and a banana in his hand, in a rush to get to school. No time to chat, hardly even looking up, that eternal teenage hurry, locked in a world of his own importance.
She opened her eyes, unlocked the door and stepped inside.
‘Honey, is that you?’ Ben’s voice from the kitchen.
He appeared in the doorway. Dishevelled, still needing a shave and a haircut, his hoodie frayed and dirty. He was the love of her life, though, she just had to try really hard to remember how all that worked.
‘God, I was worried sick.’
It was the kind of thing they used to say as a joke if one of them was late back from work. Hamming it up for Logan’s benefit, an in-joke about being a real, proper couple who didn’t need to have overblown displays of affection. One of them would rush to the door, overdoing it, showing off, like something from Gone with the Wind. But this wasn’t a joke and anyway there was no one else here, no audience to appreciate it.
He came over and put his arms round her. He needed a shower, but the smell of his sweat was so comforting she was glad he hadn’t washed. She felt her shoulders shrug with the beginning of a sob, tears in her eyes as she reached round his waist and linked her fingers together.
‘It’s OK,’ he said.
But he was wrong, it wasn’t OK.
‘Come on through,’ he said.
She didn’t want to let go, but allowed herself to be led to the kitchen. The overhead light seemed too bright after the gloominess of the hallway, and she squinted.
He pulled a chair out for her then put the kettle on.
So much in their lives had happened in this kitchen. She remembered wandering around here in the night, half asleep, trying to measure baby powder into a bottle, boiling the kettle, shaking it together then cooling it down in a bowl of water. She remembered dabbing at Logan’s knee with antiseptic wipes, blood dripping on the laminate, soaking through the ineffectual plaster she put on, then grabbing her keys to take him to A&E when the cut wouldn’t stop bleeding.
The rush of the kettle boiling filled the room.
‘They kept you for hours,’ Ben said as the kettle clicked off.
Ellie turned to him. ‘Sorry?’
‘The police. It’s four hours since you went to the station. They weren’t interviewing you that whole time, surely?’
Ellie shook her head. ‘Lots of waiting around.’
He placed a mug of green tea in front of her then pulled out the chair opposite.
‘So,’ he said. He had a kind but worried look on his face.
‘What?’
Ben angled his head and narrowed his eyes. An expression she was so familiar with, like looking in a mirror.
‘I presume you’re going to tell me what that whole police thing was about, and why you didn’t want me to come with you.’
Ellie picked up her tea and brought it to her lips but it was too hot to drink. She blew across the top, watching the ripples as they pushed away from her. She clutched at the warmth of the mug with both hands, her thumbs through the handle.
She took a long breath. ‘It was about that police officer who was attacked.’
Ben looked confused.
‘The one up at Inchcolm Terrace,’ Ellie said.
Ben frowned, his mouth squint. ‘Yeah, I know, it’s not like we have loads of cops getting stabbed around here. But what’s that got to do with you?’
Ellie wanted to be somewhere else. Tucked up in bed, or at the bottom of the ocean, maybe. But she needed to be here and she needed to tell him.
‘I went to see his wife,’ she said.
‘Why?’
‘To speak to her.’
‘What about?’
‘About what’s been going on in her house.’
Ben shook his head, still not understanding. ‘What has been going on in her house?’
‘Bad things.’
‘How would you know?’ Ben’s face was crumpled. ‘You don’t know them.’
Ellie shook her head. ‘I didn’t, before all this.’
‘But you do now?’ Ben said.
Ellie nodded. ‘Kind of.’
She put her mug down and laid her hands in her lap. She rubbed at her thumb with her other hand. Ben reached over and placed a hand on top of hers.