Perspiration tickling his forehead and running in rivulets down his back, he tried to lever himself up, hindered by the persistent ache across his torso, the plaster cast on his left forearm. Just do it, he willed himself, making another supreme effort.
Finally, his limbs shaking, a sharp cough rattling his chest, he manoeuvred himself to sitting and eased his legs over the edge of the bed. Cursing his feebleness, he waited again – for the pain to subside, for the strength to pull himself to standing. He wasn’t sure he could make the stairs. What if he couldn’t? What should he do? Call someone? Who? Who the bloody hell was he supposed to call to help him bring his girlfriend in from the garden? He laughed sardonically at the idea that her mother would care. She was the root of Laura’s troubles. He was sure it was more than the loss of her brother that haunted her. There were things she wasn’t telling him, things she was hiding – Sarah had been right about that. He didn’t know how to help her, but he did know he couldn’t just abandon her, leave her at the mercy of a woman who appeared to want to keep her trapped in her own nightmare.
Taking slow, shallow breaths, he groped for the bedside table, managed to get to his feet. Then, grimacing with each step, he made it out of the bedroom and along the landing. The stairs took all his concentration, all his willpower, each jarring step sending another searing pain through him.
Eventually reaching the lounge, he pushed the door open. He was right. The cool air hit him immediately when he stepped in. Whipped up by the wind, the white voiles at the patio window were billowing like the sails of a ghost ship. Beyond them, the silhouette of a woman searching aimlessly for the ghost of the child who’d been lost on just such a forbidding night.
Desperate to help her, to know how to, he made his way through the lounge, wincing as he stepped out. ‘Laura,’ he called quietly. He didn’t want to raise his voice and scare her.
She didn’t flinch, but continued to stare out into the half-light; at the empty garden before her, which he knew was another place in her mind, the dark, lonely place where the lost little boy roamed.
‘Laura …’ Moving towards her, he called her name again.
‘I have to sssave him.’ She responded the way she always did, but Steve knew she wasn’t talking to him.
‘It’s okay, Laura. He’s safe,’ he replied, hoping to persuade her back to the house. He couldn’t lift her if she dropped to her knees. Had no idea how he would encourage her to climb the stairs. Leaving her out here in her skimpy nightclothes and with nothing on her feet wasn’t an option, though. He needed to get her inside. Get her warm. ‘Let’s go back inside, shall we? And then—’
‘He’s not safe,’ Laura said, her voice flat, her gaze faraway. ‘He’s crying. I can hear him. You have to tell Sarah.’
Sarah? Steve squinted at her, uncomprehending. ‘What do I need to tell Sarah?’ he asked her, his heart slowing to a dull thud as his mind ricocheted back to his dream.
‘Ollie.’ She looked at him, her eyes unfocused, filled with palpable fear. ‘Sarah can’t take him away from me. He’s in danger. I have to sssave him.’
Fifty-Three
Sarah
Attempting to get her life back in some sort of order the next morning, Sarah was stuffing clothes into the washing machine when Ollie padded past her, heading towards the back door, which she’d left open after hanging the last load out. ‘Don’t go outside, sweetheart.’ She stopped him short of stepping out into the garden. ‘You don’t have any shoes on.’
‘But I want to play in the sand with my friend,’ he whined, kneading his eyes with one hand and pointing to his sandpit with his other. His invisible friend, she presumed, burying her irritation as she was reminded of the nonsense Laura had fed him.
‘I think your friend might have to go in for his breakfast.’ Not wanting her own bleak mood to affect her little boy, she played along anyway. ‘He’s probably hungry.’
‘No she’s not,’ Ollie said. ‘She just waved to me. She’s waiting for me.’
She? Frowning, Sarah walked over to the door to peer out. The garden was empty. He’d obviously invented another little friend. She wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing or not, but she was glad he didn’t appear to be as fixated as he had been on the little boy who swam with the fish. ‘The sand’s still damp, darling. You can play later when it’s dried out and you’re dressed,’ she told him, closing the door.
‘But I want to play now,’ Ollie insisted, his bottom lip protruding petulantly. He was clearly fractious from too little sleep after waking several times in the night. Tossing and turning herself, worried about Steve, she’d eventually brought him into her bed. He’d had a nightmare, been crying out for his daddy. He knew something was wrong. He’d picked up on her mood. She needed to reassure him. She would have to take him to see Steve as soon as she’d spoken to him and established that he felt up to it.
‘You can’t play outside in bare feet, Ollie. Remember when you cut your foot? It was sore, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ he conceded, blinking back the tears that were brimming.
‘Well then, you don’t want to do that again, do you?’ she said more firmly. Leaving the washing, she took hold of his hand to lead him back to the table. He was definitely overtired, having finally fallen asleep as dawn broke. Knowing the chances of her sleeping herself were nil, she’d got up and come downstairs. She’d already cleaned the house once, with Joe’s help, but her skin still crawled every time she imagined someone desecrating her space, and she’d ended up cleaning everything again like a woman possessed. The place still felt tainted, as if a bad omen hung over it. She’d been tempted to put it up for sale. But then she’d decided she wouldn’t let this hateful person ruin her life any more than she would let Laura endanger her son’s. She would fight. She had no other option. Laura should know that was what mothers did to protect their children, to the death if they had to.
‘How about you show me how to make scrambly as good as Becky does and then we snuggle up and watch a film together?’ she said, injecting some excitement into her voice. She’d made up her mind to spend time with him rather than take him into the nursery today. Her supervisor at the rescue centre had been understanding about her situation when she’d explained, thank goodness. She’d had too much time off lately.
‘Can we watch Land Before Time?’ Ollie asked hopefully.
‘Of course we can. We’ll have a special day together doing whatever we want to do. I think we deserve it, don’t you?’ Sarah smiled, immensely relieved that he’d chosen dinosaurs over fish. However cute they were, she wasn’t sure she would have been able to watch Nemo and Dory.
‘Can I crack the eggs, Mummy?’ he asked, looking a little more enthusiastic.
‘I think you’d better.’ She gave his hand a squeeze and helped him up onto his stool. ‘We’re bound to end up with bits of shell in it if I do it.’
‘Becky gets it out with her stensions,’ Ollie informed her with a knowledgeable little nod. ‘But she told me not to tell you.’