“Yes,” I say. “It was a long time ago.”
“But how will I know that you won’t do what you did again?”
“What I did?”
“Yes. How will I know that you won’t leave me like that?”
“Like…? You mean, having dinner with my daughter?”
The softness leaves her face, and it contorts again. “You didn’t just have dinner with your daughter. You disappeared! All day! You didn’t answer my messages! My calls! You literally abandoned me, Stuart. It was one of the worst days of my life. I mean, I know I shouldn’t have done what Idid”—she gestures toward my ear—“but it could have been worse. I could have died. I thought about it, you know. I really did. Ask Mum. She had to pry the knife out of my hand.”
She sets her jaw as she says this. I resist the urge to ask her if her mother put the knife backintoher hand when I returned home. Instead, I sigh and say, “I’m sorry. I really am. But it felt like I had no choice. I felt trapped, and, you know, Jessamine, I can’t be trapped. I’m a free spirit. You can’t keep me here at your will. I need to be free to come and go.” I give her a hopeful smile.
“You are free to come and go.”
“Good,” I say. “So let me out of this room, please, sweetheart.”
She tuts and says, “I only locked the door to keep you safe. You were such a mess. I didn’t know what you might do.”
My mouth is dry with the anticipation of Jessamine’s next moves. My eyes don’t blink. I swallow drily and the sound of the gulp seems to echo around the room.
She cocks her head slightly and puts her hand against my forearm. “Well, we have missed you. The house is a bit of a mess. I’ve been trying my best. But you know how hopeless I am. How hopeless we all are.” There’s that unnerving girlish giggle again.
I laugh in response. “I know,” I say. “God bless my girls.”
If you were watching, you’d never guess. You’d never guess at the hard rock of fear in the pit of my stomach, the throb of dysfunction and darkness running through every word of our exchange. You’d never guess that the sweet, strange woman giggling on my bed tried to kill me four nights ago. You’d never guess that she’d kept me locked in here in this secret room, like a prisoner. You’d never guess.
It’s a sick tableau, but it’s all I’ve got to hold on to.
Stay sweet.
Stay kind.
And somehow, I promise myself, to get away from here without anybody dying in the process.
For the first few days after Jessamine lets me out of the room at the top of the house, I play it safe. I use the time to clean myself, recalibrate, re-center myself. Daisy catches my eye once or twice, but I ward her off with a small shake of my head. No, I say silently, not now. For now, let’s go through the motions, minute by minute, day by day. She returns my look with a knowing nod, and we both carry on with our business. But there are things running through my head, constantly. That room, up there, with the lock on the outside. The knife slicing through my ear. The mystery surrounding Annie’s former husband. The au pair. The clown mask. The dead cat. All of it. Jesus.
Jessamine returns my phone that first night and I see that she has deleted every single message and text from before the day I met Blaise for dinner. I go to send Blaise a message but can’t find her name in my contacts. I look at Jessamine, who is sitting opposite me at the kitchen table, and I say, “Jess. What did you do with Blaise’s number?”
She shrugs.
“No, seriously. Did you delete it?”
I go through my phone then, looking for other contacts: my son, my brother, my nephews, Blaise’s mum, my son’s mum. All gone. All of them. I feel a roar of fury begin to build up in the pit of my gut, but I tamp it down. Instead, I take a deep breath and then let it out very slowly through my nose before I say, “Jessamine? Seriously? My family? My kids? Why would you do that? Why?”
She picks at the hem of the tablecloth and sniffs. “I was drunk,” she says. “Sorry.”
“Sorry?”
“Yes. It was that first night. When I was so, so mad, Stuart. So mad. I mean, I’m sorry I did that, but you shouldn’t have done what you did. You should have told me where you were going, you should have answered my phone calls, replied to my messages. I mean, it was kind ofyour fault, Stuart, and I know I played my part. But really, you played your part too.”
I sigh heavily. I can get the phone numbers back, but it will take work and time and right now all I want to do is get in touch with Blaise. She must be worried about me. So, I don’t pick a fight. I acquiesce. “I’ll go into the village,” I say. “Get something in for dinner. What do you fancy?”
She twitches. “I’ll come with you.”
“It’s fine,” I say. “I can go on my own.”
“But—” Her voice is shrill and dry. “How do I know you’ll come back?”
