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He moves closer. ‘Do you think I’m a kid, Hannah? That might work with her, but don’t patronise me. Not after everything.’
I don’t reply. I’m running out of things to say. Nothing is working; Max is steadfast, slowly moving towards me. He stares at me with wild eyes I don’t recognise. How can this be the man I loved?
‘I know everything,’ I say, backing away from him. ‘Your affair with Alice. I know every detail of it.’
He doesn’t look shocked. ‘I know,’ he says.
‘You were seeing her for months. It wasn’t just a one-off mistake.Months.’
His eyes narrow. Confusion? As if he can’t quite work out what I’m doing. Does this mean I have the upper hand? If only for a moment?
‘How did you find out?’ he asks. ‘When?’
Max doesn’t deserve to have me answer his questions. He’s a murderer. I will keep all my knowledge to myself. For what he’s done to Alice. And to Poppy and me. To our family.
‘Answer!’ he shouts, holding up the knife.
‘Don’t do this to Poppy. Please, Max. Let me call Mum to come over and look after the girls. We can go somewhere to talk. Away from here.’
‘You must think I’m crazy,’ he says. He looks desperate now, as if this is causing him pain. Because ultimately, I believe that he loves Poppy, despite what he’s done. ‘Answer my questions, Hannah.’ He speaks quietly, as if he’s already given up on me ever telling him. As if he’s exhausted.
‘Not until you tell me why you did it. Why did you kill Alice?’
He stares at me, and it feels as though the air’s being sucked out of the room. Minutes tick by.As soon as he speaks, this will be the end of everything.
Slowly his mouth opens. It feels like no words are coming out as my brain struggles to compute what he’s saying. All I hear is silence as his mouth moves. But he’s talking, and slowly the words come loud and clear. ‘No,’ he says. ‘No.’ He shakes his head. ‘I know what you’re doing. It wasyou! You’re the one who killed Alice!’
TWENTY-FIVE
Max’s words explode in the air. And then everything I’ve feared becomes reality.
The missing key card. Taylor’s mobile phone. All evidence that can be used to frame someone. I’m trapped and I need to get out of this.
‘You killed Alice,’ I say. ‘And you’ve been trying to kill me.’ I rush towards him, pushing him backwards with all the strength I can muster. He screams out, and the knife clashes to the floor.
I grab it before he’s had a chance to recover, and rush upstairs to Poppy’s room, slamming the door shut in my haste to separate us from Max. There’s no lock, of course, but I’m hoping he won’t risk doing anything in front of the girls.
Ivy’s eyes pop open, and I struggle to regulate my breathing, but I need to stay calm for her sake. ‘What’s happening, Hannah?’ she asks in a tiny voice.
‘Don’t worry, Ivy. I just need to make a call.’ I dial 999 and tell them I think someone’s in my house, trying to keep my voice calm so I don’t scare the girls. I’m sure it’s too late for that, though.
‘Mummy? What’s happening?’ Poppy asks, pulling herself up and rubbing her eyes. It’s always taken a lot to rouse her.
I finish speaking to the police and end the call. ‘Everything’s okay. I just thought I heard something downstairs.’
Immediately Poppy starts to cry. ‘I’m scared,’ she says, through heavy sobs. She holds out her arms and I sit on her bed and hug her tightly. ‘I don’t want anything to happen to you, Mummy.’
‘It won’t,’ I tell her. ‘The police will be here any second. They’ll protect us.’
Ivy gets up from her mattress to join us, and I hug her too, silently apologising to Sarah.
‘I want my mummy,’ she wails, and the clash of both the girls’ cries drowns out any noise from downstairs. I don’t know what Max is doing, but I cling to the hope that his love for Poppy will override anything else, and stop him coming for me.
I try to calm them down, assuring them we’ll be okay. ‘I’m sure it was just something falling downstairs,’ I say, but neither of them seems convinced. They heard me on the phone. They’re old enough to understand what it means that I was driven to call the police.
And when their crying subsides, I listen for sounds. But there’s nothing.
We stay upstairs, huddled together on Poppy’s bed in the torchlight, until finally the doorbell rings. I rush to Poppy’s window and see the police car right outside our house.
