Escape From Evil (35 page)

As he was led out of the room, I could see Peter thinking, ‘She can’t do this. She’s not capable of this. I control her. She does whatever I want.’

That’s why he hadn’t resisted. He’d been literally too confused to fight. He’d misjudged me big time. For someone so adept at manipulation, that must have hurt his professional pride. It was satisfying seeing the tables turned. Just like I’d been blind for so long to his obvious true character, he’d come down to Portsmouth expecting me to be the same malleable wallflower who’d left. He’d ignored my new clothes, my weight loss, my dyed hair – he’d even been with me when builders had wolf-whistled and that hadn’t sunk in either. I was a new woman and he never even noticed.

He may not have known me, but I knew him. Which is why, as I locked the door after them and hugged Daniel, sobbing, ‘We’re safe now. Safe at last,’ I didn’t truly believe it. I’d just seen the man of my nightmares escorted from my flat, but however it looked now, Peter was not someone who liked to be beaten. He’d walked away this time because it had been the sensible thing to do. But he would be back. There would be repercussions, I was convinced of it. It was just a question of when.

As a consequence, I didn’t sleep a wink that night. Every cracking twig beneath the window was Peter shinning up a tree. Every engine was his old van idling to a stop. Every creaking floorboard was him with an axe outside my door. By the time Daniel woke up at six, I was a nervous wreck.

After a week of that, I finally entertained the idea that Peter wasn’t coming back. Granny and my new friends assured me that bullies run away when you stand up to them. Peter was the classic bully and I’d well and truly stood up to him.

I’ve realized that I’m a great believer in drawing a line under events and moving on. I suppose that had started, like everything else, with my mother. We’d flitted from place to place for various reasons, but when she decided to give normal living one last go, we’d moved into Telscombe Cliffs. That address was meant to be a fresh start. Since then, I’d done the same thing with Peter and without him. Now, after the horrors of the kidnapping episode, it was time to draw another line.

Our next home was in Chichester Road, in the north end. On paper, it didn’t sound much of an improvement, but it really was, not only because the shared bathroom and kitchen were really clean this time. The building was a normal two-storey house, with three bedrooms. Our two you accessed by turning left at the top of the stairs and the other one by turning right. So even though I had to cross the corridor to reach my other room, there was no one else up that end of the house, so it felt private. As for the rooms themselves, the smaller one was large enough for two single beds, which meant neither of us had to sleep in the living quarters for once. The other room was even better because not only was it large, with an almost floor-to-ceiling window, but it had also previously been used as a bedsit, so it had a work unit with a sink and places for a fridge and micro wave. You can tell I didn’t have the highest expectations, but it was a palace to us.

We’d been there a few days when I received a letter Peter had sent to Granny’s address. He basically apologized and asked to see Daniel again. ‘Call me,’ the letter said.

No way,
I thought, and threw it straight into the bin.

Unfortunately, that was not the end of the story. At some point in the night, my conscience got the better of me. I found myself lying in bed, going over and over how I’d promised my son would know his father. Of course, there were arguments against it – the kidnapping, the threats, the beatings – but these had all been against me. Peter had never actually hurt Daniel. On the contrary, he’d been a good father since we’d separated. And just because I didn’t want him in my life, I shouldn’t prevent Daniel having that opportunity. He could make up his own mind when he was older, but it was my responsibility to do the right thing for now.

It wasn’t an easy decision, but the next morning I retrieved the letter from the bin and called Peter. I could tell he was happy, so I tested him.

‘I need a favour,’ I said.

‘You name it.’

‘I want my fridge, tumble dryer and microwave.’ I’d paid for all the white goods at Bathgate from my tea shop profits. It was only fair that I had them now.

There was a pause. Then, ‘I’ll bring them down tomorrow.’

For once, he was as good as his word. There was a moment just before he pulled up when I worried that he’d brought a weapon to get his revenge, but I honestly didn’t think so. He was so desperate to get us all back together again, he wouldn’t do that. And, I thought, he’d seen the size of the bailiffs at my disposal.

Granny told me I was stupid to let him back into Daniel’s life, but I ignored her. When Daniel looked pleased to see his dad, I knew I’d done the right thing.

While Peter lugged my furniture into the room, I happened to mention how nice it would be if there were a door across our corridor.

‘Then my two rooms would feel joined, like a flat.’

He thought that was a great idea.

‘I’ll get the door for you,’ he offered. ‘I’ve got the van.’

So off he went and, for the second time in two days, I scratched my head.
Why is he being so nice?

The surprises continued. When Peter returned, he had a really heavy door and frame.

‘That doesn’t look cheap,’ I said, worried about paying him back.

‘It wasn’t cheap, but don’t worry. It’s a fire door. This baby will give you thirty minutes of protection. I can’t have my family at risk, can I?’

Half an hour later, he’d got tools from somewhere and was drilling and banging and sawing to install my new door and its frame. Inspired by his work, I took Daniel out to a DIY shop and then I painted the whole corridor a vivid, rich burgundy – the same colour I still paint everything! It was a really enjoyable day. Daniel scampered around happily, I got to indulge in my love of painting and Peter went hours without once asking me to move back in with him.

By nine o’clock we were all done and I was ready to drop. God knows how Peter felt after a long drive and all that DIY. So I said, ‘Look, Peter, it’s too late for you to go home now. If you want, you can have the sofa in the lounge and leave in the morning.’

He was like a puppy with two tails at the idea. I didn’t feel I was being reckless. The two rooms had their own locks and were separated by a corridor. He couldn’t get to us. And in any case, as I told him before I turned the lights out, ‘I’m pleased you seem to be over your obsession with us getting back together.’

Despite going to bed so early, being roused by the sound of ferocious banging on your bedroom door at four in the morning is a hell of a rude awakening. It took me ages to come round. Then the banging stopped and there was a crash. And Peter was standing in my room.

‘Get out!’ I screamed, but I realized he was already shouting.

‘Get up, get dressed – there’s a fire!’

It still took me a few more seconds to compute. For a while, I was just traumatized by the sight of my dangerous, clearly agitated husband. Only when I saw traces of smoke wafting in from the corridor did it sink in.
Fire.

Suddenly I was in full self-preservation mode. Seconds later, dressed only in my pyjamas and clutching a still-sleeping Daniel, I staggered out of the room. The smoke was coming from underneath the fire door.

‘Thank God you put that up,’ I said to Peter.

‘Yeah, well, we can’t go that way,’ he said.

I agreed. I think we’d seen the same film. You never open a door with fire behind it because the oxygen sends it all up. We’d have an inferno on our hands.

It was late, I was tired and there was a fire in my house, but I wasn’t panicking. Not yet. I said, ‘We’re only on the first floor. We can jump out of our window onto the bay window below and get down to the ground.’

The lounge’s window configuration was the same as in every house in the street: one great pane of glass and three louvre panels above it. By the time I reached it, Peter was already there, frying pan in his hand. He looked at me, I think for permission, and I nodded. Then he took an almighty swipe at the glass – and the large metal pan just bounced off it.

‘Fucking hell!’ he shouted, then threw the frying pan as hard as he could at the window. Still nothing. By now the smoke was seeping under the lounge door fast. It reminded me of one of those
Top of the Pops
stages, where you can’t see the performers’ feet for all the dry ice.

Okay,
I thought,
now it’s time to panic.

I attacked that window with anything I could lay my hands on, but it was the same effect.

‘There’s no way this is glass!’

‘Glass or not,’ Peter said, desperation evident in his voice, ‘this will do it.’

I watched as he heaved the microwave onto his shoulder. Then he span round quickly and launched this bloody great thing at the window. And yet again it came straight back.

Peter was genuinely scared now. I’d never seen that before. If anything, that just made me calmer.

‘We’ll have to go out the louvres,’ I said and, reaching up to the higher windows, smacked at them with a rolling pin. They smashed first time, glass raining down onto the ledge below. Peter took over and, like a man possessed, knocked every piece out of the frame.

It was getting hard to see out of the window, but I knew my plan to land on the bay window below had just got much harder. Most importantly, how was I going to get Daniel out of there?

‘I’ll go first,’ Peter said. ‘You can pass him to me,’ and before I could answer he was already hauling himself through the small, rectangular window. That’s the moment when I admitted to myself that I could never trust Peter again. Not after the kidnapping. I was completely uncomfortable with the idea of letting Daniel out of my hands, not with his father on the outside and me trapped inside.
But what else can I do? I can’t climb out with him.

That was when the miracle happened.

I nearly didn’t include this in my story because it sounds too fantastical. But just as I was agonizing about passing my child over to the man who had abducted and threatened him, I saw a council worker on a cherry-picker fixing a light further up the street. He was wrapped up in a hi-vis coat and helmet, but to me he looked like Superman.

You have never heard a woman scream as loudly as I did. The bloke looked across and took a few moments to process the scene. Then he leapt down and drove his truck over at top speed. Peter was shouting at me to pass Daniel out, but I held on. As long as the smoke was only waist high, I could keep Daniel above my head in the clear air. Then, like an angel from the heavens, the cherry-picker rose before my very eyes and my saviour in day-glo yellow plucked my son to safety.

As soon as Daniel was out of my hands, I screamed at the stranger to get away from the building. ‘Go, go, I’ll be all right!’ I was terrified the house would explode and I didn’t want him caught in the crossfire, not with the precious cargo he was carrying. In any case, if Peter could get out of the window, then so could I. I jumped up, swung myself through and, not daring to look down, let myself drop onto the roof of the bay below. The funny thing was, when I opened my eyes, I could see all the thousands of shards of glass near my bare feet, but none of them seemed to have gone in.

A few minutes later I was wrapped in a fireman’s blanket on the other side of the road, cuddling Daniel and watching as the brigade extinguished the blaze. It felt surreal to imagine I’d been in there a few moments earlier. If it weren’t for the heat pouring out of the building, it would have seemed just like a film.

When it was all under control, a fireman told me how lucky we’d been. ‘We estimate another thirty seconds, a minute at most, and the lounge would have been engulfed.’

Thank God Peter woke me up when he did.

I spent the rest of the night at Granny’s, still in a fug from our narrow escape. I presumed Peter was sleeping in his van. I hadn’t bothered to ask. Gradually I became aware of pain in my feet. When Granny looked, she said, ‘Cathy, you’re cut to ribbons. Can’t you feel it?’

I was just beginning to. I think the adrenalin from the fear had blocked the pain out. I spent the rest of the day at the hospital, having tiny flecks of glass tweezered out. The following morning, I called the fire station and asked if it was safe to return for my clothes. They said the staircase was entirely destroyed, but it was okay to use the fire escape at the back of the house, which the other lodger had escaped from.

It’s extremely creepy being in a burnt-out building. A fireman had insisted on accompanying me, but I was still spooked by the charred walls and blackened floors. When I got to my private corridor, I gasped. The fire door was completely gone. And that wasn’t all. All my clothes were missing.

They hadn’t been burnt because the wardrobe was still intact – someone had taken them! Daniel’s had vanished as well. In their place were three men’s jackets.

Someone’s been sleeping here!

With the fireman at my back, I explored the rest of the flat. Everything in the lounge was just as we’d left it, apart from being smoke-damaged. The frying pan and microwave were still on the floor where they’d landed. In fact, the only thing that appeared to be missing was some Fairy Liquid. Every other cleaning agent was lined up neatly, as usual, by the sink. But there was a gap where the Fairy should have been.