Escape From Evil (37 page)

I remember being really uncomfortable lying on our two-seater sofa, which is weird when you consider the pain I was planning to inflict on my body any moment. But I’ve always liked things just so. From smoking Dunhill instead of Rothmans to rushing Daniel into private education when I couldn’t even afford to eat, that’s how I think. At that moment it seemed important to be comfy.

I’ll be honest, I didn’t want to go through with it, but in no way was it a cry for help. I wasn’t doing it for attention or sympathy, like Peter had with his overdose and slashed wrists. I had no phone, Daniel was away for two nights and hardly anyone knew my address anyway. When you moved as often as I did, friends fell by the wayside. Killing myself was the last thing I wanted to do, but I’d tried everything else. I couldn’t see another way out of my situation. I’d worked my fingers to the bone and it hadn’t been enough. I didn’t deserve to have a beautiful son if I couldn’t look after him.

Thinking of Daniel led me to my mother. Where was she when I needed her?

‘Help me, Mum,’ I heard myself call out. ‘Tell me what to do!’ I stared at the ceiling, waiting.

And she didn’t answer.

I so wanted her to. I really thought she would. Then I thought,
You’re no fucking good to me either, are you?
and I started to take the pills.

I didn’t tip them in. I just had one, took a sip of water and swallowed. When that was gone, I did it again. But there was no hurry. I wanted to do it right, but I also wanted to give my mother every chance to step in, to make me put them down. If she could just do one thing for me, now was her chance.

I was probably taking one tablet a minute and by now I’d had ten. It was a nice round number, but there were still plenty to go. I’d read that as few as thirty tablets could be lethal. I had five times that in my box and I intended to take every one. I reached once more for the bottle and then I stopped. There was a noise from the back of the house. Someone was knocking.

Wiping the tears from my face, I made my way through the darkness towards the half-light of the door. When I opened it, I could not believe my eyes.

‘Andy? What are you doing here?’

Steve’s old friend laughed. ‘It’s a long story, Cathy. Can I come in?’

I nearly turned him away, but he looked so happy to see me, I thought,
I can finish this later. I’ve got all night.

Then Andy told me his ‘long story’ and I knew I wouldn’t be going back to my pills. Apparently, Steve had only recently told him where I’d moved to. Even then, he’d just said ‘Campbell Road’, no number. So tonight, of all nights, Andy had decided to start at one end of the street and knock on every door. He’d got to number 32 and nearly walked past, but something made him check round the side. He saw my door and that was that.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. It was so random. There was only one explanation.

‘Thank you, Mum,’ I whispered.

I knew she wouldn’t let me down. She’d sent a guardian angel. It was as miraculous and unbelievable as the council worker on his cherry-picker.
Maybe he was sent by Mum as well?

I don’t know what was better, seeing a friendly face or having proof that my mother hadn’t given up on me. I blurted out the full story to Andy and he just looked at me like I was daft. ‘It’s only money,’ he said. ‘It’s not worth getting like this for the sake of a few quid.’

He had a couple of coins on him, so he fed the meter and, for the first time in ages, we had light and heating. Then he said, ‘Wait here, I’ll be back in a minute.’ It was closer to ten, but when he returned it was with a bag of groceries – tea, coffee, sugar, milk and wine – and a takeaway.

In the space of half an hour, I’d gone from the lowest I’d ever felt to thinking I could take on all-comers. Nothing had changed; I was still poor. But the fight was back. I wasn’t a loser. I would never sink that low again.

With a clear head, I looked again at my options. With the car, which I needed to ferry Daniel around, his nursery and our rent, something had to give. It had to be the nursery, but, with Daniel coming up to school age, that wasn’t the end of the world. I hatched a plan – but it needed Peter’s help and a lot of trust on my part.

I enrolled Daniel in a school closer to Leigh Park than my own house and Peter and I now split childcare duties. I would take Daniel to school on a Monday, but that night and Tuesday he would stay at Peter’s. On Wednesday I would collect him from school and drop him back Thursday morning, then Peter would do the same that night and I would pick him up Friday and have him for the weekend. It was hell at first, but we settled into a rhythm. And it saved me money – because Peter charged less than the school.

I couldn’t believe it when he actually asked for payment to look after Daniel. But he knew I was desperate. I was trapped in that cycle of thinking my job was the most important thing in the world and I wanted to keep it. So, obviously, I agreed to his terms. Once a week I’d give him £50 and hate him for it every time.

I didn’t have a clue what Peter did with the money, although he clearly wasn’t spending it on the crappy gifts he still gave me whenever I visited. They were usually straight out of the car window as soon as I turned out of his road. I say usually because there was one that I didn’t throw away – for the simple reason that I’d already lost it once.

I was just about to leave Peter’s flat when he leapt up and said, ‘I’ve got something for you.’ He disappeared into his bedroom and returned with something small and shiny. It was a ring, but I couldn’t understand why he was giving it to me.

‘I was walking past a pawnbroker’s this morning and it was just there in the window.’

I still couldn’t see the relevance until I saw the scratch on the gold.

‘It’s your mother’s ring, Cathy, the one that was stolen!’

I turned it over and over. It really was. But how had it ended up in a pawnshop in Havant? More importantly, as I’d never even worn it and only kept it in the box, how the hell had Peter recognized it as mine?

I knew there was only one answer. He’d stolen it in the first place.
And,
I realized,
those must have been his jackets hanging up.
He was the one living back at the burnt-out flat; he was the one who’d got rid of my clothes. But that still didn’t explain the missing Fairy Liquid . . .

I was happy to get my ring back and I didn’t honestly lose much sleep over how Peter had acquired it.
He’s never going to change.

For his part, Peter carried on trying to impress me with more ridiculous things, including, once, a membership card to a local casino called Stanleys. He seemed pretty proud of it, although it meant nothing to me. I certainly had never gambled and I wasn’t aware he was interested in it either. As long as it didn’t affect his ability to look after my son, I didn’t really care.

It’s funny how quickly things change. One of the first things I’d done to get myself financially straight was take a barmaid’s job at the Fox & Hounds in Denmead. That’s where I met the next man in my life, also called Steve. If Steve 1 had been the polar opposite of Peter personality-wise, Steve 2 was the physical antithesis. He was six foot tall, broad, blond and about four years older than me – superior to Peter in every way. He also had a Vauxhall Cavalier SRi, which I thought made him stand out.

Steve worked for a small plastic fabrication company based in a couple of farm sheds. In theory, he could make anything out of plastic, but most commonly you would see his work in supermarkets, displaying the apples and magazines and everything in between. I offered to come in to help with selling and proved so effective at it that we decided to go into business together. A wealthy friend of his put up the money, but we would all be equal partners and directors: she did the books, Steve did the estimating and I sold. We were the perfect team and success found us very quickly. With accounts of the calibre of John Lewis and Waitrose soon coming our way, we felt justifiably proud of our efforts.

It wasn’t long before I was beginning to earn decent money and I wanted to invest it in a home for my son and me. The first time I viewed the house in Liverpool Road, Fratton, my foot fell through the floor. The state of the rest of the property wasn’t much better, but the price reflected the house’s condition. I’m sure Granny thought I was mad, but I loved the idea of renovating that dilapidated old shell. I still remember so vividly that feeling of fantastic pride when I stepped through the door as the owner for the first time.

I’ve done it!

What’s more, I’d done it without help from any man. That was important to me. I’d missed out on so much growing up without a father that all my life, I realized, I’d been trying to prove I could cope without one. I’d taken a motor-mechanics course with the Army Cadets, aged fifteen, just so I would never have to rely on a man to help me with my Honda; I’d bought and sold second-hand cars; I’d decorated my Bathgate kitchen single-handedly. They were all attempts at proving I could do it on my own – whether I wanted to or not.

Despite my enthusiasm, work on the house was slow, but I realized I had an eye for interiors and, by the time I’d finished you wouldn’t have recognized the place. By then Steve 2 had moved in with us. We were – dare I say – happy. Unfortunately, Peter was always around to keep my feet on the ground.

We’d settled into a nice routine, sharing the childcare, and for a year it worked out just fine. Then, one Thursday night, the phone woke me up. When I saw it was one o’clock in the morning, I panicked. It had to be bad news.

Daniel!

It was Peter on the line, but he assured me Daniel was fine.

‘Thank God.’

‘But I’ve called an ambulance. I think I’m having a heart attack. I need you to come and collect the boy.’

He didn’t have to ask twice. I threw some clothes on, flew out of the house and reached Havant in record time. Since Daniel had been staying there I’d had a spare set of keys, so I let myself into the building. By the time I reached Peter’s door, they were just coming out. Peter had heard me rushing up the stairs.

‘Are you all right?’ I asked, breathless, as Peter handed me a carrier bag of clothes and toys.

‘Probably nothing, but best to be on the safe side,’ he said and clutched his chest for emphasis. I was convinced.

‘Look, we’ll wait till the ambulance gets here.’

‘No, no,’ he insisted. ‘You get that boy home.’ Then he kissed Daniel and said, ‘I’ve already kept him up long enough.’

Peter was adamant we should go, so I scooped Daniel up and off we drove into the night. The next morning I rang the hospital and was told it had been a false alarm. Peter had imagined the symptoms. I was actually annoyed. All that worry for nothing. Then I remembered the pathetic attempts at cutting his wrists and the overdose of Amitriptyline.

The man’s either a hypochondriac or an attention-seeker – or both!

Over the course of about ten months, Peter called me out three times in the middle of the night on spurious ‘heart attack’ errands. So when the phone rang in the early hours one Wednesday night, I was almost resigned to the news at the other end.

‘It’s my heart again. I think this is the big one. Will you come for Daniel?’

By now I didn’t even bother getting dressed. I just threw on a gown over my pyjamas, found my car keys and set off. It was only as I pulled up outside Peter’s building that I thought,
I’ve left my keys at home. What if he really is ill this time? I hope he’s well enough to buzz me in.

I shouldn’t have worried. As I ran up to the front door, I could see Peter walking Daniel down the stairs. He obviously wasn’t at death’s door, but as usual I offered to wait until the ambulance arrived.

You never know – this could be the one.

But Peter shooed us away. ‘Get that boy home,’ he insisted. ‘He’s had a long day.’

‘Okay,’ I said, ‘if you’re sure.’

He nodded and kissed Daniel goodnight – just as he always did on these nights.

As we pulled away from Peter’s block, I didn’t look back once. I was too tired, too annoyed by the man’s medical paranoia to care what he did when he wasn’t minding Daniel. If I had looked back, however, I might have seen Peter pretend to return to the building, then stop. I might have seen him wait until we were almost out of sight, then jump into his car and speed off in the opposite direction to us. And I might have wondered:
why?

NINETEEN

Apart from Daniel being more tired than usual, the morning of 5 August 1993 had started out like just another normal Thursday. I was at my desk at half past eight and the phone rang at nine. It was Havant police, asking me to come into the station. At that stage, they wouldn’t tell me what it was about. Ominously, though, they said, ‘Bring someone you feel comfortable with. A friend or partner.’

That was it. That was all the information I got. As I gabbled down the phone to Steve, I realized the police hadn’t told me anything at all.

‘You must have done something,’ he said.

‘I haven’t, I swear.’

‘Well, is it Daniel?’

‘No, that was my first question. He’s at school. He’s fine.’

So, heads spinning, we got to Havant police station about an hour later. The PC who took me into a back office gave nothing away. Then a more senior officer came in and broke the news.