Nina and I are frozen in the moment, unable to move. I remain on the floor and she looms above me with the knife in her hand. The voice is enough to snap her from her psychosis, something I’ve never been able to do.
We gawp at the unexplained visitor who has come crashing into our twisted world. My daughter aside, he is the first person I have come face to face with since she locked me up. I stare at the slim young man with his dark hair and pale complexion and wonder if my desperate brain is playing tricks on me. I give serious consideration as to whether she’s already stabbed me and I’m in the last throes of death and imagining him. Then something clicks. His frame is familiar; he’s Nina’s friend, and the man I’ve seen from a distance through my bedroom window. He is the reason I’ve been carving out a hole in the wall to alert him to my existence. But now that he’s standing in front of me, I am inert.
The silence is interrupted by the sound of metal on wood as Nina places the knife back on the table. Then she takes a step away from me as if this might alter her friend’s perception of the chaos he’s witnessing. I remain where I am. He looks confused and scared.
‘What are you doing here?’ she asks, the wind taken from her sails.
‘You messaged me threatening to kill yourself if I didn’t respond.’ She cocks her head to stare at him as if she can’t recall doing that. ‘Lucky your front door was unlocked. What’s going on?’ he continues.
His piercing grey eyes look at her, then me, and back at her again. I attempt to rise to my feet but my whole body is shaking like a leaf, making it difficult to stand unaided. I shuffle forward on my bottom like an infant, then use my hands to grip a chair and pull myself up. He moves towards me and places his hand under my arm until I’m on my feet. My legs are still threatening to falter so I steady myself against the tabletop. The noise of the chain draws his attention. He can’t seem to comprehend why it’s attached to my ankle.
‘Dylan,’ Nina begins, her voice quavering. ‘You came.’
I freeze. What did she just say?‘Dylan?’ I repeat, and look to her and then at her friend. And for a split second, I don’t see him, I see Jon Hunter. I gasp and throw my hands over my mouth as I recognise him as the baby I last saw being carried from the basement in the hope that I might save him from this madness.
‘You’re ... you’re my grandson!’ I whisper.
My words appear to be frightening him further and he turns to Nina. ‘I have grandparents? You told me they were all dead!’
Somehow, I’m able to put my thoughts in order. ‘She’s been keeping me a prisoner for two years,’ I spit. ‘Please, you have to help me.’
‘Nina?’ Dylan replies. ‘Is this true?’
‘She’s poorly,’ Nina retaliates. ‘She has dementia and she doesn’t know what she’s saying. I’m her carer. I look after her.’
‘I have no such thing,’ I hit back. ‘I’ve been locked upstairs against my will. Look.’
Dylan’s eyes follow mine to the cuff and the chain that leads along the corridor and back up the stairs to my floor. ‘Why do you have her chained up?’ he asks.
‘For when I’m at work ... It’s for her own safety. It’s not as bad as it looks. She’s a danger to herself when she’s alone – she goes wandering off. And I can’t afford to put her in a care home.’
‘But you’re at home now, so why is she still padlocked?’
‘Dylan, don’t listen to her, she’s lying,’ I plead and grab at his arm. ‘Please get me out of here or call the police, call anyone, just get me away from her and let the authorities decide who’s telling the truth.’
‘No, don’t,’ Nina says. ‘She’s manipulating you in the same way Jane does, you know I wouldn’t lie to you.’ She takes his other arm in her hands. ‘You mean everything to me. I wouldn’t risk that by not being honest with you.’
‘Then why were you holding a knife above her when I arrived?’
‘I ... I ... I was just trying to scare her into doing what she’s told.’
Dylan shakes his head.
‘You have to believe me,’ she begs. ‘She might look harmless but you don’t know what she’s capable of. She killed my dad – your grandfather – then she tried to keep you and me apart ... She’s a monster.’
When Dylan’s jaw drops and his eyes blaze with fear, I know that he believes me.
‘I gave you away to Jane because she was a good woman and because I was trying to protect you from Nina,’ I interrupt. ‘You must believe me when I say that my daughter isn’t well. Look at what she’s doing to me. If you hadn’t arrived when you did, I’d be dead.’
Nina’s face creases, confusion contorting it, and it’s as if what I’m saying is news to her. Her psychotic rage has taken away any memory of what she was about to do to me with that knife.
‘Where’s the key for her padlock?’ Dylan asks, expressionless.
She shoots him a look that displays her disappointment. ‘You’re not listening to me!’ she counters. ‘She’s fooling you – you don’t know what she’s like. You can’t take her side.’
‘But I can’t just pretend I haven’t seen that you have my grandmother chained up in your house! Whatever’s going on in here isn’t normal. You both need help.’
Nina opens her mouth but struggles to find the right words because she knows that what he is saying is correct. Nothing about us or this house or our family is normal. It stopped being that way the day Alistair began abusing his daughter.
