‘Now give me the key,’ he continues.
Nina shakes her head and tightens her jaw.
‘Nina,’ he says more firmly, but she won’t back down. ‘Mum,’ he asserts. His use of the word appears to surprise her. I wonder if it’s the first time he’s referred to her as this because she begins to weep. I look to Dylan to gauge his reaction but this is unchartered territory for him and he doesn’t know to respond. However, I can’t allow him to be sidetracked by sympathy for her. I must put myself first.
‘The key is in her pocket,’ I say.
‘Please don’t do this,’ sobs Nina, slowly shaking her head as he approaches her. ‘I’ve only done what’s best. You have to believe me.’
Dylan stands face to face with her. Her nose is running and her cheeks are wet but she doesn’t try and stop him when he slips his hand inside her pocket and pulls out the key ring. ‘This is the right thing to do,’ he says.
‘You’re going to leave me, aren’t you?’ she cries, but he ignores her. Instead, he gives me a smile as if to reassure me that it’s all going to be all right. And I believe him. He is the one good thing to come out of today’s mess. He crouches and slips the key inside the lock.
And then it happens. My grandson who I never thought I’d see again sets me free.
I look to him with such gratitude that I want to cry. Before I can thank him, he says, ‘Come on’, and without looking back to his mother, he slips his arm around my waist and we make our way towards the landing.
The noise appears quickly; the familiar sound of a rattling chain. Dylan and I turn together, but barely have time to register the metal cuff swinging in the air before it comes into contact with his forehead. It knocks him flat on to his back.
‘No!’ I scream and my grandson looks up at me, stunned but unable to comprehend what has just happened. I watch helplessly as Nina lifts the chain and tries to hit him again, but this time she’s not as accurate and leaves part of the doorframe in splinters. There’s something familiar about the deadened rage in her eyes but I don’t have time to dwell on it. Dylan’s not quick enough to move for her third shot, and this one catches him again but on the side of his head. There’s a sickening crunch of metal against bone. This time, she leaves a dent embedded in his skull.
‘Stop it! For God’s sake stop it!’ I plead. ‘He’s your son!’ But she cannot hear me. Nina’s face is once again blank and devoid of all humanity. I look to Dylan again and only when he blinks do I know that he is still alive.
I drop to my knees to try and comfort him but the poor boy is in shock. I grab the oven gloves from the table to stem the blood seeping from the dent in his head, which is beginning to trickle down his face. Flashbacks to the similar injury Nina gave Alistair return thick and fast. ‘It’ll be okay, I promise,’ I tell Dylan, but I don’t know how it will be. ‘Where’s your phone? I’ll call for help.’
I fish around inside his pockets but he pushes me away and slowly turns himself over. He uses his arms to drag himself towards the staircase. Perhaps he is as scared of me as he is of Nina. ‘Oh Dylan,’ I beg, ‘please let me help you. Please give me your phone.’
Now the only sound comes in the form of his desperate wheezes and his clothes brushing against the carpet. I turn to my daughter. ‘Nina!’ I shout, but I can’t get any more words out before she hits me too with the cuff. She wields it clumsily and it strikes my shoulder first, but I dodge it before it can cause too much damage. But it’s second time lucky when it hits the side of my head, full on. My ears ring like church bells and the room becomes murky and threatens to darken further. I fight to remain conscious. I’m aware of Nina crouching over me but I can’t focus on what she’s doing.Stay awake, I tell myself.Stay awake and help Dylan. He is now on his front, legs stretched behind him, using his elbows and hands to crawl slowly away from both of us.
As my sight returns, my head is already pounding but somehow, I clamber to my feet. But when I try to approach Dylan, I am too unsteady and fall into the wall. He is in a much worse state than I am and yet somehow he has found the strength to begin pulling himself down the staircase, step by step. Once he has managed the first four, he loses his balance. He slides down the rest, hitting his head against the newel post before coming to land at an awkward angle at the base. I catch a glimpse of his face and his eyes are wide open but he is no longer blinking.
‘Dylan!’ I move towards him but only get so far before I tumble face down to the floor. A searing pain shoots up my leg from where I must have torn something inside. After hitting me with the cuff for the third time, Nina reattaches it to my ankle.
‘Look at what you’ve done,’ I bellow, and turn to glare at her. She is motionless, watching us in satisfaction like a gamesmaster who knows her opponents have no chance of winning but is allowing them to go through the motions.
And now it’s my turn to lose control. I grab Nina’s leg and start punching it and biting it and clawing at it like a wild animal, until she wrestles free and kicks me full in the face. There’s a sharp cracking sound and it feels as if the front of my head will explode. She’s broken my nose, I’m sure of it. I taste blood in my mouth and it trickles down my throat, choking me.
‘You have killed your son!’ I continue, then my head starts spinning again, my hearing becomes distorted and my vision blurs. I want to pull myself to my feet and launch at her again but I can barely make her out as she clamps my head with her hands and drags me to the top of the first-floor staircase. I think she’s about to push me down it, but instead she continues to drag me along the landing until we reach the second-floor staircase in my section of the house. Then she slams the partition door shut and locks it.
‘Nina,’ I scream. ‘Nina! Let me out of here!’
I’m still flat on my back and can’t see what I’m doing, but I feel around the wall and scratch at the egg boxes, bending my fingernails backwards as I try to tear them off. I pound at them with my fists, knowing that I can be heard from the hole I’ve made, but no longer caring.
My need for freedom has come at a horrendous expense. Nina has killed Dylan, as I always feared she would. And in begging for his help, I am responsible too. This is just as much my fault as it is hers.
Nina can no longer control herself. When she murdered her father, he deserved it. But Dylan didn’t; he was innocent. And so was Sally Ann Mitchell.
CHAPTER 72
MAGGIE
TWENTY-THREE YEARS EARLIER
Elsie is puzzled at the sight of the swaddled newborn on the sofa in the basement. She looks at him and then at me. ‘Who’s this?’ she asks. ‘And why are you down here?’
I just about manage to release the words ‘My grandson’ before the tears fall. And then I blurt out the whole sorry mess. My guilt erupts like a volcano. And too much of it has built up inside me to spare her anything. From Nina’s first pregnancy to her abusive father, and why I’d told Nina that her baby was born dead: it all comes out in the wash. I’m circling the edge of a nervous breakdown and I need help.
By the time I have finished, Elsie has picked Dylan up and is cradling him. I look at them both, paralysed by fear of what I’ve just done and what is to come. I’m ready for Elsie to read me the riot act and tell me what I know already: I’m out of my depth and I should contact the police. But sometimes, people have a way of surprising you.
