‘Oh my God! Sam, what’s happened?’ Though deep down, I already suspected.
That afternoon she told me everything. The perfect couple that she’d led me to believe she and Ari were didn’t exist. It was all a sham.
‘He hates me going out, he hates me wearing nice clothes, he hates me having friends… This is why I don’t like us having our photo taken together. Photos of me withanyonesend him into a violent, jealous rage. I can’t evencallsomeone without him knowing, as he put a bug on my phone… he knows my every move. And he especially hatesyou; he thinks you’re trying to come between us and spoil our relationship.’
It all appeared to make sense to me then, why she’d never invited me up to her apartment and why I’d never met Ari in person. I have to admit, in hindsight, it was pretty clever, very plausible. It never once occurred to me to question anything she was telling me at the time.
‘Youhaveto contact the police,’ I told her as I held her and let her cry it all out in my arms. I felt safe in the role of her comforter; it was a role I was familiar with. It made me feel useful and needed and fed into my co-dependency. ‘You have to tell them what he’s like, what he’s been doing to you!’ I was crying myself now. I couldn’t bear to see her like she was, a shadow of her usual vibrant, vivacious self, her fat, puffy eye rapidly disappearing into her lovely face. This couldn’t be happening to her, not Sam. Only I knew, more than most, that abuse doesn’t discriminate. It really can happen toanyone.
‘You said yourself that the police are useless. Every time I’ve called them for help in the past, they turn up and he switches into Mr Nice Guy again and makes me look likeI’mthe one who’s unhinged! Last time, they threatened to arrestmefor wasting police time – can you believe that?’
‘What?’ My heart rate shot up. This was history repeating itself – the victim-blaming, taking the side of the cunning, covert abuser and re-traumatising the victim while the abuser walks away unscathed. Acute rage burned inside my chest as my PTSD became triggered.Whydo theystilllet this happen? Why do they always let these bastards get away with it? If only the police had taken more notice of my mum back then, if they hadreallylistened to her andbelievedher, then maybe, just maybe, she’d still be alive today. Now, all these years later, they were doing the same thing to my friend Sam, to another beautiful, vibrant and innocent woman who they should be protecting. Nothing, it seemed, had changed. It enraged me.
We made a plan that afternoon, Sam and I, over many tears and as much wine.
‘You know youhaveto leave him, don’t you?’
She nodded, solemnly.
‘He jokes that he’ll kill me if I do.’
‘Jokes?Who jokes about killing their fiancée, Sam? Youhaveto take it seriously – we have to take his threats seriously.Please, Sam,’ I begged her, ‘look at what happened to my mum.’
I was genuinely scared for her. I knew how this story could end. But I could never, at this point, have known the real tragedy it would become.
Sam’s situation was all too believable to me; after all, I’d been here before. At no point did I think it might not actually bereal. The bruises I saw on her body, her swollen black eye, they were real. Her tears and emotions were real too. Isawthem and Ifeltthem. No one invents a lie like that. Why would they?
‘We can do it when he’s next away on business,’ I said, springing into action mode. I felt powerful and determined. ‘We’ll take all your stuff and place it in storage. We’ll do a moonlight flit. You can leave your phone at your apartment, so it looks like you’re at home the whole time on the tracker. Don’t worry,’ – I started to chew my fingernails with anxiety – ‘we’ll get you a new phone, a new number if we have to. Then you come and stay with me until we figure out what’s next, OK? Does Ari know my surname?’
‘Nope, don’t think so, I’ve never told him it.’
‘Does he know where I live?’
She shakes her head.
‘Perfect. Then he won’t find us, will he?’
‘He’s got money, he’ll hire a PI or something.’
‘We’ll get a non-molestation order out on him.I’llprotect you,’ I said. ‘I won’t let him get to you, Sam, Ipromise. If the police won’t help you, thenIwill.’ I seized both of her hands in mine and squeezed them tightly. I don’t think I’d ever been as sincere about anything else before in my life.
‘He goes away again next week,’ she said.
‘We’ll do it then.’
‘If he doesn’t kill me first,’ she sniffed.
‘Over my dead body.’
I wasn’t going to let that happen, not this time,not again.
TWENTY-FOUR
DAN
Molly, the lady from the housing charity, Re-Connex, is clutching her large handbag to her bosom like a protective shield, her brow furrowed in concern as she chews her bottom lip.
‘I was only with her yesterday, and she never mentioned anything to me about taking a trip anywhere. She knows she needs to inform us of her movements, and she’s on a curfew, so she can’t stay anywhere overnight without permission. Has she done something wrong, then? Is that why you’re here? Is Erin in some kind of trouble, because I’m sure whatever it is, it’s all a mistake?’
