Tears stream down Quinn’s cheeks.
I can’t believe Ethan said all that. I feel as though I don’t know him at all. Harry steps closer to his mum and puts his arms around her. ‘Leave my mum alone.’ Harry looks scared and blinks repeatedly.
Everyone is scared of Ethan and I am too. ‘Ethan, leave it.’
‘No. There is something sick about this lane and these people,’ he shouts, knowing that at the very least Zoe would have heard. ‘I tell you what, for whoever’s listening or curtain twitching,’ his voice is louder still, ‘Hurt my family, I will kill you.’
Quinn holds Harry closely.
I turn my head and my heart sinks when I see a police officer standing behind us with his radio in one hand. ‘Come with me please, sir.’
Ethan lets out a frustrated roar and follows the officer back up Quinn’s drive.
I place a gentle hand on Quinn’s arm. ‘I’m really sorry, Quinn. I know you wouldn’t have broken into our house.’ I wonder now if she’ll ever want to see me again.
She smiles sympathetically. ‘It’s okay. I’d be upset if someone broke into our house but it wasn’t us. Diggerty escaped, he escapes a lot, but he always comes when we call him. Someone took our dog, and they must have left him in your house. Whoever’s playing with you is playing with me too, and I’m scared. Please take care, Gemma. We don’t know how dangerous this person might be. Call me if you need anything, and I’m sure Ethan will calm down soon.’
Harry paces by the door with the dog, and I hear Ethan’s voice coming from the lane. I need to find out what’s going on. Quinn places a protective arm around her son.
‘I’m glad you called the police,’ Quinn says. ‘Maybe they can get to the bottom of all this.’ I think she can tell I’m itching to leave but I don’t want to go until I know Quinn and I are definitely okay. ‘Go,’ she says. ‘You need to be with him and please tell him that I’d never do anything to hurt you all.’
‘Thanks, Quinn.’
I leave her and hurry back. There is a police car parked outside ours. Ethan has calmed down now and they’re talking so I join them.
‘Gemma, the kind officer is going to take a look at the house, check the rest of it to see if there is anyone still in there.’
I let out a slow breath, relieved that the police officer believes us – well that and the fact that he doesn’t seem to be taking Ethan to the station for threatening to kill all the neighbours. I think he can see this is all because we’re frustrated and upset. As we head to ours, I glance back at Ray’s house again and he appears at the end of his drive. He’s lurking in the darkness with a grin on his face. He almost blends into the side of his hedge, but I can tell he wanted me to see him. It wasn’t Quinn and maybe it wasn’t Tessa’s nephew, James. Ray has it in for us, or should I say, me. He remembers the past and he remembers me and what I did.
Quinn and I thought it would be funny to spray paint one of the huge pond ornaments in that garden pink. My heart sinks when I think back to Aunt Dorette telling me that someone had vandalised a neighbour’s pond and that the spray paint had killed most of the fish. I didn’t want to go into that garden but I did because Quinn said it would be funny and, wanting her approval, I went along with it. I’m as much to blame and I can’t go back in time and change things, but I realise that Ray is a man who never forgets. He remembers everything. That’s what was said in the hamper note. I wonder if he knows everything about the day Jasmine disappeared.
I’m still standing on the pavement. Zoe passes with her dog and nods at me as she heads back towards where she lives.
It’s just me and Ray, here alone on the street. No one else would see him if they walked by, but I can see the whites of his eyes and the outline of his face as the moonlight catches it.
He steps out from the hedge. ‘Go back to where you came from, Gemma. Go back before it’s too late.’
Twenty-Three
Gemma
The police officer is talking to Ethan on the landing. ‘I can’t see where the intruder entered your property but if you want I can send an officer over tomorrow to discuss security with you. Can you take me to the room where you found the dog?’
I hurry upstairs to join them.
Ethan leads the police officer to the balcony. ‘It was here.’
‘Could it have slipped through the door when you came and went?’
‘I didn’t go out around that time,’ Ethan replies, then they glance at me as I enter. ‘You were downstairs, Gemma. Did you open the door for anything? You said you were checking the post?’ Our post box, like everyone else’s, is at the end of the drive but I lied to Ethan. I didn’t come downstairs to get the post; I came down to look for the missing letter, which I definitely couldn’t mention to the police officer as I stole it from Quinn’s post box. I put my hand in my pocket. The necklace is still there.
‘I, err, I didn’t get that far. I went into the main living space to see what you’d done, then I heard someone walking around upstairs.’
‘So, you definitely didn’t open the front door for anything?’ the police officer asks.
I shake my head. ‘No.’
The police officer pokes around the room and the balcony. ‘I think you need to do something about this. It’s not safe.’
