I touched her shoulder and whispered, ‘Immy?’ She didn’t stir. I held a hand against her cheek, preparing myself for the coldness of marble, and I almost sobbed with relief when my fingers touched warm skin. I bent down and whispered, ‘Immy, wake up, baby. Mummy’s here. Mummy’s come to take you home.’
This time her eyes flickered open, and she looked at me blearily for the briefest moment before they fluttered closed again. I lifted her hand. It felt heavy in mine. I threaded my fingers through hers and squeezed. She didn’t squeeze back. Had Sheila drugged Immy to keep her quiet and compliant? With a sinking feeling I realised I was going to have to carry her from this house of horrors because there was no way she could run.
I glanced over my shoulder to check the coast was clear before I pulled off the bedspread and scooped Immy up. She was a dead weight, all floppy arms and legs, and I was reminded of the first time I bathed her when she was a couple of days old. She was as slippery as an eel, and I felt a tremendous weight of responsibility as I ever-so-carefully sponged water over her. Niamh watched from the doorway with an expression on her face that at the time I couldn’t read. I think I understood it now. It was a messy jumble of longing and disgust, fascination and shame, love and loathing. Bloody Bill. He had no inkling of the damage he’d wreaked for a moment’s gratification.
I carried Immy into the hallway, but instead of heading right towards the front door, I turned left to the box room. The door was still locked, so I shifted Immy onto my left hip and felt along the top of the door frame for the key. My fingers closed around it and I unlocked the door and let myself in.
Thing was, I wanted my phone. Logically, I knew it was out of charge and was completely useless to me, but I felt bereft without it. It was a comfort blanket, my adult pacifier, giving me a feeling of safety, a sense that I could summon help at the touch of a button if I needed to. I should have picked it up before I’d climbed out of the window, but anger had made me careless.
The last time I’d seen it, the phone had been screen-side down on the grey carpet tiles next to the pine television unit. Now the floor was covered in shards of glass from the broken window. I hitched Immy higher on my hip and toed through the glass, looking for the phone. It wasn’t there.
Perhaps I’d accidentally kicked it under the unit when I’d climbed out. I laid Immy on the sofa, kissed her forehead and whispered, ‘Won’t be a minute, sweetheart.’
I dragged my foot in an arc to clear a space on the floor, knelt down and peered under the pine unit. But wherever my phone was, it wasn’t there. I glanced under the pine table then inspected under the sofa, too, finding an empty box of travel sickness pills but no iPhone.
Leave the sodding phone, said my pragmatic inner voice, and for once I listened, gathering Immy in my arms and heading back down the hallway. Phones could be replaced. Daughters couldn’t. My arms tightened around Immy as we passed the closed door to Sheila’s mother’s room. I felt a prickle of unease. I’d left the door open… hadn’t I?
Think, Cleo, think.
I had, because I hadn’t had a spare hand to close it behind me. Which meant…
Stop catastrophising, said the voice. A draught of air has blown it shut.
And the voice was probably right, but I had to check, so I turned the handle and opened the door and gazed inside and my heart missed a beat, because although the room was empty, someone had straightened the rumpled bed quilt, and if my arms hadn’t been trembling under the weight of my sleeping daughter, I might have doubted she’d ever been there.
Chapter Forty-Seven
For a moment fear rooted me to the spot, then Immy stirred and sighed, and it was enough to bring me to my senses. I ran along the hallway towards the front door, Immy’s legs flapping against my thighs. I skirted the piles of boxes, my eyes fixed on the door. A couple of metres lay between us and freedom. And I thought I’d made it, was about to reach out to grab the door handle, when Sheila stepped out from the front room, a length of metal glinting in her hand.
I stepped backwards, crashing into a stack of boxes, and they tumbled to the floor behind us. Immy stirred again and mumbled something in my ear, her breath warm on my neck.
Sheila brandished the kitchen knife in front of her. ‘Give her to me,’ she instructed.
It wasn’t the cruel tone of her voice that filled me with dread, nor the hatred in her eyes. It was the fact that she held the knife with such a steady hand she could have been holding a cup of tea.
‘I said, give her to me.’
‘Over my dead body,’ I hissed.
Sheila’s face contorted with fury, and she took a step towards us. The tip of her knife was inches away from Immy’s red tresses. I cupped my hand around the back of Immy’s head, even though it offered about as much protection as a cardboard shield.
‘You’d never use it,’ I said, my eyes on the blade.
‘You want to take that chance?
