You Against Me

would slip away if she didn’t.

‘Where did you go? I don’t for one minute believe you were at the cinema.’

‘We went to the cottage.’

He blinked at her. ‘You broke in?’

‘The keys were under the pot.’

He took a step forward and glared down at Mum. ‘Did you know this?’

‘Ellie told me, yes.’

‘And you didn’t bother mentioning it?’

‘In the great schemes of things, it felt rather minor.’

‘Rather minor? Well, I’m telling you now, if that place gets ransacked or squatted it will feel rather major, I assure you!’ He slammed the empty tumbler on the coffee table and turned to Ellie. ‘What the hell were you doing there for so long?’

Mum squeezed her hand. This wasn’t the time to share the conversation they’d had in the cafe after the police station.

‘We cooked potatoes.’

‘In the grate? Christ, girl, you could have burned the place down!’

‘But she didn’t,’ Mum said, sitting forward, ‘and surely that’s the point? I don’t think her friend’s likely to ransack the place either.’

‘Her friend? What’s got into you?’

She shook her head at him sadly. ‘I could ask you the same question.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

She didn’t answer and he scooped up his tumbler and went back to the drinks cabinet. ‘You’ll be taken apart in court, you know that, Eleanor? That’s where this is going.’

‘Should you be drinking?’ Mum said. ‘You have to drive the car in a minute.’

He rejected her with a wave. ‘All the sordid details of your little romance will be laid out in court for everyone to see. I hope you’re ready for that. I hope you’ve thought very carefully about it.’

‘It wasn’t sordid.’

He stopped pacing. ‘What did you say?’

‘I said it wasn’t what you think.’

‘Oh, is that right? What was it then, a fairytale romance? Mills and Boon? My God, girl, your brother’s up there packing his bags and you sit here defending some school-girl crush!’

‘Stop talking to her like that!’ Mum stood up, fists clenched.

He stared at her, slack-jawed.

‘This is your daughter,’ she said. ‘Have you forgotten? Can you for a second consider the possibility that this isn’t easy for her either?’

He did consider it. Ellie saw it cross his face – something sad like a shadow. But then he dismissed it and the blind look took over again. ‘I’m trying to help,’ he said. ‘I’m trying to help them both, isn’t that obvious?’

Mum sighed. ‘Come with me. Come and help me get Tom’s suitcase. It’s in the loft and I need you to pass it down.’

Ellie leaned back on the sofa and listened to them go upstairs. She counted breaths. Every breath, every heartbeat, was one less until maybe things stopped hurting this much. She picked at her nails, inspected her fingers. Even her hands looked unfamiliar. She didn’t belong. She was the terrible stranger who’d destroyed everything warm and good.

She thought for a moment of the world outside the house. What would Mikey be doing? Was he even thinking about her? Maybe she should text him, just to let him know she was alive.

Her phone was in the bureau. Dad had dumped it there when he confiscated it yesterday. It was right at the front, not even hidden. She sat back down on the sofa with it. There were seventeen missed calls from Mikey, loads of voicemails, text upon text. It hurt to hear the desperation in his voice. It hurt that all the messages were from the night before and from earlier that morning. There was nothing new.

She wrote I miss you, then deleted it, put the phone in her pocket and shut her eyes.

When she opened them again, Dad stood in the doorway. He said, ‘Your mum thinks I’m being too harsh.’

He walked across and sat down next to her. She wiped her eyes with her sleeve and tried not to look at him, but he tilted her face to his.

‘I want to save you from being destroyed in court, that’s why I’m being tough.’

This is my father. I am his child. He loves me.

‘Tom’s only hope is to undermine your evidence, and given that you have no physical evidence, it comes down to your word against his. Do you understand?’

She nodded. The police had said the same thing. Though they’d also said, What you’re doing is very brave and Karyn McKenzie will be very grateful.

Dad said, ‘In order to give Tom his best chance, I have to get him a brilliant barrister. And if I get him a brilliant barrister, you’ll be torn apart. There’s a last opportunity here, Ellie, and that’s why I’m coming down hard on you. I want you to cast your mind back carefully over everything this Mikey boy said and did, and if there’s anything that might be construed as overly persuasive, I want you to tell me.’

‘Overly persuasive?’

Annoyance crossed his face. ‘Has he threatened you?’

‘No.’

‘Has he blackmailed you? Has he got pictures of you on his phone for instance, or taken something of yours that you want back?’

‘No.’

‘Are you sure? Because if he has, we can get this whole thing turned right around. We can say he made you go to the police and told you what to say in order to protect his sister. We can say your original statement was true and this new one is false.’

She’d seen this look in her father’s eyes so many times – like he knew everything, could read minds, predict the future and was absolutely right in all respects. She swallowed hard and steeled herself against it.

‘He didn’t threaten me, Dad. He’s not blackmailing me and the new statement is true.’

He threw his hands up in despair. ‘Well, there’s nothing I can do for you then, is there? It’s going to be your word against your brother’s and I can tell you now, I won’t stand by and watch him rot in jail.’

‘What’s going on?’ Mum stood in the doorway.

Dad shot her a look of utter frustration. ‘Nothing. I’m going to get the car out of the garage.’

She moved to one side to let him pass, waited for the front door to shut, then plonked herself on the sofa with a sigh. ‘Am I a terrible mother?’

‘No, Mum.’

‘Tom might think so.’

‘He doesn’t.’

She smiled sadly. ‘Maybe I’m just a terrible wife then.’

Her temperature had changed. She was colder since going upstairs and Ellie could feel the difference between their hands.

‘Your father’s been very thorough,’ Mum said. ‘Even in here. I didn’t notice him packing those CDs away, did you?’

She nodded over at the spaces in the rack. There were gaps in the DVD collection too, rifts in the bookshelf, like teeth had been removed all over the lounge.

‘Tom won’t be away for long,’ Ellie whispered. ‘He’ll come back soon.’

‘Well, I hope Ben’s mother doesn’t think we’re crazy sending him there with so many things. I hope she realizes your father simply wants him to feel secure.’ Mum stroked Ellie’s hand absentmindedly. ‘There isn’t really an alternative, not if we want him to be nearby. He could stay in a hotel, I suppose, but what sort of life is that? He’d be lonely in a hotel, wouldn’t he?’

Over and over she stroked, in the same spot with her thumb. It was uncomfortable, as if she’d rasp down to the bone.