Don’t You Cry: The gripping new psychological thriller from the bestselling author of In a Cottage in a Wood
he has drunk as much of the water as he seems prepared to take, I reluctantly hand the baby over to Angel. Then I go to find outdoor shoes and a light jacket, watched by Angel the whole time. I’m trembling as I pocket my wallet and a small torch. I’ll need it for the darker bits of the road.
‘Right,’ says Angel, when I am ready to go. ‘You had better think very carefully about contacting anyone while you’re out, do you understand me? I mean it. I’ve told you I don’t care about this baby. Do you understand?’
‘Yes!’ I snap, then, ‘Look, you know I can only get a limited amount of money from a cash machine, don’t you?’
‘Three fifty,’ says Angel. ‘That’s the daily limit. That will have to do.’
She pats the baby’s back, her eyes cold. Is she too rough? It’s hard to tell. I feel like a tuning fork, vibrating with every sign of possible aggression around this vulnerable infant.
My instincts scream at me that I can’t, mustn’t, leave. But what choice do I really have?
Angel unlocks the kitchen door and then says my name.
‘It’s three am now,’ she says. ‘I think, what, forty-five minutes is plenty long enough, don’t you?’
‘There might be queues,’ I say, a thread of desperation running through my voice. ‘It’s always busy in there. And it’s a good ten-minute walk too.’
Angel regards me, her eyes cold.
‘Fifty minutes,’ she says. ‘If you’re not back by then, we’re going to have a problem.’ She holds the baby away from her, considers his face and says, ‘Aren’t we?’
Then she pats her pocket and her meaning is clear. I can see the outline of the gun through the fabric.
There is a loaded pause of a few seconds and then she can’t hold it in any longer.
‘What the fuck, Lucas?’ she says and her voice is too loud even to her own ears. ‘Why the shitting hell did you bring that baby here? Are you actually insane?’
He doesn’t reply, merely hangs his head and Angel is suffused with a mix of intense frustration, fear, and love that makes her cross the room and hug him fiercely.
She feels him wince and he doesn’t reciprocate. A bit stung, she drops her arms and turns away.
‘Well, we’ll just have to work something out,’ she says and there is a tremor in her voice now. She wants to cry and she hates crying, so she swallows the feeling down like a bitter drink.
It’s only now that she remembers she hasn’t eaten anything apart from some garlic bread on her shift earlier. Her limbs feel weak and watery, her head filled with cotton-wool.
She goes to the fridge and begins gathering items of food, suddenly ravenous.
Lucas moves to the table and sits down, burying his hands in his curls, and closing his eyes. Angel glances at her brother as she puts houmous and cheese onto the table.
She feels a burst of resentment that he hasn’t answered any of her messages for ages, then presents her with this hot mess. But when she sees the tremor in his hands as he runs them through his hair her heart contracts.
‘You know I love you, whatever, you big drama queen,’ she says.
Lucas looks up and is surprised into a weak smile.
‘I love you too,’ he says and then something about this exchange causes a shift and he suddenly jumps up and begins to pace up and down the length of the kitchen, scratching at his arms. It hurts to watch. It’s like he’s trying to escape from his own skin or something. He used to do it when they were little and Marianne once made him wear gloves in bed.
‘Stop doing that,’ says Angel and he stops abruptly.
The baby over on the sofa starts to cry again. God, the sound of it is unbearable.
‘I hope she won’t be long with the milk and stuff,’ she says. ‘He’s doing my bloody head in.’
Lucas tears his gaze away and sees the radio by the sink. ‘Try putting the radio on,’ he says. ‘See if that helps.’
Angel darts him a startled look at this but says nothing as she moves to the counter. She switches on the radio and pop music burbles out. Angel twists the dial so for a minute it drowns out the sound of the shrieking baby lying on the sofa.
The baby is evidently startled by this and he stops crying. She gradually turns it back to a more comfortable level.
‘Well, aren’t you the expert,’ she says drily.
‘Angel, don’t,’ says Lucas, much more sharply than he intended.
Angel slaps her hand on her thigh. ‘For God’s sake, Lu! Why won’t you tell me what really happened? Don’t you trust me or something?’
Lucas stares at his sister and for a moment she thinks, this is it.
‘Why would I call you if I didn’t trust you?’ he says in a weak voice. ‘Anyway, I have told you everything.’
The siblings stare at each other across the kitchen while in the background Little Mix sing about shouting out to exes.
‘Right,’ says Angel, turning away. ‘Sure you have.’ She wants to slap him. ‘Why don’t you go and lie down or something,’ she adds as she goes to hunt for bread in the cupboards. ‘This could be a long night and you look like shit.’
Lucas hesitates for a moment and then silently leaves the room.
The air is pleasantly warm outside, but shock must be catching up with me. I start to shake, so hard my knees almost give way, and I’m forced to stop, panting lightly, hands resting on my thighs.
I can’t believe this is happening. It’s all so surreal. Her barging into my home like that. Then him arriving, covered in blood. And that tiny baby … Oh, the baby.
As the shivering becomes less violent, I start to walk, glancing over at the cars on the bypass, which are present even at this time. I wish I could get into any one of them and be carried far away from this situation.
I could do it. Or at least flag down a car and ask for help. But what if the police go storming in there and the baby gets caught up in it all?
I picture again the blood riming Lucas’s nails and think about his reaction when I’d asked about the mother. What has he done? And what might he be capable still of doing? That’s not even taking Angel into account. She feels utterly unreadable to me.
It’s a strange sensation, to be walking away, ostensibly free, but yet trapped all the same. I hurry on, reaching the dark part of the road, and then follow the bobbing light of the torch. The road feels so long in the dark. Like it is never-ending. I would usually be scared, walking here at night. But I only feel frightened of the dangers currently in my home. What an irony it would be, if I was attacked tonight, of all nights.
When I finally reach the end of the road, I turn left at the roundabout there and start walking along the side of the bypass. Obviously, it isn’t designed for pedestrians, so I am forced to walk in a semi-ditch at the side. Cars thunder past now and then, so close I feel the gusting force blowing