Chapter 15 Zoe Spring 2025 #2
That was what he said his mum had said to him when she’d thrown him out aged fifteen.
You’re not wanted here. Those exact words.
I sucked in air. Oh, Pat. I’d wanted to make him better, but I couldn’t do that sleeping rough with a newborn baby.
It was impossible. Maybe he could live with us.
Mum and Dad could love him like his mum never had, take him on as their own.
But even as I imagined this happy-ever-after scenario I knew it couldn’t happen.
He was from a different world, he was too damaged to fit in here.
The extremes of the life we’d lived was all he knew. And it was good, exciting, until—
‘I just need to see her. Please let me in.’ He was crying as he banged on the drawing-room window below. ‘Steph, please. Let me in. She’s mine too. Don’t do this to me.’ He banged on the window again, so hard that I thought it might break.
‘You need to leave. Steph is not here. We don’t know where she is.’
‘She was with me, but she ran away last night. I’m sure she’s here. Certain. Where else would she go?’
‘Right, that’s it. I’m calling the police.’
I heard Alice’s footsteps crunch away across the gravel and imagined her walking back to the front door in that determined way of hers.
I got out of bed and ran to the window, flinging open the curtains.
He was still down there, looking up, his face white.
His beautiful face. What had I been so frightened of?
‘Steph.’
‘Pat.’ I opened the window. ‘Stay there. I’m coming down.
’ I glanced at the drainpipe but I knew my body didn’t have the strength so I tiptoed to my bedroom door.
The gallery was empty, as was the hall below and I ran downstairs.
The library door was shut and I could hear Dad and Alice. We didn’t have long. I ran outside.
‘Steph.’ He flung his arms around me, gripping me tight. His hands chilled my back. ‘Why did you leave?’ His voice was full of pain.
‘It was too awful,’ I said. ‘K—’ I swallowed and buried my face in his freezing coat. ‘I couldn’t face it anymore. Kylie needed to be somewhere warm or—’
‘I know. But we should have talked together, worked out a plan.’
‘We were out of plans, Pat. This was our only option for Kylie.’ I gestured towards the house.
‘Is she inside?’ I guessed she was in the library with Dad and Alice but I wasn’t sure.
I nodded.
‘You can’t take her away from me. She’s all I’ve got. The only thing that’s ever wanted me. Properly wanted me.’
I’d wanted him. I still wanted him. Didn’t he realise that?
I thought he’d come for me and Kylie, but now I realised it was just Kylie he wanted.
After everything I’d sacrificed for him.
I took a step back from him. My home. My family.
I’d left it all for him and he didn’t care about me, it was only Kylie.
I heard Dad before I saw him. ‘Patrick. I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Steph’s dad.’ He was holding out his hand.
Patrick glanced at me and then back to Dad and there was a strange look between them and then he shook it. ‘Hi,’ he said, in that awkward way of his. ‘I wanted to see Kylie.’
Dad looked at him and gave a half-smile. ‘She’s safe,’ he said. ‘She will always be safe with us. We will look after her, I promise you that.’
Patrick’s eyes darted between Dad and the house and I wondered if he was going to dash in and try to snatch her.
‘The police are on their way. You should leave before they get here,’ Dad said gently.
‘Just let me see her first.’
Dad looked at me and I nodded.
The three of us went into the house and Dad led the way into the library.
There was a Moses basket on the sofa that I remembered Sara being in when she was a baby.
Patrick glanced around at the books, at the mantelpiece over the log fire, and then back to me as if he couldn’t quite believe this was my home.
Then he saw the basket and knelt by it. He touched her cheek.
‘She’s so warm,’ he said, looking up at me.
‘Yes,’ I said.
The chair creaked as Dad sat behind his desk watching us.
‘It was too cold there, wasn’t it?’ He looked around the room again. ‘This is a good place for her to grow up. Better than I could ever offer her.’
‘Yes,’ I said again.
The faint drone of sirens filtered through the window. I could tell by the way his shoulders hunched up that he’d heard them too.
‘I wasn’t a good enough dad, just like my own dad.’
‘It was nobody’s fault,’ I said. I knew it was my fault. If only I’d not written that number down wrong.
The sirens were close now, at the bottom of the drive, I reckoned.
‘Look after her for me. Love her for me.’ His lips were on her forehead.
‘You’ll see her soon. You won’t have to do long.’
‘They need someone senior to make an example of. And I’m that person. We always knew that.’
I wiped the tears off my face and nodded. ‘I’ll tell her about you. And when you’re out you can come and see her.’
‘Oh, Steph, my little optimist.’
There was a squeal of brakes outside. Radio static filtered through the window. Dad got up and went into the hall.
‘Goodbye, little girl. My beautiful little girl.’ Patrick picked Kylie up from the basket and for one moment my stomach twisted.
Would he try to make a run for it with her?
But he hugged her tightly to his body and then laid her gently back down.
I wanted to bottle that moment forever. She stayed asleep.
The library door opened and a plain-clothed policeman and three uniformed officers came in, Dad behind them. The plain-clothed one came up to Patrick with handcuffs.
‘Patrick Head. I am arresting you on suspicion of causing an explosion with intent to endanger life or cause serious harm to property. You do not have to say anything unless you wish to do so but what you say may be given in evidence.’
Intent to endanger life? He wasn’t trying to hurt anyone. It was the opposite of that. He was trying to save lives.
‘Turn round. Put your hands behind your back.’
‘Pat, no,’ I said, but he just smiled sadly at me and did what the policeman asked.
Once he was cuffed, the two uniformed officers led him to the car, half dragging him though he wasn’t resisting.
I followed them, walking next to Dad. He looked up as they pushed his head in the car and I held up my hand.
Then the door slammed and all I could see was a dark silhouette in the back of the car as it drove away.
The other police car remained on the drive. Dad and I walked slowly back into the house. In the hall the uniformed policeman stood looking at his shoes next to the plain-clothed one.
‘Hello, Jerry,’ said Dad. ‘Can I get you anything. Coffee? Tea? Something stronger? It’s been quite a morning for us.’
The plain-clothed policeman laughed. ‘Can we have a chat privately? We will need to talk to your daughter about what she knows.’
‘I understand. But perhaps not today, she’s exhausted and needs a rest.’
‘Of course.’
‘Come into the library.’ Dad turned to me.
‘You go upstairs and rest, Steph.’ I waited, shifting from foot to foot outside the library as Dad shut the door.
The uniformed policeman watched me. I wanted to go in and pick up Kylie.
Thinking about her made my breasts tingle and a droplet of milk appeared on both nipples, which quickly became a small stream.
I ran up the stairs and took a tissue from the dressing table and pressed it on to them until they’d stopped.
I needed to feed her soon or I was going to burst.