Chapter 10
Ten
Gemma
I run to the end of our drive with Quinn while pushing Cora’s pushchair. Ray is on the ground. A trail of blood seeps into the white snow surrounding the man’s head.
Everyone stares at me. There have to be eight people gathered around, all of them gaping at Ethan or running to assist Ray, but Ray isn’t responding.
Tessa frowns at me before darting over and falling to the ground beside Ray.
She checks his pulse and turns him over into the recovery position.
Someone else is on their phone, and Quinn takes off her lovely white coat to place over Ray, keeping him warm.
‘I, err, I didn’t do anything…’ Ethan places a hand over his mouth. He’s shaking.
I don’t know what to think. Ethan never loses his temper, not like this. He can get vocal but he’s never hurt anyone.
He steps backwards until he’s beside me. ‘He fell, Gemma. I swear he fell but I touched him, only lightly. My hands were on him but he slipped. I was trying to stop him from falling but I couldn’t reach.’
Everyone thinks Ethan attacked Ray. I leave him with Cora. ‘My husband didn’t do this. It was an accident.’ They have to see that my lovely Ethan would never assault a man, regardless of how upset he was.
Tessa glances up at me while stroking Ray’s hand. ‘I saw what happened. Your thug of a husband lost it and pushed Ray over. Ray’s seventy, no match for him. Your husband is a bully, plain and simple. Go back to where you came from. You don’t belong here.’
A woman with rust-coloured hair pipes up. ‘Police and ambulance are on their way.’
I step closer to Tessa who is still on the road with Ray, but she turns and frowns at me. ‘Just go away. You lot have done enough damage. Save anything you have to say for the police.’ It looks like she’s completely turned on us too. I can’t wait to bin those flowers.
Tears well as the enormity of the situation hits me.
The police are going to be involved and Ethan has a record.
It was a long time ago, back when he was nineteen.
I can’t help wondering if it will matter when the police arrive.
Quinn nods to the woman with the rusty-coloured hair then the woman turns around and grabs a vacuum off the pavement before heading into Quinn’s house.
Sirens blare in the distance. I want to ask if Ray is dead but I’m not ready for the answer. Nausea swirls in my stomach. As I turn to Ethan, Morgan bursts through the front door and furrows her brows. ‘What’s going on?’ She runs over to us.
‘I need you to take Cora and wait in the apartment.’ I want to protect her from this, from these awful people who have already acted as judge, jury and executioner. They hate us and for some reason they don’t believe Ethan when he says that it was an accident.
‘No, I want to know what’s going on.’
‘Someone’s had a fall, that’s all. Please take Cora.’ It’s too late now. The ambulance has arrived and a police car is close behind.
Two paramedics hurry out and move Tessa away from Ray before they take over. We wait, not knowing what to do.
Ethan grips my hand. ‘I didn’t do anything. I reached out to help him and he fell. I was trying to stop him from falling.’ He frowns.
I’m hoping that the neighbours will back us up with the truth, but I can tell that they won’t from the side-eyed looks we’re getting. They’re going to blame Ethan. As they said, they want us to go back to where we came from.
A tall police officer strides over and he stops in front of Ethan. ‘Can I take your name, please?’
‘Ethan Houghton,’ he says in a broken voice. ‘It was an accident. He was shouting at me. It was about some letters, like poison pen letters. He upset my daughter, blamed us so I just wanted to put him right. He pushed me and, yes I raised my hands, but I didn’t even touch him.’
‘That’s not the account we have. Mr Houghton, I’m arresting you on suspicion of causing actual bodily harm. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’
‘But I didn’t do anything. I tried to stop him from falling backwards when he slipped on the ice.’
‘We can talk about this at the station.’
The police officer pulls his handcuffs out and cuffs my husband like he’s a criminal. I’m scared to glance at the crowd, but when I do, I see that Ray is already being taken into the ambulance on a stretcher. The police officer leads my husband to the police car.
I leave my shocked older daughter with the pushchair. ‘I’m going with Dad. Take Cora up now.’
‘Mum, don’t leave me alone.’ She’s glancing around at everyone and now all their stares are fixed on her.
Ethan calls to me, just before he’s assisted into the back of the police car. ‘Stay with the kids. I’ll be okay.’
He’s more worried for Morgan than he is for himself.
All I can do is powerlessly watch as Ethan is taken away.
Soon after, the ambulance follows. I catch sight of the woman with the vacuum closing Quinn’s front door, and I wonder if I know her from the past because she stares at me for way too long.
She doesn’t look angry and upset like the others, but she too is holding a piece of paper. Another letter?
Quinn scoops up her bloodstained coat from the ground and walks back over to me.
‘He didn’t do it, Quinn.’
She looks at me like she doesn’t know what to say. After all, she didn’t see what happened. She doesn’t know Ethan like I do. ‘I’m sure the police will sort it out, Gemma.’
I can’t stop my tears from flowing now. Everyone has gone back into their houses. Another police car pulls up and heads down the drive of the first house.
Morgan sniffs and takes Cora from the pushchair. Cora whimpers and all I can think is that I want to whimper with her. We haven’t been here long and already everyone hates us, and my husband has been arrested for ABH, and I’m scared that Ray will die. Will the police then charge Ethan with murder?
I can’t remember walking up the stairs but Quinn has led me back up to the apartment.
She’s already put the kettle on and has settled Cora and Morgan in the living room with a drink.
Snow falls again outside. I’m hypnotised by the huge flakes and also scared when I see that I have no phone signal. The lights flicker then come back on.
‘It’s okay. It happens a lot around here,’ Quinn says. She opens her bag and puts some battery-operated candles on the worktop. ‘I was going to give these to you, a moving in present. You will definitely need them at some point.’
An hour or two passes and all I can do is bite the dregs of my nails and think of Ethan. The police officer that came to question me went ages ago. Quinn is still by my side. I had nothing to say except that my husband didn’t hurt Ray.
Morgan has nodded off on the settee, and Cora is asleep on a floor bed that Quinn made for her.
‘Here’s a fresh cup.’ Quinn takes the cup of tea I didn’t drink and gives me yet another.
I think back to when we were kids and we hung out at the den.
We’d take cans of cola and see who could burp the loudest. That flash of a nice memory is all but gone when I think of Ethan rotting in some cell in a grey standard issue tracksuit.
‘Thank you for staying with me.’ It’s five in the afternoon and I haven’t heard a thing.
‘I couldn’t leave you like this. I’m sure everything will be okay. Those letters are probably just a silly prank.’
‘But they’re really nasty.’ I wonder if I should dredge the past up and mention finding the article about Jasmine in the hamper, but I don’t. We’re not kids anymore and I don’t know how much Quinn knows. The past has to stay firmly where it is and I need to find out who is sending these letters.
She shrugs. ‘Look at this place.’ She walks over to the window. ‘It’s some small-minded person with nothing going on in their lives, and I’m sure your husband will be let out of the police station soon.’ She frowns.
‘Have things like this happened before?’
Quinn bites her bottom lip and shakes her head. ‘Not that I know of. Nothing ever happens around here.’
Well, that reassured me – not. Also, that’s not true.
Something terrible happened around here once upon a time, but neither Quinn nor I want to talk about that.
I stand and walk over to her, my warm cup of tea in my hands.
We both gaze out of the kitchen window. Car lights reach the road outside my drive.
‘Ethan.’
I leave Quinn with my kids and race downstairs and burst out of the front door with only my slippers on my feet.
I run for what feels like an age until I reach the end of the drive only to see Ray stepping out of a taxi.
I’m so relieved that he’s okay. Quinn is wrong though.
This isn’t the work of a bored busybody.
Someone knows about my past. The note in our hamper could have been dismissed but the article about the missing girl, Jasmine, was personal.
I swallow my nausea down and put my shaking hands into my pocket.
Ray stands on the path as the taxi driver pulls away. He stares directly at me and points two fingers at his eyes then slowly at me before turning and heading towards his path.
That man has obviously lied to the police because my husband still isn’t home, and he’ll do anything he can to make us leave, just like I did all those years ago with the neighbours I hated in Bristol.
I had a reason to do what I did back then, but Ray doesn’t, or does he?
I try to think back to my past and what Ray might know.
Did I properly meet Ray all those years ago when I visited Aunt Dorette?
I don’t think so, but then again, I would have taken zero notice of Ray.
The only people I clearly remember are Quinn and her parents.
He stops and turns back to me, his stare boring right through me so I look away.
It was such a mistake coming back here because Ray is playing a game with me, but I don’t know why.
I do know it has nothing to do with bad parking and everything to do with Jasmine.
That fingers-to-eyes gesture told me what I need to know.
I’m sure he sent us that hamper and wrote those letters. He’s waiting for me to crack.