Chapter Twenty-Five
Lindsay is already there when Sam pulls up outside the pool building at Bath’s leisure center, hovering in the doorway, teeth chattering.
Not for the first time, Sam wishes she’d wear a proper coat.
Sam folds her arms around her friend gently, as if she were embracing a bruised bird, then they go to the desk, pay and walk through the turnstile to the swimming pool’s cafe.
The smell of chlorine is overwhelming, but Sam quite likes it, the same way she enjoys the fumes at a petrol station.
They order their usual drinks and sit at their table in the corner; Lindsay likes to have her back to the wall and see the entrances and exits of any room she’s in.
Her teeth continue to chatter and she looks around nervously, even though she knows Richie is at Ashton Gate football stadium, fifteen miles away.
Sam is still waiting for her to speak when the drinks arrive.
The tea is good, and Sam warms her hands on the cup.
“I’m ready,” Lindsay finally says, picking a marshmallow from the top of her hot chocolate. As she strokes her hair back from her face, Sam sees that her ear is black and swollen. Bruised and out of shape like a rugby player’s. Like Melanie’s.
“Are you sure, Linds?” Sam asks. “I don’t want to discourage you, but if we do this, we have to do it right. Leaving an abusive partner is dangerous.”
“I know I chickened out before, Sam, but this is different,” Lindsay promises, her words sounding thick, as if she’s talking with her mouth full of food. “Last night…” She trails off, staring into space.
“Linds?” she says, pulling the other woman’s focus back.
“Sorry. My head is battered. Literally. I think I might have concussion. My ears are ringing, too.” Lindsay pushes her fingers hard against her temples. “It’s like this high-pitched sound, but all the time.”
“It might be tinnitus. My mum had it. I know it’s awful.” Sam smiles sadly.
“It’s because he hits me round the ears, isn’t it?”
Sam doesn’t respond. She doesn’t have the heart to tell Lindsay that the bruises will fade and the bones will knit back together, but there are some things Richie has done to her that she will have to live with long term.
“Richie’s angrier than ever,” Lindsay says.
“He thought he was going to be famous, what with all the press attention he got when he was released from prison, but that’s died off.
He thought he was gonna be rich, too—his lawyer promised him they’d sue the police for wrongful imprisonment.
That’s not happening because the lawyer says he doesn’t have time for it anymore and Richie needs to find someone else to represent him.
He’s not sleeping. Not eating. Just drinking and being angry. It’s scary.”
“Is that what’s made you think now is the time to leave?” Sam asks.
“Not just that,” Lindsay says. “The beatings are getting worse. Last night, he put a pillow on my head and sat on it.”
Sam’s hand flies to her mouth, even though she’s heard stories like this, worse even, hundreds of times.
“That’s awful, Linds,” she mutters.
“I thought he was gonna kill me. I couldn’t breathe. My eyes felt like they were popping out and I … I…” Lindsay looks down at her untouched hot chocolate, her cheeks flushing pink.
“It’s OK, Linds,” she reassures her. “Go on.”
“I pissed myself.”
Sam doesn’t speak. What can she say?
“Not only that,” Lindsay continues, “I bit through my tongue. I didn’t feel it at the time, but it’s killing me now. He only got off me when I passed out. I honestly think he thought I was dead. When I came to, I found him crying.”
Sam slides her hand across the table and holds Lindsay’s cold, bony fingers in hers.
“I’m ready, Sam. I’m really ready this time.”
“Once we set the ball rolling, there’s no going back,” Sam warns.
Lindsay nods.
“OK,” Sam says. “We leave now. Right now.”
Lindsay gapes at her. “But I haven’t—”
“We’ve got some time before the football finishes.
It’s not much of a head start, but it’s enough.
We’ll go back to Acacia Gardens together.
You can pack your stuff and then I’ll drive you straight to King’s Cross.
You’re taking the first train to Newcastle.
My friend Neil will meet you at the station and you’ll stay in my new apartment for two weeks. ”
“I don’t have any winter clothes,” Lindsay says, panicking. “It’s cold up North. I seen it on Geordie Shore.”
“Are we doing this, Lindsay?” Sam asks, her voice firm.
“Richie would hate the thought of me going out on the Quayside. And this Neil—who’s he?”
“A friend. He’s a police officer. You can trust him, I promise.”
“Wow. Newcastle,” Lindsay says. “Yes. I’m doing this. Today. Else Richie will kill me. I know he will.”
“I’ve already got you a travel pack sorted,” Sam says.
“It’s in the boot of my car. I’ve put a bit of cash in there for you, plus a new phone, but it’s not a smartphone.
You can’t go online after today. Not until this is over with.
I’ve put some clothes in there, too. And snacks.
Even my favorite book for you to read on the train.
I’ll need you to give me your phone, Linds, and tell me the passcode and any passwords. ”
Lindsay looks at Sam doubtfully. “Why?”
“It’s common in domestic violence cases for abusive partners to plant hidden tracking on phones,” Sam says in her official voice. “Over and above the tracking you might consent to. You can use the new phone I got you, and I’ll get this one checked and back to you as soon as I can.”
“He tracks me everywhere,” Lindsay sighs, taking her iPhone tentatively from her pocket and stroking it.
The case is bubblegum pink. Slowly, she pushes it across the table to Sam.
“That’s why we have to meet at the swimming pool café and I have to jump in the bloody deep end every time so I smell of chlorine. ”
“What’s the passcode?” Sam asks, picking up the phone.
“Richie doesn’t like passcodes,” Lindsay says, “and he changed all my passwords to ‘LindslovesRichie.’”
“I’ll take care of it.” Sam slides the phone into her pocket.
“What’ll happen to Richie?” Lindsay asks.
Sam shrugs and stands to leave. She can’t lie to Lindsay about the outcome she anticipates for Richie Scott. Instead, she says, “Look on the bright side, Linds. At least you don’t have to jump in the swimming pool today.”
They drive to Acacia Gardens and Sam sits in the car as Lindsay heads into the house to pack.
Sam takes the pink phone from her pocket and accesses Lindsay’s Facebook, unfriending and blocking Richie Scott.
She switches the phone to silent and checks that no alarms are set to go off.
Then she attaches a charging cable and plugs that into a power bank.
She pops them all in a plastic ziplock bag and leaves the little package sitting in her door pocket for later.
On her own phone, she texts Neil to let him know that the plan is in motion.
She books Lindsay on to a train out of King’s Cross, up to Newcastle.
Rail strikes mean that there’s only one train they can take, otherwise Lindsay will have to stay in London tonight and that’s too risky.
Sam pulls up Google Maps. Richie will be tracking Lindsay’s phone as soon as the Bristol City match ends, if not before.
Plus, she needs to make one stop-off along the way.
The timings are certainly tight, but not impossible if they leave now.
Lindsay emerges through the duck-egg door carrying a pink duffel bag and a large teddy bear.
When she sees Sam eyeing the toy, Lindsay explains that it’s a childhood favorite that she couldn’t leave behind.
Sam smiles, seeing the teddy as a sign that Lindsay is leaving for good this time and intends to never step foot inside Richie Scott’s house again.
Lindsay falls asleep as soon as they hit the M4.
Sam hopes that she isn’t severely concussed or damaged after Richie’s latest beating.
She tunes the radio to a sports station and listens to the scores come in.
Bristol City are two-nil down. Richie will be furious.
Good, Sam thinks. She checks the time. It’s getting late.
Soon the crowds will flow out of Ashton Gate and he’ll see that something is amiss.
The women have a few hours’ head start at most. She prays that Richie doesn’t track Lindsay’s phone before the full-time whistle blows.
She pushes her foot down on the accelerator.
The little Fiesta rattles as it tops eighty miles per hour.
They hit a huge traffic jam waiting to enter London, and by the time they pull up outside 132 Stafford Terrace, Sam is sweating. She’ll have to be quick or they’ll miss the train, and she knows that, by now, Richie Scott will be after them.
“Where are we?” Lindsay asks, waking up for the first time since Bath and taking in the fine London city street that they’ve stopped in.
“This isn’t the train station.” The area is impressive and reminds Sam of Charlotte Mathers’ home.
There are flowering hanging baskets and gloss-black railings adorning towering white houses that are worth millions.
“Just dropping something off, Linds. Then I’ll get you to King’s Cross.”
Lindsay glances at her watch and pales.
“The football’s finished, Sam.” Panic suffuses her voice. “Richie will be coming for me. Can’t you do this later? Please, just get me out of here!”
Sam offers a quick word of reassurance but is preoccupied with looking in her car mirrors, waiting for the street to be clear.
She pulls a hat and sunglasses on as a rudimentary disguise, but would much rather avoid being seen anywhere near this house.
When the street is as empty as it’s going to be, she jumps out of the car, slipping the plastic package from her door pocket.
She climbs the steep steps to a black front door with an ornate brass knocker, then pauses, looking around her, before standing on tiptoe and reaching into one of the hanging baskets.
If she were a woman of average height, she wouldn’t have a chance, but she manages to push the bag deep into the soil in the basket.
She stands back, examining the basket from all angles.
Nothing of the package can be seen. She descends the steps three at a time and jumps back in the car.
“What were you doing that’s so important?” Lindsay asks, her voice shrill.
“Just a quick errand,” Sam replies, then slams the accelerator and skids out of the street.
“You have posh friends,” Lindsay says, relaxing a little now that they’re on the move again.
“Not a friend. Just a lawyer,” Sam states, taking the road toward King’s Cross station. “He’s a rotten guy, to be honest with you.”
Lindsay pulls her teddy bear to her chest. “Aren’t all men rotten?”
“Not all of them, Linds,” Sam says. She has the sudden urge to text Adam Taylor, to ask him to meet her for dinner, or even just a walk around Battersea Park with Toni.
She doesn’t have long left in London, but if it’s his weekend off they could do something together.
She knows he’d answer on the first ring if she called.
Still, she can’t help picturing how it would be.
Perhaps he’d arrive with an expensive bouquet of flowers that she’d have no vase for and that would look completely out of place in her empty lounge.
He’d stroke Toni behind the ears and the little scruff would walk treacherously at Adam’s heel instead of hers.
She’d take him around the lake and he might say, “This is beautiful, Sam. It’s a shame you’re thinking about moving away from here.
We could do this kind of thing more often. ”
After the Rosery Gardens, where they’d pretend to be a Victorian couple taking the air, they’d sit on a bench in the Old English Garden and she’d feel the press of his body against hers.
“Newcastle is only three hours away, Sam,” he might say, and she could smile and let her eyes rest on his for long enough to mean something.
His hand would reach over and take hold of hers, pretending to rub her cold fingers for warmth, but really asking a question.
And she might nod and exhale as he leans in, his eyes closing and his lips moving toward—
“There it is!” Lindsay almost yells. “King’s Cross. Shit, Sam! You missed the turning.”
“Sorry!” She indicates and pulls into a side street. “My head was somewhere else.”
“I’m running for my life here, Sam,” Lindsay squeaks. “Please can you concentrate?”
“Sorry, Linds.” She works her way through the traffic until she finds a vacant space along the station’s western wall. She hugs Lindsay and talks her through what to do next, then watches as her friend and her teddy bear vanish into the crowds of King’s Cross.
Sam breathes a sigh of relief, then takes out her phone, her finger hovering over Taylor’s name.
Maybe, she thinks. Maybe.