CHAPTER 17
Ella
Henry was here. He was at my house. I know it.
I can feel him. His smell lingers in the air, catching on my clothes, the carpet, the soft linens.
My head shakes, trying to distinguish the real from the imaginary, but it can’t.
I can’t. My knees draw up to my chest. Feet digging into the carpet as I wait.
Henry was here.
There’s a gentle knock at the front door.
If my head hadn’t been resting on the wood, I wouldn’t have heard it.
It takes a gigantic effort to pull my body up, my muscles shake from nerves, and the door is too stiff for them to pull.
When I finally get it open, the faces on the other side calm the fire within me.
“Oh, Ella,” Immi whispers, stepping inside, her arm around me immediately.
I reach for Jude’s hand.
The iPad, holding the security camera’s monitoring screen, is still in my hand, still holding the grainy picture of the figure receding into my bushes. An image that’s not worth anything but was all I could get from the video footage. He was too fast. Henry was too fast.
I shove the screen towards Jude.
“That’s him,” I say.
My voice is croaky. At some point, I must have screamed, the noise ripping out of me while the high-pitched beep indicated someone was in my space. I couldn’t call the police, so I called Jude.
“What happened?” Jude says now.
“He was…” I slump into the sofa, unaware of when we moved into the living room.
Why was this all so hard? Memories of the conversation with Mum play back.
She’s been seeing Henry. Something tugs at me.
Mum knows where Henry is. I let the idea that Mum has been seeing Henry and not me slip away. Not willing to run after it.
“I was on the phone with my mum, and the camera alarm went off. I looked through the footage but I can’t work out how he got out.” I nod at the screen.
I fall into Jude, my body giving up the fight, the tension unfurling. The sounds of clinking china carry from the kitchen, and I close my eyes. Savouring the sensation of being held. I’m safe.
I only open my eyes when I feel the sofa dip again. Immi returns, having placed a tray of hot drinks on the coffee table. The cup in her hand trails wisps of warm, sweet steam into the air.
“And what is this?” Immi leans over Jude, both squinting at the black-and-white still image on the iPad.
I join them, expecting to see Henry’s dark eyes or that familiar, gut-wrenching smile.
Yet, all I am greeted with is a view of my garden.
The bush that I watched him step into shows nothing but a dark blur around the bottom of it. A foot, maybe?
“Oh. I hadn’t set up the recording because I was in today. It only starts once the alarm goes off.” It’s all I can say, my heart plummets. Was he ever here?
“Did you see Henry in the garden?” Immi says, eyes scanning over the screen. When they land on me, there’s a look that makes me take a step back.
“He was here,” I say.
“Oh, I know, darling. I only wonder if you saw him. Saw anyone in the garden?” Immi’s fingernail taps on the side of the mug, sympathy laced with concern etched perfectly on her face. But she doesn’t buy it. I glance at Jude, neither of them do.
“He was here,” I say again, my voice louder.
My body moves, stepping backward towards the fireplace as though the distance will help them understand.
But was he here? I replay the moment the alarm went off.
I was sure I saw a figure in the garden, shrouded in black, moving across the far side into the neighbouring bushes.
But where would he go? How can a masked man move around in broad daylight unseen?
I scrambled to the door, hanging up on Mum in one sudden movement.
My eyes were searching. The house rang out with a piercing sound, I couldn’t move or breathe as I watched him slip between the leaves and disappear.
That can’t be right? The shadows of my nightmares superimpose themselves into the memory, darkening the edges. I blink. That can’t be right.
Did I even see anyone?
The threats Henry screamed at me all those years ago, sitting in the prison family room with nothing to divide us but thin plastic. His voice echoing against the cold, grey walls as he promised to destroy me.
You lying bitch!
He was here. It had to be him. My eyes land on the tablet now balanced between Jude and Immi on the sofa. There’s nothing, no evidence.
“We aren’t doubting that he was here,” Jude says now, her eyes softening.
They are, though.
“I found a camera.”
It’s proof that someone has been here. Someone has been in my house and put these things up to watch me. Henry is tormenting me just like he promised he would all those years ago.
“What?” Immi’s face contorts.
I shift, uncomfortable with what this will mean. Yet this is tangible, this will show them that it’s not all in my head.
“I–I noticed something when the alarm turned off. A window was jammed open. The blind had moved in such a way that it caught on a vase.” I move as I talk, pulling the plastic bag that I shoved in the back of the sofa.
Its contents make me feel sick. I tip it up so the small black camera, the size of a large coin, falls onto the table, rolling to a stop haphazardly.
Immi’s hand flies to her mouth, Jude gasps, and I remain still, a small flicker of pleasure pushing against the fear.
“You found this?” Immi’s voice spikes at the end.
I felt how she looked: the cold ripple of dread that tugs at your organs, leaving you unable to breathe or move. It’s proof that Henry is watching me.
“That’s why he was in the garden, to put this in. It’s wireless. I can’t imagine he’d have that long but…” I leave the rest of my words unsaid, unwilling to acknowledge them even to myself.
“He’s recording you?” Jude says. I bristle at the comment.
“Of course!” My hand flies to point at the small circle on the table. Henry will do anything to destroy me after what I did to him. Watching me is a smart move, recording me is smarter. It’s an indication that he’s planning something bigger.
“Maybe it’s Rufus’s?”
My head snaps to look at Immi. The rage exploding in a splutter of angry words.
“It was Henry! He was here and he’s watching me.” My voice cracks, the scream so powerful that it leaves me shaking.
The silence that follows speaks volumes. I lick my lips. The apology is so close to tumbling out, but I bite it back.
“Hey, we don’t doubt you. We’re just trying to catch up.” Jude breaks the tension, gentle and careful as ever.
But it’s too late, the doubt is unfurling.
Because, even with the camera staring back up at me, I can’t help but question if any of this is even happening anymore.
The letters, the sense of being watched, the ghosts that knock on my consciousness at the dead of night.
My eyes ache with an immeasurable tiredness.
Could the camera be Rufus’s, not Henry’s?
Jude’s hand reaches for mine again.
“Look, why don’t we take this to the police?” she says.
And the panic hitches itself back on my heartbeat, increasing with each palpitation.
“This,” she indicates to the camera, “plus the threats is enough to open a case. We can get someone in to help with the investigation properly. Maybe even find Henry.”
The panic crescendos. The police find Henry, then what? They ask him why he wants to harm me. He tells them what I did. The truth actualises itself in this reality I have created, and my world all falls apart. My hard work and my truth will slip through my fingers and leave me just as I was before.
“No.” I look determinedly between the two women. “No police.”
“Ella–” Immi starts.
“No, you don’t know what it’s like.” My jaw sets against the memories of my mum and dad.
“You think that it’s as simple as asking for help, but I’ve spent my career watching people just like me, innocent people put their hope in a justice that doesn’t arrive.
The police might do all that, but they might not.
Every month I speak about cases left unsolved, people left without resolution.
There is only so much the police can do, and this…
this can’t be at the top of their list.”
My lips push thin, remembering the cases piling up on my desks, the work that Rufus does to ensure freedom, the people left waiting.
“I can’t waste their time. And I can’t hope they give their all to this. Not when I can solve this alone.” My shoulders draw back, chin rising.
“Sweetie, I don’t think we can,” Jude says, but her eyes are softening.
Immi leans forward, her legs crossed at the ankle, with a look that is so maternal I have to shift my gaze away. My cheeks flush.
My sense of justice is warped by my history, by my work, by my passion. But it’s also selfish, because the police will bring light to my lies. That would destroy everything.
I smile at the two women. “Let me try.”
A look passes between them, one that I dare not read into.
“My mum knows where Henry is.” I’m careful with how I articulate it. Not too desperate but steady, calm. “Let me find him, and once I have, then we can go to the police.”
Slowly, Immi nods.