I Let Him In by Jill Childs

Author:Jill Childs [Childs, Jill]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781800190238
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

35

LOUISE

PRESENT DAY

* * *

I pretend to be asleep.

Ed taps softly on the door and whispers my name. ‘Come on. I know you’re there.’ A low shuffling as if he’s shifting his weight. A long pause. Then another rap on the wood. ‘Come out. Please. Talk to me. Louise.’

I think: Which day did he start calling me Louise? I don’t remember. My name sounds different when he says it. His voice is rich and gentle. I imagine him sitting in the quiet of the lounge and reading over those printed papers. What have I done, letting him see them? I can’t face him again.

Outside, the sky is darkening. It’s almost five. He should have gone by now. I lie on my side and strain to listen for the sound of his footsteps and the low click of the door, closing behind him. I wonder what he thinks of me now. I wonder if he’ll tell anyone. If he’ll bother coming back to finish his work. I imagine again the emptiness without him. The silence.

I hide in my bedroom for as long as I can. Six o’clock. Then seven. The darkness is dense, pressing against the window. I’m thirsty and hungry too. I wonder what he’s doing. Out with friends, perhaps, eating and drinking. Will he tell them about me, the paranoid baby-murderer with the broken leg? Now he’ll understand why I wonder if the driver might have hit me on purpose. Now he’ll know why I deserve to be punished, even after all this time.

I lower my heavy leg to the floor and heave myself to my feet, swinging on my crutches to the bedroom door and opening it. Quietness. I don’t bother putting the light on. My eyes have slowly adjusted as the gloom has deepened.

The curtains still stand open and the flat is silver with shadow and reflected shards of streetlight. I head towards the lounge, making my way to the kitchen, when a large, dark shape suddenly rises.

I scream. One of my crutches clatters to the floor and I grope for the back of the sofa to steady myself, heart pounding.

‘Louise! Are you all right?’

Light floods the room. I blink, trying to focus. ‘Ed? Why’re you still here?’

He’s at my side, his hand under my elbow, taking my weight and guiding me to the sofa to sit.

‘I couldn’t leave.’ He looks wretched. ‘Not without seeing you.’

I look away. I don’t want to hear what he thinks. I remember it all too well.

The women whispering at the far end of the supermarket aisle who break off and glare when they catch sight of me. The lies about me in the local papers, bolstered by mean-spirited quotes from people who barely know me. They make me sound cruel and careless, painting a picture of a person I don’t recognise. One of the nationals runs a piece before the inquest, mistakenly writing I was eighteen, instead of sixteen, and hinting that I’d taken ‘substances’ that night. All I’d had was paracetamol,

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