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Where There's Smoke

Kate went up the path. She wiped her eyes as she rang the bell, knowing that she must look a mess. She heard someone approaching, and then Lucy opened the door.

They looked at each other without speaking. In the background Kate could hear the chatter of the TV, see the cheerful spill of light from the lounge and kitchen. It silhouetted Lucy in the unlit hall. Kate couldn’t make out her expression.

Wordlessly, Lucy stood back so that she could enter.

Kate couldn’t look at her as she crossed the doorway. She retreated from her silence and made her way uncertainly towards the lounge. Lucy closed the door and followed her as Kate stepped around Jack’s heap of boxes in the hall. The house smelt of food and dirty nappies. She went into the brightly lit room.

The TV was blaring out some frantic children’s programme. Jack and Emily were engrossed in watching it, their backs to Kate as they sat side by side on the settee. They didn’t notice her go in. Angus was in his playpen next to them, which surprised her since he had outgrown it long since. He began to cry when he saw her, holding out his arms to be picked up, and Kate instinctively went towards him. The forced, bright greeting was already on her lips when she reached the settee and the words died.

Jack and Emily’s mouths were covered with brown parcel tape.

The image registered, but Kate’s mind refused to make sense of it. There was a sound from behind her. She turned.

Lucy stood in the doorway. Her head was tilted up by the blade of the long kitchen knife held to her throat. Ellis stood close behind her. The hand not holding the knife was gripping Lucy’s bare arm, fingers digging into the flesh above the elbow.

“I’m sorry,” Lucy’s voice was a whisper. Her face was puny and tear-streaked. Her eyes, as she looked at Kate, were terrified. “I’m sorry.” No one moved. The moment stretched out, suspended, then burst with a silent pop of pressure.

Kate stepped backwards. Ellis herded Lucy further into the room. He didn’t take his eyes from Kate. They were bright and feverish, purple smears discolouring the pale flesh underneath. His face was gaunt, and his hair stuck up in matted tufts. There was a straggly growth of beard on his cheeks. He looked like someone Kate had never known.

Lucy’s chest was heaving. “I’m sorry,” she whispered again, and now Kate took in her stained clothes and unwashed hair. She looked thinner. “He threatened the children Kate! He said if we didn’t do what he wanted, he’d — he’d—” Her gaze flicked to Emily and Angus, agonised. “He’d got a knife. We didn’t have any choice. We tried, Jack—”

“Shut up!”

Lucy fell silent. Her mouth was trembling. Her chin was still held high away from the knife, giving her a model’s self-conscious posture. There was a muffled noise from Jack. Kate glanced at him and saw now that his hands and feet were also bound. There was a yellowing bruise on one temple, and the look he gave Ellis was full of violence. Kate saw him straining against the tape, but it was wrapped around him too many times.

Beside him, Emily was similarly fastened. Tears were rolling down the little girl’s face, and the sight of them filled Kate with outrage.

“They kn-know you,” he said. His mouth twisted. “They’re your friends!”

He stressed “your”. His hand tightened on Lucy’s arm, and she lifted her chin away from the pressure of the knife.

Kate forced herself to stare back at him. She pointed at Emily. “She’s a little girl, for God’s sake!”

She strode over to the settee. “Hold tight,” she said, trying to smile as she took hold of the tape covering the girl’s mouth.

“D-don’t!” Ellis said, as Kate pulled it off. The tape came free with a tearing sound, leaving the skin red underneath. Emily began to cry.

“Happy now?” Kate demanded, glaring at Ellis. He looked confused, almost defensive. She went over to the playpen where Angus was also crying.

“L-leave him!”

She took no notice. Augus’s feet were taped together so that he couldn’t climb out of the pen. She bent to pick him up.

“I said f-fucking leave him!”

Kate froze. Ellis’s eyes were wild, his knuckles white knobs of bone on the knife handle. Its point made a taut depression in Lucy’s skin. Lucy had closed her eyes.

Kate straightened, slowly. “All right. I’m sorry.”

“G-get away from them!”

She moved back into the centre of the lounge. “Look, I know you’re angry with me, but don’t take it out on them. They haven’t hurt you.”

“Shut up!”

“At least let the kids go.”

“I s-said shut up!”

“Look at them, they’re scared to death! They’re only children, for God’s sake! How can you do this to them?”

“Because my child’s dead.”

Kate flinched back from the shout. Ellis’s face was contorted. But he didn’t do anything else. She waited for her breathing to steady.

“I lied to you,” she said, as calmly as she could. “I didn’t have an abortion. I only said it because—”

“You’re lying n-now!”

“No—”