filled a pint glass with water from the tap and then drank it down without stopping. Once the glass was empty he wiped his mouth on the back of his arm.
‘Do you think Vicky had something to do with Barney’s disappearance?’ I asked, trying to goad him into conversation. Still he acted as though I wasn’t there.
Retreating to the opposite side of the kitchen, he placed his forehead against a cupboard and after taking some deep breaths in and out through his nose, he thumped the worktop with both hands and set off towards the hall.
‘I feel like I’m going to say or do something that I’ll regret.’ He lifted his Adidas hoodie off the coat rack. ‘I need to go out for a bit.’ He fed the top over his head and reached his arms up through the sleeves.
‘What? Jason, no,’ I said, following behind. ‘Look, I’m sorry, OK? I was just trying to help.’ I tried to grab hold of him but he took a step back and my hands fluttered around his sweatshirt. I moved towards him and tried again, pinching and pulling at the fabric until finally, he gave one of my hands a hard slap.
The sound shocked us both.
‘I don’t want your help,’ he said. ‘Don’t you get it? I don’t fucking want it.’
He didn’t bother to slam the front door. As he jogged away down the hill it swung back and forth on its hinges in the wind before a big gust caught it, making it fly shut with such force it made the whole house shudder.
Chapter Twenty-Four
It took me a few minutes to realise why I’d woken up. I’d been having a dream in which I was in the off-licence with the boy. I was thirsty. Somehow, I’d managed to get round to the other side of the cage where the boy was being kept, and there I’d discovered an enormous bottle of water. It was the boy’s water, but I was so thirsty that I took it from him. I’d only planned on having a sip and then giving it back. But, when I drank, I discovered it was the coolest, sweetest water I’d ever tasted and so then I took another sip and another. It seemed that, no matter how much of the water I consumed, I couldn’t quench my thirst. At first, I thought the dream was my body’s way of telling me I was dehydrated, the way it sometimes does if you’ve eaten too much salty food. But then I felt the spit rushing in my mouth and I knew I had woken because I was going to be sick.
I got out of bed, went to the bathroom and knelt in front of the toilet. As I waited for the first hot sting of acid in my throat, I realised how quiet the house was, and yesterday’s events floored me all over again.
Afterwards, I’d waited in all day and then all night, hoping for Jason’s return. By midnight, there was still no sign of him and so I’d tried to go to bed. But rest had proved impossible. Lying there, I’d found myself paralysed by the same feeling I used to have in the years before we met. It was as though the marrow had been scraped from my bones, as though I was a hollow woman, desiccated and lighter than air.
I still found it impossible to believe Jason might think Vicky had anything to do with Barney’s disappearance. That he would ever consider her capable of hurting her own son. But then, sometimes mothers did kill their children. On purpose or accidentally. In their right mind or not. I thought about the locked drawer and the folder it held. Maybe Jason knew things about Vicky and her history that meant he couldn’t totally disregard the possibility she had been involved. Maybe he suspected she had been to blame all along.
The boiling in my abdomen was getting worse. What had I eaten to make me ill? No doubt the wine I’d drunk to help me sleep had something to do with it, but then, I’d only had a couple of glasses. Maybe I’d had more than I’d realised or maybe the bottle was off. That happened sometimes. As my stomach began to pulse I braced myself, ready. Before long, whatever it was inside of me that was wrong was out and it was all over.
My knees shaky, I grabbed hold of the towel rail and used it to pull