to kill me unless I kill him first. I lean over as far as I can, towards the passenger footwell, and grab one of the knitting needles poking out of the top of my craft bag.
‘You don’t deserve any of it. None of you do!’
His words make no sense to me, but in that split second, I know what I have to do. I swing my arm towards him with the sharp end of the knitting needle pointing towards him and plunge it straight into his left eye.
Patrick screams. A noise that I have never heard before. A primal scream of such agony and horror I know that if I survive this, I will hear it in my head for the rest of my life. He tumbles away from the car, blood pouring from his eye, dark crimson all over his hands, and with another roar, he disappears from view. I reach out of the broken window for him, this man who just minutes ago was my husband, the person I thought I loved, but my hands are just covered in slippery redness.
I have to go. I have to leave him.
I release the handbrake and put my foot hard down on the accelerator. The car spins slightly as it pulls away from the muddy bank at speed. There’s a turning just here on the left, but not to a house. It’s just a track into a field, used by the local farmer. I swing the car around and manage to get it back onto the road without doing a three-point turn. The car is beeping at me, telling me to put on my seatbelt. But I haven’t got time. I’m two, perhaps three, minutes from home. I need to go home. Call the police. Get help. I pass Patrick, a heap on the ground. My husband.
Was all of this planned? I can’t make sense of it, and for a moment I wonder if I have it all wrong. Did I just attack my husband for no reason? Will I be going to prison for grievous bodily harm, or murder? Oh my God! Have I just killed Patrick? I need to call an ambulance and the police.
And then I remember his words. I’m going to kill you! And I know that it was him or me. How is it possible to have so many thoughts rush through my head in such a short time? Patrick, the man who I thought loved me, has done all of this. Created this terror, this horror. But why? How could I have got it all so wrong?
The headlights are on and I press my right foot hard onto the accelerator. I am shaking so much, the world outside is bouncing up and down. All I can think of is Mia and Oliver. They need me. I can’t die. My job is to protect my babies. I’ve got to get home now.
I’m not sure that I have ever driven so fast, not on these small, narrow, winding country roads.
And as I throw the wheel to the right, the tyres screeching as I skid into our driveway, I have never been so relieved to hear the little splinters of gravel throw up against the sides of the car. Home. I’m home.
The lights are all on upstairs and downstairs.
And thank God! Fiona is here. I slam the brakes on, throw the car door open and run like I’ve never run before to the front door.
‘Call the police!’ I shout as I hammer the door with the palms of my hands. I stare at the marks I’m leaving on the wooden door. Blood prints. I look down at my front, and the light from the porch shows my navy anorak gleaming with a viscous fluid, and I think I’m going to throw up. Is that my blood or Patrick’s? Have I just left my husband to die at the side of the road?
‘Open up!’ I scream.
And then I sob. How can I let Mia and Oliver see me like this? It is too much for them to bear; I thank heavens that Fiona is here. Sensible Fiona will know exactly what to do.
31
The front door flings open.
She stands there totally frozen, her eyes so wide, her mouth a perfect O. I watch as the blood drains from her face, and, as if in slow motion, her hand moves from hanging at her side to covering her mouth. The look of shock on Fiona’s face is so profound, it would