‘Niamh? I need to talk to you.’ My hands are shaking as I take one of hers and lead her over to the table, feeling sick, even though I haven’t been able to eat all day. Pulling out a chair for her to sit on, I perch on another. ‘We can’t stay here, Niamh. The police have found us somewhere to stay for a while. It may only be for a few days, but your father and I can’t be together. What he’s done to me – to both of us – is a criminal offence. It’s why the police have taken him in.’

‘If he’s being kept there, why do we have to leave?’ Her face is suddenly pinched.

‘The police say we have to. We’ll come back, I promise you. But I don’t know how long they’re going to hold your father. We’ll go somewhere safe until I’ve talked to a lawyer.’ I pause. ‘I’ve packed some of your things. Why don’t you check that I have everything?’

She doesn’t say anything.

‘Niamh? It will be OK. The police know what he’s been doing. If he does it again, they’ll arrest him again.’ I pause. ‘He can’t come after us – you do see that, don’t you?’

But as she looks at me, I know it doesn’t matter what I say.

Niamh

My mother thinks we can run away from him. She thinks she’s worked it all out, imagining us in a small cottage with pretty curtains and a front door my father doesn’t have a key to. But he doesn’t need one. If he wants to break in, a lock won’t stop him. Nothing will.

I imagine my mother’s picture of sunlight and peacefulness ripped down the middle by my father’s cruel hands before he tosses the pieces aside.

‘We’ll go somewhere safe until I’ve talked to a lawyer.’

But there aren’t any lawyers he will listen to, just as there isn’t anywhere that’s safe. However long the police keep him – however many weeks, months, years – when he gets out, he’ll find us. And this time, he’ll hurt her far worse than he has before. She doesn’t realise how bad it’s become, she doesn’t have to watch, like I do, as he hits her harder, as the attacks go on for longer. This time, she was unconscious when he’d finished. Next time, or the time after that, he’ll kill her.

Chapter Forty-Four

Jo

As police from the surrounding area conceal themselves among the trees and shrubs along Mason’s driveway, and wait in the woods behind to cover the area where his helicopter lands, I wonder if he’s already inside watching us. The time he arranged with Adam is less than an hour away.