Page 103 of No Safe Place
Sunday | Evening
Callum
‘She was only thirteen. It was abuse.’
He was bewildered. He’d seen people manic, people in full-blown psychosis, and this wasn’t it. Ruby was still on her feet, chest heaving now, tears rolling down her face.
At least Lily was safe, out of sight upstairs.
‘Do you think I wanted this?’ She spread her arms, knife pointed at the ceiling. ‘I never knew, I never fucking knew, because she didn’t tell me. But you were in the hospital with her. You were there with her and him and you should have known—’
‘Ruby,’ Callum said. He lifted his hands up in front of his chest. ‘You’re not making sense—’
Ruby’s tears were carving inky black trails down her face, and she wiped her cheeks with her sleeve, smearing most of the eyeliner away.
Callum tried again. ‘Is this about the accident? About what happened to Paige?’
‘Don’t say her fucking name,’ Ruby screamed.
The neighbours had to be hearing this. They knew what had happened on Thursday, so surely someone would phone the police? He needed DCI Field to smash through the front door and—
‘I always thought it was an accident,’ she said, her voice a whisper. ‘So fucking cruel, after everything she went through, to die just as she was better. But do you know what I think killed her?’
‘The car. It was raining, she skidded—’ he stammered.
‘It was him,’ Ruby cried. ‘What he did to her. She must have wanted to make the pain stop—’
Callum wanted to screw his eyes closed but he didn’t. Ruby was pointing at him with the knife.
‘She was all on her own. Maybe she didn’t want to die, maybe the crash was supposed to be a cry for help.’
He was lost again.
‘I think you knew, all of you.’ Ruby was staring at a point past his head. ‘But even if you didn’t, it’s not fair, is it? That you all got to go on living your lives, being happy. An author. A teacher. Sam studying a PhD. Andy and his well-paid job.’
He stayed still. Perfectly still – like playing dead with a bear, in case his breathing, or flinching or anything set her off again.
‘But, yeah. I think she did it on purpose. After the trauma, she wanted to die—’ Ruby wiped more tears away, shrugged at Callum, helplessly. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know any more.’
‘What trauma, Ruby? I don’t know what you’re talking about—’
She snorted, then turned and walked to the kitchen, bending down for the bag, and in the few seconds she wasn’t looking at him, Callum threw desperate looks around the room. No phone, nothing he could use as a weapon. If he screamed or cried out, she’d probably go for him.
Ruby came back, holding a plastic wallet stuffed with paper, starting to split down the edges from being overfilled.
‘What is that, Ruby?’ he asked, hoping he could keep her talking.
Ruby threw the folder over to him, and it landed between them, on the table.
‘Pick it up,’ she barked.
‘No,’ he said, flatly.
Ruby’s eyebrows disappeared into her fringe. ‘Excuse me?’
‘I said no,’ he said, more loudly. ‘Tell me what it is.’
He met Ruby’s eyes, and she didn’t blink.
If she was going to stab him, she’d have burst in and done it. She was toying with him, but Lily was okay. If Ruby was focused on him, maybe he’d buy enough time to figure out how to get them out of this.
‘What is it?’ he said, pointing at the folder. ‘Tell me.’
‘That file is the reason David Moore is in the fucking morgue,’ Ruby said quietly. ‘Where he belongs.’
‘So – this is about David?’ Callum said, trying to keep his voice level and failing.
‘It’s her record, of what happened,’ Ruby said. ‘I found it a few months ago, when Mum and Dad had decided to move. They asked me to pack up Paige’s room.’
He looked at the papers, but the side facing upwards was blank.
‘And this was in there, the whole time. I found it at the bottom of the bag she was planning to take to RADA, because she couldn’t leave it behind, could she? She couldn’t let go.’
He kept his eyes on the knife as he stretched forward. He dragged the document towards him and flipped it over.
‘She kept a record, of their conversations.’ Ruby exhaled.
He didn’t recognise it at first. Was used to seeing flowing handwriting instead of neatly typeset words.
His eyes scanned the front page, then flicked back up to Ruby.
It was like all the adrenaline was slowly leaving his body, replaced with ice-cold water. Starting in his chest, spreading through his veins.
It was starting to make a sick sort of sense. Ruby’s fury, the tears – the violence.
He’d had the answer the whole time, he just didn’t know it. Detective Field had even asked him.
What did you write about?
And he’d told her.
Paige was a better writer than me.
She wrote in this big broad way.
She made you think about big themes, big issues.
Callum cleared his throat, and read out loud. ‘I suppose this is my record.’
He was numb with shock. Paige used to read it to him. The bits she wasn’t happy with, usually. They worked on them together.
Callum chose a different line. ‘The rules don’t work. There aren’t enough rules. There are too many rules to cope with.’
He felt sick.
‘It’s all there,’ Ruby choked out. ‘Everything he – he did to her. He was supposed to make her better—’
‘He did,’ Callum whispered. ‘We all got better.’
‘She was thirteen ,’ Ruby screamed, kicking her fallen chair. ‘And he abused her.’
Callum flinched at the noise and closed his eyes. ‘Ruby. Tell me this isn’t why you killed David—’
‘She was thirteen when she arrived on that ward and that animal, that pig – he was supposed to be looking after her.’ Ruby let out a sob. ‘I read those papers, over and over, and I realised – that animal picked her. If he’d chosen one of you, maybe she would still be alive—’
‘Ruby—’
‘No – I am talking ,’ she cried. ‘My sister is dead—’
‘It’s a play,’ Callum said, loudly enough to interrupt her.
He turned the pages, recognising a phrase here, the opening of a scene – even after all these years.
His ears were ringing. Ruby took two steps towards him, now within arm’s reach, the knife at her side. Her pupils were pinpricks.
‘You killed David, killed Sam, because of this?’ he asked quietly, fighting to keep his voice level.
‘Yes.’ There was snot running down Ruby’s face, but she didn’t wipe it away. The other hand joined the first on the handle of the knife. ‘She was my sister.’
Callum counted to six in his head.
‘It’s not real, Ruby.’ He held the papers in front of his torso, like a shield. ‘It’s not real.’
‘You’re lying.’ She’d stopped crying. Seemed frozen to the spot. ‘You’re always lying.’
His rage, always just below the surface, overwhelmed him.
He threw the papers across the table and stood up, took a step towards her.
‘I’m lying?’ He laughed, the cruel laugh he had when he was drunk. He felt drunk. He felt high, completely fucked – because this couldn’t be real. ‘I’m fucking lying?’
He took another step towards her, and Ruby backed off.
‘Your sister was an artist,’ he said, in a low voice. ‘She was an actress, yeah? In the end, Paige decided that she wanted to act, go to RADA, but when she was with us?
‘She wrote.’ He laughed again, throwing his hands up and making Ruby flinch. ‘To make herself feel better, she wrote about an even shittier situation than the one she was in. It was a fucking play.’
Ruby shook her head and the last of his control snapped. He didn’t care what she did – she could stab him too for all he fucking cared.
‘It’s not real,’ Callum said. He punctuated each of his words with a step forward, pushing Ruby back towards the kitchen door. ‘It’s fiction. “D” stands for doctor, and “P” stands for patient.’
‘A play?’ Ruby looked shell-shocked, her eyes darting to the folder on the table.
‘It was part of her RADA audition. Disorder , a play by Paige Jacobs. How did you not know that? Did you not fucking care?’
‘I—’
‘A good man is dead because you didn’t know your sister,’ Callum yelled. He was in Ruby’s face, the knife forgotten.
Everything happened at once. The hammering on the front door, the shout of “ Police ” from outside and the pressure, below his ribs.
Callum looked down. It was like she had barely touched him, maybe a firm push backwards, but the knife was buried in his stomach, up to the handle.