Page 38 of No Safe Place

Thursday | Evening

Lily

Scott wasn’t in the car, and Lily moved to the shade of a gnarled tree. The roots were pushing up through the concrete, and she balanced on one uneven patch of ground, teetering back and forwards.

Her phone buzzed.

Sorry, babe. Two cardiac arrests today. Just getting changed – 10 mins.

Scott’s ward had been relieved when he turned up for an impromptu shift, while she was visiting Cal.

Lily pulled Callum’s tobacco from her pocket. She rolled a cigarette, a precise if slightly thin cylinder.

Lily inhaled deeply. Scott hated smoking. She hadn’t eaten and by the time she exhaled her head was already spinning.

She hadn’t seen Callum in that catatonic state for a long time. The memories slammed into her, pinning her to the side of the car.

Callum facing the wall in bed, refusing to move. Catching a glimpse of Callum in David’s office, sobbing so hard his shoulders shook. Callum, dead-eyed, telling her about the night he stood on a bridge, aged twelve, and debated whether to jump.

The memories – of her being ill, of Callum being ill – it was all a world away from their lives in his little house. He wasn’t well now, but he was okay. They had their day-to-day routines – washing up and playing records and never hoovering.

The cigarette crackled as she reached the filter and she flicked it towards the kerb, debating rolling another. It was only a matter of time, before it would all come out.

Maybe it would be in the press, or maybe the police would speak to the school. If people at school found out, then it would get out to the parents. Would they want her teaching their kids? Would she lose her job?

She put a hand up to her chest.

Lily was so wrapped up in Callum she had barely thought about Sam. Her poor parents.

Two stabbings in two nights. The police couldn’t think it was a coincidence, not with all the reminders to lock her doors and call them if she saw anything suspicious.

Lily shivered, despite the warm night. The hairs on the back of her neck tingled, like she was being watched.

‘Lily.’

She jumped, yelping and scrambling away from the voice.

Scott held his hands up, wide-eyed. He was clutching a bedraggled bunch of flowers.

‘Shit.’ Lily put a hand over her pounding heart. ‘You scared me.’

Scott didn’t speak. He pulled her into a hug.

‘I hope those are for me,’ Lily mumbled into his chest. He was warm and smelled like antibac.

‘Of course they are.’ He laughed, handing them over. Spray carnations. Not the splashiest flower, certainly not the most expensive. But her favourites. ‘How are you, babe?’

She clutched the flowers as she thought. After a pause she shrugged and said, ‘I actually don’t know how I am.’

But Scott wasn’t listening. He took Lily’s arm and pulled it towards him. The bruises looked worse in the daylight.

A muscle in Scott’s jaw twitched. ‘Did he do that?’

She shrugged. ‘He didn’t mean to. It was an accident. And it doesn’t even hurt.’

Scott didn’t say anything. He let her go and they got into the car. Lily was drained.

Lily leaned back in her seat and felt the first stirrings of panic. She was going to have to tell him everything – her past, the paper. Her throat closed and she felt the pressure behind her eyes that meant she was going to cry.

‘Scott,’ she said. ‘When we get home, we need to talk.’