Buch lesen: «No Place Like Home»

Chapter 1

Ellie’s back went rigid as the door slammed. Quickly pulling the bedroom door closed, she turned as a bunch of keys were thrown down on the hall table.

‘You’re home early.’

‘Problem with that?’ Carl sneered in a voice thick with sarcasm and alcohol. Ellie swallowed and tried to push back the panic she felt rising within her.

‘I just lost a bloody contract I’ve spent the last six months fighting for to some hot shot who just happens—’ he made inverted commas in the air with his fingers ‘—to be the son of the boss’ golf partner!’ He poured himself a triple whisky and threw it back, grimacing as the liquid seared its way down.

‘Shit!’ Carl spun and slammed the glass against the far wall. Ellie jumped and he turned his eyes on her. The fear he saw there seemed to only infuriate him more.

‘S’pose you think I had it coming?’

Ellie shook her head and backed away. His eyes had turned almost black with fury.

‘No! Of course not. I know you worked hard on it!’ Ignoring her protest, he grabbed her arm. Ellie winced.

‘Don’t think I’m good enough to get the contract? Think the little shit probably deserves it?’

‘No!’ she said, trying to pull away. ‘You know I don’t think that!’

‘Don’t bloody lie to me!’

The slap split her lip and sent her tumbling backwards into the drinks cabinet, smashing glasses and sending bottles crashing to the floor. Ellie stared at the mess in shock.

‘You clumsy cow,’ Carl ground out as he began to advance again.

Her head snapped up and she stared at him for a moment. His face was red and contorted in fury, with no sign of the anger abating. It had been the same last night when she’d begged him to stop. But he hadn’t. That was why she was finally leaving – something she knew she should have done a long time ago. But he wasn’t supposed to have been home for hours yet. Carl raised his fist. Scrambling to her feet, Ellie screamed, half running, half stumbling into the hall. Behind her, the fist connected with the doorframe.

‘Shit! You little bitch!’

Her hand was on the latch of the front door. A gap to escape opened but Carl was too fast.

‘I don’t think so,’ he sneered, slamming the door with such force that one of the stained-glass panels within it shattered. The momentary distraction enabled Ellie to push away but Carl caught her hair, balling it in his fist. Her hands went to his as she screamed again in pain and fear, begging him to stop.

The next punch sent her reeling into the hall table. She tried to steady herself unsuccessfully as the table tipped, its contents spilling onto the floor.

‘Now look what you’ve done.’ The voice, thick with alcohol and hatred, was close again as Ellie tried to get up. There was a crack as his handmade, Italian leather shoe connected with her ribs.

‘Get up!’ Carl screamed at her as she lay sobbing on the floor. She didn’t move. Couldn’t move. ‘I said, get up!’ he shouted, hauling her up viciously. Ellie saw the punch too late as his fist slammed into the side of her face and sent her back hard against the wall. She tried to find the strength to keep upright. Keep off the floor. But she couldn’t. The pain of the attack, on top of last night was too much. As much as she wanted to fight, she had nothing left. Her legs gave way and she slid down into a ball as her focus blurred and the tears soaked her cheeks. All she wanted was to sleep. Through the fog she could hear voices. Someone was calling her name.

‘And stop fucking crying!’ Carl loomed in again.

*

Ellie tried to open her eyes. Someone was holding her hand. She looked up and made an effort to focus on the face looking down into hers.

‘Hello,’ the policeman said.

She tried to sit up but he put a hand gently against her shoulder.

‘You just lie still, sweetheart. The ambulance will be here in a minute.’

‘I don’t need an ambulance,’ Ellie croaked out, but she didn’t move. The policeman smiled at her. He had a nice smile. Kind.

At the moment the smile was hiding the fact that he wanted to tell the young woman next to him that she didn’t have to take this. Blokes like that bastard they’d just hauled away to the station didn’t deserve to walk the earth. The neighbour who’d called them had been almost hysterical, swearing that the man was going to beat his girlfriend to death this time. She could see it all, she’d said, through a broken pane in the front door.

Luckily, they’d been close to the apartment block when the call came across. The caller’s urgency had ensured they’d hurried their pace which was just as well. Forcing the door, they’d managed to pull the man off just in time. He’d been aiming a blow to the young woman’s head that may well have ended the dispute once and for all.

The police sergeant glanced around at the disarray of what was obviously a lovely flat. Modern and spacious, it was in a nice area in London’s Canary Wharf, with stunning views of the city from the large, floor to ceiling windows. Judging by its location, and the items in it, the occupants were doing pretty well for themselves. His eyes fell on a picture that had fallen from the hall table. The glass in the frame had smashed and as he picked it up, shards tinkled onto the polished wooden floor.

She was almost unrecognisable. The photograph showed a laughing, carefree woman with bright green eyes and long, red hair being whipped by the wind. He looked back down. The hair was much shorter now, though still fiery red, the fragile beauty masked beneath layers of bruising and blood.

‘Wonder if this was what started it, Sarge.’ The other policeman had been surveying the apartment as they waited for the ambulance. His partner craned his neck round to look through into the bedroom where the other officer was standing. Two suitcases were packed and the room had been cleared of any female touches.

‘Seems like she wised up.’

Turning back to the semi-conscious figure on the floor, his colleague moved a strand of hair, sticky with blood, from across her eye. ‘Yeah. Just not soon enough,’ he replied sadly as a wailing siren began to close in.

*

Ellie blearily opened her eyes. Rather she opened one. The other remained swollen and shut.

‘Zak?’ she squeaked out. Her throat was sore and tasted funny. Like blood.

Across the room, a mop of floppy blonde hair in a chair started out of a doze. Zak scooted the chair up to the bed and took her small hands in his.

‘Ellie! How are you feeling?’

Ellie raised her one working eyebrow.

‘Sorry! God! Stupid question.’ There was a pause. ‘Bloody hell, Ellie, you look dreadful.’ At least he was honest.

‘Thanks. I feel dreadful.’

‘Sorry.’

‘It’s OK. I think we’ve known each other long enough to be insulting. Why change the habit of a lifetime?’ She tried to smile in a way that involved the least amount of muscles as possible.

‘The police are charging him with resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer for a start.’

Ellie nodded, as he continued. ‘They said they’ll be in touch with regards to any charges you want to press.’ He paused. ‘Ellie?’

She knew what was coming. Zak was her closest friend this side of the Atlantic, ever since she had joined his infant publishing group as a contract illustrator seven years ago – an endeavour which had since gone from strength to strength.

Initially Ellie had to admit that she’d thought Zak was the clichéd public-school-boy type who had been given a company to play with by a rich daddy. She soon realised that she’d been too hasty in her assessment of his character. The money to start the company had indeed come from his family but it was in the form of a business loan, to be paid back with interest, just as a standard bank loan would have been. Zak’s father had built up his own very successful business from nothing and Zak intended to do the same. The only thing his father was prepared to offer for free was advice, and then only when it was requested. But Zak had worked hard and his business was doing well, and they were currently in the process of recruiting several more staff.

‘No.’

‘No what?’

‘I’m not going back to him. That is what you were going to ask, isn’t it?’ Ellie turned her bloodshot eye on him.

‘Yes. It was.’ Relief flooded Zak’s face, as he tenderly found an un-bruised piece of Ellie’s and kissed it, very gently squeezing her hands. Ellie looked back at his handsome face. Normally it was full of smiles and laughter, but now it was filled with concern. Concern for her. It was the catalyst she needed. A big tear plopped onto the starched sheets.

‘I’m so sorry!’ she sobbed, emotion breaking her voice. ‘I should have listened to you. I should have left before. It’s just that he would apologise and he seemed to mean it. He really did and then …’ The sobs became more continuous, painfully wracking her broken ribs.

‘I know darling, I know,’ Zak soothed as he stroked her hair. ‘I know.’

*

Three days later, Ellie was released from hospital. Zak collected her and they drove back to his apartment.

‘I am quite capable of being on my own, you know,’ she said, leaning against a countertop in the large kitchen of his Kensington apartment.

‘I know that,’ he replied, glancing back at her bruised face as he poured freshly brewed coffee into two bone china mugs. ‘I just don’t want you to be at the moment.’ He handed her one, taking in her expression as he did so.

‘Indulge me just for a bit,’ he said/ ‘After all, isn’t that what friends are for!’ he asked before proceeding to sing an appropriate line or two in his best, not-very-good Dionne Warwick voice.

‘Zak!’

‘Please. Just for a while.’

Ellie sighed. ‘OK. So long as you promise not to sing.’ Taking her drink, she headed through to the living room and eased herself down on the squashy sofa. Zak followed and sat opposite on its twin. He was wearing his ‘mortified’ face.

‘I’m hurt.’

‘I’m serious.’

‘Fine. Fine,’ he mumbled before his face suddenly brightened. ‘How about humming? I’m pretty good at humming. Or whistling?’ He pursed his lips and blew a few notes before a cushion landed square on his nose. Picking it up, he gave Ellie a wry brow raise. ‘I’m taking it that was also a no.’

‘You’re tone deaf and dogs are beginning to howl, so yes, that was most definitely a no.’

*

‘Wake up, Sleeping Beauty.’

‘Hmm?’

Zak placed a mug of tea on the low table next to the sofa.

‘What time is it?’

‘Just after seven.’

‘Really?’ Ellie sat up. ‘You should have woken me.’

‘Why? There was nowhere you needed to be. Besides, I think a few snoozes are allowed after what you’ve been through. In fact, I’m pretty sure they’re vital.’ Zak was concentrating on dunking a biscuit in his tea.

Ellie smiled. He really was a sweetie. Why on earth she had picked someone like Carl over someone like Zak, she had no explanation for. Not that she and Zak would ever date. They’d just never felt like that about each other. It had been a familial relationship from the first time they’d met. And she was glad. Zak meant the world to her and she certainly wouldn’t have wanted a relationship gone bad resulting in her losing both her lover and her best friend.

‘I spoke to – oh bugger!’

‘What?’

He held up half a biscuit. ‘My biccie broke off!’

Ellie giggled at his forlorn face. ‘Oh, poor Zakky!’

He stuck out his tongue and took another biscuit from the jar he’d plonked on the table alongside their drinks. Showing it to her first, he popped it whole into his mouth in an exaggerated motion.

‘Zachary Benton! Just wait until I tell your mother!’

‘What?’ he asked innocently, chocolate brown eyes full of question, mouth full of chocolate biscuit.

‘For someone with such a privileged upbringing, you have some appalling habits.’

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ he replied, pretending to pick his nose.

Ellie stifled a smile, instead attempting to give the impression she was pointedly ignoring his actions. Zak knew her too well to be fooled but it was the principle. ‘You spoke to whom?’

‘Oh! Sandy. She rang this afternoon at the office as she’s been trying to get hold of you. I gave her a very quick rundown – I didn’t think you’d mind – and explained that your phone had got damaged.’

Ellie’s phone had been in her pocket during Carl’s last attack and had ended up, like so many other things, shattered into pieces. Zak had ordered her a new one to help take his mind off things while he’d waited in the hospital but it had just sat in the box after its arrival as Ellie told him she wasn’t really in the mood to talk to anyone. Zak finally got it out and set it up anyway, partly as a way to keep his mind busy but also knowing that eventually she would want a phone.

‘She was going to ring here but I thought you might be asleep so I gave her your new mobile number and said you’d call her when you woke up.’ He saw her hesitation. ‘I said you’d probably prefer a voice call for now, rather than your usual video chat and she was fine with that.’ Ellie nodded, her eyes averted.

‘Erm, El?’

She looked up at him. ‘Oh no.’

‘What?’

‘You have that look?’

‘What look? I don’t have a “look”.’

‘Yes, you do. It’s that look that says, “I know you’re not going to like what I’m about to say but I’m going to say it anyway because I think I’m right.”’

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘That look.’

‘Yes. That look.’

Zak let out a breath through his teeth. ‘OK. Sandy and I were talking and we thought it might do you some good to go and stay with her for a couple of weeks. You know, help with the recuperation, get away from everything.’

‘I don’t need to get away from everything. In fact, I was planning to come back to work next week.’

‘You can still work out there if you want. Your job is pretty portable.’ She moved to reply but Zak stopped her. ‘Ellie, I think this would really be good for you at the moment.’

‘Well, I don’t!’ she snapped. ‘I am coming back to work on Monday. The bruises will have healed more by then and I’m sure everyone already knows what happened anyway.’

‘Ellie, come here.’ Zak stood in front of the antique mirror that hung above a console table. Suddenly the bravado left her.

She shook her head. ‘No. I don’t think I want to.’ Tears unexpectedly pricked the back of her eyes.

Crossing the room, Zak gently put his arms around his friend and led her to the mirror, his arms remaining solid, supportive and tender. Ellie studied his face in the glass – his floppy hair forever in need of a cut, the kind, soft brown eyes, and aquiline nose above a generous mouth. She then forced her gaze to move to her own reflection. It was worse than she had expected. Her left eye was still closed and a mélange of blue, purple and yellow shades. Butterfly stitches held together a cut on her temple about two inches long and her cheekbone was beginning to turn from purple to green. Her lip was still partly swollen with a dark line showing where the split was starting to heal. Zak felt her breath hitch and knew that she had seen enough. He led her back to the sofa. She sat and he swung her legs up and laid the blanket back over them. ‘What about all the people on the plane and at the airport? I don’t want anyone to see me. They’ll stare, even when they’re pretending not to. You know what people are like. I’m like a human car crash. They can’t help it.’ She lifted her head and met Zak’s eyes. ‘I don’t want to be stared at Zak. I feel hideous.’

‘You are not hideous!’ Zak’s voice rarely took on a stern tone but it did now, derailing Ellie’s panicky train of thought. She looked up into his face, its expression serious now.

Her eyes were wary and he had flashes of her looking at Carl like that. His stomach roiled at the fact that they’d nearly lost her this time at the hand of that …

He stopped himself, refusing to let his mind go down that road again. Instead, bringing his thoughts back to the present, Zak gently shuffled Ellie’s legs up as he sat down on the end of the sofa.

‘You underestimate me once again.’ A mischievous grin tickled his lips. ‘Have you forgotten that I am renowned for my cunning plans!’ Ellie smiled in spite of herself. ‘Wait here a moment. I shall return!’ Zak disappeared, before making a dramatic swoosh of an entrance back into the room a moment later with a pair of stylish, oversized sunglasses and a baseball cap, the latter of which he popped on her head. ‘There’s a ticket to Dallas booked for you in business class and, if you want, you can just put the sleep mask on when you’re snoozing and keep the glasses on at other times. They’re dark enough to hide your black eye but not so dark you’ll be tripping over things.’

‘You are too good to me.’

‘No, I’m not.’ He gave his friend a gentle hug. As much as he would miss Ellie, he knew this trip back to see her childhood friend, and the place she grew up, was exactly what she needed right now.