Escape From Evil - Cathy Wilson [112]
The solicitor was right about the tea not being ready in time. I was shaking so much, I couldn’t even do that right. Peter, fortunately, was sprawled out on a sofa after the long drive down. I was so terrified of what was about to happen that I couldn’t look at him. When the knock on the door came, I nearly dropped the mugs.
‘Who the fuck’s that?’ Peter called out, but he didn’t budge. It was my flat, I could get the door.
I opened it and the daylight vanished. The whole doorway was filled by the largest pair of men I’d ever seen.
One of them growled, ‘Peter Tobin?’
I said, ‘Yes,’ and pointed at the sofa without looking.
I’d played this scene over and over in my mind and usually it ended with Peter grabbing Daniel while the bailiffs backed off. The reality couldn’t have been more different. Even as the bailiffs read out their legal order explaining that Peter had no rights to his son and was not allowed within a mile of the pair of us, he didn’t move. He didn’t resist as they bent down to encourage him up.
I’d expected anger and fury and fists and even weapons. At the very, very least, I’d expected to be called every name under the sun.
But he did none of that. There was no menace in his face, just shock. Utter disbelief that his mousey little wife had dared to do this to him. Total non-comprehension that he had just been beaten at his own game by the woman he had unwittingly trained.
SEVENTEEN
Another Thirty Seconds . . .
You should never threaten a woman’s child.
If that thought wasn’t going through Peter’s mind as he was thrown out of my flat by the thick arms of the law, then it should have been. He needed to know that there was nothing I wouldn’t do to protect Daniel. I’d proved that in Bathgate every time I’d turned the other cheek when he’d taken women – they must have been prostitutes, I realized – to our bed, smacked me across the room or put me down in front of strangers. I wasn’t scared of him. I’d only subjugated myself to stop him hurting Daniel. And now I’d gone a stage further.
As he was led out of the room, I could see Peter thinking, ‘She can’t do this. She’s not capable of this. I control her. She does whatever I want.’
That’s why he hadn’t resisted. He’d been literally too confused to fight. He’d misjudged me big time. For someone so adept at manipulation, that must have hurt his professional pride. It was satisfying seeing the tables turned. Just like I’d been blind for so long to his obvious true character, he’d come down to Portsmouth expecting me to be the same malleable wallflower who’d left. He’d ignored my new clothes, my weight loss, my dyed hair – he’d even been with me when builders had wolf-whistled and that hadn’t sunk in either. I was a new woman and he never even noticed.
He may not have known me, but I knew him. Which is why, as I locked the door after them and hugged Daniel, sobbing, ‘We’re safe now. Safe at last,’ I didn’t truly believe it. I’d just seen the man of my nightmares escorted from my flat, but however it looked now, Peter was not someone who liked to be beaten. He’d walked away this time because it had been the sensible thing to do. But he would be back. There would be repercussions, I was convinced of it. It was just a question of when.
As a consequence, I didn’t sleep a wink that night. Every cracking twig beneath the window was Peter shinning up a tree. Every engine was his old van idling to a stop. Every creaking floorboard was him with an axe outside my door. By the time Daniel woke up at six, I was a nervous wreck.
After a week of that, I finally entertained the idea that Peter wasn’t coming back. Granny and my new friends assured me that bullies run away when you stand up to them. Peter was the classic bully and I’d well and truly stood up to him.
I’ve realized that I’m a great believer in drawing a line under events and moving on. I suppose that had started, like everything else, with my mother. We’d flitted from place to place for various reasons, but when she decided to give normal living one last go, we’d moved into Telscombe Cliffs. That