The Face Behind the Mask. Helen Phifer
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she laid him in his cot while she ran a bath for herself.
***
Will opened one eye and turned his head to look where he was because he couldn’t remember. The movement made him groan. His head was pounding and moving it made him feel sick again. For a minute he panicked. The last time he’d woken up in this state he’d almost lost Annie. He’d woken up next to Laura – one of his colleagues – after a drunken fumble. Annie had found them together.
He reached out beside him, glad there was no one next to him. The dirty grey light that was coming through the blinds was just enough for his eyes to adjust to his surroundings. He was at home, on the sofa, thank God. He remembered Stu’s funeral. He’d felt so bloody guilty about it all. He’d gone back to the wake where he and Debs had sunk shots of whisky at the bar, both of them comparing their guilt: Debs because Stu had caught her having an affair and Will because he’d come home that night to find a drunken, angry Stu straddling his very pregnant wife.
He wondered if Annie was mad at him and how the hell she’d managed to get him here, because he didn’t remember any of it except for the whisky at the bar. Christ, he must have been hammered. He lifted his arm out of the duvet to see his shirt was gone. His mouth felt like a sewer. He needed water.
Forcing himself to slowly sit up, he felt his stomach lurch. He was never drinking again. He stood up and stumbled into the coffee table, banging his shin. The glass of water Annie had left there for him tipped over and he cursed as the cold liquid ran down his legs and feet. Holding his head, he managed to make it into the kitchen where he got a bottle of water from the fridge and also found three paracetomol.
The television was still on and he wondered why Annie had paused it, then gone to bed. Picking up the remote he pressed play and watched the news clip, his heart sinking. Bollocks, another murder. It had been a while since there had been one in Barrow and he’d kind of liked the break. The last murders had been in Hawkshead.
He wondered where his phone was and if anyone from work had called him. He’d put a day’s holiday in for yesterday, so technically they should have left him alone and called whoever the duty DS was. The kitchen clock told him it was four a.m. Thank God he still had time to go to bed for a few hours before he had to get up for work. Today was going to be a ball-ache if he was still feeling like this, not to mention he wouldn’t be able to drive himself in to work. At times like this he missed Stu the most. He would have just phoned him to come and pick him up. Fuck, what a mess.
As he got upstairs he tried his best not to crash into the walls or doors and disturb either his wife or their baby. He went into the bathroom where he splashed cold water all over his face and brushed his teeth, then he sprayed some aftershave on so he didn’t stink of eau du whisky. Alfie began to cry and Will went into his bedroom to pick him up. A bleary-eyed Annie met him on the landing.
‘Sorry, I don’t know how I got into such a state.’ He pulled her towards him and hugged her. ‘Are you really mad at me?’
Rubbing her eyes she laughed. ‘No, I’m not, although if you’d have puked inside the car and not outside of it this episode would have a different ending.’
Will groaned. ‘I’m such a disgrace.’
She nodded in agreement. ‘Yes, you are, but you smell much better now and I’m lonely in that big bed on my own so I forgive you.’
He kissed her and Alfie let out a scream.
‘I swear that kid knows when I want you to myself for a bit.’
They both walked into his bedroom where the night light had gone out. Annie walked over to his cot and picked him up. Alfie immediately stopped crying as he snuggled closer to her. Will led the way back to their bedroom where he got into bed and sighed. Annie sat down in the big, squashy armchair that doubled up as her reading and nursing chair. She began to feed Alfie. Grabbing a blanket off the radiator she wrapped it around them to keep them warm.
***
Will was asleep again as soon as his head hit the pillow and she envied him a little. When she’d insisted on breastfeeding, she hadn’t really thought about the night feeds. Still, Will was the one working and she was at home, so it didn’t really matter. And Alfie was having fewer feeds now that he was on solid food. As Alfie suckled, she closed her eyes and began to drift off. It wasn’t long before she was dreaming.
She was back inside the house with the bright blue door and she wondered why. This time she let herself go inside. She felt as if she was the first officer at the scene. Trepidation about what she was about to find filled her. The downstairs was pristine. The smell of lemon furniture polish filled the air, but it was tinged with something that smelt much darker. An underlying smell of copper lingered in the air. As she got closer to the stairs the coppery smell was much stronger.
Annie knew what blood smelt like. She’d been in her fair share of violent scrapes. The only sound in the house was the sound of a tap dripping. It was coming from upstairs. Annie looked down to see if she was wearing her uniform and had her baton and CS gas, but she was in her pyjamas. As she climbed the first step she knew she should try and wake herself up. What if this wasn’t a dream and it was dangerous? She had nothing to protect herself with.
Her feet ignored her brain and carried on walking up until she reached the top step. She heard a door slam and heavy footsteps heading in her direction. Pressing herself against the wall and trying to blend in, she held her breath as someone came towards her. It took all her might not to let out a scream at the clown who came running towards her. She’d never been fond of clowns and to see this one in this strange house where she could smell blood wasn’t good at all.
It was dressed in a black and white stripy outfit with the scariest clown mask she’d ever seen. Thanking her lucky stars it hadn’t seen her, she watched as whoever it was ran down the stairs and out of the back door. Annie was torn. She didn’t know if she should follow the scary clown or carry on towards the open bedroom door where the smell was coming from.
Relieved when her feet began to move towards the door and not in the direction the clown had gone, she found herself looking straight into a scene from one of her worst nightmares. There was blood everywhere, which was where the awful smell was coming from. Lifting her eyes to the ceiling, she saw it was even sprayed on the once-white light shade. She looked down to the floor and saw a foot sticking out from the other side of the bed.
A cry made her jump and she felt horrified that whoever was lying there was still alive after losing so much blood. As she tried to force herself to go and help them, a much louder wail pierced her dream. Her eyes fluttered open and for a minute she wasn’t sure where she was; then she felt the weight of Alfie in her arms and breathed a sigh of relief that she was at home. She blinked, looking around the room to make sure there was no scary clown standing watching her in the corner. Relief flooded through her body to see it was the same as it always was. The early morning sun was breaking and she had to take deep breaths to try to calm herself down.
Why was she dreaming about that house? It had already been on the news that a body had been found. The police were dealing with it. Will would probably end up working the case when he went in tomorrow. She wondered if she’d just been dreaming and surmising about what had happened or whether it actually had happened and she had somehow witnessed the killer fleeing the scene.
Will would be so angry with her if she tried to get involved or even mentioned it, so she wouldn’t ask him. It was as simple as that. If she wanted to know, or had to know, then she would ask Jake to tell her the gory details. He wouldn’t care; he thrived on doom, gloom and drama.
She lifted Alfie to her shoulder to wind him and he stopped crying. Will was gently snoring and she wanted to get into bed with him. She had no idea why, but Alfie didn’t settle at all in his bedroom. He woke up at almost the same time every night. Maybe she should move his cot in here with them; at least she could have him next to her and she might get some more sleep. In fact, she was going to do it first thing in the morning.
Alfie was fast asleep again in her arms so she got up and went into his bedroom for his Moses basket. It was much colder