Chapter 23: Elliot - The Foster Child

I wish I hadn’t reacted like that to Violet’s Christmas card, but it took me by surprise. I can see that Cora is suspicious, especially after I asked if she thinks Violet is responsible for the things that have happened. I should have kept that to myself. As soon as I get the chance I’ll compare the Christmas cards I’ve received and the one Violet’s given us. If she is playing some sort of game with us then I’ll tackle her about it.

We’ve just finished eating when I remember that I’ve left my car parked in the drive. I usually park it in the garage as soon as I come home but I’d been eager to check that nothing had happened while we were out, and then Violet turned up with that perishing card which completely threw me.

‘I’ve forgotten to put my car in the garage. I’ll go and do that now then I’ll load the dishwasher. You relax. Take your wine into the living room and find a film for us to watch,’ I suggest to Cora.

‘Are you sure? I don’t mind tidying up all this.’ She waves her hand over the table.

‘I insist. You put your feet up. It will only take me a few minutes.’

I pick up the torch that I always leave hanging on the kitchen wall by the back door, and step outside into the garden. The cold air hits me, I shiver and glance around the garden. As I step out a bit further the floodlight comes on, basking everything in a warm glow and making shadows everywhere.

I stand still for a moment, focus and listen. It’s still and quiet apart from a dog barking in the distance. I walk around the side of the house to the front drive where I left my car, listening, looking.

The floodlight doesn’t reach this side of the house so I switch on the torch and walk over to my car. I shine the torch all over it, checking for any scratches, still suspicious of Violet. If she’s capable of puncturing Cora’s car tyre then I wouldn’t put it past her to scratch my car. To my relief it’s fine. Then I see something behind the wipers on the windscreen. A square white envelope. Just like the other card envelopes. And the one Violet gave us.

Anger wells up inside me. Did Violet put that there when she left?

I pick up the envelope and study it. It’s sealed and blank, as the first card envelope was, but I can feel that there’s a card inside and also something small and hard.

I open the car door and sit inside on the driver’s seat, then carefully open up the envelope and take out the card. It’s exactly the same as the other two cards. The same as the one that Violet gave to us, with a Christmas wreath on the front and Season’s Greetings written around it.

It has to be her. Some kind of twisted payback because Cora and Dale sent her back to the home. How bloody dare she! I wonder what sick message she’s written inside this one.

Something hard falls out of the envelope and lands in my palm. Keeping my hand outstretched, I shine the torch on it. It’s an elongated copper souvenir penny, the sort you get from the machines in tourist places and attractions I don’t have to look at this to know where it’s from. I have the very same coin in my drawer upstairs.

And there’s only one other person who had the same coin. Someone I haven’t seen for many years. Someone who definitely isn’t Violet. So it’s just a coincidence that she gave us the same card, they’re probably for sale everywhere.

I slip the coin into the front pocket of my jeans then open the card, bracing myself to read the message inside.

IT’S PAYBACK TIME, LEE.

Lee.

So I was right, it is him. He nicknamed me Lee years ago because he thought Elliot was too posh. I don’t understand why he’s doing this now though. Or what has brought the past thundering back into my life after all these years.