Chapter 4: NOW - The Safe Room

Sophie turns back to the car and waves before slipping through the school doors. A fist unclenches inside my stomach, and I know she’s safe for the rest of the day.

Sleepovers have proved to be the biggest obstacle so far. Sophie is sweet-tempered like her father and instantly made some good friends in her class. Since turning seven, Sophie has been invited to three sleepovers, and I said no each time. There were tears and even one minor tantrum, but it wasn’t until I saw her nervous about school for the first time that I realised what I was doing. She didn’t want to tell her friend, yet again, that she couldn’t go to a sleepover. So, I suggested her friends come to our house instead. We ordered pizzas, put on Frozen and spread pillows and blankets around the living room. A few excitable little girls were nothing compared to the terror of letting Sophie sleep in someone else’s house for the first time.

One day I will have to let her go. It’s coming soon, I can feel it. Right now, Sophie idolises me. There are blips, sure, but for the most part she trusts I know best. As soon as she becomes a teenager, all of that power fades away. She’ll want the freedom to make her own mistakes. I’ll have to sit her down and tell her the mistakes I made as a teenager. The awful choices that ruined my life.

I pull up at the library and park in a space that I can see from the building. I like to check that there’s no one lurking around the car park. Some might say that working in such a public place is a stupid idea considering I’ve had a psychopath in my life for nineteen years. Peter could wander into the library at any time. But it’s preservation. If Peter ever does find out where I live now—and I pray every day that he doesn’t—allowing him the smallest amount of access is one of the best ways to cope with it. Sure, he could come into the library and sit and stare at me, but I’m in a public place with witnesses. I can easily track every time he follows me, and I’d have Yvonne and others to back me up. If I worked inside my house with the doors locked, his frustration of not being able to get to me would make things worse. Any stalking victim would say the same thing.

I stop in my tracks on the way to the library. The glass in the door is shattered, a jagged hole punched through it. I freeze, adrenaline immediately spiked, the breath caught in my lungs. Then Yvonne’s powdered face appears and the moment passes.

“We had a break-in.” She shrugs. “A glazier’s coming in an hour so for now you’ll have to keep your coat on inside.” She pries open the door gently and I step in. “Watch yourself. I’ve swept up but I might have missed something.”

“Flamin’ hell,” I blurt. “Who robs a library?”

Yvonne shakes her short curls and gestures to the mess inside. “Vandals. I don’t think anything was actually stolen. They pulled the books down off the shelves, tore out pages.” She lifts a hand to her mouth, holding back tears. “Who’d do such a thing?”

I stare at the winter display we’d made, showcasing all the best wintry children’s books, and sigh. “Oh, Yvonne, this is awful. Let’s have a cup of tea before we do anything.”

“I need to put something across the door,” she says. “We can’t open to the public today.”

“All right, you do that and I’ll make the tea.”

On my way to the kitchen, I can’t help but stop and stare out of the window, examining every corner of the car park. There’s been an increase in youth crime in the area recently. Teens on electric bikes riding along the pavement causing havoc. Car theft. Shoplifting. This is almost certainly another incident caused by the same perpetrators. But I have to check for him.

The car park is empty. I nod slowly, reassuring myself that I’m okay, nothing bad happened and this is just a horrible, unrelated incident. Once that fear has been quashed, I’m able to move to the kitchen and make the tea.

We spend most of the morning attempting to salvage as many books as we can, recycling what we can’t, and tidying up the mess. Libraries are always under threat from budget cuts, but we couldn’t have predicted this kind of carnage. Now Yvonne is tasked with finding the money to replace so many precious books. I find Beloved by Toni Morrison torn open. The Hunger Games is ripped into pieces. It feels personal in a way, and that intrusive thought pops back into my mind.

What if it was Peter?

It just doesn’t feel like him. I haven’t seen him for over a year and every other time he’s forced himself back into my life the first thing he does is watch. I’ll see his blue BMW parked somewhere nearby. I’ll see him waiting for me across the street. A face in a crowd.

I remind myself that he doesn’t know where I live anymore. The last time he found me was in the hospital as Ed faded away. I angrily sweep up glass trying not to rehash old memories.

The door opens, and two police officers arrive. A knot forms in my throat. I try not to think of the many times the police let me down over the years.

A tall officer with a moustache stands talking to Yvonne and I hear her tell him about how she turned up at work to find the glass door broken and the mess inside.

“Do you have cameras set up here?” he asks.

“We do. They should record movement,” she says, heading around to the computer at the front desk. She grabs her reading glasses from the chain around her neck and clicks on the mouse a few times. “Damn it, I can’t remember which app it is.”

“Do you want me to take a look?” I offer.

Yvonne shuffles out of the way and I take over, more than familiar with security camera apps. I click through the events hoping to catch the moment a group of balaclava-clad youths on bikes came to wreak havoc.

That is not what I find. A lone figure emerges from the trees that line the car park. I let out a sharp gasp and turn my head away, suddenly nauseated by the screen.

Is it him?

“What is it?” Yvonne moves closer, almost barging the young, female officer out of the way.

The long figure walks slowly up to the library with their head angled down. I know, instinctively, that it’s a man, by the shape of the shoulders, height and gait. But I don’t know if it’s him. Every inch of my flesh tingles as I watch this person move towards the door. He stops, turns and stares at the camera, and it’s then I see the mask. White, plastic, featureless, underneath a dark baseball cap. Pressure gathers beneath my ribs. I exhale sharply, trying to ease it.

Is that you, Peter?

I don’t remember him being so bulky. There was never such a slope of shoulder, a breadth of chest. But it has been years, and he may have gained weight.

I play the video again watching the way he moves, searching for something familiar. If it is him, I need to know. The mask, the dark clothing, the hat, it’s driving me crazy to watch.

“Amber, are you all right?”

I glance up from the computer to see Yvonne frowning and the two officers staring at me instead of the screen.

“I’m sure this has been quite a shock,” says Moustache. “We’ll examine the CCTV footage and check for any witnesses in the area. Rest assured we’ll be looking into it.”

“I have a stalker,” I say, my voice trembling. “Peter Harlow. He has a record so you… you can read all about it on your system.”

Both officers take notes.

“I have an active restraining order against him,” I add. “He doesn’t… he shouldn’t know where I am. I… I moved away and changed my number.”

“Your name?” the officer asks.

“Amber Denton,” I tell him.

“Thanks for letting me know, Mrs Denton,” Moustache says. “Please do get in touch if you notice anything out of the ordinary. But don’t jump to any conclusions. This may be completely unrelated.” He pats me on the arm.

As Yvonne and I watch them leave, she turns to me. “Do you think it’s him?”

I shake my head. “I don’t know. If it is, he’s changed.”

“Sit down, love.” Yvonne practically manhandles me into the chair. Then she disappears and returns a few moments later with a glass of water, which she puts down on the desk in front of me. “Right, from now on you’re not going to be alone here, not even for an hour at lunch, okay?”

I sip the water. “Okay.”

“And you can text me at any time of the day or night.”

“Thanks.” I push sweaty hair away from my face. “It might not be him. I’m probably overreacting.” I gaze down at my slick palms, wondering how pale I am right now. Ever since I saw the camera footage, my mind has felt like it’s swimming, like I could pass out at any moment.

“It might not be him but you’re not overreacting,” Yvonne says. “I want you to know I’m here for you. I know my husband’s fifty-two and has the muscle mass of Mr Bean, but between us all I reckon we could knock Peter Harlow halfway back to Leeds for you.”

I laugh. “You could probably take him on alone, Yvonne.”

“Damn right.” Her lipstick cracks as she smiles at me. But the smile fails to reach her eyes and can’t mask the sadness there. It’s been a shitty morning for her. I know how much she loves this library and if Peter ransacked it to hurt me then he’s succeeded. I feel the familiar guilt and shame washing over me.

“I’m all right now,” I tell her. “Come on. We’ll have this place cleared up in no time.”

I give Yvonne a quick hug and set back to work. But I can’t stop picturing the broader man, arms swinging as he walks. There was a time I could recognise Peter’s shadow from a blurry, pixelated picture, but these days, I’m not so sure. I almost wish he’d broken in brazenly, his smug expression showing, just so that I knew for sure it was him. This kills me. The ambiguity, the way it’ll play on my mind over and over again. No one has ever invented a better form of torture.