Beth staggered backwards, shaken by the sudden intensity of the blistering heat as blue-yellow flames exploded into life, leaping high into the dark sky, lighting the entire area with dancing shadows that seemed to come alive. She flung the petrol container into the blaze, then turned away, hurriedly climbing a five-bar farm gate and dropping into the adjoining field, stumbling and almost falling before finally regaining her balance. She looked back at the inferno just once before rushing away, pacing quickly over the gradually freezing ground in the direction of town.
As she trudged on, eyes focused forward, not looking back, the car’s petrol tank suddenly exploded with a ferocity Beth feared couldn’t fail to gain attention, however remote the area. She looked around her for non-existent prying eyes, first one way and then another, before breaking firstly into a jog and then a fevered run, panting hard, increasing her pace with each loping step towards a cluster of mature trees which offered shelter. Come on, keep going, keep going, you can do it, girl, one step at a time.
Beth reached up, wiping the tears from her eyes with the back of a blue-white mottled hand, as she reached the first of the trees, a tall oak bare of leaves. She paused, sucking in the cold night air, allowing the large trunk to support her weight as she rested, still panting, her chest rising and falling in a rapid rhythmic motion. She spat out a mouthful of acidic vomit as her gut twisted, her mind racing.
She’d done the right thing, hadn’t she? Of course I did. Of course I did. She repeated it time and again as she began jogging again, already exhausted, her legs stiffening and complaining with each adrenalin-fuelled step. It was time to stop thinking. Time to still her troubled mind. She was going to need all her available energy for what came next. It was going to be a long trek home.
4
It took Beth a little under two hours, trudging through sodden fields, scrambling over icy hedgerows, slipping, falling, grazing both knees, before she reached the women’s domestic abuse refuge in a quiet side street on the outskirts of Caerystwyth, close to the park. She’d avoided the main streets on reaching the small West Wales market town, collar up, head down, keen to avoid both potential witnesses and the limited number of CCTV cameras, recording images in certain public places, the town square and surrounding area. Being caught on camera was the last thing Beth wanted, however bad the weather, however dark the night, however unlikely she’d be recognised in the grainy, black and white images. Any record of her secret activities was unthinkable. That went without saying. The consequences could be dire, both for her and for others. Everything had to be kept on a strictly need-to-know basis. Secrecy was everything. Getting caught wasn’t a part of the plan.
As she approached the secure, high steel gate leading to the refuge’s reinforced front door, an overwhelming sense of relief swept over her like an irresistible tide, washing away her worries, aches and pains as if by magic. It was a high of sorts, a release of natural feel-good chemicals infinitely better than that engendered by any illicit drug, and in that instant, she knew that her night’s work was accomplished. She’d done the right thing, a good thing, a worthy thing. That’s what mattered. She’d triumphed, and lived up to her commitments, just as promised. The abusive bastard was dead, gone, but never forgotten. And the world was better for it.
She repeated it in her head, I’ve done the right thing, I’ve done the right thing, almost believing it. But there were still doubts. Nagging uncertainties that wouldn’t let up. Thou shall not kill, the Ten Commandments. Memories of childhood Sunday school lessons; doubts that ate away at her peace of mind like a hungry dog gnawing on flesh.
Beth reached up to enter the four-number security code which opened the gate, allowing both residents and the refuge’s exclusively female staff to pass. She tried once, then again, but without success. It wasn’t that she couldn’t recall the number, that was engrained on her psyche as if carved in tablets of stone. No, her dirty, blue-white frozen fingers were the problem. They wouldn’t stop quivering as the mid-January cold continued to bite. Her entire body was trembling in her drenched, woefully inadequate clothing; the one part of the plan she hadn’t properly thought through. She hadn’t considered the winter sleet, the penetrating, frosty chill that had made the evening even more unpleasant than she could have imagined even in her darkest moments. Why on earth hadn’t she borrowed a suitable coat, something warm, something waterproof? One of the other women would have been only too ready to help if asked. Of course, they would. They were The Sisterhood. A mutually supportive team standing up to an abrasive, male-dominated, misogynistic world. And gloves, she should have worn gloves. Leather would have been best. Blue jeans and a dark woollen jumper? The colours were okay, but, really? What the hell was she thinking? It was the middle of winter. Stupid girl! Maybe her ex was right all along. He’d said it often enough. Stupid girl! It seemed she wasn’t thinking at all.
Beth tried entering the number for a third time, holding the one hand with the other to provide some stability. But a combination of increasingly numb and trembling digits made what would otherwise have been a simple task an impossibility, however hard she tried. She began quietly whimpering with growing frustration, her recent high a mere memory that now felt so long ago. She knew the doorbell was faulty. It had been for days and the promised repair not forthcoming, as the residents had hoped.
She reluctantly resorted to calling out, drawing attention to herself, the last thing she wanted in the circumstances, as she feared the potentially inquisitive eyes of nosey, interfering curtain-twitchers in the street’s overlooking houses. Beth looked up, to the right and left and back again, searching for opened curtains, faces pressed against the glass, spies in the night. But it appeared her concerns were unfounded at least for the moment. It seemed the street’s residents were uninterested and likely getting on with their lives. Beth looked again for one last time, searching for reassurance, her eyes darting from one building to the next, bouncing off shadows, but there was no-one to see.
She called out for a second time, more confident now, a little louder this time, and emitted a long, outward breath of relief when a light shone brightly in one of the refuge’s first floor bedrooms to the left of the door. Beth smiled as a window opened, only a few inches at first, but wide enough for a young woman she recognised immediately to call out to her, barely loud enough to be heard in the street below.
The woman’s tone was hushed but urgent. ‘Keep the frigging noise down! How can you not know the number? It’s 2163. 2163!’
Beth looked up with haunted eyes that had seen too much, her hypersensitive perception of the implied criticism crushing. Memories of the not so distant past flooded back, surrounding her mercilessly. And in that instant, she was back with the man who’d offered her nothing but condemnation. As if she’d never escaped his unwelcome clutches. As if she’d never left.
Beth shook herself, suddenly back in the present as the mental pictures faded. ‘It’s my hands. I can’t stop shivering. My fingers won’t work.’
Susan Johnson, a heavily made-up, twenty-nine-year-old bottle-blonde with a plunging neckline and impressive cleavage, nodded her understanding. ‘Yeah, it’s frigging freezing. Give me a second. I’m on my way.’