Free Keeping Sam by Joanne Phillips

wouldn’t notice. ‘In my dream,’ she said, ‘I can sense the man is behind me, he’s standing right there.’ She pointed behind her now, and then turned her head involuntarily, as though there might actually be somebody there. Stupid. She chastised herself, and looked at Nico to see whether he wanted her to carry on.
    ‘And?’ he said. ‘What happens next?’
    ‘Nothing. I mean, it’s just this terrible, paralysing fear. I wake up sweating, and then I curse myself for going to sleep in the first place. If I don’t sleep I don’t have the nightmare. So it’s easy enough to avoid.’ She laughed, but Nico’s face remained serious.
    ‘You need to sleep,’ he said. ‘There is no option of not sleeping, no matter how long you were comatose, no matter how much time you feel you lost. You will sleep, and it will help you get better. This nightmare, it may be psychosomatic – a reaction to the feelings of helplessness and fear you had during and after the incident. Or …’
    He tailed off, regarding Kate with an odd expression. She opened her mouth to prompt him to continue, then closed it again. She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear what he was going to say.
    ‘Or, Kate, it might be that you are merely remembering. And that you are afraid to turn around in your dream because if you do, you will see who it is who did this terrible thing to you.’
    It wasn’t as though the thought hadn’t occurred to her already, but now, hearing Nico say the words out loud, Kate felt a prickly sensation on her neck. She shook her head, and forced a smile onto her face.
    ‘I’m sure it’s just stress,’ she said. ‘Nothing more.’
    She left Nico’s treatment room with an appointment for the following week, and waited outside the medical centre for Marie.
    Was it possible that she had seen her attacker? If so, why didn’t she remember who it was? If she could recall a face, or any detail whatsoever, it would help the police to identify who had done this, and if they could find that person they might be able to recover the rest of her things. More importantly, if the police could arrest her attacker, Kate might be able to prove that the cannabis hidden in her flat was not hers at all, but had been put there by someone else. But why? To make her look bad? But who would want to do that? Perhaps they’d been disturbed and had hidden the drugs with the intention of coming back later. But disturbed by who? Not by Kate – the police report had been clear that Kate had been at the kitchen table when the attacker struck. If only she could remember what had happened ...
    If only the nightmares weren’t so terrifying that she woke up the very minute she began to turn around.
     

Chapter 10
     
    In the taxi on the way home, Marie asked Kate why she didn’t get in touch with Sam’s father now that she was out of hospital and fighting to get custody of her own son again.
    ‘It’s not exactly custody,’ Kate explained. Although it might as well be, she thought, for all the rights she seemed to have.
    ‘Look,’ Marie said, straightening up the myriad shopping bags that fell over again every time the taxi rounded a corner, ‘I realise you can’t just waltz in there and drag him out of your parents’ house. I know you have to tread softly, for his sake. But surely if his dad were here too, they wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. They couldn’t argue that you couldn’t cope, or whatever it is they’re saying, if there were two of you looking out for little Sam.’
    Kate sighed. ‘Marie, you don’t know the half of it. Things would be ten times worse for me and Sam if Evan were here, believe me. He’s bad news. No, really,’ she added, seeing Marie’s sceptical expression. ‘He is. You wouldn’t want him living in your house, put it that way.’
    ‘He’d be quite welcome if you vouched for him,’ Marie insisted.
    ‘Well, that won’t happen,’ Kate said, shivering involuntarily. ‘Look, I was young when I met