The Battle Ground Series: Books 1-3

by Rachel Churcher

  Not so happy now, are you, Bex?

  I hide a smirk, and sit down.

  “Mrs Ellman,” I begin, watching her carefully. She watches me back, her gaze steady and defiant. “My name is Ketty Smith. I was a Senior Recruit at your daughter’s training camp. I’m here to find out whether you know anything about her disappearance.”

  She raises her eyebrows, arms still crossed. “Disappearance? From where? Army camp? As far as we knew, she was at school. I wrote letters, but the school started returning them unopened. The first we heard about an army camp was when those posters started showing up on TV. We assumed there’d been some sort of mistake.”

  Of course you did.

  I shake my head. “No mistake, Mrs Ellman. I was one of her commanding officers, and it was on my watch that she chose to leave the camp without authorisation. I’m here to see if I can clear up some of the confusion. Do you know why she ran away?”

  There’s a pause, as she takes in what I’ve said. She leans forward slightly, and looks me in the eye. “Sorry for not understanding the complexities of this situation, Miss Smith, but wouldn’t you run away if you’d been taken somewhere against your will?”

  I allow myself a smile. “Desertion is a very serious offence, Mrs Ellman. We’d like to know what drove Bex to it, and what we can do to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

  She smiles. “I’d think it would be rather hard to stop it from happening again, if she’s not currently under your command.”

  I’m losing ground in this discussion. This broken woman thinks she holds the power here, and she doesn’t like me threatening her family. I glance around the room again, at the photos and the hospital bed. Maybe she thinks she has nothing to lose. Nothing I can take from her.

  I stand up. “So you haven’t seen Bex since she left the camp?”

  She shakes her head, and points at the faint silhouettes of the guards outside the windows. “Why would she come here? If she really is a deserter, then why would she walk into this?”

  Good question. And I think you know the answer.

  “So she isn’t crouching in a cupboard somewhere, listening to us?”

  Her mother laughs. “Really, Miss Smith? In here?” She spreads her arms to indicate the small room.

  I roll my eyes. “It’s Corporal Smith. And you won’t mind if I take a look around.”

  She waves her hand at the doors. “Please do.”

  I watch her for a moment. Bex is here. I’m sure she is. And yet here’s her mother, inviting me in. Inviting me to look around.

  I meet her eyes as I pull the handgun from the holster at my waist and turn towards the closed door. She gives me a disapproving look.

  “Is that really necessary, Corporal?”

  “I believe it is, yes.” I wave the gun in her direction. “Stay where you are, please.”

  I step over to the door and rest my hand on the handle. I lean my ear against the wood, but there’s no sound coming from inside. Carefully I pull the door open and swing the gun to cover the room. It’s dark, but there’s a light pull on a long, dangling cord. I aim the gun at chest height, and pull the light on.

  There’s no one here. A wheelchair-accessible bathroom with plenty of space, and nowhere to hide. The shower curtain is pulled back, so there are no hidden spaces. I switch off the light and turn back to the living room.

  Mrs Ellman shrugs at me. I step to the second door. This one’s already open, and the room is lit by another window. I look back into the living room, at Mrs Ellman’s infuriating smile, and then turn and kick the door open. It smashes into the wall with a satisfying crack.

  It’s a bedroom. Single bed, bedside table, wardrobe, dressing table. I circle into the room, gun ready. There’s no space to hide under the dressing table. I step across the room and pull open the wardrobe doors – first one, then the other, keeping my gun trained inside. I reach in, past the clothes, and grab handfuls of bags and shoes, throwing them onto the floor. No one hiding.

  I step over to the bed. There’s a valance hanging from the mattress to the floor. As I reach down to pull it up, there’s a sound of breaking glass from the living room, followed by the impossibly loud wail of the fire alarm.

  That was your plan? Get me out of the room and hit the alarm? Evacuate the building? How does that help?

  I think it through. What if Bex isn’t in the bedroom? What if she’s hiding somewhere else in the building? What if she’s slipped in and out of this room already? This could give her the chance to walk away with everyone else as they leave. I pull out my radio.

  “Francis!”

  “Sir!”

  “Get guards to the doors. Cover all the exits. Check everyone. Ellman’s using the fire alarm to get out of the building.”

  “Yes, Sir!”

  And then I realise that all the security doors will be automatically unlocked. The staff will respond. The fire engines will arrive, and the chaos will swamp me and my guards. All the exit doors will be crowded, with people rushing to leave the building. No time for security checks. No ID controls. We can no longer control this situation.

  I pull up the valance, gun ready, and find a row of boxes. I try the end of the bed, but the boxes go all the way back to the wall. I pull one out, near the foot of the bed, but its too dark to see what’s behind. More boxes? Bex isn’t here. She’s already making her way to an exit.

  The fire alarm is wailing. I’m running out of time.

  And I know what to do.

  If I can’t take Bex back to London, maybe I can take her mother.

  Rendezvous

  Bex

  The fire alarm screeches and it’s all I can do to stay still. I’ve listened to Ketty threatening my mother, and I’ve watched as she stalked me through the bedroom, kicking the door open and dumping Mum’s belongings on the floor. I’m cramped, I’m hurting, and I’m angry.

  But I promised Mum, and now she’s got control of Ketty. She’s got a plan, and I’ve promised to let her fight for me.

  I want to shoot. I want to burst out from under the bed, gun blazing. I want to pin Ketty to the wall and watch her bleed.

  But if I do that, whatever Mum has planned won’t save me. Ketty has a gun. Right now, she doesn’t know I’m here. If I try anything, Mum’s plan fails, and we both take bullets. Ketty wins.

  Ketty pauses as the fire alarm sounds. She’s on her knees next to the bed, and she turns towards the door. She pulls out a radio and orders guards to cover the exits. I relax a little. She doesn’t know where I am.

  And then she turns back, and lifts the valance.

  I hold my breath. If she finds me, I have to shoot, and then she’ll shoot back. I’m trapped here and my aim is blocked, so I can’t stop her. I’m pinned down by boxes and I can’t move. I’m trapped, and I’m an easy target. If she finds me, she can kill me, and then she won’t need Mum and Dad any more. She can shoot them as well, and blame it on me, or say they were helping me. And then no one gets out of here.

  I shouldn’t have come. I’ve put my parents in danger. I should have stayed away.

  But Ketty isn’t here for me. She didn’t storm in here with backup. She didn’t know I was here. She’s still searching.

  She would be here, with or without me.

  I can let this play out, find out what she wanted. I can still get out of here. We can all still walk away.

  She moves to the foot of the bed and lifts the valance again. My parcel blocks her view of my feet.

  She comes back to the side of the bed and starts to pull one of the boxes out. I feel it move away from my knees, and I tighten my grip on my gun. I’m holding my breath as she pulls the box all the way out, drops her head and looks under the bed.

  My pulse is a hammer, shocking my entire body with every heartbeat. The fire alarm seems to slow as the sound rises and falls. I’m seconds away from discovery.

  And then she stops. She pushes the box back, drops the valance, and stands up.

  I let myself
breathe again.

  She walks out, back into the living room.

  “Mrs Ellman,” she shouts above the noise of the fire alarm. “I think its time we were leaving.”

  “I think so, too.” There’s a smile in my mother’s voice, and I can’t help smiling as well. Ketty as evacuation nurse. Mum has her completely under control.

  But Ketty isn’t finished with us yet.

  “I think I’m going to take you for a ride, Mrs Ellman. How would you like a trip to London?” Ketty’s voice is clearer now. She’s sounding confident. And she’s taking Mum.

  Before I can move, before I can react, Mum shouts across Ketty. “That sounds lovely. Take me anywhere you like, as long as it’s away from here. Now let’s get out of this burning building, Corporal. The nurses will be here in a second, so if you want to decide where I go, you’d better make a move.”

  My mind races. Can they accuse Mum of helping me? Can they put her on trial? Do they have any evidence?

  I promised. I promised I would get out, that I would carry on fighting. I can’t save her without giving myself up.

  “If you want to decide where I go, you’d better make a move.”

  She’s giving herself up. She’s trading herself for my freedom. The nightmares are coming true, and there’s nothing I can do to stop her.

  The fire alarm screams as Ketty pushes Mum away.

  *****

  The door to the corridor slams shut, and my mother is gone. I listen for movement in the living room, but there’s nothing louder than the fire alarm. I think about my next move.

  I’m wearing a staff uniform, and they don’t know I changed my clothes and hair, so I should be able to walk out with the evacuation. The building isn’t on fire – I heard the glass break in the living room. Mum set off the alarm. But the firefighters will come anyway, and check the rooms. Someone will come and rescue Dad. The chaos will definitely work in my favour. But if they know the building is safe, they’ll leave guards to watch for me.

  There’s a sound from the next room. The door opens, and someone walks in, calling Mum’s name. Then someone else is talking to Dad, and shouting instructions. I can hear three, maybe four voices in the living room. I nudge my parcel out of the way with my feet, and push myself out from under the bed. I step away, into the corner of the room, push the gun back into my waistband and straighten my clothing. I open the box, and pull out the glasses, then shake out my pony tail. It’s not much, it will help to cover my face.

  I need to get my clothes out of her room. I can’t leave evidence that I was here. I kick through the pile of bags on the floor, and find one large enough to hide my clothes, but smart enough to be mistaken for a handbag. I make sure it’s empty, and throw everything from the parcel inside. I pull the box apart, and push the pieces of cardboard into the bag as well. I close the zip, and put the strap over my shoulder.

  I’m just about to leave, when I see a pile of letters on the dressing table. Stamped, franked, and marked ‘Return to sender’. Letters to me. Letters from Mum. I grab the pile, and cram it into the bag as well.

  I step out into the living room. Four carers are standing round Dad, hooking his wires and cables up to a mobile battery unit. One of them looks up as I walk over.

  “Who are you? What are you doing?”

  “Just checking the bedroom,” I shout over the siren. “No one there. Can I help here?”

  The woman gives me a hard stare, then hands me a bundle of cables. “Keep this tidy while we get ready to move him.”

  I take the cables from her, and lift them out of the way as she leans over and checks the connections.

  One of the other carers elbows me out of the way.

  “You’re not supposed to go back for personal belongings,” she shouts, pointing at my bag.

  I give her a guilty smile. “I was on my way back from the bathroom. You know. Seems silly to leave it behind.”

  She ignores me, and takes the cables from my hand.

  “Ready to move?”

  “Ready.”

  The four women take up positions around the bed, and I put one hand on the guard rail as they start to move Dad. We’re walking towards the door, and in the corridor I can see soldiers in armour. I put my head down, and walk with the team. Out through the door, right onto the corridor, and out towards reception. If the soldiers see me, they don’t notice that I’m not supposed to be there. We keep walking. I keep a tight grip on the bed rail.

  Out through the security doors, wide open now for the evacuation. Out into the car park. The troop carrier is still parked in front, and there’s a pickup truck outside the entrance. No sign of Mum or Ketty. I look out to where I parked the car, in time to see Neesh opening the door and climbing in, ducking down to find the keys under the seat. I feel a rush of gratitude, that there are people looking out for me today. Neesh has been watching from across the road. Like me, she’s decided that chaos offers us the best chance of getting out.

  I look around. The sirens of fire engines are starting to sound in the surrounding streets. The carers around Dad are pushing the bed away from the entrance, leading me towards the far side of the car park, far away from where I need to be, and I realise that I don’t want to leave him. I’m walking with them, and I’m starting to panic. Images from my nightmares are running through my mind – losing Dad, losing Mum. Letting go of him will be the hardest thing I do today. I can’t say goodbye. I can’t even touch his hand as I leave. And I can’t stop and let myself think about what I’m doing. I have to let him go.

  The carers push him further into the car park, and I’m still walking with them, still holding on to the bed. I can’t let the soldiers see me – not after what Mum’s done for me. I close my eyes and will the nightmares to stop. I force myself to let go of the rail. I lift my hand, and before I can think about it I turn my back on him and walk away.

  I blink back tears. He knows I was there. He knows.

  I make my way along the front of the building, walking quickly, head down, as if I have somewhere important to be. I force myself to walk past the guards as they check everyone leaving through the emergency exits. I want to turn round, to run back and tell him I love him. To say goodbye. To rescue Mum. To have a happy ending.

  But I can’t. I have to meet Charlie and Neesh at the rendezvous point. I head towards the end of the building, past the kitchens, and into the service yard. Access to the yard is from a side street, away from the chaos and the streams of people moving to safety. I check over my shoulder that no one can see me as I cross the yard, and walk into a tree-lined residential street. I ditch the tabard and the top of the scrubs in one of the bins as I pass, so now I’m wearing pale green trousers and a white T-shirt. There’s no reason for anyone to connect me to the nursing home as I walk to safety past the rows of terraced houses.

  Two fire engines tear past me, lights and sirens splitting the air of the quiet street. I don’t look up. Keep walking. Don’t stop.

  Charlie and Neesh are waiting in the car outside a supermarket. I walk up, open the door, and crawl into the back seat. Neesh looks at me in the rear-view mirror, waiting for my signal. I’m sure I haven’t been followed, and I raise my hand where she can see it. She nods, and starts the car. Charlie turns round when we’re on the road.

  “You OK, Bex?”

  I try to speak, but all I can do is rest my head against the back of the seat as the tears rush down my face.

  “Did you see your Dad? Did you say goodbye?”

  I nod. Charlie reaches back and puts a hand on my knee.

  “Well done, Bex. You did it. You got in and out, and you slipped through their fingers.”

  I try to speak. I try to explain, but my voice dies in my throat. Charlie needs to know what happened. I force myself to whisper.

  “Ketty was there.”

  “Ketty? At the nursing home?” I nod again. “Did she see you?”

  “No. Almost, but no. But I think she knew I was there.”

 
; “What makes you say that? You got away, didn’t you?”

  I find my voice again. I need to tell her. I need her to know what it cost to get me out.

  “Ketty took my Mum, Charlie. She’s taking her to London.” I’m sobbing again. “Mum went with Ketty so I could get away. She traded herself for me. I’ve just given them another prisoner.”

  Another prisoner, to go with Margie and Dr Richards. I think about Bracken, holding Margie by her hair in the farmyard. Dr Richards, pulling away from me as I tried to save her. Saunders, lying still on the cold concrete floor. Mum, punching the fire alarm. All the people I couldn’t save.

  And all the way back to Newcastle, I’m inconsolable, sobbing and crying and shouting on the back seat.

  Captured

  Ketty

  We’ve radioed ahead, and Bracken is waiting as the troop carrier turns into the driveway of Belmarsh Prison.

  “Welcome to your new home, Mrs Ellman.”

  She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, ignoring me. She’s been quiet since we drove away from the nursing home. I’m not sure she understood where she was going, but she can’t avoid it now.

  Did you think this was a game? An empty threat?

  The vehicle comes to a stop in front of the entrance, and two of the guards open the rear doors and jump out. I stand up, and step round the wheelchair, releasing the brakes. I take the handles and push the prisoner to the open doorway.

  It takes four guards to pick up the wheelchair and lower her down onto the road.