17 Church Row

by James Carol

  ‘Where are you going?’ Nikki called after him.

  ‘There’s one place we haven’t tried,’ he called back. ‘The panic room.’

  Nikki and Sofia caught up with him at the bottom of the basement stairs. Her gaze was going from side to side, searching for the panic-room door. She knew it was here somewhere, but it had been disguised to look like a wall panel. In her own panic she couldn’t remember which one it was hidden behind.

  ‘Alice,’ Ethan said. ‘Open the panic room.’

  Even as the door was opening Nikki knew that Bella wouldn’t be in there. Ethan was wrong. She had been kidnapped. Any second now her phone was going to ring and the kidnappers would start issuing demands. Or maybe she’d run away. Maybe she was out there right now, wandering the streets on her own. In a split second she had convinced herself that Bella had been murdered, or worse. The door was halfway open now, the gap wide enough for her to see Bella sitting on one of the army cots, smiling as though this was the best game ever. She tapped at her tablet screen.

  ‘Surprise!’

  Nikki ran over and scooped her daughter up into her arms and held her tight. Tears were stinging her eyes, turning everything blurry. Ethan and Sofia followed her in and stopped beside them.

  ‘Is she all right?’

  ‘I think so.’

  Bella squiggled around to get free and looked at them like they were insane. She started jabbing at her tablet screen.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘We got worried when we couldn’t find you,’ Ethan said.

  ‘I was just hiding.’

  ‘Alice,’ Nikki called out, ‘did you know she was in here?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Then why the hell didn’t you tell us?’

  ‘Because Bella told me not to.’

  ‘But you could see we were looking for her.’

  ‘She made me promise, Nikki. She said that it would spoil her game.’

  ‘Jesus Christ, are you serious? We were worried sick.’

  Bella was tapping frantically at her screen. ‘Don’t be angry at Alice. She was just doing what I told her.’

  ‘I’m not angry at her, sweetheart.’

  ‘You sound angry.’

  ‘No, I was just worried about you, that’s all.’

  ‘Why?’

  The simple answer was that she was convinced Bella was dead, but admitting that would just make her worry and that was the last thing they wanted. This was their first night in their new house and she wanted Bella to feel safe here. They all needed to feel safe.

  Nikki sat down on the army cot. Safe. That was why they had needed a panic room in the first place, so they felt safe. She wished that they didn’t, but the reality of the world they lived in was that they did. Ethan might have played down the idea that Bella had been kidnapped, but it could happen. He was a high-profile celebrity. He had money. That made them a prime target. Like everything else in the house, no expense had been spared with the panic room. The walls were sturdy enough to withstand a rocket attack. It even had its own air and water supplies, and a dedicated landline. There was enough food for them to hole up in here for a month if they needed to, although she prayed it would never come to that. The idea of being trapped in here for an hour was bad enough; a month was unthinkable. She became aware of Bella staring at her with big, worried eyes.

  Nikki forced a smile. ‘I’ve got to say, though, this has to be the best hiding place ever.’

  She glanced over her shoulder at Ethan and Sofia, looking for backup. They nodded and made all the right noises, and that was enough to reassure Bella. The concern on her face slid away, replaced with a wide, innocent grin. She started tapping the screen of her tablet, her finger moving at lightning speed.

  ‘That’s what I thought. I didn’t think you’d ever find me.’

  ‘It was actually your daddy who found you.’

  Bella smiled at Ethan. ‘Clever Daddy.’

  ‘Yes. Clever Daddy,’ Nikki agreed. ‘Anyway, madam, it’s way past your bedtime.’

  Bella bit her lip and jabbed frantically at her tablet. ‘Please let me stay up longer.’

  Ethan and Nikki shared a look. ‘Okay you can have another ten minutes,’ he said.

  ‘Fifteen.’

  ‘Ten. And don’t push it or you’re going to bed now.’

  Nikki stood up and, taking Bella by the hand, led her out into the corridor. Ethan and Sofia followed them out a second later and the panic room door closed quietly behind him. Her heart rate might just be about back to normal, but it was going to take a while to get over this. In time she would be able to see the funny side. It was the sort of story she could imagine sharing when Bella was older; the sort of story that would fit into their family’s mythology.

  Do you remember the time when Bella . . .

  That one was for later, though. For now it was just a relief to know that she was okay.

  Chapter 9

  Catriona Fisher poured herself a large Jack Daniel’s and carried the tumbler over to the sofa. Out of all the buildings she had designed, this one was definitely her favourite. The view of the Thames from the penthouse’s large picture window was impressive, particularly at this time of day when the sun was setting. The way the water was painted golden and orange, it was as though the river was on fire. Familiar landmarks dotted the view like old friends: The Shard, the London Eye, the dome of St Paul’s cathedral. The view had worked impressively on the 3D computer models she had created, but this was one of those times when the reality had far outstripped her imagination. The first time she had stood in here, she knew she had to make this place her own. The apartment had been a construction site at the time – there hadn’t even been windows, just large open spaces where the windows would eventually go. That hadn’t made any difference, though. It had been love at first sight.

  She booted up her laptop and opened Skype. Alex Murray answered almost immediately. She could just about make out the jokey Einstein poster behind him. Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. She liked to think that he had been sitting there waiting for her to call, but he hadn’t. The man was a workaholic. The only time he wasn’t in front of a computer screen was when he was asleep. He was forty-four, but decades of long hours had taken their toll, leaving him looking much older. His hair was streaked with grey and his skin had the yellow tinge of someone who rarely saw the sun. The excess of caffeine in his bloodstream made his movements jerky and his attitude edgy, like a junkie waiting for the next fix. His eyes told a different story, though. They burned with the bright enthusiasm of a child who was seeing everything for the first time. Catriona had noticed that this was a common trait in creatives. They could be in their sixties or even their seventies, yet they all had the eyes of children.

  ‘What is it?’ Alex was originally from Glasgow and could make something as innocent as a request for the time sound like a threat.

  ‘There was a problem with one of the bathrooms. The cleaner got locked in there.’

  ‘Yeah, these things happen.’

  Catriona felt herself bristle. What she was looking for – all she was looking for – was a simple reassurance that nothing like this was ever going to occur again. Was that really too much to ask? ‘Well, I’d prefer that it didn’t happen. If that’s okay with you, that is.’

  ‘Jesus, will you just relax.’

  Catriona smiled sweetly at the camera. ‘Considering it’s my money that’s tied up in this project, and that it’s me who stands to lose everything, I think I’m pretty relaxed.’

  ‘It’s just a little teething problem, that’s all. It’s no biggie. Anyway, I told you this was probably going to happen.’

  Alex stopped talking. He was actually pouting, Catriona noticed. Save me from strung-out geniuses, she thought. She didn’t respond, just waited for him to go on. She didn’t have to wait long.

  ‘Didn’t I tell you that I needed more time?’

  ‘And
I gave you more time, Alex.’

  ‘Yes, but I needed longer.’

  Catriona sighed. ‘However long I gave you, it was never going to be long enough. We both know that. If you had your way you would still be tinkering with Alice a decade from now.’

  ‘Of course I wouldn’t have. That’s ridiculous.’

  Catriona said nothing.

  ‘Another couple of weeks. That was all I needed.’

  ‘And you’ve still got those two weeks. You can work remotely, right? Anyway, we’re getting off track here. All I want from you is an explanation as to what happened, and a reassurance that it won’t happen again.’

  ‘It’s not going to happen again,’ Alex said, still pouting.

  ‘Okay that deals with part two. What about part one?’

  ‘I’ve checked over Alice’s systems and everything’s working fine.’

  ‘If that’s the case, why did the cleaner get locked in the bathroom?’

  ‘It must have been some sort of glitch.’

  ‘A glitch? Is that your way of saying that you don’t know? That’s not particularly reassuring.’

  ‘Sorry you feel that way,’ he said, not sounding sorry at all. ‘Look, what you’ve got to remember is that Alice’s program is constantly adapting itself. Occasionally you’re going to get something unexpected happen.’

  ‘Still not feeling reassured, Alex.’

  ‘Okay, let me put this in a way that you might understand. You use Windows, right? So you know what a headache it is when Microsoft forces yet another update on you. For a couple of days afterwards you’re always getting problems. Basically, they’ve adapted the program, but there’s no way they can account for every eventuality, not when they’re dealing with a billion different computer systems. The thing is, none of those problems are really that big a deal, not in the grand scheme of things. After a couple of days everything settles down and you don’t think about it until the next update. With Alice, you have updates going on constantly therefore you’re going to get the occasional minor glitch, but it’s nothing to lose sleep over.’

  ‘So this doesn’t worry you?’

  ‘Not even a little bit. Let’s get some perspective here, Catriona. We’re talking about a door that got stuck. It really isn’t that big a deal.’

  ‘And it won’t happen again?’

  ‘I’ll make sure it won’t.’

  ‘That’s all I wanted to hear.’

  Catriona killed the Skype feed without saying goodbye. She reached for her drink, drained it in one, then poured another. Alex could be hard work at times. If there had been anyone else out there who could do what he did then she would have fired him already. There wasn’t, though. Unfortunately, he was the best at what he did, which was why she put up with his bullshit. She laid her computer on her lap and clicked back to the desktop.

  The shortcut she wanted was in the top left-hand corner. She double-clicked on it and the main gate at 17 Church Row appeared on the screen. All the camera feeds were stacked in a column on the left-hand side. There were dozens of them, too many to fit on a single screen.

  She scrolled down, looking for signs of life. The first signs she found were in Bella’s room. The little girl was in bed. It was getting late, but she wasn’t sleeping yet. Instead, she was playing a game on her tablet, the light from the screen shining up on her face and giving it a ghostly sheen. The only other light source was the night light on the bedside table. It was shaped like a diplodocus and gave off a warm, gentle, purple-tinged glow. Boxes were piled up against one of the walls, but not as many as earlier. The Rhodes’ had clearly made unpacking this room a priority, which made sense. They would want to get Bella settled as quickly as possible.

  Catriona scrolled through the camera feeds, searching for more signs of life, and finding Ethan in the master bedroom, examining his reflection in the mirror. He was dressed in just a pair of boxer shorts, turning this way and that, checking himself out from all angles. He wasn’t in bad shape, but there was no hiding the fact that there was a bit of middle-age spread creeping in there. Nikki came out of the en suite, saw what he was doing, and let loose with a little chuckle. She was dressed in her underwear too, and in much better shape. When the Rhodes’ had looked around the house, Nikki had been particularly taken with the gym. Clearly this was something she hadn’t just been paying lip service to.

  Nikki slipped out of her underwear and pulled a nightdress over her head. It looked comfortable rather than sexy. Then again, after a decade of marriage that was probably to be expected. Not that Catriona had any experience of being married. She had concluded long ago that she wasn’t the marrying type. She had only been five when her mother left. One day she was there, the next she was gone, and Catriona never saw her again. Her father had dodged the issue whenever she asked why she left, and eventually she gave up asking. Seeing how it affected him – and how it had affected her too – she decided that marriage just wasn’t worth the grief. Anyway, when you were married to your work, who had time for a husband?

  The Rhodes’ climbed into bed and the lights went off. For a short while they looked at their phones, then they switched those off too and the room fell dark. Catriona was about to turn off her computer and go to bed herself when Nikki giggled. There was something about that giggle that caused Catriona to pause. And now Nikki was telling Ethan that she was too tired, although it sounded like she didn’t really mean it. Catriona put the laptop down on the table and picked up her drink. She took a sip and stared at the blank screen, trying to make sense of the shadowy shapes moving through the dark.

  ‘Alice,’ she said quietly, ‘is there any way to enhance the picture?’

  ‘Of course, Ms Fisher.’

  The screen brightened, the dark greys turning light enough to make out the bed and the shapes that Ethan and Nikki were making under the covers. It was now clear enough to see that Ethan was on top, leaning in to kiss the side of his wife’s neck.

  ‘And turn up the volume.’

  Nikki let out a gentle moan that was followed by another. Catriona put her glass down, then settled back on the sofa to watch and listen. Somewhere along the line her hand found its way into her panties and she let loose with a gentle sigh of her own.

  Chapter 10

  The sound of singing broke into Nikki’s sleep, sending a sharp burst of adrenaline crackling through her system and jolting her back into consciousness. Her eyes sprang open and the song stopped. For a minute, all she could do was lie there, staring into the dark, breathing fast and willing her heart to settle. That hadn’t been just anyone singing, that had been Grace.

  She closed her eyes and the song started again, more distant, but still there. This time she knew for certain that it was Grace, because she recognised the song, ‘Do You Want To Build A Snowman?’ from Frozen. How could she not? For about six months the girls had been obsessed with that film, watching it over and over again. They knew every song by heart – hell, after a couple of weeks of it on constant rotation Nikki had known them all by heart too. They would break into song at any opportunity, Grace leading in her angelic voice, Bella following in a voice that was just as beautiful but not quite as confident. This song had always been Grace’s favourite. To start with she had got the words muddled, singing ‘we used to be best bunnies’ instead of ‘best buddies’. Nikki had never corrected her because it was cute. Even after Grace worked out that she’d got it wrong, she still kept singing ‘best bunnies’ because it made Bella laugh.

  But Grace was dead.

  Nikki opened her eyes and the singing stopped. However much she wanted to believe otherwise, the fact was that Grace was gone, and when she had died, all her songs had died with her. Even so, for a split second she had managed to convince herself that things were different.

  She closed her eyes, searching for Grace again – wanting to find her more than she had wanted anything – but she was gone for good. Nikki bit back a sob then wiped her eyes and opened them. The dream had turned into a
nightmare. Then again, so much of her life these days was like a waking nightmare. That was what happened when your child died. It became almost impossible to find the joy in anything because every new experience was tainted by the memory of what had happened. She missed Grace every moment of every day, but there were moments like now when that sense of loss hit so hard there just weren’t enough tears.

  Nikki glanced over at Ethan to check he was still asleep. She couldn’t see him because it was so dark in here, but she could hear the soft, gentle purr of his breathing. If anything, the smart glass worked too well. It was pitch dark, as if she was stuck in the deepest of mines. Maybe it was because this was their first night here, or maybe it was the dream she’d just had, but whatever the reason, the dark was getting to her the same way it used to get to her when she was a child.

  She slid her phone from beneath the pillow and ducked under the duvet before switching it on so she wouldn’t wake Ethan. It was almost one and she had never felt less like sleeping in her life. She switched the phone off, came back up from under the duvet, and for a while just lay there, staring into the dark, listening to Ethan breathing gently beside her.

  Aside from the sound of his breathing, the room was totally silent, the triple glazing keeping the sound of the city at bay. It hadn’t been like this at their old house. The double glazing there had kept most of the sounds out, but you could still hear the distant rumble of traffic and the low drone of the planes flying overhead. She was missing those old familiar sounds now, missing the old house, missing the way things had been when there had been four of them . . .

  Missing Grace.

  Nikki closed her eyes, but sleep seemed more distant than ever. She gave it another few minutes before admitting defeat then carefully slipped out from under the duvet. For a heart-stopping moment the pattern of Ethan’s breathing changed and she was convinced that she had woken him. She froze to the spot while he moved around, getting comfortable. Even after he’d settled, Nikki stayed where she was for another couple of seconds just to make sure that he was actually asleep.