by James Carol
The phone buzzed again. Another text. This time it contained details of an address in Battersea.
It buzzed a third time: you have thirty minutes.
Chapter 47
Nikki’s hand was shaking so much it took three attempts to program the satnav. She told herself to relax but it didn’t do any good. It didn’t help that Ethan was hovering beside the car, watching her every move. According to the satnav it would take twenty-one minutes to get to Battersea. The last text had arrived maybe two minutes ago, so that gave her seven minutes to play with, which didn’t seem enough. If traffic was slow then those seven minutes would disappear before she knew it. She willed the turntable to move faster. Ethan was standing beside her car, moving with it.
‘You shouldn’t be doing this on your own,’ he called out, his voice muffled by glass. ‘I should be coming with you.’
They’d already had this conversation, a quick back and forth as they ran through the house. Nothing had changed since then. She desperately wanted him with her, but Laura had been very clear: Go alone, in the Beetle, and leave your phone in the house. So here she was, alone, in her Beetle. Her mobile was back in the kitchen and the Nokia was lying on the passenger seat. The turntable had gone about two thirds of the way around now, far enough for her to be able to clearly see the open gate.
‘Promise me you won’t contact the police,’ she said.
‘I promise.’
Nikki hit the accelerator and bumped off the turntable while it was still moving. Church Row was deserted and she managed to push the car up to forty. She took a left at the end of the street and it was like she was back in London again, cars and people everywhere. A couple of turns later she was on Kensington High Street, riding the bumper of the car in front and praying that it wouldn’t brake suddenly.
The next right took her onto Queen’s Gate. Nikki managed less than thirty feet before grinding to a halt. She leant as far as she could to the left, trying to see how far the traffic was backed up, and what the hold up was. She leant to the right and pressed her cheek hard against the window. There was a set of temporary traffic lights about fifty metres further up the road, some sort of roadworks. After that the traffic seemed to be moving again. She thumped the steering wheel in frustration and felt the adrenaline jolt through her system. That last panic attack was still fresh in her memory and it was recent enough for another to be triggered all too easily. These moments where she wasn’t doing anything were the dangerous moments – when she was occupied she wasn’t thinking about the panic. Heart racing, she looked at the number plates of the cars coming towards her, reading every number and every letter, noticing the different types of text, the different colours on the plates, anything to distract herself.
The lights changed and the traffic began moving again. According to the satnav it was still another sixteen minutes to her destination. She had lost two or three minutes but she could still make it. She had to. Nikki pressed the accelerator and the car surged forward, the feeling that she was running out of time increasing with every passing second.
Ten minutes later she crossed Albert Bridge. Battersea Power Station was off to her left and seeing the tall chimneys reaching up to the sky was a relief – it meant that she was almost there. A delivery van suddenly pulled out in front of her, cutting her up and forcing her to slam the brakes on. She missed it by inches, getting so close that the back of the van dominated the view, stealing the road, the sky, the power station. Her fist found the horn before she remembered that she shouldn’t be drawing attention to herself. It only blared once, loud and obtrusive, but that was enough to make people stare.
Breathing hard, she fell back to a safe distance. It was only starting to sink in how close she had come to disaster. If she had crashed, she would have missed the deadline. According to the satnav she would be there in two minutes. If her calculations were correct that would give her just a minute to spare.
The satnav told her to take a right, and then the next left, and then it was telling her that her destination was straight ahead. Nikki looked around, taking everything in. It was a nice enough neighbourhood, quiet and prosperous. The street was lined with red-brick houses. Some were grander than others, but none of them looked cheap. She drove along it slowly, her eyes hunting for house numbers. She wanted twenty-three and was currently somewhere in the high forties. She passed thirty-one, then a couple of houses without numbers, then twenty-five. Twenty-three didn’t have a number and it looked more rundown than the houses surrounding it. The windows were filthy and all the curtains were drawn; the white front door was grey with dirt. The Nokia rang, the sound making Nikki jump. She snatched it up from the passenger seat and quickly connected the call.
‘I’m here,’ she said quickly.
‘I know,’ Laura replied. ‘I’ve been following your progress.’
‘I need to get parked.’
‘Don’t let me stop you.’
Nikki pulled into the first space she saw. There were signs everywhere warning that she needed a permit, but that was the least of her concerns. She killed the engine and pressed the phone to her ear.
‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Go into the glovebox. I’ve left something for you in there.’
Nikki unbuckled her seatbelt then leant over to the passenger seat and clicked open the glovebox. To start with she couldn’t see anything, then her eyes adjusted and she noticed a darker shadow hidden amongst all the other shadows. Something was in there, wrapped in black cloth and pushed all the way to the back. Nikki reached for it and worked out what it was immediately. She placed the bundle on her lap and sat upright in her seat. Laura was speaking but Nikki barely heard her. All she could do was stare at the unmistakable shape of a gun pressing through the thin material.
Chapter 48
‘Judging by your silence I’m figuring you’ve found the gun.’
‘What do you want me to do?’ This came out as a whisper. She had never been this close to a real gun before. The way it pressed its shape into the cloth held her transfixed. All she could do was stare at it, a bad feeling shrinking her stomach and making her feel sick.
‘First, I want you to take a deep breath,’ Laura said. ‘You don’t want to have a panic attack. I need you clear-headed and focused.’ A pause. ‘Bella needs you clear-headed and focussed.’
‘What do you want me to do?’ Nikki asked again.
‘Have you taken that deep breath yet?
Nikki inhaled then exhaled with her mouth right in front of the phone so that Laura wouldn’t be left in any doubt that she was doing as she was told.
‘Feel better?’
‘Just tell me what you want me to do.’
‘It’s simple. I want you to persuade the man who lives at number twenty-three to go back with you to Church Row.’
‘Why?’
‘Because if you don’t then it will be very bad for Bella. Right now, that’s the only reason you need.’
Panic filled Nikki’s head, making it impossible to keep her thoughts straight. How could Laura threaten Bella like that? She was just a child. Nikki looked at the gun lying wrapped up on her lap. If Laura had been standing in front of her, could she do it? Could she pull the trigger? Damn right she could. And she would keep pulling the trigger until the gun was empty and the bitch was dead.
‘There’s a key wrapped up with the gun,’ Laura said. ‘Use that to get in.’
‘What if he’s not there?’
‘He’s there.’ Laura’s reply was immediate and definite. No doubt whatsoever.
Nikki looked at the bundle lying on her lap again, her head moving slowly from side to side. ‘I can’t do this,’ she said quietly.
‘You can and you will. Bella’s counting on you.’
‘Why are you doing this to us? What did we do to you?’
‘And yet again you’re focussing on the wrong thing, Nikki. Time to take another of those deep breaths.’
Nikki said nothing.
‘Please, you can’t hurt her.’
‘No, Nikki, we’ve already established that I can. That’s the first thing you should be focussing on. The second thing you need to focus on is the task at hand. Everything else is irrelevant.’
‘I can’t do this.’
‘In that case I’m going to hang up. Make sure this phone is switched on, though, because I’ll be sending through another attachment. A film rather than a photograph this time. One with sound.’
‘Please.’ Nikki’s voice rose in pitch as the panic dug its claws in. ‘Please don’t do this. There’s got to be something else I can do for you.’
‘Goodbye, Nikki.’
‘Wait! I’ll do it!’
‘Glad to see you’ve finally come to your senses. Okay, I’m going to want to hear what’s happening, so keep this line open at all times. And switch the speaker on. Do that now.’
Because the mobile was unfamiliar it took a few seconds to work out how to do that. It didn’t help that her hand was shaking, making the characters on the screen shift and jump. ‘Okay, the speaker’s on.’
‘Good. Now if you haven’t done so already, unwrap the gun.’
Nikki did as she was asked. The gun felt cold to the touch. The silencer attached to the end of the barrel added an extra four inches to the length. She tucked the gun into the waistband of her jeans, pulled her blouse down to hide it, then got out of the car. The house key was in her right hand, the phone in her left. Number twenty-three was back along the street, about twenty metres from where she had parked. With each step she was convinced she wouldn’t be able to take another, but somehow she managed to keep walking, the thought of Bella being hurt keeping her going. Left foot, right foot, left then right, each step an effort of will. The street was deserted; the houses looked empty.
She hesitated at the bottom of the steps that led up to the front door; hesitated again at the door. The handle of the gun was pressing uncomfortably into her back. Her hand shook worse than ever as she slid the key into the lock. She turned it gently, keeping going until it wouldn’t turn any further, then inched the door open and stepped into the hall, slowly pulling the door closed behind her. The sound of the lock clicking was like an explosion and she froze to the spot, eyes frantically searching the gloom, ears tuning into the tiniest of sounds. All she could hear was the low rumble of a refrigerator.
She gave it another second then tiptoed along the hall. The first door she passed was open and led to the lounge. For a moment she thought there was someone in there, but it was just a life-size model of Robbie the Robot. Seeing it standing there, powered down and motionless, was surreal, but no more surreal than anything else that was happening. Aside from the robot and an exercise bike, there was nothing else in the room that was out of the ordinary. The sofa and armchair were leather and they were both angled to face the large, wall-mounted television. There was a laptop on the coffee table, the lid shut. The curtains were drawn, the TV was off.
Nikki had just stepped back out into the hall when she heard a mumbled male voice filtering down from upstairs. She froze to the spot, just waiting for someone to appear, convinced that she was about to be caught. Laura hadn’t said anything about two people being in the house. Whoever was up there stopped speaking and the sudden silence was somehow worse. For a moment she just stood there, indecision pulling her in different directions.
She put a hand on the bannister to steady herself, then slowly climbed the stairs, keeping close to the edge to minimise the noise. The man started speaking again when she was a third of the way up. She stopped walking and listened hard. It sounded like he was on the phone. She couldn’t make out what was being said – his voice was too muffled for that – but there was a definite sense that she was only hearing one side of the conversation. He stopped speaking and she started climbing again. The next time he spoke she just kept going.
She reached the top and followed the man’s voice along the landing to a closed door. She was close enough now to make out individual words and the fact that he had a Scottish accent. The voice was muffled by the wooden door but clear enough to follow his half of the conversation. Nikki slid the gun from her waistband, reached for the door handle and did a slow silent count to three. At the last second her hand jerked back like she’d been electrocuted. It was a dumb idea. If she burst in now, then whoever was on the other end of the phone would know that something was going down. She pressed her ear against the door and the voice got louder.
‘Her real name is Mariana Gomez.’
A pause.
‘I’m 100 per cent sure. My brother’s managed to piece together a little bit of her history. She was born and brought up in San Diego and had a troubled childhood. She was arrested a dozen times as a teenager. Small stuff, mainly. Shoplifting, some low-level drug dealing. She served a couple of years in prison when she was in her early twenties for blackmail.’
Another pause.
‘No, that’s the only prison time she did. That seemed to be her wake-up call. There were no more convictions. After she was released she moved to Florida and got married. She was actually married twice. Both husbands were well off. The first husband died suddenly and she was the main benefactor. Gomez was suspected of being involved, but no charges were ever brought against her. After that she moved to New York. That was where she met husband number two.’
Another pause.
‘No, the second husband is still very much alive. She got rid of him the old-fashioned way: divorce. They didn’t have a prenup and she was able to take him for a couple of million.’
Another pause.
‘I don’t know what she did after that, but she seems to have kept out of trouble. I’ve seen photographs of her from those different points in her life. The woman’s a chameleon. You could be looking at a totally different person.’
Another pause.
‘No problem. I’ll send them through now.’
There was another pause, this one followed by a sigh.
‘Yes, if I find out anything else I’ll call you straightaway.’
The silence that followed was filled with the sound of a keyboard being tapped. Nikki gave it another few seconds to make sure that the conversation was actually over then stepped back and reached for the handle. She did another slow, silent count to three then pulled it down and pushed the door open. The man’s head jerked around and his eyes met hers. The surprise and confusion on his face turned to fear when he saw the gun; the fear on Nikki’s turned to confusion when she saw the monitors. There were four in total, arranged in a square, two on the top, two on the bottom. She recognised herself on the top left monitor. She was in the lounge of their house in Church Row, sitting on the sofa doing something on her laptop. It was the monitor next to it that was taking up most of her attention though. That one showed Bella lying on her bed, her feet kicking up into the air as she played a game on her tablet.
Chapter 49
‘What do you want?’
Nikki tore her gaze from the monitors and looked at the man. He was in his forties and wearing a faded black T-shirt and jeans. His eyes wouldn’t stay in the one place. One second they were on the gun, the next they were on her. Nikki recognised his confusion because she was in that place too, her gaze moving from the monitors to the man, then back to the monitors again as she tried to work out what the hell was going on. The man said nothing, just stared with wide, uncertain eyes, his mouth hanging open.
‘Why have you got film of my daughter?’
The man shook his head. ‘Why are you here? You shouldn’t be here. You’re supposed to be at the house.’
‘Nikki, you need to focus.’
They both looked at the Nokia.
‘The only thing you need to concern yourself with, is getting Professor Murray here into your car and taking him back to th
e house.’
‘Who are you talking to?’ Murray asked.
‘Shut up,’ Nikki yelled at him. She punched the gun into the air in front of her, the jabs landing in time with the beat of the words.
Murray recoiled in his chair, eyes screwed shut, just waiting for the gunshot. ‘Don’t shoot.’
‘Then shut up. I need to think.’ She looked at the monitors again and all she saw was Bella. She was safe and she was happy, and that was a lie because she wasn’t either of those things. This was too much to process. She felt as if the world was pushing in on her from all sides, crushing her. She looked back at Murray. His hands were in the air and he was backed up as close to the desk as he could get. Murray. The name was familiar. Wasn’t it someone called Alex Murray who programmed Alice? ‘What’s going on?’
‘Nikki!’ Laura said sharply. ‘I’ve asked you to do something. I won’t ask again. Either comply or I’m hanging up and the next time you’ll hear from me is when I send through a video of your daughter.’
Nikki glanced at the monitors. She recognised the clothes she was wearing as the ones she had on yesterday. Bella’s clothes were from yesterday, too – she recognised the unicorn T-shirt. The scenes shown on the monitors were so normal. There was no indication that everything was about to turn to shit.