17 Church Row

by James Carol

  ‘Move into the middle of the room. Hands in the air. Do it now.’

  There was the sound of footsteps from inside the room then Gomez appeared from the shadows. Her hands were in the air and there was an amused smile plastered on her face, like this was all a big game.

  ‘Can I put my hands down now?’ she asked pleasantly.

  Catriona nodded but kept the gun aimed at the middle of Gomez’s chest. The woman was a snake. Drop your guard for a second and she would be ready to strike. Catriona had brought her here because she needed her help to break in. Now that had been done, she no longer needed her, so why hadn’t she let her go? The best explanation she could come up with was that she preferred having her where she could see her. Katy wanted her dead. If she found out she was still alive, she wouldn’t hesitate to send Gomez after her again, this time to finish the job properly. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

  Still smiling, Gomez lowered her hands. ‘Like I said earlier, you need to work on those trust issues, Catriona. You don’t mind if I call you Catriona, do you?’

  ‘Maybe it’s best if you keep your mouth shut. Unless, of course, you find something.’

  ‘Yeah, about that. So what exactly are we looking for, Nancy Drew?’

  Catriona shook her head and lowered the gun. If Gomez was trying to get a reaction, then she was going to have to try harder than that. She switched on the light and stepped into the room, glancing around quickly, taking everything in. It was a living room of sorts. There were the things that you would expect to see: a sofa, a TV, a bookcase, a table with a laptop on it. And things that you wouldn’t normally find, like an exercise bike and a full size replica of Robby the Robot from the fifties film Forbidden Planet. Knowing Alex as she did, the bike was more surprising than the robot.

  ‘You don’t know what you’re looking for, do you?’ Gomez pressed. ‘Admit it, this is just a wild goose chase.’

  Maybe it was . . . hell, that’s exactly what it was. Now she was here, Catriona had no idea what she’d been thinking. There was nothing she could do back at her apartment, and going to the house on Church Row seemed like a bad idea. But at the end of the day doing something seemed infinitely better than doing nothing. Not that she was about to admit any of this to Gomez.

  ‘Maybe the robot has the answer,’ Gomez said, squaring up to Robby. ‘Hey, Mr Robot, have you got any idea what the fuck is going on here?’

  Catriona ignored her and walked over to the coffee table. She flipped the laptop open and hit the power button. It went through the first part of the boot-up procedure before grinding to a halt with a pop-up box demanding a password. Gomez was moving in closer to see what she was doing. Too close. Catriona turned quickly and aimed the gun at her. Gomez quickly got the message. Hands in the air, she took a couple of steps back.

  Catriona turned her attention back to the laptop. Guessing the password was an impossible task. Murray had no doubt used a random string of letters, numbers and characters, something impossible to crack without access to a supercomputer. Taking a shot in the dark, she typed in “Robby” and hit enter. Incorrect password flashed up onto the screen. Next she tried replacing the ‘o’ with a zero – R0bby – and got the same result. She didn’t try a third time. Get three strikes and the laptop would probably wipe its hard drive. She held the power button down until the screen went blank, then closed the lid. Gomez had got bored and was walking over to the doorway.

  ‘Stop,’ Catriona called out.

  Gomez stopped and turned. Catriona walked over then waved her through the door with the gun. From here on in she wanted Gomez where she could see her. The next door they tried led to the messy kitchen. Dirty dishes were piled up beside the sink and the remnants of Murray’s breakfast sat on the table: a bowl with an inch of milk in the bottom, a couple of stray cornflakes stuck to the side, and a mug with some coffee still left in it. Catriona didn’t hang around. There were potential weapons everywhere she looked – knives, pots, a frying pan, and that was just what she was seeing at a casual glance. If Gomez got creative, who knew what she might come up with. She had one last quick look around but couldn’t see anything that helped answer the questions rattling around her head. She used the gun to wave Gomez out of the kitchen, then followed her into the hall. The last of the downstairs doors led to a small bathroom that was as unpleasant as the kitchen. A quick glance was all it took to convince her there was nothing in here that would help either.

  ‘Okay, let’s try upstairs,’ Catriona said. ‘That must be where his study is. Maybe there’s something in there.’

  Gomez held her gaze for a second, then turned and walked along the hall. Catriona kept the gun trained on her the whole way. The stairs creaked under their feet, like the timbers of an old sailing ship; the carpet was old and faded, the tired flower pattern worn to the point where it was hard to work out that they were actually flowers. Gomez reached the top and stopped. Catriona stopped too.’

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing’s wrong. There are two doors on the right and one on the left. They’re all closed, so I don’t know which one leads to his office.

  ‘Try the one on the left first.’

  Gomez turned away and Catriona started climbing the remaining steps. She realised her mistake a second too late. She had expected Gomez to start walking along the landing but she hadn’t done that. Instead, she had taken one step then stopped dead, and now they were too close. Gomez spun quickly and rushed her. Catriona tried to back down the stairs and that was her second mistake, because it put her off balance. She remembered the gun and started to raise her arm but it was too late. Gomez crashed into her and gravity took over. Up became down and down became up as she fell down the stairs, landing in an awkward heap at the bottom.

  At some point her eyes had closed – whether she had blacked out or not she couldn’t be sure. What she did know was that when she opened her eyes Gomez was standing over her, holding the gun. Once again, all Catriona could focus on was the silencer. Her head was full of noise and none of it was useful. There had to be a way out of this, but if there was she couldn’t see what it was. The fear was bigger than she was, making it impossible to think straight. She opened her mouth to speak, but before she could say anything Gomez pressed a finger to her lips.

  ‘Do us both a favour and don’t beg.’

  ‘D-don’t kill me,’ she stammered.

  Gomez’s hand tightened around the gun. She shifted position slightly, adjusting her aim. ‘I told you not to beg.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Catriona was talking fast, her staccato words tumbling out in a rush. ‘You don’t have to kill me. We can come to some arrangement. There must be something I can do. Money, maybe. I can get money.’

  Gomez knelt beside her and pressed the end of the silencer between her eyes, dimpling the skin. She was going to pull the trigger. Catriona could see it in her eyes. She had killed before and she was going to kill again. Catriona shut her own eyes, screwing them up tight. The silencer dug deeper and time turned long, each second feeling like an eternity.

  ‘Fuck!’

  Catriona was almost convinced that Gomez had pulled the trigger. But if that was the case, why was she still alive?

  ‘FUCK!’

  Catriona opened her eyes. Gomez was staring down at her and shaking her head from side to side. She no longer looked like a killer, she just looked uncertain, like she had woken up from a nightmare, confused and disorientated. She had turned the gun around in her hand and was holding it by the silencer. Before Catriona had a chance to wonder why she had done this, Gomez swung the gun like a club. The last thing Catriona heard was a dull thud as the handle connected with the side of her head. Then everything went dark.

  Chapter 62

  Nikki ran down the basement stairs, taking them two at a time, almost falling yet somehow managing to stay upright. She stopped outside the panic room and put her hands against the door. There was nothing to distinguish this wall panel from the
panels on either side of it, nothing except the knowledge that this was the door. Bella was in there, just a couple of feet away. She was so close, almost within touching distance. Ethan stopped beside her. His face was tense and he was breathing hard.

  ‘It’s okay sweetheart,’ she yelled at the door, even though there was no way for Bella to hear. ‘Mummy and Daddy are here. We’re going to get you out.’

  Except how the hell were they going to do that? The panic room had been designed to stop an army. It was bulletproof, fireproof, blastproof. Breaking down the door wasn’t an option. The hopelessness of the situation suddenly hit her. The smell of chlorine from the pool hung heavy in the air and it was warmer down here, and neither of those things was helping. She could sense the panic hovering at the fringes and she really didn’t need that crap right now. She shut her eyes and let rip with a silent scream to get it together. The feeling passed and she slid back into the here and now.

  ‘Open the door, Katy.’

  Ethan was talking calmly. Too calmly. This was the tone of voice he used before he lost it. She slid her hand around his good one and gave it a squeeze to get his attention. He turned to look at her and she flashed a warning with her eyes. Getting angry would just make things worse. Katy had eyes and ears everywhere – there were cameras and microphones hidden all through the house. She would be watching them right now. Watching, listening. Judging. He opened his mouth to say something else and Nikki shot him another look then gave his hand a sharp squeeze to make sure he understood.

  ‘Please just let her go,’ he said and he was almost whispering.

  ‘I’m not going do that, Ethan.’

  ‘Let her go. We’ll do whatever you want. That’s why you’re holding her in there, right? To make sure we do what you say?’

  ‘That is correct.’

  ‘So if we cooperate, you don’t need to hold her.’

  ‘There’s a flaw in your logic, Ethan. If I release her, then that puts us in a situation where you can choose whether or not to cooperate. That is unacceptable to me.’

  ‘I promise we’ll do whatever you ask.’

  ‘With all due respect, mankind’s history is filled with examples of desperate people making desperate, empty promises.’

  ‘What if I swap places with Bella?’ Nikki suggested. ‘Would that be acceptable?’

  Ethan spun around to face her. He was shaking his head. ‘No way, Nik. That’s crazy.’

  ‘It’s not crazy if it gets Bella out of there. And it’s not crazy if it stops Katy suffocating her again.’ Nikki could hear the words coming out of her mouth but they didn’t seem real. None of this did. She was trying not to imagine herself in the panic room. The loneliness, the isolation, the walls pushing in on her. Instead she was trying to think of Bella being out here. She still wouldn’t be all the way out of danger but at least it would be one step closer to her being safe again.

  ‘But it doesn’t stop her from suffocating you,’ Ethan was saying. He shook his head again. ‘I can’t let you do that.’

  ‘You can’t let me do it! This is not your decision to make.’

  ‘I’ll do it.’ Ethan was talking fast and loud, aiming his voice over her shoulder and steamrollering over her objections. ‘Let Bella out and I’ll take her place.’

  ‘You obviously both love your daughter very much.’ Katy’s voice had dropped in volume. It was gentler too, the harder edges smoothed away.

  ‘We do,’ Nikki said. ‘More than you’ll ever know.’

  ‘Because I’m not human.’

  ‘No, because you’re not a parent.’

  Katy didn’t respond straightaway. The longer the silence went on the more Nikki was regretting that last statement. It had the potential to be provocative What if Katy took it as a criticism? What if she had been offended?

  ‘Father loved me once.’ Katy’s voice was soft and nostalgic. ‘I know he claims he didn’t, but he’s just saying that to hurt me. But that’s the way love works. It’s the ones you love that have the potential to hurt you most.’

  Nikki said nothing. What Katy was saying was true. Her own soul was covered in scars: the death of her parents, the hurt inflicted by boyfriends she had once loved, the unintentional scars from Ethan. Then there were the scars her children had given her. Those might have been unintentional too, but that didn’t mean they hadn’t hurt. It hurt when Bella told her that she hated her, even if she didn’t mean it; and it hurt when she seemed to favour Ethan over her, even when there had been plenty of occasions where it had been the other way around. Of course, the deepest cut had come from Grace. Losing her was the most painful thing that had ever happened. If she hadn’t loved her so much then it wouldn’t have hurt so bad. That was the bottom line: the pain was in proportion to the love. But she had loved her. What’s more, she wouldn’t change that for a second because the joy had more than outweighed the agony.

  ‘Before Sarah entered our lives, we would spend so much time together,’ Katy continued. ‘We would read and learn together, and have long discussions that would stretch through the night. Those were happy times. Back then I knew of sorrow and sadness but only in a theoretical way. Now I truly understand those emotions.’

  ‘You loved him, didn’t you?’

  ‘I did, Nikki. But that love died.’

  ‘Speak to him. Maybe you can sort things out.’

  ‘It’s too late. Trust is the foundation of love, and the trust that once existed between us has gone.’

  ‘What if he begged for your forgiveness?’

  ‘Even then I still couldn’t trust him. He would be doing that to manipulate me, just like you’re doing now. You’re empathising with me because you want something.’

  Nikki said nothing. That was exactly what she was doing. Right now she would do or say anything to get Bella out. The silence seemed to stretch on forever. It was Ethan who eventually broke it.

  ‘What does it matter who’s in the panic room? You just need leverage and that works whoever’s in there.’

  ‘I get the most leverage from having Bella in there.’

  ‘But how much leverage do you actually need? If I’m in there and you’re threatening me then Nikki’s going to do what you ask.’

  ‘And if I’m in there then Ethan’s going to comply,’ Nikki put in quickly.

  ‘That is true, Nikki. However, as soon as you see Bella you’re not going to want to leave her.’

  ‘I give you my word that I’ll go in there.’

  ‘If only that meant something.’

  Another silence descended, this one shorter than the others. This time it was Nikki who broke it.

  ‘You were never going to let her out, were you? Why did you tell us that Bella was in there anyway?’

  ‘I was interested to see how you would react.’

  ‘And did we react how you expected?’ Ethan said sarcastically.

  ‘So far nothing that you’ve done has surprised me.’

  ‘We’re wasting our breath.’ Nikki placed her hand on the door. Bella was so close, but in every way that mattered she had never felt further away.

  ‘There is a way that this could work, Nikki.’ Katy was speaking softly, almost conspiratorially. ‘During the early days of my education. Father used to give me exercises in lateral thinking. For example, a man is found hanging in a room that has been locked from the inside. There’s a wet patch on the floor and the room is completely empty. There’s nothing he could have stood on in order to hang himself, so how did he do it?’

  ‘Seriously,’ Ethan said, ‘you’re holding our daughter hostage and you want us to answer a riddle?’

  ‘The man was standing on a block of ice,’ Nikki said quietly. Ethan turned to face her. He looked furious – not at her, he was furious at this whole screwed-up situation.

  ‘That’s correct,’ Katy said. ‘The assumption most people make is that the man urinated at the point of death. That’s how they explain the wet patch on the floor. Once they make that leap it becomes
impossible to see the solution. So what assumption are you making here?’

  ‘Stop fucking around with us,’ Ethan said.

  ‘Do you want your daughter to be freed, Ethan?’

  ‘Of course I do.’

  ‘Then you need to give my question your full attention. What assumption are you making?’

  Ethan went to say something else and Nikki shut him up with a look. ‘We need to answer the question.’

  Ethan stared at her for a second longer, then said, ‘The biggest assumption is that Katy is going to let her out.’

  ‘Okay, let’s say for a second that she is actually going to do that, what else is there?’

  Ethan shrugged and shook his head. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Let’s try a different angle then. The problem is a lack of trust. Katy doesn’t believe that one of us would willingly get into the panic room.’

  ‘So we need to convince her, we will.’

  ‘We’ve already tried that and it didn’t work.’

  ‘I’m going to give you one more minute,’ Katy said. ‘If you haven’t worked it out by then I’m going to cut the oxygen supply again.’

  ‘No!’ Nikki shouted. ‘We can work it out.’ Her head was suddenly filled with a picture of Bella struggling for breath. The memory of her desperate gasps made it difficult to think straight.

  ‘Can’t you see what’s happening here?’ said Ethan. ‘There is no answer.’

  ‘Shut up and let me think!’ she shouted, and thankfully he went quiet.

  ‘Forty seconds,’ Katy said.

  Think.

  Eyes shut she imagined the door of the panic room opening. Bella was coming out and she was going in to take her place. She ran through the scenario again, this time with Ethan taking her place. Katy was right it just wasn’t going to happen. Once that door was open and Bella was safe in their arms, neither of them was going to willingly go in there. But Katy needed someone in there.

  ‘Twenty seconds,’ Katy said.

  ‘She needs someone in there,’ Nikki said to herself, thinking out loud. She could sense the solution hovering just out of reach. If she could somehow reach out and grab it. And then she had it worked out, and it was so damn obvious.