‘Rupert?’
She knew he was trying to be kind, holding back for fear of saying something he might regret.
‘Come home, quick as you can. I’ll blue-light my way through town, meet you there.’ He spoke slowly, his tone thick with reassurance. The murmur of background voices thinned and she heard a click, a door opening and shutting. He was already on the move. ‘Don’t talk to anyone. And don’t worry, we’ll sort this—’ He stopped and corrected himself. ‘I’ll sort this.’
Hannah said goodbye and made her way out of the mansion and back out through the gap in the front gates.
The snow had stopped. The flurry had been short-lived but it had left everything changed. She looked around, trying to get her bearings, no longer clear where the pavement ended and the road began. It was like the white sheet you throw over a corpse, the way you were still fairly confident what was where – there the prow of a toe, there the dip of a clavicle – but could never be sure unless you pulled it back to reveal cold, grey flesh.
She walked as fast as she dared, her mind whirring. Should she come clean with the DLO or should she concoct a story, something that, with Rupert’s help, might keep her and her baby out of jail? Maybe she could say that Jem had escaped and so, afraid for her life, she’d run away from the house until she was sure things were safe?
She tried to weigh up the merits of each scenario but her mind was clouded with images of her and Jem together. His mouth on her stomach. Her legs round his waist. His hand trailing through the loose spill of her hair on the sheets.
A thousand tiny humiliations.
She’d spend the rest of her life wondering how she could have been so stupid.
She’d loved him.
The sadness pressed down on her from all sides.
Jem
Earlier
I pick my moment.
That fraction of a second when Hannah is too focused on making sure she’s packed everything to question why I might want to use the upstairs bathroom.
She calls after me but I don’t stop.
In the hall I pause, listening for any sign she might have followed me, then I head for the first floor and the airing cupboard.
For the last three and a half months I’ve passed it and its padlock twice a week on my way to the shower. Once I discovered this was where Hannah had chosen to store my custody bag and inside it the PIN, the item I need most – the entire reason I ended up here in the first place – the journey became torturous.
But these trips upstairs have had merit. A routine like that gives you the chance to properly take in your surroundings, to notice stuff that might one day be of use.
I go to the display cabinet outside the bathroom and open the door. John’s vintage dart collection sits in a neat line on the shelf. The Kroflite darts are made of brass, the cardboard box they came in arranged behind them, small brown text boasting WITH FEATHERED FLIGHTS. I pick one up and weigh it in my palm. It’s heavier than it looks, the pointed end sharp as a spear. It should more than do the trick.
Back at the cupboard, I bash the spike as hard as I dare into the tiny gap where the padlock’s shackle meets the housing. Nothing. I try again, this time with more force. The lock stays intact but the screws holding the latch in place begin to loosen. I bring it down again and the wood splinters. A tug and the latch falls to the floor, the padlock still attached.
I wait a moment. I want to make sure Hannah hasn’t heard, that she isn’t about to appear at the bottom of the stairs.
Once I’m satisfied she isn’t coming I put my hand on the door and pull.
The custody bag sits slumped against the wall. I rip open the seal and feel inside. The keyring is broken, the metal screwtop jagged with the remains of the ceramic holder – Hannah smashed it when she dumped it on the table that first day – the furled Post-it note littered with turquoise fragments. I open it out and there are the twelve digits and letters that form the PIN.
The slip of paper in my pocket, I go to the spare room. I find the hard drive in the middle box, pristine inside the plastic bag I put it in back in March. I place the PIN in with it, put them both in the rucksack and then I get out my phone.
I have Kenzie’s number memorised.
I send him a text telling him I’m on my way.
We organised everything days ago, when Hannah gave me the phone to call Alina about the passports. I’m praying that this time he won’t let me down.
Before I go, I try to tidy up the mess. I don’t want to risk Hannah coming up and noticing it at the last minute. It would raise too many questions.
She calls my name.
I’ll have to leave it as it is.
‘Coming,’ I shout. Then I scurry back down to the kitchen.
Pru has had a fall. Hannah goes to tend to her, only for the old lady to get confused and press Hannah’s red button.
Hannah tells me to go, that she will follow after. Knowing the guards are on their way is frightening. Still, being separated will make things so much easier. I can send Kenzie another message, ask him to come and meet me in central London instead. He went to the bar earlier today, retrieved the fob from the haberdashery drawer where it’s been hiding in plain sight the whole time.
I make out to Hannah like I don’t want this, that I’m not happy, even though I know this is actually a bonus. Then I pull on my baseball cap and I leave.
I set off across the ice. My bag is full of the cash Hannah gave me to carry but my head is full of the money still to come. I imagine it as a pile of gold trapped inside a treasure chest, heavy and glittering. All I have to do now is place the key inside the lock and turn.
The night air frisks my lungs and I think back to the March night I followed John into that alley.
I remember it all.
The heft of his ribs against my palm.
The slow plash of his heart.
His yeasty breath, spreading across the cobbles like fumes.
Hannah has asked me over and over for the truth, to tell her what really happened. I did come close once, at Christmas. Lying there together in bed it seemed like a portal had opened up between us, a space in which I could finally say the words, explain what I did and why, and that everything would be OK. But then she got up and the moment disappeared.
I’m glad. No good would have come of it.
I reach the middle of the pond and pause. Looking back toward Hannah’s house, I think of the months I spent locked inside her kitchen and then my mind goes back to the money, waiting quietly for me to come and collect.
The cage was a small price to pay.
I blow the house a kiss.
Goodbye.
Hannah
Hannah had expected an aftermath – guards clustered by the gate, police lights flashing – but the street was quiet, her front door open.
She went inside and called Rupert’s name.
‘Down here,’ he said, ‘in the kitchen.’
Passing through the hall, she noticed the door of the airing cupboard at the top of the stairs was ajar. Her first thought was that the guards had left it that way, but then she saw the gaping custody bag and the random things scattered across the floor. She remembered the hard drive she’d found in Jem’s backpack, the way he’d dashed upstairs to use the bathroom at the last minute. More lies. Whatever the drive contained, the mix-up with the bags meant, on that front at least, his scheming had been for nothing.
Rupert was waiting by the cell in a tailored three-piece suit, with his yellow wool scarf tied round his neck. She went to him and they embraced. For the first time since Hannah had learned of Jem’s betrayal she felt safe, like he would protect her from whatever might happen next.
‘The prison service have been and gone,’ he said quietly. ‘There was a uniform stationed outside the house so I flashed my badge, told him to sweep this street and the next road over. Give us time to figure things out.’
Hannah set down her bag and was about to take off her coat when she stopped
. There was something about the kitchen that felt different.
‘Tell me what happened,’ said Rupert as they drew apart, ‘we’ll go from there.’
She tried to order her thoughts, but her mind was slurry. She was about to put it down to the stress of the last few hours but then her lips began to tingle. Her sugar was low.
‘Jem and I, we were going to escape, then Pru had a fall and she got confused, pressed my alarm.’ Her hand fluttered against her stomach. She didn’t feel able to tell him about the baby, not yet. ‘I was thinking I could say I activated it, that Jem got out and so I ran?’
Rupert nodded, thinking. ‘You said you had witnesses,’ he continued, ‘people who say they know who killed John?’
‘Two people. I don’t know if they’d go on the record but one used to work for the gang and one still does. Both of them mentioned the same man, Slig. Said there’d been talk that he killed a detective. I haven’t mentioned anything about him to Mickey yet but I could, she’d get onto it immediately.’
Rupert took a breath and pursed his lips as if to stop the words he wanted to say from escaping. It was clear he was embarrassed for her, at the way she’d fallen for Jem’s lies, that she was still clinging to a fiction he’d made clear he felt dishonoured his partner’s memory, but he was too much of a gentleman to voice any of this out loud.
‘I’m a fool, I know that. My husband was cheating on me with my best friend for years and I had no idea.’ She pointed at the open cell door and saw a tremor pass through her hand. ‘Now this. But when it comes to who killed John and why, I’m certain. Jem had nothing to do with it.’
The words felt stretchy in her mouth, the vowels lengthening and widening. Her heart began to pecker against her ribs.
‘Your best friend.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘Terrible shame.’
Hannah tried to follow what he was saying but the ferocity of this low was frightening. She’d never had one come on so quickly and with such intensity; it was like being hit by a truck. She reached for her backpack and the dextrose tablets inside only to remember she had the wrong bag. Trying to stay calm, she reviewed her options. Her earlier clear-out meant the fridge and cupboards were empty, but there might be an ancient pack of tablets lurking at the back of a drawer.
She yanked one open, then another, rifling through cutlery, tea towels and tin foil in search of the packet’s yellow and orange swoosh.
Rupert moved closer.
‘What are you doing?’
His fingers hovered near his breastbone, as though he was about to reach for his badge.
‘Hypo.’ She showed him her wobbling fingers, then pushed them into another drawer. This time they landed on the black canvas of her old insulin kit. ‘I need sugar.’ She hadn’t used the kit in years, not since she’d traded it for her clicker pen, but she’d often kept a stash of dextrose in the pouch at the front.
Empty.
She unzipped the rest of the kit, hoping to find a half-eaten packet inside, but there were only syringes, pristine in their plastic packets, and a vial of insulin, long past its expiry.
She looked up and there it was again, that feeling, like a speck of grit in the corner of her eye. She scanned the kitchen for something out of place. Then she saw it.
The fridge magnets.
They’d been rearranged.
NOT THE DORMOUSE BUT THE BEAR
Her first reaction was annoyance – someone had destroyed John’s last message – but that soon changed to confusion.
The words were strange, the sentence nonsensical.
She read it again, trying to understand, but her sugar was falling fast. Her knees seemed to be dissolving, the structure that kept her legs upright crumbling. She swayed briefly and then sank toward the floor. Rupert caught her just in time and helped her to a dining chair but she was too weak to sit upright.
‘Here,’ he said, bending low and placing her arm tenderly across his shoulder. He guided her into the cell and onto the bed. She slumped back against the wall, in a half-sitting, half-lying position.
‘Fruit juice,’ she mumbled, her lips numb. ‘Ask next door.’
He didn’t move. He seemed preoccupied by some other task, as though he was plucking up the courage to ask her a question he didn’t know how to phrase.
‘Go,’ she shouted, trying to snap him out of it.
‘Yes, sorry,’ he said, heading toward the stairs. ‘On it.’
She looked again at the magnetic letters on the fridge, trying to understand their meaning. Not the dormouse but the bear.
Her brain was foggy, her thoughts as lumpen and shifting as the green algae that carpeted the pond at the start of summer.
No sooner had Rupert gone than he returned.
‘No joy,’ he said, showing her his empty hands.
She tried to speak but her tongue was numb. It lay in her mouth, thick as a piece of meat.
He spotted her old insulin kit, still open where she’d left it on the table.
‘Is this what you need?’ he asked. The elation at having found a solution made his voice jump an octave. He held the vial up to the light and smoothed his thumb across the metal seal.
‘No.’ It was more of a sound than a word. What was he thinking? Rupert knew how diabetes worked from his experience of it with his father.
He opened the packet, took out the syringe and removed the cap. His hands were shaking and he had to still them before skewering the vial. Slowly, he drew back the needle. The syringe full, he came into the cell, to where she lay slumped.
‘No.’ This time Hannah managed to articulate the word. She tried to lift her arm in the air, to push the needle away, but it refused to budge. The insulin was out of date and so its potency would be low; still, even a little would push her sugar dangerously low. It could harm the baby, maybe even cause her to miscarry.
He lifted her top and once he’d exposed a small area of skin he brought the needle close to it and – jab – it was in. He pushed his thumb down onto the plunger, withdrew the needle and stepped back.
Hannah thought again of the pond algae. On the May Day Bank Holiday the entire surface had been covered in the stuff. In the late afternoon she’d been at the French doors when she’d seen a tourist in shorts and sunglasses mistake its green spread for grass. He’d stepped out onto it with the absolute expectation it would carry his weight. Bobbing back up to the surface with clumps sliding down his cheek, he’d been aghast, incredulous that something so solid-looking had swallowed him whole.
She willed her eyes to stay open, to find the energy to ask Rupert to call for an ambulance. To find a way for her and her baby to survive.
He watched her for a minute, then leaned forward and, after brushing her hair behind her ear, kissed her tenderly on the cheek.
He reached his hand back toward his badge in his inside jacket pocket.
She couldn’t fight it any longer. Her head lolled heavy to the right, pulling her down toward the bed. The thought of the pillow was a comfort. She wanted somewhere soft to rest her face, to sink her skull into the cotton and surrender to the black flooding in her brain. Instead her cheek hit damp, foam-like material, more cleaning sponge than bedlinen. Mesh chafed her ears and ballooned up around her face. Unable to lift her head, she opened her eyes and saw red, bright and artificial as a clown’s nose, and white geometrical peaks, the tail feathers of a rooster.
Jem’s baseball cap.
He left it on the pillow so that even if she couldn’t see him she would know not to be afraid.
Rupert retracted his hand from his pocket as if he’d decided he didn’t need what was in there after all, and his yellow scarf swished against his suit.
‘When you ignored Aisling’s calls she contacted me. She’d remembered something, from one of her and John’s hotel trysts.’ He sneered. ‘He wasn’t above accepting free rooms in which to meet his mistress.’ He stood up straight, cracked his neck left and right. ‘One night, waiting for him in one of these rooms, Aisling sa
w an envelope pushed under the door. It wasn’t addressed to anyone so she opened it. It was a graduation picture, police officers outside Peel House in Hendon, their names below. One of the officers had been circled, as had a name. Looking more closely, she realised it wasn’t a picture but a screenshot of a message with the picture embedded. A message from me to someone she didn’t recognise. She thought nothing of it, that maybe we were organising a college reunion of some kind. But then that day when you confronted her about the affair you mentioned a name, Roddy Blessop. She couldn’t place it at the time, it was only later she remembered. It was Blessop’s name that had been circled and, she presumed, whose face had been picked out. She didn’t know what it meant but she was sure it was important. She was desperate to tell you, to see if it might help.’ He took the end of his scarf and pressed it against his mouth. ‘John had secretly been investigating what he’d heard was the murder of an UC, trying to find out who helped tip off the gang he was infiltrating. Someone provided him with a copy of that screenshot to help him on his way.’ He dropped the scarf to his chest. ‘Her memory of that message, that picture. The fact I sent it.’ He paused. ‘Very incriminating.’
Not the dormouse but the bear.
She looked again at Rupert’s scarf.
Rupert the Bear.
She understood now. Who had changed the letters on the fridge and why.
A knock.
Someone was upstairs in the hall.
‘Hello?’ Their words funnelled through the air. ‘DS Cammish. I’ve finished the street search.’
‘Sorry,’ said Rupert, backing toward the stairs. ‘Really, I am.’ He couldn’t bring himself to look at her. His face was grey and he thrust his hands into his trouser pockets. He nodded at the discarded needle and vial. ‘But you’ve made this easier than it was going to be, for both of us.’
Jem
One Hour Earlier
I’m a fifty feet from the ladder when I hear it. A polystyrene squeak that sets my teeth on edge. I look down and see a line between my feet. It forges forward, splitting and branching across the ice, and then it fissures, revealing a stripe of black.
The Captive Page 28