Water.
I switch to a fast tiptoe movement but every time my shoe impacts the surface a new explosion of cracks appear. The sound is getting deeper, like the grumble of an approaching storm, the gaps arterial, veining out toward the shore.
I look to the ladder and the back of Queen’s Crescent, the mansions fortressing up into the night. It’s still a good fifty metres from here to there and the ice is becoming ever more fragile.
The thought enters my head like a bullet.
You’re not going to make it.
I keep going, my brain scrapping around for a plan B: maybe I should lie flat, spread my weight like a seal and slide the rest of the way on my belly? Or, if the ice is that weak maybe I should get into the water and try to swim through it? Other ideas come, each more stupid than the last. Despite the temperature, beneath my clothes I’m hot, sweat fanning across my shoulders. I’m starting to think I should turn back, that all this has been for nothing, when the ice thickens. Soon the floor is solid again, the ice grey and dense as rock.
Being able to move through such wide-open space is dizzying, the expanse of sky and Heath overwhelming, and so I try to keep my eyes forward, my gaze narrow. I hate that I have to fight the impulse to scuttle back to the cell, that the impulse exists at all.
I distract myself with thoughts of Lucas after the treatment. The nurses unpicking the wires from his arms and chest, him getting up out of bed and walking to the lift, waving goodbyes as he goes.
Mr Tarker always said it was just as much of a skill to return an item to a person without them noticing as it was to take it from them in the first place. He’s right. This has been the most difficult thing I’ve ever done, but I’m almost there. The secrets I’ve had to keep from Hannah stick to me like burrs but I tell myself that soon they won’t matter.
The thought of us as a family of three makes my heart light.
A hiss, like a freezer being sealed, and the ice yawns open.
There is no time to run.
I drop like a stone, my clothes and backpack speeding me toward the muddy bottom. Water fills my mouth, the cold a jab to my throat.
I bob back to the surface, scrabbling for traction on the sheared ice, my fingers slipping and sliding, useless against the wet. I try to pull myself up but my body is freighted with saturated clothing, my arms numb. In the distance I can see someone on the Heath, walking a dog. I open my mouth to shout for help but then I stop. No one can know I am here.
My teeth bounce against each other and my breath huff-huff-huffs faster than my lungs can bear, my heart stunned.
I think about Hannah and our baby. The names we liked for a girl.
Audrey, Holly, Grace.
For a boy.
Jamie, Ben, Christopher.
I try again, pushing down and then using my natural buoyancy to launch myself up and onto the floe. Legs kicking, I manage to propel myself out of the water. I reach back to retrieve my baseball cap floating on the surface, and then I roll toward the solid section of pond from which I came.
Drenched and shivering, I try to figure out what to do. The hard drive and PIN were sealed in plastic; they should be fine. My phone on the other hand . . .
Close to the ground I can see how the ice toward Queen’s Crescent is sheened with water. It’s the same toward the Heath. The route back toward the house is more stable, but I can’t return there – I’d walk straight into the lap of the guards who must surely have arrived by now.
I haul myself up to sitting and my eye catches on a sliver of sodium light, ten or fifteen houses down from Hannah’s place. A tiny gap in the terrace. If I could get to it and cut through the garden I’d come out onto her road, well clear of the electric fence, then I could try to find my way to the Crescent on foot.
Upright, the water that had collected in my lower back rushes into my jeans. I walk, favouring the greyer-looking sections of ice as this seems to indicate thickness, and every time I step forward I do so carefully. The ice moans a little here and there but I make it back to the opposite end of the shore without incident.
Wooden steps lead me up to a gate, unlocked. I go through it into a garden and the security light comes on, washing me blue. The property itself is dark, no one home. I head for the gap at the side and the security fence dividing back from front. It’s high, seven feet, and so I pull one of the lawn chairs over, clamber up onto it and heave myself over. I drop down onto gravel on the other side with a thump.
The street is speckled with frost, the street lamps hazy. I make my way onto the pavement and slink into the shadow of a tree. Up the road, outside Hannah’s house, I see a van but no guards. They must be inside.
My body is still juddering with cold and water drips from the peak of my baseball cap but I’m triumphant. I’m going to do it, I’m going to get to the mansion, to the money.
I want to call Hannah, to let her know what happened, that I’m going to be late. The phone is almost certainly toast: still, I check it just in case. The screen is dead.
A hand grips my shoulder.
‘Got you.’
They sound happy, like they just won a prize.
I go to run but the guard jerks me back.
‘Not so fast.’
He has a lisp, like there isn’t enough space for his tongue to form the words. I turn round.
He grins and his metal braces twinkle in the street-light.
‘Hello sailor.’
Monty.
He nods at Hannah’s house.
‘You got out of your box?’
I pull away but he grabs my arm and twists until it feels like my wrist is going snap. He brings his face close to mine. Food, some kind of leafy green, is stuck in the metal barricading his right incisor.
‘Where is it?’
I think of the PIN and the hard drive in my bag. I worry he somehow knows they’re there.
‘Where’s what?’
He tightens his grip and my wrist strains against the torsion, the slim bones close to breaking.
‘I don’t have it,’ I say, trying not to whimper.
‘Cut the bullshit. I know it was you. I went through the CCTV. Took me days but I found it. How’d you get if off my neck like that?’
Down the street a radio scowls to life. A guard searches for something in the front seat of the van. Monty shoves me deeper into the shadows. It starts to snow, the flakes thin and watery.
‘I’ve been hanging around this posho street for months,’ he hisses, ‘trying to figure out where you might have hidden it, who you might have given it to for safe keeping.’
I think about Pru and the person Hannah told me she claimed to have seen hanging around. We thought she was imagining it.
He nods at my backpack and I flinch, terrified my fear was correct, that he knows what it contains.
‘You’re obviously on your way there, your hiding spot. Tell me where it is and I won’t hurt you too bad.’ He looks down, assessing my knees. ‘Just enough to slow you down.’
I say nothing.
‘Look,’ he says and I’m surprised to hear a wheedle in his tone, ‘if I get them their money there’s a chance they’ll take me back.’
The guard slams the door shut and Monty’s eyes jerk right, toward the noise. I take my chance and throw the phone hard in his face. He recoils and lets go of my arm.
I run.
At the end of the street I turn a corner and find myself at a crossroads. Whatever happens, I can’t let him follow me to the Crescent, to Hannah. I look for a wall to hide behind or a car to slide under, but everything is too exposed, he’ll spot me in an instant.
I’m starting to panic when I see something.
I think I’m imagining it, it makes no sense, but when I look closer I find I’m right. In the front garden of the corner house on the opposite side of the road is a dome tent. Pitched under a tree, it is furred with snow, its guy-lines baggy.
Maybe some kid had a camp-out and never put it away? I don’t care w
hy it’s here, just that it is. A hiding place.
In the garden I zip open the front, crawl inside and try to still my breathing. The air is stale, the floor littered with books, pillows and a single sleeping bag, curled on its side like a discarded cocoon.
Outside I hear footsteps and someone hoarsing swearwords under their breath. Monty. He stops and I imagine him scouring the crossroads, peering for any sign of me in the distance, trying to work out which road to take. He makes a decision and the footsteps start back up. When I can’t hear them anymore I peep outside.
The pavements are empty. I crawl into the garden, but no sooner have I set foot back on the street than I hear the dull thud of boots against snow.
Our eyes catch and he smiles.
‘Surprise.’
Again, I run. I’m doing well, lengthening the distance between us, when I realise I’ve gone the wrong way. The crossroads confused me and I’ve doubled back onto Hannah’s street. I twist my head, trying to work out what to do. If I turn round I’ll run straight into Monty but if I keep going I’ll hit the electric fence.
The pond. It’s my only choice.
I head for the gap in the terrace, heave a wheelie bin over to the fence and clamber up onto the lid. The snow stutters and then stops as I pull myself over the wall and onto the lawn chair.
I’m at the bottom of the garden when Monty appears. He lumbers over the fence after me, misses the lawn chair and lands badly. A crunch and his knees go out from under him.
I head toward the bottom of the garden and down the steps to the shore.
I decide to stick to the pond’s perimeter. The freeze here is thick and I figure that, even if it breaks, the water will be shallow. I’ll fall in up to my knees, my thighs at most.
My plan works and I’m twenty metres from the ladder when Monty appears on the shore. He’s limping but he sets out onto the pond without hesitation. He keeps looking over to where I stand and I realise that he assumes I got here in a straight line, that it’s safe to retrace my route.
I stay put. I don’t want him to know where I’m headed; whatever happens, I mustn’t lead him toward Hannah.
When he makes it all the way to the middle without incident I start to panic. I’m wondering if I should try to skirt my way round to the Heath, lose him there, when there is a creak, like someone opening a door.
Splash.
He bobs back up and tries to pull himself out, but the ice where he fell is mushy and everything he grabs falls apart.
‘Help me,’ he screams before going back under.
I think of the time he pushed Chickie down the stairs, the bruises on Maya’s face, her teeth like rubble.
He resurfaces gasping and coughing, but the icy water is like a lullaby and after another minute he quietens. Slowly, the water takes him.
I wait – I need to be sure – and then I walk the last few steps to the ladder. My wrist is sore, bruised from where he twisted it, but I climb and climb.
The door to the basement is wedged open.
Hannah, she made it.
The stairwell is dark, the steps slippery, but I leave the torch in my rucksack. The pond water will have done for it the same way it did my phone.
Inside I use my hands to feel my way through the gloom. I call her name as I go but every time the word leaves my mouth it stalls and fades to nothing, as if the air here is too stale to carry the sound.
I open the door to the garage expecting to see Hannah, torch in hand, preparing the car for our departure, but I am greeted by darkness and a silence so complete I know at once she is not here.
Still, I call her name.
I stay there a moment more, hoping she will appear, but the silence persists. Moving back through the house, I shout for her again as loud as I dare.
Nothing.
Back up the basement steps, I bristle against my damp clothes and pull at the jumper yoked round my neck.
Then I see them.
Footprints in the snow.
The narrow part of the foot is directed away from here, toward the front of the house. I follow them round the side of the mansion to the stone fountain. The trail continues on to the gate and the street beyond.
Hannah has been and gone, of that I’m sure. The question is why?
Did she get here and, finding no sign of me, assume I’d been caught? Has she gone back to hand herself in? Did she think I’d got into difficulty on the ice?
Then another thought emerges, one so horrible I won’t acknowledge it at first, and try to swing my brain toward other more palatable scenarios. But it won’t go away and prods and pokes until I turn to face it head-on.
Did Hannah get here and then turn on her heel because she had second thoughts?
About me?
About us?
I worry someone will walk by and see me here, so I return to the back of the house.
If Hannah has gone back home she’ll be in trouble and, no matter what lies she tries to tell, most likely charged with aiding and abetting my escape. If I return too I could tell a different story, vouch for her innocence, keep her and our baby out of a cell.
But then Lucas.
I’m so close.
This has all been for him, to save him. Without the money he won’t be able to access the treatment. He will die.
The car is sat downstairs in the garage, the tank full of fuel. I could get in, put the key in the ignition and drive. I could save Lucas and then I could be free.
I think of Hannah. The tiny babygrow she brought back that day. The way we held it up in the air and imagined feeling our child’s hands and legs inside.
I make my way back toward the hole in the fence, to the pond.
Hannah decided not to wait. Whatever her reason I need to make sure she is OK, to keep her safe.
Jem
I rush back out front, to where I last saw the policeman, by the cigarette machine.
He’s not there.
Pushing through the crowds, I scan the room, the hot thump of panic in my chest. I’m too late; he’s gone. But then I see a flash of white hair by the door. He’s on the phone and, judging by the way he’s draining that glass, getting ready to leave soon.
I’m just in time.
A couple of empty wine glasses sit on the sill behind where he’s standing and so I approach from the side, angling myself toward the front part of his body, and then, as I reach across to scoop them up I use my other hand to replace the wallet in his inside jacket pocket.
It isn’t difficult. He’s too busy issuing ultimatums to whomever he’s arguing with to pay me any mind and I slip away unnoticed.
In the staffroom I find Maya on her break, crouched over a compact, make-up sponge in hand.
‘I’m off,’ I say, undoing my apron. She nods and I see purple on her cheek. A tinge, just below her eye socket. She retouches it gingerly. Every dab makes her flinch. ‘You OK?’
‘Fine.’ Her upper lip is swollen, the right corner bisected by a thin red line. I remember the way she hid her mouth with her hand earlier. ‘I’ll be fine.’
Monty has spent most of the evening on his mobile offering impassioned denials that seemed to fall on deaf ears, or stalking around his office, no doubt trying to figure out how he might have mixed up the fobs, PIN and drive, why they don’t work like they’re supposed to. It’s yet to occur to him that they might have been switched, that someone else is involved.
I look again at Maya’s bust lip and the guilt settles on me like dirt. In the past Monty has done this and worse, but tonight I know these particular bruises are on me.
I put on my coat and as I head out to the corridor I feel inside my jeans for my travelcard.
Empty.
Trying to stay calm, I stop and check each pocket in turn, pulling the cotton out by the seams.
Nothing.
It must have got dislodged while I was working somehow, fallen on the floor. I’m about to go and scour the bar when I realise.
The policeman’s
wallet.
Before I gave it back to him I had it in my jeans. What if the travelcard got caught inside? It’s happened before with my own wallet; it slides into the fold and the thin plastic cover gets hooked.
I need to find him before he goes, to somehow take his wallet from him for a second time, retrieve the travelcard and with it the PIN.
But when I get to the bar he’s gone.
Outside I look left and right. The pavement is busy with people, the air clouded with steam from nearby food trucks. I look and look, and then I see him. A hundred metres away, he’s trying to navigate his way round a lamp post but he’s so drunk he misjudges, clips it with his shoulder and lurches forward. I break into a sprint and once I get close I start shouting, trying to get his attention, but there are so many people and it’s not like I’m calling his name and so he keeps going, then he turns right into a cut or a back street and disappears.
I reach the opening and squint into the gloom. It’s an alley, a dead end, lined with commercial waste bins. The ground is cobbled, the walls high. The policeman has stopped halfway along and has his hands on his hips. His head bobs left and right. The alley seems to have been a mistake, a wrong turn, and now he’s figuring out what to do next.
Seeing me, he startles.
‘Hello?’
‘Hi.’
Slowly, I make my approach. I don’t want to spook him.
The alley is murky and blotched with yellow light, overspill from the closest buildings.
I decide the best thing I can do is disarm him, to let him know right from the off I’m not a threat.
I hold out my phone.
‘I work in Fleece,’ I say, making sure to keep my distance. ‘You dropped this on your way out.’
As he steps forward, I pretend to fumble and the phone drops to the cobbles.
‘Sorry.’
I move in close, let him reach for it, and as he comes back up to standing I take my chance. For the second time tonight, I smooth my hand inside his jacket and take his wallet. While he presses at my phone, turning it this way and that, I swish the wallet behind my back and run my fingers over the leather. Just as I guessed, the travelcard is caught on one of the inside folds. I rip it free as he returns my phone.
The Captive Page 29