‘No matter what you’re up to,’ he added.
‘Who’s up to anything?’ I said. I flushed. My skin had always been my let-down when someone caught me out.
‘What’s she up to?’ said Bobby. ‘You on the skim, Nettie hen? Are you Ubering your wee arse off in our ambulance after hours, are you?’
‘Ha!’ I said. ‘I only wish I’d thought of it.’
‘You’d have to cover the logo,’ said Bobby. ‘But you could easy get a clinger online. We could all chip in.’
‘This took off fast!’ I said. ‘What are you like, the pair of you? I’m keeping my job, if you don’t mind. I’m not going to start running a bent taxi on my off-hours.’
‘I suppose Ayr’s a wee town and there’s a lot of hospital and council workers might recognize the number plate,’ Bobby said. ‘You’d have to get yourself up to Glasgow to be on the safe side.’
‘See what you’ve started now!’ I said to Art, shaking my fist at him but softening it with a wink.
‘Not me,’ said Art. ‘I’m just picking up on whatever you’ve started.’
‘What are you talking about?’ I said, but I knew my cheeks were darkening again.
‘You never asked what it was I did, before I retired, driving up and down the M6.’
‘So I never. What did you do?’
‘Insurance fraud investigator,’ Art said. ‘I could always tell when someone was up to something.’
‘That sounds interesting,’ I said. ‘What did you do before you retired, Bobby?’
‘I was a copper,’ Bobby said. His voice had changed. I had never heard him so sober-sounding. ‘Finished up a sergeant. What is it you’ve sniffed out, Artie?’
‘Purpose,’ Art said. ‘Never mind if it’s a warehouse boy, a driver or a dinner lady. If somebody’s on the skim you can tell from how they’ve got an extra dose of purpose about them, on the side of what they need to do the real job. You’ve got it, Nettie. You’ve had it from day one.’
‘Now you come to mention it,’ Bobby said.
‘Give it a rest.’ I hoped my voice sounded steadier than it felt. ‘That’s just my way. That’s how I was brought up. You do what’s on your plate the best you can. You dance with the boy that brung you.’
But Bobby and Art were both looking at me with the same expression now, eyes slightly narrowed and mouths slightly twisted. They’d forgotten about their chemo and the rough night they were in for. They both thought they were on to something.
‘Your meds have addled your minds,’ I said.
‘That’s a low blow,’ said Bobby. ‘That’s not like you.’
‘They’re right, you know.’ I looked up. Mrs Cooke had spoken, the second time she’d piped up today. ‘I was a teacher, Nettie. Forty years of primary six. I’ve got radar on my radar, even if they’re carving out every other spare bit of me.’
Bobby and Art both pushed their lips forward and nodded, Art ending with his chin on his chest. There was a pecking order to cancer, like everything else, and Mrs Cooke with her one kidney and her long-gone gall bladder and spleen, her colostomy to make up for her missing gut, was the survival queen. She had radiation burns she had to be careful about, padding out her seat belt with a cushion, and the kind of sparse, melted candy-floss hair that came from endless chemo and wrecked nutrition post-stomach cancer.
‘And what’s your radar picking up?’ I said, going for a tone of kindly indulgence and a smile to match.
Mrs Cooke didn’t narrow her eyes or shake her head, or make any other gesture or change in her expression. She didn’t bother. Instead, she gave me a measured look and said: ‘Can’t you just tell us? Maybe we could help you.’
‘Help me do what?’ My voice was a yelp, which didn’t add much to the act of innocence. ‘Even if I was up to something, what makes you think it’d be the kind of thing you’d want to help with?’
‘Radar,’ said Mrs Cooke again.
‘Well, I’m not.’ I put the bus in gear and dropped the handbrake. ‘So you can give your radar a rest.’
‘It’s nothing to do with us then?’ Art said. ‘It’s something else? Something at home?’
‘Is someone hurting you?’ said Bobby.
‘What the hell?’ I said. ‘What do you know about my home life?’
‘That’s another thing,’ Bobby said. ‘We don’t. You’re not from here. That’s not an Ayr twang. And you’ve never said why you came. It can’t be your boyfriend’s job if there’s no boyfriend.’
‘And you could have picked up a driving job anywhere,’ Art added. ‘Why did you move to the end of the line for this, Nettie?’
I pulled the handbrake on again and slipped the gearstick back to neutral. I swivelled round in my seat until I was facing them. Lawrence had plucked out an earbud by now, wondering why we were still parked outside the townhouses when Siobhan was long gone. He raised one eyebrow, silently asking some imaginary peer of his what they were up to now, these pathetic ancient losers he had to share a bus with.
‘The line carries on down to Girvan,’ I said. ‘Don’t insult your own home town. Why wouldn’t I want to live here?’
‘Where did you come from?’ said Bobby. ‘What did you do before?’
‘Back in the interview room, eh Sarge?’ I said. ‘What is this today?’
‘Fine, fine, have it your own way,’ said Art. ‘Mrs Cooke learned nothing from all the years with her wee toe-rags. I’m as ignorant as a newborn babe and Bobby’s as thick as mince.’
‘No, you’re not,’ I said.
‘No,’ said Art. ‘I’m not. I’ll get to the bottom of it, if I just take my time.’
‘If you take your time?’ Bobby said. ‘We’re a bus full of cancer patients. You better bloody hurry.’
‘I’ve got less time than anyone,’ said Mrs Cooke. ‘You could tell me, Nettie.’
‘There’s nothing to tell!’
‘Or maybe the whole thing’ll be done and dusted soon enough,’ said Art. ‘Are you renting or did you buy?’ He turned to the others. ‘I used to be able to tell a lot about the size of a scam from how deep the roots were that folk put down.’
‘I’m renting,’ I said. ‘How could I buy on the pay I get from carting you lot about?’
‘Ah, but you’ve got money behind you somewhere,’ Art said, making me blush again. ‘Insurance investigators never miss the whiff of money. You don’t splash it about, but it still shows.’
I was shaking my head. No way he could know that. But Mrs Cooke and Bobby leaned in, keen to hear more.
Art started ticking items off on his fingers. ‘You didn’t want to go in on a lottery syndicate when the jackpot went through the roof. Rich folk don’t need money. And you’ve got a watch you don’t wear.’
‘What?’
‘Oh yes. You don’t look at your phone to tell the time, Nettie. You always look at your wrist then remember you’re not wearing it and check the dash clock.’
‘So what?’ I tried to keep my voice even but it was disconcerting.
‘So, obviously you’ve got a watch but you don’t want to wear it at work. What is it, a Rolex?’
It was a Cartier. My eighteenth birthday present from Big Garry. He had put it at my place on the breakfast table the day after my birthday. ‘I didn’t want you smashing it last night on your first night out on the lash, ho-ho,’ he’d said. ‘Try it on and tell me if it fits.’
‘Not a Rolex,’ I said to Art. ‘A Timex and it’s busted, so I’ve stopped wearing it. Any other signs I’m a princess disguised as a lowly bus driver? Just out of interest.’
‘Your teeth are perfect,’ he said.
‘I’m lucky.’
‘No,’ said Lawrence. ‘My dad’s a dentist. Your mouth’s too small to have such straight teeth naturally. I bet they were all bunched up when you were a wee girl.’
I folded my lips down over them, remembering the groggy afternoon, coming round from the anaesthetic once my ‘crowded mouth’ had been thinned out, and reme
mbering the feel of the stiff braces and the sour taste of them if I missed a brushing. I did have a small mouth. He was right about that. Big Garry could eat a hotdog sideways, and when he sulked he looked like a toad, his big top lip flumping out over the bottom one. Bazz had inherited it. I had my mum’s little bud of a mouth, except that I left mine alone, swearing I’d never plump it up with injections or paint it twice the size it should be.
‘Jesus,’ I said. ‘It’s 2020, folks. A decent dentist isn’t a luxury item.’
‘Touched a nerve, have we?’ Bobby said.
‘Will we have ringside seats when it “goes down”?’ Art said. ‘Is it local?’
‘And are you sure we can’t help you?’ said Mrs Cooke.
I gazed at them all. They deserved respect. ‘Sorry about the language,’ I said. ‘Yes, you touched a nerve. No, it’s not local. And you’re best off out of it, Mrs Cooke, but thank you.’
‘Is this for real?’ Lawrence said. No one answered him.
‘When?’ Bobby said.
‘Soon,’ I said. But I couldn’t stand lying to them again now I’d stopped. ‘Actually, anytime at all. Only I’m scared. It’s time for action and I’m not acting because it scares me.’
‘Oh Nettie,’ said Mrs Cooke. ‘You’re scared? I’ll swap you.’
THIRTEEN
Laura’s eyes adjusted before her breath had recovered, long before her stomach stopped heaving. She tried a small sniff anyway and, although the air was still rank, it was bearable. It had only been because she was expecting flowers that the stench had almost done for her. She breathed silently, looking around herself. The room appeared to be sizable, but awkwardly shaped, with odd angles and corners. Supporting walls, she supposed, holding up the house above. It was dim but not completely dark, which she didn’t understand, since there was nowhere for the light to be coming from, no windows and only a chink of twilight seeping in the crack around the locked door behind her. The ground under her thin soles was chilling damp. When she shifted her feet she thought it might be stone, or concrete anyway. The main walls were stone, certainly. She could smell the metal of them, the minerals blooming out of them, even on top of that animal stink that came from far away in front. Something was surely dead down here.
But something was living too. She hadn’t imagined those voices, and the silence began to pound at her. Why had they stopped speaking? What were they waiting for? As quietly as she could, she spread her feet to get a solid stance and she settled down to see what would happen next.
Later, much later, it would strike her as odd that she didn’t bang on the door or shout for help. Perhaps it was because she’d have to turn her back on the two voices and, if she made a noise, she’d never hear their owners approaching. Or perhaps it was that she had known, all along, somewhere deep down, that Fairytale Endings was too good to be true. Picking your own roses for a dinner dance where you didn’t have to pay a penny, to meet successful single men who wanted to marry? All that was missing was a pumpkin coach. She had the stupid shoes, and they might as well be made of glass for all the use they were on this cold floor. Her arches ached in them but her bare feet would freeze, even if she could kick them off quietly.
Who knows how long she stood there. In the end it was a throat-clear that spurred her to talk. It sounded so homely and familiar, like someone in the next seat of a quiet carriage.
‘Who are you?’ she said at last. ‘Where are you? Can we put a light on?’
‘Who are you?’ said one of the voices. It sounded like an old woman, her voice dry and cracked.
‘How long have you been down here?’ Laura said. ‘Did you come for the dance? Did they tell you it’s tomorrow? Did you find them through the websi—’
‘Who are you?’ It was the younger voice. ‘What website?’
‘And what’s that terrible smell?’ Laura said.
‘Don’t be rude.’ The first voice again. The older one. ‘She can’t help it. Wait till you’ve been in here for weeks on end.’
Laura felt a skirl of vertigo. ‘Weeks?’ she whispered. Then she felt relief flood through her. ‘Oh, I get it. It’s a game! Right. An escape game? Well, I’m not going to stand for it, because I didn’t sign anything. How long have you really been here?’
‘I don’t know,’ said the older voice. ‘Depends what date it is. It was February the twenty-third when I came. And then you came in March, didn’t you?’
‘March the twenty-third,’ the other said. ‘I came for the weekend.’
‘But it’s May,’ said Laura. ‘It’s the twenty-fifth of May! You’re kidding, right? It’s a role-play game. It’s a hoax. It’s some kind of test.’
‘If you say so,’ said the older voice.
Laura breathed in and out, trying to calm herself. This was insane. It was an outrage. It couldn’t be legal. She always read small print and there had been nothing about any escape games anywhere on the Fairytale Endings page. Besides, the escape room she had been in on a weekend away one time was spotless ‘What is that smell?’ she said. ‘It smells like death.’
‘It’s blood,’ said the younger voice. ‘I can’t help it. Two months with nothing to use for the blood.’
‘So we left the rags by the door where she’d have to smell them when she comes in,’ said the louder, stronger, older voice. The voice of the woman in charge. ‘It’s worst there. Better back here with us.’
OK, Laura thought. I’ll play along. And when I get out I’ll sue them for every penny they’ve got. Because there’s no way this is legal.
‘Are there any steps?’ she said. ‘I can’t see.’
‘It’s flat.’
‘Because I’ve got heels on. I don’t want to fall.’
‘Best take them off. It’s uneven. Did you drink the wine?’
It was definitely a game then, if they knew about the wine. That had to be illegal: tricking her into swallowing alcohol. She bent and eased the jewelled straps of the sandals, setting her bare feet down. It was concrete, but softened with some kind of fungus, she decided, feeling her soles sink in, feeling the squeeze of water she forced out. Was that moss? Could moss grow in a cellar? It didn’t feel fleshy enough to be those glistening black ears that grew in bouquets, that people used to believe was witches in disguise. She felt her way steadily forward, ignoring the feel of her feet squelching. Anyway, as she got further away from the door the floor underneath her dried out and grew dusty. But they were wrong; the smell didn’t get better. It did get a little less dark, though. There was a tiny fanlight, near the ceiling in here, ground level outside probably. It was thick glass, reinforced with bars although only six inches square. By its light, she could pick out sturdy posts, buttressed at the top and set into concrete at the bottom, holding the cellar ceiling up like the props in the tunnels of an old coalmine. And she could see the far wall, what must be the front of the house, less frightening to walk towards it than to be edging into sinking darkness with only two voices to depend on.
Another couple of steps and she could see the women as well, although she wouldn’t have thought those two dark lumps were people if she hadn’t just heard them talking. They were sitting on the floor, close but not touching. She walked towards them until she heard their breath, then stopped.
‘You’re not doing a very good job of it, you know,’ she said. ‘You sound far too calm. If you’re paid actors you’re not earning your crust. You should be screaming and banging on the door to get out.’
‘We did our screaming,’ the older one said. ‘I did mine and then you did yours too, didn’t you? No one heard us and we hurt our hands. I ripped a nail out at the bed. So. No more screaming.’
‘Even so,’ Laura said. ‘You’re miles too casual. You don’t sound traumatized enough.’
‘See?’ said the young voice. ‘That’s what I said when I got here. You sounded … muffled.’
‘Muffled!’ said Laura. ‘Exactly. Are you trained actors or are you amateurs?’
‘You did drin
k the wine,’ the older voice said. ‘You’re slurring. Well, wait till you taste the water.’
‘What’s wrong with it?’ Laura said.
‘Don’t know. But the bottles are never sealed, are they?’
That was a nice touch, Laura thought. Clever. An extra twist in this game. No, not a game. A prank, played by a sadist. A joke, told by a madman. Madwoman. Performance art. Trolling. Gaslighting. What a lot of words there seemed to be for the senseless ways people enjoyed messing with each other.
That was what she still believed, deep down near the middle of her, close to the pip of her life. And a little bit further down, if someone could crack the pip and look inside it? Down there, already she knew it was true. So, her mind retreated from the knowing. She floated above the knowing, telling herself words like prank, joke, game, trick, hoax. Telling herself no.
Martine was floating too. The story that kept her safe above the unbearable knowing was taking place outside this cellar, far away from this house, this town. In Lockerbie, her neighbours and clients and all her friends from school and work and the Family Forest were campaigning hard, organizing themselves, raising reward money. They were homing in on her. They would find her soon. They might be turning into Loch Road right now. And when they did, when they found her, she would walk out of this cellar and she would tell the police who came to arrest Kate and Gail that she didn’t need to go to the hospital. But she wouldn’t go home either, to her neat little house with its boxy rooms and its tacked-on garage. She couldn’t imagine ever making herself go into that dark garage again, with its bare walls and its cold floor.
She dreamed of it, whenever she managed to sleep deeply enough to dream at all. She was in the boot of her car in the dark of her garage, and the door that should lead to her bright kitchen had been bricked up. She’d start awake, and three waves would break, in turn, so fast that she gripped the edges of the sleeping pad to stop the world spinning. First came relief. She had escaped from the dream. Then came the fact, like a slap, of where she was instead. And third came the ache to return, to be safe in a dream that couldn’t hurt her, even in the boot of a car in the dark of a bricked-up garage. Anywhere but here.
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