Choked

by Tania Carver

  ‘Listen,’ said Marina, in her professional, compassionate voice. ‘We can end this now. You can end this now. Just give me Josephina back and that will be that.’

  A sigh from the other end of the phone, then silence.

  Marina pressed on. ‘Look. I know you’re finding this hard. Very hard. Especially on your own. Especially with what happened to … your partner. That must have been awful for you.’ No response. She weighed something up in her mind. Yes. Kept going. ‘I know what it’s like to lose a partner. Like a part of your heart has been taken away. Part of yourself. And you feel … like you’re never going to be whole again.’ She tried to keep her voice even. Tried not to think of Phil.

  She became aware of Sandro beside her, listening intently.

  ‘But you also feel you have to keep going. Because if you don’t, then … it’s all been for nothing.’ She waited, let the words sink in. ‘It’s a bad time. A hell of a bad time. But I can help you too. If you’d let me.’

  ‘How?’ The voice dead, monotone.

  ‘Because that’s what I do. That’s my job.’

  Silence returned to the other end of the line. In the background, Marina could make out a girl’s voice.

  ‘Is that Josephina? Is she there?’

  ‘Yes,’ said the woman, in a tone Marina couldn’t read.

  ‘Put her on. Let me talk to her.’

  More silence.

  ‘Please. I’m her mother. If you want this to end well, if you want me to help, put her on.’

  There were sounds from the other end that Marina couldn’t read. Scraping, movement. Then a small voice on the phone.

  ‘Hello.’

  Marina felt her defences begin to crumble. She tried to hold herself together. ‘Hello, darling. It’s Mummy. Are you OK?’

  ‘Home … Home … ’

  ‘I’m coming to get you very soon, darling.’ Marina forced back the sudden tears that sprang into her eyes. ‘Very soon. It won’t be long now.’

  ‘Want Mummy. Daddy. Home.’

  ‘I know, baby. Are you OK? They haven’t … haven’t hurt you?’

  ‘Want Lady.’

  Marina felt her heart break. ‘You’ll get Lady. Don’t worry. I’ve got her.’

  ‘When—’

  The phone was snatched away from her.

  ‘Josie? Josie?’

  ‘You’ve said enough.’ The woman was back. Her voice more together now. Less penetrable. ‘You know I’ve still got her. And you know what you have to do to get her back.’

  ‘And I’ll do it. Then I’ll get my daughter back and it’ll all be over. OK?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Marina was about to speak again. She felt Sandro tugging at her sleeve. Her first instinct was to ignore him, but he was insistent. She turned. He was thrusting a piece of paper at her. She took it. Looked at it.

  ‘Where the bout’s on,’ he said, keeping his voice low. ‘Tonight. Arrange to meet her there.’

  Marina was about to dismiss the idea out of hand, but stopped herself. It wasn’t a bad idea. There would be plenty of people, the woman wouldn’t be tempted to do anything rash in such a crowd, and Marina would have Sandro as backup. Not perfect, but the best that she could hope for.

  ‘We’ll meet tonight,’ she said, voice as strong as she could make it. ‘I’ve got a location.’

  ‘I’ll choose the location,’ said the woman.

  ‘Yeah. You haven’t got a very good track record of this, have you? I’ll choose. There won’t be any police there, I promise.’

  ‘How do I know?’

  ‘Because when I tell you what it is and where it’s at, you’ll understand. There’s a bare-knuckle boxing match going on tonight.’ She read from the paper Sandro had given her. ‘Leeson’s Farm. Near Manningtree. On the Roman Road. I’ve got directions if you need them.’

  ‘I’ll find it.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘This is your last chance. You got that? You try to mess me about, do anything other than what you’ve said you’ll do, try to get out of what you’ve agreed, and you’ll never see your daughter again. Got it?’

  ‘Got it. And by the way,’ said Marina. She felt the anger rising in her once more, but this time made no attempt to stop it. ‘You do anything to my daughter, and I will kill you with my bare hands. As slowly as possible.’

  The phone went dead.

  Marina sat back. Drained. Sandro came and sat next to her. Smiled at her.

  ‘Well done, girl,’ he said. ‘We’ll make an Esposito out of you yet.’

  71

  Tyrell looked at Amy. She had changed since the phone call. And he didn’t know if it was for the better.

  She was standing on her own, looking down at the ground, the phone hanging loose in one hand, the gun in the other. Her mouth was moving, talking to someone who wasn’t there. She began to move around, taking small steps as she spoke, completely unaware that the other two were there.

  Tyrell thought this was his chance. He could run for it. Take Josephina and go. Leave Amy to whatever was in her head. He gathered the little girl next to him. Looked round for a way out. There was forest on all sides. He could just pick her up and run. Any direction, didn’t matter. The woman was probably too far gone inside her own head to notice.

  ‘Mummy … ’ Josephina was looking upset again. He hated to see her looking upset.

  ‘Yes, Josephina. I’ll take you to see your mummy.’

  And he was ready to go.

  But something stopped him. Something nagged at him about Amy. She had looked familiar when she got close up to him. He still didn’t know who she was or how he knew her, but there was definitely something familiar about her.

  The eyes. That was what did it. The eyes.

  He knew them but he didn’t. Couldn’t explain why. Or how. Her eyes. And something else. When she had got mad with him before, got angry. That was familiar too.

  He couldn’t place it. The memory was just out of reach in his mind. When he tried to grab it, it slipped away like smoke.

  He watched her some more. Tried to see her eyes, but her head was down.

  It was like watching a ghost. He remembered a comic he used to read when he was little. An American comic that he wasn’t supposed to have because it belonged to the boy he’d been told to call brother. Deadman. That was the name of the character. Deadman. He had a bald head, a white face, black eyes and a red acrobat’s costume, and there was something about him that Tyrell had loved. Deadman was, as his name suggested, dead. But he could make his spirit live by putting it into other people’s bodies. And then he would have adventures. When Tyrell looked at Amy now, that was what he saw. Deadman. A spirit living in someone else’s body.

  He just didn’t know whose spirit it was.

  He glanced at Josephina, looked back at Amy. This was it. Run for it.

  But he couldn’t.

  He looked at Amy again. It wasn’t just her being Deadman. She was troubled. She was behaving the way she was, doing the things she was doing because she was unhappy. Not right inside. And he couldn’t just walk away and leave her. Not without trying to help her.

  So instead of running away, he walked towards her.

  ‘Amy … ’

  She didn’t look up, didn’t even acknowledge that she had heard him. Just kept walking round, talking to the invisible person she was having a conversation with.

  Tyrell got nearer. ‘Amy … ’

  She looked up then. Her eyes were wild, pinwheeling, struggling to focus on him, to recognise where she was.

  ‘Are you … are you OK?’

  She turned away from him. But before she did, he saw a flash of … something … in her eyes. More madness? Sadness? He didn’t know what.

  ‘Leave me alone.’

  He stayed where he was. ‘I just thought … ’ Then stopped. He didn’t know what he just thought.

  She turned back to him. There was no mistaking what was in her eyes now. Hatred. Pure, unmistakable ha
tred.

  ‘I said leave me alone.’ She was spitting, hissing at him. ‘I wish … I wish I had never met you, wish you’d never come into my life … you freak, you retard … you … Everything that’s wrong, everything that’s been wrong, it’s all because of you … ’

  He stared at her, didn’t know what to say.

  ‘You ruined everything. You ruined my life.’

  Conflicting emotions ran through Tyrell. He didn’t know what to say, what to do. He didn’t know who she was, why she was saying these things. He knew he recognised her, or at least there was something familiar about her, but …

  ‘I never … ’ he said.

  ‘What.’

  ‘I never ruined your life.’

  She gave a bitter laugh. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. Really. I’d have remembered.’

  And that was when she pulled the gun on him again.

  He stared down the barrel once more, not knowing whether he was going to live or die. This time, though, it felt different. Like it was happening to someone else and not him. Like it didn’t matter either way. Like he didn’t care.

  Amy screamed and turned away from him, lowering her shaking arm as she did so.

  ‘No … you have to live … I hate it, but you have to live … ’

  He stared at her. Knowing she was too far gone, unreachable by anyone.

  He glanced at Josephina, who was looking confused as to why he hadn’t taken her to see her mummy.

  He sighed.

  Wished he had just taken the girl and run when he had the chance.

  72

  ‘So how are you feeling? Sorry. Bet you’re sick of people asking you that.’

  Phil Brennan smiled at the nurse. ‘Not yet,’ he said.

  She smiled back. ‘Good.’

  The nurses and the consultant had been in and drips had been checked, monitors studied, tests carried out. Everything from near-forensic scrutiny of charts to fingers before his eyes and gauging reactions. The consultant eventually declared herself satisfied and left him alone. Phil had asked questions, but the only answer he had been given was to rest.

  He had never been good at resting or at doing what he was told.

  ‘Need to … get up … ’ He tried to sit up, put the weight of his body on his arms, pull himself upright. Pain tracked his every move. He slumped slowly back.

  The nurse was checking his notes. ‘I wouldn’t try to move if I were you. Not yet.’

  ‘Can’t … lie here … ’ he said, trying again.

  She turned her attention to him. ‘No. You need to rest.’

  He shook his head. It felt like his brain was in sloshing about in a bowl of water. ‘Can’t … I … What happened? Will somebody tell me … what happened?’

  ‘I will.’

  DCI Gary Franks was standing in the doorway. The nurse turned to him. ‘I’m sorry, but Mr Brennan isn’t allowed visitors until—’

  He held up his warrant card. ‘It’s all right, love. It’s work.’

  The nurse reluctantly didn’t argue any more. ‘I’ll leave you to it, then.’ She left the room.

  Franks took a seat next to the bed, pulled it up close to Phil. ‘How you feeling?’

  Phil tried to shrug. ‘Felt better … I suppose. Just … hurt all over.’

  ‘They giving you enough drugs?’

  Phil managed the ghost of a smile. ‘Can’t … complain there.’

  ‘Good.’ Franks looked around, as though checking they were alone. His voice dropped. ‘What have they told you? About what happened?’

  ‘Nothing. No one says … anything. Where’s … Marina?’

  ‘We’ll come to that in a minute. Just got to talk to you first.’

  Phil frowned, trying to process Franks’s words through his drug- and pain-fogged brain. ‘What … ?’

  ‘First of all, they say you’re going to be OK. No brain damage. Well, no more than you had already.’ Franks laughed at his own joke.

  ‘Ha ha … ’ Phil moved his hand up to the side of his head, felt bandages. He noticed his hands were bandaged too. He felt his skin, found ridges, painful and swollen to the touch. ‘What do I look like?’

  ‘An oil painting,’ said Franks. ‘Something by Picasso.’

  ‘You’re full of them today.’

  ‘Or Frankenstein.’

  ‘How … long have I been asleep?’

  ‘Just a day or so. Not too long.’

  ‘A day or so … not too bad. Thought you were going to say … years. What happened?’

  ‘What can you remember?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘The cottage? Aldeburgh?’

  Phil frowned. At Franks’s words, he felt a part of his memory detach itself from the huge expanse of blackness in his subconscious and float slowly towards his conscious mind. ‘Yes, the cottage … we went to Aldeburgh for the … the weekend.’

  ‘That’s right. Well … ’ All traces of humour fell away from Franks’s face.

  Phil scrutinised him. He recognised that look. All professional sympathy. It was the one police officers gave that transformed anxious relatives into grieving ones. ‘What … what’s happened … ?’

  ‘The cottage … there was an explosion.’

  Phil waited.

  ‘Don was … ’ Franks sighed. ‘Don died in it.’

  Phil pulled the bedclothes back and tried to swing his legs round to the floor. The effort cost him, and he was soon out of breath.

  ‘What you doing?’

  ‘Getting … up … ’

  ‘No you’re not.’

  ‘Can’t … can’t lie here like … this … ’ He put one hand on the bedside cabinet, tried to pull himself out of bed. ‘Got to … to … ’

  Franks placed a restraining hand, gentle but firm, on Phil’s chest. ‘You’ve got to stay where you are. Get well again.’

  Phil shook his head, ignoring the swimming sensation. ‘No. Don’s dead … Got to—’

  ‘No, Phil.’ Franks used his most authoritative voice. ‘You need to stay where you are.’

  Phil, exhausted and riddled with pain, flopped back on the bed. He stared at Franks. ‘Where’s … Marina? I want to see … Marina … ’

  Franks paused. This was the bit he had been dreading.

  73

  Sandro stared at his sister. She had come off the phone on a high. Fired up, angry, ready to go and get Josephina there and then. But because there could be no immediate action, her emotion began to subside. And when the adrenalin dissipated away into her system, she hit a down.

  ‘Can I … Is … You all right?’ The words felt foreign on his tongue. He checked his watch. Not long to go now. He looked again at Marina. He couldn’t leave her like this. ‘Look, I’ve … Is there … ?’

  She sighed. ‘I want my family back.’

  Sandro knew who she meant. He didn’t think she had intended the words to hurt, and after all these years he wasn’t sure they did. But she was still his sister.

  ‘Why don’t you … phone the hospital? See how Phil is?’

  She looked up once more. ‘You think I don’t want to? You think I don’t want to do that every second of the day? I tried it once before and look what happened.’

  ‘Try it again. On that phone they call you on. What’s the worst thing that can happen? Now?’

  ‘You know what. I never see Josie again.’

  ‘After the way the woman was in that last call? That won’t happen. She wants this over as much as you now. Or you could do it from here.’

  ‘Even more risky,’ she said. ‘They could trace it right back here.’ She thought once more. ‘I’ll find a phone box. Call from there.’

  ‘A workin’ one? Round here? Good luck with that.’

  ‘There must be one somewhere … ’

  ‘Can’t think.’

  She stood up. ‘I’m going to go and look. See if I can find one.’

  Sandro looked like he wanted to object but couldn’t think of a reason. ‘OK
,’ he said. ‘You want me to come with you?’

  ‘I’ll be fine. The walk should take my mind off things, hopefully.’

  She left the house before he could say anything more. It was cold outside, the sun seeming distant. She walked the broken, pitted roads looking for a phone box, or somewhere that would have a public phone. She came across the Broad way, a collection of shops, cafés and a pub that looked like it had given up fighting for life and accepted a slow, crumbling death.

  And there she found a phone box.

  She ran to it, willing it to be undamaged and working. To her amazement, it was. The cubicle stank of stale bodily fluids and the handset was greasy and filthy to the touch, but it had a dialling tone. Even the vandals have given up on this place, she thought.

  She took out a piece of paper from her pocket with the hospital’s number on it. Dialled it. Once connected, she took a deep breath, told them who she was and who she was calling for. And waited. A nurse eventually came back on the line, but not before she had heard a click. She knew someone was listening.

  ‘Your husband’s come round,’ the nurse said. ‘He’s stable.’

  Relief flooded her body, nearly took her legs away. ‘Oh … oh. Can I … can I talk to him?’

  ‘He’s sleeping at the moment.’

  ‘Is he OK? He’s not … ’

  ‘He’s shaky, but he’s doing fine.’ There was a pause. She heard someone talking in the background. ‘If you can give me your number?’

  ‘Just … just tell him … ’ She sighed. ‘Oh, he knows.’

  She hung up, leaned against the filthy wall of the box, unable to move for a few minutes.

  He’s alive, she thought. Phil’s alive. Get Josie back and we’re a family again. The euphoria she was experiencing soon subsided as she thought about her daughter.

  She looked at the phone once more. The thought that Phil was well and alive gave her strength. She drew from it. And came to a decision. She picked up the receiver again, ignoring the rank smell coming off it, and placed it to her ear.

  While she had been walking, she had come up with a plan. Call Anni, give her the address of the bare-knuckle fight. Tell her to get Mickey and the rest of the team there to pick up Josephina’s kidnapper. Keep a low profile at the event, only move when given the nod. Sandro wouldn’t mind, she was sure of that. Well, she hoped he wouldn’t mind.