Last Witness

by Carys Jones

  She kicked again. Harder this time. The boot responded by remaining locked tight. Mocking her with its durability.

  ‘Mmphf.’ Amanda wanted to turn the air blue in frustration but the masking tape pressed across her lips sealed in all of her expletives.

  She kept kicking. Harder and harder, she smacked her feet against the roof of the boot, willing it to suddenly pop open. Then she could climb out and run. To where, it didn’t matter. She just knew that she needed to run.

  The sound of the car engine changed. It went from a steady rumble to a soft rattle. It was slowing down. Amanda shifted, panicked. They couldn’t have reached their destination already. She needed more time. She needed to escape.

  Her heart dropped into her stomach when her fears were confirmed. The engine died away all together. Even in her dark prison she knew that they’d ceased moving. A moment passed and then she heard a car door opening and heavy footsteps.

  ‘Noooo.’ She manoeuvred herself onto her back. If these were to be her last moments then she’d at least go down fighting. She bent her knees, preparing to kick madly the second the boot lifted up.

  *

  ‘The key to being a good swimmer is to kick furiously.’ Mrs Maddox loomed large at the side of the community swimming pool as she looked down at the gaggle of fresh faces she was currently teaching.

  Amanda bobbed up and down in the chlorine-laced water beside a little boy called Daniel. They both clung to the handrail, which prevented them from floating away from the edge of the pool like bounty from a shipwreck.

  ‘You need to stretch your legs back in the water and just kick. Throw up as much water as you can.’ Mrs Maddox had a perm so tight that Amanda wondered how it didn’t make the old woman’s brain ache. She placed one hand on her wide hips and drew her whistle up to her mouth. She blew into it. One sharp, shrill note.

  Amanda started kicking. She stretched out her legs as far as she could and thrashed them about in the water. She tasted chlorine as the turquoise water of the pool got splashed against her face. Her mouth was open as she laughed. She wished she was in the ocean, tasting salt instead of chemicals. But her parents had insisted she learn to swim. Only then, they’d said, could she go down to the beach and roam about freely on her own.

  ‘Keep kicking,’ Mrs Maddox ordered, her voice a fog horn across the water. ‘Kick as if your life depended on it.’

  *

  The boot opened with a soft click. Amanda started kicking. She blindly thrust her legs out, hammering them back and forth.

  ‘Grab her, will ya?’ she heard McAllister’s voice before she felt the tug of strong arms grabbing her elbows and hauling her out. She landed a few kicks against the guard as she was pulled out of the boot, but he didn’t even register their impact. ‘Christ, girl,’ McAllister was standing a few feet away from her, his eyes sweeping over her face. ‘You’ve certainly managed to make a mess of yourself in there.’

  How did she look? Was her face bloodied? Her eyes red and swollen?

  ‘Now…’ McAllister took a menacing step towards her.

  Amanda frantically scanned the area around her. The guard’s grip was tight on her arms, preventing her from running away. In the moonlight she saw that they were on a road. A long one which winded away into the shadows. There were no trees, just open highlands which allowed a fierce wind to power over to them.

  ‘I’m rather fond of my Phantom,’ McAllister cocked his head at her. ‘It’s arguably my favourite car in my fleet.’

  There was something upon the wind.

  Salt.

  Amanda closed her eyes, breathing it in. For a blissful second she allowed herself to pretend she was back home, back upon the cliffs, near her mother’s rose garden.

  ‘I can’t have you kicking about in there and damaging my favourite car.’ McAllister’s voice was low and sinister.

  They were near the coast. Amanda knew it as she filled her lungs with the salt-laced air. So where exactly were they going? Did McAllister have a coastal home? A private air field nearby? A boat?

  Amanda’s knees weakened at the thought of a boat. The guard dug his fingers into her arm, keeping her standing up straight. She imagined herself crammed into the damp depths of a cargo boat, sailing away from Scotland as though she were nothing more than a damaged package. Who would be waiting for her on the other side of her journey? And how would Shane ever find her?

  ‘The next time I hear you kicking my beloved car,’ McAllister leaned in close, moonlight reflected in his eyes, ‘I’m going to stop this car and have one of my men break both of your lovely long legs. Are we clear?’

  Amanda nodded furiously.

  ‘I’m glad you understand. Now, be a good girl and be nice and still for the rest of the journey.’ McAllister eased back from her and walked away.

  The rest of the journey.

  So it still wasn’t over. Amanda didn’t know whether to be relieved or even more terrified. A journey on a boat was becoming more and more likely. Her mind raced with possibilities of where she could be going.

  Europe?

  Africa?

  Where?

  And why?

  The guard clutching her arms scooped her up and tossed her back into the boot. Amanda rolled onto her side, keen to catch one last glimpse of the starlit night sky before the boot was slammed shut, returning her to her darkened vessel.

  *

  She didn’t kick again. She believed McAllister when he said he’d break her legs. He probably kept a hammer under his car seat for such an event. And how could she hope to run with broken bones? The engine hummed as the car bounced along winding roads. In the darkness Amanda did her best to assess her current wounds. There was a throbbing in her left ear and her nose was damp with blood. Both cheeks were filled with a deep ache. Even her arms were starting to grow sore from being continually flung around the boot. And her wrists. They stung like the plastic tie had been swapped for barbed wire bracelets.

  The car kept moving and Amanda stared into the darkness, imaging shapes within its depths. She tried to imagine Shane. He’d be sat out in his car now, waiting on the edge of the woodland. Did he intermittently peer at the treeline, expecting her to suddenly burst out of the shadows and come running towards him? How many times had he called her phone? Was he now realising that she wasn’t coming back?

  Amanda cried. Her tears mingling with the blood upon her face.

  He’d said that he loved her. Before she’d left the hotel those had been his parting words to her.

  And she hadn’t said it back.

  *

  ‘I love you.’

  The fire crackled and for a moment Amanda thought she’d misheard what Shane had said. She studied his profile in the amber light of the flames. He wasn’t even looking at her, he was staring at a large piece of driftwood which had just caught light.

  ‘What did you say?’ she tugged on his arm, drawing his attention towards her face. His green eyes glistened but his lips twitched nervously. ‘Shane?’

  ‘I said,’ he pulled in a deep breath, puffing out his chest, ‘that I love you.’

  Amanda blinked at him. Once. Twice.

  The sound of John snoring disrupted the moment. He was on the other side of the campfire, curled up on his side, using his hooded jumper for a pillow.

  ‘These last couple of weeks,’ Shane leaned forward and began wringing his hands together. ‘We’ve been hanging out together more and well—’

  ‘But we’ve not even done it,’ Amanda blurted. ‘We’ve just kissed and hung out without John a bit,’ she threw her slumbering friend a guilty sideways glance. ‘I didn’t realise it was… you know. Serious.’

  ‘Really?’ Shane’s eyebrows shot up his forehead. He clenched his jaw but said nothing else.

  ‘I mean, I have feelings for you, of course I do. But this, us,’ she gestured between them, ‘It’s so new. We haven’t even told our parents that we’re dating or anything.’

  ‘Jesus, Amanda. Love d
oesn’t have a timeline or anything.’

  ‘I know but—’

  ‘I’m sorry if I don’t fit into the weird schedule of romance you’ve got in your head but I saw you looking into the fire and I felt something in my heart and I just knew. So I just went with my feeling and said it. I didn’t expect you to say it back or anything.’ He stood up, dusted the sand off his baggy jeans and began walking down the beach, away from their fire.

  ‘Shane!’ Amanda hurried after him.

  ‘What?’ he spun around, his frustration etched into his sixteen-year-old features.

  ‘I…’ Amanda wasn’t even sure she actually knew what love was. All that she did know was that it was meant to be forever. Her parents had loved each other, and even after her dad died her mum went on loving him, even though he was a ghost. Love was infinity. Love was everything.

  ‘You don’t feel the same. It’s fine,’ Shane remarked tersely.

  ‘No, I do.’ Amanda held his arms and looked up into his eyes. In her heart she knew that if she ruined this moment, if she let him just sulk away down the beach she’d regret it forever. Shane was like oxygen. She needed him to survive. A world without him just wasn’t a world at all.

  ‘Are you scared to say it?’ he questioned tenderly.

  ‘Yes,’ Amanda admitted as she looked down at her feet in frustration. ‘But only because it scares me. Because when you say it – it changes everything.’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘And you said it anyway?’

  ‘I said it anyway.’

  ‘But it’s like…’ she chewed her lip, searching for the right words. ‘I don’t want to say it and then lose you.’

  Amanda thought of the walls in her house covered in her father’s image, how the place had become a shrine to him. And in her continued devotion to her husband, Amanda’s mother got to go to bed alone every night. Corrine always said that she didn’t mind, that her memories kept her warm, but Amanda wondered how true that could be, especially during the bleak winter months? Loneliness surely lingered on the fringes of her mother’s existence, testing her previous declaration of love.

  ‘You’ll never lose me.’ Shane sealed his promise with a kiss.

  ‘Ever?’ Amanda gazed deeply into his eyes as they parted, the tips of their noses still touching.

  ‘Never ever.’ He kissed her again. ‘I’ll be here for you, Amanda. Until the end of time. And even after that. I swear it.’

  ‘I love you.’ The words came easily. Amanda said them and saw Shane’s features soften. He opened his mouth but someone bellowed from behind, speaking before he could.

  ‘Oh my God you two need to get a room. I’m seriously getting sick of being a third wheel, guys!’ John shouted from where he’d woken up beside the fire, his hair matted and sprinkled with sand.

  Hand in hand, Amanda and Shane headed back to the warmth of the flames.

  *

  Amanda’s head sagged against her chest. The car took a corner and she braced herself with her legs so that she didn’t go tumbling all over the place. The memory of the night when she’d first told Shane that she loved him was keeping her warm, was keeping some of the denser shadows at bay. He’d been right back then, about how love didn’t keep to any sort of schedule. It just… happened.

  With Will it had just happened. Like a hurricane he’d swept into her life and it’d been impossible not to get pulled along by the sheer force of it all. He was strong and spoke his mind.

  And he lied.

  Amanda squeezed her eyes closed, refusing to cry anymore. Will might have lied to her throughout their marriage but he’d had his reasons. And ultimately he’d loved her. He’d used his final breaths to tell her as much.

  Her chest heaved. With each grumble of the engine, Amanda knew she was creeping ever closer to her own end. Either McAllister was going to haul her onto some ship destined for God knows where or he was going to shoot her point-blank and watch her lifeless body drop into a shallow grave. Shane didn’t factor into either of those scenarios. Amanda was going to be denied a chance to see him one last time, to tell him how she felt.

  The car bounced over a bump and Amanda’s head ricocheted up at the roof of the boot, hitting it so hard that she almost saw stars.

  Just hold on.

  She tried to find the will to remain focused. She didn’t want to become a ghost, a memory to keep Shane warm on lonely nights. She wanted to see him again. To see Ewan and her mother. Her desire to live burned within her, keeping her strong. The car engine began to slow again. They were stopping.

  15

  Again Amanda heard the distant opening of a car door, heard gravel crunching underfoot as someone approached the boot. It popped open and a blast of cold air blew in. It swept across Amanda’s bloodied face, carrying with it the scent of the sea.

  ‘I want her on her feet and over there.’ McAllister was giving his orders. A guard whose face had become familiar pulled Amanda from the boot. She shivered in her shirt dress and lingerie. A fierce wind billowed around them.

  ‘I don’t have all night. Let’s get this wrapped up so I can get back home.’ The orange tip of a freshly lit cigarette illuminated McAllister’s features.

  The guard put his hands on Amanda’s shoulders and pushed her forwards. She had no idea where she was going. She deliberately stumbled her footsteps to give her a chance to look around. They were at the side of a narrow road and, from the sparse bracken and the power of the wind, Amanda sensed they were up high.

  ‘Keep going,’ the guard increased the force pressing against her shoulders. ‘Some of us want to be back in bed before dawn.’

  Amanda kept moving through the darkness. Then she saw it. The entire world fell away and she was looking at the ocean. Its rough surface distorted the moon’s reflection. Waves powered towards the cliff she was standing upon and roared up at her in greeting. She stopped moving. Her legs locked.

  ‘I said let’s keep going,’ the guard smacked her squarely in the centre of her back, knocking the air out of her lungs.

  ‘I imagine she’s scared.’ McAllister came and stood beside Amanda. As he lowered his cigarette from his lips, he pushed a plume of smoke out from behind his teeth. ‘Isn’t that right, sweetheart?’

  Even in the darkness she could see the sinister smirk that he directed at her. ‘You’ve figured out how your story is going to end and I imagine you’re not liking it all that much.’

  Amanda heard the waves thrashing at the rocks below. She had to make her entire body rigid to stop her knees knocking together.

  ‘But I thought there was something rather poetic about it,’ McAllister extended his arms, gesturing grandly at the cliff edge which he boldly walked towards. The guard smacked Amanda’s back again, signalling that she was to follow. But she couldn’t? How could she? McAllister was looking to recreate the death she’d so narrowly escaped all those years ago. He was breathing life in to the nightmare that had haunted her for so long.

  ‘I would say you inspired me,’ he continued, never turning his back against the sheer drop behind him. He looked down, plucked a fresh cigarette from his pocket and then looked back at Amanda. ‘But in truth, we often send discontents to their watery grave this way. The authorities always attribute it to suicide.’

  A flame flickered madly in the wind as McAllister went to light his cigarette. He cupped his hands near his mouth, shielding it. Then, after taking a long drag, he looked at Amanda and laughed.

  ‘And you couldn’t be a more perfect candidate. Your husband left you and went missing. You never found him and in your grief you flung yourself off the top of this here cliff. It’s drama. It’s Shakespeare.’

  Amanda protested but her sounds were just murmurs against the duct tape.

  McAllister nodded at his guard and Amanda was thrown forwards. Her body dropped against the ground as she fell at McAllister’s feet. The earth beneath her smelt damp, still holding the moisture from a previous rainstorm. She drank it in, focusing on
how real it was. Her senses clung to the odour, reminding her that for the moment she was still alive.

  ‘Damn, lad, keep her on her feet.’

  The guard grabbed Amanda’s hair and pulled. He kept pulling until she’d frantically managed to scramble back onto her feet, which wasn’t easy when she didn’t have the use of her hands. She was now so close to the edge that she could see the dramatic drop, the jagged rock face which plummeted down into the dark waters below.

  ‘If only you’d had the sense not to repeat your fake husband’s mistakes.’ McAllister shook his head ruefully and then flicked his cigarette over the side of the cliff. Amanda held her breath as she watched it fall and keep falling. And then it was unceremoniously eaten up by the waves which continually beat against the rock face, like hands hammering on a door that would never open.

  ‘So here’s what we’re going to do.’ McAllister pulled something from his pocket and Amanda saw the moonlight shine off its smooth surface. She tried to stagger backwards but the guard was holding onto her shoulders, keeping her rooted to the spot. McAllister stepped towards her, brandishing the small blade in one hand. ‘First,’ he leaned around her, grabbing her wrists. The knife disappeared from view and she felt the pressure around her hands ease. He’d cut away the plastic tie. But before she could even think about claiming back the use of her hands, the guard’s thick palms replaced the tie, keeping her arms pinned behind her back. ‘I don’t need your body washing up on some beach still bound and gagged. Can’t have anyone suspecting foul play now, can we?’ McAllister stepped in front of her and ripped the duct tape off her mouth in one swift motion. Amanda gasped, both from the pain and the sudden new ability to be able to breathe properly again. She sucked in deep gulps of sea air. ‘Well, now we get to see if you can float.’

  ‘Wait,’ Amanda surged towards him, held back by the guard. Her words felt raw in her mouth. ‘Please. Please don’t do this.’

  ‘You came here to ruin me.’ McAllister sounded like he was more than just offended. He was outraged. ‘What did you think would happen when you poked the bear, Mrs Thorn?’