Surrogate – a psychological thriller

by Tim Adler

  Cobblestones juddered beneath the taxi as we climbed the hill to the church square. In the pinky dusk, the Lake District village was almost too picture perfect. A Dickensian fantasy. Magic hour was what they called it in the movies – that moment when sunset turned everything a rosy gold. We parked beside the war memorial and I got out of the car, listening to the dreamy tolling of the church bell. Daffodils had not come out yet in the churchyard, and there were pools of dirty snow in between the graves. The village was rigid with cold. My guess was that St. Anthony's Cottage was on the other side of the square, and I walked past headstones noticing the inscriptions: "Faithful wife and mother", "Love and duty" and "Everlasting fidelity". There was a sense of everything coming to rest, that nothing bad could ever happen here. A row of cottages lay beyond the church wall, and I walked along studying the china name plates.

  St Anthony's Cottage was a bigger house on the end of the row, and I wondered what my father-in-law would look like and how he would react to the news that he was a grandfather. More important, would he tell me where my wife had gone to?

  And why was she so intent on destroying my life?

  I peered through the window and saw a cosy sitting room with a gas fire going, which only made me feel colder. I pressed the doorbell, and a dog started barking furiously; I sensed somebody coming to the door. An elderly-looking man frowned at this visitor turning up out of the blue.

  "Can I help you?" he asked.

  "Mr Givings? You don't know me, but my name is Hugo Cox." I waited for his reaction. My father-in-law looked at me blankly. "The name doesn't mean anything to you?" I persisted.

  The man looked regretful. "I'm sorry, but you've got the wrong house. Mr Givings died last year. We only moved in recently." A woman bustled in from the kitchen drying her hands. "It's somebody looking for Mrs Givings, darling. I told him she moved away."

  The man's wife stood behind her husband expectantly. So, Mole's father had died but her mother was still alive. Then the new owners of the house must have an address for my mother-in-law. "Do you have an address for Mrs Givings, some way I could contact her?"

  "May I ask why?"

  "I work for an insurance company. We're trying to trace Mrs Givings because of some money owing to her," I improvised. Another lie. This was becoming second nature to me, and I made a mental note to stop once this nightmare was over. The man looked at this stranger standing on his doorstep and then seemed to conclude that I was telling the truth.

  "I think we've got a telephone number. Just wait a minute and I'll go and get it," said the wife. We both stood there awkwardly, me with one foot on the step, while we waited for his wife to return.

  "Yes, he we are," she said. "She lives in Snowdonia now, near Portmeirion. Area code oh one seven double six, six double seven three four eight."

  I got out my wallet and scribbled down the number on the back of a Tesco receipt. "Thank you so much," I said, turning to leave. "I'm very grateful." A thought struck me. "Tell me, how did Mr Givings die? Was it in a car crash? That's what the claim is for."

  The husband had not yet closed the top half of the barn door. "Oh no, he committed suicide. Bad business." He grimaced before banging the door firmly shut.

  Chapter Thirty Two

  Chief asked me where I wanted to go to next, and I told him back to the station. The taxi meter was already over a hundred pounds, and it was getting dark. I had found out enough for today. So Mole's mother, who was actually alive, had moved to Wales after her husband killed himself. Was that the reason Mole never talked about the past, because she was ashamed of what her father had done? No, that didn't make sense either; there was no stigma attached to somebody committing suicide. It was more tragic, really. It had to be something much deeper than that, something she really didn't want me to find out about.

  Oh Emily, where have you gone? Why are you doing this to me? The thought of never seeing my child again clutched at my heart. We took the long flat road out of the village, and Chief kicked down to fourth gear. I settled down in my seat and wondered what time I would get back to London. The accelerator climbed from forty to fifty to sixty. Chief glanced in his rear-view mirror and muttered, "Well, come on then." I asked him what the matter was. "There's a car been following us since we left the village, but it bloody well won't overtake," he said. He wound his window down and languidly waved for the car to come through, and I glanced backwards out of the rear window.

  My heart contracted with fear.

  The black Range Rover, its headlights dazzling, was right behind us. "Can you step on it?" I asked, leaning forward. I felt my heart thumping. Chief grunted and put the car in third. The speedometer said we were already doing seventy. The black car did not hang back, though. Instead, it loomed closer until it was almost touching our rear bumper. I strained to see who the driver was behind the black glass. Still nothing. Jesus Christ, he was going to run us off the road. Chief swore under his breath as we went into a chicane doing a racing curve, and I prayed that nothing was coming in the other direction. "What's the matter with him?" said Chief as the Range Rover dropped back again. Relief flooded through me as we left the black car behind.

  "I know who's in that car," I said. "You've got to outrun it."

  "You never said you were in trouble."

  "Whoever is driving that car wants me dead."

  The road was dropping down now towards the next village, and we went into a series of tight bends. What was left of the day could be glimpsed between the trees, and there was a picturesque river far below. Any other time I would have admired the view, but right now all I wanted to do was reach safety. Surely we would be safe once we got to the next village.

  The road we were on was a nasty twisty one, and cars seemed to emerge out of nowhere. We were going much too fast.

  Suddenly the Range Rover was on us again. It loomed up behind us and, in the split second before it slammed into us, I tasted premonitory metal. The jolt made me bite down on my tongue, and I felt blood. There was a nasty tearing sound, and Chief said, "He's torn my bloody bumper off." The stone wall on my right was by now a blur. To the left of me was another, lower dry stone wall, with the river below. The Range Rover dropped back, preparing to shunt us again and force us off the road.

  All I felt was nauseating, gripping fear.

  Anything could be coming round the next corner.

  "I'm going to pull over," said Chief. Right then, the car slammed into us for a second time, and Chief lost control of the steering wheel. A lorry loomed right at us, and I saw the driver's terrified face as Chief wrenched the wheel hard left. A horn blared.

  The whole world turned upside down as trees and sky windmilled past the window. Everything went into slow motion, as if time itself had lengthened. I knew what was about to happen. The ground was coming up fast. I closed my eyes and braced myself for impact, and there was a juddering crunch as the world collapsed in around me.

  When I opened my eyes, there was the smell of petrol and burnt rubber in the air, and hot metal ticking softly in the sudden stillness. I could smell smoke and battery acid. Gradually my hearing returned, and I noticed the hiss of steam from the broken engine. I could not believe I was still alive, yet I felt strangely detached. I could picture myself lying on the floor of the taxi – or was that the roof? – with Chief trapped in the driver's seat. The front end of the cab had got it worse and had completely concertinaed. The driver's side had collapsed in on itself, and Chief wheezed for me to get him out. Reaching over my shoulder, I tried opening the door behind me but it wouldn't budge. The door must have buckled. I would have to try the other side. Wincing, I manoeuvred around the tight cabin, conscious for the first time of being in pain. I had done something to my back. The other door wouldn't open either. Both doors were jammed. There was enough room for me to move my legs, though, and I drew them back and kicked hard. This time the cheap Datsun door flew open, and I hauled myself out onto the grass, feeling the last of the sunshine on my face and never so g
rateful to be alive.

  Gulping lungfuls of air, I went back to get Chief out. Please, God, I know I have been a bad person all my life, but I have never asked anything of you before, so let this person live, please let me get him out of here. I managed to get Chief's driver's-side door open, but he was wedged in tight.

  "Are you hurt? Can you move? I’m going to get you out of there, okay?"

  "Help me."

  "That's okay. I'm going to get you out. There's fuel everywhere. I need to get you out straight away."

  I crawled in and tried to free the taxi driver, reaching across to unbuckle his safety belt. It wouldn't open. I began tugging at the belt, as if my strength was any match for twisted steel. That was when I saw the first licks of flame through the spidered windscreen. Chief was sitting in a petrol bomb.

  Finally the seat belt gave way, and I started pulling the driver’s dead weight out with everything I had. My God, he was heavy. "You've got to help me," I gasped, hooking my arms beneath his armpits. Slowly I dragged him out of the car and onto the grass. He was moaning. Flames leapt from beneath the bonnet. The car was going to go up any second.

  The petrol tank exploded and, for a moment, my world turned silent. The blast rattled my teeth, and the earth shook beneath my feet. Then the sound came back with the dull crump of the explosion. A wave of heat like a blast-furnace door being opened fell across me, and I felt my hairs singe.

  Lying there on the hillside, I watched the oily black-grey pall of smoke roil up to the deep blue sky. Chief was lying on the grass farther down, and I knew he needed an ambulance. I got up and hauled myself back up the embankment. The taxi had crashed through a wooden gate and plunged down the hillside. Staggering up to the dry stone wall, I sat down again to get my breath back and saw a teenager filming the burning car with his mobile phone, as if this was just something worth uploading to YouTube. Coughing from the acrid smoke, I told him to go and get help. He gave me a sullen look and ran off, and I rested my head against the dry stone wall, breath heaving. My God, we were lucky to be alive. My legs started shaking uncontrollably as I realised how close to death we had come. The Range Rover had tried to kill us. Right by my head was a tiny beautiful blue flower clinging to the gap in between the stones. Tenacious. So help me God, from now on I would be that flower. Weirdly, I had never felt so alive, absolutely pulsating with energy; life was so precious that I was determined not to waste another moment of it.

  A police siren was getting nearer as I staggered back down the hill to help Chief. My legs were starting to feel like jelly. "Hey, you there," a voice shouted above me. Two policemen were clambering down the hill. "Are you all right? Do you need an ambulance?" said the first copper. I raised my arms in surrender. "We were forced off the road," I said. "A car tried to kill us."

  Police tape was stretched across the hill road by the time I was helped up. Cars were queuing around the bend. Chief was in a much worse state than I was, though, and two green-suited paramedics stretchered him on to a waiting ambulance while I gave a statement. I told them the whole story.

  "Do you want me to go with him to hospital?" I asked. This would be the second time somebody was going to hospital because of me. I was an unlucky person to be around.

  "And you didn't get a licence plate?" the policeman said.

  I shook my head. "It all happened so quickly."

  "You say this car had been following you from London. Why do you think it was the same car?"

  "How many black Range Rovers do you see during the day? Look, you need to speak to Detective Inspector Syal in Woolwich. She'll confirm everything I've told you."

  "There are cameras all along the main road. He won't have gotten far."

  "Whoever is driving that car wanted me dead."

  "I want you to go to A&E and get checked out by a doctor. We'll still need a full witness statement."

  I nodded. The truth was that it hurt every time I breathed, and I must have done something to my back. One of the paramedics helped me up, and I found myself sitting in the back of an ambulance for the second time in less than a week. Chief was lying with an oxygen mask over this face. He pulled it down, and I leaned in.

  "I should never have picked you up from the station," he said. "Who's going to pay for me fookin' car?"

  I smiled weakly. "My company probably insures it."

  "It weren't insured, were it, you numpty. Insurance ran out a month ago."

  "Look, I can give you money if you want," I said, reaching for my wallet.

  "I don't want fifty quid. I want my bloody living back."

  I was about to reply when a paramedic got in and started taking Chief's blood pressure. We sat there while the armband inflated, watching blue numerals change on the monitor. Beep beep. Beep beep. My thoughts flicked back to what had just happened. I hadn't simply touched a nerve; I must have gotten down right to the very bone.

  Somebody did not want me finding out the truth.

  Chapter Thirty Three

  I pushed my credit card beneath the scratched Plexiglas and waited while the attendant looked dubiously at it. Five hundred quid for two days in the car pound. I looked round the Portakabin while he scrawled the release paperwork; this was a place you wanted to get out of as quickly as possible. The man pushed the chip-and-pin machine back towards me and did that thing where you look away while I keyed in the PIN. Ever since nearly cleaning out my bank account, I had felt a grain of terror each time I used my credit card. Until now there had always been more money. What if the transaction didn't go through? We both stared at the machine until it started up and the receipt scrolled out of the top. A buzzer sounded, letting me through. "Car's on the left," the attendant said.

  My Porsche 4x4 was parked just where he told me, and I gave it a good once-over to make sure the tow truck had not damaged it. Frankly, I was lucky not to have been charged for just leaving it on the ferry. The throaty engine growled when I started the ignition, and I remembered the salesman saying with a leer when I bought it that the sound would get the girls' knickers wet. I put the car in reverse and started looking for the exit. My shoulder hurt like hell, throbbing every time I moved. I would have to get it looked at once I got home. I pointed the car towards the exit, and the attendants must have been watching me on TV because the gates opened as I drove towards them.

  Rather than head back home south of the river, I turned right, looking for a way to get to west London. I was still coming to terms with the fact that somebody had tried to kill me. From now on I was not taking any chances. I needed my own insurance policy. A shotgun.

  Chelsea Bridge spangled with lights was one of London's prettiest nighttime sights, but I was brooding as the car edged forward, locked bumper to bumper in yet more traffic. Somebody had tried to kill me, me, who had never done any harm to anybody. Well, perhaps that wasn't quite true. I thought about the hurt I had caused, remembering Mole crying in the car outside the police station when I told her about my infidelity; I recall touching her hair, trying to make her feel better. And wasn't Alice dead because of me? I remembered her accusing, sightless eye as she lay in the morgue. No, wait. I had done just one thing wrong. The rest of this whole sorry mess had spiralled out of my control.

  Caught in the flow of cars on the A4 flyover, I started to think about the Range Rover tailing me, and then I began looking for the car. I was spooked. What if he found me again? The police said there were thousands of black Range Rovers registered in England, and that it would take days to comb through all the vehicle registrations. Attempted murder, they agreed. Whoever had tried to kill me had probably abandoned the car in a lock-up garage somewhere and dropped the keys down a drain, so it could be months before the Range Rover was found. My palms felt damp against the steering wheel, and I rubbed one, then the other, down my dirty suit trousers. I kept looking in the rear-view mirror. The moment when the car forced us off the road kept coming back to me: I wished I could rewind the film so that it had never happened, the world turning upside down an
d the inevitable pain. Lurid thoughts, each one turning into another, nagged at me all along the motorway until I reached the Maidenhead exit. Home. Protection. Surely Dad and his solid wall of money would keep me safe. No, you are on your own now, my grown-up voice chided.

  Only the upper floor of Sundials was visible from the main road, and the lights were off. Eliska must have gone to bed. I parked the car and waited, orange numerals from the dashboard providing the only illumination as I checked whether I had been followed. Nothing. It was well past midnight when I grabbed the nylon holdall from the passenger seat, got out and shut the door as softly as I could. What would I say if Dad caught me? Just tell him the truth.

  Somebody wants me dead.

  I keyed in the door code on the main gate. It swung open and I slipped through, careful to keep out of range of the security light. My spare set of house keys jangled as I tried the first one in the lock. Wrong key. My only thought was of how terribly wrong this could all go. This time the key turned smoothly. I pushed the door open, and there was a delay of a few seconds before the warning alarm chirruped. All hell would break loose if I got the number wrong: bells ringing and a siren so loud you felt it had almost perforated your eardrum. Anxious, I blipped the keypad with Dad's birthdate, and the warning alarm deactivated. Frozen, I stood there waiting for silence to reassert itself.

  I padded across the hall, careful to avoid the floorboard that squeaked, and went up into the Georgian part of the house. I walked past the menus from Dad's gourmandising trips through France and down into the basement study where he kept his shotgun, locked up behind a metal filigree gun rack. I tested the gun rack with my fingers. Of course it was locked. Here was where my plan got shaky. What if the key wasn't in the desk where Dad usually kept it? I switched on the brass banker's light and eased open the desk drawer as quietly as I could. The key was normally buried beneath the pen collection. Breathing hard, I scrabbled my fingers through the pens, ignoring one that had fascinated me as a child – a pen you tipped upside down to reveal a woman with pubic hair. Found it. I slipped the key into the brass gun-rack lock and turned. My hands closed round the cold metal of the shotgun and its wooden stock, pulling it away.