by Alex Marwood
Someone swings the gate. The crunch of boots on gravel. She knows that eyes are scanning her hiding place, holds her breath as though it will cloud the midsummer air. The concrete on which she lies is damp and piled with musty earth and leaves. It smells of body fluids.
‘We could get the dog.’
‘Naah. She’ll be well gone by the time we do that.’
A swish of some long object – baseball bat? Scaffolding pole? – across the undergrowth an arm’s length from her head. Amber stiffens, presses herself deeper into the dark.
‘Fuck,’ says the first man, and something hits the wooden wall. She shrinks away, bites her lip.
‘You think she’s gone home?’ His voice slightly quieter now; he’s moving away. ‘It’s up this way, innit?’
The others fall into step. She hears the gate drag across the gravel, the clang of the broken latch. ‘Naah,’ replies someone. ‘You know where she’s gone? Pig farm.’
‘Well, let’s hope they keep her.’
Someone raises his voice. ‘Annabel!’ A chorus of laughs. ‘Come out, come out, wherever you are!’
They laugh again, their voices fading as they walk away. ‘Can’t believe it. Can you believe it? Fucking right in the middle of us all this time. I remember it. Poor little kid. D’you remember? All cut up. Covered in bruises. Broken bones. Fucking little sadist.’
‘Someone should show her what it’s like.’
‘Can you believe it? It’s Rose bloody West all over again. I’ve got kids, for fuck’s sake. She could’ve …’
‘Let’s go down the police. She mightn’t’ve got there yet … maybe if we split up …’
‘C’mon then. If we get the cars we can beat her down there.’
‘Don’t be a div. There’ll be Plod all over the shop.’
A laugh. ‘I wouldn’t be so sure about that. My cousin Ray’s on duty tonight. They’re fucking furious. Trust me. If anyone’s going to turn a blind eye …’
The voices fade into the distance. Amber sits up, leans against the spongy wall, feels the shriek of pain in her foot. In the darkness the image of Mary-Kate and Ashley, her darlings, her sweet friends, swims back into her mind and winds her. She wraps her arms round her body and weeps.
She doesn’t know what to do. She can’t let daylight overtake her. The darkness is her only protection. She waits for what feels like an interminable time before she dares to use her phone, afraid that someone will hear her voice, that the light from the display will give away her location. Then she calls Blessed, because it’s the only thing she can think to do.
She counts the rings. Six, then Blessed’s voice, blurred with sleep, answers. She must have fallen asleep over the order books. It happens to Amber all the time.
‘Blessed, it’s me.’
‘Who?’
‘Me. It’s Amber. It’s Amber, Blessed.’
‘No,’ says Blessed. The line goes dead, and she is alone in the dark.
She can’t stay here. She wipes her eyes, crawls out into the night. The road is empty. In the distance she can hear the monotonous thump-thump-thump of the nightclub strip, hear the shrieks of Whitmouth’s holidaymakers, unaware of the fear in their midst, celebrating their liberation from the threat of death. Her foot throbs, but takes her weight. She starts down the road towards town, dodging round the pools of light beneath streetlamps, pausing at corners to scope the road ahead. There’s only one place she can think of to go.
It takes her an hour. In daylight, in safety, without injury, it takes half that, though the walk along the A-road is so unappealing that she only normally does it when the buses aren’t running. She pulls up her hoodie and dips her head, looks at her feet as she limps and hopes that passing headlights will not illuminate her features for long enough to make her recognisable. On the seafront, her progress slows to a crawl. She shelters in doorways whenever a figure approaches, feigns fascination with window displays and advertising cards. The town is crowded, but she feels naked, exposed: the only person fully dressed, the only one sober, the only one alone. A group of lads surrounds her, drunk and laughing, gurning with slack lips into her shrinking face.
‘ALLLL RIIIGHT, Grandma!’
She recoils, heart thudding, but they don’t recognise her. Of course they don’t. They’re not locals; come from Yorkshire or Lancashire if their accents are anything to go by, and they’ve been drinking all night, not scouring the internet for breaking news. She’s probably as safe here as she would be anywhere, among the young and careless. And yet …
They must be somewhere. Her neighbours have not gone home, she knows it. Too worked up, too excited, too full of righteous anger. They’re stalking the town, staking out the police station, waiting for her to make her move. Nowhere is safe; not really. But at least she knows somewhere with gates, and locks, and security, even though they are designed to protect valuable assets and safeguard ticket sales, rather than people.
She sees the sign ahead: the garish lights turned off for the night, but the staff entrance still bright and welcoming. Funnland. The closest thing to a home she has left. The turnstiles are long since locked down, the ticket offices plunged in darkness. She feels as though the waters have closed over her head. She’s been off sick for a week and the only one who’s shown any interest in her welfare is Blessed, but even though Blessed is clearly done with her now, it’s the only sanctuary she can think of. Surely Blessed can’t turn her away if she’s actually there.
A hundred yards to cover. The crowds on the pavement have thinned, for there’s little to entertain a teenager on this strip once the park is closed. Amber instinctively tugs at the string of her hood, pulls it up over her chin. Shows nothing to the world but huge, frightened eyes.
She reaches the staff gate. Feels in her pocket for her swipe card, feels a rush of relief as her fingers close easily over it. Jason Murphy sits in the security-office window, reading. Not looking up. Good.
She runs the card through the reader. It emits a hollow, dead boop. She pushes the gate and finds it still locked. She swears under her breath, and tries the card again. Same sound. No cheery beep of ingress, no comforting clunk of lock, no grind of opening hinges. The card has been disabled. She is locked out.
She feels eyes burning her back, and looks up. She’s got Jason’s attention now all right. He sits with his chin in his hand, a faint smile twisting his mouth, and watches her discomfort. She raises a hand, points at the gate. Jason doesn’t move. Just watches. Amber shows him her card, shrugs out a signal of confusion and mimes pressing a button to get him to let her in.
Jason’s smile turns into a nasty grin; triumphant, gleeful. He shakes his head. Then she sees him reach over and pick up the telephone. Their eyes meet.
Still looking at her, he begins to speak. She sees his lips form the syllables of her name. Amber Gordon. Annabel Oldacre.
She turns away and hobbles down the road, towards the beach.
Chapter Forty
Jim falls asleep quickly – wine and tiredness and the stress that comes with hope – and Kirsty lies awake, staring dry-eyed at the streetlight on the ceiling. Somewhere out there in the night, the drama is playing out and she has no idea how it is unfolding. Knows only that she is afraid, that she wants to pack up and run, to distance herself from any evidence that she has ever been to Whitmouth.
I am such a fool, she thinks. Such a fool. The first time I saw her, I should have run. Should have called the probation people and got what had happened on record: put myself in the clear, established myself as a victim of extraordinary coincidence. If they ever find out now, if anyone ever puts the two of us together in that café, I’m screwed. And Jim’s screwed and Sophie’s screwed, and Luke, and their worlds will crash to the ground and they will never, ever trust anything – no situation, no story, no appeal to kindness – again. Everything I have done, every attempt at reparation, every moment of following rules and obeying instructions and being good and penitent and kind, wiped out in an instan
t by one stupid, crazy impulse of curiosity.
Tomorrow, she thinks. When we go up to Jim’s mum. I’ll call in to work and sign off till it’s over, whatever ‘over’ will mean. Bird flu. Typhoid. Hepatitis B, meningitis, doesn’t matter what, as long as it’s catching and no one will want me near them. I’ll keep away from Whitmouth, pretend I’ve never seen the place. I’m good at that: at dissembling. I’ve been doing it all my life.
On the bedside table, the phone springs to life. Bright light and the rattle as it starts to dance across the polished surface. Jim stirs, grumbles, turns over. Kirsty seizes hold of it, looks at the display. A number, no name. She doesn’t need a name. It’s Amber.
She sends her to voicemail. Seconds later, the phone rings again. She’s not even paused to leave a message. Oh God, thinks Kirsty, how do I get that number off my call history? They’ll check her phone records; they’re bound to, aren’t they? No, why should they? She’s not done anything wrong in twenty years. Apart from telephoning me. She presses the Reject button again, goes hot as, without delay, the ringtone restarts.
‘God’s sake answer that,’ mutters Jim. ‘Trying to sleep.’
Kirsty gets out of bed, slips into the en suite. Doesn’t turn the light on, as the sound of the extractor fan will wake him further. Sits on the lavatory in the windowless pitch-black and, when the phone starts to vibrate again, answers in a whisper.
Amber’s voice – panicked, whispering too – over the drag of waves on pebbles. She’s on the beach. Must be. ‘You’ve got to help me.’
‘Where are you?’
‘Please. They’re looking for me.’
‘Where are you?’ she repeats. She has some idea that she’ll block her number and call the police, call Stan, call Dave Park, and send them down to collect her.
‘You’ve got to get me out of here.’
‘No!’ The word bursts from her mouth like a bomb. ‘I can’t, Amber. You know I can’t,’ she adds. ‘It’s crazy. A crazy idea.’
‘I’m not – Jesus, you don’t understand. There’s – there’s a mob out there. They broke my windows. They killed my dogs. Jade, they’re going to kill me.’
‘Please,’ says Kirsty, ‘you’re not thinking straight. Tell me where you are and I’ll send someone. I’ll get the police to come and pick you up.’
‘Don’t be stupid,’ says Amber. ‘The police are Whitmouth people too. You tell them, and … You’ve got to get me out of here. I have no one else to ask.’
‘I can’t. You know I can’t. Amber, if I come down there now, if I’m anywhere near you, they—’
‘I’m not fucking asking you to … throw a party, you silly bitch. Just … for Chrissake, you’ve got a car, haven’t you? Just come and get me. Take me somewhere else. It doesn’t matter where. Take me up the motorway to a Travelodge and book a room and leave me. It doesn’t matter. I’ll work out what to do after that. But I have to get away from here. Don’t you understand? The minute it’s daylight, I’m dead.’
‘No,’ says Kirsty. ‘No, I can’t. You know I can’t. Tell me where you are. I’ll send someone.’
She hears a tiny, tinny scream at the other end of the line. Thinks for a moment that it’s already too late, then realises that it’s a sound of frustration. ‘NO!’
‘I’ll do what I can,’ she says, ‘but I can’t do that. I won’t. It’ll all be over for both of us, you know that.’
‘Kirsty,’ says Amber, ‘you can’t leave me here. I’m begging you. You have to help me.’
She struggles to stay firm. I can’t do this. It’s too much. She’s asking too much. They’ll know. They’ll know it was me, and they’ll know who I am. I can’t. It’s not my fault. I wasn’t the one who chose to … it’s not my husband who … ‘No,’ she says. ‘No.’
Silence. Breathing. Three waves roll up the shore, suck away again. ‘You have to,’ Amber says again, and her tone has changed.
Kirsty is enraged. Who is she, this woman, to tell me what to do? She’s not my boss. She’s not my friend. She’s the cause of everything, the reason I’ve had to live a lie my whole life. I owe her nothing. Nothing at all. ‘No,’ she says firmly.
Amber’s voice has gone hard; emotionless. When she speaks again, it’s with cold authority, the authority Kirsty remembers so well from the day they killed Chloe, when she took over and started issuing orders. ‘No, but you do,’ she tells her. ‘Because you’re involved, whether you like it or not.’
The implicit threat makes her angry, defensive. ‘What do you mean by that?’ she snaps.
‘Fuck you, Kirsty Lindsay. If you don’t help me, I’m calling them all. Every single one of them. All of them, do you get it? Every newspaper, every TV station, everybody I can bloody think of. And then it won’t be just me any more. Do you understand? Do you understand what I’m saying? They know who I am already. I have nothing to lose. If you won’t help me, then I swear to God they’re going to know every single thing about who you are too.’
Chapter Forty-one
Martin is woken by the sound of an argument. Forgets, in his discomfort – he’s been sleeping sitting up in the van’s cramped driving seat for hours – where he is for a moment until the sight of the neat suburban road, neat suburban cars parked in neat suburban driveways, restores his sense of place. He raises the peak of his cap and cranes round, to see Kirsty Lindsay standing beside the little Renault, bag over her shoulder and keys in her hand, deep in disagreement with her husband. Gingerly, not wanting to make them aware of his presence, he cracks open the window and listens.
‘I don’t believe this,’ says Jim. He’s not put anything on his feet, and clutches his dressing gown over the boxer shorts he’s worn to sleep in since Soph hit the toddling stage.
She opens the car door, throwing her overnight bag on the back seat. She’s no idea whether she’ll need it, but the habit is so ingrained after years of news-driven changes of plan that she is barely able to go to the supermarket without loading it for luck. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘I have to.’
‘No you don’t,’ he says. ‘You don’t. They know you’re on holiday. Why did you even answer the phone?’
She takes the lazy option and throws the blame back in his lap. ‘You told me to answer the phone. And anyway, you always answer the phone.’
‘Well, that’s different,’ he begins. ‘My mum—’
He catches the look on her face and stops. In the course of a marriage, you learn that there are subjects it is unwise to broach. Kirsty’s untethered status is one of them. She feels keenly the habit that people from loving backgrounds have of assuming that those from bad ones have no emotional attachment to them. He remembers the ferocity of her reaction the first time he pulled the ‘It’s all right for you’ line, and knows it’s a potential deal breaker. He gulps back the words when he hears her sharp intake of breath.
‘Sorry,’ he says.
‘That’s OK,’ she says eventually. He wonders if she’ll use his carelessness as a weapon. Feels he’ll probably deserve it if she does. ‘I’m sorry that I don’t have a mother of my own to worry about,’ she adds, ‘but funnily enough, I do worry about yours.’
The ball’s back in his court. ‘So much so that you’re bailing on going to see her tomorrow,’ he says. ‘She’s been looking forward to this for ages. You know that.’
‘And I told you. I’ll catch up with you as soon as I can. I’ve just got one job, Jim. I don’t have set hours and holidays and a pension. All I’ve got is my willingness to adapt. It’s really, really tough out there at the moment. People are giving up all over the shop, you know that. We need the money. I can’t turn stuff down.’
Christ, I’m even convincing myself, she thinks. ‘You’ve not got a job in the bag yet,’ she adds sharply, and sees him recoil as though she’s slapped him. God, oh God, she thinks. All that work, all that care I’ve taken not to mention the elephant in the room, not to undermine his confidence, not to make him feel unmanned in unemployment, and I’v
e blown it all apart with one simple sentence. It’ll take us months to get over this. Months. And he’ll never know I did it to protect him.
He’s silent for a moment. Then: ‘I can’t do much more of this,’ he says.
Kirsty slams the car door and rounds on him. ‘More of what, Jim? More of what? You don’t seem too upset when people tell you they’ve been reading my stuff in the papers. You don’t mind showing off your insider knowledge at dinner parties, do you?’
A light goes on in a window next door. ‘Shh!’ hisses Jim. ‘Keep your voice down!’
She’s been inflaming the argument as a means of leaving without telling him too much. Persists. Jim can’t bear the neighbours knowing their business. He’d sooner bleed to death in the kitchen than make a spectacle of himself by going outside with a knife in his guts.
‘What?’ she replies aggressively.
‘The neighbours,’ he says.
‘Well go inside, then!’
He knows it’s hopeless. She’s not going to be talked out of anything. He still can’t believe she’s taken a phone call at two in the morning and simply got dressed and headed for the car, but he’s known her long enough that he can tell when there’s no point arguing. He knows, too, that she’s not telling him the whole story. Has known it over and over again through the course of their relationship, the way her eyes glaze and her jaw sets when certain subjects come up. She’s a fucking oyster, he thinks. And she can be such a bitch when she wants to head a subject off. And I’m so soft that I just let it pass because I don’t want to distress her, even though everyone knows that sometimes you have to lance a wound to let it heal. I’ve got to change. Once I’ve found a job and the balance is restored, I’ve got to toughen up, or we’ll be skating round stuff in our eighties. I love her so much, but sometimes I think we’ve only got half a relationship.
He shakes his head. Turns back to the house. ‘OK. Well, there’s no point arguing. Just so you know. I’m not happy. I’m pissed off, actually. You promised you’d be here, and I’m not happy.’