‘This is all my doing, Mum. Tom helped me plan it. To teach you both a lesson. We’re going out, you see. We’ve been together for nearly a year now. Not that you’d have noticed. You never notice anything in my life.’ She closes her eyes for a beat. ‘Those acting lessons finally came in useful, right?’
Tom gives a single nod, confirming what she said.
For a second, my world goes blurry and I believe I’m dead, that Tom has finished me off. I want to feel safe again, in control of the evil in our lives. I can manage that, but I can’t manage the truth.
‘What are you talking about, Eleanor? Don’t be so stupid.’ My throat begins to close up. ‘If you know this man, then for God’s sake get him to untie me. We can just go home and not say anything more about it.’ I glance at my ear sitting on the table amongst the tins. ‘I need to get to the hospital, love. There’s probably still time.’
Ellie stares blankly at me. Then she pulls something from the pocket of the navy jacket. ‘Sorry, Mum. We’ve got a flight to catch.’ She waves two passports at me. ‘I’ve had enough.’
I don’t know what to say. Ellie turns and heads upstairs, while Tom keeps watch over me. He pulls a hold-all from the cupboard.
‘We packed a while ago,’ he tells me, almost sheepishly as he drags on a T-shirt and sweater. ‘And don’t worry, I’ll take good care of her. I really love her.’ He gives me a nod, a steady, honest nod that for some reason makes me believe him – more than you ever did.
I can’t speak. Don’t want to speak, because I don’t know what to say. I hate it that I’m worrying about what I’ll tell you, how I’ll explain to you that our daughter has run away.
‘I’m the car cleaner’s son, by the way,’ he says with a coy smile. ‘And my name really is Tom.’ He laughs a little, grinning, and it almost makes me feel better because underneath it all he seems nice. I still can’t speak.
‘I help Dad with Marcus’s cars sometimes. Your husband was very exacting and cruel. He often threatened not to pay Dad if he got it wrong. He couldn’t afford to be treated that way. Anyway, that’s how I met Elle. I found her behind some boxes in the garage. She said she was hiding. Over the next few weeks, she made us tea, sat and talked to me as I worked. We hit it off. Had things in common.’
Tom seems good. Tom is good. I wish this had happened before. Years ago, before you had a chance to get your hands on her.
‘And then Ellie told me,’ he says. ‘Everything. I promised her I’d help.’
I give a little nod. It’s all I can manage.
Ellie appears in the doorway of the old cottage, dressed in an outfit I’ve never seen before – patterned leggings, a baggy sweater, a knitted hat. She looks beautiful. Grown up. A woman of her own. Then I see her left hand. The bandage has gone, and her finger is undamaged. Her wrist is still smeared with what must have been fake blood.
I bite my teeth together. Bite my useless tongue until it bleeds. My ear is gone because I refused to hear what was going on, and your fingers are gone for doing those things to our daughter. We deserved it, and I’m glad.
‘Go,’ I whisper to them both. Blood froths from my mouth. ‘Just go and never come back. Get out of here now!’
I watch as they leave, how Ellie casts a last look back at me, almost the same as the one she gave me from the bath, yet somehow different. Thank God, so very different.
Read on for an extract from Samantha Hayes new paperback
Before You Die, out 15 January 2015
Oh God, please don’t let me die.
It has taken nearly two years for the Warwickshire village of Radcote to put a spate of teenage suicides behind it.
Then a young man is killed in a freak motorbike accident, and a suicide note is found among his belongings. A second homeless boy takes his own life, this time on the railway tracks.
Is history about to repeat itself?
DI Lorraine Fisher has just arrived for a relaxing summer break with her sister. Soon she finds herself caught up in the resulting police enquiry. And when her nephew disappears she knows she must act quickly.
Are the recent deaths suicide – or murder?
And is the nightmare beginning again?
ONE MONTH EARLIER
I CLING TO him as the wind blasts over my body, cutting through my mind, sweeping clean my thoughts. The trees and hedges are dark flashes of danger streaking past in a midnight blur. As his right hand twists the throttle, I grip his waist and press my face against his T-shirt. His back feels warm and his muscles are tense through the fabric.
‘You OK?’ he yells, half turning his head.
‘This is amazing!’ I call back, but I don’t think he hears me from behind my visor. There was only one helmet dangling from the handlebars when we nicked the bike. He insisted I wear it.
‘Want to go faster?’
My heart kicks out a frightened yet exhilarated beat. I glance over his shoulder at the speedometer. Fifty-six miles per hour yet it feels like twice that.
‘Yes!’ I scream out, nodding my helmet-head to make sure he knows I’m up for it.
We round the corner and I see the road pulling out long and straight ahead of us. They call it Devil’s Mile.
I give him a squeeze beneath his ribs, so he knows I want to go all the way, that I’m up for it. He opens up the throttle with his right hand. The bike strains, the engine noise increases, and I slide back in the seat as he releases the clutch. I hold on to him tighter and grip the bike with my legs. The road whips past us in a tarry, moonlit ribbon.
He notches up the accelerator, pushing the bike to its limits. The engine screams its power, carrying us through the desolate night-time landscape, sucking out everything that’s been blowing up my head from the inside out. It’s the release I need.
The end of the straight section of road approaches faster than my thoughts. I feel my fingers digging into his ribs as I wonder when he’s going to brake. If we take the corner at this speed, we’ll end up in the ditch.
‘Slow down!’ I yell.
Immediately the engine noise decreases and I lurch forward, my hips pressing against his, my body feeling like a great weight against him. He’s laughing; half turns to let me know it. His white teeth flash sheer fun. As we slow down, my hands take hold of the curved metal bar behind me and I tip back my head.
‘That was fucking amazing!’ I say.
We bring the bike to a stop and it purrs throatily beneath us. His feet go down on the muddy verge to steady it. He’s only wearing flip-flops.
‘You’re not exactly dressed for the occasion,’ I say, swinging my leg over the back of the bike. ‘Nice machine, though.’
I sound as if I know about such things, but the reality is that I’ve never really been into motorbikes. Now, after just one ride, I feel addicted to the thrill of speed and the temporary amnesia it brings. The engine makes a grumbling sound as I unstrap my helmet, pulling it off over my ears. My hair crackles with static and sticks up.
‘I knew you’d like it,’ he says, kicking down the stand and pressing up against me.
A white van comes slowly round the corner, the man inside texting or doing something with his mobile phone. I can see the glow reflected on his face. He doesn’t pay us any attention.
‘We haven’t got long,’ he continues. ‘Someone’s going to miss this beauty pretty soon.’ He strokes the bike’s seat with one hand, my backside with the other.
My stomach lurches and twists from what we’ve done, and my head spins from the alcohol and whatever it was I smoked.
People like me don’t do things like this.
‘Perhaps we should stop now,’ I say. ‘You know, just dump it and get out of here.’ I’m suddenly terrified of getting caught – police cars, blue flashing lights, officers, cuffed hands, spending the night in a cell … prison.
‘What? You don’t want to take her for a spin?’ He sounds disappointed. ‘After all the trouble I went to?’
I stare at the motorbike and fe
el the rev of my heart again. The bike’s sleek lines, shimmering paintwork, chunky silver exhaust – the sheer thrill of its hidden power – win me over. ‘You think I can do it?’
His mouth swipes over mine. I’ve never felt like this before.
‘Of course. Get on the front.’
He shifts aside, steadying the rumbling bike as I climb on. I pull my helmet back on, visor lifted up. The handlebars seem too far away and I have to stretch to reach them. Even just ticking over, the engine vibrates a thrill up my legs, my spine, and into my fuzzed-up brain.
‘You know how to drive, right? Well, it’s not so different.’
His breath smells of beer mashed up with vodka. I wonder if mine is the same; if we’ll be locked up together for ever.
I move in to kiss him – what am I doing? – but the opening in the helmet is too small and I end up bumping him on the forehead. We burst out laughing in uncontrollable fits of loose-limbed hysteria, which nearly causes us to drop the bike between us.
‘You’d better show me how it all works before I lose it completely,’ I say. Then I reach and grab hold of his wrists in a surge of horror as another moment of clarity strikes me in the face. ‘We’ve stolen a fucking motorbike! We’re going to get into a crazy load of trouble for this.’
My hands and arms and shoulders are shaking and even holding on to him doesn’t ease the trembling. I start to get off. This is so very wrong.
‘Chill out,’ he says with a cocksure laugh. ‘Now, do you want to have some fun or not?’
Then his hands are on the side of the helmet, gently easing it up off my head again. His mouth is pressing down on mine, searching out the fear, kissing it all away. Making everything better.
I nod. ‘Yes,’ I say, loving him all the more, never wanting him to stop.
He shows me how to pull in the clutch, when to accelerate, where the gear and brake levers are and, finally, how to slow this great beast of a bike with my right hand and foot. I run through it virtually, pretending to work the controls.
‘I’ll be sitting right behind you and we’ll just go slowly. I’ll tell you exactly what to do. Now, put this back on.’
He gives me one last kiss, deeper and more tender than ever before, then slips the helmet back over my head, snaps down the visor, and climbs on.
I feel a brief pang of guilt that he should be wearing one too.
With his feet fixed on the ground, he helps me turn the motorbike around. Once again we are faced with the long stretch of road ahead of us. Its slick surface glows in the moonlight, shiny from the recent rain. All I can think of are his hands wrapped tightly over mine on the handlebar controls. He tweaks the right one back and the engine immediately responds.
‘Ready?’ he shouts above the noise.
I nod, and allow my hands to follow his prompts. As he releases the clutch, we slowly creep forward.
I glance at the display. Thirteen miles per hour, but it feels faster sitting at the front. He’s still balancing us with his toes tapping on the ground each side. After only a couple more bursts on the accelerator, he picks up his feet and rests them on the posts.
‘Keep the revs up,’ he shouts. ‘You don’t want her to stall.’
He still has control, even though I am the one in contact with the bike. We slip seamlessly through the gears, as he kicks down on the lever.
‘This is fantastic!’ I cry out, but I don’t think he hears.
I glance at the speedometer. I want to go faster, push it a bit before we hit the end of the straight, so I twist my right hand backwards and feel the machine respond. As the engine begins to strain, he changes up another gear and it feels as if we must be doing a hundred.
Everything is flowing out of me as we rush to the corner. I am being cleansed, filtered by sheer madness.
‘I’m doing it by myself!’ I call out.
I twist my right hand towards me and the thrill in my heart kicks up with the engine. I know he will be feeling the same. A few flicks of my eyes to the display: fifty-five, and then we’re creeping up through the sixties. There’s room to push it more, a chance to show what I’m made of.
‘You’re a natural!’ he yells from behind.
Without another thought I turn the accelerator towards me as far as it’ll go.
There’s no time to think. No time to take action. Fear and inexperience and stupidity blanket any chance of rationality in less than a second. The bike screams forward, smacking my head back against his face. I cling on, not knowing what to do, realising immediately it’s too late.
The tree is a silhouette against the inky night sky. We are heading right at it, doing seventy, maybe eighty.
He’s shouting. I feel his feet searching, kicking against mine. His hands don’t reach the handlebars in time. His feet never make it to the controls.
We must be doing nearly a hundred when I feel a sharp shove in my ribs, hurling me sideways.
I’m flying. The ground is above me, below me, battering my back, my legs, my head, earth forced between my fingers, and smashed into my face. The bike is gone, stripped away.
Then the loud bang, the crashing thud of my skull inside the helmet as it comes to rest. A sharp pain grabs the length of my back. My left leg is twisted behind me. I can taste blood.
When I open my eyes, a tree is seared on to my mind, the negative of an image I’ll never forget.
My fingers claw at the cool, wet verge, reaching, searching for something, anything. I can feel the night air blowing on my face – does that mean I’m alive? I want to scream but can’t.
‘Where are you?’ It’s just a whisper.
I listen for a reply but hear nothing – nothing except … I take off my broken helmet, try to move, but everything hurts. The night is silent around us now with just the sound of the breeze rustling through the hedge above me. I am in the ditch.
‘Hello?’
My hands come up to my head, but not without pain. I am shaking uncontrollably as the tears pour down my face. I’m not sure if it’s from pain or fear or the urgent need for help. What have I done?
Please God, let him be OK. Let him be OK.
Then I spot him. A twisted creature curled and crumpled at the base of the tree. My first thought is that it’s someone else, that it can’t be him, that it’s the chewed-up carcass of a wild animal. But as I slowly drag myself to my feet and hobble towards the tree, I recognise the green shorts and stripy T-shirt. The flip-flops are nowhere to be seen. The motorbike lies a few feet from him, bent into a barely recognisable chunk of red and orange metal.
I drop to my knees. He isn’t moving.
‘Wake up. Talk to me!’
My hand goes out to his shoulder. He is still warm. He is covered in blood. One side of his head is gone.
I shake him, letting out a noise that doesn’t sound like me.
There is a purplish bone pushing through the skin of his right forearm and his neck is snapped too far back. His skull is open and fresh, the contents scenting the night air. I can’t make myself think of the word dead, even though it’s pushing up my throat like a hand emerging from a grave.
Stay sane, I think. Keep calm. Take his pulse. Check his breathing. Call for an ambulance … phone the police … flag down a car …
I stand up, fighting the pain that grips me, trying to make the darkened landscape around me stop spinning. Everything seems bigger, scarier, twisted and evil, as if the trees are gathering and marching towards me and the hedgerows are curling around to grab me.
Evil, evil person the countryside is whispering.
I have no idea what to do.
I could call an ambulance or the police, but they’ll arrest me, throw me in a cell for the rest of my life. It’s what I deserve.
I was driving. I was drinking. We stole a bike. Now the man I love is dead.
Then something clicks inside me. It’s as if he’s telling me what to do.
I go back to the ditch and retrieve the buckled helmet I was wearing, tuck
ing it under my arm. And then I limp away. I don’t look back. I don’t want the memories that will haunt me, torment me in my dreams, soak my bed with night sweats. As far as I’m concerned, I was never a part of this.
I stop again – my feet unable to move for a second. There’s a car approaching. Panicking, I see a gate leading into a field and scramble over it, chucking the helmet ahead of me. Headlights arc above me just as I drop down behind the hedge, illuminating everything dark in my mind. I hear the engine slow, imagine the driver’s horror when he sees the scene.
Making sure I stay close to the hedge, crouching, hobbling, escaping, I disappear into the night. What will happen to me now, I have no idea.
1
DETECTIVE INSPECTOR LORRAINE Fisher slowed as she pulled off the main road. The journey from Birmingham was less than an hour but still long enough for her to make it only two or three times a year.
There was no space in her life for regrets and should-haves, therefore time spent with her younger sister in the country was usually limited to Christmas, birthdays, or the routine summer holiday visit as she was doing now. An entire week away from work suddenly seemed like an awfully long time. Or was it that an entire week in her sister’s company was daunting?
She loved Jo, had always protected her, watched out for her, picked her up and dusted her off, but there was usually a price. Lorraine wondered what it would be this time.
She glanced down at her daughter’s lap. ‘Don’t you feel sick?’ Stella had been staring at her phone for the last forty-five minutes, texting, tapping messages into Facebook, playing games.
Lorraine had been hoping to catch up with her, find out about her end-of-term test results, see how she was getting on with her Geography project, but instead she’d ended up filling the rumbling void of the M40 with a programme on Radio 4, which was now coming to an end. Stella had not been pleased by the early start, and had had to be cajoled into the car, still in her pyjama bottoms and an old sweatshirt, with the promise of hastily made bacon sandwiches and crisps for breakfast.
‘Dad would have a fit if he could see this lot,’ Stella giggled as they’d wrapped the food in foil and dropped various other junk into a carrier bag.
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