The Time and the Place

by Jane Renshaw

  She wasn’t wearing shoes.

  That was helping.

  ‘Fuck fuck fuck!’ she could hear behind her.

  And ‘Go after her!’

  She swam as she’d never swum before.

  She didn’t look back, she concentrated on the island, the island where Biggles had been born, where she’d found Chimp, and she could imagine Chimp cheering her on. The water must be freezing, there was ice all round the edges of the pond and some floating near her but oddly she couldn’t feel the cold any more, she was just a swimming machine, she was flying through the water, and now she did turn her head to look back and she could see someone, their head bobbing, but she was miles ahead, well, not miles but enough, and –

  Oh God oh God!

  Some of them would be running round the pond!

  She had to change course. She’d been swimming along the length of the pond but now she turned left, making for the bank, and before she knew it she was out, water streaming off her, her clothes heavy and dragging, and she was running in her socks, running into the trees, feeling but not feeling the sharp twigs digging into her soles.

  Hide!

  She needed to hide, but not in this sparse winter undergrowth. No good.

  The rhododendrons! The rhododendrons over by the path to Pond Cottage – they were really thick where Mick and Chimp hadn’t grubbed them out yet because they were an ecological nightmare.

  She looked behind her and

  Oh God!

  She could see Jagdeep!

  But there was a dip in the ground here and she half-ran, half slid down it on the slushy snow and dodged round to the left behind a lumpy lot of fallen trunks and stuff and then she could see the rhododendrons, and then she was diving into them and crawling into the middle of them and crouching down on the wet ground, shaking so much her jaw was chattering, her teeth were clattering together and she had to clench her jaw muscles to stop it.

  She could hear him crashing along through the undergrowth.

  But more slowly now.

  Wondering where she had gone?

  He hadn’t seen her come in here?

  Please please please let him not have seen.

  She very slowly lay right down on the ground. Her jumper was green, luckily. She needed to hide the pale parts of her – her face and her hands.

  For ages and ages she lay there shuddering, for ages after she last heard anything.

  They must have gone?

  She couldn’t stay here or she’d die of hypothermia.

  But she couldn’t leave her safe little place. She just couldn’t.

  Then she heard:

  ‘Help me! Help me!’ a woman’s voice, high, frantic, wobbly, as if she was running.

  A woman running along the path.

  ‘Help me! Oh God, please! Help!’

  Gwennie. It was Gwennie.

  They were trying to kill Gwennie too?

  Maybe Gwennie really was a cop, or maybe she had stumbled across what they were doing and they’d brought her here too –

  Karen crawled through the tangle of branches and poked her head out. Gwennie was staggering along the path, holding her head. They’d hit her head?

  ‘Gwennie! Get in here! Quick!’

  But Gwennie stopped dead, staring at her.

  ‘Quick!’

  Karen crawled out and stood, and had started towards her when she had a horrible thought.

  Why had they brought Gwennie? They were going to drown Karen in the pond and make it look like suicide, because that would be believable, given her PTSD and everything – but what were they going to do with Gwennie? And Gwennie had coincidentally escaped too?

  ‘Karen, love!’ Gwennie wailed, and tottered towards her. ‘Are you okay? Have they –’

  Karen ran.

  ‘Here!’ Gwennie suddenly bellowed behind her. ‘She’s here! On the path!’

  On the path it was easier, but she had to get off it, they knew she was on it so she had to get off it.

  Gwennie was part of it.

  Stupid stupid stupid!

  She ducked off the path and into the trees, and it was hard to keep running, so hard because she was really tired and every time she took a step it hurt her feet like anything, with the twigs and sharp things, but she couldn’t stop, she couldn’t stop.

  Her breath was gulping out of her, like she was crying.

  ‘Over here!’ Ade’s voice, suddenly right behind her, or so it sounded.

  She needed to get back on the path. If he could see her, the important thing was speed. He probably had shoes and she didn’t, so if she kept off the path he would be much faster.

  She found it again, the path, somehow, and then she was flying down it, and she couldn’t hear Ade because of the noise of her breathing but she knew he must be behind her, close, and she made her legs go faster, faster, pushing her on, and then there was Pond Cottage and maybe Claire was in there and she was shouting:

  ‘Claire!’

  She ran round the side of the house to the back door but it was locked, it was locked and there were no lights on, Claire wasn’t here but if she got in she could call 999 if there was a landline and lock herself in the loo – yes, that was what she had to do but she could hear pounding feet –

  She got a plant pot and used it to smash the kitchen window, reaching in for the catch, and then the sash was up and she was climbing in and looking for a phone, was there a phone? And blood was dripping, she must have cut herself on the window –

  No phone in the kitchen.

  She ran through the little hall – no phone – to the sitting room – no phone – and back to the kitchen and Ade was out there!

  He was staring in at her through the broken window.

  For a second, she froze.

  He smiled.

  She shot out into the back hall and yanked open the bathroom door to lock herself in there but no, he would break the door down, and suddenly she remembered Lorna going on about Pond Cottage and how she had wanted to do something with the tiny attic, clean it out and do it up and put cushions up there for a chill-out space but Hector had just laughed and said it wasn’t Grand Designs, and Lorna had been pissed off because what was so grand about decorating an attic –

  And before she knew it she was up on the landing pulling down the ladder and as Ade came into the back hall she was up in the attic and hauling the ladder up behind her and slamming the hatch back down.

  It rested on a wide lip of wood all round.

  She sat on the hatch, heaving in gulps of air, hugging herself.

  He wouldn’t be able to open it now.

  Oh God!

  Her lungs were heaving. All she could do for a while was sit on that hatch and breathe.

  Bang!

  The wood shuddered under her.

  She expected him to call out, but he didn’t. He didn’t say anything. He just pounded on the hatch, trying to force it up. She had gravity on her side, for now, but what if Jagdeep and Baz came and all three of them pushed?

  She needed help.

  She needed to attract attention.

  She needed to open the skylight.

  The banging on the hatch had stopped, so she took a chance and crawled off it, trying not to make a noise, and crouched, her head touching the beams. She pushed open the little metal skylight as far as it would go, hooking the prop thing into the last hole.

  Then she crawled back to sit on the hatch and started to shout.

  ‘Help meeee! Hellllllp! I’m in Pond Cottage!’

  ‘Karen love!’

  She stopped.

  It was Gwennie’s voice, from right under the hatch.

  ‘Karen love, come down, all right?’

  ‘So you can – drown me – in the pond?’ Her words was shaking all over the place.

  ‘If you don’t come down we’re going to light a fire here. Sorry, love.’ As if she was apologising for the bean stew.

  And now she really was crying.

  A fire!


  Oh God oh God!

  The water tank. Could she maybe get inside it? But the smoke...

  ‘Help me!’ she screamed. ‘Help me, please help meeee!’

  The hatch bounced under her. She pressed down with her body weight. If they were still trying to push up the hatch, that maybe meant the fire threat was just a bluff? She needed to stop them pushing up the hatch.

  The ladder was attached to one of the beams with metal flange things. It was secure.

  She pulled it towards her and angled it down to wedge the end of it against the edge of the hatch. Damian would be proud of her geometry skills.

  She lodged her legs against the ladder to press it down and started shouting again.

  But now she could smell smoke.

  51

  Hector drove round the back of the House on the track that led, eventually, to Pond Cottage. But soon he stopped on the verge and jumped out. He pulled off the SOCO suit, and Claire did likewise.

  ‘Straight through the trees,’ he said, and started running.

  Soon she could see the pond, the sheet of water glinting in the low afternoon sun. The ground was treacherous with fallen branches and mossy hummocks, but she was flying, her feet hardly touching down, it seemed, as she followed the line he was taking, jinking round trees, ducking under low branches, until they came out onto a path.

  They were at the far end of the pond.

  Hector was running along the path, skirting the water to the right, and she could see people by the boathouse, and – Yes, that was Damian, and Gavin Jenkins and Mick –

  She fell, once, slipping on the mud and banging down on her hip, but she didn’t register pain, she was up and running again and soon she was skidding to a halt and grabbing Hector’s arm as he held it out to steady her, and Damian was saying something about Karen.

  ‘Ade was bringing her here. Karen,’ he summarised for her benefit.

  He indicated a sleeping bag on the ground.

  ‘Tied her up in that,’ Gavin interjected. ‘We reckon. But where the hell are they?’

  ‘Trying to make it look like suicide,’ Damian said, his face white.

  ‘Okay,’ said Hector. ‘You’ve called 999?’

  A nod.

  ‘Call again and update them, then go back to the house. The rest of you spread out. This Baz character, turns out he killed the Twat and probably Chimp too, he’s the main threat, probably has a firearm so no heroics –’

  ‘Wait!’ Damian suddenly rapped out. ‘Shh! Listen!’

  A silence, then:

  ‘Canna hear nothing,’ said Mick.

  ‘There!’ Claire lifted her head. ‘I can hear it! An alarm – from over there!’ She pointed beyond the boathouse.

  ‘The smoke alarm at Pond Cottage. Get back to the house,’ Hector said to Damian, and then he was off running again.

  As they reached the main path, someone shouted from the direction of the House: ‘Police! Stop!’

  Hector and Gavin were already running along the path in the other direction, towards Pond Cottage and the alarm that was blaring out. Claire sprinted after them, soon outdistancing Mick and Chris. The path was treacherous with slushy snow and mud, but a lot easier going than the forest floor. Soon she was barrelling down the track to Pond Cottage, in time to see Hector launch himself at Ade. Gavin was smashing the front kitchen window and shouting Karen’s name.

  Faintly, there was a shout in response:

  ‘I’m up here!’

  She could see smoke wisping against the panes of the upstairs windows.

  Gavin was climbing into the kitchen. Hector had Ade’s face squashed against the wall of the house, his arm twisted behind his back, and Ade was yelling that he was trying to help Karen: ‘The fucking place is on fire and she’s in there!’

  Down the track that led further into the forest, there was a woman running – it looked like Gwennie, the Earth Mother. Presumably they had a vehicle down there.

  No sign of Phil.

  But the priority was getting Karen out of there.

  Hector flung Ade into the arms of the policeman puffing up to them, as Claire climbed in over the sill after Gavin.

  The room was thick with smoke. Gavin had disappeared into it. ‘Upstairs!’ he called back.

  Claire pulled her sleeve over her face and followed him into the back hall, the smoke already choking her, her lungs protesting, trying to cough it out.

  ‘Karen!’ yelled Gavin.

  ‘I’m in the attic!’

  Hector grabbed Claire from behind, saying, ‘Blankets, or coats from the hall cupboard – wet them and bring them – shut the doors behind you – cut the flow of air,’ and he ran up the stairs. He had the fire extinguisher from the hall, which he turned on the fire burning on the landing, foamy stuff whooshing out.

  ‘We’re putting out the fire!’ he shouted. ‘Stay where you are!’

  Claire wheeled round, ran back through the kitchen to the sitting room, grabbed the woollen throw, and an armful of coats from the hall cupboard, and hauled them through to the bathroom, flung them into the bath and turned on both taps.

  ‘Help me!’ screamed Karen from upstairs.

  It was so hard to stand there and wait while the water slowly, so slowly dampened the blanket and the coats as she swooshed them around, in and out of the flow of water from the taps. Then she grabbed the blanket and Gavin the coats, surprisingly heavy now, and hauled them upstairs to fling on the now smouldering fire which seemed, thank God, to be confined to the landing.

  It hissed and steamed.

  ‘I’m in the attic!’ Karen wailed.

  ‘Are you hurt?’ called Hector.

  ‘No! I’ve been breathing out of the skylight!’

  ‘Now we can open the doors,’ said Hector. ‘Get rid of this smoke before we get her down.’

  Claire ran down the stairs and grabbed the back door key from the hook, unlocked it, hauled it open –

  And found herself looking straight into Phil’s face.

  He was standing by the woodshed, staring right at her. Slowly, he lifted the gun he was holding, and pointed it at her chest.

  ◆◆◆

  Karen’s legs were so wobbly she could hardly climb down the ladder, and Hector lifted her down the last bit, and she clung onto him, she clung onto his shoulders and he said, ‘You’re okay, you’re okay, let’s get you out of here,’ and she said, ‘Ade,’ and he said, ‘In police custody as we speak’ and then she couldn’t say anything more, she was gulping and sobbing into Hector’s shoulder and breathing in smoke.

  Then she was outside, sitting on a chair that Gavin had brought from the kitchen with her head on her knees, apart from when she lifted it to take a drink of water, and a policewoman was asking her her name and stupid things like her date of birth and then the policeman she recognised from before, DCI something, was asking her what had happened and Hector was saying, ‘Late to the party as usual, Campbell,’ and the policeman was saying something about his car.

  ‘Where’s Claire?’ said Hector, and Mick said, ‘Hivna seen her.’

  And then Damian was saying, ‘I don’t suppose this has done your PTSD much good,’ and Karen was up off the chair grabbing him, hugging him, and he smelt so nice and non-smoky, and she said, ‘I lost Wilkins. I’m sorry! I’m sorry!’

  ‘I found him,’ said Damian. ‘He’s fine.’

  ◆◆◆

  When Phil lowered the gun and turned away, not hurrying, walking away behind the woodshed as if off for an afternoon stroll, Claire didn’t immediately go after him. Not because of the gun, not because she feared for her safety, but because she didn’t know what to do.

  It was Phil.

  A big part of her wanted to turn away, go back into the house, say nothing, do nothing. And then it hit her, afresh, what he’d done.

  She walked across the little back yard to the gap between the sheds.

  She could see him, off through the trees. He was running, stumbling, in the direction of the tra
ck. The same direction Gwennie had gone. Towards where their vehicle must be.

  She didn’t follow him, she ran the other way, past the garage and onto the track, knowing it would be quicker, knowing she’d get to the point on the track where he’d come out before he did. When she got there, she crouched behind a fallen tree.

  And now she could hear him, lumbering through the wood, crashing through it. ‘Not the athlete at the peak of physical perfection I used to be,’ she could imagine him joking.

  She stood up.

  He stopped.

  His chest was heaving, his face red and sweaty, his eyes darting from her to the track. She came out from behind the fallen tree and walked across the track towards him. He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out the gun; pointed it at her.

  ‘Stop,’ was all he said.

  She stopped.

  He stood staring at her, and then he said:

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  All the times she’d imagined their next meeting, and the things she would have to say to him, the things she would have to confess... Never never never could she have imagined this.

  But an apology was a good start. In these situations, you had to get the person with the firearm talking to you, remind them you were a human being, not just a threat to be eliminated.

  ‘Why?’ she said. ‘You killed John Innes? Why? Because he was on to you? He was your friend! And you killed Max Weber? And how could you – I mean, Karen –’

  ‘I didn’t want to do it!’ he said through his teeth. ‘I had to. I had no choice.’

  ‘Of course you had a choice.’

  Silence.

  A wry half-smile. ‘Once, maybe. Not any more. I’m in too deep, as they say.’

  Claire took a long breath. ‘You weren’t undercover at Kinty, were you? I don’t imagine DCI Stewart has a clue you were there. And Gwennie... She’s not a cop?’

  ‘Of course she isn’t.’

  ‘But you – you and she –’

  ‘Oh yes. For the last twenty years, in fact. I met her when I was a UC.’

  ‘And you’ve been running a drugs operation with her from Kinty, and John Innes found out about it – so you killed him! But why put him undercover at Pitfourie in the first place? So close to Kinty and your – your nefarious activities...’