by cass green
‘It’s OK,’ he says. ‘It’s OK.’ He just needs to think.
Thank God, he didn’t go too far. He knew when to stop. He just needed to stop her, temporarily. He is still in control, even if everything is a total fucking mess now.
Breathing heavily, he manages to heft Nina up and over his shoulder. It’s awkward and he feels twinges of pain in his back. Slowly making his way upstairs, he grimaces. She’s heavier than she looks, but it’s also harder because he is so exhausted too.
He hasn’t slept more than three hours for as long as he can remember.
In the bedroom, barely occupied since he was last there with his wife, he lays the woman face down on the bed and turns her head to the side.
He’s not a monster. He doesn’t want her to die, even though he could feel the violence twitching inside when she had looked at him in that superior way in the kitchen.
Stupid interfering bitch.
It was a puzzle, that she was here at all, but he really thought he could get her to leave without too much fuss. Middle-aged women like her were usually easy to charm. Then Nooria told him what she had overheard and he still thought that maybe – just maybe – it was alright.
But the minute Nick had walked into the kitchen and seen those startled-rabbit eyes, he’d known. He could smell it on her, the fear. It was a bit of a turn-on, that was the truth, but only for a second. The stakes were high here.
‘Oh, Nina,’ he says. ‘You silly woman.’
He pulls her arms, gently, behind her back and rests them against her bottom. Then he looks around the bedroom. He needs to tie her up.
Nick goes to Alice’s wardrobe and opens it, pausing for a moment at the sight of all her clothes still neatly hanging there. It looks as though Jennifer couldn’t face this task either on her recent visit, although he had told her to take what she wanted.
His chest begins to ache as he reaches for one of those soft, pastel jumpers Alice favoured from the neat pile there. He holds it to his nose and his knees almost buckle as he breathes in the smell of her. A dry sob of anguish wrenches its way out of his body. It should never have happened like this. She should be here. Zach too. A family.
They would have found a way to make it work.
He could have got used to fatherhood in time, especially when the boy was older and not glued to his mother’s breast. It would only be seven years until he could go away to boarding school, just like Nick had. She would have adjusted. In time. There was so much they hadn’t done yet. Nick had so many places he had wanted to show her.
He closes his eyes tightly and breathes heavily until the waves of pain recede.
An image of Lucas and her, scrambling to get their clothes on, still flushed with sex, unrolls in his mind and he has to clench his fists to stop himself from punching the wall.
Lucas, that whining little bastard he thought he would never see again, had to come back into his life and fuck everything up for him.
And the sister … well, never had anyone been less deserving of the name they had been given at birth.
He had believed her absolutely when she said she would tell the world about him. She was right that she didn’t even need proof. Mud sticks, especially in the current climate.
Nick sighs. It had been such a mistake to get Sahar to do a job that required balls. He’d paid him well, even though he didn’t really have to do that. One phone call is all he would have needed to make and the whole family would have been on the next plane back to Hamid Karzai International. But he couldn’t do that to Nooria. They had been through such a lot together, and he was glad she had found Sahar, even though he was a poor excuse for a man.
Not many would be prepared to take on Nooria and a child that wasn’t his. The question of Asefa’s paternity has never been discussed and, as far as Nick is concerned, it never will be. There are some things that don’t need to be dragged out and pored over, not when things are working as they are. Or had been, anyway.
He grabs a couple of scarves from where they hang on a bar inside the door, one red and black silk he bought on one of his trips, and another, older one in light blue. He also grabs a brown leather belt with a plaited pattern.
The woman on the bed is still out cold. Nick carefully separates the thick curly hair at the back of her head to check her scalp. No blood from where she hit the wall. It is pretty; her hair.
For a second, he feels a stirring. She’s so vulnerable, lying there, and she’s got one of those curvy, soft bodies that women are so anti these days. Nice tits. But no. That’s not who he is. He was never that.
Taking the black and red scarf, he ties her wrists together with his best Boy Scout knot, and then wraps the leather belt tightly around her ankles, binding her legs together. He thinks about wrapping the other scarf around her mouth. Might she be sick? He doesn’t want her to die. But he can’t have her yelling her head off. He’ll do it for now, then untie her when he leaves.
There’s something unreal about all this.
Nick can’t believe he, a highly respected professional man, is being forced to take part in such squalid activity. It disgusts him.
He pours another glass of Macallan and drinks it in one go. He barely tastes it as it goes down. Then he goes to his bag and pulls out his laptop, before sitting down at the kitchen table.
His mind spins. Where to go? There is no reason to think he’s under any suspicion. Nina had clearly only made the connection about Sahar when she was here. But best to go somewhere where extradition procedures are less than straightforward.
Kuwait?
He has friends in Kuwait City who will let him stay in comfort while things quieten down here. And getting him back to be interviewed is going to be complicated, at the least, for the Met Police.
Nick feels his heart rate begin to slow down for the first time since he came into the house. He quickly finds a flight leaving for Kuwait City from Heathrow in four hours.
That should do it.
Nick pours himself another drink.
58
Nina
I’m looking at a corner of a bed and a dangling foot in a sandal reflected in a full-length mirror. I have shoes like that.
That’s me.
Understanding rushes into my mind and I try to move but pain and nausea come crashing over me. My head hurts. My throat hurts.
Quinn’s house. He tried to strangle me.
And now I’m tied up. There’s something in my mouth.
Tears squeeze hotly over my lids and down into the cloth wrapped around my mouth. I try to chew it to drop below my lips but the dry rasp of the material against my tongue prompts a dizzying wave of nausea. I must not be sick. Oh God, if I’m sick I’m going to choke. I manage to make some strangled sounds and buck against the bed but it’s hopeless.
A surge of sheer unfairness hits me; I didn’t deserve this. I’m just an ordinary woman. Why did I have to get caught up in all this?
I cry helplessly until the cloth feels damp against my lips. At least it helps with the dryness. But my shoulders hurt from being pulled behind me and the back of my head throbs. I picture the cartoonish lump that is no doubt lurking there.
I try to look around the room to see if there is anything that can help me.
The walls are covered in that very expensive silk wallpaper in a colour that is somewhere between grey and turquoise, printed with images of delicate, long-necked birds. There is a wardrobe and a large mirror on the wall.
I turn my head and see the nightstand on the other side of the bed. It contains a beautiful black and white photo of Zach – new-born, I think. A copy of a thriller everyone was reading last year is next to it, with a bookmark poking out at an angle.
Alice slept in this bed.
Until he killed her. The man downstairs.
Is he downstairs?
Fear courses through me again and I buck against the bindings, but I am helpless here.
I can’t hear anything at all apart from the heavy ticking of
a clock coming from somewhere in the room. Have I been left here? Is he coming back? I know exactly what Nick Quinn is capable of now. There is no element of doubt about anyone trying to do the right thing.
Tick-tock, tick-tock.
And then I remember. I cry out, my breath hot and damp against the fabric of the gag.
Sam.
I desperately look around for a clock. I don’t know how long I’ve been here. But there is a strong chance that Sam has arrived back and I wasn’t there.
I wasn’t there …
The despair rips at my insides.
Soon the heavy grey eiderdown is soggy against my cheek.
I picture them driving away again, Sam’s sad face against the window. I let out a stifled scream of pure frustration and thump my feet up and down so the bedframe rattles.
Then I see the tall frame of Nick Quinn filling the doorway and my eyes open wider. I’m breathing uncomfortably hard.
‘You’re being very noisy,’ he says.
He comes closer and my whole body seems to cringe in on itself. I don’t want him to touch me.
With surprising gentleness, he pulls the material away from my mouth and the gratitude is immense. He stands back, hands raised in supplication.
‘Let me go, you bastard,’ I say, my voice croaky. ‘They know I’m here. People, I mean, my husband knows I’m here.’
Nick ignores this and gives me a small smile.
‘I am not a bad person,’ he says, his voice a little slurred now. He’s drunk, and I don’t know whether to be grateful or more scared. ‘None of this was meant to happen.’ He pauses. ‘Anyway,’ he says, ‘I’ve come to tell you I’m going away. Once I reach my destination, I will call someone to come and let you go. I’ll leave water. It won’t be more than a day at the very most.’
‘A day?’ I manage to croak. This – the terror of being left, tied and helpless – is such a strange echo of what happened before that it makes my head spin. Except that was never the same, really, as this. I understand it now. Angel and Lucas were two damaged people who were trying to do the right thing.
Quinn is regarding me and, to my surprise, his expression seems to contain real contrition. He’s either an excellent actor or it’s something more disturbing. Perhaps all those years of seeing terrible things have broken something inside him and he no longer understands the boundaries of good and evil.
‘Look,’ he says, letting out a heavy sigh. ‘You may not believe me, but I bitterly regret the way things have turned out. We should never even have crossed paths. But we are where we are, and I don’t really see any other way out now.’
His reasonable, self-pitying tone enrages me and I’m grateful for the heat of this feeling, which cuts cleanly through the fear. I despise this man, with his easy charm and the ready fists, which he is so quick to use against weaker people. He makes me sick. I want the whole world to know the truth about him.
‘You’re a monster,’ is all I manage. He blinks for a moment and then almost winces.
‘Well,’ he says, ‘that’s as may be, but …’
He is interrupted by a series of sharp raps on the front door.
‘Fuck,’ he says. I pull in a breath to scream but he is too fast, his large hand pressing against my mouth as he fumbles for the cloth thing again. I manage to bite his thumb, hating the taste of his skin. He cracks a blow across my cheek that shocks me so much I lie uselessly, dazed. He stuffs something inside my mouth so hard my gag reflex shudders convulsively and then he runs out of the room, dragging the door closed behind him.
My cheek is throbbing from where he hit me. The manic pounding of my heart is making it difficult to hear but I strain to make out what’s happening downstairs. Wriggling so my head is a little off the bed, I find I can hear the voices being raised somewhere below me.
‘I’m sorry, I really don’t have any need for dishcloths or your other tat,’ says Quinn. ‘So if you’ll kindly get off my doorstep …’
I can’t make out what the other person says. I think it might be someone on one of those homeless schemes. It’s exactly how I imagine Quinn would treat someone like that.
In one awkward movement I roll myself sideways, wriggling until I thump down from the bed, cracking onto the wooden floor with a sickening pain in my right arm. I’ve broken it, I’m certain. I swallow nausea and gag on the sourness.
I have to do this. It’s all I’ve got.
I make myself bang my head and drum my feet against the hard floor, despite the pain that shudders from my scalp to my toes. I’m screaming into the gag, saliva flooding my mouth, and I cough and choke; tears streaming down my cheeks. I crack my head and my toes against the ground one more time. Darkness is creeping in around my vision and a spinning in my head makes vomit begin to rise. I’m choking. Again. I’m choking. I’m going to die.
Then the gag is roughly wrenched off my mouth and my stomach spasms. Dazed and disorientated, I feel wetness and smell the sour tang of my own sick by my cheek.
‘You stupid woman, what did you think you would achieve by that?’ Quinn’s voice is a booming, painful thing. It seems to ricochet in my ringing skull.
I can’t reply. Weak with despair; sore and dizzy.
I can hear him moving around and then he says, ‘You’re too heavy to lift. Come on, let’s get you up.’
I feel his hands on my arms and I groan as I am dragged onto my knees and then to my feet. He unties my wrists and I think, I must fight back now, but I have nothing. My head throbs and my arms ache as he re-ties my arms at the front of my body.
For a second I am close enough to look into his eyes, but he won’t look at me. He is focusing on the bed behind, where he lays me down and pushes me onto my side. A pillow is placed at my back, my hands in my lap and my knees bent.
He starts shouting from nowhere and I wince. ‘I can’t believe you have made me do this!’ he yells. ‘Why did you have to come here today? For fuck’s sake!’
He sits down so the bed bounces and I can hear heavy breathing.
‘Please,’ I manage, in a small voice. ‘Please just let me go. My son needs me.’
He brushes my hair out of my eyes and leans down so close to me that I can smell the whisky on his breath.
‘You should have thought about that before you came here,’ he says and then gets up abruptly and leaves the room.
59
Angel
There’s a woman muttering in a foreign language in the bed next to hers. A dinner trolley has just arrived on the ward with much clang and clatter, and the woman serving from it feels the need to deliver every word at the top of her lungs. Angel feels a sharp stab of memory: Marianne saying, ‘Try to use your inside voice.’
She pulls the thin pillow over her head and groans. Her head is aching, and her stomach still churns. Every time she thinks about swallowing that filthy river water she wants to heave, even though she is sure all the bad stuff has now been expelled.
Her hand snakes up to her belly and she presses it against the cotton hospital gown, feeling the heat of her skin through the cloth. From nowhere, she suddenly pictures the tiny thing inside her – she sees it as a cartoon seahorse for some reason; all frilly head, curled tail and big, cute eyes. Is it even in there any more? She will find out soon enough. They are taking her for an ultrasound scan shortly. She’d had to tell them about the pregnancy when they took her for an X-ray earlier.
It would make everything much easier if it is no longer … there. They will shake their heads and tell her in a sad voice that there is no trace of a foetal heartbeat, or words like that. Angel knows this is the best possible outcome right now. She doesn’t want a baby. She can’t even look after herself. So why is she crying? Again?
She wipes her eyes and nose on the sheet crossly and heaves a sigh.
The police left about ten minutes ago; a young male constable with a blond buzzcut and rampant hay fever, and a female PC with quick eyes and what Angel felt was an inappropriate amount of perkiness
in the circumstances.
‘It all happened so fast,’ she’d told them, repeatedly.
It was the truth.
One minute she was walking along the towpath, and the next, she was in the water. She’s ‘lucky’ apparently, because a passing cyclist got her out before she drowned.
Her handbag had been thrown into a hedge nearby and neither her wallet nor her mobile phone had been taken. It all seemed a bit odd. Clearly the police thought so too, because they asked if she had any reason to suspect that anyone wanted to hurt her.
She almost had to bite her lips to stop herself from telling them what she was certain was true: that Quinn had put someone up to it. He wouldn’t do it himself. Too messy and public. But if she did that, she would have to tell them about her letter – and what she had threatened him with. She was well aware that this would be considered as breaching the conditions of her bail.
If Angel was going to prison, it would be at the end of the trial and not before. So, she said she had no idea whether anyone would do this out of malice and that was that. Just bad luck. The male officer gazed at her with his pink rabbity eyes and speculated, in a voice thick with snot, that perhaps the attacker panicked and ran off because he saw someone coming.
Angel can’t help feeling a small sense of satisfaction that the bastard’s plan didn’t work. She would still get her say. Still get to tell the world all about Mr Nicholas Quinn …
The curtain around the bed suddenly whips back and a short, fat woman with smiley eyes and dark skin peers in at her.
‘YOU-WANT-SOME-DINNER-DARLING?’ she says – yells – in one breath and Angel shakes her head.
The woman is about to go when Angel calls, ‘Wait!’
The nurse, orderly, whatever, stops, hand on the curtain as she regards her.
‘Can you see if my handbag is in there?’ Angel gestures towards the bedside cupboard. It hurts her head to move too much.
‘COURSE-I-CAN-DARLING.’
She drags herself into a seated position and takes the bag, before thanking the woman.