Throwaways

by Jenny Thomson

  “A bit woozy. My jaw, was it broken?”

  The words sound dumb in my mouth. Of course it’s not broken. If it was I wouldn’t be able to talk.

  She shakes her head and tells me I’ve broken a few ribs. When he’d kicked me, I’d felt something snap.

  “When can I go home?”

  She checks my file again. “After the doctor’s done his rounds and checked you over one last time. You had quite a fall.”

  So, that was the cover story Tommy used.

  The tightness in my chest eased.

  * * *

  By four o’clock that day I was back at Tommy’s, wrapped up in my dressing gown, sipping some sort of vegetable concoction Tommy had made me in the liquidizer and trying hard not to be sick. He told me I’d need to eat if I wanted to take any more codeine-based painkillers, or they’d, “burn my stomach to hell.”

  “We were bloody stupid, you know,” he said, as he eyed me whilst I forced down some soup. “Leaving you exposed like that. You’re just a civilian. You haven’t had any combat training.”

  Of course I wanted to say. “Duh,” but the movement it would have taken to speak would have hurt my face. Instead, I nodded; I’d rather have been kicked in the face again than listen to what I call Tommy’s Jesus on the cross routine where he thinks he should be the saviour to everyone, including me.

  Tommy kneeled down on the floor so he was level with the couch and put his hand in mine.

  Christ, he was going to propose! A phlegmy chuckle rose in my throat.

  Tommy cleared his throat. “When you’re better Eric’s gonna teach you how to take care of yourself. Until he does, you’re not going anywhere near those streets.”

  Tommy couldn’t understand why I was cackling away like a crazy cat lady.

  Chapter 14

  When I woke up the next day, I felt as though a squad of kids had been using my head as a trampoline. For once, I decided to take Tommy’s advice and spend the day resting up.

  That’s what I was doing, lying on the couch channel surfing, drifting in and out of consciousness when the familiar voice of John Mackay, the Scottish news anchor, snapped me awake. Another woman had gone missing. Diane Chambers had last been seen getting into a silver car two days ago. One important factor made her stand out from the other mispers (the word we’d heard on a show about missing persons). Diane had a child.

  After grabbing a mug of tea and a piece of dry toast, I gingerly stepped into the shower. I needed to drag my sorry ass out of my sickbed and go and speak to Diane’s mother. According to the news report, she’d reported Diane missing after she’d failed to collect her wee girl from school.

  Nettie Chambers wasn’t hard to find. It said in the brief article I found online that she worked at a Citizens Advice Bureau. Due to cutbacks, there weren’t many of them left, so I phoned the few that hadn’t been forced to close and asked to speak to Nettie. I struck it lucky with the third office I phoned and spun the flustered man I spoke to a line about how Nettie had been recommended to me by a friend she’d helped.

  After a lengthy wait on hold, Nettie Chambers came on the phone and I told her why I really wanted to speak to her. At first she was hesitant and asked me if I was a reporter, but I convinced her that I was a relative of one of the other missing girls. She agreed to meet me at a local café as long as I could get there within the next hour because her shift was finishing.

  I was on my way out the door, when the landline rang. It was Michael. That was all I needed. My ex was the last person I wanted to speak to.

  “I need to see you.”

  There was an urgency in his voice and that made me want to grab him down the phone and choke him until his lips turned blue and his limbs went floppy. He had no right to ask me for a thing. Not after the way he’d abandoned me.

  “We’ve got nothing to say to one another.”

  There was a sharp intake of breath down the line. The man used to getting his own way, had his panties in a bunch and that gave me way more satisfaction than it should.

  “We’ve got to meet, Nance. There’s something you need to know.”

  Why couldn’t he just spit it out?

  “If this is to tell me you and the fandabulous Donna fucking Marie are getting married, you can shove it.”

  “No, it’s not that. Why would I be phoning to tell you that?” A confused pause, then, “I know we hurt you.”

  Hurt me? That didn’t even come close to how betrayed I’d felt. All alone in a hospital with my parents dead, all torn up inside and the one person I thought I could rely on to be there for me, decided that this would be the perfect time to tell me he didn’t want me any more. Nah, he wanted one of my friends instead. No wonder I was fucking hurt.

  “I don’t know,” I said, “but then I don’t know why you’d bring that back-stabbing bitch to the hospital.”

  He had nothing to say to that.

  My anger was rising. I’d thought I was over their betrayal, but I wasn’t. “Get lost, Michael.”

  Before he could say another word, I’d slammed the phone back down onto the cradle.

  When the phone rang again, I didn’t answer because I was already heading out the door.

  After I’d clambered into my car, a text came through. Nettie Chambers had been called away. Our meeting would have to wait.

  Chapter 15

  “Rise and shine, Private Kerr.”

  Light screamed into the bedroom as the blinds were hauled open.

  “What?”

  It was a struggle to get the word out because I was groggy with sleep. Tommy’s arm, once draped over mine, had moved away and he’d turned to face me. There was a mischievous look on his face that I might have found comical if the clock hadn’t been flashing 5 a fucking m.

  Eric’s short, stocky figure stood over the bed, body ramrod straight, encased in army regulation trousers, trainers and a hooded top. Usually I find Eric interesting, mainly because he hardly speaks a word and so is a mystery to me, but at that moment, he was a visitation from hell, his Freddie Mercury moustache twitching as he barked orders at me to get out of bed.

  What the hell?

  This had to be a bad dream. So, I closed my eyes and tried to get back to sleep until Eric hit me with another barrage of commands and I realised, even in my disorientated state, that this was real.

  “What’s happening?” My voice sounded strangled.

  “First day of training, Kerr. Now hop to it.”

  Tommy snorted with laughter as he nudged me out of bed. “Better not keep the sergeant waiting. Last soldier who did that ended up cleaning the latrines with a kid’s toothbrush, wearing nothing but a pink, frilly apron and their army boots.”

  Normally I’d have laughed at the image, but I was in no mood for laughing, not when my eyes stung from being dragged from sleep without having time to wake up properly.

  Tommy was wide awake and grinning at me. He was damn well enjoying this.

  “You knew about this?”

  He chuckled in reply.

  “You could have warned me.”

  If he had, I’d have booked myself into a hotel where Eric couldn’t find me and I wouldn’t have told Tommy where I was.

  “What?” said Tommy, levering himself up in the pillow with one muscular arm. “And lose the element of surprise? How would that be fun?”

  The swine, but I’d get him for this later.

  Five minutes later, with Eric standing sentry in the living room, I’d emerged from the shower, wet hair tied up with a scrunchie and wearing one of Tommy’s sweaters that drowned me and a pair of leggings. The shower had done nothing to revive me: the last time I’d been this tired I’d woken up in a psychiatric hospital, doped up to the eyeballs, with a head like a stuffed cushion and no memory of how I got there.

  With me fuming away in the passenger seat, Eric drove us to the park in his Range Rover. The park was miles away, which was just as well; if it’d been any closer I suspect my new sergeant major would
have made me run all the way. We drove without speaking; whilst I sulked Eric whistled an irritatingly happy tune. At one point, I reached for the radio, but he swatted my hand away.

  The park was deserted when we got there. Daylight was making its way through the clouds, casting the park in an eerie light, reminding me of a charcoal sketch. It was only as we got out the car that I noticed Eric had a whistle around his neck. Great, not only was he going to bawl at me, he was going to go whistle crazy just like Miss Wilson in physical education. How I’d wanted to ram that whistle down her throat until it came out the other end. I didn’t find out she was doing naughty gymnastics with married deputy head and pillar of the community, Mr. Allen, until years after I’d left or I could have used that to dodge her lessons instead of hastily forged notes from my mum.

  Without speaking, Eric parked the car at the entrance and I traipsed behind him as we headed into the park.

  “I need to get an idea of your fitness.” Eric pointed to the sodden grass – last night it’d poured with rain and the grass was spongy. “Get down on the deck. Give me 20.”

  “20 what?”

  I knew what he wanted but I was just being difficult as payback for being dragged out of my bed at 5 a bloody m. Last time I checked, I hadn’t enlisted.

  “Not 20 what, Kerr. 20, what, Sir,” he barked. “And, remember why we’re doing this,” he said, as I managed two measly push ups before I collapsed face first into the muddy grass. At least I’d get a facial out of this.

  “Because you’re a sadistic bastard, Sir?” I spat out the last word.

  A wry smile twitched under Eric’s porn star moustache. “No, because you’re a weak, worthless piece of shit, Kerr, who needs toughening up.”

  My hands balled into fists. The cheek of him.

  Right then, I wanted to spin my foot round and drive it hard into his groin. But I knew he was right. I needed toughening up. Those men in the van could have killed me if Tommy and Eric hadn’t intervened. Knowing that scared the hell out of me because I didn’t want to be helpless ever again.

  I worked like a fiend for the rest of the session just to spite him.

  By the time we were almost done, joggers and dog walkers were turning up in the park. One woman, who was being dragged around by her two basset hounds, marched over to Eric as I lay flat out on the grass, struggling to get my breath back and demanded to know if “the man” was bothering me.

  “You could say that,” I said, as I leaned into her as though we were sorority sisters sharing a secret. “He’s my personal trainer.”

  Her face changed from controlled anger to mischief. “My, you are a lucky girl. Looks like Tom Selleck that one.”

  With a friendly wave, she trotted off.

  “That’s us done,” Eric announced as I flopped my sweat drenched body down on a bench. “You did alright, for a first session. But we’ve got a lot of work to do.”

  His features relaxed and a smile twitched at the corners of his moustache.

  I assumed he meant we were finished for the day, that I could go back to my own place and have a well earned snooze, but Eric had other plans. He dropped me off at Tommy’s, telling me he’d be back for me at “eleven hundred hours.”

  “What for?” I’d sniped as I’d hauled myself out of the car. Every bone in my body ached like I’d aged a hundred years. The only aerobic workouts I’d been getting recently were with Tommy.

  Before he dropped me off, Eric ditched the drill sergeant routine and his eyes locked onto mine. “You got your backside kicked, Nancy. Without Tommy and me, you could have been dead in a ditch somewhere. Tommy’s lost enough as it is without losing you too on his watch. So, you better shape up or forget this whack job idea of yours finding those girls, because the next one to go missing could be you.”

  He paused to let his words sink in. “In the afternoon, I’m gonna teach you some basic self-defence.” He stopped to glance at his watch. “Be ready at eleven hundred hours.”

  This time there was no sarky comment from me, because I needed all the help I could get. That guy with the beer gut could have killed me. What use had my taser and pepper spray been when I couldn’t even get to them?

  Tommy wasn’t there when I got in. The place was Stepford Wife tidy and there was a note on the counter saying he’d gone to speak to his police contact.

  Before I knew it, I’d fallen asleep on the stool at the kitchen table in front of a lumpy plate of porridge. And, I’d have stayed that way if I hadn’t been torn from my rest by Eric who’d retuned wearing tracksuit trousers and a t-shirt. He must have had a key because he’d let himself in.

  “Let’s head for the sports centre, Nancy. Time I taught you some self-defence.”

  “Oh goody,” I muttered.

  For the second time that day, I reluctantly got in Eric’s car.

  * * *

  “When someone’s got you from behind your first instinct is to pull away.”

  No, it’s not I’m thinking; it’s to boot him in the balls. It’d worked pretty well for me in the past.

  We were in the gym surrounded by thick blue cushioned mats and Eric was in his element.

  Eric gave me a stoic stare. “Or, to aim your knee backwards to catch him in the groin area.”

  Damn, he gets me.

  He spotted the smile curling at the edge of my lips. The man misses nothing.

  “This isn’t a joke, Nancy. What I’m telling you could save your life.”

  I try to look suitably serious as he carried on. “As I said, your tendency is to struggle, to pull away. But that’s the worst thing you can do. Instead, you should lean in against your attacker and go limp. It’s much harder to control someone when they do that because you can’t use their own weight against them.”

  “Now, let’s try it,” he said. “I’ll grab you from behind and I want you to do what I told you.”

  “Okay.” I pretended to be walking along and he grabbed me from behind, putting one hand across my windpipe and using the other to try and drag me along. I was going to do what he’d said, honestly I was, but I thought I’d have some fun instead.

  Throwing my head back in one fast, fluid movement, I heard a squelching noise as my head connected with his nose.

  “Fuck,” he hissed and the hand across my throat fell away.

  When I turned round, he was holding his nose, his hand covered in blood.

  Shit, I’d only meant to surprise him. Show him I wasn’t a poor, defenceless woman.

  “Shit, Eric I’m sorry.”

  I’d known that I would catch him, maybe stun him a bit, but I hadn’t expected to break his nose.

  When he removed his hands from his face, there was no anger on his face; just a look of surprise and something else, admiration.

  “It’s okay. It’s no broken.”

  The words were spoken the way you tell someone when the next bus is due.

  Digging into a pocket, I took out a hanky and handed it to him, suppressing a smile when I realised it had flowers on it. It was the only ones the corner shop sold. He took it and used it to stench the flow of blood from his nose.

  “Where did you learn to do that? I’ve never had someone stick the head in me like that.” He sounded impressed.

  Shrugging my shoulders, I beamed. There was a wee flutter in my chest; Eric was proud of me, which made me feel funny because I hadn’t even realised I was seeking his approval.

  “Aw,” I said, “it was just instinct.”

  “Well,” said Eric. “Keep using that instinct. That’s what’ll keep you alive. In a fight for your life, you’ve gotta learn to fight dirty, use everything you have at your disposal and never think you’re going too far.”

  For the rest of the time in the gym, I did things Eric’s way.

  By the time we were done, I was confident that I could handle myself under most circumstances. But Eric had chilling words for me.

  “Sometimes there’s nothing you can do, Nancy. You’ll be hurt badly, or you w
ill die.”

  A cloud passed over his eyes and wherever he was, it wasn’t in that gym with me.

  Diane had no idea where she was. She’d no memory of being brought here. The last thing she remembered was getting into that car. The punter had seemed okay. He was old; at least 40. When he offered her a drink, she took it. She needed something to take the edge off.

  Taking that drink was a big mistake, because it was the last thing she remembered. It must have been drugged. How could she have been so dumb? The teachers at her school were right – she was a dunce.

  Was it even still summer outside? Alone in this room, lying on a filthy child-sized mattress, the stone cold floor chilled her feet and the scratchy blanket he’d given her did nothing to stave off the cold that gnawed at her bones.

  She wanted to cry, but she’d no tears left. All she had was a golf ball sized lump in her throat over the thought of never seeing her little girl again. Closing her eyes, she pretended to be in bed at home. Any minute now, Kyra would climb into bed beside her, crying about seeing “monsters” and she’d tell her that monsters weren’t real, despite the fact that she knew only too well that they were.

  Chapter 16

  I was making my way back from the gym after yet another punishing session with Eric where amongst other things he’d taught me how to deal with a knife-wielding attacker, when the tall, dark figure of Michael appeared.

  Although he and Tommy were both tall and dark, that’s where the similarities ended. Where Tommy’s hair was curly, Michael’s hair was poker straight and if he didn’t get it trimmed at his favourite salon every six weeks, he ended up looking like one of The Beatles – after they’d been marooned on an island. He had delicate features, including a snub nose whereas Tommy had strong, manly features and a nose that had been broken twice.

  A phone call and a meeting; that was a lot of effort for him. What the hell did he want?

  “How’s Donna-Marie?”

  The words stuck in my throat, but I managed to get them out because “how’s that predatory, back-stabbing bitch” might have come across as confrontational.