by Tom Trott
The blade slid out of me. I tried to scream again, but I couldn’t tell if I was making any sound. I was a side of beef.
‘I’m not sure I’m comfortable with this,’ Father Christmas piped up.
‘Go inside,’ the silhouette told him.
‘Yeah, fuck off, Alan,’ jeered the ex-pro.
‘He’s just a kid,’ he pleaded.
‘Be quiet.’
‘Come on!’ he begged, ‘M—’
With a sudden jerk the silhouette jabbed him in the throat. He choked and spluttered.
‘Don’t ever say that name outside the group.’
‘But M—’
He backslapped him this time and the old man fell to the floor. Then, with an elegant slippered foot, he pushed on his chubby neck. Father Christmas began to flail, squeaking and gurgling.
‘You had to open your fuckin’ mouth!’ he crowed, his voice crude, shocking, nothing like the prim, clipped tones of before.
The old man’s hands were clawing at the grass, pulling up clumps, his legs writhing, wriggling.
The others watched with cold shock. This was my only chance. Without a free arm I pushed up onto my knees, then unsteadily onto my legs, and still bent over, barrelled forwards into the mist.
From behind me came a muffled shout, but soon everything was wind and wet.
I ran and I ran until my heart felt like it was going to burst. My lungs were on fire. It could only have been a hundred metres, then my next step seemed to miss the ground and I landed with my face in sand. A bunker. I spat out a mouthful of it. Rustling footsteps passed not too far away. My head swam. Some light, from torches maybe, danced off the mist.
I shuffled on my knees and then I was up, and ran and ran again. I collapsed every few metres, pushing back up, going again. My legs were made of matchsticks. I threw my eyes in every direction, looking for people, something, anything, no idea where I was heading, or where I should be heading. The silver air was damp, thick, and impenetrable; the only clues I had were in the ground. It rose gradually under my feat, so I was heading north, across the holes, away from the allotments; if I made it all the way over the hill I would end up back down into Coldean. But that was a long way. Too far.
I collapsed to my knees yet again, tried to catch my breath. I couldn’t hear a sound. No footsteps. No shouting. The ground was too wet and the air too thick to carry a thing. I couldn’t even hear my own heart. To my left there was a darker wisp of fog which became a figure jogging, searching, frantic, but not moving toward me. I could feel my heart again. I ran in the opposite direction, looking behind me, making sure the figure faded into the grey.
But it didn’t, the figure was getting clearer and gaining on me. I ran faster, still looking behind. Beneath my feet the ground got steeper, then stonier, then I fell into a ditch. I landed on my lungs. They hurt. A lot. Footsteps scrabbled on the stone, stopped, started again, and passed.
I rolled onto my back, staring up at the mist, and at the stars that could just be made out so long as you weren’t looking straight at them. What the hell was this ditch doing here? This couldn’t be part of the golf course. It couldn’t be a stream bed either because I was at the highest point in the city.
Don’t argue with me. Some of you will argue the highest point is Ditchling Beacon; it is the highest point in East Sussex, but not in the city. Or you might say Devils Dyke, which is technically correct, but honestly, are you going to argue that Devils Dyke is in Brighton? The council might say so, but no humans. And don’t tell me things changed in 2016; the top of Hollingbury Hill is still sixteen metres higher than the top of the i360.
I rolled onto my knees and shuffled along the ground until I reached a chalk path. Now I knew where I was: Hollingbury Camp. Or Hollingbury Castle Camp. Or Hollingbury Hillfort. Whatever, it’s a sixth century BC fort.
I stumbled my way along one of the myriad paths, cutting through a maze of gorse. Finally, I came to rest on the trig point. It was as good a place as any to catch my breath. Just a quick rest. I’ll get up in a moment.
The trig point is nothing but a concrete post, but it’s one of the focal points of the universe. Or so it seemed. Trig points are just used to make Ordinance Survey maps, this one from 1947. But it was a geometric importance this place, an ancient place. This was the spindle used to turn the wheel of time. I felt a magnetic connection to the spot. People had trod these paths two and a half thousand years ago. They had looked around and seen only nature. And over time their descendants had moved further out, and started to build towns, and then the city, and then twenty-two years ago I had been born in it.
The mist was slightly thinner at this altitude, so I could see about twenty metres in each direction. But anything beyond the fort didn’t exist. I had slipped through a crack in the universe, back in time.
Leaning my head back, I looked up at the stars through a thin silver veil, the light that reached me from them was even older than the fort. I was slipping even further back in time, toward the birth of the universe.
My thoughts were rambling, uncompleted. The lung that had been burning was now ice cold. This could be it. There are still barrows here, I thought, burial mounds that is. It was the start of all civilisation, and now it was going to be the end of my life. I couldn’t think of a better place to die.
I heard a panting to my left, like a dog. A flame-orange fox was sitting just two metres away. He had probably come to investigate who was messing up his home. There were probably babies curled up in the gorse. He closed his mouth, gazing out over the fog, listening for threats, before he looked at me. I stared into his amber eyes, he stared into mine. At least I wouldn’t die alone.
Suddenly his face twitched, and his gaze shot over my shoulder. I followed it. To my right, a pair of fireflies were soaring in tandem through the fog. I watched their gentle arc. Wait a minute. They weren’t fireflies. They were lights. But not torches. Headlights. Fog lights. A road. Ditchling Road. There was a chance I wouldn’t die tonight. I looked back to thank the fox, but he had gone.
I pushed up against the trig point, my hands no longer hurting, but shaking. Shock. Don’t faint. There was nothing for it but to run, and hope I could flag someone down.
I made a careful glance around me, I couldn’t see torches, or shapes, or anything for that matter. The headlights had gone, I had lost the exact direction of the road now. But I knew it ran from south to north, I just had to head west. Fuck it, let’s go.
I went for it. I ran down off the fort, almost falling over when I reached the ditch, but my momentum shot me up onto the path and I seemed to still be on my feet. I ran and I ran and I ran; I kept pounding the earth, convinced that everyone within a mile must be able to feel it. A treadmill of wet grass, bumps, and bunkers appeared as an obstacle course for me to tackle without toppling.
Then out of the mist a figure. A large figure. The ex-pro. In a split second his eyes filled with glee and a smile danced across his lips. He was wet with mist and sweat and his eyes had yellowed. He spread out his hands like a goalkeeper, or a rugby player ready to trap me. Maybe I should have stopped, maybe I should have changed direction, but I was going too fast, so I just ploughed straight into him. We both went down, him on his back and me rolling a few feet.
‘You CUNT!’ he screamed.
I was back on my feet and running and only God knows what he was doing but I could hear his footsteps.
‘BASTARD! Come on then!’
My whole body was on fire, the little men inside me shovelling everything into the furnaces. I might explode.
The sound of his calls were getting quieter: ‘He’s here! HERE! HEEEEAAAARE!’
Another pair of lights swished ahead, nearer this time, I had to be really close.
At last, a steep slope. Thick grass. Bollards with reflectors, tarmac beneath my feet. A pair of bright lights came round a curve, blinding me. I would have raised my hands to stop them if I could. The light absorbed me. I didn’t try to move, I just closed
my eyes and prayed it wouldn’t hurt too much.
24
Hero
the water had reached our knees. The smoke had filled the ceiling. We crouched in the narrow foot of air between. Joy was where the open door would hide her. I had broken off a piece of copper pipe to use as a club. We were ready. We had been ready for twenty minutes.
I looked up through the haze at the blue puddle of flame that had spread across the ceiling. They should have come down by now. A horrifying thought flared across my mind: what if they’re not in?
‘Joe…?’ Her voice was feeble.
There was a splash. I ran and fished her from the water. It was the smoke; I coughed, noticing how much of the stuff I was breathing. It burned my lungs. Pushing wet hair out of her face I held my ear to her mouth. She was still breathing. Just.
The water was spraying. Wood crackling. Plaster crashed onto the floor above. I could only imagine the scene. This could be it.
At last the creaking and cracking became a clattering, and footsteps rattled over the floorboards. I couldn’t put Joy down, the water was too deep, so I transferred her to my left arm, like a baby, and held the pipe ready in my right.
The feet thundered down the steps and a key fumbled in the lock. A bolt was withdrawn. Then another key came out and another lock clicked. A padlock was thrown to the ground, and finally another bolt was drawn back.
The light of the opening door blinded me. The heat burnt. I swang the pipe with everything I had. It connected with something, and there was a large splash like a sandbag hitting the water. I pushed forward into the heat, only managing to squint for a few seconds before my eyes streamed.
Everything was a blur. A raging orange blur. I came up from the cellar to find the frame of the main stairs disintegrated. The cupboard was just a shell. The wall between the hall and the living room was collapsed and the floorboards charred.
There was a rumble like thunder and a shaking like an earthquake and then I watched the floor of the living room collapse into the cellar, followed by the wall between the living room and kitchen, crashing down into the watery abyss. The three photographs on the mantelpiece had blistered white until they melted black into their frames. The shelf of Joy’s trophies clattered into the void.
I only had to make it to the door. The boards were black and creaked under my weight but I made it and wrenched it open to the bright world beyond.
As I transferred Joy back to a more secure grip and carried her down the front path, I couldn’t see a thing. I wasn’t conscious of the noise. Not the crumbling house. Not the scream of sirens, nor the shouts of the press. Just the fresh summer air.
It was all over. The fire brigade had arrived seconds after we emerged, the building now just a wet wooden shell. Men in uniforms and helmets paraded carefully around the outside, two others in full safety gear with bungee cord attached were tiptoeing through the carnage.
A paramedic had seen to my cuts and burns, and now I was sitting alone in the back of an ambulance, waiting whilst they tried to clear the street. They had connected me up to a saline drip for rehydration. I wanted the back doors open, the air smelt of cut grass, but they had shut them to keep out photographers.
Just as I was thinking about it, one of them creaked open. A warm smile poked its way in.
‘Hey, dude.’
It was Andy Watson. I smiled back, I couldn’t help myself.
‘How are you doing?’ He climbed in and sat next to my stretcher.
‘You’d better close the door,’ I told him.
‘Nah, it’s fine, they’re all with Parker and Price at the moment.’
I nodded, but it disorientated me. I concentrated on the shaft of sunlight that was now streaming in, and the tops of trees I could glimpse.
‘What coaxed you out of your basement?’ I asked.
‘They needed someone willing to speak to you.’
‘Willing? Here I was thinking I’d solved the case.’
‘Yeah, well… not the way they’d like.’ His smile disappeared. ‘Mr Tothova’s body is down there. Was that you?’
‘Am I under caution?’
‘No, Joe. This is just me.’
‘I take it I won’t be getting a medal then.’
‘Not from us, at least. At least, not yet. Everyone else? I think they’ll treat you pretty fair.’
I looked through the doors toward police cars, Price was answering questions from reporters and looking quite flustered.
‘She’ll hang me if she gets enough rope.’
‘She’s too smart. Everybody just saw you carry the girl out of a burning building. Get a good headline tomorrow and they’ll snuggle up as close to you as they can. It’ll be a great triumph of police cooperation. If it turns out you did something you shouldn’t have, they’ll drop you twice as fast. You’ve been here before.’
His body language shifted, he turned to face me instead of the door.
‘I need to tell you something else, before you find out some other way: Thalia was attacked last night.’
Vogeli. I seethed.
‘She’s ok, a few bruises. She pepper-sprayed the guy.’
An uncontrolled chuckle escaped from me.
‘We brought him in on a routine assault charge, turns out there’s a European Arrest Warrant out for him. You two do like to give us a headache.’
A desperate voice from outside cut through the air: ‘Where’s my daughter, where is she!?’
Both our heads snapped to attention. Then the ambulance doors were flung open by a wild-eyed and manic looking Maria Tothova.
Her eyes locked on mine, her lips pulled tight over her teeth. She hissed like a cat, and fearing that she might try and scratch my eyes out Andy quickly grabbed her arm and jumped down onto the tarmac. I could hear other footsteps rushing over to her. Then the sounds of a press gaggle.
Andy offered a raised eyebrow as he shut the door, leaving me alone. I could still hear though.
‘Mrs Tothova!? Mrs Tothova!? Why did you fake the kidnapping?’
‘People, please,’ Watson begged. ‘Please!’
‘What my husband has done,’ she started, ‘is unimaginable.’
What my husband has done.
The ambulance purred to life, smothering the voices.
I laid my head back on the stretcher, and was soon rocked to sleep as the ambulance trundled its way down the clogged avenue.
Friday’s headline was “JOY TO THE WORLD”, stamped over a full page photo of me carrying her out of the burning house. The headshot of me from the barbecue was inset with the caption “hero: Joe Grabarz”. I did look mighty heroic, if I say so myself.
The paper was as sketchy as ever about how I had come to find her there. The article focused on the brief statements Price had made, the fact that Mr Tothova’s body had been found at the scene, and the suspicions surrounding Mrs Tothova. Her lawyer had already spoken to Hacker. She was protesting innocence, saying that her husband was behind it all and she knew nothing about it. Once they spoke to Joy I was sure she would change her story. She would be an accomplice, but bullied into it by her oppressive husband. It might even work. She would have a great lawyer, I was sure. Until they find out she was bankrupt.
In a small item on page fourteen they reported a man found dead at his farm near Ditchling. He had hanged himself. They hadn’t connected the dots.
I was enjoying the newspaper in my little office, with my feet on the desk, the sounds of the Lanes drifting in through the open windows, the heat still oppressive. Thalia was taking a few days off and I didn’t have any clients booked. I had the place to myself. I had even locked the street door just in case. It was one week since I had heard of Joy Tothova. A hell of a week.
No one ever spoke to me about the van chase. The two children from the bungalow had completely recovered. Chris hadn’t, he was dead before I regained consciousness. Still not a single officer had mentioned it to me. Not a soul. A man had died and I had been written out of it. Either t
hat, or they really hadn’t seen me. But how could that be? I decided not to wonder too much.
Mr Tothova had dumped my Honda somewhere. No one knew where. No one much cared either. I felt I should be able to sue someone for the cost of it, not that it was worth much in money. I was upset, but things go, things change. C'est la vie.
My phone had been found in the wreckage, ruined. This morning I had been out and bought myself the cheapest one I could. It was smart. I was told they were all smart now. I was waiting for my provider to transfer my number to the Nano SIM I had just inserted. I remembered I had to call Clarence and gloat about our bet.
The new phone buzzed angrily with a text message:
“I’ll tell you what…”
That was it. And I didn’t have any contacts yet. When I went to open the message to try and work out who it was it vibrated again:
“…be at mine in 15 minutes and I’ll forgive you.”
That made it pretty obvious. I went in and looked at the message. It was sent Wednesday night. I wondered if she read the papers. It buzzed a final time:
“That was your last chance. You won’t be seeing me again.”
That was that. She was too proud to go back on her word a second time, even if I had been chloroformed and trapped in a cellar. And to my great surprise, I was relieved.
I thought about Thalia and Vogeli, Monica, and the chase, and how everything had worked itself out in my twenty-four hours underground. Maybe I didn’t keep the world spinning after all.
I got up and wandered through to the outer office, I was the only madman in this heatwave who had lit a fire. It was only a tiny fireplace, left from when this was someone’s cottage. I hadn’t fired it up since the winter, now it was throwing all sorts of unwelcome heat.
I looked at the heavy square envelope in my hand, weighing it for a moment. The fire crackled. Pockets of steam hissed as they escaped from the wood fibres. Outside, tourists scuttled through the alleyways, screaming and shouting and commenting on how beautiful and expensive everything was. The sound of buses drifted from North Street. Pigeons fluttered in the rafters, seagulls scurried on the roof. The smell of coffee and restaurants wafted in. And I stood frozen amongst it all, staring into my private hell.