Lane: A Case For Willows And Lane

by Peter Grainger

  ‘Alright. Very cosy but there’s something going on here. Who else lives next door?’

  ‘No-one. She lives on her own.’

  He looked down at the dish and said, ‘I’m partial to a slice of home-made pie. Haven’t got one in the fridge, have you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Pity. Still, you might have time to make us one yet. Your young man isn’t answering his phone. I hope for his sake and yours he ain’t doing that on purpose. Bring her in as well!’

  The shout was to the man outside, and moments later Ms Lane was walking into the living room. There was no expression on her face at all – no fear, no surprise. She looked at Emily closely for a moment and then around the room, as if she was simply curious about seeing the inside of her neighbour’s house for the first time. She stood very still while her pockets were patted but she was wearing only a T shirt, jeans and trainers – it was obvious that she did not have a mobile phone with her. When she was told to sit on the sofa next to Emily, she did so but without hurrying or acknowledging the hatchet-faced man in any way. She simply sat down but her eyes never stopped taking an inventory of the contents of Emily’s living room.

  ‘Ain’t you got no questions?’

  Two minutes had passed, and Lane’s continuing silence had clearly unsettled the older man. Still she said nothing in reply to him, and the sneer came back to his face.

  ‘What was all that outside? Playing some sort of game? Nosey neighbour? Now look where it’s got you.’

  Like the man, Emily listened for an answer, for some sort of response, but none came. Again she had the sense for a moment that this was a very convincing drama rather than reality. Why wasn’t Robert answering his phone, though, and how was he involved? Then she remembered the details he had told her of the case and thought, well, that might explain this. Some sort of corruption at the highest level would mean powerful men with a lot to lose, and that makes people do desperate things, such as hiring thugs like these.

  And then, without warning, Ms Lane turned and said to her, ‘Are you alright?’

  ‘Hold your bloody noise, you interfering cow! I’m asking the questions. I didn’t say you could talk to her.’

  There were seconds of silence. The Lane woman’s eyes never left her neighbour’s, never went once to the man who held the cut-throat razor out towards them.

  Then she said again, ‘Are you alright?’

  Emily Willows answered quickly, ‘Yes, I am’, hoping that doing so might avoid the need for anyone else to be punched. When she looked at him then, the yellow face was as much surprised as outraged that the newcomer had very deliberately ignored him. He was assessing the changed situation – and it had changed, Emily could feel that. With two of them on the sofa, he decided not to try and enforce the silence; instead he went to the curtain again where the younger one had taken up his previous position watching the garden for signs that anyone else was involved. He had also taken out his phone, and she guessed that someone was being informed of what had just taken place.

  Emily looked at her new companion then. When she caught Emily’s eye, Lane smiled briefly and shrugged, as if to say, what a nuisance, getting caught up like this, and Emily found herself quite unable to smile back, because now they were both in danger, and she did not understand how that had happened.

  When she had looked around the entire room again, Lane said quietly, ‘What do they want? Have they told you?’

  The younger man left the curtain and went out of the lounge and back up the stairs. There was no sign of the gun – no doubt he had concluded that he didn’t need to show it to control the two women. Hatchet-face was still by the patio doors, looking at his phone and glancing into the garden; he was probably listening to them but still, apparently, allowing them to talk.

  ‘No, they haven’t. I think I’m some sort of hostage. My son, Robert…’

  She stopped, a little choked at having to voice her fears yet suddenly grateful that there was someone to whom they could at least be voiced.

  Lane said, ‘The young man who visits you two or three times a week?’

  Emily nodded, and then Lane said, ‘He’s job, isn’t he?’

  ‘Pardon? His job? Are you asking what he does? That’s what-’

  ‘No, sorry, I meant he’s police, yes? Plain clothes?’

  ‘Yes, he is. How did you know?’

  Miss Lane was watching the man at the curtain as she answered.

  ‘About a month ago I saw him dropped off by a squad car. From the way he was chatting to them before he came in, I guessed he wasn’t being brought home after a night on the tiles.’

  Despite their circumstances, Emily managed to feel and look slightly offended by the suggestion.

  Lane continued her questions.

  ‘What’s his job? Has he got rank?’

  ‘He’s a detective sergeant.’

  ‘And you think that’s what this is about?’

  ‘I know it is. They told me – he’d better do as he’s told or else.’ She lowered her voice to a whisper and said, ‘He’s working on a case to do with illegal immigration. I’m sure that’s what this is about…’

  The other woman was quiet then, and Emily looked at her properly for the first time. The face was on the narrow side, with high and strong cheek-bones – what at first seemed to be a gaunt look was, in fact, the natural geography of her face. The chin was pointed, the lips straight but quite full - there was, Emily noted, no trace of make-up anywhere - and the nose was a match for the cheek-bones, with a high bridge that was slightly aquiline. And the eyes were as large as they could be for this face, and dark and deep brown, beneath strongly-arched brows. The hair was almost black, and thick, but cut quite short, exposing her ears and three or four tiny gold rings in each. It was a face that might perhaps be missed at first glance in a large crowd but which, once noticed, would not soon be forgotten. Two more thoughts passed through Emily Willows’ mind as she watched her companion; she is younger than I first thought, maybe no more than thirty two or three, and she undoubtedly has some foreign blood somewhere.

  ‘So,’ said Lane, ‘not good. They don’t often go for the police so blatantly as this. Your son – is he straight? Is he honest?’

  Too much was happening for Emily to be properly annoyed by the suggestion. For example, this entire conversation had quickly gone in a most peculiar direction; why was this woman asking her such things? Shouldn’t they be consoling each other or at least reassuring each other that if they could keep calm, everything would be alright? Instead, Miss Lane seemed to have begun her own investigation. And talking of that, had she called the police before she got herself involved so calamitously? Emily glanced at the man over by the curtains before she whispered the question.

  ‘Did you phone the police? Before you came round? Surely you did if you suspected something… And my son is honest.’

  ‘No, I didn’t call them…’ and then Lane turned her head away as if she was listening. There were other things, too, Emily realised. Miss Lane had said “They don’t often go for the police so blatantly”, and how would she know that? It simply wasn’t what a normal woman would say in these circumstances. And she had not even called the police before getting caught.

  Miss Lane said, ‘I wasn’t entirely sure what I’d seen from my upstairs window. Had he pushed his way in or not? I couldn’t see you from that angle, so I couldn’t be certain. Then, afterwards, I realised that I had seen the car parked further up the road yesterday, with men in it. I couldn’t see their faces but it must have been these. So I came to see for myself, just to be sure. If they were relatives, I would have looked pretty stupid. But why would relatives be sitting out in the road yesterday? It was fifty fifty. I made the wrong call.’

  She did not seem overly concerned by the fact. Then she looked around again in that slow, methodical way, ending by staring at the hatchet-faced man by the patio doors. He noticed her and scowled; then his phone buzzed in his hand and he looked down. No dou
bt instructions had been sent about how to deal with the changed situation in the house.

  Lane’s eyes came back to Emily Willows, and lowering her voice just enough, she said, ‘So, we’d better decide how we’re going to get out of here.’

  Chapter Four

  Lane had noticed the broken phone on the kitchen floor. That would be Mrs Willows’ phone and no doubt he had smashed it in front of her, as some sort of attempt at an act of terrorism. It might have frightened a goldfish in a bowl, if there had been one. No sign of any pets at all… But breaking that phone suggested that these were not pros, just thugs incapable of thinking for themselves. He should have kept the phone, studied it, and waited for someone to ring or text, because if the situation was as Mrs Willows had described it, the son might contact her directly, depending on how much he was actually involved.

  There were only two doors out of the property, and the back way was a non-starter; Lane would be able to climb over the wall or the back gate herself as the hulk must have done but her companion would not. If there was any kind of pursuit, they’d be caught – and she, Lane, was not anticipating that she could disable both men for long enough to get away at a sedate pace. So it would have to be the front door. When she had brought back the dish that she had never borrowed, she had seen the lock – a Yale-type that wouldn’t need a key to get out.

  Then they would need to get to a car as quickly as possible, and the nearest was Emily’s, a red Skoda Citigo parked on the short drive, facing the house – they would need to reverse out into the road. Not the ideal getaway vehicle. Her own Audi was locked in her garage – a mistake, she told herself sharply – which would mean going back into her house to fetch the keys, and there might be no time for that. Once they were away from the house and on the move, make contact with the police and head for a place of safety – a police station, a fire station, anywhere that held enough strong, sensible people to get between Mrs Willows and these low lives.

  Working backwards then, the question was how to get from this sofa to the other side of the front door.

  The sickly-looking man seemed to have accepted the fact that they were sitting side-by-side and still talking – more evidence that he didn’t really know what he was doing – and so, quietly, Lane asked Emily to tell her everything that had happened since the nightmare began about an hour and a half ago. At one point she interrupted and said, ‘He let you go into the kitchen?’

  ‘Yes, I made some tea. That’s when I tried to use my phone and he broke it.’

  ‘Never mind – A for effort. And then they actually drank the tea?’

  ‘Yes.’

  After a pause, Emily said, ‘Why? What are you thinking?’

  ‘I was wondering whether you happen to have any rat poison under the sink.’

  ‘I do not. And even if I did, I couldn’t…’

  The large, dark eyes came back to her.

  ‘Couldn’t what?’

  ‘What you are suggesting. I simply could not.’

  ‘OK. We all have our red lines, I suppose. But there’s no easy way to break this to you, Mrs Willows. These people’s red lines are very different to yours. There’s a real possibility that you and I will get hurt before this is over. Mainly because these two are so incompetent.’

  The older woman was watching her face closely, looking for any sign that their predicament was being exaggerated, and finding none.

  Lane said then, ‘Still, at least you’ll die with a clear conscience. For myself, I’m willing to risk feeling a little guilty in return for still being here to feel it. But don’t worry. Rat poison would be too slow for us. You don’t have a gun in the house, obviously…’

  Emily Willows shook her head vaguely. A gun? It appeared that the young woman really was planning to attempt an escape. What would she do with a gun, if there was one? The average person doesn’t even know where the safety catch is, let alone have the stomach to fire the horrible things at people. And surely this is the wrong approach. Isn’t one supposed to form a relationship with one’s captors so that they are unable to do the harm that they initially threaten?

  Ms Lane was whispering again.

  ‘You have knives, obviously, but we’d have to have good reason to get within an arm’s reach, and a knife that can do enough damage is difficult to conceal. Anything else in the kitchen? Heavy objects?’

  Emily thought, but we really don’t equip our kitchens with weapons, do we? It’s the commonest place for accidents in the home, of course, but that’s quite different to using utensils to commit grievous bodily harm with intent. She felt stupid as she said, ‘Saucepans. Frying pans. An iron…’

  ‘Yes, that’s it. We could offer to do their laundry. Is it a steam iron?’

  A joke, obviously, though there was no accompanying smile.

  ‘Let’s move on. The other place they will have to let us go is the bathroom. You have one downstairs? Where is it? Tell me everything that’s in there.’

  It was a simple enough plan, Emily Willows concluded, but if it went wrong… Well, the results could be calamitous. One of the men at least would be in considerable pain, and men in considerable pain who are in possession of knives and guns are liable to behave dangerously. But, as Lane had said to Mrs Willows again, what’s the alternative? These men have made no attempt to hide their faces, and kidnapping is an offence that always receives the heaviest of penalties on conviction; perhaps they do not care that we have seen them, and why might that be, Mrs Willows?

  First, Lane had said, they needed to lower the men’s guard a little. If we start asking to go places and do things straight away, he, the one by the window, will be suspicious. We need to sit here on the sofa and look frightened for a bit – that’s what they expect to see.

  She had said to Emily, ‘Can you cry?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Cry. Put on some tears.’

  ‘Well, it’s not something that I do to order. Can you?’

  ‘No, I’m useless at it. It should be you, your son in danger and all that.’

  ‘Thank you for reminding me.’

  ‘No problem. You do some of that and I’ll do the comforting thing. While we look like emotional women, we don’t look threatening. Then, in about an hour or so, we’ll make a start. That will be,’ looking at her watch, a rather masculine, heavy, complicated thing, ‘at six o’clock. If they ask for more tea before that, we’ll bring it forward. It will be good if the idea comes from them. You’re certain you know where your car keys are?’

  ‘Yes – on a hook in the hallway. Are you certain that this isn’t going to get us killed anyway? I’m only asking because you have rather taken over since you arrived – if you don’t mind me saying.’

  Lane took her time before responding.

  ‘You mean, it’s your house, so it’s your hostage situation?’

  Emily Willows didn’t answer.

  ‘We can do it your way if you want. We can just sit here. The police might turn up, but we’ll still be stuck inside with George and Lennie. I won’t make you do anything. It’s up to you.’

  And Emily Willows, who hadn’t had to do any serious thinking in quite a while, did think it over carefully before she said, ‘Do you think the odds will be any better than fifty fifty this time?’

  Lane had said yes, she thought so, and Emily nodded her agreement. She didn’t think to ask better on which outcome, and Lane thought it best not to offer an opinion – if she did, the tears might be for real.

  ‘What’s the matter with her? Why’s she howling?’

  ‘She isn’t howling. She’s a bit upset. I think it’s because you broke into her house and hit her and threatened her son, that’s all.’

  ‘She was alright until you turned up.’

  ‘It’s delayed shock.’

  ‘Some sort of doctor, are you?’

  Lane didn’t continue the conversation. Emily was making a good job of it now, sobbing away into her hands, and hunched forward so that Lane coul
d put a comforting arm around her shoulders.

  The man said, ‘It’s her bloody son’s fault anyway. We’d have been long gone if he was answering his phone and doing as he’s been told.’

  Lane said, ‘I don’t understand. Why are you threatening Robert? These are good people. They haven’t done you any harm, have they?’

  Even the sneer on his thin face looked sickly but it wouldn’t do any harm to ask naïve questions and he might let something useful slip.

  ‘Good people! A pig and a pig’s mother! I’ll tell you this much – if he don’t do as he’s told, they’ll be bloody pork. He’s messing with some serious bastards, that’s all I’m saying. And I know what you’re doing, getting me to talk. Don’t know why you had to get involved in the first place…’

  ‘I’m doing nothing of the sort. You started this by asking what’s the matter with her.’

  He seemed to be reviewing the conversation, and frowned when he realised that she appeared to be right. Then he moved away from the curtain for the first time since she had sat down with Mrs Willows, going around the outside of the room to the doorway that led into the hall behind them. Lane watched him go, her arm still around her neighbour who seemed to have exhausted her tears for now. He stopped in the hall, looking up where the stairs must be and called something, but quietly as if he didn’t want her to hear. He called it two or three times before she heard steps crossing the room above them, and she was sure that he was saying ‘Small? Small?’

  She remembered her comment about George and Lennie then, and her lips tightened into an ironic smile for a moment; that could not be the big man’s actual surname, it simply could not be. Someone, some teenaged yob with a sense of humour, had christened the overgrown boy with that nickname and it had stuck. They didn’t need to be well-read; the book had been on every GCSE syllabus since the Bronze Age.

  Small it was then, coming down the stairs now. Lane could hear only fragments of the ensuing conversation in the hallway, but the older one was saying that he had to make a call, that this was going on too long – something like that. Then they were changing places. The man with the knife went upstairs, and the man with the gun came into the lounge. This was good because she wanted a proper look at him.