‘Grace?’ His voice is snappy, and I jump; it’s a shift in tone from the dreaminess that came into his voice when he was talking about our future together. I haven’t responded in the way that he hoped.
‘I thought you’d be excited,’ he says, and now he sounds almost petulant, like a child who has been told he cannot have what he wants. ‘I’ve done so much for you already, Grace,’ he says softly, and I feel the fear creep up my throat. I can’t put it off any longer. I have to ask him again.
‘Nate,’ I say, ‘you know I told you about my friends, Hannah and—’
‘They’re not your friends.’ The snarl interrupts me. I hesitate, frightened of making him angry.
‘Well,’ I continue, my voice trembling slightly, ‘Hannah and Alice, the – what happened to them. Do you know who – who might have done it? Do you know where Felicity is?’
He ignores me for a second, his eyes darting up at the signs above our heads, the little white aeroplane images showing that we’re going towards the airport. Cars are sliding past us regularly now; a black Jeep overtakes, and a motorbike roars past us, leaving a thick, smoky trail, the smell of petrol leaking into the air. Everyone is going so fast – there is no way I could flag anyone down. My only hope is to wait until we’re out of the car.
‘Grace,’ he says eventually, ‘now isn’t the time to think about the past. Now is the time for us to look to the future – together. You know that. I’m not telling you again. You and I – we have to be together. Michael said. It will make everything right.’
With horror, I realise his rationality – if he and I are a couple, it somehow absolves him of his crime. Suddenly, my rape isn’t a rape at all – it’s the start of a relationship. Us being together, in his twisted mind, would legitimise what he did.
As if on cue, we enter a roundabout and swing off to the left, and the sight of the airport comes into view, the huge grey terminals rising into the bright blue sky. I blink – it feels like a lifetime ago when the three of us landed here, but in reality it has only been days. I think of us sitting at the champagne bar in London, the dark drowsiness of the flight, the touchdown here – how excited I was. How much I hoped that this would be a new start.
Nate drives in silence. I see a sign for a multi-storey car park, but instead of taking the turn, we swing off the road again, round behind the airport. The circular movement of the twisty roads makes me feel sick, and for a moment I feel as if this might go on forever; us moving round and around on a terrible, unstoppable rollercoaster, me with no way of getting off.
‘Where are we going?’ I say, but he ignores me. He looks agitated, now, as if something has gone wrong. We’re moving further from the airport, and I twist around in my seat, confused. He’s taking us down a track that runs along a field at the back of the runways; I see planes lined up ready for take-off, and hear the dull roar of an engine ascending into the sky, a white trail billowing out behind it, cutting through the air. But he does stop, parking us just out of sight of the airport, deftly and precisely, and cutting the engine.
That’s when I hear the noise.
Chapter Twenty
Grace
A scraping, first of all, and for a moment I wonder if it’s the exhaust, if something has happened to the car itself; we’ve been driving so fast, perhaps he has damaged it somehow. But then it becomes louder, a scratching sound coming from behind us, and now it is unmistakable: it is as if there is something – or someone – in the back of the car.
‘What’s that?’ I say, but Nathaniel ignores me. He is muttering to himself, now, reaching into the back of the car, where I see, with a thud of dread, a suitcase, zipped and packed.
‘Your passport,’ he says to me, reaching out a hand, and with a drop in my stomach I realise that I do have it – I brought it with me, and it’s in my shirt pocket, the maroon edge clearly visible to him. He must have seen it straight away – that’s why we didn’t need to go back to the lodges after all.
‘I can keep it, can’t I, Nate?’ I say, and I smile at him, trying desperately for a real, warm smile, although it takes every ounce of effort in my body to keep it up. With my left hand, I close my fingers around the glass, feel the point of it, deadly sharp against the tip of my finger. He reaches out, leaning over to me, his fingers brushing my chest as he takes the passport from my shirt pocket, flips to the photo page, and smiles.
‘So beautiful,’ he says, touching it gently, and as he does so there is a bang from the boot of the car, a thudding sound that is impossible to ignore.
I swallow, hard. If I do it now there will be no going back.
‘Nathaniel,’ I say, ‘will you please let me go to the police about my friends? I want to go home, Nate. I want to be with my family. You know my parents, my father. You can understand.’
But he’s shaking his head, agitated now. The banging sound from the boot grows louder, and he lets out a sudden groan, bowing his head to the steering wheel, grasping his hair in his hands. I look around – we are isolated, despite the aircraft flying overhead nobody can see the car – exactly his intention, I realise. He has managed to make me feel even more vulnerable than I already do.
‘What’s that noise, Nate?’ I say to him again, but he shakes his head, as if I am a fly to be swatted, a distraction that he doesn’t need. ‘Please,’ I say to him, ‘listen to me, Nate, I just—’
But he whips towards me, and I can tell that I have angered him, now. My mouth is dry, salty with my mistake. There is nobody around to hear me scream as he reaches out towards me, grips my hair between his knuckles, tipping my head back painfully. I wince, the tears springing to my eyes quickly and easily. He is leaning over, his breath hot on my face; it is slightly sour somehow, as though he hasn’t washed for a while. Panic pulses through me, hot and unchecked. I squeeze my eyes shut, and all at once I am back there, at my parents’ house, and his hands are tight around my neck. I know what this man is capable of. I know what he is prepared to do. It doesn’t matter whether I play his game or not, whether I go along with everything he wants – he is still stronger than me, he will still beat me no matter what.
‘You will do what I say, Grace,’ he mutters, and I whimper in fear, feel something give inside me. After all this, I am here once again – powerless to stop him from doing what he likes.
He grunts, and I cannot stop him moving across the car, pulling me towards him. I feel the gearstick sharp against my body, the strength of his arms as he manhandles me like a rag doll. The heat of the car is stifling; surely, I think, I will suffocate in here, with this man who professes to love me but hates me on a deep, intense level – the level at which all women sit in his mind. For this is a man who has to have power, who is used to exercising it, who doesn’t care who he hurts to get what he wants. I imagine him driving the knife into Hannah, kind, caring, responsible Hannah who has only ever wanted to help people, who put her friends first at all times, who made one mistake one night, and one alone. He is unbuckling his jeans, the snap of the belt flies across my stomach, and I think of him grappling with Alice, forcing her head under the water, of how powerless she must have felt beneath his strong, wide hands. Did he enjoy it, as he held her down? Did he relish the sensation of her body giving in, of her lungs filling with water like sponges, of her breath becoming air? Did he feel pleased with himself, as he conquered and dominated, again and again.
Because I know now: he killed them too. He is capable of violence – of course he is. Rape isn’t murder, but a man like Nathaniel Archer will stop at nothing to get his way. All he’s had to do is escalate things.
He’s kissing me, now, his lips wet and vile, pressing against my cheek and my skin like a dirty stamp that I will never be able to erase. I am on top of him, my limbs unwillingly dragged into the driver’s seat, my crotch against his. He reaches up a hand and rips my T-shirt, exposing my chest, and I feel a hot spurt of shame, my skin recoiling from his touch. His breathing is loud, an animalistic pant, just as it was before,
just as it is in my nightmares. I couldn’t stop him then, and I can’t stop him now.
‘You want this too,’ he says, just as he said the first time, and I feel the sharp pain in between my legs, raw and inevitable. My hair has come loose from its ponytail, the strands hang limply around my face, dangling down onto him, helpless. He is holding both my wrists, his fingers tight as a handcuff, and I struggle desperately, thinking of the only weapon I have. As he thrusts himself forward, there is another sound – louder than before, a banging from the back of the car, and then the sound of something unlocking, and just for a second, his grip relaxes on my wrists as he strains to listen, unease etched suddenly and shockingly across his face. I know this is my chance.
My fingers disengage from his and I feel inside my pocket, close them around the shard of glass and bring it back up before I can lose my nerve. I see the surprise flash across his features, and in that second he is rendered something else – not a grown man inflicting harm on a woman, but a child, a child who has been caught out and who doesn’t have time to react. I raise the glass in the air, the back of my hand brushing against the soft felt of the car roof, and then I bring it down hard, driving the point of it into the side of his neck, feeling the dense resistance against my hand as the shard cuts through his skin and into his flesh.
The blood is much worse than I thought – a stream of it, dark and sticky, staining the car seats and my torn top, running down his thick, veined neck, snaking along his torso in a trickle that fast becomes a river. His eyes, dark blue, those eyes that have fooled people for so long, are wide and staring, as if he cannot quite believe what is happening to him, as if he can’t believe what I have done. Even now, he doubts me, and the thought gives me the energy to push the jagged edge into him once again, harder this time. I think of Felicity, of her father, of the horrible suspicions that Nate has just confirmed. Michael’s special little girl. Legitimising a crime. I think of Alice and Hannah, the three of us holding hands, laughing together, of the friendship ties that bind us, even after everything that has happened, even from beyond the grave. They give me power, and they set me free.
There is a horrible gurgling sound coming from Nate’s throat, but I don’t stop to listen to it. I swing my left leg backwards, away from him, and I fumble at the door, unlocking the car and stumbling out into the sunshine. I am breathing fast, and there is pain between my legs, dark spots dance in front of my eyes, but I steady myself with a hand on the side of the car and lurch around to the boot, my legs trembling. I am still holding the shard of glass in one hand and I drop it in horror, letting the bloodstained splinter fall to the hot, scorched earth beneath my feet.
The metal of the lock is blazing when I touch it, but it gives easily, loose already, and I step backwards, afraid of what I will see, as the boot swings upwards, revealing the body inside.
Felicity is lying in the trunk, curled up like an animal, her blonde hair dirty and matted to her head. Her hands, her beautiful, manicured hands, are red and sore-looking, her fingernails ripped, fresh beads of blood springing up from the skin. She has obviously been clawing at the metal lock on the boot for quite some time, has exhausted herself with one last effort. Her eyes are half-closed, her lids heavy, but when I put out a hand to touch her face she is still warm, and relief courses through me.
‘Felicity!’ I say, and at the sound of her name she opens her eyes fully, directly into mine. I see something flash across her face, quick and unreadable, then dissipate when she sees it is me, and not Nate.
‘Grace,’ she says, the sound a croak, and I wonder how long it has been since she’s had any water, whether he fed her, or just left her to boil to nothing in the metal coffin of the car.
‘You’re all right,’ I say weakly, ‘you’re all right, you’re all right.’ I repeat the words until the fear leaves her eyes, and she begins to cry softly, still curled in the boot, her body curving in on itself as she sobs.
‘Thank God, oh thank God,’ she whispers, as I reach down to help her, lifting her poor, fragile body from the car – it feels light as a bird, a bag of skin and bones. Her skin feels papery beneath my touch, and in that moment, I would kill Nathaniel again, over and over, drive the shard into his throat as many times as it would take to stop him hurting women like this.
As her feet touch the ground, the tears spill from my own eyes – tears of relief that she is alive, that we have made it, and tears of grief for the other half of our friendship group, for Hannah and for Alice, lying alone back at the lodges, at the mercy of Botswana now, the unlucky girls.
Felicity puts her skinny arms around my neck, winding them close to me, and I feel her sadness soft on my skin, her tears mingling with my own.
‘It’s over,’ I say. ‘It’s over now, Flick, it’s over. You’re safe now. We both are. He’s gone.’ At that, she cries harder, and we cling together, the survivors, as the hot sun beats down on our backs. Above us, the planes soar, their engines loud and unstoppable; the passengers looking down wouldn’t see us at all.
Chapter Twenty-One
Two days later
London, England
Felicity
The interview room is cool, the coffee cup in front of me drained. Dregs cling to the bottom; I think about asking for another one but don’t.
The policewoman has a Yorkshire accent, it is comforting somehow, the friendly flat vowels make me feel at ease. Perhaps she knows that. I have a sudden, bizarre urge to burrow myself against her chest, feel her hand stroke the top of my head, flatten down my hair as though I am a child again. I don’t, of course. I cannot make this woman stand in for my mother. Nobody can do that.
‘Can you walk us through it again, please, Felicity, just one more time?’ she is saying, even though I have told them my story, stuttering through it, terrified of getting it wrong. Not a word out of place, I told myself, this story has to match the one I began to tell Grace as we sat in the airport at Botswana, wrapped in blankets that covered our bloodstained limbs, as the airport security staff telephoned for the police. Both of us slept on the flight home, our heads bent together, wearing strangers’ clothes. Grace held my hand the entire way, our fingers linked as if we were children again. The last two pieces of the chain.
‘Nathaniel and I broke up almost four months ago,’ I say again, wearily, rubbing a hand across my features, as if I am exhausted, as if the relentless questioning is breaking me down. ‘Our relationship had become… difficult.’
‘You said before that he was abusive towards you?’
I nod, keep my eyes on the coffee cup. There’s a chip in the side of it, stark white against the black. I wonder how it got there, whether someone lost their temper, hurled it across a room.
‘That’s right, yes. He would inflict both verbal and physical abuse on me, more and more regularly. At first I thought, it was the stress of moving to New York – it started in America, the physical side of things. He had a new job – that’s why we’d gone there – it was a lot more money, a great hospital, but he was under pressure. I told myself it must be that.’
Tears glimmer in my eyes, but I reach up a hand to brush them away. Too soon, I think. The policewoman’s face is devoid of emotion, though I see the way her eyes crease as I speak. Does she feel sorry for me? Is she trying to trip me up?
‘And the abuse was what led your relationship to disintegrate?’
Disintegrate, I think, it’s an interesting choice of word. Nate and I didn’t disintegrate, we blew up. He had an explosive temper, and I suppose so did I.
‘Yes,’ I say, ‘I didn’t think I could take it anymore. I ended things, went to stay with a colleague in Brooklyn. I didn’t know many other people out there – I had no family left. My father had recently passed away. I’d left my friends behind in London.’ I think of them, Grace, Hannah and Alice. Hannah sent me flowers when we left for the US, heavy-headed white lilies, as though I was dying, not moving. I put them in the bin – I don’t like the way the little yellow pods s
tain your clothes. I didn’t think lilies made up for the fact that she’d tried to ruin my future with Nate, told him that I was barren as if the fact was hers to tell.
It turned out he hadn’t cared in the way I’d thought he would – I know now that he never wanted my children anyway. It was Grace he wanted. Grace’s children he pictured when he lay awake at night. Grace’s future.
‘And after that, did Nathaniel attempt to contact you, track you down at all?’
I pause, bite my lip. The seconds tick by in my head, three, two, one.
‘Yes,’ I say, and then I do allow myself to cry, just a little bit, a tear snaking down my cheek. I’m not wearing any make-up, I know I look younger without it. I rub my eyes; an eyelash disengages, comes off painlessly on the back of my hand. Make a wish, I think ludicrously, but it’s too late – I’ve used up all my wishes, now.
‘He wouldn’t accept the break-up,’ I say. ‘He didn’t want things to end between us, he said he was sorry, that he was in the wrong. I suppose – I suppose I didn’t believe that he’d change. He was obsessed with going back to London, he kept talking about it, said he never should have taken the New York job, that it had stressed him out, brought him to the edge of burnout.’ I pause.
‘I realise now he wanted to go back for Grace, that he’d been unable to make the break he’d thought he could. His – focus on her, it hadn’t gone away. Being across the ocean had in fact made it worse.’
The Wild Girls Page 24