Shadows to Ashes

by Tori de Clare

  The cot next to Annabel’s bed was made up with a fitted sheet, quilted cover, blanket draped over the side. A new pram was folded up beneath the window. Beside it was a car seat. She had a Moses basket, baby bath and several drawers full of baby clothes, plus a cupboard full of nappies and general baby essentials. And still she didn’t feel prepared. In fact, she was perpetually plagued by the scratchy feeling that she’d missed something important.

  For days now, Annabel had been sorting through all the stuff in her room – hers and the baby’s. Filing, organising, rearranging. She cleaned her bathroom first thing every morning and wiped her sink every time she used it. All of it was an attempt to rid herself of the uneasy impression that she was ill-prepared, that there was more that should be done. While nothing that she did quite cleansed her of the feeling, keeping things dirt-free and sterilised unburdened her a little.

  So at twenty minutes past three on a quiet afternoon, eleven days ahead of her due date, seventeen minutes after making an appointment to see Dan, she was shocked to find her belly tightening involuntarily as she stood in the kitchen, pouring hot water onto a teabag. She put the kettle down and stood still, powerless to do anything but observe what was happening. As she checked the time, a thought occurred to her that maybe this was it – the very thing she’d never been able to pin down, the event for which she could never feel properly ready. It was the baby itself. Not the endless things the baby needed, all of which had been taken care of, but this! This clenching of her muscles, sneaking up on her without warning when it wasn’t time! When she wasn’t ready.

  She was tempted to panic. To rush for her phone, yell her parents, call Naomi and Joel. But she stood calmly, not moving, her legs aching a little, telling herself that, chances were, it was insignificant. Those practice contraction thingies. The name escaped her because her mind was annoyingly blank. The tightening loosened, then passed. There’d been no pain. When she thought about it, the baby hadn’t moved much all day. She began to wonder if he’d moved at all. Feeling a little queasy, she carried on making her drink, then she took it up to her room.

  Her mum’s shoes clipped the hall floor. She shouted Henry who replied from somewhere downstairs. Annabel picked up her phone and carefully lowered herself into a chair and looked out of the window at a clear sky, wondrously blue. She felt as though she was hoarding a secret and that it was best not to share it. Not yet.

  Forty minutes later, her parents were bickering in the hall, making a big deal of a small thing while Annabel found that her tummy muscles were hardening again. The sky didn’t change shade. The sun was still happily blazing and Annabel continued to breathe, to carefully check the time, to count the seconds. After twenty or so, she was released again and the tightness lost its grip and fell away and the day went on its way as if nothing much had happened.

  On Annabel’s horizon, anxiety came into view. A dot in the distance, but it was drawing nearer, growing, bringing the cavalry – a crowd of questions. What if this happens quickly, before I can get help? What if Joel doesn’t come? What if Naomi remains as she has been for weeks, distant and out of reach! What if something goes wrong? What if I can’t deal with the pain?

  She stood up, walked to the window, looked out without seeing anything, paced the room. Everything was orderly, tidy, clean, ready. No obvious reason to panic, but she felt uneasy.

  Thirty-five minutes passed before the next approach. Just a little stronger. Clung on a little longer. Seemed to spread from the front and get hold of the muscles in her back this time too. She leant against the windowsill until the tension eased, then took a pencil and paper and began to scribble notes. What had happened and when. Her mind seemed so incapable of focussing, she was worried that details would escape somehow.

  At seven minutes past five, it visited again, holding on long enough to inflict the first discomfort.

  ‘Ow,’ she said, holding her stomach, leaning against the sink in her bathroom, determined to assess the damn thing. That one had been three seconds longer than the last one, though when the tide was going out, it was difficult to keep track of the exact point at which the tightening vanished completely. Still, she was sure it was longer. Definitely stronger. She’d read about this many times. It could still be those Braxton thingies.

  She grabbed her baby book and sat in the chair and turned to chapter seven, entitled, The Onset of Labour – When the Real Work Begins. She read about Braxton Hicks versus actual labour. Even having read several pages, she still couldn’t decide what was going on. It was way too soon to alert her parents. She didn’t want her dad suffocating her, as he had the past few weeks, following her around like she was a small kid, fussing her unbearably. But maybe it was time to call Joel.

  Her phone was in her hand. As she leafed through her contacts for Joel, fingers trembling slightly, she felt the approach of another contraction and braced herself.

  ‘Here we go again.’

  She closed her eyes and concentrated on relaxing her muscles, then she breathed deeply and steadily while she monitored her body and what it was doing. She wanted this to stop, come back another day. It didn’t. The discomfort mounted, approaching the point of pain, but falling just short. How would this feel four, five hours from now?

  She dismissed the thought. Too terrifying. She wondered if it would help to walk around the room. It didn’t, but her muscles began to unclench. Normality returned, which brought relief.

  She pressed Joel’s number and three rings later:

  ‘Hey, Annabel, you OK?’

  She filled her lungs with air, though room inside her was tight.

  ‘Can you come please? I think it’s started.’

  ‘What? What’s happening?’

  ‘The baby’s coming, that’s what,’ she snapped. ‘Can you just get here now?’ Her tone softened. ‘I’m really scared.’

  ‘Oh babe, don’t be. I’ll be there soon, right? Everything will be OK. I promise.’

  ***

  Naomi didn’t put her shoes on. She was clasping the keys so tightly to prevent them from making sound, they dug into her hand.

  In bare feet, she left her room and locked the door. She stole soundlessly to Vincent’s door and leant an ear towards it. Silence. Without certainty or confidence, she tiptoed away and began to descend the stairs. Every step, she questioned what she was doing. Creeping around was more likely to alert Vincent, if he was awake. He’d become suspicious. Was it better just to move freely?

  She didn’t know. Just kept doing what she was doing, without being able to justify it. As noiselessly as possible, she unlocked the front door and wondered if she’d ever done anything as stupid as this. It was certainly up there in the nominations. As she opened the door, she was having flashbacks to her abduction. The cellar. Moving in to Vincent’s house at midnight. Nothing that had happened quite compared with the gravity of this moment. It was madness of the absolute kind but it might be her last chance to fight for Dan.

  Her thoughts were distracting her, which may have been a good thing because she suddenly found herself outside without having consciously left the house. She was fully aware now though, of everything. She glanced up at the brilliant blue sky. The sun seemed to fill it. It troubled her, this scene. The day was too clear. Too bright. The sun too all-seeing. Would great fingers of light point her out, showing Vincent where she was?

  It felt odd to be outside, to be free. She eased the door shut. Turned the key. She slithered along the front of the house, ducking as she passed the lounge window. At the garage door, she stood, took stock. She was out of breath. Her head felt light. She could still return to her room, lock the door. Hide away. While she knew she wouldn’t – that she hadn’t come this far not to take her chance – she couldn’t muster the guts to lift the garage door either.

  Hands trembling, glancing a look across the face of the house, she held a hand out in front of her and managed, with some difficulty, to pin the button down. The garage door began to lift. It was making
a noise. She hadn’t noticed before that it wasn’t soundless, but right now, it seemed to be screaming, straining what limited voice it had to alert Vincent to her presence here.

  ‘Please, no,’ she whispered.

  She lost her nerve and stopped pressing. She looked left and right. Waiting, waiting. The door was up twelve inches or so. Not far enough to let her through. No one came. When a car sauntered past, she lifted the door another twelve inches, until silence resumed. She decided that the gap would have to do. She couldn’t risk more noise. She crouched down and tried to duck beneath, but it wasn’t high enough. She lay down, rolled under, couldn’t quite believe she was lying in the gloom of the garage having escaped the sun.

  She didn’t stand immediately. She stayed on the floor, listening for sounds of doors, footsteps, looking for those shoes of Solomon’s. A couple of minutes passed and nothing moved. She had her finger on the remote in case a car came by, so she could lower the door. Didn’t happen.

  Eventually, she stood. She was committed now. If he found her in here, there’d be no squirming out. Best to move quickly, to allow a few short minutes to hunt around, gather what she could. She ran on tiptoes to the keypad in the far corner. She had to fumble with the cover first. Again, she looked at the door, at the gash of light at the bottom. She watched for shadows, listened intently for signs that she’d been caught. Nothing but the snare drum in her chest.

  Just do it. Move.

  Four digits. She pressed them and the door began to shift. She threw a look over her shoulder to find that nothing had changed. The door stopped moving, revealing the narrow entry, the plastered wall lined with concrete steps. She didn’t try to talk herself out of it now. At this point the only objective was to hurry, to complete the task, to get the hell out.

  She wondered if this was really her, flying up these steps, injected by the levels of adrenaline that could have fuelled a rocket. Her head felt dizzy with disbelief. Only a few minutes before, she’d been a dead weight on her bed with everything in ruins. Now, she was taking hold of the door handle and trespassing through the entrance of Vincent’s Holy of Holies, right under his nose.

  She flicked on the light, gently closed the door. Not that it mattered now, but it was instinctive to seal the door behind her. Her eyes surveyed the room, scanning details. Everything was just as she remembered, the table and chair, the sewing machine, the headless manikin, the row of cupboards, a safe on top.

  Her eyes fixed on those cupboards and her legs carried her to them. She opened the first door and the interior exhaled in her face. It was the scent of wood and aging paper and danger. She put her hand on the photographs again and decided immediately that there was no time to study them. Her focus now was Dan. What did Vincent have here that could salvage Dan’s future? Apart from photographs and sewing materials and the lid to the sewing machine on the table, the cupboards held nothing fascinating.

  She looked over her shoulder at the room. It was compact. No further hiding places. She refused to accept that there was nothing here, nothing to find. She studied the ceiling, looking for ways into whatever space there was above her. She saw perfectly smooth plaster, painted white. The floor! A lightning thought that had her looking down, carefully examining every inch of the place, crawling on her hands and knees, looking for an opening. She didn’t find one. She didn’t find anything. No dirt at all, not on the floor or on Vincent Solomon.

  Panic was seizing her a little now. She needed to leave and she needed to stay, which started a conflict. She couldn’t stay, and she found she couldn’t leave. Out of options, she returned to the row of cupboards and opened all four doors. Were the cupboards attached to the walls? Could they be pulled out? After some tugging and pulling, she was convinced that they were bolted to the wall and couldn’t be budged.

  She was losing hope as she removed the big envelope full of photos. Then something caught her eye on the cupboard floor, something she’d never seen on any of Vincent’s furniture. Small scratches. She leant into the cupboard and found little scores that looked like they’d been made with a knife.

  Pumped with purpose at last, she hunted around for something long and slender. Unlikely she’d find a knife in here. She rifled through the sewing materials and unearthed a wide-eyed, three-inch needle. Beside the scratches in the cupboard was a small groove. She dug the blunt end of the needle into the crevice and tried to push back and lift, but there wasn’t enough of the needle to grip onto and the visible end was sharp.

  She returned the needle and continued to search until she found a small pair of scissors. She opened them up and thrust one of the sharp blades into the tiny opening. It wouldn’t dig down as far as she wanted, but at least she had something to hold onto. She began to press down and at the same time, lever the scissor handles back, in order to lift. The base of the cupboard moved a millimetre. She let out a gasp, but at the same time, lost her grip and the scissors slipped out of her hands.

  Her hands were moist with perspiration. She didn’t know how long she’d been in here. Twenty seconds? Twenty minutes? She drew a couple of deep breaths and resumed the task of trying to lift the cupboard base. A vibration against her leg made her jump. The scissors escaped her grasp a second time. What if Vincent was texting her, asking where she was? Her hands shook. She took her phone from her pocket. A message from Annabel which made her jaw fall open. A whimper caught in her throat.

  Where are you? Rung 3 times. I’m in labour. I wasn’t sure, but then I had a ‘show’ – a disgusting slimy thing that basically means I’ve started to dilate. Joel’s here. Going to the hospital soon. It’s getting painful and the contractions are getting stronger. It’s horrible, Naomi. Not like I imagined. COME NOW!!!

  The colours in the room faded; the light dimmed as if there was so much in her head, it was blocking her sight. She closed her eyes and saw an image of Annabel, screaming in pain. She tried to shake the vision away and found that she was moving her head from side to side. She felt quite sick. Her hands tingled and juices flooded her mouth. She sucked in oxygen, emptied her lungs. Repeated the process, one difficult breath at a time, until the feeling slunk back and she could open her eyes again.

  The scissors were in front of her, and beneath the scratched wood lay something important. She had to know what it was. If it took the last of her strength she’d prise the wood away. She seized the scissors and opened them up again and began vigorously to shove down with the blade and lift up. It popped suddenly, came clean off and jammed vertically in the gap. Shocked, she took hold of a square of wood and set it down outside the cupboard. Inside the floorboards was a dark cavity. There was something there. She found the torch on her phone and shone it in the little grave. A buried folder, black and dirty.

  She lifted it out, which patterned the dusty cover with fingerprints. She didn’t care. Just had to know what was inside. It was bulky and heavy. She set it down on the floor behind her and knelt over it and opened it up.

  A tide of information washed over her on the first page. She was looking at the picture of a man with his eyes closed, as if he was asleep. Beneath was a station of facts, neatly recorded by hand, in Vincent’s handwriting. Philip Wallace QC. His age, height, weight, blood group, family members and their names and occupations. There was a plastic wallet with a rag soaked in blood, an envelope. Beside it, it said, saliva sample. In a small brown envelope taped to the page, there was a ring.

  ‘What is this?’ she whispered.

  On the next page she discovered a woman called Juliet Knowles, DC. A policewoman? She looked familiar. Naomi had seen her at the police station. Again, the page contained a photograph with Juliet Knowles looking another way, oblivious. More blood, more saliva, more facts and figures and information about Juliet Knowles. Some silky material. Fingerprints on a fork which had been dusted white and was in a clear plastic wallet.

  Mesmerised, Naomi turned another page and Nathan was looking directly at her, fully aware he was having a picture taken. Beside it, it
said, deceased. There were samples of this and that. A sock, a scrap of material dyed in blood, hair samples in a small envelope. Fingernails.

  So this is how he built his team. He groomed them, offered to pay them well in return for complete loyalty and inside information and favours, then he marked them, stole samples of their DNA and their private lives when they were unaware, and made careful and thorough investigations of their families. Then, armed and ready, he took ownership. If he fell, they’d fall too. So he was king. Untouchable. This was Solomon’s game, his world. This is how he could attach the blame to anyone he chose. This is how he’d framed Dan. Question was: how many of these people were willing participants and how many, like Dan, had had no choice?

  She flicked through the pages. Dan Stone, in prison. There were samples of everything from saliva to blood. A photograph of Dan was in front of her. Dan was lying on a bed, topless, asleep, a new tattoo on his arm, taken at a time that Solomon had stolen from Dan. One night of Dan’s life, of which he had no knowledge or recollection. She touched his face with her fingers and felt an unbearable aching for Dan. Tears sprang up in her eyes, but her heartbeat was racing, a constant reminder that she was stalling when she couldn’t afford to.

  She reluctantly turned the page. Leon Chambers, pawn. Damien Carter, permanently out, Noel Beresford, pawn. Name after name. Reams of private profiles and personal belongings and information. A prison officer, a lawyer, a crime scene investigator, an MP. More names, more faces, more than she could absorb. Then, near the end, a page with a picture which almost stopped her heart – the key to Solomon’s game. Henry Hamilton’s daughter. A tsunami of blood crashed through her as she read the carefully recorded details. Her pulse raged in her ears.

  There was a shivering sensation on her back, that feeling you get when you become conscious that you’re no longer alone, when fine hairs lift like antennae and take notice. Her world seemed to scroll up. She froze, not daring to breathe. She didn’t want to look behind her, but she had to. She forced her neck to rotate. A figure was standing in the doorway, watching her. She dropped the scissors, which she wasn’t aware she was still holding, and almost lost control of her bladder.