Hubble Bubble

by Jane Lovering

  ‘You can’t do this!’

  ‘Yeah? You think?’ His tongue became visible, poking from the corner of his mouth like a little hard-nosed rodent. My fear seemed to be exciting him or at least fuelling some twisted fantasy. ‘Because I think you need to learn some manners, girlie. Need to learn your place.’

  My heart rose and rose until I thought it was going to come out through my ears and I could taste the bitter swell of adrenaline on my tongue. ‘And where would that be, exactly?’ It barely came out, a mere whisper, but I said it and then felt proud, even though my tongue had clacked with dryness over my teeth as I had.

  He pushed his face against mine, so close that I could see the chip in his front tooth and my nose pricked with the rancid scent of wet wool from his coat. ‘Underneath me, darling, that’s where.’ And then he laughed, a harsh spit-spraying laugh that sent flecks of phlegm onto my cheek and he dragged me forward again, tightening his grip on my arm again until my fingers went numb.

  Eventually we stopped in front of a small wooden hut, the kind the farmers use to keep their pheasant feed in and my abductor took a key from his pocket. ‘We’ll be nice and quiet in here,’ he said, as though showing me to a hotel room. ‘No one ever comes out here, except Michael, and I was wondering what to get him for Christmas.’ He swung round suddenly and touched my face. ‘Might be the first year he gets an unwrapped present.’

  Even my skin backed up at the feel of his finger on my cheek. It crept tighter to my bones while I swallowed a sudden flood of saliva and tried to keep myself from vomiting.

  The padlock opened and the door swung inwards. ‘But then, wouldn’t want you freezing to death before Mike gets a go at you. He likes his girls warm and lively; now me, I’m not so fussy. In you go.’ A shove and I overbalanced, toppling into the little hut and banging my knees on the ground. The man was right behind me, a silhouette of evil in the doorway, blocking the light, my air, my escape, his elbows angled oddly until I realised what he was doing – flipping his coat aside to get access to his zip.

  I screamed, just once, a weirdly throaty noise as though it came from a nightmare, heeling myself backwards on the muddy floor until I was tight up against the far wall, splinters rasping at my neck. My fists clenched and I worked my back up the timber as I fought my shaking legs to let me stand, let me fight, while my brain begged me to lie down, play dead, stay still, and breathing and gagging had become the same thing.

  Into the rough quiet a two-tone tune exploded like a gunshot in a mausoleum and the man swore then began fumbling his coat back into place, grabbing through the pockets until he came up with a phone. ‘Shit. What do you want?’ A squawkback of answer. ‘Yeah. I guess. Okay, I’m on my way.’ Two seconds later I was alone, the man gone without a word to me, the door was relocked and I was left perched awkwardly on the muddy floorspace, bile souring my tongue and my breath broken in my throat. I looked around. There was no window, the only light in the hut came from under the door in a narrow slice and the air smelled of birds and plastic.

  After a few frozen seconds I gave in to tears. Pathetic, I know, but it seemed appropriate and gave my body time to get over the shaky, shocked feeling. Then, after a moment’s consideration – I didn’t want to find that he’d only walked a couple of yards and could shoot me through the wood – I hurled myself at the door in case, by some fluke, he hadn’t locked it properly, or I could burst free. But the door opened inwards. Even if I’d been heavy enough to break the hinges, I would have had to be on the other side of it. After that I yelled for a bit, kicking at the door in the hopes that some passing ramblers might hear me and come. They didn’t. When my throat was sore and my eyes were stinging, I slumped down on the claggy earth floor and wondered what I was going to do when my captor came back for me.

  Getting the element of surprise, grabbing the gun and fighting like a bitch was my only option. I felt a bit weak and silly that I’d let him get the drop on me so easily anyway, especially after I’d recognised him. And who was this bastard anyway? What axe did he have to grind with anyone doing whatever they wanted in these woods? So what if my best friend was black? So what if we had been prancing about, invoking Beelzebub? So fucking what?

  But really. What was I going to do? What had so nearly happened hadn’t felt like something I could talk my way out of. My bum was numb and my back ached at the awkward way I had to hunch. The hut was only about six feet square and I couldn’t stretch either out or up. And what was Kai’s involvement with these men? Did he share their cause? And how long had I got before the guy came back, possibly with his friends?

  I indulged myself in another kicking and screaming session, but although it relieved my feelings a bit it didn’t attract any help. The hut was too deep into the woods, too far from any footpaths, and Barndale was too remote for there to be hope of anyone wandering past. My heart skidded again as my generalised fear threatened to spiral down into hysteria and I was suddenly struck with the thought that this guy might come back, rape me, murder me and no one would know where I’d gone. I’d just be … gone. Nicholas, my parents, Meg, Cerys … would they be left forever wondering, forever hoping that I might turn up?

  I lay down on the floor with my face against the gap at the bottom of the door and felt a small draught move my hair. Tears fell hotly, running down into the ground as I lay there feeling stupid. Helpless and stupid. Wishing I still had my mobile, some way of signalling to the world that I was here.

  Come on, Holly. You’re noted for being able to talk your way out, or deal, or … think.

  I cut the self-pity loose and crouched up. The dim, snow-tinted light showed that, apart from half a bag of mouldy-looking grain, the hut contained one wooden pallet with an unopened plastic sack of fertiliser on, two bits of string, a big metal tin that had probably once had something useful in but now contained only a few damp-looking matches, and the wrapper off a Mars Bar which told me I could win a ticket to the 2006 World Cup. Great. I sat on the edge of the pallet with my knees uncomfortably bent double and dug in my pocket. I’d nicked the last of Cerys’s glucose tablets so I wouldn’t starve, and could probably manage to scrape some snow in, so I wasn’t going to spite my captors by being nothing but a freeze-dried corpse when they eventually came back for me. I crunched a tablet, the sweet taste contrasting horribly with my circumstances, and thought.

  It was strange how the prospect of being raped and murdered concentrated my mind, and the melting sugar on my tongue swam around my senses, combining with the free-sky blue of the fertiliser bags until an image clicked into my head. Sweet smoke, lots of attention … Ooh. All that hanging about on film sets might finally be useful. Fertiliser and glucose. I’d been on set for one spectacular bitch-fight between two rival costume guys, where one had bribed some of the backstage boys to build a smoke bomb and set it off in the other’s trailer … I’d seen how it was done. All I had to do was replicate it and I could set up a smoke signal that should be visible to anyone in Barndale Woods. With luck they’d at least come to find out what was on fire in such damp conditions … Well, what was the alternative? Sit here in this damp, chilly little hut until I got terminal rheumatism or raped at gunpoint? I think I’d go with the possibility of blowing my own head off, thanks.

  So I did what I’d been shown how to do. Bearing in mind I’d seen it done by professionals, who’d measured everything and observed all the correct safety procedures, it went surprisingly well for an amateur event, right up until I was trapped in a hut full of sugar-smelling smoke, with a load of burning wooden pallet. The draught came swirling under the door, sucking in oxygen and driving the smoke up and out through the holes in the roof. The fire went out and I started coughing, my breath squeezed out past roughening soreness in my throat as the smoke billowed past me. It stank.

  Just then I heard a sound outside the hut. A soft footstep. I stopped breathing. Tears streamed from my eyes as I tried to hold the coughing for long enough to hear what was going on out there, no voices, just
the sound of someone being quiet. A brief, exploratory shake of the door, and I barely had time to ready myself before an almighty grinding, splintering sound and the door came flying back into the hut, bringing half the frame with it. I ducked past the smoke, kicked out at the coat-shrouded and hooded figure behind it, and ran. Felt my foot connect with a groin but barely had time to register the grunt of pain as my attacker went down and I was running. Racing headlong into the forest, the snow dragging at my feet, tipping me into drifts that I almost burned my way out of with fear; no idea of where I was going or how many I was escaping from, just head down, panic-stricken running as fast as my smoke-congested lungs and my snow-braked boots would allow.

  I sprinted for as long as I could, muscles stretched with fear and my hearing supernaturally alert for the sound of gunshots or pursuit. Ran, weaving through the trees, until with my chest groaning and wheezing I slid down into a hollow surrounded by huge oaks and filled with the cast-off leaves of centuries. There I collapsed. My ribs ached, my legs had no strength left in them and I had the horrible feeling that I’d run back towards Dodman’s Hill rather than away from it. I lay flat, on top of melting snow and surrounded by plastic sheeting and loose earth, gasping as quietly as I could.

  After a few minutes, when my breathing had eased, I heard a voice.

  ‘Holly?’ It was a cautious whisper.

  ‘Kai!’ Kai? What on earth was he doing out here?

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Down here,’ I threw a meagre handful of leaves up into the air. It was the only act I had strength for. ‘In this hole.’

  ‘Jesus.’ There was a moment of scrambling activity on the lip of the depression, then Kai appeared, gingerly sliding his way down to me, bent in half. ‘How did you get here?’

  ‘I ran. I was in a hut and …’

  ‘Yeah. You kick like a mule, you know that?’

  ‘That was you? With the door?’

  Kai winced and rubbed a tentative hand across his pelvis. ‘Which is why it took me so long to follow your tracks through the snow. Whatever happened to asking questions first?’

  ‘I thought you were him! I thought he’d come back with the gun to rape me and if I didn’t get out first chance I had then I probably wouldn’t ever get away,’ I let the words splurge, coasting on relief and spare adrenaline.

  ‘Ssshh.’ Kai put a finger over my lips. ‘He might still be around, and if I can track you, he can. Can you walk?’

  I gave a half-hysterical giggle. ‘Better than you probably.’

  ‘Come on then.’

  ‘Where?’ I found myself digging my feet into the loamy compost. ‘You just said that guy might be still around. I don’t want to …’

  Kai faced me and smiled. It was a rather grim smile. ‘We’ll go back to the Old Lodge. You said you’d come and see Cerys this morning, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, but …’

  ‘Holly, I need to talk to you. And I want you where I can see you when I’m doing it. Or, at least, both your feet.’ He glanced at his groin and let out a little pfffft sound. ‘Bloody hurts.’ He started moving, hit his stride and I might as well have stood on the beach and shouted at the tide for all the notice he took of my protestations. In an echo of my previous abduction his fingers were curled around my arm in an unbreakable grip and he was dragging me along.

  ‘Please don’t hold on to me.’

  Without speaking he broke his hold and held both hands up, fingers spread. Showing he meant no harm, or was it annoyance? I didn’t care. My limbs were trembling with relief and unaccustomed exertion and I couldn’t keep up now without him towing me. I began to lag.

  ‘Hurry up.’

  ‘There’s still two feet of snow lying here and I’m not wearing seven-league boots.’ It probably sounded sharper than I’d meant. Panic was only just now seeping out of my blood. ‘Just because you’ve got abnormal legs …’

  He surprised me by slowing down. ‘Sorry. I want you somewhere safe.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘We’ll talk when we’re under cover. Now, come on, we don’t want them coming back and tracking both of us down. Can you run again?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  A cautious, cool hand slipped over my wrist. His fingers wound through mine tentatively. ‘How about if I help?’

  ‘It’s worth a try.’ I took a deep breath and kept up as, dodging from large tree to large tree like Wile E. Coyote, and slipping and sliding like really bad Dancing on Ice contestants, Kai raced me through the woods until we came upon the reassuringly gargoyle shape of the Old Lodge. He yanked me through the front door and we fell in a panting, messy heap on the hall floor.

  ‘Wow. Olympics here we come,’ I said, leaning forward to try to get rid of the stitch. ‘Mind you I’m not sure the four mile ski-drag is an accepted sport yet. Perhaps we should appeal …’

  ‘Holly, I know you’re in shock, but please shut up.’ Kai was puffing too, I was glad to see. All those years of debauchery had clearly left him no fitter than I was. ‘We need to talk.’

  Cerys shouted down from upstairs. ‘Holly, is that you? You coming to say hello, or what?’

  ‘She’s talking to me for a bit,’ Kai called back, and there was a moment’s pause.

  ‘Oh. Oh! Right, yep, get it, you go for it girl. And don’t take any of his bullshit, he fancies you something chronic so you get your demands in first.’ Her door opened and her voice became clearer. ‘I’m up to my ears in here in shit and background noise, so you two let loose and get it out of your systems, and then come in and give me a hand. Oh, Zac, no, not again …’ and the door closed.

  Kai and I closed our mouths, looked at one another and grinned, then realised simultaneously that our hands were still joined, and there was a moment of slightly embarrassed disentwining. ‘Kitchen?’ I asked, trying to pretend that it hadn’t been at all awkward.

  ‘I think so.’ He led the way and went straight to the kettle. ‘And tea, for some reason.’

  I didn’t say anything. I watched him starting to make tea, being domesticated and comforting, even though I now knew he was the kind of guy who kicks in doors. And my inner feminist protested wildly, but it was nice to be able to sit, hands clamped between my knees to stop them from shaking, tears worrying away at the back of my throat, and know I was safe because of this man. The man who’d also driven through near Alaskan blizzards to find my brother, the man who’d been there when I’d needed him. My opinion of Kai Rhys had changed quite a lot since I’d met him.

  He filled the kettle and came to sit on the stool beside me. ‘Right. That talk.’

  ‘What are we talking about?’ I cleared my throat of the lump of shock and tried to ignore the fact that he’d put himself so close that our legs touched under the table.

  ‘Look.’ He stared at his hands and twisted the ring on his thumb. ‘Those guys.’ A deep breath. ‘Holly, you’re caught up in something … Look, what I do, it’s …’

  ‘You’re a journalist.’

  ‘Yes, but more than that. I’m an in-ves … come on, play with me here.’

  ‘Not right now,’ I said tartly, and he smiled. ‘You’re an investigative journalist. And a bastard.’

  ‘In a nutshell. But – I’ve got the knack, teasing out the stories, and when I moved in here and found out about …’

  ‘Why pick on here to live?’ I could feel his arm against mine, see the slight prick of silver earring behind his hair. I was too aware of him, that was the problem. ‘It’s the back of beyond.’ I was shaking. Delayed reaction, or just Kai? Didn’t know, couldn’t tell.

  A small shrug. ‘Because … when I was found, underneath the Daily Mail there was a small scrap of a local paper, the Gazette and Herald. And I always wondered, was it meant as some kind of clue? Was it something she did subconsciously to lead me here? But …’ another shrug. ‘It was something. Something I felt I had to follow. Anyway. Even though I didn’t move for work … more to get away from it … I came here, a
nd there was this bunch.’

  The kettle shrilled and he stood up. Carried on talking with his back to me and I wondered if it was deliberate, if he was making himself busy. ‘Oh, they’re nasty. They’ve already kicked a lad so hard he’s still in hospital. Ruptured his kidneys because they caught him and his boyfriend in the woods. The boyfriend legged it, luckily, went and got help but they hadn’t seen anything, just masked shapes coming out of the trees.’

  ‘So, how do you know …?’

  He brought two mugs to the table. ‘People talk, if you know the right people. And I wondered, you know, about these guys, about what it was that they were doing up there in the woods, what was so important that they had to walk around with guns and scare the shit out of anyone who moved off the official footpaths. I had a good idea, but I got it confirmed by some – well, not friends, but people. But, you know, hearsay is no proof, so …’ As he passed me my mug he touched the back of my hand with his thumb.

  I wrapped both hands around the reassuringly hot china and stared into the downward spiralling of the swirling liquid. My insides felt as though they were spiralling down after it. ‘So what has this got to do with me?’

  He sat back beside me again. ‘Holly. I was watching. I’ve got a telescope set up’—a wave towards the stairs—‘on the roof. Keeping an eye on Dodman’s Hill. And then I saw you getting grabbed.’ His breathing stuttered and his words broke.

  ‘You’ve got a telescope on the roof?’ I drank some tea, giving myself time to feel my way around this conversation. ‘Wow. Seriously pervy.’

  A sudden sharp grin. ‘Yeah. ’Cause those courting couples are tearing their clothes off and shagging up there in their thousands, what with it being the middle of winter and fifteen degrees below freezing.’ He raised his mug and his hand was shaking almost as much as mine. ‘I came down off that roof so fast that Cerys actually thought I’d fallen down the stairs. You can ask her if you don’t believe me.’