‘As I went to draw Katie’s curtains, I noticed a pale-coloured car coming down the lane. Maybe if Katie hadn’t noticed that white car, I wouldn’t have lingered at the window to look, but I did and I saw that this car pulled up for a moment, then it slowly and quietly drove through the five-bar gate into the drive. I knew there was something odd, but I couldn’t work out what. I could hardly see because it had got so dark by then, but I knew it wasn’t our car. I thought it might be the one Katie kept seeing, but I also wondered if it could be Katya’s dad at last.
‘But then I realised what was weird – it was nearly fully dark outside and this car was driving with no lights on.’
Joe’s frowning and chewing his lip. He would have been suspicious, I can tell. If only I’d been more suspicious. If only I’d rung Mum instead of standing and watching.
‘I squinted through the window, and Katie was nagging me and pulling at my sleeve to know what was going on. Four men got out of the car – three with balaclavas on and one with his still in his hand. The security light at the side of Katya’s cottage was on and I got a good look at him before he pulled his balaclava on like the rest. They stood talking for a moment and looking up at the light – I think they were trying to decide whether to break it or not.
‘I froze. I didn’t know what to do and I didn’t have a clue what was going to happen. The awful thing is, even if I had known I think I’d still have stood there rooted to the spot like a fool.’
He rubs my arm slowly. ‘What did happen next?’
‘The one who put his balaclava on last went to knock on the door while the others hid at either side of the porch. I just stood there watching. Katya’s shadow disappeared from the bedroom and then just after, the light came on in the hall and the front door opened. I guess she thought it was probably me.
‘As I watched, the guy grabbed her and I saw him shoot something from a syringe into her arm. The police told me it was a knock-out drug. She didn’t have a chance to fight. I saw her pull back, but the man stepped inside and pushed her against the door, and the other men followed him to get hold of her and she went limp. I saw her head lolling as they lifted her out of the porch and bundled her into the car.’
‘You saw that guy’s face before he put his balaclava on – you can identify him!’
‘Yes.’
His face appears in my dreams all the time. The short brown hair, the wide, fleshy face with its slightly pitted skin, almost good-looking in a rough way, but not quite because the expression is too hard and cold for that.
‘So that’s why you’re here. You saw them and you’re in danger,’ he says grimly. ‘So what happened next?’
‘They carried her to the car. One of them turned off the hall light and closed the door. It was so fast, Joe, and nobody made a sound.’
‘You couldn’t have done anything. Those guys were professionals, weren’t they?’
‘Yes. The police said they were hired by enemies of her dad and they kidnapped her to hold her to ransom. I don’t properly understand what he was involved in, but he made some bad enemies because of some business deal and they were after money and revenge. I don’t think what he did was illegal, but he upset the wrong kind of people. People he should never have messed with, one of the detectives told me.’
‘You see, you couldn’t have done anything.’ He puts his arm round me consolingly.
I pull back a little to look at his face, all worried and upset for me. ‘Oh, but I did. I did do something.’
Joe’s taken aback. ‘What did you do?’
‘I stopped them.’
His mouth drops open. ‘You did what?’
‘When I saw them bundling her into the car, I kind of unfroze. Suddenly I got really mad. I ran downstairs and grabbed the first weapon I could see – my dad’s big metal torch. Then I ran outside. The strange thing is I was mad, but somehow mad and logical like a part of my brain I didn’t know existed took over and acted for me.’
He looks thoughtful. ‘Hmm, I think I know what you mean. Go on.’
‘So I ran towards the car, squinting to see the number plate – and I could only just make it out in the darkness, but I’ve never forgotten it. One of the men saw me and shouted, and the one getting into the car with him pulled something out of his pocket. I knew it was a gun even though I couldn’t see. It didn’t stop me though. He fired into the grass near me, to scare me, I guess.’
‘Shit, Holly!’
‘Yes, I don’t know what came over me. I just kept going. As the car whizzed around, I smashed the torch through their windscreen. The back door flew open and I could hear them yelling inside and I knew they’d shoot again so I ran for the road. I don’t know what I thought I was going to do. I remember thinking, Please let Katie stay indoors, please! and hoping the noise would keep her away.’
‘Where was she? Still in her bedroom.’
‘No, she’d followed me downstairs. I’d left my mobile on the table and Katie picked it up when she heard the yelling and the shot. She rang Mum on speed dial and said, “There are bad men here, Mummy, and Boo-Boo needs help.”
‘That was all Mum needed. They ran for the car and Dad phoned the police en route. Because Katie would never say anything like that normally. She mightn’t understand everything, but she knows that guns are very bad.’
‘So you ran for the road?’
‘Like I said, I didn’t know what I was doing. But you know how sometimes you just come up lucky? My guardian angel must have been working overtime that night because I hurtled out on to the road as all the commotion was going on and there was a row of tractor things coming down it – those big harvesty-type machines – you would know what they are – four in a convoy. The first one stopped when I ran into the beam of its headlights and the man was leaning out to yell at me when the gun went off again behind me. I must have looked pretty freaked.’
‘Hell, yes, Holly! Who wouldn’t?’
‘He waved and yelled at me to get into the cab with him so I ran up, scrambled in and screamed, “Block the gate!” He slewed the tractor thing round in the lane and drove it at the gate.’
Joe punched the air. ‘The lights of course! Clever girl!’
‘Yes.’ I allowed myself a smile. ‘They dazzled the guys in the car.’
‘They would. If you put a harvester on full beam it’ll blind anyone in front of it. They have to be bright so you can see in the fields at night.’
‘The guy with the gun started shooting at the tractor. I yelled to the man in the cab that they had my friend and he drove the tractor straight at the gateway and wedged them in. Then he pulled me out of the cab with him and told me to run. The men behind were bailing out of their machines and running too. I could hear the kidnappers shouting from behind the hedge and I was praying Katie didn’t come out of the house. One of the farmers was calling the police as we ran down the lane.’
‘Holly, that’s . . . it’s . . . you must have been terrified.’
‘I just kept going without thinking.’
‘They’d obviously had Katya under surveillance – that’s what the white car was about, right?’
‘Yes. He’d been watching and waiting and feeding information back to them. Anyway, once we got halfway down the lane I realised I had to go back for Katie. I couldn’t leave her there. And then I heard one of them shouting, “I’m going to blow her brains out in front of you, bitch, and then I’m going to finish you.” He meant Katya, but of course at the time I thought he meant Katie so I started to run back. One of the farmers tried to stop me but I dodged him – I was desperate to get back to her even though I didn’t know what I was going to do.’
‘Aw, babe.’ Joe pulls me into a tight hug and I realise I’m close to tears again, but this is the first time I’ve talked about it since I told the police and I remember it so well. The noise and the terror that they had Katie and how scared Katie would be and what they were doing to her . . .
I lean against Joe’s shoulder and desp
ite what I’m feeling I find myself breathing him in again and it slows my racing heart down a little.
‘I ran back down the side of the hedge until I could see the car. All the men were out of it – I could see them really clearly in the tractor lights but they couldn’t see me. Two of the men had jumped into the tractor to try to get it started while the one with the gun was standing on the drive screaming at them to move faster. He was waving the gun about, threatening to shoot them if they didn’t get it started in the next five seconds.’
‘They didn’t have Katie though?’
‘No.’ I snuggled my head round out of his shoulder so I could speak better. ‘No, and when I looked, the front door of our cottage was closed and I’d definitely left it open when I ran out, so she’d hidden inside. That’s when I realised it was Katya he’d been yelling about and she was still in the car.’
He hugs me again. ‘No wonder you have nightmares.’
‘Everything went even more insane then. There was this massive noise from above and lights in the sky and the men were yelling even more, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying over all the racket.’
‘What was it?’
‘A police helicopter looking for a stolen car when the call came about us. It got scrambled to assess the scene before any other officers got there. The kidnappers finally got the tractor started and backed it up enough to get their car out, then they all piled in again and shot off down the road with the helicopter in pursuit. Mum and Dad got back a few minutes later. I’d run into the house to find Katie – she was hiding behind the sofa with the mobile phone and was totally hysterical. The tractors were still blocking the lane so Mum and Dad had to abandon their car to get to us. It took forever for a police car to reach us, and then even longer for news to come about what had happened.’
‘About Katya? She was still in the car when they took off, right?’
‘Yes. The police officers who got there first stayed with us. They got the news from the helicopter radioed through as it happened. It followed the car into Devon and the kidnappers went up on Dartmoor. When they got right out on to the moors, they stopped the car and threw Katya out, then drove off again. The helicopter couldn’t follow because they had to stay to help her. They couldn’t leave or the cars on the ground might never have found her in time.’
‘I suppose the kidnappers knew that.’
‘Totally. The police said that’s why they went up there with her. By the time the helicopter guided in someone to help her, they’d got away and abandoned the car. The police said they got picked up in another car. Perhaps it was prearranged, or perhaps they phoned for help.’
‘So was Katya OK when she came round from the drug they gave her?’
I can see her face again in the police photos. Eyes closed, face white, the trickle of blood by her ear, all captured in the lights they shone on her while she lay unconscious on the moorland grass. ‘No, she wasn’t OK. She never came round.’
I see the shock on his face. ‘She’s dead?’
‘No, not dead.’ I hate saying the words. I hate it because it makes it true all over again. ‘She’s in a coma. She has brain damage. She was pistol-whipped before the kidnappers threw her out of the car. They say she might never come out of it. Maybe it was revenge because they got interrupted. Maybe they did it because of what I did.’ I bury my head in his shoulder again to see if having him so close can make it better a second time.
‘You think they hurt her like that because you stepped in?’
‘Yes.’
‘Babe, they would probably have done it anyway if they wanted to get back at her dad. They don’t care what they do to anyone. It means nothing to them. They’ve lost what made them human. So did the police catch them?’
‘Not the guy whose face I saw, but the police did link him to two of his accomplices and they got arrested. They squealed on their bosses when they knew how long they were facing in prison. I think they get a reduced sentence and witness protection too when they get out. But the police said they still need me to testify because my statement’s more reliable than a criminal’s.’
I’m exhausted by going through the story. I feel drained and empty and I want to feel something else.
I don’t want the past.
I want the now. And I know who I want.
I reach across and tilt Joe’s chin around. His eyes widen as he realises what I’m about to do. But he doesn’t pull away. That’s the important thing.
He leans in. My lips brush his. I’ve never kissed a boy first before. I hear his intake of breath when our mouths make contact. His fingers touch my face softly, like I’m precious.
I feel something. I don’t know what it is, but it’s new and so strong that I am engulfed by it. I don’t want this kiss to stop. Every cell in my body hums with life, with awareness of me and of him.
It’s . . . beautiful.
I feel stupid for being so . . . mushy . . . but it . . . he . . . is so different to how it’s been with every other boy I’ve kissed.
It’s that rightness thing again.
He pulls back and looks at me with dark, dark eyes. How could I not notice how amazing his eyes are? And it seems like he’s just as amazed by me.
‘I thought this was never going to happen,’ he whispers.
‘Did you want it to?’ I whisper back.
‘Yeah,’ he says with a snort. ‘Of course.’
‘Since when?’
He flushes red. ‘Since I saw you outside your house that day you were moving in.’
‘You gave me evils then!’
He grins at me. ‘Yeah, but I still wanted you.’
I give up attempting to understand and kiss him again, and again, and again.
So the coach was buzzing about me and Joe all the way home from the theme park. Well, it was pretty obvious. I was snuggled up to him for the whole journey. He even stroked my hair while I fell asleep on his shoulder at one point and he didn’t care who saw.
He walked me home and kissed me goodnight on the doorstep and it was as awesome as it is in the old films they put on at Christmas.
Tasha would shriek if she could see me with him. I’d get so lectured about not letting him get the upper hand and thinking he had me where he wanted me. But for the first time I don’t care. I want us on an equal footing. No games. I like it like this.
‘What really scares me,’ I told him as we walked home, ‘is the trial. It’s in August and I’ll have to stand up and testify against them and go through it all again.’
‘And after that?’ He held me tight as if he was afraid of the answer.
‘After that, I’ll still be in witness protection. It’s a forever thing for us all. But it’ll be better after the trial because that won’t always be at the back of my mind. I can move on but I’ll always be Holly now and never who I was before.’
‘What was your name?’
I hesitated for just a fraction of a second before I said, ‘Louisa.’
He stroked the hair off my face and looked at me. ‘I like Holly better.’
And I smiled at him. ‘So do I. Now.’
Once the exams start, it’s pretty heavy going from day to day. They’re broken up by half-term, but that’s not a holiday, just an extended last blast of revision before the final slog. I have 17th June, my last exam, circled in red on my calendar and the 19th is in purple because that’s when Joe finishes.
Mum comments on how we’re hardly apart, but she’s not complaining because we’re working so hard. Although I have to admit, hourly revision breaks have got more interesting lately and I haven’t at all changed my opinion of how he kisses.
If I was mailing Tasha now, I’d tell her that being with him is so easy; he makes me happy; I like being his girlfriend. I’m pretty close to liking everything about him. Except the music. I’ll never like the music. He’s still not feeling the love for Beyoncé either.
When an exam feels like it didn’t go too well, he’s there with a
hug to make it better. When I’m so tired my head hurts and I can’t keep my eyes open any longer, he takes the English book off me and reads it to me because I won’t give up until I’ve been through it one more time for tomorrow’s exam.
He’s awesome.
And when I remember what I thought the first time I saw him, I have to laugh. How screwed up wrong can you be?
When we finish our exams, Dad pays for us to go out for a meal at the newly opened Chinese restaurant in the village, and he buys us a bottle of champagne to share later.
Joe makes me laugh in the restaurant by pulling my chair out for me and holding my coat for me to put on when we leave. He ignores me when I giggle – he doesn’t care and he’s doing it anyway because that’s how he wants it to be between us.
We take the champagne down to his place and lie in the orchard on a rug, looking at the stars and swigging from the bottle. I don’t care if champagne’s supposed to be drunk from the right-shaped glass etc. Drunk like this, it tastes of starlight and happiness and Joe.
‘You know what?’ he says, twisting a strand of my hair round his finger, ‘I kinda think I love you.’
‘You know what?’ I say back, ‘I kinda think I love you too.’
We’re curled up in Joe’s bedroom and it’s dusk outside. He’s going through his music collection to find something I’ll like, which is really an impossible task, but he’s trying anyway.
And that’s when I decide to tell him the rest of my story. It’s the end of June and so there’s only one more month standing between us and August. And the trial.
I need to have talked about this before the trial.
‘I never told you what happened to me after Katya.’
He puts his iPod down and looks at me. ‘You mean the witness protection stuff.’
‘Kind of. There’s a bit more to it, but I didn’t feel up to talking about it before.’
He turns over and settles his head on the pillow, looking at me expectantly. I’m gathering myself to tell him when an owl hoots outside and makes me jump. He laughs at my nervousness and puts his arms round me. That’s better – I should have known it would be easier to tell the story nestled up against him.
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