by Jodi Taylor
Still Thomas said nothing.
And then I got it. Christopher didn’t have to do anything. He would simply take the document and leave me here. To die of thirst. I’d be discovered eventually and people would assume that not very bright Jenny Dove had somehow got herself trapped in an old cottage somewhere and died before she could be found. A young mother, too. How sad. What a tragedy.
‘Still won’t explain away the contract though,’ said Thomas, dubiously. ‘There must be more to it.’
‘Well, I don’t suppose Christopher will turn up in person. That would be asking for trouble. He’ll be safely abroad with an alibi. He’ll get a solicitor or...’
‘Yes?’ said Thomas, very gently.
Uncle Richard was a solicitor. Who better to present the contract? Who better to broker a deal between two cousins than the father of one and the uncle of another?
‘Don’t tell me Russell wouldn’t have something to say.’
‘I’m sure he would say a very great deal, but how much of it would be listened to? How much could be proved?’
‘All of it, surely. Why wouldn’t it be? Russell is...’
‘I’m sure he is, but you’re missing the point, Jenny.’
‘Which is?’
‘Whatever the outcome of the legal battle is, you won’t be here to see it. And how likely is it that Russell would take the law into his own hands, go after the seemingly blameless Christopher and end up, if not in prison himself, then certainly in no position to have people listen to any claims he might make.’
It was at this inauspicious moment that Christopher entered and suddenly, now that I was almost literally face to face with him, I didn’t know why I’d ever allowed him to terrorise me like this. Now, close up, with him standing in front of me, I could see the lines around his mouth and eyes. His paunch. His seedy clothes. He’d been sweating. He smelled stale and unpleasant. Whatever he’d been doing during his enforced exile, he hadn’t been a success at it. He was pathetic and ineffective. Unfortunately, he was also the one in control. And yes, he was weak – but weak men are often dangerous.
He dropped a closely typed document to the floor in front of me, and tossed a pen after it.
‘Sign.’
I had forgotten his voice. Russell’s voice was deep with a slight drawl, except when he was being enthusiastic about something – his art, usually – when he couldn’t get the words out quickly enough. I think, years ago, Christopher must have tried for the same effect. And where the rest of us were happy with our Rushfordshire accents – even Aunt Julia – Christopher had abandoned his regional accent in favour of what used to be known as BBC English. I don’t know whom he thought he was fooling. Loan companies and credulous old ladies, I suspect.
I kicked it back to him. ‘I won’t sign. I ... know what you want and I won’t ... do it. And you can’t ... kill ... me because then I’ll never be able ... to sign, and you ... don’t ... dare go anywhere near Russell ... because he’ll just rip your head off.’
‘Russell’s not here,’ said Christopher softly. ‘You’re on your own. Sign.’
I shook my head. I was negotiating from a position of strength. There wasn’t anything he could do that would make me sign.
He said casually, ‘You’ve got a baby, haven’t you?’
Fear pounced. I took a step towards him. From the corner of my eye, I saw Thomas lay back his ears. Christopher couldn’t see him, but he must have felt something. He stepped backwards, keeping a very careful distance between us.
I said, between clenched teeth, ‘Never ... mind Russell. Touch Joy and I will tear you apart.’
He wasn’t listening. He never listened to anyone, least of all me.
‘I’ve been in her room, you know. Several times. Just watching her. Pretty room. Carefully baby proofed, but there’ll be something I can use. You wear that nice perfume. Joy. Did Russell buy it for you? Nice thought. Bit pricey though. Although I wouldn’t need much. A quick squirt in each eye. You won’t miss it. I promise you I won’t be wasteful.’
I didn’t hesitate. Mrs Crisp would be there and I didn’t want to speculate about what he would do to her to get her out of the way. It was just a bookshop. Money isn’t everything. We would manage without. We always did. We had so far.
I knelt on the floor and dashed off a signature any old how. He bent to pick it up and as he did so, I swung at him with the chair. The chair fell apart and Christopher fell to the floor.
‘Excellent work, Jenny,’ said Thomas. ‘Now – let’s get out of here.’
Resisting the impulse to put the boot in while he was down there, I made for the door, because getting out was more important than beating Christopher to a bloody pulp. I wrenched it open and Uncle Richard pushed me back into the room. I fell backwards over Christopher still on the floor, spraining a wrist and banging my elbow.
Thomas reared up, teeth bared, placing himself between me and the pair of them, but Uncle Richard was already dragging Christopher from the room.
I rolled to my feet, dusty and breathless, just in time to see the door slam behind them. Shrieking with fear and frustration, I hurled myself at it, kicking and beating my fists against the panels.
I was frantic. ‘Thomas, he might still go after Joy. I have to get out.’
‘Gently, Jenny. Deep breaths. Just take a minute to stop and think.’
He was right. He was always right. I pushed my hair behind my ears and examined the door, running my hands over it. I twisted the handle. I pushed. I pulled. Nothing happened. I tried to look through the keyhole. If the key was there, maybe I could push it out and somehow pull it back under the door.
The key was not in the lock.
‘Never mind,’ said Thomas. ‘It was a good thought. Try and come up with some more.’
I examined every inch of the walls. They were rough and solid. I wasn’t getting out that way.
There was no fireplace. Not even a patch of new plaster where it had been bricked up.
The window, as I said, was tiny. And painted shut. Generations of thick paint covered the frame. Well, if I couldn’t open it, perhaps I could knock out the whole thing, frame, glass, the lot, and squeeze out that way. Again, the frame was disappointingly solid.
I sighed in frustration.
What about ...? I looked down. The floor was just bare boards. Perhaps I could prise one up and then another, kick my way through the ceiling below and get out that way.
No, the boards were solid and well-crafted and I had nothing to insert in the cracks. I broke several fingernails trying. I walked about, listening for squeaks or groans which might denote possibilities, but there were none.
I slithered down the wall, crouched in a heap, and put my hands over my face.
The smell of damp wood, old stone, and dust was replaced by that of warm ginger biscuits. Thomas said gently, ‘Jenny...’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘Just give me a moment. I’m trying to think.’
And I was. Trying to think of all the ways in and out of a room. Through the door. Through the window. Through the walls. Through the floor. Through the ... I looked up. Directly over my head was a tiny hatch. Through the ceiling. I could stand on the chair. If I could put it back together again and if it would bear my weight. The ceiling was low. I could reach. Pull myself through and ... and think of something. Let’s get out of this room first.
The chair had lost two of its legs, but they were unbroken. I picked them up and jammed them back into their sockets. The chair could barely hold itself together, let alone support me. It swayed and creaked as I very carefully placed it under the hatch.
‘Will you be able to pull yourself up?’ asked Thomas, anxiously.
‘Yes,’ I said firmly, at the same time thinking, probably not.
The chair swayed even more as I climbed aboard.
Standing up slowly and willing myself to be as light as possible, I pushed at the hatch, which came free quite easily
‘Close your eyes,’ adv
ised Thomas. ‘A ton of dirt and dust will drop on you when you try to move it.’
I obeyed, carefully lifting the hatch and placing it to one side, but apart from a few tiny falls of dust, nothing dropped down onto my head.
‘That was lucky,’ I said.
‘Yes,’ said Thomas, thoughtfully.
I was even luckier. As I groped around the edge of the hatch for something to hang on to, I dislodged something, which fell, snakelike, past my head. I only just managed not to scream.
‘Look out,’ cried Thomas.
I covered my head as something black hung, swaying beside me.
A rope ladder.
‘Thomas, it’s a rope ladder.’
‘So I see. Is it safe? Give it a good yank before you trust your weight on it.’
I gave it a good yank. It seemed firm enough.
‘Jenny, please take care.’
‘I will. See you in a minute.’
Climbing a rope ladder is not easy. Especially if you’ve never done it before, and I was rubbish. I swayed about all over the place, knocking the chair over with a clatter.
‘Keep going,’ said Thomas.
I did, because now I had no choice. Christopher must have heard the noise. He’d be up here like a flash. I couldn’t afford to hang around.
I struggled up into the attic, expecting dark and dirt and dust and, yes, there was plenty of dirt and dust, but also plenty of light. Not only did a hundred tiny shafts of light filter through the broken tiles, but there was a big hole in one corner through which sunlight streamed, and I could see the sky.
Treading cautiously from joist to joist, I edged my way towards it, unable to believe no one had heard the noise I was making.
Reaching the hole, I crouched and stuck out my head. As holes went, it was the very king of holes – right at the very lowest part of the roof, and directly above an outhouse. I had only to step out, climb down, drop to the outhouse roof and from there, to the ground.
I began to scramble through.
‘Wait,’ said Thomas quietly. ‘Then what?’
‘Run like hell for Frogmorton and Joy,’ I said, impatient at the delay.
‘In which direction? Which way is home?’
I stopped and looked about me. Apart from the small stand of trees with its incessantly cawing crows, there was no cover anywhere. Open countryside surrounded us on every side.
‘Let’s get away from here, first. Then we can decide what to do next.’
‘Go slowly. If you twist an ankle, then we’re not going anywhere.’
That was true. I clambered carefully out of the hole in the roof, and lowered myself carefully onto the outhouse. The roof was of some corrugated metal and I made a lot more noise than I would have liked. Especially when I went straight through it, landing heavily on a pile of old sacks. I don’t know what was in them but they broke my fall beautifully.
I was worried the door might be locked and that I’d simply exchanged one prison for another, but it scraped open when I pulled and suddenly, I was free.
‘Now what?’
‘Well, there’s the gate which leads to the lane, which will eventually lead to a main road, which will lead us back to civilisation and safety.’
‘Yes, but my point is that we don’t have the time to be running around the countryside. We need to get back to Frogmorton as quickly as possible.’
‘Well, let’s make a start.’ He began to move away.
‘No, stop and think.’
‘There’s no time. Any minute now, they’re going to discover we’re gone. In fact, I can’t think what’s taking them so long. Come on.’
Two cars were parked under the trees in the open space at the front of the cottage. One I recognised as Uncle Richard’s. The other was a hire car. That one must be Christopher’s.
‘Rented under someone else’s name, I suspect,’ said Thomas quietly.
‘It’s from the same company as the one Aunt Julia was driving.’
‘Interesting.’
I was staring at the cars. ‘Wait. We’ll never outrun them on foot. We should take one of these.’
‘You can’t drive.’
‘Yes, I can.’
‘In a field.’
‘I’ve driven to Rushford several times. How is this any different?’
‘You’re a learner driver. Don’t you have to have someone sitting next to you?.’
‘You can do that.’
‘Someone to instruct you.’
‘You can do that.’
‘With a licence.’
‘Two out of three’s not bad.’
‘Jenny, what’s got into you?’
‘I have to do this. Think of Joy.’
‘But...’
‘Thomas, choose a car and get in.’
‘All right! I used to think Russell Checkland was the irresponsible one, Jenny. What have you become?’
‘Desperate.’
I chose the car facing the right way so that I wouldn’t have to reverse. Now was definitely not the time to start disentangling my ovaries.
Chapter Seventeen
I sat in this new car and surveyed the dashboard with dismay. This was definitely not Russell’s Land Rover. I’ve seen fewer instruments and dials in an aircraft cockpit.
‘You’ve never seen an aircraft cockpit,’ said Thomas who seemed relatively resigned to a spot of ‘Grand Theft Auto’. ‘Stop panicking. You don’t need any of this. You just need to switch it on.’
I panicked again. ‘I don’t have the key. Do you have the key?’
‘Of course not. I’m a horse. We don’t have keys.’
‘Well, I don’t have the key either.’
I fumbled uselessly, looking for something I recognised. ‘Do you know how to hot-rod it?’
‘Hotwire, Jenny. Hot-rod is something else completely. Don’t you know that?’
‘Does it matter? There aren’t any keys.’ I was frantically pulling down the sun visors.
Thomas cleared his throat. ‘Try looking in the ignition.’
And there they were, dangling gently and catching the light.
I could feel panic eating away at me, but I still retained some last vestiges of common sense. Thomas snorted over that, but I ignored him. Switching on the engine was the very last thing I should do because they would hear the engine and come running. So I adjusted the mirror and seat. And then the mirror again. I checked we were in neutral. Putting off the moment...
‘Jenny...’
‘All right.’
Finally, when I couldn’t put it off any longer, I turned the key. Instead of coughing like an old man who’d been on sixty cigarettes a day for sixty years, the engine purred smoothly into life.
‘Wow,’ said Thomas. ‘Bet you didn’t know cars could do that. This is a whole new world for us.’
I engaged first gear, took off the handbrake, and we moved smoothly forwards.
‘Well done, Jenny.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Why are we going so slowly?’
‘Gate,’ I said, between clenched teeth, clutching the steering wheel as if my life depended upon it.
‘No, you should speed up.’
‘What? Why?’
‘It’s padlocked. Do you have the key?’
‘Don’t start that again.’
‘Well, unless you want our dramatic getaway to grind to a halt after the first twenty yards, Jenny, I suggest you speed up.’
‘We’ll hit the gate.’
‘Exactly.’
‘I’m not supposed to hit things.’
‘Jenny, you’re not trying to pass your driving test. You’re trying to escape from two very unpleasant men who are going to do unpleasant things to you and your family. And only you can do something about it.’
True. I clenched my teeth and hit the accelerator. The car surged forwards.
‘Wow. Pow-er,’ said Thomas, sounding exactly like a TV car-show presenter.
We hit the gate head on. I
t shattered. Pieces of wood flew in all directions. Two or three bounced off the bonnet. One clattered against the windscreen and then slid away.
‘That’s lucky,’ said Thomas. ‘No airbag.’
‘What’s an airbag?’
He sighed. ‘Perhaps you shouldn’t worry about that now. Watch the road.’
We bumped along some sort of track, listening to stones bouncing off the bottom of the car. ‘This is not a road.’
‘Just keep going.’
‘We’re doing it, Thomas. We’re escaping.’
‘We are indeed. Jolly well done, Jenny.’
‘Are they coming after us yet?’ I said, craning my neck to see in the rear view mirror. In my haste, I’d forgotten to adjust the wing mirrors so all I could see in them was me.
‘You concentrate on the road ahead. I’ll look behind.’
‘What can you see?’
‘Not a lot. It’s getting dark. No signs of pursuit. Yet.’
‘That was easy.’
‘Yes,’ he said quietly. ‘It was, wasn’t it?’
We bumped down the last few yards and then I stopped. We’d run out of track. Ahead of us was a road. Which way should we go?
‘I’ve no idea. Can you remember whether you turned left or right on to this track?’
‘No. Sorry.’
‘Well, don’t beat yourself up about it.’
‘I’m not going to,’ I said indignantly.
‘Well, I’m sure you would have got around to it sooner or later.’
‘Left or right, Thomas?’
‘I’ve no idea, and I don’t want to rush you, but...’
I turned left. It seemed easier.
We picked up speed. I thought about fishing around for third gear.
‘We need to speed up.’
‘I can’t see very well.’
‘Well, switch on the lights then.’
I’d only ever driven in daylight. ‘Um ... How?’
‘How should I know? There’ll be a knob or a lever or a dial or something.’