Summer Girl, Winter Boy

by Elsborg, Barbara

  “And what happens when the guy or guys who go with you realize you’re not leading them anywhere and you don’t have the coke anymore?”

  “They’ll have to cut these ties off me to walk to my friend’s. There’s no parking close by. I can run fast.”

  “Oh god, that’s not a plan at all. What if you can’t get away? What if they dump this van and the phone and take us somewhere else? No, we have to stay together.”

  “We might…” She gave a ragged sob. “I can’t believe this is happening. It’s all my fault.”

  “It’s not your fault some wanker stuffed coke in your bag.”

  “I should never have told you.”

  “Yes, you should. We’re going to be fine, Summer Girl.” Jai kissed her.

  The sweetest brush of his lips against hers before their tongues tangled and they kissed as if it the world were ending around them. She struggled not to fall to pieces. Jai had burst into her life and she’d wanted to open her heart to him. She hadn’t thought she could ever feel like this, that what they had only happened in films and books, that she didn’t deserve to feel this way—and now she was going to lose him because she’d made a bad choice of friend in Colombia. Whatever happened to her, she had to make sure Jai was safe.

  The van stopped, the engine turned off and Summer whimpered.

  “Don’t do anything stupid,” Jai blurted.

  “Pretend you know nothing. Promise me,” she whispered.

  “No.”

  “Please.”

  The doors of the van opened and Summer blinked against the light. The guy in the leather jacket dragged out their suitcases and moments later, Summer and Jai were hauled out as well to land in the middle of their possessions, which had been strewn on the floor of what looked like a garage.

  “You managed to pull off the tape,” said the gray-haired guy. “Very resourceful.”

  “Where is it?” The beanie guy put his foot on her chest and pressed.

  “What?” Summer croaked.

  “The fucking coke, you stupid bitch.”

  The gray-haired guy stepped in front of her and kicked the beanie guy’s foot off her chest. “We know you went to Vargus Shipping and took something out of that box.”

  Summer tried to look bewildered. “Yes. Presents for my family that I’d bought all over South America. Hats for my father and brother, necklaces for my sisters. Butterflies—”

  He reached down, smacked her across the face and her head whipped to the side.

  “Leave her alone!” Jai called.

  “Ah, that’s sweet,” said the guy in the beanie.

  Her eyes filled with tears as pain rocketed through her head. She tasted blood in her mouth and realized she’d bitten her tongue.

  “Don’t hurt her,” Jai shouted.

  “Shut the fuck up.” The one in the leather jacket kicked him in the stomach and Jai gasped.

  “Put more tape on his mouth,” said the gray-haired guy. The leader. “I’m only interested in the bags of coffee.”

  “Ah.” How can I delay this? How long until the police get here? Oh god, are they coming?

  “You think you could steal from us and get away with it?”

  “I didn’t know what was in the bags. I thought it was coffee until I tried to grind it. It turned into a white powder and I thought…that isn’t right, it should be brown so—”

  “Where is it?”

  “Well, when I realized—”

  The leader grabbed her jaw and squeezed hard. “Stop babbling. Does your boyfriend have it?”

  “He doesn’t know anything about it,” Summer forced out. “I didn’t tell him.”

  Her jaw was released. Jai thrashed his head on the floor, trying to get their attention.

  Delay. Delay. “I didn’t know what it was at first…I thought it had to be drugs of some sort. I tried a bit and it made my tongue numb and when I looked it up on Google, it said it was probably cocaine… I thought I could make some money if I sold it…I’m sorry.” How slowly could she speak without looking deranged?

  “So where is it?” the leader asked.

  Jai thrashed around some more.

  “I left it at my friend’s place.” Summer kept her eyes down.

  “Where?”

  “She lives in Odessa Wharf. I didn’t want it anywhere near my flat because I knew you’d come back and look for it.”

  “You’re lying,” the leader growled and her heart jumped.

  “You didn’t look coke up on Google,” said Beanie Guy.

  What? Summer knew her jaw had dropped.

  “How do you think we knew where you were today?” the leader asked.

  “I have no idea.”

  “The browsing history on your laptop.” The gray-haired guy gave her a triumphant smirk. “You looked up that model dick over there on Wikipedia. First thing you did when you got back to your flat. Noticed in the paper he’d come back to the UK at the same time as you and turned out to be the same flight. Wasn’t too difficult for us to find out where he lived. It still might only have been a touch of star worship but when we called his house and asked about you, the guy we spoke to didn’t deny you were an item. What you didn’t do, sweetheart, was a search for cocaine.”

  Shit. “I searched on my phone,” she blurted.

  “Nice try,” said Beanie Guy.

  “I think we’ll keep you here with us and send your boyfriend off to your friend’s house,” said the leader. “We can have a bit of fun unless he hurries back.”

  “She’s never met him. She won’t give it to him. I told her to let no one but me have it and not to answer the door to any strange men.”

  The leader laughed.

  Jai thrashed again and shook his head.

  “Okay. You can go instead.” He nodded toward Beanie Guy. “Go with her and watch her carefully. And as an incentive to get a move on, if you’re not back here in ninety minutes with all the coke, I’ll start cutting your boyfriend’s pretty face for each minute you’re late. Then I’ll kill him.”

  Oh fuck.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Summer took careful note of where the lock-up garage was located. Tiverton Row in Peckham. Last unit on the right. There was no name over the door but she could tell the police where it was—if she had a phone. Why hadn’t she thought to keep it with her? They’d already searched her and didn’t think she had a phone. But then, she wanted the police to find Jai first. Could she get the guy to stop so she could use the loo in a Starbucks? Borrow someone’s phone while she was in the restroom? Actually, that wasn’t a bad idea.

  She refused to let herself think about them hurting Jai. The police would be there before long, surely? He dad had told her that even out in some remote place, the GPS chip would mean her phone could be located quite quickly. But what if the police weren’t quick? What if she’d left Jai to die?

  She began to wriggle on the seat of the car.

  “What the fuck is it?” the beanie guy snapped.

  “I’m desperate for a pee.”

  “Forget it.”

  “I can’t. I was desperate before you kidnapped me. I’m going to wet myself if you don’t let me go. I’m not going to run. I won’t risk anything happening to my boyfriend. Oh god.” She jiggled her legs. She damn well did want to go now.

  “Look. There’s a Burger King.”

  “No.”

  She waited before she tried again. “I’m sorry but I’m going to wet the seat.”

  “Fuck.” He swerved off the road into a service station and pulled up near the air hose. “I’ll be right behind you, so don’t try anything.”

  She had no chance to. Only one restroom. No one else in there. She thought about scribbling a message on the mirror but there was nothing to write with. When she sat back in the car, she felt she’d achieved nothing apart from emptying her bladder and losing precious minutes.

  Once they reached Surrey Quays, she directed him to the road that ran down the back of the shopping ce
nter. It didn’t escape her notice that he deliberately slowed for the speed cameras. Okay to kill someone for being a clueless mule but heaven forbid you get caught driving too fast.

  “Next on the right,” she said.

  Lindy did live around here, which was how Summer had come up with her plan, though they weren’t going anywhere near her flat.

  “Park anywhere. She lives just down there. You can’t get any nearer in the car.” Well, he could if he took a different road, but she didn’t want him to know that.

  Once they were out of the vehicle, Summer made sure she walked on his left away from the water.

  “Could I speak to Jai?” she asked. “Please. Just to check he’s okay.”

  “No.”

  She stopped walking. “I’m not going any farther until you let me speak to him.”

  He glared at her a moment and then took his phone from his pocket. “She wants to speak to her boyfriend.”

  “Where are you?” she heard the leader ask.

  Her heart sank. The police weren’t there yet.

  “Surrey Quays, Greenland Dock. We’re nearly at the friend’s place.”

  “Tell her she has forty minutes before I start cutting him. Fifty minutes before he dies.”

  “Don’t,” Summer shouted. “What point is there in that? Just wait for us to get back.”

  “Forty minutes.”

  As he started to put the phone back in his pocket, she pretended to stumble and shoved him as hard as she could toward the water.

  “What the fuck?”

  She kicked at his knees and for a moment she didn’t think he’d fall, but with a look of fury on his face and his arms cartwheeling, he tumbled over the edge, the phone slipping from his grasp. There was a loud splash.

  “Help!” Summer screamed. “Help.”

  “You stupid bitch,” he yelled from the water. “You want him to die?”

  She kept screaming and spun in frantic circles before she ran toward a building. When she saw a teenager approaching on a skateboard, she sprinted up to him.

  “Please—I need a phone. It’s an emergency.”

  He handed one over. Her fingers shook as she tapped in DS Spencer’s number. Don’t get it wrong.

  “It’s Summer. Jai Winter’s being held in a lockup on Tiverton Row in Peckham. Last unit on the right.”

  “We’re nearly there.”

  “You have to hurry. They threatened to kill him.”

  “Where the hell are you?”

  “At Greenland Dock. I pushed the guy with me into the water. I’m supposed to be taking him to the…you-know-what.” Summer caught the wide-eyed gaze of the openmouthed teenager.

  “Where’s the man now?”

  “Hey, look out,” the boy said.

  Summer turned. The guy stood dripping next to her. She looked down to where he had his hand pressed against her and watched him yank a knife out of her side. Oh hell.

  “Run,” she gasped to the boy and threw him his phone.

  He caught it and fled as she flung herself on the guy who’d stabbed her. He pushed her off and she crumpled facedown on the ground. He grabbed her by the coat and turned her over. “What’s the fucking address?”

  There was a sharp pain in her side when she tried to breathe.

  “The address!” he snapped.

  “Two-hundred…and seventy…Odessa Yard.” She made the address up.

  The guy looked around and then dragged her by the hood of her coat across the old tram lines toward the water. Summer tried to pull free but the pain in her side was so intense she could barely draw air into her lungs.

  The shock of falling and hitting cold water stunned her for a moment. But as she sank into the murky depths, she tried to kick out to slow her descent. The pain bit into her and water flooded her mouth.

  If I don’t get out of this coat, I’m going to die.

  She was still sinking as she fumbled with the fastenings but the moment she shrugged the duffle from her back, she stopped falling. I need to breathe. Summer clamped a hand to her injured side and kicked for the surface, which seemed an impossibly long way away.

  I’m not going to make it. Oh god. I’m sorry, Jai. Please let him be okay. Please let the police have got there in time.

  The surface seemed to be receding and she realized she was slowing. Even without the coat, her clothes and shoes weighed her down.

  I can’t do it. The need to take a breath began to overwhelm her. In a moment or two, she wouldn’t be able to resist, even though she knew she’d inhale water. She was so tired. Every kick took so much effort.

  Try harder, Summer Girl.

  She heard Jai’s voice in her head and with one final desperate attempt, she kicked hard and her head broke the surface. Relief flooded her body until she realized she couldn’t fully inflate her lungs. She sucked tiny amounts of air in noisy gulps and looked for a way to get out. Her teeth chattered with cold. She could feel herself sinking again. It took all her energy to stay afloat. A ladder rose out of the water up the dock wall several yards away, but she had no strength left to swim to it.

  Don’t give up now, Summer Girl.

  By some miracle, she managed to reach the ladder and hooked her arm around a metal rung. It was as much as she could do. She couldn’t climb out and with no voice to call for help, all she could do was hang on, growing colder by the second.

  Jai was so frantic with worry, he forgot to be concerned about the fact that he could barely breathe behind the tape and that his head was killing him. He’d told Summer her plan was a bad idea and what had she done? Ignored him.

  He didn’t bother struggling. He couldn’t break free of the cable ties and his breathing was labored enough as it was. He wanted them to forget he was there but that wasn’t likely. One of the men had hardly come off his mobile phone. The other, the guy he thought was the leader, sat in a chair with his legs crossed up on a desk, an iPad on his lap. Jai looked round to see if there was anything he could use to cut himself free, assuming he could wriggle to it unseen, but the floor was swept clean. Even if it hadn’t been, he’d never manage to cut his ankles loose before they were on him.

  Summer. Please don’t do anything stupid.

  The leader answered his phone and looked straight at Jai. When he heard him say, “Fifty minutes before he dies”, fear fluttered harder in Jai’s stomach, butterflies surging into his throat, making it hard to breath. The man put his phone down.

  About ten minutes later, there was the sound of a car pulling up outside. The two guys glanced at each other.

  The leader beckoned to the other and the pair cautiously made their way to the door.

  There were screams of “Police” and “Hands up” and Jai sagged in relief as officers poured into the building. The two men were handcuffed and a policeman bent by Jai’s side to take the tape from his mouth.

  “Where’s Summer?” Jai gasped. “Is she okay?”

  He recognized the cop coming toward him. DS Spencer. The ties were cut from Jai’s wrists and ankles and he sat up.

  “Is Summer all right?” he snapped and pushed to his feet.

  When the guy hesitated, Jai felt as if he’d gone into cardiac arrest.

  “She’s been taken to Lewisham Hospital. I’ll drive you there. You look like you need treatment too.”

  “What happened?”

  “We don’t know all the details but she was stabbed and pushed into Greenland Dock.”

  The raw hemorrhaging pain that ripped through Jai buckled him at the knees. If the cop hadn’t caught his arm, he’d have fallen.

  “Come and sit in the car.”

  “I have to go to her. Now.”

  “I’ll take you.”

  The policeman led him to a car and all Jai could think was, Let her be all right. Don’t give up, Summer Girl.

  “Her phone,” he said suddenly. “It’s in the van in a roll of carpet. I need to call her parents…their number…”

  “Wait here in the car. I’ll
get it.”

  “Mine too. The one with gray hair took it.”

  Jai slumped in the passenger seat, his head against the car window. The thought of never hearing her voice, never hearing her say his name, was unbearable. She was everything to him. He couldn’t lose her now. If she died, there was no reason for him to keep living.

  When he got back to the car, DS Spencer handed the phones over and set off. “I might need those back,” he said.

  “Right,” Jai mumbled.

  Why didn’t I tell her I loved her? He’d been waiting for the perfect moment and now it might never come. He scrolled through Summer’s contacts until he found her father’s number. His heart thumped as he called him.

  “Summer?”

  “No, it’s Jai.”

  “Hello, Jai. What’s wrong?”

  He took a deep breath and it all came pouring out. “Summer’s in Lewisham Hospital. She was stabbed and pushed into Greenland Dock. I don’t know any more about her condition than that. The police are driving me there now. Can you make sure she’s getting the best treatment? Please?” His voice broke.

  “Oh god. I’ll meet you there. Are you all right?”

  “I was knocked out but I’m okay. I need her to be all right.”

  “So do I.”

  Jai hugged Summer’s phone to his chest and repeated over and over in his head—Don’t let her die.

  “Tell me what happened,” the policeman said.

  “She was trying to save our lives. She knew we’d be in trouble if they discovered we didn’t have the coke anymore and wanted to delay long enough for you to locate her phone, but they weren’t the sort of guys you could put off for long. She told them a friend had the drugs and they sent her off with this one man. Tall, in his late twenties, well-built, wore a green beanie. The gray-haired guy, he was in charge, said they had ninety minutes to get back to the garage with the dope or they’d kill me. He had a phone call maybe fifteen minutes before you got there and said they had to be back in forty minutes or I’d die. All I could do was wait and hope.”

  The cop glanced at him. “A young lad saw Summer push the one she was with into the water. She used the boy’s phone to call me. But the guy got out and stabbed her. The lad caught the phone and ran like she told him, but he saw her pushed in and speed-dialed me. I dispatched medics. Despite my telling him not to, the boy followed the man. As a result, I heard a few minutes ago that we have him in custody.”