“I know.”
“Don’t chicken out on me, Katherine.”
“I won’t.”
“You’d better not.” Frieda looks at me, long and hard, and then suddenly her face softens, and she gives me a curiously gentle smile. “Cool it, girl. There’s nothing to be gained from sitting out here giving ourselves the creeps. Turn the car around, and let’s go back to the village.”
I do as she says, and we head back to Tidesend. It seems almost welcoming, strangely enough, after the estuary. I pull into a pub car park, stop the car, and turn off the engine.
“Look,” Frieda says, “you don’t have to face this alone, all right? I’ll come with you.”
“He’s arranged to meet just me, Frieda. He’ll run a mile if he sees anyone else there.”
“I won’t wait there with you. I’ll wait in the car.”
“He’ll see you.”
She thinks this over.
“Did you see those trees just outside the cottage?” she says at last. “I could hide out there. If we get there early, before he arrives, I can find a place where he won’t see me.”
“I don’t see how that’s going to help.”
“Look,” she says, “while we’re waiting, you can call me. We’ll keep our phones switched on, with the line open. Put yours in your bag or pocket, where I’ll hear what’s going on. If anything happens, scream your head off, and I’ll bolt out there and brain the bastard.”
I smile in spite of myself. “I think it might be better if you just call the police. I don’t want to risk a criminal conviction on top of everything else.”
“If there’s one thing the past eight years have taught me it’s that the police are fucking useless. I prefer to rely on my own muscle.” She pats my arm in an almost maternal way. “Don’t you worry, Katherine. I won’t let you come to any harm. And just think: if this bloke’s genuine, we might know the truth before too long.”
“God, I hope so.”
“It’s worth a try,” she says, and undoes her seatbelt. “Anyway, I’m bloody starving. They do pub meals here. Come on, girl. My treat.”
The pub is crowded with workers taking their midday break, wolfing down Ploughman’s lunches and microwaved lasagne and chips. We sit down at a corner table, near a spotty youth who’s crouched over a slot machine. Soft rock drifts over the sound system. I try to take comfort in the normality of the scene, to convince myself that nothing really bad could ever happen in such a prosaic place as Tidesend. But that’s a lie, and flies in the face of everything I’ve learned about the world. Horror lurks in the most banal of places, and you can’t escape from it. There’s danger here, and country pubs and pints of ale are not the kind of charms that might avert it.
~
That evening, shortly after I get back to Spitalfields, the telephone rings.
“Katherine?” Neil’s voice asks when I pick up the receiver.
“Yes. Hi.”
“Where have you been? You haven’t answered the phone all day.”
“I’ve been out. Researching a story, you know.”
“Oh, right.” He sounds disappointed. “Any problems?”
“No. Why would there be?”
He pauses. “I just wondered if maybe—”
“If maybe one of your mysterious stalkers has been following me? No, I don’t think so. Or if he has, he’s been clever enough to stay well hidden. But then you’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?”
There’s a moment of taut silence.
“Katherine? What the hell’s wrong with you?”
And what can I say to that? What can I tell him? This telephone call, and his apparent concern, could just be another trick. If so, he’s being unnecessarily cruel. I feel tears prickling in my eyes, and blink furiously.
“Nothing’s wrong,” I say in a softer voice. “I’m just tired, that’s all.”
“Do you need anything?”
“No. No, thanks.”
“All right. See you on Saturday evening, then. If you want to.”
“Yes.” If I’m still around on Saturday evening, I add silently. And if I am, perhaps I’ll know who I can trust by then.
“See you, then.”
“See you, Neil. Goodbye.”
He hangs up, and I dab angrily at my tears with my sleeve.
~
“All right,” Frieda mutters the next evening, as the car crawls back towards the estuary and the ruined cottage. “This is where I get out.”
I stop the car just around the corner, before we get within sight of the cottage.
“I’ll get as close as I can without being seen,” Frieda says, taking off her seatbelt. She pats her pockets to make sure she’s got everything. “Remember, if there’s any trouble, bloody scream the place down. Got the spray?”
I touch my jacket pocket, where I’ve hidden a canister of self-defence spray. Frieda gave it to me this morning when she arrived at my flat. “Aim for the bastard’s eyes,” she told me grimly. “It’ll put him out of action for a couple of minutes, and give you time to run like hell.” God only knows where she got it; it may not even be legal, for all I know. Still, I can’t deny that having it there makes me feel safer.
“Don’t you hesitate to use it if you have to,” she tells me. “And remember, call me when you’re in position, and don’t fucking hang up. I’ll be as quiet as a mouse, but if there’s any sign of trouble I’ll be there in a second.”
“Okay.” I try to smile, but I’m sure it looks as false as it feels.
“It’ll be all right,” Frieda says. Her voice is not soft and reassuring, but fierce, determined; these are not comforting words, but a simple statement of fact. She leans forward and gives me a quick, tight hug. “Look, I’m sick to death of waiting and being afraid, all right? Let’s have at ’em, see what they’re made of. Anything’s better than limbo. But don’t you worry, Katherine. I lost Diane to the bastards. I won’t let them take you too.”
She opens the car door and climbs out, and I watch as she sneaks off through the evening, in the direction of the trees and the cottage. She’s wearing dark, tight clothes and trainers, and as I watch her I see for the first time that Frieda is strong, her bulk made up not just of fat but of muscle and sinew. I see the tension in her shoulders and the grim set of her face, but she isn’t afraid; she’s resolute, determined. I shouldn’t be surprised, of course. She’d lie down in the road, throw herself in the river or drink poison, if doing any of those things could help her find out what happened to Diane. She moves surprisingly quickly and quietly, until she nears the clump of trees and slips amongst them like a shadow.
I drive on the short distance to the cottage, and park the car by the side of the road. I sit still for a moment, looking at the grey water of the estuary and the grey shores of Kent on the other side. There’s nobody and nothing else around, as far as I can see. There are no houses nearby. The road leads nowhere, and no other cars pass by. There isn’t even a boat on the river. I wonder how Lurker will get out here. He told me that he didn’t drive, and there can’t be any buses that come out here, so presumably he’ll have to walk.
I take my cell phone out of my pocket, and tap in Frieda’s number.
“All right,” I say when she answers. “I’m just taking up my position now.”
“Okay. I’ll be watching and listening.”
I slip my phone back into my pocket. And then, since there’s nothing else to do, I get out of the car and make my way across the road to the cottage. I arranged to meet Lurker at seven, and it’s still only half-past six. We agreed, Frieda and I, that it would be better if we got here early. I stand outside the front door, and peer into a cracked window. Inside, all I can see are bare scorched stones and charred pieces of timber. God, what a place. People must have lived and laboured here once. Perhaps they were happy, and loved the place. Now it’s a home only for rats and bats and spiders. I wonder why Lurker chose this precise place. All I can think of is that he must live nearby, and
knows it. Or perhaps – and the thought sends another thrill of fear rippling through me – the lonelier the place the better, from his point of view.
I turn and look out over the estuary. The evening sky’s still light, but the summer is advanced now, and the sun’s beginning to sink. It won’t be dark until about half-past eight, but the shadows must fall early, and fast, here. I wonder if Sallow took Diane’s body somewhere like this – somewhere silent, and lonely, where nobody would think to look.
I glance down at my watch. Quarter to seven. Elsewhere, in London and up in the village and all across the country, people will be arriving home from work, eating their dinner, watching TV. They’ll go out to pubs and bars, get drunk, and make love. Later, they’ll fall asleep and dream their quiet, modest dreams. It seems strange to think that I once was one of those people; I wonder if I ever will be again. Once, I thought their lives were boring. Now, they seem like Paradise.
The silence intensifies, broken only by the distant cry of gulls. I touch my mobile phone in my pocket, and think of Frieda, standing just a few feet away. It doesn’t help much; I’ve never felt quite so alone as I do now. We’re only a few miles from London, and yet we might as well be at the other end of the Earth. A crow takes off from a nearby branch, cawing and beating its wings. Shadows lengthen. Ten to seven.
Something stirs in the cottage at my back. A rat, no doubt, or a bird. Too small, too delicate, to be human. Or is it? Might not a person make a sound like that, if they were trying not to be heard? I freeze, and listen hard. For a moment I hear nothing but the whine of my own blood. And then I hear something again: something that sounds like a very soft, very hesitant footfall on stone. I turn around and look. The opening where the front door once stood looks like an entrance into the darkness. I take a small step towards it, feeling my heart thundering beneath my ribs.
“Hello?” I murmur. My voice is tremulous and weak. There is no reply, and I move a little closer to the doorway. I can see nothing inside but shadows, but suddenly I am quite sure that somebody is in there, hiding, biding his time . . .
“Lurker?” I say. “Is that you? You can come out, you know. I’m alone here.”
I take another step, and cautiously peer through the doorway, and as I do so I both hear and sense something moving to my left, in the shadows . . .
And in that same moment I feel an explosion inside my head, a thousand stars bursting and blazing in glorious unity, before the flames go out and all the world grows dark.
~
Impressions come back slowly and painfully, one at a time. There’s pain, of course, gripping my brain and harrowing my nerves: deep, throbbing pain that is both unbearable and inescapable. I feel the sensation of movement, or rather of being moved – of being dragged, specifically, over a damp and slightly uneven surface. Something bangs against the back of my head, and I moan. There is darkness, followed by dull grey light as I open my eyes and peer up at an overcast sky. For a moment I don’t know where I might be, or how I came to be here.
Then I remember.
I raise my head as far as I can, disregarding the bolt of pain that shoots through my brain as I do so. I’m lying on my back, I find, and I’m not in the cottage anymore, but on slimy, wet grass. I can smell the estuary nearby, and hear seagulls screaming. And someone is holding my ankles and pulling me across the grass, towards the water. I squint up at that person, and see James Sallow, sweating and struggling, bending over as he tugs at my legs. And suddenly, with a sick rush of fear, I know exactly what he intends to do.
“Frieda!” I scream, but my voice sounds thick, low. I try to reach for the phone in my pocket, and immediately get another surprise: I can’t move my hands. I raise my head and look down at them, and see that they are roughly bound at the wrists. Sallow pays no attention to me. He is intent on his task, intent on putting an end to the trouble I began when I started to pull at the fabric of Diane’s disappearance.
“Frieda!” I scream again, a little louder, and pull furiously at the rope binding my wrists. It is tied tightly and firmly, though, and I find that I can barely move my arms at all. I kick out at Sallow wildly, and succeed in freeing one leg and slamming my boot into his jaw. He grunts, but does not let go or stop. He’s stronger than he looks, I realise; and besides, the pain in my head is so severe that when I try to lift it I almost black out again. And, for a moment, I almost surrender. I flop back onto the grass and look up at the sky and think of how liberating it must be to truly give up, give in, stop breathing. I think of my body spinning down to the riverbed and lying there, for years perhaps, drifting idly in the wake of passing vessels. Flesh dissolving, bone cracking, the body slowly dispersing into its constituent atoms. No more love or hate, no more grief or desire. Just silence, and darkness. I close my eyes, and wait.
And then, quite suddenly, I hear a scrabbling, urgent sound. The ground beneath my head seems to jolt, and I moan as another pulse of pain throbs in my skull. I hear something that sounds almost like the bellow of a wild beast – a roar of pure rage – and Sallow grunts again. His grip on my legs weakens, and then fails altogether. I open my eyes, and see Frieda clawing at Sallow, spitting at him, looking more like an animal than a woman. She wrestles with him, trying to push him down onto the ground. He strikes the side of her head, and she falls, making an “Oof!” sound as she hits the grass.
For a moment she lies quite still, and Sallow leans over her, perhaps thinking her unconscious or dead. Then, all at once, she reaches up and wraps her strong arms around his neck, pulling him down into a bizarre parody of a lover’s embrace. He loses his balance and falls, and she rolls over on top of him, so that he’s pinned down by her. He may be strong, but she is stronger still, and made wild by love and hate alike, and I see at once that she is going to win this fight. She begins to strike at him wildly, beating at his face and chest with her fists, letting out screams of anger and hate that echo eerily across the water.
For the moment, I see, both of them have forgotten about me. I struggle to sit up, and begin to tug at the rope binding my wrists. It loosens, but does not come undone. I should, I think with an incongruous flash of humour, be used to dealing with knots, after all the practice I’ve had, but evidently I’m not quite as expert as I imagined. I try to stand up, but my legs give way beneath me and I collapse again. I get onto my knees instead, and begin to crawl, as best I can given my tied hands, towards them, thinking that if I can only use the spray that Frieda gave me, I might be able to disarm Sallow for long enough for us to get away. My progress, though, is slow and leaden; my body seems weak, unable to respond quickly to my brain’s commands.
Sallow is writhing beneath Frieda, hitting out at her. I watch as he grabs her hair, pulls her head lower, and ploughs his fist into her face. A fine spray of blood erupts from her nose, but she doesn’t stop; she continues to pummel at him, screaming all the time. Then she grabs something that is lying on the grass nearby, and raises it above her head. It’s an old piece of wood, I see, of the kind that might once have formed an oar, or part of a fishing vessel; one of those old and forgotten things that might have been lying around in a place like this for years, decades even. But it’s sturdy still, despite its age, and studded with jagged iron nails.
“No, Frieda!” I scream, in the split-second in which it is raised above her head.
Frieda doesn’t hesitate, or even look at me. She brings it down on Sallow’s head, and there’s a sick, heavy thud – like the sound of a ripe melon falling onto a stone floor – as it shatters his skull. His leg jerks back and forth, absurdly, as Frieda raises the piece of wood again.
“God, Frieda, stop,” I cry, and find, to my surprise, that there are tears in my eyes.
But Frieda doesn’t stop, and there’s a sense, I realise, in which she cannot stop. Years of pain and waiting have led her at last to this place, to this moment, and there is no other way in which this story can end. The piece of wood whistles through the air as she brings it down again, with all her
might. There’s another sickening thud, and then another as she strikes him again. Then she lifts her head and screams, a hopeless, terrible wail that seems to come from Hell itself, and encompasses all the misery and despair in the world. For a moment that scream echoes across the water, across the flat and desolate land; and then there’s silence, a silence broken only by the plash of waves on the shore, and the distant squawk of a seagull.
The strength that drove Frieda before seems to leave her, all at once. The piece of wood slips from her hands, and falls onto the grass with a dull thump. Her entire body slumps. She almost falls off Sallow’s battered body, and then heaves herself up onto her feet and stands looking down at him.
Eventually, after what seems like hours, I reach Sallow’s side. My hands are almost free now, and I can move them a little more. I try to remember all the First Aid I’ve ever learned – checking for breathing, feeling for a pulse, the recovery position – but I can detect no sign of life. If Sallow is still clinging to his existence, it’s only by the slenderest of threads. I look up, and see that Frieda has not moved. She is standing on the grass, looking out over the estuary. Blood streams from her nose and is spattered over the rest of her face, giving her the appearance of a woman from a nightmare. But her expression is serene, and utterly lacking in emotion.
“Frieda,” I gasp, and she looks down at me.
“Katherine.” She gives me the faintest, smallest smile. “I think perhaps we’d better call the police.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The next few hours pass in a blur. I’m aware of lying on the muddy grass and staring up into the darkening sky. I’m aware of the distant sound of sirens approaching along the lane. I see a paramedic leaning over me, and am bundled into an ambulance on a gurney. I see streetlights flashing by as we drive to hospital, and watch as they are replaced by a thin strip of overhead lighting as the gurney is wheeled down a long white corridor. I’m aware, above all, of pain. But these impressions are disparate and confused, and never come together to form a whole, or provide a complete narrative.
A Wayward Game Page 20