The Big Chill

by Doug Johnstone

  ‘Inside,’ Craig said, shoving her through the doorway into the hall.

  He kicked the door closed and followed, pushed her towards the stairs.

  ‘Down,’ he said, looking at the stairs to the basement. ‘Let’s go see lover boy.’

  She stepped downstairs, worried about what she would see, thinking about her phone in her pocket, the missed call from Mum. Fucking stupid, should’ve answered, should’ve said where she was. But Liam, what if?

  The basement was open plan, a man-cave feel to it. Big-screen TV in one corner, games console, electric guitar and amp, two old sofas. Two thick pillars in the centre of the room, Liam tied to one, slumped on the ground, arms behind him, face covered in blood.

  Jenny gave Craig a look and he pushed her into the room.

  ‘Liam,’ she said.

  His face was swollen, one eye completely shut, cuts and scrapes around his mouth, his cheek and eyebrow split open, blood down his shirt, dried in places. He looked like a defeated boxer.

  ‘Jesus.’ Jenny kneeled and touched her hand to his bruised face.

  He opened his functioning eye, coughed, a bubble of blood popping at the corner of his mouth. He shook his head, swallowed hard.

  ‘You shouldn’t have come,’ he said.

  Jenny stroked his hair, let her fingers rest on his temple. ‘I had to.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ she said, like she was reassuring a toddler.

  She stood up. ‘You sick fuck.’

  ‘Takes one to know one.’

  ‘Let him go.’

  Craig laughed. ‘That doesn’t seem likely, does it?’

  Jenny put her hands on her hips. ‘I’m here now. This has nothing to do with Liam. You said—’

  ‘I said if you told anyone, I’d kill him,’ Craig said. ‘That doesn’t mean I let him go.’

  He stepped towards her and she backed away to one of the sofas.

  ‘What’s the plan, here?’ Jenny said. ‘What’s your endgame?’

  Craig hesitated briefly then took another step.

  Jenny’s hands were fists at her side, ready to fight him off. She thought about the knife upstairs, the gun in his hand. ‘I mean, you’re fucked, right? An escaped prisoner, a murderer, now this?’

  She waved at Liam slumped against the pillar. He seemed to have passed out, head to the side, hands loose.

  ‘It’s so exhilarating,’ Craig said. ‘When you’re at the bottom you have nothing to lose. I can do anything now, I’m untouchable.’

  Jenny had backed round the sofa, was edging towards the stairs. Craig stepped across to cut her off.

  ‘Do you think I’m fucking stupid?’

  Jenny looked at Liam pointedly and Craig followed her gaze.

  She bolted in the other direction, squeezed past him and reached the bottom step, but she only managed two strides when her leg was pulled from under her, smacking her chin on a step and being dragged backwards. She felt a kick to her stomach, a bright flash of pain shuddering through her body. Her hands went to her belly then there was a fist in her face, then the butt of the gun on her cheek, slicing the skin, blood spurting down her face. She raised her arms to cover her face and felt her hair grabbed, yanked upwards, a clump of it coming out in Craig’s fist as he lifted her to her knees and spat in her face. She was fucked from pain, her breath ragged, Liam groaning behind her, Craig panting in her face.

  ‘Fuck you,’ she said between breaths.

  ‘No,’ Craig said, lifting the gun above his head. ‘Fuck you.’

  He swung it down on Jenny’s temple and she felt sick and dizzy from pain, then she saw spots in her eyeline, flashing brilliantly, then she was gone.

  59

  HANNAH

  Voicemail.

  Hannah looked out of the bus window as she listened to her mum’s brusque voice: ‘Leave a message.’

  ‘Hey, Mum, where are you?’ Her bus passed Grange Cemetery and she had a great view of the old Victorian mausoleums inside, ornate carving and flamboyant designs. ‘Call me.’

  She hung up as the bus turned into Marchmont Road heading for the Meadows. She opened her phone-tracker app, picked Jenny’s number. Watched the blob as it focused on screen, floated around Stockbridge for a moment then settled. She zoomed in. Ann Street. Fiona’s place. Weird. She had Fiona’s number from one time when she had to do the school run for Sophia, Craig and Fiona stuck at work. She called. Rang six times, then was picked up.

  ‘Hey Fiona, it’s Hannah. Listen, is Mum there, she’s not answering her phone.’

  The sound of Fiona taking a sip of something. ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Jenny,’ Hannah said, as if explaining to a simpleton. ‘She’s with you, right?’

  There was sound in the background, the clink of cups. Then the grind and scoosh of an espresso machine. ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘Wait,’ Hannah said. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘In a café in Cramond,’ Fiona said. ‘I’m staying with my mum for a while, she lives out here.’

  Cramond was miles away from Stockbridge.

  ‘So you’re not at Ann Street?’

  Fiona hesitated again before speaking. ‘It’s on the market, we’re selling it.’

  The bus was on the corner of Lothian Road and Princes Street, tourists crossing the road at a snail’s pace, eyeballing the castle behind her. A shiver ran through her.

  ‘So it’s all locked up?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I have to go.’

  She hung up and checked the tracker again. The bleep still throbbed in the same spot. It was definitely at number eleven, Fiona’s place.

  Fiona and Craig’s place.

  She checked her bus app, to see where the twenty-four took her, realised it went to Stockbridge, they were only a few minutes away.

  She phoned Jenny again, voicemail. She didn’t leave a message.

  She called Thomas. ‘Do you still have an officer at Ann Street?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You had someone posted at Ann Street after the break-in, are they still there?’

  Confusion in his voice. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Call them now,’ Hannah said. ‘I think Mum is there.’

  It took Thomas a moment to put it together, as the bus trundled down the hill over the cobbles of Howe Street.

  ‘Craig wouldn’t go back there,’ he said.

  ‘Just do it.’

  ‘Hang on.’

  Static on the line for what seemed like forever. Hannah was jostled as the bus turned into Circus Place.

  ‘Hannah,’ Thomas said. ‘I can’t get hold of him. We’re sending backup units. Where are you?’

  Hannah laughed as she pressed the button for the bus to stop. ‘I’m almost there.’

  ‘Do not go in, do you hear me? Wait until we arrive.’

  She hung up and got off the bus, ran across the bridge over the Water of Leith, turned up Dean Terrace, her feet thumping. Ann Street was the third off to the right and she was there in no time.

  She glanced inside the empty police car, tried the door, then went up to the dark house. She stood at the door, looked at her phone. Jenny’s bleep still throbbing. She was almost on top of it. She raised a finger to the doorbell but hesitated. Lowered it. She pushed at the front door and it opened. On the floor in the doorway was a knife. She knelt and looked. She recognised it from Gran’s kitchen.

  She looked behind her at the street in the evening gloom. She listened for sirens, imagined flashing lights appearing round the corner, the screech of tyres as police cars arrived. But there was just birdsong, leaves rustling.

  She picked up the knife, weighed it in her hand, gripped the handle. She went along the hall, trying to get her eyes accustomed to the darkness, blinking heavily, opening them wide, listening for noises. She stared up the spiral stairs, three floors, skylight at the top.

  She went into the living room, empty, dark. Same with the connected kitchen. She took light steps, her
breathing hard in her ears, the tingle of electricity flowing from her brain through her body to her fingertips and into the knife. She imagined it glowing, but the blade was dull in the dark.

  She went back into the hallway and looked upstairs again. She was about to put a foot on the first step when she heard something. A scraping noise. She noticed the stairs down to the basement. She looked up the three flights, then down. Thought about her dad. Liam missing. Jenny’s phone in the house.

  She walked towards the basement steps and began down, wishing she could float. The sound of her footsteps on the carpeted stairs seemed impossibly loud in her ears. The knife trembled in her grip but she followed it like a divining rod, the blade leading her into the depths. She was halfway down now, turning the corner, and she saw a low light in the corner of the room. Two more steps and she had a better view.

  Liam, face beaten to a pulp, tied to a pillar. Unconscious.

  She swallowed.

  Two more steps.

  And there was Mum, tied to the second pillar in the room, blood on her face. She seemed unconscious too.

  Another step.

  Then another.

  And there was Dad. Pacing along the wall, running hands through his hair, shaking his head, his tongue poking from the corner of his mouth, something she knew meant he was thinking. She knew so much about him, had spent half her life with him, shared DNA, maybe shared an outlook on life. Girls are supposed to have a special relationship with their dads, right?

  He hadn’t spotted her.

  She took another step, the knife hot in her sweaty fist.

  Jenny lolled her head to the side but didn’t wake up. Liam’s rattling breath sounded bad.

  She looked around the room. There was a gun on the arm of the sofa. It was four metres away, about the same distance from her dad.

  She stood still, thinking. Then in a single motion she bolted down the remaining stairs and across the room, the sound making Craig turn. It took him a moment to realise what was happening before he also headed for the gun, but Hannah was quick and she reached it while he was still only halfway across the room. She picked it up, surprised how cold and heavy it was, pointed it at Craig with a shaking hand. He reared up and took a step backwards, his hands low, palms spread out as if he’d just performed a magic trick.

  She stared at him, tried to work out something from his face. She seethed with hatred, that he could do this to all of them. She would never be the same again.

  He widened his eyes, angled his head, threw on a sad smile to see if it would land.

  ‘Hannah.’

  ‘Dad.’

  Jenny gave out a groan and they both glanced at her.

  ‘I never meant for any of this,’ he said.

  ‘Save it.’

  ‘Let me explain.’

  She shook her head, couldn’t believe what she was hearing. ‘Fuck you.’

  He sighed, like he was disappointed in her.

  ‘I wouldn’t survive in prison,’ he said.

  ‘Good.’

  ‘I’m just trying to start again.’

  Hannah laughed. ‘Then why are you still here? You got your passport, you could be anywhere in the world right now. Why are you still hanging around like cancer, eating away at us?’

  Craig looked at Jenny, then back at Hannah.

  Hannah shook her head, waggled the gun towards Jenny and Liam. ‘You’re just a sad old man.’

  A steely look came over his face. ‘I don’t expect you to understand. But I never wanted you involved, I never wanted to hurt you. You’re my daughter.’

  Hannah felt tears in her eyes. ‘I’m not.’

  ‘You can’t deny it,’ Craig said. ‘No matter what, you’ll always be my little girl.’

  ‘No.’

  He took a step towards her.

  She tightened her grip on the gun. ‘I will shoot you right here.’

  ‘No you won’t.’ He took another step. Reached out a hand.

  Hannah felt sick, tears on her face, gun wavering in her hand, the knife in the other. She remembered Dad cleaning her scraped knee, putting a plaster on it, kissing it better, encouraging her into the swimming pool with her armbands on, reading The Cat in the Hat to her at bedtime, a lesson in letting chaos into your life. She knew this wasn’t that man, this was a monster, but she couldn’t untangle them, they were in the same body, the same mind, the same collection of atoms moving through energy fields, interacting with her, intermingling with her own energy.

  He took another step, was nearly at her now.

  ‘You won’t shoot me,’ he said. ‘You don’t have it in you. You’re my daughter.’

  She let out a sob, the gun trembling.

  He reached for the gun and she squeezed the trigger, the shocking crack as it went off making her jump. Blood spurted from Craig’s hand as his index finger exploded. His face whitened and he staggered backward clutching at his hand, blood throbbing between his fingers onto the floor, the smell of burning from the gun barrel in Hannah’s nose making her feel sick. She stepped back herself, as if she could walk away from what she’d done. She heard her mum moan on the floor.

  ‘Shit,’ she said.

  ‘Fucking hell.’ Craig looked up at her. ‘You shot me.’

  ‘Sorry.’ Hannah’s voice sounded alien in her ears. ‘I didn’t mean…’

  ‘You fucking shot me.’ He straightened up, examined the bloody mess of his hand and grimaced. ‘You shot your own dad.’

  Hannah shook her head, the gun at her side now. It felt hot in her fist, the knife too, like she had her hands on a radiator. She wanted to drop them both and run, she wanted to run all the way home to Indy and safety, but nowhere was safe, nowhere was ever going to be safe again.

  Craig stared at her, breath ragged. ‘How does it feel?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Do you feel powerful?’

  Hannah shook her head, crying. She thought she would be sick, put a hand to her face. She wasn’t strong, she was weak, too weak to be here and he knew it.

  Craig took a step towards her, still holding his bloody fist. The colour had returned to his face, the smile too.

  ‘Go on.’ He spread his arms out, blood dropping on the carpet. ‘Finish the job.’

  Hannah tried to swallow, couldn’t.

  Craig took another step.

  ‘Come on,’ he shouted. ‘Do it.’

  ‘Stop,’ Hannah said between sobs.

  ‘Hannah.’ This was Jenny speaking from the ground.

  They both turned and stared. Hannah waited for something, a sign. Her mum wasn’t even focusing, didn’t seem to know where she was. Hannah was about to speak when Craig lunged at her, pushed her against the wall, knocked the knife from one hand and grabbed the gun from the other. He stepped back, holding the gun loosely at his side. It was all too easy.

  She put a hand to her head, felt where it had banged the wall.

  He looked around the room and laughed.

  ‘This is something, eh?’

  He shook his head like he’d just heard a bizarre joke. He looked at Hannah and she tried to work out what he was thinking. He stepped towards her with the gun raised, reached out and brushed hair from her face, took her hand and held it for a moment. She faced the floor, couldn’t stand to look at him.

  He held up his hand, the finger stump pulsing blood over his knuckles. He smiled. ‘You’re just like your dad.’

  Sirens.

  He heard it too, looked at the ceiling, then back around the room, at Hannah, then Jenny and Liam.

  ‘Of course, you called them,’ he said, smiling. ‘You’re my smart little girl.’

  He touched her cheek and she felt sick, then he turned and ran upstairs, leaving her in the basement, the sirens getting louder.

  60

  JENNY

  It looked like winter outside, threatening snow clouds, wind whipping the cherry blossom from the branches, people huddling against the chilly squalls as they trudged across the Links.
Jenny’s face hurt as she looked out. Schrödinger sidled past her, leapt into the armchair and closed his eyes. Einstein padded over and gazed up at Jenny. She tickled him under the chin. She straightened up, feeling the ache of her bruised stomach muscles. She felt the puckered skin at her temple, ran a finger along the stitches, then did the same with the cut on her cheek. Twenty-five stitches over three cuts, she was lucky. She placed her hand under her T-shirt, pushed her fingers against the bruises. This was getting to be a habit.

  The missing police officer was equally lucky. When backup arrived they found him unconscious in the boot of the patrol car, tied up with his own restraints. A hard knock to the head with a blunt object left him with concussion and a certain amount of wounded pride, but he was otherwise fine.

  Liam was much worse. Several broken ribs, some internal bleeding, one of his lungs had collapsed and was still being drained. He was wheeled into theatre for an operation to save his right eye. Jenny tried to wait it out but Dorothy insisted she come home and rest. So here she was. Exhausted, in pain, totally fucked in the head but still alive.

  She heard footsteps then voices as Dorothy and Thomas came in, Hannah behind. Jenny felt a pang at the sight of her daughter. Hannah had saved her life, which gave her a weird mix of relief and guilt. Guilt that Jenny’s actions had forced Hannah into a situation where she had to confront her dad. Guilt for everything. Being a mum was great. But Jenny was also proud, felt her chest swell. Her daughter was a stronger woman than Jenny would ever be.

  ‘Well?’ she said to Thomas, who had taken a seat at the table. Dorothy busied herself with the kettle, Hannah skulked at the whiteboards looking at the hotchpotch of cases they’d been working on. On TV dramas everything gets tied up, they catch the killer and get resolution. They have a chuckle and make a quip, end credits, tune in next week.

  If only.

  They had a dead homeless addict whose father refused to acknowledge him because he was gay. They had a woman who lied to her daughter her whole life. A suicide to end the horror of terminal cancer. And a killer still on the loose.

  Tune in next week, folks.

  Thomas looked sheepish. ‘We’re doing everything we can.’