by Elena Wilkes
‘Last night when Peter Vale was trying to smuggle her away. I couldn’t allow that to happen, Frankie. I know how much she means to you. Don’t worry,’ he puts his hand reassuringly on her arm and gives it a little squeeze, ‘she’s safe. Totally safe and comfortable. That’s where we’re going now – it was going to be a surprise but—’
He gestures for her to go through the door. She almost stumbles off the step as a great wave of panic and confusion threatens to engulf her. She’d like to cry out – to scream and yell and holler for the whole world to come and rescue her.
‘Oh sweet Jesus, Alex… What have you done? What have you done?’
‘Peter shouldn’t have tried to stop me.’ He escorts her across to his SUV, opening the door and helping her inside. ‘He was going to take her away. You must understand that, Frankie. He was going to take her away from you just like the first time. He was going to meet Vanessa somewhere. “No, no, no,” I said to him, “you’re not allowed to do that. Her mother, her real mother needs her now.”’ He pulls the safety belt around for her and leans across to clip it in. He smells of something odd: like sweat and fear and something chemical.
All she can think about is Chloe.
‘Promise me she’s safe, Alex… Promise me!’ She grabs his arm.
‘I promise you.’ He runs round to the driver’s side and slides in. ‘Come on, if you don’t believe me, you can see for yourself.’ He grins at her and starts the engine. It’s just starting to rain, and the headlights pick out the fine filaments of water as they slant through the beams.
‘You’re taking me to her, you promise? You’re really taking me to her?’
‘I said don’t fret, Frankie. Of course I am. But first we have to make sure that everything is safe and neat and right, so we’re going to the police station to tell them what you know about Peter Vale’s death.’ He begins to reverse off the drive.
‘What?’
‘You don’t know much. Hardly anything in fact.’ He smiles across at her. ‘But you’re going to tell them what Martin told you… About how he confessed to killing Peter Vale. After all, Peter attacked him once, didn’t he? It would be perfectly plausible that Martin would want revenge – but I’ll leave that bit of the story up to you to make up.’ He pats her reassuringly on the knee.
Her head is swimming. She knows she’ll wake up soon and this will all have been just a nightmare.
The early morning sky darkens suddenly as he pulls onto the road and the wipers begin to squeal.
‘Where is she?’
‘So you’ll do that?’
She turns her head to look at him. A stranger is sitting in the driver’s seat. She has no idea who her husband is.
‘You’ll do that?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’ll do that, knowing that Martin Jarvis will get recalled and stay in prison for the rest of his life?’
‘Yes.’
‘And that he’ll die in there. You will never, ever see him again?’
She knows it’s a test.
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Yes, yes, yes. I’ll do all of it and more. Whatever keeps Chloe safe.’
‘I knew you’d agree.’ He begins to laugh, his face opens into a wide grin. ‘Hey… Do you want to know what’s really funny about this, Frankie? Do you want to know what’s making me feel so happy? This is the first time in the whole of our marriage where I really think you’re seeing me. Do you realise that? For the first time, you’re really listening.’
The car picks up speed and he’s still chuckling.
‘Can you imagine how that feels? It feels amazing, Frankie! This is how it’s going to be from now on. This is how—’
There’s a sudden bang! across the windscreen and the car slews violently to the left. Frankie hits her head on the side window as Alex grapples with the wheel. The wing hits the bank and they skid awkwardly, juddering to a halt.
‘What the hell was that?’ Alex undoes his seatbelt and goes to get out, but the rear door is yanked open and there’s a flurry of wild matted hair, and rain, and fury as Vanessa launches into the back seat.
‘You fucking bitch!’ Frankie feels her head being violently pulled back until her scalp burns and stings. Her eyes flicker and widen with fear as there’s the sudden cool hardness of a blade against her throat.
‘Where is she? Where the fuck is she? I’ll kill you!’ The knife presses harder. ‘I’ll fucking kill you! Tell me!’ she screams.
The only thing that she hears from her own throat is a tiny, strangulated cry. Her eyes flit to Alex who is pressed back against the door, his hands aloft at the sight of an unleashed, untamed animal.
‘I said – Tell me!’ Her spittle peppers her cheek. Frankie feels the knife bite. A tiny trickle of what she thinks must be blood runs down her neck as her heartbeat drums furiously in her ears.
‘Peter didn’t turn up!’ Vanessa hisses. ‘They didn’t come. I can’t get hold of him and I can’t get hold of Jack. This is your doing… It has to be you. Where are they?’
Frankie feels her breath stop. She doesn’t know. Vanessa doesn’t know. She swallows hard. She can’t bring herself to tell her.
‘I-I don’t know where Chloe is,’ she stammers. ‘I don’t know, Vanessa… Really, truly, I don’t know…’ Her eyes bat over to Alex and Vanessa snaps round.
‘Oh this is the husband then, is it?’ Vanessa’s eyes are crazed with desperation and fear. The knife flits from Frankie’s throat and wavers in the air, its tip pointing at her and then at Alex. ‘You know where she is, do you?’
‘No! No, I don’t!’ Alex’s hands are raised in surrender. ‘Yes, I’m her husband Alex, but I don’t know anything! I’m only just finding things out, just like you are. I’ve begged her to go to the police and she’s agreed, haven’t you, Frankie? That’s what we’ve said, isn’t it? You’ll go to the police?’
Frankie feels her eyes widening.
‘The police? What have you done?’ screams Vanessa. The car echoes with the force of it. ‘What the fuck have you done?’
‘Vanessa, I haven’t—’
‘She knows where Chloe is, though, don’t you, Frankie?’ Alex blurts. ‘You took her, didn’t you? You knew it was wrong, but you took her because you were desperate. Isn’t that the way it was? Isn’t that right? You might as well tell Vanessa the truth… Don’t let her suffer…’
There’s a thin sheen of perspiration glistening across his forehead. He glances at the knife tip and then at Frankie.
‘Martin Jarvis is being questioned by the police about what happened to Peter,’ he says suddenly. ‘He… he’s…’
‘Peter? What do you mean “what happened to Peter”? What are you talking about?’
‘Martin… He…’
Vanessa’s grip on the handle of the knife gets tighter. ‘What’s he done?’
Alex shakes his head slowly as Vanessa begins to choke on her sobs.
‘I don’t believe you. You’re lying.’ The knife blade swings back and forth between them. Frankie cowers back.
‘That bastard Martin. This is you. This is all your doing!’ Vanessa is out of control. ‘Where is Chloe? What have you done with her?’ The blade tip presses to Frankie’s throat.
‘I haven’t, Vanessa! I haven’t!’
‘She’ll tell you. We’ll go there!’ Alex babbles. ‘Won’t we, Frankie? But I need to start the ignition, okay? I need to get you to her.’
The blade relaxes a little. Vanessa’s hand is trembling so much she can barely keep hold of it. ‘Okay, Drive then. Drive!’
Alex turns the engine over and the car bursts into life. The rain is beating down on the roof and the windshield is fogged with their breath. He rubs his sleeve across it. Frankie touches her neck; there’s blood on her fingers. Vanessa is weeping now; a high-pitched keening sound, more animal than human.
‘Which way?’ Alex looks across at Frankie as they get to a roundabout. She stares back at him, open-mouthed. ‘This exit?’ He gestures to t
he left and she nods, quickly. The road lays out in front of them, bare of traffic. It’s a desolate road heading towards the Welsh border. She has no idea where they’re heading. Vanessa doesn’t seem to notice. She’s rocking a little in and out of her sightline, backwards and forwards. The noise emanating from her now is a guttural whimpering. It’s a terrible sound. More than pitiful.
‘My girl, my girl,’ she whispers over and over. ‘What have they done to you?’
Frankie closes her eyes; she can’t listen.
Vanessa suddenly lurches forward into the side of Frankie’s face. ‘If you’ve hurt her, I’ll kill you, you know that don’t you? You know that,’ she mumbles. ‘I lost my beautiful Charlotte and I’m not losing Chloe too. I won’t survive it. I can’t survive another… Peter… My Peter… I’m all she’s got now… Me… Do you hear that?’ Her breath is hot on Frankie’s cheek. ‘She’ll be so scared if I’m not there. She’s scared of the dark, just like Charlotte was. She needs me. She hates the dark. That’s when the nightmares come. She has nightmares… things whispering her name—’
Frankie’s eyes snap wide. Something falls away inside her. She glances at the handbag at her feet where the corner of the photograph shows the side of Jack’s face.
‘What’s that?’ The knife moves down and points. ‘That’s Jack. That’s Jack!’ The tip of the knife trembles. ‘Why would you have…?’
Vanessa dips to reach for it. The knife tip wavers as her eyes and brain process what’s in front of her: the shape of her naked daughter on the bed, the protective curl of the bedcover, the smile on Jack’s face as he looks into the camera…
‘Jack…’ says Vanessa. But there’s a moment where they both see something else.
A gasp leaves Vanessa’s lips. Frankie stares down.
She hadn’t noticed it before.
Over Jack’s shoulder is a mirror. Jack isn’t smiling into the camera on the wall. It’s the wrong wall. Jack is smiling into the lens held by the person taking the photograph; their image is caught in the reflection.
It’s Alex.
Alex’s eyes don’t leave the road.
‘You said you were at the party that night,’ Frankie says slowly. ‘You were with Jack, weren’t you? That’s what you said.’
Alex looks grimly straight ahead. There’s the drone of the engine, the hiss and swish of the tyres, the shriek of rubber wipers against the screen. There’s the sound of Vanessa’s breath slipping in and out of her lungs as though she’s drowning.
‘I want. I want…’ She can’t get her words out. ‘I want to know what this photograph means.’
Alex doesn’t twitch a muscle. Nothing.
The blade moves to a centimetre above his eye. ‘If you don’t tell me, this blade is going into your brain.’
It flashes closer to his upper lid.
His mouth opens a little and he licks his lips.
‘Start speaking Alex.’ she sneers. ‘I’ll give you to the count of—’
‘It was a game,’ he says suddenly. ‘Jack told me it was a game. We were kids really, not adults – you have to understand that.’ He wets his lips again. ‘Charlotte wanted to be a model, that’s what she said. So we started taking photographs, you know, proper photographs, like we’d seen them do on TV. She wanted to send them off to people. We encouraged her… Jack encouraged her… And then the encouraging became more than that… It was more like forcing… He went too far. We went too far.’
Frankie can’t look at Vanessa. Her whole body is on fire. She can’t hear this. No Alex. No Alex…
‘Then Jack saw her with Martin at that party. He knew she was upset and thought she’d been telling him what we’d done. Jack confronted her. He said some things to her that night… Awful things. Things that you shouldn’t say… She ran off. Jack went after her and then saw her talking to Martin. He followed them down to Martin’s boat. I had gone down to the canal after Frankie, but I couldn’t find her. Jack saw me. He called me. He’d got Charlotte on the deck; she was in a bad way. I tried to calm things down, but Charlotte wasn’t having any of it. She started screaming, saying she would go to the police, that she’d tell everyone what we’d made her do—’
He stops abruptly, taking a breath. Frankie stares out of the window. The road runs smoothly out in front, but she’s not seeing it. All that’s in front of her is the film-reel of that night: a flick-book cartoon, appalling image after appalling image.
‘I saw Charlotte had hurt her head. She kept trying to get up. I tried to help her, but all the time I’d got Jack in my ear… He was going on and on and on about how if she told people, we’d be dead; we’d go to prison. She had evidence, my father would be finished as an MP – the shame of it all – but I said I wasn’t going to listen to him, how could I? And then Charlotte lost her balance somehow – I don’t know how it happened – and suddenly she was in the water. She was still holding my arm.’ A little choke escapes from the back of his throat.
‘I tried to pull her out, but I had Jack there, fighting me and fighting – and every time I grabbed her I could feel her getting weaker, until…’ The choke becomes a strangled sob. ‘I tried to save her! I tried. I really tried!’
‘You picked up her hairband,’ Frankie hears her voice saying. ‘And Jack picked up the necklace. You tidied up between you.’
‘We were kids, and we were scared!’ Alex’s eyes flash round at her, blood-shot and desperate.
‘You both raped her. You both murdered her.’
Vanessa’s voice is almost a whisper. Frankie barely hears the words. For one tiny instant her eyes meet Alex’s but something else happens.
There’s an immediate sensation of heightened reality – a strange light and buzzing in the air that tells her that something terrible is about to unfold. She doesn’t see the knife blade move, only a clean brilliant red line lighting up on his neck. The wheel drags and there’s a sudden swerve, weaving them into the far lane and a lorry – its headlights on full beam, the horn blaring, the roar of it bearing down on them.
The brilliant white light shows up the dark spatter of blood across the windscreen as Frankie finds her hands reaching out to grope for the wheel. Somewhere she registers the odd feel of it at the wrong angle, the speed, the bellowing thunder of the engine, as she heaves the weight in her hands in the opposite direction, feeling them slip and give.
There’s a moment’s silence. Then everything begins to slide. The lorry booms past in a claxon wail as they slew wildly into a lay-by – no brakes, no control – and her eyes take in what’s right in front of her before her brain can process what’s about to happen.
A roadwork sign bears down on them, broken and twisted, its arm-like poles bent: reaching forward. She sees it before she hears it: the splintering crack of glass as the metal smashes through the windshield, buffeting them backwards and spinning them round in an uncontrollable shrieking of tyres and crumpling metal. There’s a jaw-slamming judder as the car spins out of control, a whirling merry-go-round of muted colours whizzing past, as a valley: a wide expanse of green, plunging from the side of a bridge, tips dizzyingly towards her—
And then the world goes black.
Chapter Thirty-Two
She remembers some things.
The sensation of someone holding her, rocking her on their lap, their arms around her. She can hear the knit and creak of the mattress as they move gently to and fro.
Knit. Creak.
‘Shh’ someone’s saying, ‘it’s okay, you’re safe. You can go back to sleep now.’
She can hear the quiet hiss of a water tank filling somewhere and the steady thrub-thrub of their heart.
‘Hear that, how strong it is?’
She nods into the warmth against her cheek.
‘That means I’m never going to leave you.’
She opens her eyes.
For the next few seconds, nothing makes sense. She wonders if this could be heaven.
There are birds twittering somewhere. She can se
e an expanse of rolling hills and a watery pre-dawn sun that’s just flickering on the horizon.
There was some kind of childhood dream. She knows someone loved her, but she can’t remember who.
Martin’s face comes back to her. She remembers his warmth. It was real and solid, and she yearns—
Crack!
Her eyes snap open and her body goes rigid. There’s no Martin and no dream.
Slowly, she turns her head. The windscreen has gone. There’s only a watery carbon sky out there and a cold breeze. Vanessa is lying between the front seats, her head twisted against the dashboard, her cheek and eye socket crushed into a bloody mass, but her mouth is trembling.
‘Vanessa,’ she croaks, her voice barely a whisper. ‘Vanessa… Vanessa… can you—?’
There’s an alarming shunt and the world teeters forward.
Frankie’s head shoots back and she stares outward into sky. Sky, and nothing but sky. Early morning birds fly in a ‘v’ shape in the far distance.
She blinks. What happened? What the hell happened?
There’s a soft squealing of metal against metal. She allows her eyes to track sideways.
Alex.
Only it’s not Alex.
There’s a space where Alex used to be.
The wind is blowing softly. Spatters of rain begin to patter onto the seat and onto the steering wheel, now buckled and bent. The bonnet is rucked up like an unmade bed. There’s a mound of metal on the bonnet, dark, and spread out in the half-light, that appears to be moving. Her eyes close and open again, a dull webbed blur sends the world splintering into weird light. Through the fog, great girders of wires span through the sky in a geometric arch; she guesses they must be on some kind of bridge. Out there, to her right and left are acres of green: trees, bushes, miles and miles of it, and somewhere way below her is the sound of running water.
Nothing moves. Only the mound of metal on the bonnet flaps a little in the breeze. But then it groans. Everything freezes: the sky, her spine, time.
There’s a creaking, shifting sound and her eyes flicker warily.
The mound starts to shift and it dawns on her that it isn’t metal.