by Rae Shaw
‘Which do you like best?’ asked Zoe. ‘Leaping into action at the wheel of a car or... fraud?’
Julianna hadn't leapt into anything since Dublin. ‘Both, I suppose. I don’t like being behind a desk too much.’
‘She doesn’t like driving me about too much either.’ Hettie nudged Julianna's shoulder. ‘Boring.’
‘No!’ Julianna said. ‘It’s not boring—’
‘Don’t lie. What an earth do you get from sitting in a car with a stressed mum and two screaming kids. Wine anyone?’ Hettie asked.
‘Gives you the chance to easily wipe snotty noses. Just a little, please,’ said Julianna, accepting a couple of splashes in her glass. ‘I’m driving back. I would be hung out to rot for drink driving.’
‘You brought the bottle though,’ Zoe said.
‘I know, crazy choice of gift.’ She seriously regretted the wine.
‘I’ll open the biscuit tin, something to soak up the alcohol.’ Hettie prised off the lid and handed out biscuits.
‘Do you ever drive, Het?’ Eva asked.
Hettie scowled. ‘Yes. A rarity but I do. I did a couple of weekends ago in fact. Something... well I had...’ Hettie focused on the spread of cards in her hand and discarded one.
‘You drove him?’ Eva rested her elbows on the table and dropped her chin on her knuckles. ‘Pray tell. What happened? Come on, tell us.’ She had a sweet smile, quite girlish. There were no rings on her fingers, only a pale band where she had worn her wedding ring. Dishing the dirt on husbands was probably something Eva enjoyed. Julianna once had, but not anymore.
The tale began innocuously enough. They had been to the seaside and Jackson had accidently rubbed sand into his eyes.
‘He let me drive home while he… Poor Noah was distraught. He thought Daddy was very sad about something because his eyes were watering. The car's an automatic anyway. I'm not incompetent.’ Hettie won the hand with a whoop.
‘While he what?’ Julianna asked.
Hettie picked up the scattered cards. ‘While he sat in the back with Noah. I moved Evey next to me.’
‘In the back?’ Julianna pictured Jackson’s long legs. ‘He didn’t want you to drive, did he?’
Hettie shuffled the pack. ‘I insisted. He was tired.’
‘Noah?’
‘No, Jackson. He won’t admit it, like a petulant child. So I snatched the keys out of his hands and told him to sit in the back with Noah and have a nap.’
‘Marvellous,’ said Zoe. ‘Just love it. Were the child locks on too?’
Hettie dealt the cards with a flick of her wrist. ‘I played nursery rhymes. Noah sang. Loudly. Most unfortunate for Jackson. He was worried I’d forgotten how to drive. He worries too much. It’s like riding a bicycle, comes back quickly when given the opportunity.’
Jackson wouldn’t have slept a wink. And it wasn’t the case that he simply allowed Hettie to drive as she had initially implied. Hettie had put her foot down on more than the accelerator.
The game resumed. Hettie kept her cards close to her chest, peeping at them from time to time. It was a reflection of her whole life, hiding things out of sight. Here, at least among friends, Hettie was revealing a different side and expecting privacy in return. Julianna rather liked seeing this version of Hettie.
Julianna glanced up to the double-glazed doors into the kitchen. Through them, she watched Jackson enter. Dressed in faded jeans and burgundy polo shirt, the man looked closer to thirty not forty. He padded about the kitchen in bare feet and put his empty coffee mug in the dishwasher. Nothing about his relaxed manner shouted chief executive. Pausing, he picked up an apple from the fruit bowl, then cocked his head, as if listening. He approached the double doors – Julianna refocused on her cards – and tapped on the glass. While taking a bite out of the apple and with a wag of his finger, he summoned Hettie.
‘Excuse me,’ Hettie said and followed her husband out of the kitchen.
‘He's so gorgeous, isn't he?’ Eva whispered.
‘Too old for me.’ Zoe sniffed her wine. ‘This is a good bottle, Julianna. You should come again and share some gossip. You must hear them chat all the time in the back of the car.’
‘I mainly drive Hettie, just her.’ Julianna wasn't lying. Jackson had his own drivers.
Zoe shuffled the cards. ‘Do you like driving?’
‘Yes.’ Julianna had learnt to drive at fifteen on a private road. She laughed and told the two women how she had driven up and down the straight stretch and performed a three-point turn at each end. ‘I'm pretty good at hand brake turns.’
The conversation shifted away from cars and chauffeuring.
She had staved off their intrusive questions. It was another part of her training to deflect. She was never off-duty; her contract stated she could be called up any time if there was an urgent requirement. Her discomfort was entirely based around the knowledge she was in her boss’s house thinking that at any minute he could snap at her to do something. He wouldn't, but the thought was there.
Hettie returned. ‘So sorry. Jackson thought he heard Evey cry and, well, he's not always who she wants.’
She yawned and picked up her cards. They played, and talked, and none of it stayed in Julianna’s head, which was strangely relaxing.
‘Julianna should get a medal for driving you.’ Eva swayed, then air pecked Hettie's cheek. The goodbyes lasted the length of the suave hallway.
‘I'm sure she will.’ Hettie winked at Julianna.
Julianna was the last to leave. As she slipped on her shoes, Hettie touched her arm. ‘Sophia and Luke would like to invite you and Mark for dinner. Just you two. Luke asked Jackson.’
‘I'll tell Mark. I'm sure he'd love to go.’ She wasn't sure. The last time he had gone to Luke's, he hadn’t enjoyed the occasion.
Driving home, Julianna played over the evening’s events in her head. She had gone with an idea firmly planted in her mind that she wouldn't fit in and it had slowly unravelled all evening, which meant she and Hettie were becoming friends. How would Jackson view that development?
Mark was still up when she reached home and as she dropped her handbag on the stand in the hallway, he called out to her from the dining room table where he sat surrounded by documents, staring at his laptop screen.
‘I thought you’d finished all that?’ she remarked.
‘Had one more look through the final report and decided to change a few bits,’ he said, without glancing up.
‘Control freak.’ She bent to kiss his head.
‘That’s me, sweetheart. Though I prefer perfectionist: sounds better.’ He rubbed his eyes and leaned back in the chair. ‘How did the evening go?’
Julianna hadn’t planned to relay the details of the evening to Mark but as she fiddled with a piece of paper, she relived some of the conversations, and it turned into a verbatim account.
‘So,’ Mark said. ‘You brought wine when you shouldn’t have bothered, you squirmed because they asked you about your job, and you managed to tell them nothing useful, and Hettie played at being Hettie.’
The spot-on summary grated. ‘Yes. In a nutshell.’
‘You're becoming friends with Hettie, her friends, and it makes you uncomfortable.’
Yes, damn it. Since he’d visited his father, Mark remained sharply focused. She felt like a blunt knife.
‘I'm supposed to put my life on the line for her, and her kids. A year ago, I didn't think anything of it. I never expected it to get that serious.’
‘Until Dublin.’
‘Yes.’ She stared at her shaking hands and rose to stand nearer to him. ‘Now I know it is serious. I beat a man with my bare hands, and it felt good. What does that say about me?’
‘It says you're good at your job and Hettie is lucky. So is Ellen.’ He stroked her arm. ‘I promise to excise your demons, Julianna.’ He laced his fingers through hers.
She would tell him about the dinner invitation in the morning.
37
Juliann
a
SUMMER, FRIDAY MORNING
After the rather delightful dinner with Sophia and Luke, Julianna and Sophia ceased using the Haynes couple as intermediaries for organising their flourishing friendship. Julianna's involvement with Opportunitas further solidified the new, and, unlike with Hettie, uncomplicated friendship. By the summer she and Sophia were meeting every Friday, work permitting and they either lunched together or went for a brisk walk to clear their heads. The routine established, Julianna looked forward to her Friday lunchtimes.
On a promising summer’s day she logged out of the office system and went walkabout with her friend in the warm sunshine. The topic of conversation was more serious than usual: Sophia’s pro bono work for Opportunitas. Julianna was impressed by Sophia’s dedication and had offered to help. Via emails and phone calls, Julianna had helped collate the evidence. There were others involved in the investigation, including Graham Saddler, who had assisted Sophia with background checks.
Graham had sent Sophia an email asking for information about one girl she had been interviewing.
‘I went to see her, and she’d vanished,’ said Sophia. ‘The B&B where she was staying said she didn’t come home one day. She’d managed to get a job in a cafe since she stopped working the streets and Graham thinks she’s been enticed back again.’
‘What about her pimp?’ Julianna asked.
‘Can’t prove anything without the evidence. He claims to be her boyfriend. Which he so is not, or else he must have multiple girlfriends. What worries me, is this isn't the first time a girl has gone off radar. She's the fifth in two months.’
Julianna agreed, it was happening too often.
They rounded a corner, down a quiet side street back towards Sophia’s office block; their usual circuit. As they strolled down the pavement chatting, they passed a black BMW; a stretch saloon familiar to chauffeurs like Julianna. The front window was wound down. Inside, the passenger was examining a street map.
‘Ladies, please to help me?’ The young man wore a baseball cap and reflective sunglasses. He smiled and waved at the map. ‘I need to be here.’ He pointed at a spot on the map.
Something wasn't right. She spotted a few niggling things: the car was an older model, but in good condition and it had a satnav. The tattoos along the passenger’s arm were scripted with Cyrillic text. The driver’s seat was empty.
‘No satnav?’ asked Julianna, keeping her distance.
‘Kapput.’ He shrugged. He wasn't a native English speaker. He opened the door and climbed out. ‘Here.’ He gestured again.
Sophia leaned forward. ‘You’re miles from there.’
Julianna reached out to touch her friend, to draw her away from the man. Out of the corner of her eye an arm flew past her and wrapped itself around Julianna’s throat, pulling her backwards. Another coiled itself tight about her body. The masculine arms squeezed hard, expelling the air out of her lungs. The strap in her hand slipped through her fingers and she clung onto it. The handbag was as heavy as a brick and was her only weapon.
Sophia opened her mouth to scream. The man in the baseball cap slapped his hand over it and dragged her towards the car. The map fluttered to the ground.
‘Shut up,’ he snarled.
Julianna's eyes watered; she was asphyxiating. With the consciousness fading, the handbag fell to the ground. She weakened until, like Sophia, she was slammed against the car with her arms pinned behind her back.
Cold metal snapped her wrists together – handcuffs. Sophia's face was squashed against the window, her mouth open, gasping for air. She, too, was handcuffed. With her head spinning, Julianna was bundled backwards into the car and Sophia was catapulted into the seat next to hers. Julianna’s eyes streamed. Her assailants’ faces blurred into a diffuse arrangement of masculine features. She continued to resist, tossing her head from side to side. A rough hand slapped her face, then stretched a strip of duct tape over her mouth. Julianna kicked with her blunted heels. The young man grunted and, in reply, punched her stomach. Winded by the ferocity of his blow, she fought to stay conscious, vaguely aware he was binding her ankles. Once they finished trussing her and Sophia into packages, the men shoved them into the cramped footwells.
Pain, an occasionally useful nemesis, brought Julianna to her senses. Adrenaline, also reliable, pumped harshly into her bloodstream. Fright inveigled her; flight had to win, though. It had taken seconds for them to be snatched off the street. She started to pay attention and crushed the fear to the back of her mind. Had anyone witnessed their abduction? The quiet backstreet served its purpose; not a car or person happened upon their assault, even the windows of the buildings were shuttered by blinds.
The men spoke in an unrecognisable language. Baseball cap man returned to the passenger seat and the other one occupied the driver’s seat. The car sped off.
Whimpering into her gag, Sophia was a frozen statue of white marble. Only her eyes seemed to respond. Taking deep breaths through her nose, Julianna pounded shock into a small ball in her stomach, where the pain was focused, and buried it there. There was no time for recriminations at her failure to fight off the men. Her friend needed her. She blinked, deliberately slowly, trying to reassure Sophia. They weren’t dead. Whatever these men wanted, it wasn’t an immediate death.
Still crammed into the footwell, she risked sticking her head between the seats, and caught a glimpse of the abductors. The man in the passenger seat in front of her was blocked from her view. The driver was in profile and the unflattering contours of his face triggered a vivid memory. The driver had two discerning features: a long black ponytail and a ragged scar on his neck. The last time they had met was in a hotel in Dublin where she had beaten him unconscious with her fists.
The annihilating impact of terror returned in abundance. For a few seconds, those images of his battered face consumed her. They carried with them anguish, hatred and fear, things that had no place when battling danger.
Sophia cried; the tears flooded her bewildered eyes.
The passenger in his baseball cap was speaking on the phone in English. Given the thickness of his accent, Julianna concluded they were an international gang. She also guessed who their boss might be; she didn’t need to hear his many names.
‘We’ve got her,’ he said. ‘And another.’
A pause.
‘Don’t fucking know.... Do you want her?’ He produced a thick throaty laugh. ‘Snuff flick. Sure, she would make good snuff flick. A, what say, a bonus.’
The men were laughing loudly and were distracted. Julianna eased herself up on to the seat but kept her head low. She slid toward the door release and tried to gently pull on it. The door refused to budge. A child lock. She nodded at Sophia.
Terrified, Sophia shrivelled further into the footwell. Julianna pleaded with her eyes. Time was running out. Although now and again they were stuck in traffic, soon they would hit the faster roads out of the city. Too fast to leap out of the car.
‘You’ve not found him?’ the baseball cap man asked the caller. ‘He is at work. Stazki, here, wants both. He'll sell them.’
Ponytail man, Stazki, nodded and said something in his native tongue. The man in the baseball cap relayed a translation.
‘She beat him. He wants them to beat each other. See who lives! He says she will. Weak man who hides behind woman. We speak later. Stazki wants Clewer. Get him. The boss will find out soon what he’s done.’ Baseball cap man hung up. The two kidnappers continued to talk in their own tongue.
The motive for their abduction was established, the likely outcome all too apparent, now was the time to act. However, throwing off the shackles of heavy traffic, the car accelerated hard and Julianna struggled to stay anchored to the smooth leather seat. She tried to encourage Sophia by jerking her head toward the other passenger door. Sophia’s legs slowly unfolded, she perched her elbows on the edge of the seat and pushed her bottom up. There, precariously balanced, she fumbled with the door handle until there was a small clunk.
No child lock. Sophia’s widening eyes suddenly sparked with understanding.
The dashboard would light up with a warning light; it was a risk worth taking. Jump, Julianna pleaded soundlessly. Still keeping low, she lifted her legs onto the seat, knees bent to her chin, and there, foetal like, she held herself poised for the next stage. If Sophia made it out of the door, she would slide out and follow.
In the shadows, screwed into the corner by fear, the terror reflected in her glassy eyes, Sophia released the door catch. A little more weight was all that it needed.
The dashboard emitted a resonating beep. Sophia froze, childlike.
Julianna acted on instinct. Their captors within that millisecond started to turn, ignoring the road ahead. There was no knowing from her perspective what was behind the BMW, only the certainty that death was on the agenda if they stayed put, and opportunities unlikely for further escape. With the flat of her soles, she gave her friend one almighty jolt. Sophia tumbled backwards onto the street. Handcuffed, ankles taped together, and mouth sealed, the look of horror on Sophia’s face encapsulated what Julianna felt. She had probably just killed her friend; there was no way of knowing.
Stazki swerved the car. The door swung back. As Julianna made the decision to gamble her own life too, a clenched fist hurtled towards her, striking her cheek; the collision of brute knuckles and soft flesh was impossible to avoid. The explosion blinded her vision, blocking out the interior, the bright sunshine. The twinned sensations of pain coupled to fading consciousness were extraordinarily calming in their simplicity because together they were a salvation of sorts. She tasted blood in her mouth and the cool air rushing into the cabin, brushing her stinging face. It was too late for a revival; the final obliterating blackness accompanied the door slamming shut.
38
Mark
FRIDAY AFTERNOON