by Rae Shaw
The burst of energy she had stockpiled replaced the inertia of fatigue. She carefully stood and cocked her ear to listen. I'm here, she mouthed. Footsteps resonated throughout the cellar, punctuated by the ricochet of the door bolt.
Stazki, wide-eyed and sweating heavily. He stank of cigarettes and fried food.
‘The police are here for me, aren’t they?’ she said, cheered on by his alarmed expression.
He strode over and slapped her face. ‘No police, you stupid bitch. You're fucking trouble. Should've killed you.’
The slap was the last boost she needed. She was ready. He had come alone with no backup, but no police either, if he was to be believed. The only weapon was the chain: a potentially powerful one. She backed away from him, creating slack in the links; she tempted him closer with an arrogant smirk. When he raised his hand to strike her again, she twisted her hips and brought up her leg for a sideways kick. The sole of her shoe thrust into his ample belly with a worthy amount of force. Karate kicks were her speciality and her father had taught her to smash planks with the precision and power of those kicks. Stazki doubled up and clutched his stomach. Unable to speak, he grunted. With his head lowered, his scarified neck was exposed. She hooked the chain around it and yanked it.
Leaning backwards, she added her weight and strangled him. His knees buckled and he crashed down, dragging her with him. He thrashed about blindly and snatched a handful of her sleeve, tore it, then dug his fingers into her flesh. She ignored her pain, and his bulging eyes, and the crimson of his neck and cheeks. Instead, she focused on the door and freedom. Suddenly, he slumped and released her arm.
Julianna's cramping fingers let go of the heavy chain. He landed face down. She waited, half-expecting him to rise phoenix-like from the floor, and when he didn’t, she knelt and searched him for the key to her shackles. His back trouser pocket contained a mangled packet of cigarettes, but nothing else. She heaved him over on to his back, and flinched at his grotesque appearance. Above his ugly scar, his lips had turned bluish, the skin of his cheeks blotched and purplish. The links of the chain had marked his throat with figures of eight. He moaned – a bubbly exhale – and opened his mouth to gasp for air. She hunted through his pockets and found the key.
Free of the hampering chains, she rubbed her sore wrists. The temptation to beat him to a pulp again was strong, almost overpowering. With him incapacitated, she could finish off what she had started in Dublin. Would Mark congratulate her? He had agreed with her reasoning when she removed the punchbag; violence was not the solution to her anger and nothing had changed. Mark’s approval mattered more than ever.
She attached the shackles to Stazki's wrists and slipped the key inside her trouser pocket.
There was another bang. Another gunshot, then another and a barrage of angry shouts followed by more shots fired in rapid succession. Nobody seemed to be speaking in English. If they weren't the police, who were the intruders? She opened the door a fraction and peered down the length of the cellar corridor. The floorboards above her head creaked in time to cautious footsteps. Creeping down the grimy passageway, she tiptoed toward the stairs but as she passed the other door, she stopped. She couldn’t leave her there, terrified and vulnerable. Julianna drew back the bolt and slowly opened the door.
There were two women, not one, and both were chained to the walls and hugging each other. They wore grubby floral dresses that were torn in places, their long hair was matted with filth, and their pale skin sallowed by undernourishment and darkness. The room reeked of urine. As she moved closer, instead of showing relief, both women stiffened. Julianna remembered in Dublin a woman had been used to help abduct Ellen. Their trust was so badly eroded she wasn’t seen as their saviour.
She crouched and held out two palms. ‘It’s alright. I’m here to help,’ she whispered. She showed them the marks left by her shackles, then produced the key. With a gasp, the older of the women released her companion, and offered Julianna her trembling wrists. She nearly said something, but Julianna quickly pressed a finger to her own lips and pointed up above them.
The younger girl was injured. There was dried blood on her lips and an ugly black eye. Julianna wondered if she had seen her photograph in a report. She might be one of the missing girls desperately sought by her parents. Julianna couldn't remember specific names.
‘You need to be brave and try to walk,’ she whispered.
The older woman spoke with a dry croak. ‘She doesn’t speak. I don’t know where she comes from. I tried to protect her.’ She held the other girl’s hand. ‘I'm Rita.’ An Irish accent.
More footsteps. A loud shot echoed directly above their heads and the three of them bumped into each other. Somebody crash-landed on the boards above. Dust spewed out of the cracks and rained down on them.
‘Come. Try to help her.’ Julianna dragged the frozen girl up with the help of Rita. They steered her toward the door.
The cellar remained eerily quiet, untouched by the war raging elsewhere in the house. Huddled together, the trio inched their way along to the stairs. Rita and Julianna propelled the injured girl up the stairs. Reaching the top, Julianna propped her on a step and pushed the door open a fraction.
She held her breath, fearing the slightest exhale would signal their location.
A man lay on the kitchen floor in a stream of rippled morning light. Crimson rivulets poured out of a gaping hole in his head. Nearby was a handgun and the familiar baseball cap. He was twisted about his waist; arms one way, legs another, as if in the moment of his violent end he had pivoted and fired his revolver.
Nobody else, at least not in eyeline. She plucked up the courage to go further into the room, knowing that there really was no choice but to keep moving.
‘Stay here.’ Julianna crawled along the floor, avoiding the bloody puddle, and picked up the gun. There might be bullets left, but not many.
A floorboard groaned. Julianna leapt to her feet and spun on her heel, balancing herself. The man facing her was a stranger. He had tattoos spiralling his neck and exposed arm, and a pistol pointed at her. He stared, confused, his eyebrows knitted together. The hesitation threw her. Was this the undercover police officer? From the direction of the cellar door, the poor girl’s terrified mewl escaped. His face hardened and he levelled the muzzle with Julianna's face. Her gun was tucked behind her back. There was no time for second guesses; she had to act fast.
She raised her weapon, aimed and squeezed the trigger hard in one fluid movement. The bullet smashed into his leg, just above the kneecap and splintered the bone. His startled eyes widened into plates, and with an agonised yell, he collapsed onto his back. While he writhed on the floor, she kicked the gun out of his hand, picked it up and pointed both weapons at his stricken face.
‘Fuck you, bitch!’
Given his surprised expression, whatever was happening in the farmhouse it wasn’t anything to do with her or the other two women. But hanging around to find out the real reason wasn’t an option. There was a car key on the table. Stuffing one of the guns in the waistband of her trousers, she scooped up the key and signalled to the women to follow her closely. The younger retched as she hurried past the dead body. The sight of death bathed in sunshine gave all their legs a boost of energy. Freedom beckoned tantalisingly close.
The blue kitchen door was ajar. Behind them, the injured man fretted over his wound. Julianna kept the gun poised and ready to fire. Peeping around the door, she saw the black BMW, which had been used to entice her into a trap, parked on a stretch of concrete on the other side of the yard. There was another vehicle nearby – a large pickup truck. Both appeared to be unoccupied. The key in her hand was for the BMW. The distance wasn't huge, but she had to urge the frightened Rita and the girl to ready themselves for what might seem like a marathon dash.
‘Run!’
The other two hadn't the ability to sprint like Julianna. Their legs staggered in slow motion as if tied down by invisible weights. Rita hauled the girl across the la
st few metres until they careered into the back of the car. Julianna activated the central locking and opened the rear passenger door. She bundled the two women inside and they sprawled across the seat.
‘Get down!’
She climbed into the driver’s seat. With her finger poised to hit the start button, another large car arrived on the scene. She ducked her head onto the passenger seat, where she had laid the guns. Panting, and unable to control her painful breathing, she prayed in silence to the God she had stopped believing in.
The other car’s engine cut out. A door slammed and a man shouted something.
She lifted her head, just level with the dashboard and peered through the windscreen. By the open door of the farmhouse was a bald man surveying the dead body of the baseball cap man. She recognised his clothes – it was the man who had visited her in the dark, promising her a terrible retribution: Zustaller. From his jacket pocket, he produced a handgun. With no hesitation, he aimed it at the stricken man, who held up his hands in self-defence. The gesture proved futile. The shot rang out and he jerked in a death throe. The silhouetted Zustaller headed towards the cellar door and disappeared out of sight.
Julianna reached for the clutch. She scowled; she needed absolute control over the car and she wouldn’t have it if only the tips of her toes rested on the pedals. Whoever last drove the car had gigantic legs. She wasted precious time adjusting the seat.
‘Stay down. Whatever happens, keep down,’ she told the other two before strapping on her seatbelt. ‘Defensive driving course, you better be worth it.’ She hit the start button for the engine and it roared into action: the cacophony that erupted into the quiet countryside was an unfortunate alarm bell. She shifted into first gear and the wheels squealed. First, she manoeuvred past the pickup truck, which was a challenge, there wasn't much space in the yard. Then there was the Audi, which Zustaller had arrived in. He had dumped it in the middle of the lane. More time ticked by while she drove up an embankment and steered around it.
She might have the keys to the shackles in her pocket, but there was no reason to believe it was the only set. As she turned the car down the unpaved road, the only route away from the farmhouse, in the rear-view mirror two men emerged from the house. Zustaller and his sidekick, Stazki; he had recovered sufficiently to give chase. Perhaps, she should have killed him.
Zustaller raised his weapon.
‘Fuck.’ Just as she floored the gas pedal the bullet hit the rear of the car.
The dirt track wasn't a good surface for grip and the rear-wheel drive BMW wasn’t a great vehicle for off-road speed and stability. But neither was the sporty Audi being used by her pursuers. She bumped the car over potholes, willing it on, but the gap between the two cars shrank.
‘Why not a bloody Land Rover!’ She slammed her fist on the wheel, then switched on the fully functional satnav; the GPS displayed the vehicle’s location on the fringes of western Kent, close to neighbouring Sussex.
The ensuing car chase unfolded across country roads, lanes and sometimes an open field. Julianna paid no heed to the silliness of the situation, how she, a desk bound intelligence officer, had finally achieved the kind of excitement a field officer only ever dreamt of experiencing. It wasn't fun. She was terrified and surviving on her instincts, especially her training in evasive car handling. Another car careered straight at the BMW, unaware of the danger, and she had to play chicken with it, causing the opposing vehicle to swerve and drive into a shallow ditch.
It didn’t matter; Julianna wanted to infuriate other road users. Phone calls would be made to the police. Alert bulletins would be announced over car radios – a high-speed car chase across the Kentish countryside and she was the cause.
Why did Zustaller want to catch her? Was she that important? What had she witnessed that made them pursue her so remorselessly? The women in the back of the car clutched each other. Perhaps they were the reason for the pursuit. They had been in captivity longer than Julianna and might know significant information about their abductors: identities, trafficking routes, and the network of houses, ones like the farmhouse. Or perhaps it remained simple revenge, an ongoing reprisal without conclusion. She had beaten her adversary the first time with her fists, then strangled him, and now she was baiting them with a high-speed chase. Their repulsive sexual habits showed how little they cared for women. Julianna’s strengths and her guile must epitomise that hatred in all its glory.
Her pursuers caught up with her and the rear-view mirror reflected their faces. Zustaller, the man behind Ellen's grooming and the target of Jackson's war on trafficking, was completely bald. The reason for the balaclava was apparent – a mottled red scar puckered one side of his face below his eye, as if a bullet had entered his cheek and left its mark. He wore a determined expression.
Approaching a sharp bend, she stamped on the accelerator. Braking hard, the rear end of the car slid sideways around the corner, almost spinning the vehicle around one hundred and eighty degrees. Turning the wheel in the opposite direction, the car clipped the hedge on the other side of the road. Julianna made use of heel-to-toe gearshifts, something she had been taught to do, but even with the seat close to the pedals, her foot slipped, the cogs ground and she missed a gear change. The action cost her a few metres of advantage over the pursuing car, and when the Audi slammed into the back of the BMW, her chin struck the steering wheel. The women screamed.
Locking her elbows straight, and ignoring the pain in her jaw, Julianna pressed her right foot down again. A stretch of road opened up before her. But that wasn't where she aimed the car. There was an open gate to the right and, with a last second change of direction, she squeezed the car between the posts. The satnav showed another minor road on the other side of the field. Skidding across the field of barley, she prayed there was another gate there. The Audi had turned too, continuing its relentless pursuit.
Flintstones flew up underneath the car and rattled against the chassis. Something hit the windscreen and chipped the glass, and she ducked instinctively. Straightening up, she spotted a wooden gate hidden in the hedgerow and picked up speed, intending to ram it. The wooden struts of the gate splintered over the bonnet and snapped off the left-hand mirror. Julianna braked hard and turned the car down another narrow lane.
She had re-evaluated her romantic view of car chases: they weren't glamorous. They were physically demanding and extremely uncomfortable. The car jolted every time it hit a pothole or rut, and the vibrations travelled through the steering wheel and into her aching arms. The combined effect of extreme braking and accelerating filled the cabin with the stench of rubber and fumes. The rev counter was stuck in the red and the angry engine wanted to change up when she changed down, but she was grateful she wasn’t in an authoritarian automatic with its pre-programmed expectations of urban driving.
The girl was sick in the footwell. Julianna couldn’t blame her; she was unwell, injured.
‘He’s right up against us,’ Rita yelled into Julianna’s ear. ‘Do something.’
‘I fucking know!’ She had a good view of the stubble on their chins.
The two cars continued to tear up a network of poorly maintained minor roads. They shot through one small hamlet, sweeping up the roadside dust into a cloud, which prompted the postman to flatten himself against the door of his red van – a confetti of white envelopes flew up in the air.
How much longer? Julianna’s headache was back with a vengeance and the rising sun dazzled her sensitive eyes. Exhausted, she struggled to make the quick gear changes and the car kangarooed across the country road: it too was giving up.
Where were the police, those comrade-in-arms she had once called her colleagues?
Turning a corner, she almost collided with a cyclist. Swerving, she was forced to crash through a fence and drive into a steeply inclined meadow that led down towards a creek. The wheels spun and slipped on the morning dew. It was like driving on an ice pan. Behind her, the Audi followed, but they were encountering the same problem
with their vehicle.
It was her only chance. She put her foot down and accelerated.
‘Do it. Go on!’ she yelled. ‘Chase me.’
The Audi picked up speed behind the BMW.
Julianna had boasted to Hettie's friends about her handbrake turns in a confined space. However, she had never done one in a field of slippery grass with molehills and invisible ruts.
The creek was directly in front of the car. ‘Hold tight.’
She flung the steering wheel into a full lock. The car wouldn’t answer at first. Julianna dare not look ahead and braced herself for the impact of landing in the stream. The car suddenly responded, almost tipping itself on to its side. It teetered for a moment on the edge of the creek, then the tyres discovered some kind of grip. The BMW’s wheels spun for a second, before beginning the climb up the grassy slope. Black smoke billowed out of the exhaust.
The Audi carried on straight past her and at the last minute Zustaller attempted to make the same manoeuvre. The wheels locked and the engine shrieked. In the rear-view mirror, Julianna witnessed the Audi fly across the ditch. It pitched forward onto its bonnet, flipped over and missed the creek altogether. Instead, it somersaulted and smashed into a tree on the opposing bank.
Julianna wasn't going to hang around to see the outcome. They still had guns and for all she knew, given their scars, the two men were invincible and likely to walk away from the crashed car uninjured. She re-joined the lane at the top of the field. The cyclist was gone. Nobody was pursuing her, yet she couldn't stop driving like a maniac. The adrenaline rush refused to abate, and it created a strange euphoria. She laughed uncontrollably.
Coming in the other direction was a blue lit police car, its siren wailing.
‘Please stop!’ Rita hammered on the back of the driver’s seat.
Julianna slammed both feet on the brake pedal; the engine stalled. She clutched the steering wheel, and panted, as if she had been running not driving. The police had finally arrived. She shut her eyes. For the first time in hours, she allowed Mark to creep back into her thoughts – the look of relief on his face, the smile he would give her when she walked into the house. She would carve that reunion into her heart.