by Danuta Kot
‘Thanks,’ she said, licking the salt and grease off her fingers.
‘That’s OK. You’ve got to have fish and chips if you come to Whitby. What do you want to do now?’
‘Let’s go and look at that church – you know, the Dracula one.’
They crossed the river and climbed up about a thousand steps. The church was old and it was weird – full of pillars in fancy metal and carved seats with sort of wooden screens around them. Becca thought about Dracula again, but somehow, up here, it wasn’t funny.
Outside, the graves were all this way and that. They wandered round, reading the inscriptions, or the ones that hadn’t been blown away by the weather. ‘They were young,’ Jared said, almost as if he was talking to himself.
The wind blew in from the sea, making her shiver. There were no crowds up here. She looked back the way they had come, and saw a man standing at the top of the steps. He was looking at them.
Watching them.
She was taking a breath to alert Jared when there was a shout, and a small boy came running up the steps behind the man, who scooped him up and twirled him round.
Becca’s heart pounded. ‘Let’s go,’ she said. ‘Back down.’ She didn’t like this solitary place.
It was dark by the time they got back into the town centre, and she realised she was hungry. ‘What are we going to do now?’
He looked at his watch. ‘Go and get something to eat. I’m starving.’
Her hand went to her purse instinctively.
‘Don’t worry. My treat.’
But she wasn’t going to accept that. He’d bought lunch. She should buy tea.
‘I’ll tell you what,’ he said after they’d wrangled for a while. ‘I know a pub just across the river. The servings are so big you could feed your family and your dog. We’ll get one plate, two knives and forks and I buy the drinks. Deal?’
She chewed her lip. ‘OK. Deal.’
They walked along the narrow road in the intermittent street lighting, towards the river. He reached out his hand, and after a moment’s hesitation, she took it. For the first time since the Bexgirl incident in Leeds, she felt happy.
Chapter 40
Kay hated the drive back from Bridlington. It was awful. It was raining hard, a sleety rain that made the road surface mushy and built up on the windscreen, restricting her vision. She wasn’t so good at night driving now – the lights of the oncoming cars shattered into radiating lines, turning the road ahead of her pitch black. Milo, in the back, picked up on her unease and shifted in his basket, whining occasionally. ‘Good boy,’ she reassured him – or maybe the reassurance was for her. By the time she was driving up the hill from Whitby, her head was pounding and she ached all over from the stress of intense concentration.
She negotiated the car into the small lean-to garage – made even smaller by Matt’s motorbike, his pride and joy that she hadn’t yet had the heart to get rid of – and let herself in. The cottage felt cold and dank. She fed Milo, then lit the stove, huddling in front of it in her coat. All the things that had seemed so good about the place when they bought it grated on her now – the stove, the small windows, the thick stone walls, the isolation . . .
OK, self-pity time over. Come the spring, she’d put the place on the market and move – maybe get a flat in Whitby if she could afford it, or Scarborough, or . . . Milo came and nosed at her. She sat down and he jumped up onto her lap. She stared at the fire, burying her fingers in his fur, wondering how useful the day had been.
Neil hadn’t changed his mind about Becca, but he had listened and he would probably think about what she had said. The trouble was, she could see why he was so sensitive about what had happened.
Becca had made a bad decision. Kay knew that young women of Becca’s age didn’t view displays like camming with the instinctive distaste women of Kay’s age did. Somehow it had become self-affirming to bend down in front of some swivel-hipped male and simulate submissive sex on stage and video – so where was the harm in Becca’s rather less decadent activities?
Kay sighed. What Becca apparently didn’t get was that you couldn’t work with vulnerable kids and be involved in the sex industry in any way. Recent scandals meant that organisations lived in fear of the moral outrage of a press that was always a bit selective about which issues upset it.
Becca’s photo by the phone scowled at her. Where was she? She’d driven off in a half strop for some unnamed destination and wasn’t answering her phone. All Kay could do was wait.
There was another photo beside the phone – Maireid, the thirteen-year-old they had been fostering when Matt got so ill. In the eight months she’d been with them, her face had lost that pale, pinched look, filled out, become healthier and happier, and then it all started. It hadn’t seemed right to have Maireid there, have her go through the trauma of Matt’s illness.
No, that wasn’t it. Kay had made the decision selfishly. She didn’t want to have the worry of Maireid while she was caring for Matt, so Maireid had had to go. It had been the wrong decision. Kay knew that now. No matter what was happening, she should have kept Maireid with her – that was how families worked.
Kay had let her down. Badly. She’d been waiting, hoping Maireid would call again, but so far, nothing. On impulse, she tried the number on her phone, but it was unavailable.
Tomorrow. Finding Maireid was tomorrow’s task. Right now she was too tired to think about it any more. She’d get something to eat and go to bed. Scrambled eggs on toast would be fine – no need for anything more elaborate. She went into the kitchen and started cutting bread and whisking eggs. Nibbling a crust, she put some bread in the toaster and melted some butter in a pan.
Milo usually positioned himself under her feet when she was cooking in the hopes of benefitting from anything that got dropped, but he seemed more intent on a close exploration of the kitchen, snuffling his way round the room until he reached the back door. He tried to stuff his nose under the threshold, sniffing eagerly and whining a bit.
‘It’s foxes, Milo. Leave it!’
He looked up at her and came away reluctantly, whining under his breath.
Kay piled the eggs onto the warm toast and went back to her chair in front of the stove, where she ate them and poured herself a glass of red wine. Milo seemed to lose interest in whatever it was that had attracted him and sat at her feet waiting for any crumbs or other offerings. She finished, held out her fingers for Milo to lick and checked the time.
It was only nine, but she was wiped out. ‘Early night, Milo,’ she said. She put him on his lead before she let him out – he was more than capable of racing off into the dark after whatever had been interesting him before – but he went out quite happily and peed obediently on his – and unfortunately her – favourite bush.
She tucked him under her arm and carried him upstairs. She planned to read herself to sleep, but as soon as she was lying down, her eyes felt heavy and her thoughts began to break down into a drowsy muddle.
She closed her eyes.
Chapter 41
Kay’s sleep was troubled. Milo was restless, barking a couple of times, turning round and round, jumping on and off the bed, growling, then she was dreaming, some long, complicated dream that she knew was a dream but couldn’t seem to break out of. She was walking on a path down the cliff. It was a sunny day – in her dream she was sure of that – but down here, it was dark and getting darker. Matt had come this way – she’d heard him calling and now she was following him, but she couldn’t hear him anymore as the roar of the sea was so loud.
The air grew hot and heavy and it was hard to breathe. She wanted to turn back, but her feet moved relentlessly onwards and the pressure on her chest got heavier and heavier. Something was trying to dig into her, and she couldn’t see the path – she had to get down there because Matt was getting further and further ahead and she’d lost sight of him.
Then she was rising from sleep, feeling Milo moving on the bed, and her relief at being out of th
e dream vanished as the hot, heavy air came with her and she opened her eyes into thick darkness.
Milo pawed at her and she sat up, reaching for the light.
Nothing happened.
Something gripped at her throat and she was coughing so hard she couldn’t stop to draw breath. It was as if there wasn’t any air to breathe.
Acting instinctively, she rolled off the bed onto the floor, dragging Milo with her. He vanished under the bed, looking for somewhere to hide.
Milo . . . No . . . She couldn’t speak.
Smoke.
Fire.
There was a fire. She could hear the flames and the thick smoke was gripping her throat, making it impossible to breathe. She’d die, they’d both die, her and Milo trapped inside the cottage, in this room.
She forced the panic away. Think! Keep down. Keep near the floor. That’s what they said. Damp towels, breathe through a damp towel – how could she find a towel and wet it in this smoke? Her hand touched something soft, some kind of fabric on the floor. She held it over her mouth and nose, reached up and fumbled for the water glass at the side of her bed, catching it as it tipped. She managed to soak part of whatever it was she was carrying, and her breathing eased, just a bit.
OK. Now . . . The panic was yammering in her head, demanding entrance. She had to keep it out. To survive, she had to keep it out.
OK.
OK. Think!
Now, call the emergency services – but her phone was downstairs. In her mind, she could see it on the table by the stove. The stove must have . . . or the electrics. It didn’t matter.
She had to concentrate on getting out.
Milo! She reached under the bed, grabbed the first bit of him she touched and yanked. He slid out, a limp weight that didn’t respond.
Milo!
She was near the door. Right. Push it open, down the stairs, out the front door, run through whatever is there, just . . .
The door was hot to the touch. The fire must be just on the other side. If she opened it, the air would ignite.
Not the door. That left the window.
The window was on the other side of the bed. She knew what she would find. The small metal panes, and the window itself – painted shut. She could remember struggling to get it open in the summer and failing, but she was going to have the windows replaced anyway . . . or was she . . . she . . .
. . . had to stay awake. Had to breathe.
OK.
Get onto the bed. Her improvised smoke mask had almost dried out. Get to the window, knock out a pane of glass. She might be able to squeeze Milo through. She might be able to attract someone’s attention.
Her legs felt like lead, her body was screaming out for air, her concentration was fading and she kept losing focus. She could see the outline of the window, a faint square of grey in the blackness. She was on the bed now. She crawled across and tried to drive her fist through the glass, but her arm was too feeble. It was almost too heavy to lift. Her head was pounding, her lungs were bursting.
She pulled Milo against her, and collapsed onto the bed.
Chapter 42
When Becca checked the time, it was almost ten. ‘We need a place to stay. What are we going to do?’ Jared might be able to afford a B & B, but she couldn’t.
‘It’s late. We can find somewhere around here – I’ve got the tent.’
‘Why not Kettlewhatsit?’
‘To look for that mine?’ It was the first time either of them had referred to what was happening. He frowned. ‘We’d probably be OK but I’m pretty sure they recognised us this morning – best not go back. I want them thinking we’ve moved on.’
Becca thought about the car on the road driving Paige away, about Liam’s strange aggression outside the arcade, about the girl in hospital, too badly hurt to be identified. If the people following her had anything to do with that – and why else had they come after her? – then she didn’t want to meet them again in a lonely place after dark.
‘I know what we can do. We can go to my friend’s, to Kay’s. She’ll give us a bed for the night, and she’ll lend me some boots as well.’ They hadn’t managed to find a cheap enough pair and her feet were starting to ache with the walking they’d done.
‘OK. I can drop you off.’
The idea of him just driving off felt . . . wrong. ‘I didn’t mean that. She’ll give you a bed too.’
‘It’s too late. She doesn’t know me. She won’t want a stranger spending the night. It’s OK, I’ve got the tent. Plenty of places I can stop.’
‘Kay won’t mind – I’ll tell her you’re OK.’
He grinned. ‘Don’t get too extravagant with the compliments or she’ll never believe you. Look, I’ll take you there and we can see what’s what. Right?’
‘OK.’
When they got back to the road where they’d parked the car, Jared gave it a quick once over. ‘We’ve still got wheels and the windows aren’t broken. We’re ahead.’ It looked to her as though someone had keyed it down the side, but he either didn’t notice or didn’t care.
She fished the keys out of her bag, expecting him to want to drive. But he seemed happy for her to do it and she managed to get the car out of the narrow space without scraping anything.
Well, almost.
She was aware of Jared watching out as they drove through Whitby. He swore under his breath once, then relaxed.
‘What?’ she said.
‘Nothing.’ She saw him reach into the side pocket and get the pills out again. OK. They were just painkillers. He hadn’t taken any while they were walking around.
As far as she knew.
It was a few miles to Kay’s along the coast road. The sea glittered in the cold night air. The road was straight and empty, and she put her foot down, enjoying the power of the engine and the instant response. Jared glanced at the display and said, ‘We’ll be in Sandsend in a minute and there’s a tight turn on the bridge. Best not end up in the river.’ Becca glared at him. ‘Just saying,’ he added.
Reluctantly, she eased up on the gas, but he was right; the turn was sudden: sharp left, narrow bridge then sharp right. And then they were at the start of the steep hill she remembered from before that went up to the village where Kay lived.
In fact, she could see the village ahead – a few lights in the night and a sort of glow that reminded her of . . . ‘Looks like they’ve got a club or something.’
Jared sat up. ‘Not in Lythe. It’s . . . hang on. There’s something on fire.’
Even as he said it, they heard the sounds of the sirens. Becca stared into the darkness, looking at the source of the light, the blaze. It was . . . it couldn’t be, but it was. She slammed on the brakes. The car jumped and stalled.
‘Kay.’
Her voice came out as a whisper, but she could see it now, on the far side of the village, the small cottage where she’d parked just the day before. She shoved the gears into neutral and reached for the ignition, but Jared put his hand over hers to stop her. ‘Steady.’
‘Fuck steady! That’s Kay’s house! I’ve got to—’
His hand clamped down. ‘Right. It’s your friend’s house. Use your brain, Becca. The fire service is there. If you go racing over, you’ll just get in their way. Give them some space.’
‘You don’t tell me what to do, you fucking pill-head!’ She was so angry she wanted to hit him. It wasn’t just anger – it was that head-spinning storm that made her want to slam her fist down on the horn, scream, kick him – a kick that would really hurt him – rip the fittings from the car, how dare he try and stop her, how dare he come in here without so much as . . .
You’re caught in a loop, Becca. It was Matt’s voice, speaking in her head, Matt as he carefully pieced together a broken picture frame, concentrating on what he was doing, then looking across at her with a smile as it came together. Anger is useful, Becca . . . don’t waste it. Use it the right way . . . She closed her eyes and breathed deeply and slowly. It wasn’t anger s
he was feeling – she knew that now. It was terror.
Matt was already gone. If Kay died, she’d be alone.
Jared’s face looked tense and angry. ‘OK. If that’s what you want, turn into the side road – where the sign says Kettleness – you can walk across the field.’
She scrambled out of the car as soon as she got it parked, and ran towards Kay’s cottage in the distance.
Jared didn’t follow.
Chapter 43
It was after midnight. Jared sat at the wheel of his car. The scene at the cottage was one of dereliction – the wet, charred carpet, the broken furniture, all just dumped on the ground by the firefighters trying to extinguish the flames. It was like the aftermath of a violent eviction. The chemical smell of burning plastic was lodged in his nose. He wondered if he’d ever stop smelling it.
When Becca had scrambled out of the car, his plan had been to leave her to it – little cow! – get the fuck out of there and get on with his life. Let this Kay sort it all out. He was done.
But as he’d watched her running across the field – no coat, her shoes coming off her feet – he’d got out of the car and followed her. What was it he’d accused her of back at the caravan site? Being a fucking princess? So what did that make him, flouncing off because she’d called him a pill-head? She wasn’t so far off the mark.
He’d collected waterproofs and a couple of towels from the boot and set off across the field after her. He’d got there just in time to see her climbing into the back of the ambulance. ‘I’m her daughter,’ he’d heard her snap at the paramedic.
‘Here!’ He’d tossed her the waterproof and the shoes he’d picked up on his way. ‘I’ll call you. We’re good.’ She’d nodded, then the doors had closed and the ambulance pulled away, the blue lights flashing.
He’d run back to his car to follow it but by the time he got there, the ambulance had vanished and he had no idea where they would be heading. Whitby? The hospital was tiny. They wouldn’t take trauma cases there. Scarborough? Or even York? Fuck! He was supposed to be taking care of Becca, and now he had no idea where she’d gone.