Life Ruins

by Danuta Kot

  And he was gone. She wasn’t sure if her money had run out or if he’d hung up on her. She slammed the receiver back onto the handset. Who did he think he was, telling her what to do? Got any other bright ideas? Yes, Jared Whatever-you’re-called. Loads of them. I’ll get a lift from this fucking car park and then I’ll call you from Whitby and say, Still tap dancing in the tunnel? Fuck off! And if he turned up before she got a lift? Then she’d just grab her phone and her backpack and walk away, because no one, no one talked to her like that, not again, not anymore, not . . .

  Anger is useful. It’s energy. Don’t waste it. Use it the right way.

  Right. So she could use her anger to make sure she got a ride across to Whitby so that . . . so that . . .

  The rage that had been boiling up inside her faded, leaving her feeling cold, empty and alone. Her anger had been so intense, she’d forgotten, just for that moment, what Jared had said. What did he mean? He knew who the girl was? How did he know? Something going on at your friend’s house . . . There was something in Kay’s house? What was it? What did Kay know?

  Why was she angry at Jared? He was worried about her, that’s why he’d been shitty to her. And he was driving across to pick her up, which was . . . that was an OK thing to do, when you got down to it. It was . . . yeah, it was nice of him.

  He was coming to pick her up, then they’d go to the police. Her stomach clenched. Why couldn’t they just phone, make an anonymous call, they didn’t need to go and stick their heads above the parapet. They already knew who she was, now they’d know where she was.

  The hospital foyer was stark and bleak. A few people came through the doors, mostly porters and people in overalls and stuff. There was a row of seats bolted to the wall, and she went and sat down.

  Shut inside the hospital, watching the night shift going about their business, people coming in and out, a couple of drunks under police escort, Becca made herself small as one of the police glanced her way. Eventually she drifted into a semi-doze, jerked awake from time to time by jangles of sudden noise.

  As she surfaced from one of these intermittent dozes and checked her watch, she saw it was just after three – over an hour since she and Jared had spoken. Stiffly, she straightened herself up and went to the main entrance, a double door that slid open to admit her into the chill of the outside, then a final door that released her into a storm.

  The wind caught her as soon as she left the shelter of the building, making her stagger. She braced herself against it, feeling the cold cut into her. Sleety rain spattered across her face, and then the back of her head, drenching her. Within seconds, the rain had started to penetrate her jacket.

  The trees were bending in the force of the wind and the buildings around her rattled as the sound of the storm rose to a howl. The car-park lights dazzled her but left patches of deep darkness.

  Where was Jared? He said an hour, but in this weather? From Whitby, he’d have to drive across the moors, an exposed, single-lane road where the wind would buffet the car, maybe bring down trees, capsize high-sided lorries . . .

  He couldn’t contact her, but maybe she could contact him. She checked her change, went back to the pay phone and tried her number again, but all she got was a message telling her it was unavailable. She just had to trust him to turn up where he said he would. She found a bench that was more sheltered that the others, and huddled into her coat as best she could. She didn’t want to go back into the hospital and risk missing him – he’d said an hour, and it was now twenty past three – he’d be here any minute.

  But the night got colder and colder. Becca retreated behind the final door and stood in the small entrance between the two sets of doors, her face pressed against the glass. With you in an hour . . . the police . . . I think I know who . . .

  Oh, she was going to give him a hard time for thinking he could drive across those moors in an hour in this weather. Jared, Mr Know-it-all, Mr . . .

  After another hour, she knew he wasn’t coming.

  Chapter 45

  As Jared spoke to Becca on her phone, he moved as fast as he could in the darkness across the field towards his car. The noise of the rising wind might have masked the sound of the phone, if he was lucky, but he wanted to get out of there quickly.

  The night was pitch black. If he used his phone as a torch, he’d give himself away. He had to make it back to his car without help. ‘Becca. Listen. I can’t talk now. I need to get out of here. There’s things happening.’

  He looked up at the sky. Despite the clouds, the stars were intermittently visible. Right – there was the Plough. He followed the line made by Merak and Dubhe, and found the North Star. Making an improvised sextant with his outstretched fist, he located north and adjusted his bearings.

  He didn’t have time to explain to Becca what he had found. They needed to go to the police. Together. ‘Just . . . we’ve got to go to the police. I think I know who the girl is from the caravan site. I’ll drive across to York and pick you up,’ he said, looking round for any signs of pursuit.

  There was an area of rough land and a hedge between him and the road. As he got closer, he felt in his pocket for his keys. His plan was to get over the hedge then freewheel the car towards the main road. Then he could head into Whitby and pick up the road across the moors that would take him through Pickering and Malton to York before anyone could be after him. But, of course, Becca decided to pick a fight. His frustration boiled over into anger. Why couldn’t she trust him for once?

  He could see the faint outline of his car in the moonlight, and his tension increased. It was like those last moments in a difficult climb when you had to focus, not allow yourself to relax as the end came into view, because one slip, one second’s lapse, could end your life.

  The hedge was sparse, but it grew around a barred fence. Jared moved along until he came to the gate, which was easy enough to climb over. He dropped down into the lane, and, breathing more freely now, jogged back towards the car, his keys in his hand. He wasn’t up for arguing as Becca pissed around.

  ‘ . . . I’ll pick you up in an hour, OK? I . . . oh shit.’

  An engine roared and headlights blazed out.

  ‘Oh shit.’

  Jared froze in the middle of the lane, pinned by the light as a car bore down on him at high speed.

  Chapter 46

  Kay’s throat was burning. It was all she could feel of the fire, the searing pain of heat deep in her gullet that made it impossible to call out, to try and get help, to try and reach the world outside that existed just beyond this window with the small metal panes. A phone was ringing, with a maddening electronic beep . . . beep . . . that wouldn’t go away. She tried to hammer on the window with her fist, but her arm was too feeble to make any impact.

  She tried again but her hand was stuck, as if it was tied down. She struggled to free it, and something closed over it. ‘Try and keep still, Kay. You’ll pull out the line.’

  What were they talking about? She had to get out! She had to find Milo and get out, but something was flooding through her, bringing a wave of darkness, and she slipped away.

  And then she surfaced again. She had a sense that time had passed. She was still on the bed . . . no, it was a different bed. Her throat burned, but everything else . . . Memory seeped back. There’d been brightness, people around her doing things, urgent voices reassuring her, a mask over her face making the air suddenly easier to breathe . . .

  And Becca. Becca had been there. Among the confusion of faces around her, Becca’s face had appeared, white and frightened, a vulnerable Becca who rarely revealed herself.

  Where was she? Where had Becca gone?

  Kay struggled to sit up, and the confusion of her dream fell away. She was in a hospital bed in a small ward, attached to a drip. A nurse was standing by the bed, carefully detaching the line from the cannula inserted into the back of her hand. ‘Good morning, Kay,’ the nurse said, loudly and clearly, ‘you’re in York General Hospital. There was a bit of
a fire at yours last night, but you’re fine now. Just a bit of smoke inhalation. You’ll be right as rain in a couple of days. The doctor will be round to see you later.’

  ‘Becca?’ Kay tried to say, but her voice was no more than a high-pitched breath. Her throat ached.

  ‘Don’t try and talk, Kay. You need to rest your throat,’ the nurse cautioned.

  There were questions Kay needed to ask and things she had to say. She held one hand out and made writing gestures with the other, but the nurse didn’t seem to understand. She just smiled and said, ‘The doctor will be round later. He’ll talk to you, OK?’

  Not OK. Not OK. Kay wanted to shout out loud, but her voice wouldn’t work.

  ‘Don’t get yourself worked up, love,’ the woman in the bed opposite said. ‘They’ll not do anything even if you could ask so don’t waste your breath. Was it your lass you was worried about? Small girl, red hair?’

  Your lass. Your daughter. Becca. Kay nodded.

  ‘Well, she were here last night, went off later, said she were going home, said she’d call.’

  Kay’s eyes felt as though they were full of grit. Home. Where had Becca gone? Back to the cottage? Unlikely. Back to Bridlington? As far as Kay knew, she still had a flat there. Or had she gone off with this man she was apparently travelling with?

  There was something about last night, something that was nagging at Kay’s brain. She couldn’t bring it to the surface – it was there, maddeningly elusive, slipping out of sight as she tried to focus on it. It was important, and she had a feeling Becca was involved.

  She needed to talk to Becca urgently.

  And Milo. Had Milo survived? If so, where was he? She had a sudden image of Milo, hurt by the fire, damaged by the smoke, whimpering, crawling off into a ditch to die on his own.

  Her eyes filled with tears that she was too weak to fight off. She was angry with herself for being a stupid, maudlin cow, for wallowing in sentimentality about a dog, for God’s sake. Things needed taking care of, things needed doing and it was up to her to deal with it, not to waste time snivelling in a hospital bed.

  She needed to pin down that elusive memory – the one thing she knew was that it was important. She needed to make sure Becca was all right. Becca could take care of herself but she’d just been through a bad time. Milo had either died in the fire – her eyes stung again and she blinked hard – or the firemen would have taken care of him. All she had to do was ask.

  So the first thing she needed to do was talk to the doctor and ask him how quickly she could be out of here. Like, today, for example.

  Sorting things out in her mind helped her relax. Her eyes were still painful from the smoke, so she closed them and after a while, she began to drift.

  Chapter 47

  Becca sat huddled in a chair in the hospital lobby. She was waiting for daylight. The night-time business of the hospital went on around her, people clattering past, a trolley wheeled at high speed by a careless porter. A couple of times someone asked her if she was all right, their gaze suspicious.

  The small hours dragged on, an interminable time until a faint, grey dawn began to light up the doors. It was warm in the hospital, but Becca was cold. She felt detached from the bright clarity of the morning. It was like waking after a night of sleeping out on the streets. She was so, so tired. She’d already been exhausted after the day she had spent with Jared. Now, there weren’t any words for how tired she felt.

  And Jared. Where was he? He’d said, Oh shit! and cut her off. Or had her money run out? It was hard to work out exactly what had happened. She tried to tell herself he was fed up with her, angry because she’d said vile things, called him a fucking pill-head. Oh shit just meant, Right, you’re on your own.

  But he’d also said, An hour, OK?

  The abrupt end to the call . . . something had gone badly wrong.

  And she’d just sat there waiting for him while whatever was happening happened. It was like Paige, all over again, just watching, not doing anything.

  Her brain felt mushy with fatigue. What had Jared said – We need to go to the police . . .? She couldn’t do that – Jared meant they should go together, not her, on her own. He said he knew who the girl was. What had he found out? Where had he found it?

  She stood up and stretched her cramped limbs. There was a toilet along the corridor. She went there, sorted herself out and gave herself a rudimentary wash in the basin. At least she knew how to take care of herself in the most basic circumstances.

  Her hair looked bad, as though she’d slept rough. OK. Fair enough. Her face was pale with dark shadows under her eyes, her lips were dry and flaky and the line of the scar stood out more than usual against the pallor of her skin. If she went along to A & E looking like this, they’d probably admit her.

  Time to take stock. She had just over five pounds in her pocket and no phone. Her coat was damp from sitting out in the rain waiting for Jared. She had no way of getting anywhere, and nowhere to go if she did. Her only friends were out of commission: Jared had vanished and Kay . . . Kay was ill in a hospital bed upstairs and couldn’t be expected to bail Becca out of this one.

  She had to get back to Whitby, try and find Jared, try and find out what had happened to him, help him. Something hollow inside her was telling her it was too late – Jared, like Paige, was gone.

  No. She wasn’t going to accept that. Jared was tough. He could look after himself. He did stupid things sometimes, got himself into trouble, but he’d be OK. He just needed some help.

  So maybe she should go to the police, tell them what had happened and what she knew. When she told them what Jared had said, and how he’d disappeared after that, they’d go and look for him.

  But that was hours ago. And Whitby had cliffs, and the sea. There were tunnels and old mines up the coast. People knew Jared explored them – all his online stuff told you he explored them. If someone found him in a tunnel, unconscious or – or something – they’d just think it was an accident. That Jared had been stupid and had an accident that had . . .

  Tears were running down her face. She wiped them away angrily. Stupid. Stupid, soft cow. Jared could look after himself, of course he could.

  But he might be depending on her to do her bit.

  She pulled on her damp jacket and went to the reception desk. Her request sounded odd in her ears: Where’s the nearest police station? But the receptionist just showed her on a map and gave her directions.

  ‘How far is it?’

  ‘Ten minutes? Mind you, the traffic’s heavy right now.’

  ‘I’m walking,’ Becca said.

  ‘Oh, love, it’s quite a trek. It’ll take you a good half hour,’ the woman said, looking concerned. ‘There’s a bus if you . . .’

  ‘No, it’s OK.’ Why couldn’t people mind their own business?

  ‘Here.’ The woman gave her the map – just a sheet of paper with a street map on.

  ‘Thanks.’ Becca looked at it and squared her shoulders. It wouldn’t be her first walk in the rain.

  Chapter 48

  The face behind the wheel was illuminated just for a moment, a face Jared recognised. GBH. The caravan site owner from Bridlington. Jared froze, then he threw himself back against the hedge, rolling backwards over the rail and landing on his knees in the field. The car lurched, veered and came straight towards him, fixing Jared in the lights.

  But the metal fence concealed in the bushes was just enough to stop it. There was a crunch and a scraping noise. The car skidded to a halt. Jared scrambled to his feet and was away, running across the fields, realising as he fled that he’d turned east, towards the coast, where there were no houses, no roads, nothing – just the cliffs and the sea – and his pursuer was close. Jared could hear the thud of feet on the ground behind him. GBH was a thug, heavier than Jared, stronger. If he caught Jared, he’d kill him. Jared had no illusions about that. The adrenaline of fear flooded through him.

  His mind was racing. He couldn’t outrun the guy, and from
the corner of his eye he could see another light bobbing to the south – the second person, the one he heard at the cottage, running to cut him off if he headed back for the road.

  Where to go? There was no time to call for help, even if any help would come.

  East. He had no way to go but east. Already, his chest was feeling tight and his legs heavy. He wasn’t fit, he wasn’t ready for this.

  There were trees. He could remember trees. Slightly to the south. He’d seen a clump of them, like the edge of a wood, earlier that day. Trees could conceal him. It was his only chance. Get to the trees and hide. Somehow.

  If he could keep ahead, just enough, he could do it. They’d expect him to make for the houses at Sandsend, but Jared knew that wouldn’t work. He couldn’t keep up this speed for long – already, he was struggling for breath – and if he made it, they’d get him before any help came. No one paid attention to shouts in the night.

  The ground was sloping downwards. Jared propelled himself forwards, not checking his path, just putting as much space between him and his pursuers as he could. His foot caught on something and he fell, rolling down a steep hill, his arms curled round his head, a slide, a drop, crashing into a tree, another drop. And then he was at the bottom, lying in the mud and the leaf mould.

  He could hear the sounds of people crashing about above him, and shouts. They didn’t seem to know he’d come down this way, and looking back up the hill in the faint moonlight, he could see why. The hillside was so steep as to be almost sheer in places. Gingerly, he tested himself. The trees had slowed his fall and the thick leaf mould had made a soft landing. Nothing hurt any more than usual, and everything moved OK.

  There was a footpath of a kind at his feet – more a trodden-down track than anything else, one that hadn’t been walked recently. Above him, he could hear the sounds of someone coming through the undergrowth and see the intermittent flashing of a torch – just slightly off his path. His fall had changed his direction, but the sooner he got away from here, the better.