Life Ruins

by Danuta Kot

  The side shaft from the railway tunnel Jared had explored not so very long ago ran straight out towards the cliff, and running inland from the cliff towards the tunnel was the alum mine where he and Becca had found the bodies of the girls. At some point, the two crossed, the side shaft crossing underneath the shallow mine.

  He remembered the old wooden ladder that had drawn him in, the ladder that had looked as old as the mine timbers themselves. Had the side-shaft workers known about the mine and cut themselves an escape route against the collapse of their fragile tunnel, giving them access to the mine above?

  And one night not so long ago, had something from the mine fallen through?

  He looked at Kay. ‘There’s another way in,’ he said.

  Chapter 73

  They left the café immediately but it took time, frustrating time, to find a solicitor to act for Becca. Hours later, when they did, Kay insisted they hand their evidence over to him, not to the police. ‘He needs to make the case. He’ll give it to them then. This way, they won’t have time to argue.’

  Jared’s vision of going to the nick and walking out triumphantly with a freed Becca didn’t quite happen. Becca was being held in Scarborough – there were no custody cells in the police station at Whitby – and would have to appear in the magistrate’s court there before she could be released. The solicitor told them, with a shake of his head, that she had confessed to the charge of causing death by dangerous driving, and that was complicating everything. The hearing was scheduled for the following afternoon. Kay clearly didn’t want Jared to be involved. She dealt with all the paperwork herself and left Whitby without contacting him.

  But he wasn’t here for Kay. He was here for Becca. His bank account was empty, so he had, finally, to draw on the money his mother had been sending him to buy fuel for the bike, which, miraculously, was still where he’d left it, and to leave him with a bit of ready cash in his pocket. He drove down the coast on it – after all, he needed to return it to Kay – and was there in court, to Kay’s evident displeasure, when Becca was finally released the following afternoon.

  The charges still hung over her. She left custody on police bail to appear in the magistrate’s court the following week.

  But it wasn’t Becca who came back to them, or not the Becca Jared remembered. She wouldn’t look up, kept her gaze firmly fixed on the ground. When she finally did look at him, he saw cuts and bruising down one side of her face. What the fuck had they done to her?

  Kay put her arms round Becca and hugged her. Becca just stood there, unresponsive, and Jared’s first impulse, to lift her up and swirl her round in triumph – because it was a triumph, kind of – faded as he watched her.

  ‘Thank you,’ Kay said. ‘You saved my life. You know that, don’t you?’

  Yeah.’ Becca’s voice was hollow, empty.

  ‘All right,’ Kay said after a moment. ‘Let’s get you out of here and go and get something to eat.’ She looked at Jared. ‘I can give you a ring when Becca’s—’

  He deliberately misunderstood her. ‘I’ll come with you. Becca and I have got stuff to sort out, right, Becca?’

  Becca glanced at him. Her nod was barely perceptible, but it was enough for Jared. She wanted him there. He was staying.

  Kay sighed. ‘OK. But Becca and I are staying in Scarborough tonight. You’ll need to get back up the coast.’ Jared almost smiled at her determination to get rid of him. OK, he got it. She thought she was protecting Becca.

  ‘I brought your bike down from Whitby. It’s in the car park.’

  She frowned as if this was one complication too many. ‘I suppose you’d better hang on to it for now.’ She turned to the solicitor. ‘Are you coming with us, Richard?’

  ‘I think . . .’ The solicitor surveyed the group. ‘I think I’ll love you and leave you. I’ll sort out the paperwork and give you a call.’ He smiled at Becca. ‘Try not to worry. We have a strong case for self-defence, and a lot beyond that.’

  Becca nodded, but didn’t reply.

  Jared wanted to shake her to try and get some response. What had happened to her, that day she’d been locked away? Where was the Becca who’d practically flattened someone who barged him outside the police station? The Becca who’d got into a burn-up with a van after driving his car for about ten minutes? The Becca who’d smashed Greaseball against the wall with a car when he threatened the woman she thought of as her mother?

  What the fuck had they done to her?

  Kay marched them into a café. She seemed resigned to Jared’s presence, for the moment. ‘This table here, nice and quiet. Jared, go and get us tea, and –’ She looked at Becca – ‘bacon sandwiches.’ Becca shook her head. ‘Don’t be difficult, Becca. Here.’ She thrust some cash into Jared’s hand.

  He used his own money to pay for the order and returned Kay’s to her, which she took without comment. They ate in silence. Becca kept her head down, but she did eat.

  ‘Right,’ Kay said once they’d finished. ‘Richard thinks they’ll drop all the charges at the hearing next week. It’s a mess, but it’ll get sorted. Becca, you did the only thing you could.’

  He was beginning to understand. Becca knew she’d saved Kay’s life, but the way she’d had to do it . . . Despite the promises people had made to her, the promise he’d made to her, come the time, she’d been on her own. Not many people could bring themselves to smash a car into another person and crush them to death against a wall, and Becca wasn’t one of them – it was her anger that had driven her.

  And then she must have felt that they’d all abandoned her as the police took her away and locked her up.

  As if she could read his thoughts, she looked up and met his gaze. ‘Where were you?’

  The thousand-dollar question – where had he been? You don’t have to worry with me, he’d told her. Like fuck she didn’t. The first thing he’d done was let her go off on her own because he hadn’t trusted her judgement.

  ‘Not where I should have been,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’

  Kay’s lips tightened. ‘I don’t know about you, but I’m tired.’ Rather pointedly excluding Jared, she turned to Becca. ‘You’re coming back with me tonight – we’d better get moving.’

  Jared saw Becca reach listlessly for her jacket. He understood that Kay wanted to protect her, but she couldn’t. None of them could. Becca carried her anger with her, the anger that seemed to be part of her, an anger that must have grown more and more intense over the years. All the time he’d known her, she’d been fighting that anger, keeping it held in.

  And then she let it go, and that anger had exploded across the walls and grounds of that house, and across Becca’s mind in a way that would leave scars. Forever.

  ‘It’s still early,’ he said, standing up. ‘We’ve got things to pick up, up the coast, right, Becca?’

  ‘That doesn’t matter now.’ Kay gave him the full force of her glare.

  Becca hesitated, and seemed about to follow Kay, then she lifted her head. ‘I’m going with Jared,’ she said, with a hint of her old spark.

  Jared looked at her. ‘Ever driven a bike?’

  ‘A bit. In Leeds.’

  ‘Now’s the time to really learn.’

  Chapter 74

  The bike terrified Becca. The first couple of goes round the empty car park, she’d nearly fallen off, nearly run it into the wall. Jared stood watching and shouting instructions until she’d got to grips with the gears and had learned how to ease the throttle open slowly so the bike didn’t run away with her. She could feel the power under her hands.

  ‘OK,’ he said, climbing on the bike behind her. ‘Let’s get going.’

  She edged the bike out onto the road, the headlights reflecting back from the wet tarmac, ready to chicken out, to tell him You do it. I’ve changed my mind. Only she didn’t. An idea was starting to form in her mind. She settled herself and felt Jared’s hands on either side of her waist.

  She was cautious through Scarborough, taking it slo
wly. It was early evening, but the sun had already set. The streetlamps created pools of light in the darkness.

  She’d lost. They’d won. They’d locked her up and they’d charged her and they said it would be over and the charges dropped, but they were wrong; soon that door would close behind her forever. Bye-bye Becca, it wasn’t nice knowing you. The solicitor might say that it was all going to be OK, but what did he know? That’s what they always said. Now they were going to lock her up for years, forever, and that meant . . .

  That meant they’d won. Anger is useful, Becca. Use it the right way.

  But she hadn’t. She hadn’t.

  She was through the town now and the countryside was all around her. The road lay ahead, empty, vanishing into the distance and the winter dark. She opened up the throttle, then more, then more, and the road was racing by and the wind was whipping past her ears. Then they were in Whitby, where dimly lit houses flashed by, and then onto the coast road where the sea glittered in the moonlight.

  She was terrified, but she was flying. More. And then more. How fast could this thing go? Fast enough to escape from all of it, from all of them?

  She felt slight pressure from Jared’s hands and he said calmly in her ear, ‘Bridge with a tight bend ahead.’

  She said ‘OK’ before she realised he wouldn’t be able to hear her over the noise of the engine and the wind blasting past them. She knew this bend – she’d driven it twice recently. It was sharp – a double bend that took the road across the narrow bridge at Sandsend and then up the valley side towards Lythe.

  And the spark of an idea she’d had back in the car park suddenly burst into her head fully formed. If she wanted to, she could keep up this speed, head for the bridge, let them go crashing straight through it, into the icy river, into cold water that would make her feel clean and she wouldn’t have to think about it ever again, trapped, waiting for the door to close behind her forever.

  So they could never lock her up again.

  And Jared?

  He felt this way too, she knew it. Deep down, that was why he did all this climbing, all this crawling down into dark places, because one day it would kill him.

  Because deep down, he wanted to die.

  And he knew what she was thinking. That was why he was on the back of this bike now.

  Kay had tried to stop him. Kay knew as well. Kay understood.

  Or did she? Kay wanted to treat her like someone who was weak.

  Jared treated her like someone who could take it.

  As they swept towards the bridge, she still didn’t know what she was going to do. The engine roared as she fumbled the gear change – how did you get round the bend when it was as tight as this? Jared was suddenly gripping her firmly and leaning with her as the bike cornered, skidded, righted itself, then they were shooting up the hill and she could hear Jared’s triumphant yell and feel his body shaking against hers – he was laughing.

  And she was too.

  She opened up the throttle. The sea was on her right, the dark bulk of Kettleness somewhere up ahead, and the road going on forever in front of her. Their speed was something she couldn’t control. If anything moved into their path, if anything unexpected happened, they were dead, both of them.

  Sheer terror filled her like joy. For the first time in her life, she felt free. Nothing mattered, just this moment in time.

  And she understood. This was what Jared meant. This was what Jared went looking for, this was what he felt.

  It wasn’t death. It was life.

  Then they were on the familiar Kettleness road. She slowed the bike down with a real feeling of regret. The gate to the field where they’d camped was just on her right. She turned the bike through and came to a stop. Her legs felt shaky, and she was out of breath as if she’d been running.

  Jared swung himself off the back and came and stood beside her. ‘Good?’ he said.

  ‘It was all right.’

  He grinned. ‘The tent’s still here. And all my stuff. Want to stay?’

  ‘Yeah. OK.’

  He put his arm round her and they stood together looking out at the moonlight over the sea.

  Chapter 75

  The first spring warmth was in the air as Becca walked through the town centre. Bridlington seemed to be waking up from its long winter sleep. Visitors were starting to appear on the streets, the shops and cafés were opening and the down-at-heel inhabitants of the winter were fading into the background or had gone.

  It was two months since she’d driven her car into the man Jared called Greaseball, and she still had the occasional nightmare, but she was getting her life back on track. She’d found a job in a local pub, and another in a supermarket, and was just about managing to pay her way through her day-to-day life. Once she’d have called them loser’s jobs for a loser – only it didn’t feel like that, not really. Not anymore. It felt like . . . waiting.

  A few days after her release, a caving team finally made their way into the mine via the Kettleness tunnel. What they found there confirmed at least part of Becca and Jared’s story, including the dead girls. They also found an airshaft above the chamber, hidden with turf and scrub but which provided easy access for dumping the dead or the terminally hurt. The metal grill covering it lifted smoothly, and ropes in the shaft suggested it had been used to access the mine more than once.

  A further police search located a bullet at Shaun Turner’s house, which put a gun at the scene – forensics would tell if it was the same gun that had been used in the mine. After this, the charges against Becca were dropped.

  Kay had offered her a room in the house where she was living while the cottage was repaired, but Becca knew that if they lived together, they’d end up killing each other. And Kay was trying to get over the death of the girl in the hospital, finally identified as Maireid O’Neill. Her last foster-daughter.

  Kay had thought there would be a future for Maireid.

  Becca had always known there wasn’t.

  And that was the difference between them. Kay believed the world was basically a good place where sometimes bad things happened.

  Becca knew different.

  Shaun Turner had left the country. He’d gone to Qatar ‘on business’ when news came out that they were searching the old mine. His current location was unknown.

  ‘Handy,’ the solicitor commented. ‘If he chooses his country well, they won’t be able to get him. But they’ve frozen all his accounts. He’ll be broke and he can’t come back.’

  It wasn’t enough for Becca.

  And Jared was gone too. He’d found some work in Germany for a few months, some site where they needed climbers. His back was improving, and he was off the pills, so he decided to take it. ‘It’s what I need now,’ he had told her. ‘Build myself up, make a bit of cash. And then . . .’ He’d frowned, looking uncertain.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I thought I might go and see my parents.’ He looked away, shrugged. ‘I dunno. Maybe – just, you know. Then I can get back to . . . what I do.’ But his face looked lost, confused.

  Becca understood. She didn’t know either – what she wanted to do, where she wanted to be. She could have gone with Jared. He’d asked her to, but she needed to sort her life out for herself. They Skyped a lot and texted – they planned to meet up later that summer after his job finished. Maybe he’d go back to his life of exploration and danger, maybe he wouldn’t. But if he did, the time would come, she knew, when he would fall silent, his phone become ‘no longer in use’, email messages drifting back from cyberspace, address unknown.

  So was she OK?

  Yeah. More or less. She was dealing with it.

  Her aimless route had taken her close to the drop-in. She hadn’t been there since the day Neil told her to leave. On impulse, she turned down the side street towards the bus station, down the familiar road where the old church hall stood.

  It was locked up and silent. The pavement outside where groups of kids had hung about was empty. She loo
ked towards the end of the road, half expecting to see Liam and Terry circling on their bikes, but there was no one there

  It was strange to be standing here, where Paige had shivered in her clubbing gear that morning. It felt so long ago. It’s freezing, she’d said. Come on, let us in. Where Alek had wished Becca well and closed the door behind her.

  She went round to the back of the building, to the yard where Alek worked on his old engines with the drop-in lads. There was obviously some kind of renovation work going on but there was no sign of anyone. The back door was standing open. She hesitated, then entered.

  The main room was empty. The snooker table and the screens were gone and the air carried the faint scent of dust and desertion. She wandered into the café, expecting the same emptiness, but the serving counter was still in place, the tables and chairs still set out, as if it was just waiting for her to arrive and start work. If she went behind the counter and switched on the hob, the users would emerge from the shadows, line up to be served and gradually the sound of their talk and laughter would fill the silence.

  This was where she’d sat with Paige, playing games on her phone and texting. This was where Liam had threatened her, his smile all charm, his eyes malevolent. This was where Alek had made Liam leave Paige alone, and where he had said, Keep an eye on her.

  Alek knew. She’d worked it out once she’d had a bit of time to think. He’d known bad things were happening, but he hadn’t been able to do anything. Or not much, anyway. He was illegal. He’d probably been afraid that if he went to the police with his suspicions, they’d deport him. But he’d trusted her. He’d kept watch. He’d recorded the things he had seen. She remembered him whistling to himself as he went about his work and realised it must have been him whistling that old song, the one she’d heard at the drop-in, the one that was on the video. And he’d left her the video, the tablet with BECKA written on the case. She’d thought it was Paige who was trying to stop what was going on, but it wasn’t. It had never been Paige.