by Jane Jesmond
Then voices right beneath me.
‘How much longer?’ A Cornish voice.
‘Just waiting for water.’
‘They gonna be here a long time, then?’
‘All a bit of a mess.’
Two men. One local. The other with his sharp, nasal twang came from elsewhere. London, I suspected. Their voices were clear against the background noise. I dared not look down.
‘How we gonna get home? If there’s police all over.’
‘PC Plod’s with them. He’ll call Fred and tell him which way to avoid them.’
‘Christ.’
‘You can wait it out here if you’d rather.’
‘No, thanks.’
Relief surged through my body. They had no plans to stay in the mine. My muscles were crying out with the effort of keeping still and my fingers were agony where the rock had pierced the flesh.
‘What’s Plod done with the girl?’
‘She’s in here somewhere.’
They were talking about me and Talan.
‘Want to go and find her?’
‘No, ta. Let Plod deal with her. The little passages give me the horrors.’
A narrow line of something wet glinted as it ran down the rough surface of the shaft beside me.
‘What’ll they do to her?’
‘Don’t know.’
My eyes traced the trickle of liquid back up. It was coming from my left hand. Blood from the gashes in my fingers, mingling with the water on the rock and running down.
‘Maybe chuck her where we threw that dog.’
They laughed.
I followed the line of blood down with my eyes, keeping my head rigid. Fuck! It was inches away from the bottom edge of the raise. I moved my head, a millimetre at a time, until I could see directly beneath me. A bald head, faintly freckled, gleamed below in the cave. In a few seconds, the blood would fall and splash onto it. I pictured it. A blob of red staining his skin. He’d feel it. Reach up his hand to wipe it, see its colour and realise what it was. And then he’d look up.
I heard footsteps. A box dragged across the ground. More murmuring.
But Baldy didn’t move. And all the time the blood ran further and further down the rock. Every part of me shrieked that I should climb. Onwards and upwards. While I still could. My muscles were nearing the end. Tremors had started under the skin of my forearms. But all I could do was watch the blood trickle and wait for the moment of discovery.
There was a moment of silence and the blood fell.
A woman’s voice rang out in protest. Baldy moved. A couple of inches. But enough for the blood to hit the shoulder of his coat. It sat on the surface for a few seconds and then seeped into the fibres. Quietly, calmly, discreetly.
And with the same lack of fuss, the men departed, slamming and locking as they left. I counted three doors as well as the one blocking the exit to the stope, each bang and clatter quieter than the one before as they moved further towards the open air, until it was silent. No noise from the people locked in the prison cave. Or none that I could hear. Only a faint and flickering light from the passage leading to their cave gave their presence away. Maybe they were too shocked to speak. Or maybe they were seizing the chance to rest despite the squalor of their surroundings.
I moved.
A shiver of shadows on the ground below.
Nothing happened. No one came.
Beneath my feet there was a dark hole with four locked doors between it and the outside, while above me the raise wriggled its way towards the light, promising daylight and air at the end of its twists and bends. No brainer. It was time to climb.
The first part was a tight fit. Anyone larger would have got stuck. And then the raise widened and finally there was space and air around me. The light from above was stronger although the top was still out of sight behind the rock, which now curved to the left. Sweat ran down my face, as though it had stored itself beneath my skin until a moment of safety. It didn’t matter. Up here, the air moved and snatched the dampness off my skin.
And it was lovely climbing. The stone was gloriously ragged where the old miners had chipped out every vestige of ore. There was no need to hunt and feel for the next hold. Hope sped my hands and feet. Adrenalin blocked the pain in my hand. The raise would carry me up into the light and onto the moor. Soon, I’d feel the breeze rustling the rough grass and hear the scratchy chirps of warblers and buntings mingling with the tremulous song of the skylark. Soon, I’d be under the vast cloudy arc of sky punctuated only by the occasional swirling of a gull swept inland or a buzzard hovering on the wind.
I turned the last corner and a jagged disc of light blinded me. I’d done it. I’d escaped. The day was reaching down the raise to welcome me. I tore up the last few metres, thinking of nothing but freedom, until my hand, stretching above, smashed into something smooth. I screwed my eyes up against the light and looked. An iron grille was concreted into the rock a few feet below the surface. Only a few feet below the surface. Something to stop the sheep tumbling into the mine. Something that trapped me in this fucking hell-hole.
I shook the bars, wrenched at them, scrabbled at the concrete gripping them tight, but it was useless. A few flakes of rust floated down, colouring the air with their distinctive, bloody smell. Nothing else budged. And then I screamed. And wailed and begged. Tears washed through the sticky residue of sweat and dirt on my face.
I was trapped. There was no way out.
Then I remembered my phone. I was close to the surface but the signal on the moor was patchy and unreliable. Oh God, I thought, let me be lucky. My fingers shook as I eased the phone out of my pocket with my injured hand while my good one clutched the bars above. It had signal. One bar.
The iron grille above seemed to thin and let freedom pour down the tunnel to meet me. Please. Let me have a life. Years and years of it. Bad times. Good times. I didn’t care. I wanted it all.
Who should I call? Not the police. Not with Talan monitoring everything.
Kit. Of course. I could call Kit. Now I knew he wasn’t my would-be killer. I hadn’t had time to think about the photos I’d seen on the cork board in Talan’s kitchen. I’d been too busy surviving, but I understood what they meant now.
Kit’s phone went straight to voicemail.
I left a message.
It was a shaking, weeping cry for help. Disorganised. Disordered. But the key bits were there. Danger. Mine. Shut in. Tell the police. But don’t tell Talan. Not a joke. Come and get me. Please come and get me. And above all, don’t tell Talan.
But the phone was very quiet. My voice didn’t echo in my ears. And when I looked at it, feet and knees digging into the rock to support my body and right hand gripping the iron grille above, I saw it was dead. No battery. Fucking thing. Shouldn’t have used it as a torch.
My feet slipped. The muscles were weakening. I let the phone go and gripped the iron bars with both hands, ignoring the warning stab from the left one. When had the phone cut out? Before I’d left the message? Before I’d told Kit not to tell Talan? Both would be disastrous. I shuddered and the muscles in my arms warned me not to push them too far. My hands slid round the iron. It pinched the fleshy parts of my right hand with a cold burn and dug into the cuts on my left.
But I was safe here. No one would be able to get up into the shaft. It had been hard enough for me. I needed to stay up here until Kit came. Except my left hand hurt more than I could bear and the muscles in my arms were insisting I let go. I wedged my feet and knees back against the sides and let them take the strain.
I got thirsty and wished it would rain. Then I prayed for rope. Remembered the rope outside the prison cave and cursed myself. I needed something to tie me to the bars. To give my juddering arms and legs a chance to rest. I gripped for a last few seconds with every bit of me: knees, feet and hips forced into the rock and hand
s clinging up above. Until my muscles failed. And as I slid down the crumpled surface of the tunnel, my body catching against its knobs and edges, I felt nothing but relief that I was no longer trying to hold on.
Twenty-Seven
I tumbled down the shaft like Alice falling down the rabbit hole. The knobs and ridges of the narrow end above the stope slowed my fall and I landed gently on the floor.
When I looked up, there was no white rabbit disappearing down a dark passage. Instead, Kelly looked at me through the bars. The white face I’d seen before, floating in the dark, had been real. It was, I realised, the same face that had stared through the windscreen at me last Friday night when I woke from my sleep in Nick’s car. I felt very tired. I’d got it all so wrong.
A male voice called out from the prison cave. Quavering but piercing, he sounded like someone waking from a dream. Someone muttered a response and then all was silent again.
Kelly stared at me. I stared back. Her gaze, so empty of emotion, hid… what? Despite my exhaustion, fear churned my stomach and my brain stuttered into action.
Was she involved in the trafficking? I didn’t think so.
Had she guessed I knew what she’d done? I wasn’t sure.
Could I get her to help me? It was worth a try. If I could only get outside into the air, I could run away. From the mine. From the men who might come back at any moment.
From Kelly.
I said the first thing that came to mind.
‘Kelly! Thank God. We need to get out of here. It’s dangerous.’
She clutched the bars and leaned her head against them. The gap between was only wide enough for one eye and a bar cut her blank face in half. She looked like the cover of a horror story.
‘You must have seen all those people come in,’ I babbled on. ‘They’re shut in a cave down there. It’s people smuggling. We need to get out before the traffickers come back.’
She said nothing but looked at me as though she couldn’t follow what I was saying. As though her mind was miles away. I didn’t think this was going to work.
‘Kelly?’ Fear and longing soaked my voice. But that was only natural. Of course I’d be afraid.
‘I can’t let you out.’ She sounded puzzled. Maybe she didn’t have the keys.
‘Go and get help then. Find Kit. He’ll know what to do.’
She half turned towards the tunnel to the exit and, for a moment, I thought she might actually get Kit. But then she stopped and whirled back to me with a dancer’s spin, full of poise and grace, until the weakness in her injured knee knocked her off-balance. Her body jack-knifed and she swore a stream of wild words that rose into the dark and echoed along the passages.
‘I’ll never let you out,’ she screamed.
And I never for a moment doubted her.
The muscles in my legs trembled again, warning me they’d give way soon. I arranged the heap of broken crates into a precarious seat and lowered myself onto it, trying to work out what she meant to do.
‘I saw Talan,’ she hissed. ‘This morning. Putting you in his boot. When I came back from Freda’s. I knew he’d take you here.’
She didn’t ask me why Talan had locked me up. I guessed she must have known what he was up to. I didn’t think she cared. All the things that mattered had been torn from her. If she hadn’t tried to kill me twice, I’d have felt sorry for her.
I gathered my thoughts. She must have keys. How else would she have got here? But did she have the key to the barred door between us? The thought of her unlocking it in her half-mad state frightened me. But why? I’d fight her if she did. I’d fight her and I’d win because I was desperate, too and, although I was sore and battered, I had a knee I could trust.
Kelly was still my best hope of getting out. My only hope unless Kit had got my message. Above all, I didn’t want her to leave me here to die, killed by the traffickers or from starvation as I hid in the dark passages.
Time to talk. I asked the first question that came to me.
‘Where did you get the roofies, Kelly?’
‘Plymouth. For Freda.’ she said.
She didn’t seem surprised I knew.
‘Freda?’
‘To keep her quiet. At night.’
No wonder Freda had told the Mullins she slept better when Kelly was there.
‘You were at the hotel when I arrived, weren’t you? In the room behind reception? And when Vivian made me a cup of tea, you put in the roofies. That was how you did it, wasn’t it?’
‘They owed me money for some cleaning I did. I was waiting for the cheque in the office when you drove in. Vivian made me hang around while she checked you in even though she knew I had to get to Freda’s. And after, when she came back and told me you wanted a kettle, I said I’d make you a cup of tea while she wrote my cheque. And I put in the roofies. Clever, wasn’t it?’
Her voice was as devoid of colour as her face. We could have been talking about a complicated episode of some TV crime series – but she was still here and, while she was, I might get her to open the door. ‘But then you left,’ I said. ‘Why was that?’
‘I was due at Freda’s. Couldn’t be late.’
‘Of course not.’
‘The family check on me. But you know that, Jenifry. Why are you asking these stupid questions?’
‘I’m trying to work out what happened. I don’t remember, you see.’
‘That’s what Rohypnol does to you. It stops you remembering and calms you down.’
‘So you went to Freda’s and… I suppose you drugged her, too.’
‘Course.’
I stretched my legs out in front of me. The trembling had stopped. They’d be sore tomorrow and covered with bruises but nothing was damaged.
I’d worked the rest of it out. I’d left the hotel and gone for a walk. Maybe to shake the cravings for cocaine out of my body. Or because I wanted the feeling of fresh air against my skin. Or because the roofies were making me feel weird and I wanted to get out of the small hotel room. I didn’t think I’d walked along the cliff path. Kelly had lied about that to confuse me. I’d walked up the road towards the lighthouse. It was the way I walked home from school every day and the road was steep as it left the village, exactly what you’d fancy after a day in the car. A quick, hard walk to the lighthouse. No time for anything longer. Not before night fell.
And I’d broken into the lighthouse. Maybe the roofies had started to space me out and it had seemed like a place of refuge or the rain had started and I’d only wanted shelter.
I kneaded my thigh muscles and wondered what had gone on in Kelly’s head during the cagey conversations we’d had since. She must have realised very early on that the roofies had worked and I remembered nothing.
‘Once Freda was asleep, I went back to the hotel for you,’ she said. ‘But you’d vanished. I looked everywhere.’
The old chap leaving the pub had told Talan about a strange woman in the village. It must have been Kelly.
‘It started to rain but I still couldn’t find you.’
Her calmness was cracking and her voice jagged, rousing the prisoners. One of them cried out. Others hushed him.
I didn’t want her to tell me the next bit. How she’d got to the lighthouse and seen its broken door swinging open in the storm. How she’d picked up a bit of its wood and crept up the steps, smashed it into my head and hung me over the edge.
‘It doesn’t matter now, Kelly,’ I said.
‘It doesn’t matter! How can you say that? How dare you say that! It might not fucking matter to you but he was everything to me. Seb –’
Her wail spiralled out of control. For a moment, I thought she was going to lose it but she clamped her arms round her body and dragged her grief back inside. The cave was silent. They must have heard Kelly’s cry. Were they listening as intently as I was, desperately tryin
g to work out what was going on?
The photos of Kelly and Seb on the board in Talan’s kitchen. Four moments in time, separated by a few seconds, showing how close they were. You could see it in the way they looked at each other and the way they smiled and the way they kissed. Seb and Kelly. As soon as I’d seen the photos I’d known. Seb and Kelly. Kelly was the girlfriend Seb’s family blamed for his accident. She was the lover Mark had barred from Seb’s wake.
And I wasn’t surprised. It made perfect sense. They were both passionate, creative people. They came from the same background. It must have been recent, though, because I’d have known if it wasn’t. Wouldn’t I?
‘I didn’t know,’ I said to her.
‘You didn’t know.’ She spat the words at me. ‘How could you not know? Don’t worry, I’ll tell you. Because you’re so fucking full of yourself you don’t notice anyone else. You don’t listen to anybody else. I couldn’t believe it when I saw you at the hotel. Getting out of your flashy car. Stretching your arms up to the sky and yawning. Looking around like you fucking owned the place. And I knew you must have come down for the wake Mark was organising. For Seb’s wake. His mother didn’t want me at the funeral and Mark wouldn’t let me come to the wake. They both said it was my fault. That I should have stopped Seb. But you… Mark asked you to come…’
Her words came out of her mouth in fragments as broken as my memories and, somehow, as meaningless. Already, it felt a long time ago. And not real. Only now was real, with Kelly bending and rummaging in a bag at her feet. And standing back up with a key in her hand. Oh, God. This was my chance.
‘You’ve got the key to this door?’
‘Yeah, I’ve got all the keys. Talan came back and put his uniform on and went out again, so I took the keys and came here.’
She kicked the bag and it jangled with the harsh clink of metal on metal.
‘Talan won’t do it,’ she said. ‘He doesn’t have the guts. So I’m going to finish what I started on the lighthouse. I was going to throw you over, except you screamed when I hit you and Gregory came out. I hid behind the wall so he couldn’t see me. And he couldn’t hear you moaning and jabbering about flying. You were out of it but still you wouldn’t stop babbling about flying. So I thought I’d give you a chance to see what flying was like. Flying and falling. Like Seb. And I hoped you’d wake up to feel the air racing upwards past you and know you were falling. Know you were going to smash into the ground. Except you’d have landed outside Gregory’s window and woken him. I needed time to get away. So I hung you over, frayed the rope and left. I slipped back later but you’d disappeared. You’d fucking disappeared. You’d got away. Like you always do.’