by Chris Ward
The kitchen alone was bigger than the entire lower floor of Suzanne’s house. A worktop island stood in the middle, all sharp corners and shiny chrome—
Marked by one bloody handprint.
Suzanne stood frozen as a figure rose periscope-like from the other side and pointed a gun at her face.
‘I’ll kill you if you move.’
The shock might have only lasted a couple of seconds, but it felt like hours. Suzanne’s mouth worked silently, unable to find the breath to form words. Behind her, Patrick gave a solitary gasp.
The arm holding the gun lost a little of its tension. A girl’s face appeared above the seemingly huge barrel, eyes filled with tears, blood streaking her face. She gave a little sob, then lowered the gun, its barrel cracking hard on the worktop.
‘Suzanne, is that you?’
Suzanne swallowed before she could speak. ‘Yes, Kelly, it’s me.’
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I came looking for you and Mum. What happened?’
Kelly said nothing for a long time. Then, finally letting go of the gun, she ran around the kitchen island and wrapped her arms around Suzanne’s waist, sobbing as she buried her face into Suzanne’s jacket.
21
Patrick
‘I can tell the two of you are sisters,’ Patrick said, trying to summon some amusement into his voice but finding none. Then, when Kelly looked up from where she sat in Suzanne’s arms and gave him a smile, he added, ‘I don’t think I’ve met two braver girls in my life.’
‘Try to tell me what happened,’ Suzanne said, stroking the hair out of Kelly’s face, while nodding at Patrick to fetch a wet cloth from the sink. ‘Take it slowly. Don’t worry, you’re safe now.’
‘They took Mum and Dad,’ Kelly said. ‘And they left that man behind.’
‘Who did? The Department of Civil Affairs?’
‘Yes. Five or six. When Mum saw the van pull up, she told me to wait in my room and stay quiet.’
‘Aren’t you supposed to be at school?’
‘They showed up while we were eating breakfast. Dad always drops me on the way.’
‘What happened next?’
‘I’m not sure. They were downstairs, talking to Mum and Dad. I heard some raised voices, Mum shouting that she didn’t know anything. A few loud thumps and I heard Dad cry out, so I think they were hitting him. Then the next thing I know the van’s leaving. I looked out of the window but I couldn’t see who was inside, so I went downstairs.’
‘And you saw the man left behind?’
Kelly wiped her eyes. ‘Not at first. I went into the living room and it was a bit messed up, a couple of chairs overturned, the TV pushed off its stand. I thought they’d gone, but he was in the kitchen, eating our leftover breakfast.’
‘He was probably left behind to wait for us,’ Patrick said, but Suzanne frowned at him to stay quiet.
‘What happened next?’ Suzanne said to Kelly. ‘After you saw the man?’
He looked shocked at first, then he got up and chased me. He was laughing and I think he meant to … I don’t know. The kitchen and the living room have that joining door and both connect to the hall, so I ran away from him. I knew if I went upstairs he’d corner me, so I went in through the living room and looped around. The second time I ran through the kitchen, I grabbed the knife Mum had been using to slice the bread.’
‘Couldn’t you get outside?’
‘I tried, but he caught me. He started tearing my T-shirt off, but he didn’t know I had the knife.’
‘And you stabbed him?’
Kelly’s eyes filled with tears. ‘Will I go to prison, Suzanne? He’s dead, isn’t he?’
‘He was a very bad man,’ Suzanne said. ‘You’re not allowed to attack little girls, so you were just defending yourself. You did the right thing.’
Kelly started to cry. Suzanne pulled her close, whispering to her, so Patrick left them to have a little time together and went to look around the house.
It was elegant and spacious, the very opposite of his own. More books than he’d ever seen in his life lined long shelves, and all manner of electrical items that required a permit were sitting around. His first temptation was to find a bag and fill it. The price they could get on the street for some of these items might buy them safety.
He was sitting on the sofa, holding a circular metal object and wondering what function it had, when Suzanne came in.
‘I’ve sent her upstairs to take a shower,’ she said. ‘I explained to her that the men were probably looking for us.’
‘How did she take it?’
‘She was angry at first, but once I explained how we were imprisoned for doing nothing wrong, she came around a bit.’
‘What do we do now? Sooner or later the DCA will come back.’
‘We have to take her with us.’
Patrick shook his head. ‘No way. It’ll be hard enough to escape together. We can’t hope to get far with a nine-year-old kid.’
‘She’s my sister. I’m not leaving her.’
‘Come on, Suzanne, be reasonable.’
‘Says you trying to find your ignorant pig of a brother. Yet you want me to leave my sister behind?’
Patrick sighed. ‘I’m sorry. I’m just scared. What are we going to do? We have no money, the car’s battery is probably flat by now, and—’
The sound of an engine made him look up. Suzanne was staring out of the window. Patrick turned to look and saw a black van pull up, its petrol combustion exhaust belching plumes of smoke.
‘Go!’ Patrick shouted. ‘That’s them. We have to go!’
He pushed Suzanne towards the door, but instead of heading into the kitchen where he had seen a backdoor leading out on to a lawn, she jogged up the stairs and started banging on a door at the top.
‘Kelly! Get out of there! The DCA are here. We have to go!’
The door opened to reveal a girl still only partially dressed. Patrick ran back into the living room and lifted a corner of the drape to look outside.
Five DCA agents had climbed out of the van and were approaching the front path.
He ran back into the hall. ‘There’s no time!’ he hissed up the stairs. ‘They’re coming!’
Suzanne came bounding out of another upstairs door, a bundle of clothes under one arm as she pulled Kelly along with the other. The girl had underwear and a blouse on, but no trousers or shoes. Patrick, figuring the girl was with them now whether he liked it or not, and that without decent footwear they’d all be caught, grabbed the nearest child-sized pair of shoes off a rack behind the front door which the dead man had tilted against the wall.
As Suzanne and Kelly came down the stairs, he hurried for the back door.
It led out onto a wide garden with a well-mown lawn and a little pond in the centre. A privet hedge made a border, and through a sheared gap a little gate led out onto a public park.
Patrick pushed the girls ahead of him and clicked the door shut. Only as he did so did he realise he had forgotten to grab the dead agents’ discarded gun. It was still lying on the kitchen counter where Kelly had left it, but it was too late now. He risked one glance back through a side window beside the door and saw the first DCA agents attempting to push through the door obstructed by the body. The first one realised what it was, pulled his gun, and began aiming it through the doors around him. Patrick dropped back out of sight.
The girls had reached the gate. Patrick waved them through as he dashed across the lawn.
‘Across the park,’ he said. ‘There are other residential streets. We have to lose them.’
‘Hey!’
He looked up. A DCA man was leaning out of the back door, looking at Patrick. He started to lift his gun.
Instinctively, Patrick lifted his fingers in a gun motion, pointed at the DCA agent and shouted, ‘Bang!’
The childlike ruse worked. The DCA agent flinched back, caught his foot on the lip of the back step, and tumbled over backward.
> ‘Run,’ Patrick told the girls. ‘Don’t look back.’
The park covered several hectares and contained small hillocks, stands of trees, open play areas, and a central boating lake. Patrick caught up and took the lead, taking them on a windy route that would put as many obstructions in their way as possible. He had no idea whether the DCA men would give direct chase or simply call for backup, but he heard no sirens, saw no men, and heard no gunshots.
Soon, however, Kelly was struggling.
‘She needs a rest,’ Suzanne said, pulling up as they reached the back of a line of houses and ducked down behind a hedgerow creating an enclosed passage for a footpath that ran behind the houses and alongside the park.
Kelly looked up at her, gasping. ‘Are we safe?’
‘Not yet,’ Suzanne said. ‘We need to find somewhere to hide out. Do you have a friend, someone you would trust completely, who lives near here? Anyone who might take you in but keep quiet about it?’
Kelly frowned, then shook her head. ‘No one … but we could go to Dad’s cabin.’
‘Cabin?’
‘Yes; he has a small summer house up by the reservoir. He likes to fish there in summer. We haven’t been there this year, but I remember it always had food in the cupboards.’
‘The DCA will know about it. It’s too dangerous.’
Kelly shook her head. ‘No. I was forbidden from every talking about it.’
‘It’s a massive risk.’
Suzanne grimaced. ‘We can’t go on the run without any supplies. If it had food, perhaps we could grab some and bail before the DCA find out about it.’
Patrick turned to Kelly. ‘Do you know how to get there?’
‘We always drove. It took about half an hour.’
‘Probably about ten miles,’ Patrick said. ‘That’s a long walk. A shame we can’t take a bus.’
‘Why can’t we?’ Kelly said.
‘We don’t have any money.’
Kelly reached into the pocket of the trousers Suzanne had brought and which she had since put on. She withdrew a small pink pouch.
She held it up. ‘I do,’ she said.
Her few coins of pocket money was enough to get three tickets on a town bus which stopped a short walk from the reservoir outside Cheddar. They sat awkwardly, certain that the DCA would pull up alongside the bus and drag them off, but the farther the bus trundled away from Kelly’s house, the safer Patrick felt. Finally, they were driving through quaint farmland, pulling up at a stop beside a farm gate. Across the field, the water was visible behind a stand of trees.
They climbed down. Kelly still looked ashen-faced but Suzanne was smiling. As the bus pulled away, Kelly pointed at a track leading into the trees.
‘I’m not sure where it is, but if we go over there I can probably remember.’
They started walking again. Kelly was limping, so Suzanne put an arm around her shoulders. Patrick, feeling a strange twinge of jealousy, hung at the back, occasionally glancing over his shoulder to look out for cars or any signs of pursuit.
After fifteen minutes of walking, the road ended at a forested area with small dirt trails leading inside but branching off in several directions. Patrick saw the shadows of several wooden huts sat at intervals in the woods, some expansively large, others barely more than a single room.
The reservoir had appeared through the trees when Kelly suddenly pointed and said with a delighted squeal, ‘That’s it! That one over there.’
The cabin was an overlarge summerhouse, single-floored, with a veranda out the front on which stood a wooden table and three chairs.
Kelly squatted down and peered under the veranda. She turned over a rounded stone and stood up, brandishing a key.
‘He always leaves it there,’ she said.
Patrick made a move to climb up the couple of steps onto the veranda, but Suzanne was still staring at Kelly.
‘Why didn’t you say?’ she said, pointing at Kelly’s back.
Sheepishly, Kelly lifted the back of her blouse to reveal a bloody gash a few centimetres long. It had tried to scab over but had broken open again during their flight.
‘It’s nothing,’ Kelly said.
‘It’s a stab wound.’
‘I caught myself when he knocked my arm,’ Kelly said. She looked about to say more, but her eyes had taken on that faraway look which suggested she was reliving the fight all over again.
‘Let’s just get inside,’ Patrick said. ‘Then we can think about what to do next.’
They went into the cabin. It was compact and cozy, well-stocked with food and other supplies, as though Don had been stockpiling for something a little more expansive than a simple lakeside holiday. Suzanne helped Kelly down onto a sofa. Patrick took a chair opposite.
‘Let me have a look at your wound,’ Suzanne said to Kelly, who reluctantly rolled over on her side. ‘Patrick, find me some water and a cloth.’
He went through into a small kitchen. The taps worked, although there was no hot water. He found a cloth in a cupboard under the sink, wet it under the tap, and returned with it.
Suzanne had Kelly lying on her side, her blouse pulled up. Patrick handed Suzanne the cloth and she began to clean the wound. Patrick went back into the kitchen to look for medical supplies but found only a small box of plasters, gauze, and a tube of antiseptic cream that was a couple of years out of date.
When he returned again, Suzanne had cleaned the wound. It was as long as his hand, deep at one end where the point had gone in. The flesh around it was red and inflamed.
Patrick handed Suzanne the supplies he had found. ‘That’s all I saw.’
‘It’ll help, thanks. Keep looking.’
Patrick back to the kitchen. This time he carried out a more extensive search, but besides the food stocks, there was little else of use.
When he returned again, this time empty-handed, Suzanne had lain Kelly down on the sofa and pulled a blanket over her. Kelly was already snoring softly.
‘What do you think?’ Patrick said. ‘Can we stay here for long?’
Suzanne’s eyes were filled with sorrow. ‘That wound is bad,’ she said. ‘She can’t travel like that. Not on foot. But how long can we stay here until they find us? Eventually they’ll figure it out. Don must have left some clue behind, or else he’ll talk when they interrogate him. We’re living on borrowed time, Patrick.’
He looked out of the window at the lake, a short distance down a pine-needle slope, its waters serene and calm, barely troubled by the wind.
‘I know,’ he said.
22
Urla
The man stepped out of the car, his face still hidden in shadow beneath a wide-brimmed hat.
‘I’m glad you could make it,’ Urla said. ‘This way.’
She led the man across the parking area to the small warehouse building, opening the door with her own key. As she glanced back to see if he were following, she resisted the urge to scan the surrounding forest with her eyes, aware that Justin’s men would be hidden there, keeping watch in case things went awry.
‘It’s in here,’ she said, holding the door for the man to step through.
Still he said nothing, but that was no surprise. He probably still wondered why he had been called here, rung up in the middle of the night and asked to meet with a woman he hadn’t seen in twenty years.
Urla lifted a torch, illuminating the corridor with a single patch of light. She walked ahead of the man, her heels clacking on the tiles until she stopped outside a metal door. Another key opened it and she went inside, this time switching on a light which bathed the room in a pale glow.
The remains of a creature lay strapped to a stretcher in the middle of the room. The stench of its decaying flesh was pungent, despite the refrigeration system designed to keep it intact. As Urla approached, wrinkling her nose, she saw that indeed it had not begun to decay, but something else entirely: the flesh where it had been torn apart was slowly beginning to knit back together.
She gave a slow shake of her head. Sorcery. She had refused to believe what her scientists had said until she saw it with her own eyes.
‘This thing attacked a DCA checkpoint and killed two men,’ she said. ‘A third is in a critical condition, unlikely to survive, but he managed to shoot it through the head.’
‘What is it?’ The man’s voice was cold, but now that he had finally spoken, Urla could be sure it was him.
‘It’s something designed for killing,’ she said. ‘It’s part human, part machine.’ She stepped up to its head end and pulled a plastic sheet away from its face. ‘And someone added a dog’s snout for good measure.’
The man said nothing, but beside her, Urla could sense his distress. She had felt it herself upon first entering this room.
‘This thing is deadly, but imagine if there was a whole army of them, and they were on our side instead of against us? All these pointless riots and uprisings, quelled in an instant.’
‘They would carry an element of fear that a man with a gun doesn’t have.’
‘Right. I want you to find out where this came from. I know someone in the underground is behind it. Get me a name, and you’ll be paid better than you could ever know.’
She turned to look at him, saw the strong features beneath his hat, his hard eyes staring at the thing lying on the stretcher, at once frowning and widening as he tried to make sense of it.
Twenty years since they had last met, but Urla had never forgotten the first man to take her to bed as a teenager. Now he worked as a firefighter by day, but she knew what he did by night, helping to hide people, smuggle goods, weapons. She had caught him once, but swayed by those eyes and a refreshed memory of that strong, muscular body, she had let him go … on the condition that he turn informant.