The Hiding Place, page 26
Annie stared back at me.
I swerved, the tires bumped the verge, I wrestled with the steering wheel to drag it back again. The rubber squealed but managed to regain its grip on the tarmac. Dad fell heavily against me. Crap. I’d forgotten to do up his seat belt. I shoved him back into his seat with one hand, trying to control the steering wheel with the other.
Annie lunged from the back seat. Her fingers clawed at my face and grabbed my hair, yanking my head back. I tried to bat at her with my free hand but her grip was surprisingly strong. I felt her nails rake my flesh; the roots of my hair screamed. I bunched my hand into a fist and struck her hard in the face. She fell back.
I grabbed the wheel again, just in time, as headlights flashed by on the opposite side of the road. Fuck. I pressed my foot down harder still on the accelerator. I had to get to the hospital. Had to. The speed crept up to seventy. I saw Annie pull herself up to a sitting position. I tried to strike back with my elbow, but she ducked past and wrapped her hands around my eyes. Her fingers dug in. I yelled. I couldn’t see, my eyes were streaming. Just glimmers of darkness and light.
I let go of the wheel with one hand, tried to pull her fingers away. My foot slipped on the accelerator. The engine screamed. I felt the car spin, the wheels leave the tarmac and hit the grassy bank.
The car bucked. Annie’s fingers let go. A huge black shadow loomed ahead. A tree. I tried to grab the wheel back, stamped on the brake. Too late.
Impact. A monstrous jolt. Crunching metal. My body flew forward, nose smashing against the steering wheel. The seat belt flung me back again. Dazed. Something crashed past me out of the windshield. Pain. My chest. My face. My leg. MY LEG! Screaming. My own.
Blackness.
35
“That was how we found you.”
“We?”
“Me and Dad. We were coming back from the evening football match. Dad spotted the car, all smashed up against a tree.
“We pulled over, to see if we could help. Saw right away that your dad was dead. I found your sister’s body a little way from the car. I couldn’t help her…” He pauses. “I went back to the car and Dad said: ‘The boy’s still alive.’ Then he said, ‘And he’s got a big problem, hasn’t he?’
“I knew what he meant right away. You were only fifteen. You shouldn’t have been driving.
“We decided to move you. Put you in the passenger seat and your dad in the driver’s so the police would think he was driving.”
“Why? Why did you care?”
“Because, whatever differences we had, Dad believed you looked after your own. You were part of my gang. Your dad was a miner—even if he was a scab. You didn’t turn your own in to the pigs.
“I was supposed to come and see you in the hospital, tell you to stick to the story. But turned out you’d already got one of your own. Couldn’t remember anything about the crash, a nurse told me. That true, Joe?”
I stare at him. Lies, I think. There are no such things as white lies. Lies are never black or white. Only gray. A fog obscuring the truth. Sometimes so thick we can barely see it ourselves.
To start with, I wasn’t sure what I remembered. It was easier to just go along with what the police and the doctors told me. Easier to close my eyes and say I didn’t know what had happened. Couldn’t remember the crash.
I never told Mum. But then, she never asked. About any of it. She must have had questions. She must have cleaned up the blood. But she never said a word. And once, when I tried to talk to her, she gripped my wrist so hard it left bruises and said: “Whatever happened in that house, it was an accident, Joe. Just like the crash. D’you understand? I have to believe that. I can’t lose you too.”
That was when I understood. She thought I had done this. That I was somehow responsible. I suppose I couldn’t blame her. I had been acting weird for weeks. Hardly eating, not talking, staying out as much as possible. And in a way, I was responsible. I had caused it. All of it.
When I returned home, on crutches, pins in my shattered leg, the house had been aired and cleaned and Annie’s room had been freshly decorated. Everything was the same as it was before.
I didn’t try to put Mum right, or tell her what had really happened. And she never put into words what I saw in her eyes: that the wrong child had been lost. That it should have been me. Until the day she died, Mum pretended she still loved me.
And I pretended not to know that she didn’t.
I clear my throat. My head feels too full, conflicting thoughts wrestling with each other in the mud of my consciousness.
“You want me to thank you?” I say.
Hurst shakes his head. “No. I want you to take these”—he gestures at the crowbar and the tie—“and chuck them into the River Trent. And then, I want you to fuck off and never come back.”
I feel sick. Loser sick. That feeling when you see the other player’s cards and know you have been screwed. That you are done. Well, almost done.
“The police will ask you questions too. Why you moved me. Why come forward now? Tampering with the scene of an accident. That’s a crime.”
He nods. “True. But I was just a kid. It was my dad’s idea. Now that I’m older and wiser, it has made me reevaluate things. I need to come clean. If I have to, I can spin this. And they’ll believe me. I’m a respected member of the community. While you? Well, look at yourself. Suspended from your current job. Suspicion of theft from your old school. You’re hardly a model citizen.”
He’s right. And what if they start asking more questions? Investigate the scene again. Question my dad’s injuries.
“So,” Hurst says, “I think this is what we call a stalemate.”
I nod and stand. I take the carefully wrapped items and put them back into the holdall. I don’t really have any other choice. I take my phone out of my pocket.
Hurst stares at it. “You’re still going to call the police?”
“No.”
I bring up my contacts and raise the phone to my ear. She answers on the first ring.
“Hi, Joe.”
“You need to talk to him.” I hold out the phone to Hurst.
He looks at it like I am holding out a grenade. And I am. In a way.
“And who exactly am I talking to?” he asks me.
“The woman who will kill your wife and son if I do not walk out of here thirty grand richer.”
He takes the phone and I watch his face turn gray. Gloria can do that to people. Even before she sends him the pictures: shots of Marie and Jeremy finishing their dinner in town right now.
He hands the phone back to me.
“You’d better get that money,” Gloria says. And then: “They’re leaving. I need to follow them.”
I end the call and look at Hurst. “Thirty grand. Transfer it now and I’ll be out of your hair for good.”
He just stares at me. He looks dazed. Like someone has just told him all at once that the world is flat, aliens exist and Jesus is on his way back for a visit.
Gloria can do that to you too.
“What the hell have you done?” he croaks.
“I just need the money.”
His eyes find focus. They are full of tears. “I don’t have it.”
“I don’t believe you. That car sitting out front is worth sixty grand at least.”
“Contract lease.”
“This house.”
“Remortgaged.”
“The villa in Portugal.”
“I sold it, barely broke even.”
The sick feeling is back. Worse now. It feels like a rat is worrying away at my insides. Chewing through my stomach lining. Heading for my bowels.
“I don’t think Gloria will like to hear that.”
He runs a hand through his perfectly coiffed hair. “It’s the truth. I don’t have thirty grand. I don’t have twenty or ten or even five fucking grand.”
“Bullshit.”
“It’s all gone. Marie’s treatment in America. Do you know how much a miracle cure costs?” A bitter chuckle. “Over seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds. That’s how much. It’s everything I’ve got. I’ve nothing left.”
“Liar.” I shake my head. “Just like always. Trying to save your skin. You’re a liar.”
“It’s the truth.”
“No. I called the clinic in America. Marie told me about it. And guess what—they’d never heard of you or Marie. She isn’t booked in there for a fucking ingrowing toenail, let alone a miracle cancer treatment.”
I stare at him in triumph. I expect to see the usual defiant snarl. A man challenged and angry at being caught in a lie. But instead I see something else. Something not expected. Confusion. Fear.
“That can’t be right. She paid them. I transferred the money.”
“More lies. Do you ever stop? I know what you’re planning.”
“I can show you the bank statements. The account number.”
“Right. Of course you can—” I stop suddenly. I stare at him. “She?”
“Marie. She found the clinic. She arranged it all. The hotels, flights.”
“You transferred all the money to Marie?”
“Into our joint account. She made the payment from there.”
“But you didn’t talk to the clinic. You didn’t check that they received the money?”
“I trust my wife. And why would she lie? She’s desperate. She doesn’t want to die. This treatment was her only chance.”
And desperate people want to believe in miracles.
I try to stay calm, to think. “Why have you been obstructing the country-park plans?”
“Because it’s more profitable to build houses on the land.”
“Even with what’s underneath?”
He sneers. “A rockfall sealed that place off years ago.”
“That’s what I hoped. But it seems your son has found another way in.”
“Jeremy? No. And what the hell does this have to do with anything?”
“You never told him what we found?”
“I told him never to go up there. To stay away.”
“And kids always do what their parents tell them?”
“Of course they don’t. In fact, Jeremy couldn’t care less what I say. But he listens to Marie. Always has. He’d do anything for her. He’s a mummy’s boy.”
I swallow and it’s like swallowing fragments of ground glass.
He’d do anything for her. A mummy’s boy.
And sometimes the apple does not fall so very far from the tree.
I’ve just been barking up the wrong tree.
My phone starts to ring. I grab it. “Yes?”
“How’s it going?”
I glance at Hurst. “Fine. How long till they get back?”
“That’s why I called. They’re not coming back.”
“What?”
“They drove back from town. Marie dropped the boy off on the high street to meet some mates. Now she’s heading along the road toward your cottage.”
“My cottage?”
“No, wait, hang on—she’s stopped. She’s getting out of the car. Okay, this is weird. She’s got a flashlight and a backpack.”
Shit.
“The pit,” I say. “She’s going to the pit.”
36
I do not believe in fate.
But sometimes there is an ineluctable quality to life, a course it is difficult to alter.
It all started here, at the pit. And this, it seems, is where it will end.
Not quite how I imagined. Not quite how I planned. But then, that’s the problem with plans. They never work out like you think. Mine, it seems, never work out at all.
—
We pull up in Hurst’s Range Rover. He hasn’t said a word throughout the short drive. But I can see the dazed look in his eyes, his jaw clenching and unclenching as he tries to digest what he’s learned. Tries to comprehend how Marie could have betrayed him. Lied to him.
I expected anger. But he just looks broken. Diminished. I was wrong about him. I thought Marie was just another trophy, like the house and the car. But Hurst loves her. Always has. And, despite everything, he still wants to save her.
I spot a yellow Mini parked carelessly by the side of the road. I can’t see Gloria or her car. I’m not sure if this is a concern or a relief.
We both climb out.
“Where is she?” Hurst asks.
“I don’t know.” I scan the fence with my flashlight, find the gap I squeezed through before. “Come on.”
I slip through; Hurst follows. I hear him curse. It isn’t just his wallet that is better padded these days.
“About time.”
I jump. Gloria emerges from the shadows by the fence. Unusually for Gloria, she is wearing a dark coat over her normal pastel hues. Dressed for business.
I look around. “Where’s Marie?”
“In the trunk of my car.”
“You bitch,” Hurst says.
Gloria turns to him. “Stephen Hurst, I presume? Actually, I’m joking. She set off over that hill about twenty minutes ago.”
I quickly intervene. “Gloria, Marie has your money. More than thirty grand. Over seven hundred and fifty. We just need to bring her down.”
She looks at Hurst. “What about him?”
“What about him?”
“You said Marie, his wife, has the money?”
“Yes.”
“So what use is he?”
“Gloria—”
“That’s what I thought.”
She moves so fast I barely see the gun. I just hear a pop and suddenly Hurst is writhing on the floor, screaming and clutching his leg. Dark red blood is gushing—actually gushing—from the wound. I drop to my knees beside him. I grasp his arms.
“Jesus!”
I look around. The road beyond the fence is deserted. No one around. Even the headlights of a passing car wouldn’t illuminate us, here in the shadows.
“Femoral artery,” Gloria says, lowering the gun, which has a large silencer attached to the end. “Even if I apply pressure, he will bleed out in approximately fifteen to twenty minutes.”
Hurst’s eyes find mine. Gloria grabs my arm and hauls me up. “You’re wasting time. Go and get my fucking money.”
“But what about—”
She presses a finger to my lips. “Tick, tock.”
I scramble up the hill, flashlight bobbing wildly up and down in front of me. It isn’t a lot of use. I’m guided by gut instinct and fear. I didn’t bring my cane, so I stumble, limp and scrabble up and down the rocky, slippery slopes. My bad leg provides a near-constant accompaniment of pain. My ribs join in on percussion. But another part of me feels disembodied from the whole experience, like I am above myself and watching as a tall, thin man with a smoker’s wheeze and wild black hair staggers around the countryside like a drunken tramp.
I want to laugh at the absurdity of it all; laugh until I scream. The whole thing feels like some terrible, macabre dream. And yet, I know, deep down, that this is unremittingly real. A waking nightmare that started twenty-five years ago.
And finishes tonight.
At the bottom of the hill I see her, sitting cross-legged, at the entrance. A camping light is beside her, a backpack at her feet. Her head is swathed in a scarf and a hood is pulled up against the chill. She hunches over and for a moment I think she is praying. Then, as she straightens, I see that she is lighting a cigarette.
I flick off the flashlight and watch her. But I’m not really seeing her. I’m seeing a fifteen-year-old girl. A girl who was beautiful, clever…and cold. I wonder how I never saw it before, but then a pretty face can blind you to a lot of faults, especially when you are a fifteen-year-old mass of hormones yourself. You don’t care what lies beneath. The darkness. The rotten bones.
I take a step forward. “Marie?”
She doesn’t turn. “I knew it would be you. Always you. Since we were little kids, a thorn in my side.”
“By name, by nature.”
“Go home, Joe.”
“Okay. If you come with me.”
“Nice try.”
“Try this then—if you don’t come with me, a crazy lady is going to kill your husband.”
“Even if I believed you, why should I care? When this is done, Jeremy and I are leaving Hurst and this shithole. For good.”
“You must know that this is insane.”
“It’s my only chance.”
“The clinic in America was your only chance. Did you ever intend to go? Or was it all just a ploy to get the money?”
Finally, she turns her head toward me. Her face, in the lamp’s illumination, looks frighteningly thin and terrifyingly calm.
“Do you know what the remission rate was—thirty percent. Just thirty percent.”
“I’ve bet on worse odds.”
“Did you win?”
I don’t reply.
“Thought not. And I don’t want to take that chance. I don’t want to die.”
“We all have to die.”
“Easy for you to say, when you’re not about to.” She blows out smoke. “Do you have any idea what it’s like? Closing your eyes every night, wondering if this time will be the last. And some nights you hope it is because you’re scared and in pain. Others, you try to stay awake, to fight it, because you’re so terrified of falling into the darkness.”
Her eyes find mine. The lamplight gives them a feverish glow.
“Ever thought about death? Really thought about it? No feeling, no sound, no touch. Not existing. Forever.”
No, I think. Because we all try not to. That’s what living is. Keeping ourselves busy, averting our eyes so we don’t have to stare into the abyss. Because it would drive us insane.
“None of us knows how long we have.”
“I’m not ready.”
