Five Parks

by Ross McGuinness

  He had explained over the phone that I wouldn’t be paid for my time, but that didn’t make me stand out from anyone else he’d interviewed. These included psychologists, dating app creators and a few celebrity friends, all of whom were content with the invaluable currency of exposure. Why shouldn’t I join them? By the time the documentary went out, Five Parks would be dead and gone, so any publicity boost – even unpaid – that kept me in the media spotlight that little bit longer would be welcome. I dreaded going back to freelance foraging.

  We were on to our second set of G&Ts when his phone rang again.

  ‘Perfect! Cheers, Tony, that was quick. We’ve just started another round so let us finish these and we’ll be right up. You know me, I don’t need much time in the make-up chair.’

  Another wink across the table at me. It all felt like a bizarre dream, the gin not helping matters.

  ‘They’re ready for us upstairs,’ he said after putting his phone back on the table. ‘But take your time with that, we’ll go up when you’re ready. These will help loosen your tongue a bit in the interview,’ he said, pointing at his glass as he tipped it back.

  *

  The suite was magnificent. After swiping his keycard, he showed me through the door first like I was a potential buyer. A long corridor led into a wider hallway that fattened into a kind of staging area, filled with decorative armchairs that had golden trimmings. Off to the left was an open door to a glistening bathroom and even further back were double sliding wooden frames that protected a gold and white master bedroom. But all this opulence couldn’t disguise a few crucial details; there was no camera equipment, no lighting gear and no film crew. The suite was empty.

  He must have caught the confusion on my face, because he started apologising and pulled out his mobile phone, gave it a tap then plugged it to his ear.

  ‘Hello, Tony? Hi Tony, it’s me again. Please pick up. We’re up in the room now, ready to go, just wondering if I’ve got the right one. Give me a call as soon as you get this, bye.’

  He threw me an apologetic smile at first, then something in his face changed; his eyes narrowed and his grin shifted upwards. He wasn’t apologising on Tony’s behalf but his own – and he didn’t look sorry at all.

  He held his phone up in the air and gave it a shake, like it was nothing more than a prop in a play. Which is all it was.

  ‘There’s no one on the other end of the line,’ he said to me from between the sliding doors to the bedroom. ‘But then you knew that, didn’t you, Suzanne?’

  I took a tiny step back on one heel and jagged the back of my knee against an armchair. The unexpected jolt apprised me of the situation. He twigged that I had twigged.

  ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘You know there’s no crew coming. Do you think I buy everyone I interview a couple of gin and tonics?’

  His tone was playful, but there was an intent behind it that I did not like. He threw the phone on the bed behind him and I watched it bounce along and dive for cover between a pile of gold cushions. I was in a daze.

  ‘You know what this is, Suzanne. Let’s have some fun.’

  He fingered at a notch in his belt for a second, still wearing the same grin, before three long slow strides took him back across the suite, until he was inches away from me. Caught in between two armchairs, I felt frozen, unable to compute that I had walked into a trap. He wanted to see me after catching me on This Morning, but he didn’t want to talk.

  Instinct took me out of my stupor, when I stuck out a hand to block his own, trained for an opening stroke down the side of my face. His hand retracted, but his feet remained firm and in position, and if anything his chest leered further forward. There was lust in his eyes, but behind it, I sensed violence. This was not a man who was used to being knocked back. I had to say something.

  ‘Sorry. I’m just, um, nervous. I can’t quite believe this is happening.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Suzanne. Relax. This is going to be a fun afternoon.’

  He reached his hand out to where he believed it belonged, and this time I let him run the tips of his fingers down the side of my face. With his free hand, he started taking off his belt. He kept using that description – ‘fun’ – but it wasn’t the word on my lips.

  His belt unbuckled, I found both his hands on my face. It felt like his grip could tighten around my head at a moment’s notice. I had to be careful. He tried to pull my skull towards his for a kiss. I slid my own hand between our noses as slowly as I could, in fear of tripping his internal switch.

  I don’t know how or where I found the words, but they seeped out of me and saved me for a few more seconds.

  ‘Not yet. Let’s take it slow. We’ve got all afternoon you said, right?’

  Half of his mouth curled in satisfaction. I tried to appease the other half too.

  ‘Give me a minute in the bathroom to get myself ready. Why don’t you go in the bedroom and get undressed. I’ll run the shower. When I’m ready for you, I’ll call you. When I call, come in and get me.’

  This sated him, for the moment.

  ‘Sounds like a plan, Suzanne. Just don’t keep me waiting too long.’

  I slipped out of my heels and dropped three inches in height, bringing myself down to his level and indicating that I was there to stay.

  He walked backwards towards the bedroom, pulled off his jacket and shirt as he went, giving me a taste of what was to come. His torso was toned and tanned, the upper body of someone ten years his junior. The pressures of television had made him look after himself.

  ‘You’d better be quick,’ he said, sitting back on to the edge of the bed and removing his shoes. He hadn’t got to the second one before I was inside the bathroom. I flushed the toilet to signal that he shouldn’t enter, and when I pulled the chain I noticed my hand was shaking. I turned on the shower then sat on the closed toilet seat and tried to think. I rubbed my fingers where my eyes meet my nose, but my arms felt heavy, like they didn’t belong to the rest of my body, so I let them hang free, sucked in the steam from the shower through my nostrils.

  What’s the plan, Suzanne?

  I shuffled through my handbag for something that might serve as a defensive weapon. The sharpest edge belonged to my compact mirror. It would have to do. I clutched it across my palm with my fingers, so tight I could feel it digging at my skin. Good. I needed to brace myself for what I was about to do.

  My compact wasn’t the only mirror in the suite that was my friend. At the right of the entrance hall, there had been a large pane of glass in a stainless steel frame that made an already large suite seem almost cavernous. If he had left the sliding bedroom doors open, the mirror could give me his exact position.

  Under the cover of running water, I pried open the bathroom door to a slit no wider than my eyeball and grasped the lay of the land. The big mirror did its job. There, inside it, but in reality at the other end of the suite, was my captor, still sitting on the edge of the bed. But this time his jeans were gone; the only thing covering his modesty was a gold-plated room service tray. He kept bobbing his head up and down into the tray like one of those drinking bird toys dunking itself in and out of a glass of water. After a few mirrored dunks, I realised he was snorting something.

  This was my chance.

  When he came up for a particular big gulp of drug-free air, I peeled back the bathroom door and bolted. I forgot about my shoes, however, and kicked one backwards in front of the armchairs, back into his line of view.

  I heard a ‘What the fuck?’ from the bedroom and then the crash of a tray being flung into a wall. Seconds later I was at the door to the room, tugging at the handle. Nothing but noise, like fireworks going off five feet away. He had locked the door at the handle and also pulled the snib across the upper latch. I scratched at both of them until the door opened and I dropped into the hotel corridor, shoeless and lost. We had come up in the lift, and I went back that way, but I wouldn’t have had time to summon it and I didn’t want to stop running.

&nbs
p; Keep running. That’s the plan, Suzanne.

  When I rounded the corner of the corridor after the lifts, I slammed into a cleaner, knocking her and her trolley to the floor. I didn’t even say sorry. I could hear the running steps of his bare feet pounding after me – or at least I imagined I heard them – and I wasn’t going to look back. I burst through an emergency door and trampled down the stairwell behind it, trying to make out each grey step through a rising tide of tears.

  The stairwell took me into the hotel foyer, where my feet, covered only by nude tights, were cushioned by carpet instead of battered by cold concrete. I kept running until I mingled with fresh air. There was a fleet of black cabs outside the hotel entrance and I jumped into the nearest one.

  ‘Kilburn, please, Kilburn,’ I pleaded from behind the glass.

  *

  My flatmates weren’t there when I got home, as it was the middle of the afternoon and they were tucked away in work.

  I ran another shower, but this time I got in and attempted to wash away the smell of the hotel, the taste of gin and tonic and my own stupid naivety. How had I let myself get swept into such a dangerous situation? Had I resisted his advances, I knew they would have kept coming. There was a glint in his eye that told me I was his possession, a toy for him to play with, a body to bend to his will.

  I got out of the shower and into my pyjamas then waited for my hair to dry. I just wanted to go to bed. Once I was tucked under the duvet, my arms no longer shaking, I went to set the alarm on my phone. There was a new email in my inbox. It was from him.

  It read: ‘You whore. Breathe a word to anyone and your career is over. I will end you.’

  38

  Date: 01/01/16

  Battery: 14%

  Time Remaining: 0hr 36min

  It’s almost time for the darkness again. But when I save and close the FiveParks Word doc, he has something else waiting for me. Tower Bridge has disappeared, its shimmering lights replaced with something less spectacular but infinitely more powerful. The new screensaver is a grab of an email, one that was addressed to me.

  From: slyvie@gmail.com

  To: suzfiveparks@hotmail.com

  Date: Tuesday, August 2, 2016

  Time: 13:41

  Subject: Sorry Suze

  Suze,

  I don’t know if there’s any way you can see this, but I’m writing it anyway. Perhaps it will do us both good.

  I want you to know I believe you. Something is wrong, isn’t it? You’ve been taken. I’ve been reading your blog. I know you’re telling the truth in there – your phone is dead and I’ve tried to get you at your flat.

  And I’ve been to the police. At the start they told me there was nothing they could do as you hadn’t been declared missing, but I think I’m starting to get their attention.

  I won’t give up on you, Suze. Even after what happened. You’ve done so well in there, all those little clues you’ve left for anyone reading. We’ve been following your trail of breadcrumbs – Michael and I – and we think … we think we know where you are.

  We’re coming for you, Suze – with or without the police. Stay strong. Keep going. Keep writing if you can. Keep fighting. I’m so sorry about everything. I’m sorry we fell out over the blog and the Herald, it was so silly. Not like us! I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you on that final date. I should have been there to protect you. I don’t know what Rob was playing at – where was he? I’ve tried calling him, but his phone is dead too.

  I love you, Suze, and I’m not going to lose you. Hold on. We’re coming for you.

  Sylv

  The tears flow with every word I read, from ‘Suze’ to ‘Sylv’. I have shed far too many in here, and I vow these will be my last.

  Sylvie hasn’t given up on me – and neither has Michael. I feel ashamed at the things I’ve written about him from my prison. I accused him of colluding with Jessica to kidnap me, when he is running around on the outside trying to find me. Michael and Sylvie, the two people that meant so much to me, the two people I spurned, they are still the people I can count on. And they are counting on me. I didn’t know if any of the clues I’d hidden in my writing would be noticed, but Sylvie has confirmed I have been successful.

  I cannot keep it hidden any longer; I have been fairly certain of my location – and my captor – for some time. I have remembered. And it looks like Sylvie and Michael have solved the mystery from the code contained within my writing. It wasn’t difficult to interpret, but subtle enough to evade my captor’s eye. He has published everything I’ve written. And now Sylvie and Michael – and hopefully, the police – are closing in on him. Perhaps they have already got to him. I can only hope. But what if he refuses to give up my location, leaving me in here to die? Sylvie said she knows where I am though. I have to believe her.

  And yet, as much as Sylvie’s email is to be celebrated, I am uneasy about its contents. The only reason I have just read it is because my captor has allowed it. He wants me to see it. He wants me to know that Sylvie is coming. And he wants me to know he knows she is coming. He is ready for her. I have put Sylvie in danger. I can’t let that happen. I have only one move left, and now is the time to make it.

  I remember what happened on Date #5. Little by little it’s dripped back into my brain. I know who my captor is. There is nothing left for me to do now but name him. Time is running out. The battery is dying. I must write this before the darkness. I must transport myself back there and write what happened on that final date. It’s gone from being a blur to crystal clear. The stumble through the long reeds … the object breaking into a million pieces … the shadowy figure standing over my prone body … the wait at the bench … and the tennis ball – all the pieces have found their slots inside my head.

  The thing I remember most clearly is picking up the tennis ball when it rolled near my feet. I remember picking it up because I was afraid.

  Date: 01/01/16

  Battery: 10%

  Time Remaining: 0hr 28min

  Date #5: The blackout in Gladstone Park

  The tennis ball flies over the wire fence and lands at my feet.

  ‘Come on, Mrs! Throw it back!’

  They are just kids. Well, kids to me. They are probably in their late teens or early twenties, yet even though I’m only a decade older, I am little more than an old maid – a ‘Mrs’.

  I lift myself from the bench as slowly as I can. The little shits can wait a bit longer. In the end, they have to wait even more than that, because my attempt at a throw is pathetic; the tennis ball catches the wire about two-thirds the way up and flops to the grass below, and derisory cheers rain on me from the other side. They are playing doubles, shirts v skins, and the skins cannot be winning, as this is the second time I’ve seen a wayward forehand smash knock the ball out of the courts. The only difference this time is that it has flown in my direction.

  They don’t look the part. Their skinny chests glisten in the sinking sunlight, but why play tops versus topless in tennis when both teams are clearly defined by their positions on either side of the net? They’re little show-offs. They look like kids who should be engaging in five-a-side football, not doubles tennis, and their frequent breaks in play indicate they have only one ball. Perhaps they pilfered it and the rackets. I feel ashamed for thinking it, but they don’t look like the types to pay for a court.

  All this means they can wait for me to perfect my throw. I’ve been waiting more than forty minutes for Date #5, or Paul, to show up, so they can wait too.

  Impatient or bored, I don’t know which, one of the skinny kids saunters over to the wire fence on his side and glares at me through the hexagonal holes. There’s no more than five feet between us. This is how far he thinks I can throw a tennis ball. I make sure to put enough force into my second throw to arch the ball over the wire and over him and on to their court, rendering his strut to the fence meaningless. To him, however, it wasn’t a total loss, as I overhear his call back to the others: ‘Hey, she was actually qui
te fit close up.’

  Cheeky git.

  I go back to the bench, back to waiting for Paul. I promise myself not to do it much longer. Gladstone Park, a small and hilly stomping ground in Dollis Hill, a few stops on the Tube north of Kilburn, is my favourite park in London, but I hadn’t planned on spending the afternoon in it alone.

  It was stupid of me to just give him a time and the name of the park, rather than an exact spot. The benches in front of the tennis courts are close to the main entrance, so Paul shouldn’t have too much trouble finding me, but he has to get here first. It’s still hot, despite the sun’s ongoing retreat, but a breeze of panic chills me; for the first time in my dating life, I may have been stood up.

  Hilarious, really. The fifth out of five highly publicised dates, and I’ve been stood up. Typical. Perhaps I deserve it for the way I’ve sleepwalked my way into Date #5.

  There’s no sign of Rob either. He’s supposed to be chaperoning me, but I can’t see him anywhere.

  The whole thing has turned into a disaster. Five Parks is about to die and everyone knows it, myself included, so there’s no point resuscitating the patient. Me and my blog are going out together with a whimper.

  I watch the kids trying to play tennis for another few minutes in an effort to divert my attention. They haven’t a clue how to play properly but it doesn’t matter: they’re having fun. Five Parks was supposed to be fun. All it did was cause trouble. I’m glad it is over.

  And yet my senses sharpen when I hear the rustle of nature a few metres behind me, and I turn round to see a dark figure clamber out of a thick bush. But my shoulders slump when he drifts from the foliage into the sharp sun; it isn’t Date #5. It isn’t Paul. It’s only Rob.

  He gives me a forlorn heads-up and peels around the bench. He smiles but his body language betrays him; he looks as dejected as I feel.

  ‘Sorry I’m late. Squeeze up then,’ he says, crashing down on to the frayed wood.