Hold My Hand

by M. J. Ford

‘I might go for a run too, actually. Need to let off a little steam.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ Amelia poured herself one. ‘Does this mean you’ll be heading back to Bath soon?’

  ‘I imagine tomorrow,’ said Jo. ‘I really appreciate you putting me up by the way.’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ said Paul. ‘Mi casa, tu casa.’

  She thought she caught a glance from Amelia to her brother, and made a show of looking the other way.

  ‘So how’s Ben?’ asked Amelia. It was a terrible attempt at changing the subject.

  ‘Oh … fine,’ said Jo. ‘Y’know, he’s Ben.’

  ‘William never stops talking about the time he let him switch on the siren. He wants to be a policeman, y’know? He puts his toys in his wardrobe and calls it “the prison”.’

  ‘He’s good with kids,’ said Jo, and she meant it.

  Paul swigged his beer. ‘So, do you think you two might …’

  ‘Paul!’ said Amelia. ‘Not appropriate!’

  ‘Come on, we’re all family,’ said Jo’s brother.

  ‘It’s fine,’ said Jo. Paul could be thoughtless, but there was no malice. She was even touched, though mystified, that he felt they were close enough to broach the subject. She hadn’t told either of them about the miscarriage. They barely spoke anyway, and a text message was hardly the right medium to pass on that sort of news.

  ‘The answer is no,’ she said, and her throat dried up around the words. ‘I’m not sure it’s for us.’

  Paul nodded, and lifted his bottle in a toast. ‘Fair enough, sis. Don’t blame you. Save a packet, for one thing.’

  ‘I’ll drink to that,’ said Jo, raising an imaginary glass. Amelia, she noticed, looked a little disappointed. ‘Anyway, how was Mum?’

  ‘Not great,’ said Paul. ‘She was pretty confused. Amelia took the kids outside. She’d lost a lot of weight too. You should drop in, while you’re here. It might give her a lift.’

  Or it might do the absolute opposite.

  From Jo’s perspective, the problem wasn’t the dementia, it was the moments of lucidity. That was when her mother tended to let Jo know how she really felt. There was always a ten-minute period of grace before the criticisms started, the sniping, the digs, the comparisons. The last time she’d visited, she’d left after twenty minutes. A stupid argument about her choice of holiday destination.

  ‘Hopefully I’ll have some time,’ she said.

  Paul fixed his eyes on his beer. ‘The carers say she’s not eating much at all any more. It might not be long.’

  ‘I said I’ll go,’ said Jo.

  Chapter 14

  Dusk was falling, and in the well-to-do residential streets around her brother’s house, the street lights were flicking on with eerie synchronicity, like nocturnal animals stirring to life at the scent of prey. Being a Sunday evening in a semi-rural village, most people were in their homes, and Jo caught flashes down the capacious driveways of families or couples together in lit windows.

  She wasn’t sure exactly how far she’d go, but she took a route that led away from the houses, until she was running uphill along a single-track road without a pavement. As always, she went off faster than she’d intended, and her chest was soon burning, the lactic acid leading her calves. She pushed harder, sucking in huge lungfuls of air. The odd car passed, but she saw their approach in the distant glow of headlights and stood up on the verge to let them pass. She wondered if Stratton really did leave after a single drink and if the others were still going. Ben would be. He must have been staying in a local hotel.

  She continued down the hill on the other side, thighs protesting as they took the brunt of the decline.

  I’ll have to tell them about me and Ben at some point, she thought. They’re my family.

  And it wasn’t fair on Will. The sooner she broke it to him that Uncle Boo wouldn’t be coming round any more, the better.

  In the distance, she could see the bypass, lights snaking across the countryside. She knew she could either turn round, returning by the same route, or take a longer track that ran past the old Horton waterworks, then cross a dismantled railway before looping back to the estate. She and her mates used to hang around over that way as kids, even though it was the sort of place mothers told their innocent teenage daughters to avoid. Maybe that explained why they went there.

  But she was a thirty-nine-year-old woman, with moderate-to-good self-defence skills, and her mother probably didn’t even remember her name. She opened a kissing gate and set off along the track.

  The ground was uneven, and without the benefit of the street lights, she found herself stumbling a little, unsure of her foot placement. Any thoughts she’d had, about Ben, about the case, about Dylan or Niall, tried and failed to take root because all her attention was on the path and not falling over. With the hedges either side deepening the darkness further, judging distance was difficult as well. She wondered if her memory was letting her down and actually this was a track she’d never come down before. She couldn’t tell if she was running fast or slow, and cursed herself for not bringing her phone. At least it had a torch setting.

  Just as the odd sense of disquiet was morphing into something more visceral, she saw the squat towers of the waterworks ahead, behind a metal fence. The path along its edge was as she remembered too – but narrower, with the bushes overgrown and overhanging. She slowed to a walk, pushing the tendrils out of the way, forging on almost blindly, until she broke through at the other side. Despite the walk, she was out of breath.

  ‘Well, that was stupid,’ she muttered to herself.

  The railway had been taken up some time in the early 1900s, and now it was a straight path laid to tarmac, and much easier to run on. She settled back into her stride, glad to be out under the open sky once more. There were even a few stars peeping out between the shreds of cloud.

  She wondered again about the transfer request. Oxford seemed too close to home now. Too close to Bath as well. There’d be other forces. Maybe Kent or Surrey? A completely fresh start. Greater Manchester had vacancies, and she had old friends up that way too. All coupled up, with growing broods, of course. Which brought the other stuff to the surface. Bright Futures would call again in the morning. She couldn’t put them off forever. The one in five chance would only get smaller the longer she waited.

  There were figures up ahead, on top of a small road-bridge. She could hear them, and her eyes made out four or five people, leaning over. She kept her pace steady, focused on the path. She heard their voices drop, and knew before it happened that one of them was going to say something.

  ‘Get those knees up!’ came the shout.

  She glanced up, and saw there was something strange about their faces. With a jolt of unease, she saw they were all wearing clown masks.

  ‘Evening, lads,’ she said. Keep running. They’re just kids.

  Her peripheral vision saw them peeling off the wall of the bridge, moving towards its ends.

  ‘Hold on! Wait up!’

  She clenched her fists. Just what I need. She didn’t slow at all, but didn’t speed up either.

  As she reached the bridge, the first of them slid down the bank onto the path right in front of her. He was wearing a white mask with swollen bright red lips. She thought about trying to dodge around, but suddenly her legs felt completely sapped of strength.

  She slowed to a halt. ‘Excuse me,’ she said.

  The mask stared back. She could hear him breathing behind it. Two others emerged onto the path too. She wondered how old they were. The clothing – tracksuits and hoodies – suggested under twenty. Maybe even teens. Aside from one, they were all bigger than her.

  ‘Leave her alone,’ said someone above. ‘You’re scaring her.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘I’m not scared. I just have to get through.’

  ‘You look scared,’ said the one in front of her. ‘Is it the masks?’

  Despite the fear, her training kicked in. Establish a connection
. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Why do you want to know my name?’

  Okay, try again.

  ‘Just being polite.’ She looked right into the eye sockets of the mask. ‘I’m Jo,’ she said.

  ‘And I don’t give a fuck, Jo,’ said the young man. Some of the others tittered.

  ‘Can you move please?’

  Straight question, no more subtleties. Her mind was calibrating, her body poised, depending on his answer. A straight ‘No’ and she would kick him so hard in the balls he’d be pissing blood.

  ‘I’m Dara,’ he said, his tone sleazy, entitled, like they were meeting in a bar and he thought his luck was in. Maybe, in a bar, if the girl was desperate enough, it occasionally worked.

  ‘Hi Dara,’ she replied. ‘I’m a police officer.’

  It was fear that made her say it, and she regretted it at once. Because the kid in front of her laughed.

  ‘Where’s your badge?’

  ‘I don’t carry it,’ she said.

  ‘Maybe it’s in those shorts?’ said another voice.

  ‘Let’s have a look,’ said the leader. He moved closer – too close – hand already reaching, and whatever slim thread of hope that had been restraining her snapped. She took a fraction of a step back, and perhaps, dumb kid that he was, he mistook it for fear. She drove her forehead up into his nose. Basic training. The skull at the front of the cranium was thick, and hard as rock. His nose cracked, sweet as a nut, and his almighty howl of pain echoed off the underside of the bridge.

  Jo ran, and a second later she heard the sound of their footsteps in pursuit. She looked back and saw just two. One was still with his broken-nosed friend, and the other on the bridge shouted, ‘Leave her – for fuck’s sake!’

  Please listen to him. Please leave me alone …

  And still, despite the terror, her mind fingered through the options like they were filed in a Rolodex. Two men. If they caught her, she might be able to disable one. Perhaps she’d get a finger in his eye socket, or a groin strike. If they got a hold of her hands, it was trickier. She’d scream blue murder, that might be enough. But if it wasn’t, she just had to kick and thrash and make it as hard as possible. If they had a knife, then that was it. It was about biting, clawing, anything to get a DNA sample. She had to remember accents, characteristics, facial hair, body types. While her body propelled her, fuelled by nature, her rational mind was already working ahead, to a scene she’d attended more times than she really wanted to count as an investigator. The cool, professional paramedics, the witness statements. She promised herself she wouldn’t feel the shame – she wouldn’t give them that – and hoped it was a promise she could keep.

  The path ahead stretched on forever, a straight-line sprint she knew she couldn’t win. So she scrambled up the bank, clawing with her hands, and crested the top. There was a wooden fence, woodland beyond.

  ‘Fucking get her!’ called a voice.

  The two young men began to climb as well.

  Hands on the top rail, Jo vaulted the fence, and plunged into the trees. Staggering over roots, with unseen branches whipping her face, she didn’t look back. She’d no idea where she was going, but her internal map told her it was roughly back towards the road where she could wave down a car. If there was a car. Their footsteps crunched behind her.

  ‘Come back!’ one shouted. ‘We’re just messin’ wi’ ya.’

  Fuck you and your messing …

  She slipped into a dell, skidding onto her backside, then charged up the far side. One of her trainers sank in a patch of squelching mud, and as she pulled up her foot, the shoe came loose. She hobbled on, barefooted. Up ahead, it looked like the trees thinned. And perhaps there was only one pursuer now, a good distance away.

  She almost ran right into a barbed-wire fence and stopped herself just in time. She placed her good foot on the middle strand and flung herself over, but her clothing snagged and she landed hard on the other side, breaking her fall with her hands. It took all her strength to stand, then she staggered on, across a small field over overgrown meadow grass. There was something familiar about the land, and through the fug of fear she realised she was on the other side of the barn at the bottom of Sally Carruthers’ land, about a hundred metres from the house itself. She could’ve cried with relief. She passed the raised beds where once Mr Carruthers had tended to his courgettes, onions and carrots, the bounty of which she’d tasted in the delicious soups Sally used to give her to take home after her piano lessons.

  Her legs carried her up the flagstones to the back door, and she rapped loudly on the glass. There was soft piano music inside, which stopped abruptly.

  Jo shot a glance back over her shoulder, then pounded on the door again, ‘Please! Let me in!’

  A light came on inside, and a moving shape appeared, fractured and blurred by the distortions in the glass. It coalesced as it grew closer, becoming the figure of Mrs Carruthers.

  ‘Who is it?’ she said, her voice tremulous.

  ‘It’s Jo. Josie Masters.’

  The door opened. Sally was clutching a rolling pin in her right hand. There was the smell of something sweet in the oven.

  ‘Oh, my!’ she said, taking in Jo’s single bare foot and her sweat-streaked face.

  ‘Can I come in?’

  Sally moved aside. ‘Of course! Of course!’

  Jo stumbled inside, noticing belatedly that rivulets of blood were trailing down her ankle and onto the wooden floorboards. There was a gash on the side of her calf.

  ‘You’re hurt!’ said Sally. ‘Can I call someone?’

  ‘That’s not necessary,’ said Jo. ‘Do you have somewhere I can clean myself up?’

  ‘There’s a bathroom,’ said Sally, pointing along the hall. ‘Second door on the right.’

  Jo thanked her and hopped along the corridor, then into the bathroom. She found the cord and switched on the light.

  ‘Josie, what happened?’ said Sally, waiting at the door.

  ‘I got lost running,’ said Jo, peeling off her bloody sock. ‘Tried to come back through the woods and slipped.’

  ‘I could go over to your brother’s house?’ said Mrs Carruthers.

  ‘No!’ said Jo. ‘No need. I’ll be out in a mo.’

  She looked at herself in the mirror. Her face was bright red, and there was more blood on her forehead. There didn’t seem to be a cut though, so it must have belonged to the young man in the mask. The last thing she needed was to worry Paul or Amelia.

  Maybe it would be an idea to call the police. They might well be able to track them down. She decided against it. In all likelihood the clown masks would be dumped somewhere by now and the young men would have vanished. Plus, she felt like a fool, even though she knew she shouldn’t. She’d file a report tomorrow, if there was time.

  Jo splashed water in her face, then dabbed the cut on her leg until it stopped bleeding.

  The bathroom was decorated in peach shades, with a walk-in bath and handles bolted to the wall for support, though there was congealed dirt around the plughole.

  In a couple of minutes, she emerged, holding a grubby, blood-streaked hand-towel.

  Sally offered a mug of tea. ‘Thought this might help?’ she said.

  In truth, hot tea was the last thing Jo wanted, but she forced herself to take it. Her hand was shaking slightly as the adrenalin worked its way out of her system.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Sorry about your towel.’

  ‘Never mind that,’ said Sally, taking it. ‘I’ll add it to the whites. Come and have a sit-down in the kitchen.’

  Limping a little – her leg was throbbing now – Jo followed the hunched form into the country kitchen. It was exactly as she remembered it, even down to the bird ornaments on the pine dresser and the lace on the curtains. A grandfather clock said it was 21.05.

  She sat down at the table. ‘Sorry to intrude like this,’ she said.

  ‘I was just doing some baking,’ said Sally, bending stiffly to look throu
gh the oven door.

  Jo saw the flour still dusting the counter, a few scraps of pastry.

  Looking through the glass double doors, her attention was caught by the piano in the living room. The keyboard was open.

  ‘You’re not as bad as you said,’ said Jo.

  ‘Sorry, sweetheart?’

  ‘On the piano,’ said Jo.

  Sally blushed. ‘I’m not what I was,’ she said, looking at her knotted hands. ‘Blasted arthritis runs in the family. Do you really not play any more?’

  Jo shook her head, trying to remember the last time. It had been at a friend’s wedding, when everyone was half-cut. She and Ben had been wandering through the rooms of a country house, and they’d found the piano tucked away in a drawing room.

  She’d surprised herself with how easily it came back. It must have been the drink, but she hadn’t even realised a crowd had gathered until she finished the first movement of Schubert’s Sonata No. 21. Ben looked gobsmacked. She’d taken requests for the next forty-five minutes, moving through a variety of genres from ragtime, to jazz, to interpretations of the latest chart hits. By the time they went home, high on romance, booze, and youth, she’d promised herself she’d look into more lessons the following day. The hangover, and the reality of life, soon put paid to that idea.

  Sally shuffled across to the counter, where she began to wipe up the mess. Jo noticed that there was a smashed plate on the sideboard, and wondered if Mrs Carruthers was coping all right. There was a slightly rotten smell too – it reminded her of a care home, or a public toilet. Poor woman probably just needed a cleaner.

  ‘Will you play something for me?’ said Sally, all of a sudden.

  Jo grimaced. ‘I couldn’t. It would be embarrassing.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Sally. ‘And it would make me very happy. I don’t have a lot of visitors these days.’

  Jo was going to keep protesting, but there was something pleading in the old woman’s tone. She stood up stiffly.

  ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you!’

  In the living room, she sat on the stool. It was a little lower than she expected, and she boosted it higher.