A Window Breaks

by C. M. Ewan

  ‘If anything happens to him . . .’ Holly said. And then she started to cry.

  I held her, feeling her tears against my face, wishing so badly I could somehow deny what I’d seen with my own eyes – or that I could go back in time, maybe. Save Buster. Stop any of this from happening.

  Whatever this was.

  We tramped on, climbing steadily, pausing every now and again to catch our breath, check our bearings. I didn’t think it could be far now. And it was much quieter, because the hard rain had slowed, sputtering out into faint sprays and intermittent drops. The wind was still blasting through the trees overhead but the background deluge had faded, like turning off a television that was screening only static. I stilled, feeling like someone had hit pause on the world.

  A few seconds passed and then Rachel grabbed hold of my backpack and yanked me and Holly down to the ground. I knelt in the mud, staring wildly at Rachel in the dark. Her eyes were black and lidless. She put a finger to her lips. Holly clung to me tighter, shaking, burying her face in my neck.

  Fear shrunk my scalp.

  Nothing happened.

  Long seconds went by.

  I was starting to think that Rachel had just got freaked out by the silence and the dark.

  Then my heart jolted.

  The smaller man was just visible through the breaks in the trees, hiking downhill along the driveway in his white coveralls. Cold terror washed over me, like someone had burst a water balloon over my head.

  The smaller man’s torch was shining faintly. The batteries were almost gone. He was clutching the shotgun by the barrel in his other hand. I supposed he must have checked the gate and satisfied himself it was secure. His boots crunched on in the quiet.

  Then stopped.

  He was almost level with us. Had he heard a noise? Maybe just the creaking of my kneecaps was enough to give us away.

  I watched him, silently urging him to move on, holding Holly so tight I could feel her heart banging away.

  She flinched. A sudden loud shout had ripped through the dark from the direction of the lodge. If we’d been in the woods in the daytime, it was the kind of noise that would have made birds scatter. Now, it just seemed to echo into the night.

  We watched in breathless silence as the bigger man’s hooded head bounced up over the humped summit of the driveway. He jogged closer to the smaller man, pulled up, clutched his knees and tugged down his mask to catch his breath. I strained my eyes to try to get a clear look at him but it was no good. He was angled away from us, his massive shoulders turned. The one thing I could see was the wheel wrench he was carrying. He showed it to the smaller man, gesturing back down at the way he’d come.

  The smaller man snatched the wrench with the hand holding the torch. He shook his head and began to jab and gesture with the wrench. The two men had a heated discussion. At the end of it, the smaller man shook his hooded head once more, like a disgruntled employer, and marched on down the driveway alone.

  I guessed he’d told the bigger man he’d fallen for a diversion. He probably wanted to be shown the area of woodland the bigger man had been heading towards when he’d become distracted. A thought struck me then. We’d left my toolbox behind. If the men found it, they’d know we’d been there. But what difference could that make now?

  We were so close to the gate. So close to getting out.

  After several long seconds of standing and watching the smaller man walk off, the bigger man’s shoulders finally dropped and he shook his head. Then he refitted his face mask, pulled his big industrial torch out of his pocket, switched it on and jogged after the smaller man with the beam lancing into the night.

  Time slipped by. We crouched there. Waiting.

  24

  ‘How much longer do we stay here?’ Holly whispered.

  ‘Not long.’

  Do you want to know something bizarre? Just then, I wasn’t in a total hurry to move on. We’d been waiting for eight minutes by my watch, sitting largely in silence in the dark under the trees. We didn’t want to make a move towards the gate too soon in case one or both of the men were still around. But at the same time, we didn’t want to leave it too long, either, in case they came back. And the wait was, yes, terrifying and, yes, nervy as all hell, but it was also – and here’s the bizarre part – kind of special.

  Fatherhood is a puzzle to me. It’s one I feel like I’ll never get close to solving. I can remember when I first found out Rachel was pregnant with Michael. We were thrilled, of course. Like most couples who’d been trying to conceive for a while, we’d hugged and cried and talked for long hours about how excited we were for the future. And I was excited. I had all these images of me being this Great Dad, like those snapshots you see in catalogues and magazines. You know the ones I mean. Arty, black-and-white shots of Bare-Chested Dad cradling his baby infant for the first time, the little one curling his tiny fist round Dad’s finger. Or sunny, beachside shots of the whole family together with Holiday Dad carrying one of his gorgeous kids on his shoulders and Holiday Mum swinging a wicker basket filled with perfectly packed picnic things. Memorable moments. Quality time with the family. That’s what we all want, isn’t it? But too often, it hadn’t been that way for me.

  The simple truth was I hadn’t spent enough time with my kids or my wife. And yeah, that was particularly true lately, but the seeds had been planted long before Rachel and I had split. I’d worked endless hours as a corporate lawyer in a City firm when I’d first started out on my career and then even longer hours for Lionel. I’d wanted to get ahead, make good money, provide for Rachel and the kids. But I know now that what I’d lost sight of – what we all probably lose sight of too often – was that I could never get that time back.

  If I reflect on my own childhood, some of my most cherished moments were spent camping in some local woods with my dad. I close my eyes and it’s not hard for me to remember the smell of woodsmoke and sweat in his shirt when he hugged me, or the sound of his gentle snoring in the forest night.

  I’d wanted to share moments with Michael like that too. I’d wanted for us to create our own memories. But I wasn’t as good a father as my dad was. I hadn’t made the time. And now that Michael was dead, I knew I never could.

  Was that one of the reasons why he’d gone off the rails? Was it why he’d gone joyriding in my car and had wound up dead? These were the questions that haunted me in the sleepless hours of the night.

  So forgive me for the interlude, but sitting here with Rachel and Holly, holding hands in the stillness . . . I don’t know how to explain it in a way that makes sense. I did know, of course, that this was ridiculous. Context is everything and we were in the woods hiding for our lives. But, even so, I felt this incredible closeness between us like I hadn’t in too long. It was as if all my nerve endings were stripped raw and tingling. As if I was feeling the bonds between us with a pure intensity that reached back far beyond whatever problems had pushed us apart.

  ‘Tom? Can I talk to you a second?’

  ‘What is it?’ Holly asked, stirring.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ Rachel told her. ‘Wait here. Your dad and I will be back in just a sec, OK?’

  ‘I don’t want to be left on my own,’ Holly pleaded.

  ‘You won’t be. We’ll stay close. Tom?’

  There was a no-nonsense quality to Rachel’s voice that I recognized. She put her hand out to me and I let go of Holly and took it, wondering what exactly she was leading me away to.

  We walked a short distance into the trees, then stopped and looked back to where Holly was sitting on the ground with her chin propped on her knees and her arms around her shins. She watched after us, looking almost as worried about what Rachel was about to say to me as I was.

  ‘What’s the problem?’ I asked her.

  Rachel released my hand and rubbed her bad arm. I got the impression she wasn’t sure how to begin. ‘What’s your plan when we get out through the gate?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

&n
bsp; ‘Just . . . tell me what we do next.’

  Even in the darkness, I could tell how guarded she was acting. It unnerved me.

  ‘I don’t know, Rachel. We get to the road. We flag down a car. Or we find a house. Somewhere with a telephone.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘We call the police, of course.’

  ‘And what do we tell them?’

  A strange quiver in my heart. I was missing something here, but I had no idea what.

  It was odd to think that just hours ago I’d held Rachel in my arms. We’d made love and been more intimate than we had been in months. Being together like that, wanting her so badly and feeling like she wanted me in return . . . I don’t know. It had felt like we’d found our way back to each other. But now, all I could sense was the chasm opening up between us again.

  ‘You’re really going to make me say it, aren’t you?’ She raised her eyes to the treetops as though exasperated and, when she spoke, I could hear the constriction in her throat. ‘Do you know who these men are, Tom? Do you know the reason they’ve come here?’ She eyed Holly and lowered her voice still further. ‘Does it have to do with what happened to us in London?’

  A tumbling sensation, like I was falling into a pit in the ground. I thought of how Rachel wouldn’t meet my gaze just a short while ago. I’d wondered then if it was because she’d had some idea what this was about and she wasn’t telling me. But no, apparently she’d been wondering if I was the one who’d caused this.

  ‘Does it have to do with your work for Lionel? Is that what this is?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘I want to know what’s safe for us to tell the police, Tom. I don’t want to put Holly in any more danger.’

  I stared at her, feeling like my lungs didn’t work any more. How could she think this? But then, hadn’t I thought the same thing about her?

  ‘Rachel, I don’t know why these men are here. I have no idea what they want with us. It could all be a horrible mistake.’

  She considered me cagily, not saying anything right away, just studying me for any kind of slip or tell.

  ‘Come on, Rachel. Who do you think Lionel is? He makes money off of people who have good ideas. I help him to do that. We don’t do anything illegal. That’s not who Lionel is. It’s not who I am. I thought you knew that?’

  She squinted at me some more. I’m not sure she was convinced. And, on balance, I suppose I could understand why. After all, it’s not as if I hadn’t had my suspicions about her.

  ‘I promise you, Rachel.’ I took her hands. ‘I don’t know anything to tell the police other than how scared I am right now.’

  She was silent a moment, then she nodded. ‘OK.’ She worked a small, rueful smile. ‘Then let’s get out through this gate and away from this place, can we?’

  I stumbled after her back to Holly, but it was only when we’d helped her to her feet and moved off towards the driveway that I realized I hadn’t turned Rachel’s question back on her. I hadn’t asked if there was something she wasn’t telling me.

  25

  I ventured out of the trees at a stoop, scoping out the driveway. Once I was sure it was clear, I beckoned for Rachel and Holly to join me. I shied away from looking at Rachel directly. I was still troubled by our conversation in the woods.

  The wind blustered against us, pushing us up the last stretch of driveway to the gate and the fence. The gate looked about a hundred feet tall in the darkness. The spiked barbs running along the top cut into the sky like thousands of knives.

  We stopped and stood together in roughly the spot we might have slowed up in the Volvo. The number-plate camera was on the post to our right.

  I got down on one knee, the wind streaking around me, and gestured for Holly to pass me the number plate. I took it in both hands and angled it towards the camera.

  My heart rose up into my mouth.

  Rachel and Holly watched me.

  We waited. And waited.

  But nothing happened.

  The camera stared blindly ahead. No lights blinked on. No hidden mechanism whirred. There was no humming surge of electricity.

  Don’t panic.

  I wiped the number plate on my soaked jogging trousers and tried again. I tilted and tipped it. I moved it side to side and up and down.

  ‘It’s not working,’ Holly said. She cringed and looked back down the driveway, like she expected the men to appear any second.

  ‘Maybe it’s a weight thing,’ Rachel suggested. ‘Maybe there are sensors under the ground.’

  ‘To get out?’ I shook my head. It felt like someone had fitted a giant vice around my chest and was slowly tightening it. My ribs strained. My lungs shrivelled. ‘Here, you hold it.’

  I passed Rachel the number plate and crossed to the camera, taking a quick look at it from behind. An unsettling thought had formed in my mind. Maybe this was what the smaller man had been doing up here. If he knew that the gate was the only way out of here, then maybe he’d sabotaged it. But no, there were two thick black cables plugged into the back of the camera. Neither of them were cut or disconnected in any way.

  My eyes slid to the intercom. I knew that if I pressed the button then the unit in the kitchen of the lodge would ring. I knew there was a button there to open the gate. I’d said before that the controls in the kitchen wouldn’t open the gate for more than a minute, but obviously I hadn’t paid that much attention to the unit before. Now I was asking myself if there was an override or some other way of keeping the gate locked in the open position. Maybe if you pressed and held the GATE OPEN button in the kitchen for longer it would do the trick.

  I glanced back at Rachel and Holly. Rachel was angling the number plate in all kinds of directions, getting frustrated and desperate. Holly was keeping watch, bending forwards from the waist, clasping her arms around her for warmth.

  Could I make it back to the lodge and into the kitchen without the men spotting me? Would Rachel and Holly wait here without me while I tried? If I managed to trigger the gate for them they could get away and summon help. I could hide until the police came.

  If I was lucky.

  What else?

  I got up out of my crouch, walked over to one of the gate panels and shoved it with the flats of my hands. It didn’t budge. There was no give in it at all. I looked up, but even if I cupped my hands and tried to boost Rachel or Holly, there was no safe way for them to make it over the barbs at the top.

  ‘Headlights,’ Holly hissed.

  I spun, eyes wide.

  ‘Dad, it’s night. If we were in our car, we’d have our headlights on.’

  I felt a surge of blood push through my veins. Maybe she was right. Maybe at night the gate camera was light sensitive. Fumbling in the pocket of my jogging trousers, I pulled out my mobile phone. It was coated in moisture, slippery to the touch. I walked close to Rachel and got down on one knee, shielding the phone with my body as I turned it on.

  The screen glowed with a watery blue light. I cupped my hand around it and checked there was still no signal, then flicked at the bottom of the screen with my thumb and called up the torch app.

  The flashbulb on the back of the phone blazed down at the ground. Rachel swallowed hard and looked behind us, then nodded at me slowly. Again, I wondered what she was thinking. Did she still suspect me? Should I suspect her?

  Carefully now, I moved my hand until the beam shone brightly against the reflective surface of the number plate. Rachel angled the plate towards the camera.

  And . . . Nothing.

  No clunk. No whirring electric mechanism.

  In a fit of frustration, I almost threw my phone down at the ground.

  ‘Try shining the light at the camera,’ Holly said.

  I immediately turned and swung my phone towards the lens – forgetting to shield it with my body – and that’s when the first shot rang out.

  Not that I knew what it was. Not at first. For those initial blurred moments it was just a brash crack in the blackened
silence. Until something whanged off the gate in a shower of sparks.

  I remained frozen for far too long. It seemed to take an age for my brain to catch up to what was happening. Then a judder of absolute terror tore through my body. I twisted round and – from the corner of my vision – glimpsed a bright flash from the tree cover down the driveway to our left.

  A puff of muddy dirt kicked up from the ground two metres in front of Holly.

  She screamed and leaped back.

  ‘Gun!’ Rachel yelled.

  I grabbed for Holly, snatching fistfuls of her pyjama top, hauling her roughly away towards the trees on the opposite side of the driveway.

  There was another huge bang. Another puff of dirt. Gravel spattered my calf. I launched myself forwards with Holly. Saw Rachel drop the number plate and dive forwards in a blur at my side.

  A tree trunk exploded close to us in a raging burst of splinters.

  We tumbled and fell forwards through bushes and ferns, then pushed up to our feet and scrambled on into the trees. Into the dark.

  26

  We ran hard and blind and breathless, reaching out and calling to one another, tearing through the blackness, fleeing like wild things. I didn’t know where the men were. I didn’t know if we were about to run into them. Each time a twig snapped I thought it was a gunshot.

  Trees and bushes zipped by and jolted in my vision. Rachel was in front, using her good arm to push aside branches that flicked back and struck my face. I held Holly’s wrist and wrenched her forwards, ducking and swerving, stumbling, fighting to stay up.

  My bare feet pounded the forest floor. It was a world of sticks and thorns and brambles. Pretty much every step hurt me. I didn’t care. We only got faster. Desperation can do that for you. Adrenaline. Fear. I could feel my heart hammering in my chest. Behind me, Holly was making frenzied yelping noises. Rachel was swearing over and over.

  She was leading us downhill and I guessed that was the right move. We were faster with the ground falling away beneath us, so long as we didn’t trip or fall.