by Guy Sheppard
Jo saw John stop her with a pout. Susie had to trust them both or their task was hopeless. So don’t rush her. They’d already got off to bad start. The narrowboat’s low roof left very little room to duck and squirm. For someone as tall as she was, it was a tight squeeze as she tried not to knock anything off the shelves with the padded shoulders of her bolero jacket. She had to let him ask the questions as he looked round for somewhere wide enough to sit down.
‘You okay, Jo?’
‘It’s so hot in here.’
‘Maybe it’s your condition.’
‘I’m expecting a baby, not a seizure.’
‘It is a bit confined, you have to admit.’
‘Or you’re taking up too much bloody room.’
‘So what’s all this about, Susie?’ John piped up. ‘I thought you’d done talking to me?’
It was Jo’s turn to make a rude face.
This was him treading carefully?
She pursed her lips in her own pucker of protest.
John mimed back, fanning himself rapidly with a napkin. He was all for sparing Susie’s feelings. Like hell he was.
That scowl on her face screwed up her freckles again as she hung up her lamp and moved to the stove. Her breathing quickened. A defiant toss of her head saw a loop of ash-blonde hair fall from her scarf and curl on her cheek.
‘I lied to you about Sarah.’
John promptly hit his head on a shelf draped with lacy doilies.
‘Why would you do that?’
‘Because I didn’t think it was any of your damned business.’
‘So what changed?’ asked Jo, moving to a dog box bench and bolster.
‘I guess I got scared.’
‘We’re listening.’
Susie banged a kettle about on the hot plate.
‘I told you that I bumped into Sarah in a café shortly before she died.’
‘A chance encounter, you said, shortly after you two broke up.’
‘That’s not how it was at all.’
‘You arranged to meet?’
‘More than that. We were going to get back together.’
John and Jo traded glances. They were definitely not leaving now. Sorry, but nothing was making sense any more.
‘Good to know,’ said John, ‘but how does this have anything to do with Sarah’s death?’
Susie busied herself pouring tea into cups with her coal-blackened fingers.
‘Because she said she was terrified, that’s why. She realised that the person she’d left me for was not the loving woman she expected.’
‘She?’
‘Freya Boreman.’
John stopped fanning himself immediately.
‘Freya Boreman? We sort of assumed that Sarah left you for…’
‘Well, you assumed wrong.’
‘Say what you have to, we’re listening.’
Susie sat on a stool of her own and passed the sugar.
That didn’t prevent Jo finding the tea absolutely revolting.
‘Yeah, perhaps it’s best if you tell us everything you can.’
‘Sarah didn’t realise it at first, but then she saw the pictures.’
‘Pictures? What pictures?’
‘For instance, they were photos of us when we were shopping in Gloucester.’
‘Are these what you’re talking about, by any chance?’ said Jo, pulling prints from her jacket pocket.
Susie paled. She began to fiddle with a big silver hoop in one ear; she knocked her knees together.
‘There must be some mistake. Where did you get these?’
‘You’re not going to believe it.’
‘These are the snaps that Freya took of me and Sarah before we broke up, all right. She said she’d show them to all and sundry if I didn’t back off. She’d create a real scandal.’
‘Back off?’
‘That bitch was always stalking us. She followed us everywhere, for Christ’s sake.’
‘Just like that?’
‘Freya was madly jealous of me, or she wanted to weigh up the opposition.’
Jo set down her cup before she dropped it.
Some things you never saw coming.
Everyone knew that.
Except her, apparently.
‘That can’t be right. Are you saying that Freya took a shine to Sarah?’
‘Sarah worked for a while for Freya’s hubby James, as did her own husband, Bruno.’
‘That much we know already.’
‘Bruno was sacked from his job by James and his sister Tia who own everything. Suddenly Sarah couldn’t stand the sight of James any more.’
‘And?’
John shot Jo a warning look. Had they not just agreed to leave the questioning to him? Now here she was again, rolling her eyes and pressing too hard with her husky tones in her best grizzly bear fashion.
‘At first Sarah was totally bowled over. She was so excited. I could see it in her eyes, whereas when she was with me she suddenly became restless and bored. It was going to be a grand passion for her as well as Freya if things worked out well.’
‘You think James and Bruno quarrelled over Freya’s infatuation with Sarah? You think that’s the real reason why he lost his job? And Sarah couldn’t forgive them?’
Susie’s mouth set hard for a moment.
‘Bruno blamed James for not keeping Freya ‘under control’. James blamed Bruno for the same thing, but with Sarah.’
‘As if it was any of their business?’
‘Sarah was never the most decisive of people. She was afraid of how Freya would react when she told her she wanted to dump her and come back to me.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked John. ‘React how?’
‘How do you think? I don’t doubt Freya’s love for Sarah, but she has a wild shadow side. She will take what she desires. Her passion shows no reserve. It’s obsessive. Sarah had little choice because Freya wouldn’t take no for an answer. But Sarah didn’t want to run off with her – not in that sense. She might have cared deeply for Freya, or me for that matter, but she loved her husband, too. Her home overlooks the river in Westbury-on-Severn where she was born. Her friends are there. She attended the local church. She simply didn’t want to disappear to the equivalent of some desert island, or wherever. But Freya had it all worked out. She and Sarah were going to fly away like a couple of lovebirds in that silly little car of hers, only it all turned sour, that I do know.’
‘What about Freya’s son, Sam? Was he going, too?’
‘Who can tell? She probably couldn’t give a damn about him.’
‘Oh, really?’
‘In case you don’t know, Freya only wants people all to herself. When Sarah said she was coming back to me, Freya was absolutely furious. She put her through hell. I tell you that bitch killed her. She ran her off the road, because if she couldn’t have her then neither could anyone else.’
‘That’s what you wanted to tell us? You literally think Freya killed Sarah?’
‘I don’t know what to believe any more.’
*
‘It doesn’t look good,’ said John and stepped ashore in Gloucester Docks.
Jo inhaled deeply and gave Bella a pat. Her ears stopped popping; her lungs ceased to heave – she was back on dry land at last.
‘Should we even trust a word Susie says?’
‘I suggest we take her seriously.’
‘Then you ought to know better.’
‘Since when?’
‘Jealous women lie through their teeth just as well as jealous men, John.’
‘We have the suitcase from Sarah’s wrecked car. Now we know those photos we took from it belong to Freya, what’s the betting the clothes do, too?’
‘According to Susie, any feelings Sarah had for James Boreman turned to hate after he axed her husband from the business.’
‘I don’t doubt it.’
‘But is that reason enough for her to t
ry to bring him down? Whoever placed that boar’s head on the bonnet of her car and wrote Say Nothing in pig’s blood on its windscreen was clearly scared of her.’
‘Or furious.’
‘It has to be something big.’
‘Like marital betrayal?’
‘Bigger.’
‘How much bigger?’
‘Like murder.’
‘You said that once already.’
‘Now I’m almost certain.’
‘Hey, slow down.’
‘I’m better since I got off that bloody ship.’
‘It’s not a ship, it’s a boat.’
‘So let’s go back to my place and grab ourselves a bite to eat. How do lemon curd sandwiches sound?’
‘Are you kidding?’
‘It’s my latest craving.’
‘And I thought you were my friend.’
FORTY-THREE
‘Well, what do you reckon?’ asked Thibaut, sliding one hand along the portal’s slimy bricks. ‘Do we lie low here for the night, or what? Boreman’s men might never find us.’
Nora stepped into the tunnel and its sickly, sooty air stuck in her throat.
‘Don’t take them for complete fools.’
The darkness before them differed from the darkness behind. Grey smoke lingered within the enfolding walls which was acrid, bitter, gritty. They found the bare stones of the railway ballast beneath their feet quite a shock after the Forest snow.
‘Where does this even go?’ said Thibaut.
Nora smiled.
‘I know what you’re thinking.’
‘What?’
‘You’re about to say that you’re sorry you got me into this.’
‘I should have known I’d get us lost.’
‘No need to apologise.’
‘Did I say that Devaney is bound to beat the shit out of us if he catches us?’
‘You did. Several times.’
‘Yet here you are.’
Nora laughed and disembodied echoes returned from the void.
‘So what’s stopping you? Let’s go.’
She knew this fear. It was like escaping Mother Odile and Mother Martha, strictest of all Catholic nuns. Yet here she was, free and far from Ireland. That’s what happened when someone failed to relock the gate after the delivery man offloaded the weekly groceries at “St Mary’s Mother and Baby Home”, one rainy Wednesday afternoon.
Soon she was aware of very little beyond the sounds they made by walking, calling, breathing. Every now and then, icy droplets from the tunnel’s roof hit their heads and they uttered childish squeals. She was encased in this subterranean chamber of stone and darkness in which she ‘swam’ at a snail’s pace – she swung each arm in front of her with careful but invisible strokes of doubt and terror. She could have been drunk. Or floating. That ground beneath her had to be a guess. The wall she touched described a slight bend to the right which cut off any hope of seeing to its end.
Strange how like a game all this felt.
To live by one’s wits alone.
‘Is this really our best chance?’ said Thibaut.
‘It’s too late now.’
‘Hope a train doesn’t come.’
At least the railway would put them on the other side of the hill in their deadly contest of hide and seek with Kevin Devaney and Phil Cotter, who had so far failed to find them.
More than once, actually.
Now the gunmen had gone haring off in the other direction.
Luckily.
But they might not be done with them yet.
Still there came that awful scrabbling sound in their ears. It was their own footsteps. Eyes wanted to pop. They breathed chilly echoes. A perpetual sense of disorientation added to the idea that they might never escape the bowels of the Earth again.
‘What was that?’
Her whisper was taken up by the tunnel, magnified and then reproduced countless times through the hill.
Thibaut shivered.
‘I heard it, too.’
‘I bet it was a bat.’
‘Oh shit.’
‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have said.’
Suddenly a slit of night sky opened up some way in front of them. Like a gleam. Like an eye. Observing.
Nora stopped, recovered her sense of direction and started marching.
Thibaut did the same. Rather than slide his hand all the way along the tunnel wall, he followed recklessly in his fellow escapee’s quickening steps. He simply didn’t want her to realise that he was afraid of dark places.
Did she know?
Of course she did.
Did she care?
He couldn’t tell.
Then he, too, saw where the railway bore burned bright moon ahead.
‘Now what?’ said Thibaut. ‘Where do we go from here?’
No sooner had he spoken than the tunnel behind them flooded with noise. A deafening, mechanical beat of a 490cc engine sounded like thunder – a cacophony of concordant pistons and side valves tore at the cochleae in their ears. The searching white glow of the motorcycle’s headlamp lit the walls as it entered the bore. Clearly, its riders were making bone-breaking but steady progress right down the middle of the permanent way, this time.
‘With me,’ said Nora and ran along a shiny silver rail like a tightrope walker to minimise any footprints she might leave behind.
Thibaut hurried after her – she was heading for a nearby platelayers’ hut constructed from old railway sleepers that stood just beyond the tunnel’s exit.
‘Are you serious? Don’t tell me you think you can outfox them?’
‘Be quiet and give me a leg up.’
He took hold of her waist even as she gripped a drainpipe at the back of the shack. She felt so slim, supple and graceful. Like a gazelle. The second Nora had climbed up onto the sloping roof, she lay down and lowered her hand his way – she practically pulled him straight after her.
She didn’t mean either of them to get caught tonight.
Need she say more?
Together they lay prone on the flat roof’s dirty black felt that smelt of tar, even as the piercing cold air left them panting.
‘We should have kept going,’ said Thibaut, his voice full of panic.
Nora stayed his arm.
‘Go now and we’ll leave a trail in the snow.’
That mechanical maelstrom inside the tunnel mouth became a deafening din – a cyclopean spotlight swept the portal’s meeting of night and netherworld. The driver of the Norton was revving its throttle as he and his passenger rode roughshod over ballast and sleepers between more rails.
They could have come from hell.
Thibaut held Nora tight to his side. They had to keep their heads down or else they were definitely done for, should their hot breaths give them away in the freezing air.
The bounty hunters let the motorcycle tick over in the mouth of the tunnel.
‘Tell me what you can see, Phil?’
‘Sweet fuck all.’
‘Shine the torch over here, for Christ’s sake.’
‘What do you think I’m doing?’
‘Give me a hand to get this shed door open.’
‘Try looking in the window.’
There followed much manoeuvring of the Norton to the base of the wall.
‘They can’t have gone far.’
‘That’s what you said last time.’
‘Last time we didn’t have any footprints to follow.’
‘We don’t now.’
Thibaut pulled Nora closer and her cheek warmed his. The strong smell of her raven hair filled his nostrils. Her chest heaved silently against his. Next minute a beam of torchlight scythed the edge of the shack’s roof only inches from their noses. He wriggled right down and made herself smaller in her arms. He was aware how tightly she hugged him. He did the same. Arm in arm they waited.
They didn’t have the slightest
hope.
They couldn’t make the simplest move.
Cheek to cheek they held their breaths for what seemed an eternity.
Suddenly more talking broke the shadows’ stillness.
‘See anything?’ said Devaney, breaking out his pipe.
‘Not a bloody thing.’
‘No tracks?’
‘How can this happen?’
‘Judging by the smoke in the tunnel, a train steamed through here very recently –there’s hardly any snow on the tracks to show how far they went. They must have run along the rails, then dived into the Forest. But where?’
‘Mr Boreman will go ape when we tell him.’
‘Look in the shed again.’
‘That’s what I’m doing.’
‘No, you’re not, you’re having a fag.’
‘You’re the one to talk.’
‘Unbelievable.’
‘Get back on the bike. There’s a level crossing up ahead. I bet you they made a run for it down the road.’
Nora put her finger to Thibaut’s lips. They had yet to look out for a proper place to hide.
All right, where? Or they could lie low here for a while.
Until the coast was clear?
Before they could decide, the moon disappeared and bathed them both in darkness.
FORTY-FOUR
‘Damn it, Jim Wilde, it’s high time you got yourself out of here.’
How are you going to do that?
The teasing, taunting question floats back to him from the coal mine’s deepest workings. It is the scornful echo of his own lament, which offers him no more comfort than if he were already dead in these maze-like tunnels.
The best he can do is reply out loud.
‘I’ll crawl.’
How can you be so sure?
‘Because I nearly died in this adit once before and I’ll not do it again.’
Nobody saw a thing. You could be down here until doomsday.
‘Someone has to tell the police there’s a dead body.’
Who cares about her?
‘Check this out. She smells of overripe fruit.’
So what?
‘It could be cyanide poisoning. I know about such things because I’m a miner.’
Anything else?
‘She may look unidentifiable, but a small tattoo on her ankle says Angela.’
Forget her. Think about your leg. How are you going to drag yourself back to the surface?
