by Ruth Dugdall
“Hello? Hello? Hello?” I yell. “I need to go to the toilet. Toilet! Toilet! Hello?” I am ready to shout for ever, but I know she won’t leave me for long. Too worried that someone else will hear me.
When I hear her coming I stop shouting and get ready.
The door opens, but she is so different it stops me in my tracks. This woman, who has been so cruel, terrifying in her shrill power, is totally changed. Head bowed, slack-jawed, as if her very essence has been stolen away by grief and she is simply a shadow of the woman she was. “I can’t cope with you now, girl. My son is on his way to hospital,” she says.
I don’t pity her. I can’t.
I run at her, fast and powerful. In my hand is the small knife, its sharp point directed at her neck. It isn’t enough just to threaten, I know I have to something more. She has to be too injured to follow me.
The metal tip punctures her neck and blood spurts out, unexpectedly. I did not think at all about the blood, and I can’t now. The woman gasps, clutches her neck, falls back into the open doorway and keeps falling, flat on her back, her head knocking the wall behind, the blood a fountain arching over her chest. There’s too much blood. She’ll bleed to death, but I can’t help her, I have to help myself.
The hallway isn’t how I imagined, it’s darker and narrow. I put my hands to the wall but all I see is the palm print of blood. Moving so quickly, after so long, leaves me dizzy. They may still be drugging my food, I can’t walk straight. But I have to, I have to leave. Then I hear a voice, a girl calling from behind me, from the stairwell that leads to the next level of the house.
“Take me with you,” she says.
I turn and see Jodie, standing at the top of the stairs. She is shaking and her hair is damp with sweat. Her eyes are dark with purple bruises and she wears a skimpy vest with some jogging bottoms. I can see her arms are like wires and there are bruises in the shadowy crooks of her elbows.
“Please, Ellie.”
I hesitate, the floor sways beneath me. The woman on the floor moves, her eyes are closed but her mouth is open, calling too.
I must hurry. Downstairs, not knowing which way.
Jodie comes down just a few minutes behind me and is transfixed by the blood on my t-shirt.
“Ellie.” She steps towards me then stops. She’s frightened of me, of something she sees in my face and I realise it’s not just the blood. I think it’s something in my eyes, and the knife is still tight in my fist.
“Which way?” I shout.
She points to behind me. Then says, “Wait.”
She goes back upstairs and I think I’m an idiot to pause, that she could be getting the bulldog. Then I hear a sharp cry; the older woman, in pain, calling from the room that was my cell. I must leave.
I’m about to turn and run when I hear Jodie coming down the stairs once again. She presses a bundle of notes into my hand, there must be a hundred euro here or more. Then I see she has a cloth in her hands and she wipes my face. When she takes the cloth away I see it is not a cloth, but a dress, once yellow but now red with blood, but it’s not my blood. There is only silence now, from the room upstairs.
We must leave.
We step outside, and as the warm air hits me I clench my fists knowing I’ll fight like a cat rather than go back into that house. I won’t go back to that room again, not ever. Jodie’s hand is on my shoulder, as if she needs my support, and I’m moving, fast, pumped with the need to fight then fly.
“We must hurry,” Jodie says. “I saw Jak and Amina leaving in the van, they took Fahran with them. But they may be back soon.”
We stagger, together, and I’m glad of Jodie who seems to know where we are. We are nowhere I have ever been before.
Cate
The morning wasn’t welcome, Cate felt exhausted and even as she rallied Amelia, her bed seemed more inviting than the world outside. She was not sure she was ready for the day ahead.
Amelia ate her toast glumly, and Cate knew that she too was affected by the mood in the flat.
“I miss Dad,” she said, and Cate felt a stab of guilt.
“He’s coming to visit in a month, with Sally and Chloe. You’ll be able to take her to the pirate park, she’d like that.”
Amelia looked up, a world-weariness in her blue eyes. “But that’s ages away. And they’re only staying for a weekend.”
Another stab of guilt.
Cate felt unable to remind Amelia of all the joys and benefits of living there, of the school and the opportunities and meeting friends from all over the globe, because it may all be over soon.
She thought of the Ipswich probation office, of Paul’s office. If Ellie’s disappearance was just another case on her workload she could sit in his warm room and let him tell her what to do, remind her that this was her job, not her life.
But somehow, far too quickly and easily, she had become enmeshed with Bridget’s mad world. She was no longer working with criminals, she was friends with one, a mother who had orchestrated the kidnapping of her own child. And Cate could see no way out of this, apart from moving forward and helping her to get Fahran the treatment he needed.
This was how people cross the line. In small, incremental steps.
As Cate pulled up at the school, Amelia didn’t move from the back seat.
“I don’t want to go in.”
Cate looked at her daughter in the rear-view mirror and saw she was crying. She turned, reached forward to touch Amelia’s leg.
“You’ll feel better once you’re in class.”
Amelia pulled her schoolbag onto her lap, as if it was a cushion she was cradling for comfort. “It’s not safe here,” she said. “I want to go home. Back to England.”
“We can’t Amelia. Not yet. But I promise you, you are safe.”
Amelia opened the car door and walked away, not turning when Cate called after her, “I love you!”
Achim had already left, taking Gaynor to school and then going to his work, so Bridget was alone when Cate arrived at the house. This time the shutters were up and the house was flooded with light.
Bridget herself wasn’t groomed, exactly, but she was smartly dressed in a dark pair of trousers and a plain blouse. And though Cate detected with sympathy the faintly sour odour that emitted from her, she had at least brushed her hair.
“I’ve been looking it up on the Internet,” she told Cate, almost panting with anticipation as she led her through to the kitchen. “The whole journey should take us two hours and thirty-seven minutes.”
Bridget was almost manic with energy, opening the fridge for water, going back to it for apples, grabbing her phone, checking messages, then she went once again to the fridge, standing in front of it this time.
“What else do we need?”
Cate saw, with rising panic, that on the kitchen counter was a sports holdall. She could see snacks, a map. A British passport.
“Bridget, maybe this is a terrible idea. If we just told the police…”
Bridget turned from the fridge to face Cate, her eyes sparked with something that looked close to hysteria. “Not yet. For the boy, and for Ellie. There’s no time to waste.”
Bridget had felt hopeless, she had handed over Ellie and lost control, but here she was taking that control back and the stress was making her blind to everything else.
“Bridget,” Cate said, as calmly as she could, “what if Fahran becomes ill on the journey? What if we get to Heidelberg and they won’t treat him?”
Bridget zipped up her bag. “What if we don’t take him and he dies? What will happen to Ellie if we do nothing?”
“I’m really not sure about this, Bridget. Amelia and Gaynor finish school at 3.30, who will be there for them?”
Bridget frowned. She hadn’t thought about Gaynor. Then her face cleared. “Eva. We’ll tell Eva to meet them and take them home with her.”
“And what about later this evening? How will I explain my absence to Olivier? We don’t even know how long we’ll be away.”
“We won’t be back late,” said Bridget.
“You can’t know that.”
“Yes, I can. I know how long it will take to assess if the boy is suitable for treatment. I did the assessments myself, many times. And I also know that if he is suitable, it will start soon. They could even offer to keep him in overnight, start the proton therapy tomorrow. They won’t delay when a life is at stake.”
It was too late. Cate knew she was already in too deep.
The car seemed to be going too fast, Cate had the strong sensation that she was about to crash and around her cars felt too close. She told herself it was just stress, to calm down. Beside her, Bridget was breathing heavily but deeply, her eyes fixed on the horizon.
The meeting point was over the border, forty minutes away. Bridget had the details on her phone, though she kept getting distracted, staring into space, so in the end, Cate pulled over and typed the German town into her sat nav.
“Merzig. Whereabouts in Merzig?”
“The forest. It’s near the wolf park.”
Cate didn’t comment.
A big part of her didn’t really believe there would be a real boy waiting for them in Merzig, or that they would then drive him to a cancer hospital. It was all unreal, but then so was Ellie’s disappearance. A bizarre string of happenings that led to a wolf park in Germany.
Cate knows she is in the right place when she sees a white wolf gazing at her from behind a fence. It is beautiful, and its fur looks so soft that she imagines touching it, pressing her face against its velvet snout. She parks the car and steps out, but as she approaches, the wolf bares its teeth, long and sharp, the gums a reddish pink and edged with black. She had mistaken beauty for tameness.
She leans back against the car and looks around, but there is no other human in sight. Bridget remains in the car, and Cate is glad to be separate from her, if only by a few feet. She needs to breathe.
She feels swept along by the energy of the other woman, by her desperate need to save Ellie, and if she allows herself to stop and question what she is doing she knows it will all collapse. So Cate needs things to press on, to move forward. Let’s get the boy in the car, onwards to hospital, let’s see if they can treat him.
The white van arrives just minutes later, the swimming pool she so recently visited depicted on the side. Cate can see an older man is driving, he must be Jak. By his side is someone she recognises, the young man in his woollen hat. The girl is more of a surprise. In the back seat of the van is Amina from the nail bar, and she is cuddling a young boy on her lap.
The van door opens and the older man gets out, approaches Cate and offers her his hand. Cate hesitates. This is the man who kidnapped Ellie, yet his face is not hard or cruel, it is tense. She takes his hand and registers the sweat, the anxiety.
“I am Fahran’s father. I am very grateful to you for this.”
Before anyone can say anything there is a howling rush as Bridget opens the car door and runs at the man, slapping his face, hard. “Where is she, you bastard?”
He opens his arms, showing her is empty palms as if this is proof enough of good intentions. “Bridget, please understand, this was not my plan. My wife only told me last night about your meeting. I would never…”
“You betrayed me, Jak! You promised to return Ellie the next morning.”
“But the police were in your home, they were parked on the street. I could not bring her to you safely, we would both have been arrested.” He speaks desperately, running a hand over his face, which is now red from the slap.
“You promised to help and you have gone back on your word.”
Jak hung his head, but his voice was steady. “This is true, and it was not my intention to gain anything from my promise, wallah. But as our plan did not go as it should have I can now see that this is the best solution for everyone, and this I did for my boy. So, please, see that we are not so different you and I. Or do you think that your daughter is worth more than my son?”
“Of course not!” spat Bridget, and Cate saw that she was unsteadied by the man’s logic.
Jak gazed at Bridget, and for a moment there seemed to be a moment of familiarity between them.
“You asked me to take your daughter, to teach her a lesson. This is something I can understand, and I also understand that when this game did not go your way you became mad. But I also want to do the best for my child. I have promised my wife this, and I am not a man to break my word. Please, let me show you my son, Fahran.”
He returned to the van, and took the boy from Amina’s arms.
The boy looked younger, by months if not years, than the five years he had lived. And a large bandage covered his eye. Cate was afraid to see what was behind it.
The boy tried to cling to his father, but he was obviously heavy and his wriggling made him awkward to hold, so the man put his son down. There the boy stood, gazing up at Cate with his one good eye, his brown bear held tight to his chest. Cate knelt down and smiled at him. “It’s okay. We’re going to go for a drive, to see a doctor. To try and get you some medicine…” But the boy was backing away, leaning against his father, shaking his head slowly as if every movement pained him. His father’s resolve was not going to be swayed by such tactics and he firmly set the boy forward, reaching for Bridget so he touched her shoulder.
“You helped me once to save a child. Please help me again, my friend.”
Bridget nodded, eventually agreeing to keep him informed at all times via text. They arranged a meeting place, a handover for Ellie, and then she watched Jak walk back to his van. At the final moment she called, “Next time we meet, Jak, I want my daughter back. Bring her to me.”
Once again Jak and Bridget considered each other. “Inshallah,” he said. “It will be as we have planned.”
The van’s engine was started and Fahran looked like he might run in front of the vehicle to return to his father if only he had the strength, so Cate reached for the boy and felt how shaky he was. But he did not know her, he was scared, and he began to cry, silently as if only his mouth knew what to do but no words would come. The van was moving away when the passenger door opened and Amina jumped out, landing on the rugged pathway. The white wolf stood by the fence and watched, its eyes glinting at the spectacle of human folly.
Fahran stumbled towards Amina and the two children clung to each other.
“I’ll come too,” she told him, stroking his cheek. “I’ll look after you, little brother.”
The boy is sleepy, so much so that Cate wonders if he’s been given some medicine to make him that way, until she remembers that no medicine has been available for this boy. Her foot presses the accelerator until she’s driving along on the Autobahn, an empty open road ahead, and Cate sees in her mirror that Amina is soothing the boy.
“It’s okay,” she coos, stroking his hair. Fahran is buckled in, but somehow also curled onto the seat with his head on the girl’s lap.
With any luck they could be in Heidelberg by midday.
Fahran started to slip into a deeper sleep, one that left his eye half open with only the white showing.
“Oh, please, Madame!” Amina said. “Pull over, pull over.”
But Cate couldn’t pull over, there was nowhere to stop. And they had nothing in the car but the mandatory first-aid box, fat lot of good that was.
“Call his mother,” Cate said to Amina. “She must know what to do.”
She handed her mobile to Bridget and told her to scroll for Beauty Asiatique.
“It’s ringing,” Bridget said, leaning through the gap between the front seats to stroke Fahran’s hair away from his damp brow.
“But no-one’s answering.”
Cate thought of Olivier. If she called him, he would tell her to drive back to Luxembourg. She could go to the nearest town, find an Accident and Emergency unit, but they wouldn’t have the proton treatment the boy needed or that they had agreed to get him.
“Keep driving,” said Bridget, as if reading
Cate’s mind. “It’s the only way I’ll get Ellie back. We have to keep going.”
The sat nav said there was still two hours to go and Fahran was drooling, deeply asleep. Cate didn’t want to know just how deep he may have slipped, she just wanted to watch the miles pass.
Glad for the Autobahn, Cate drove at a speed she had never driven before, both hands clutching the wheel, barely noticing the tall pines with the second canopy of trees beneath, the height of the bridges she travelled, the pretty towns and industrial towns, the BMWs and motorhomes, the many wind farms that ran the ridge of the hills. She saw nothing but the road ahead, the miles melting, and the distance giving way to signs, finally, for Heidelberg.
In the rear-view mirror Amina sat taller, staring out of the window as if in amazement at the German landscape. Bridget too was captivated.
“God, it’s only been eighteen months since I was last here but it feels like a lifetime.,” she said, as if to herself.
They had to slow down driving past Manheim, fifteen minutes from Heidelberg, the cars increasing in number as they passed the sprawl of industry. As Germany’s oldest university town, Cate had been visualising a version of Oxford or Cambridge, but this was more Sheffield or Coventry. Chimneys pumped hot smoke into the hot air, banks of cars stood waiting to be bought, a red-and-white Coca Cola factory dominated the landscape.
Again checking the rear-view mirror, Cate saw that Fahran was trying to speak, but his mouth was opening and closing without sound. “Is he okay?” she asked, pressing her foot down on the accelerator.
“He’s in pain,” replied Amina.
Bridget was distracted by the surroundings and seemed completely unconcerned about the boy in her care. “I’d forgotten how much I liked living here.”
Cate wasn’t interested in Bridget’s trip down memory lane.
Fahran moaned, and slipped further down in the back seat, seemingly supported only by the seat belt that was tight across his chest and Amina’s small arm, now around his shoulders. Cate took the turning for Heidelberg, failing to register the change in speed limit, and there was a green flash across the front of the car. Shit, a speeding ticket. Then she looked in the mirror, saw the sick child being cradled by Amina and thought that a speeding fine was the least of her concerns right now.
