by Danuta Reah
EIGHTEEN
Eliza scrambled back from the door, her hands reaching for something, anything, to defend herself. A vase, she gripped the neck, no, the table lamp, the vase dropping from her hand and smashing on the floor. She lifted the lamp, feeling its heavy base, its unwieldiness as she faced the door, backing away, the lamp held ready. The door was a glimmer in the faint light, reflections from the falling snow. She remembered the waiting silence in Maggie’s flat, the darkness and the sound of the door latch in the night. Was that all she was going to see, a shape in the shadows, and then…?
Everything seemed very sharp, very clear. She kept facing the door, but moved back carefully, checking the floor with her feet. To fall now could be fatal. She kept one hand gripping the lamp, but with the other, she felt along the surface of the table, books, papers, pushed aside and dropping to the floor.
The phone. She knocked the receiver off the rest and keyed the number in, 999, her fingers clumsy with urgency. How much more time did she have? She picked the receiver up and was speaking as she lifted it – ‘Police! Quickly! The Second Site Gallery, the gallery by the canal he’s here, he’s here…’ The phone was silent. She pressed the rest, and pressed it again and again.
The phone was dead. She thought she was going to be sick.
But the door stayed shut. She gripped the lamp again, and moved back, closer, quietly, listening. She could hear someone moving around. She could hear it through the wall now, in Cara’s flat, muffled footsteps and a voice singing, absently, hummed snatches, occasional words, a strangely androgynous voice: Girls and boys…Moon does shine as bright… Silence. She pressed her ear against the wall. Singing again, to the same tune. The grave’s a fine and silent place, but none I think do there embrace…a soft laugh.
Whatever it was, it was in Cara’s flat. She could get out – straight through her door and out via the fire escape. The fire-escape door might make some noise as she opened it, but she would be well down the steps before anyone came after her. Straight out and run, straight to the nearest phone, the nearest person. Straight out and run.
She put the lamp down. Silent now. She mustn’t be heard moving near the door. She reached out and gripped the handle. Turn it slowly, very slowly, very gently so the latch doesn’t click. She had it turned to its full extent. Now, very gently, very slowly, pull the door open, make sure it doesn’t creak or…The door wouldn’t budge. It was shut tight. But it wasn’t locked, she hadn’t managed to lock it, she’d dropped the key on the floor in her panic and backed away from the door as it started to open. She tugged harder, then jerked the handle in case the door had stuck. But it wouldn’t shift. It was locked.
Her key was on the floor where she’d dropped it. She picked it up and tried to fit it in the keyhole, but this time, though she’d got it right, this time, though the key should have slipped in, something was jamming it. There must be a key in the lock at the other side of the door. She was locked in. The lights were turned off, the electricity, the phone. She couldn’t get out. She turned the locks in the security bolts. Now, no one could get in. Impasse.
She tried the phone again. No dial tone. Could she attract attention from the window? They were high up, double-glazed. What were the chances of someone being on the towpath, looking up, seeing her in the darkness and being aware of the meaning of her signals? Break the window, start shouting? How easy was it to break toughened glass?
The footsteps were moving again now. Someone was walking to the door of Cara’s flat, walking into the corridor, walking towards her door. She closed her eyes, like a child pretending she wasn’t there. Don’t attract attention! The door was bolted. It couldn’t be opened. The footsteps paused, then moved again, along the corridor towards the gallery, towards the stairs. She heard the footsteps fade away.
OK. She fitted her key into the lock again as far as it would go, and started jiggling it, trying to dislodge the key on the other side that was preventing her from unlocking the door. Just a gentle push to dislodge it and then work it free. It might be stuck, but if it wasn’t…She could unlock the door and get out while the going was good. Patience. She had to be patient. The key shifted a bit. It was working! Now she needed to be careful. If it slipped, it might jam itself in the lock, leave her trapped. She jiggled the key gently again, feeling more movement. Better if it didn’t fall out completely and clatter on to the floor.
She felt as though she had been kneeling there for hours, gently working at the lock, but it couldn’t have been more than ten minutes. Her key was fitting into the lock now. It was going to be OK, she was going to be able to open the door. She pressed her ear against the wood. She could hear the sound of things being moved around downstairs. What was going on?
She turned the key slowly, silently. She felt the lock release. She turned the handle carefully and pulled on the door. Nothing. Of course, the bolts, she hadn’t released the bolts. She opened the top one and was about to open the bottom one when she heard the sound of footsteps again, coming up the stairs, and then along the corridor. She froze, then she stood up, very quietly, and rebolted the door. She pushed her key more firmly into the lock, to make sure it couldn’t be dislodged, and sent up a silent prayer that the key on the other side hadn’t fallen out.
She could hear whistling, low and meditative. She could hear footsteps again, moving towards the fire escape. Please go! Please go! And the cold wind began to blow under her door, like the cold currents in the canal, like the flow of cold that had woken her, twice now, as the night air was drawn in. The outside door was open.
Eliza released the breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. She was cold. She was frozen. She stepped lightly across the flat to the window. She wanted to watch the entrance to the stairway. The snow was still falling, the night seeming lighter in the white reflection. She pressed her face against the glass, waiting for a figure to emerge from the bottom of the steps.
The canal below her was in black shadow. A single lamp shone on the towpath, its light casting a faint gleam. A boat was drifting along the canal, barely moving. It bumped against the side, turned slightly, drifted imperceptibly, stopped. It looked low in the water. No one had come down the steps, but she could see someone on the towpath now, a shadow in the shadows that moved forward as the boat bumped against the bank, jumped aboard. The light caught the figure briefly, illuminating the neat head, reflecting from the glasses. Jonathan.
She watched, but her mind was detached from what she was seeing. Because she was aware of something now, something that her subconscious had been aware of for a while, something that…Her heart lurched. The smell of burning. The stinging, chemical smell of industrial burning.
She ran to the door and undid the bolts, her hands shaking in panic. The smoke was curling under her door, thick and black, and the draught was like a chimney, pulling it into her flat and into her lungs. She pulled the door open, and a great cloud of black, greasy poison engulfed her. She staggered back into her flat as an impenetrable darkness enveloped her. She couldn’t see, she couldn’t breathe. She reached out, trying to get her bearings, and everywhere she moved she came up against blank walls. She couldn’t get out. Her heart was racing and she needed air and there wasn’t any. Her chest was on fire and there was a buzzing and a roaring in her head. She tried to draw in a breath and was retching and choking as the smoke froze her lungs. The air was gone.
The phone rang. Farnham picked it up, convinced it would be Eliza, but it was Tina Barraclough. The cabin cruiser, the Mary May, was missing from its mooring. The death boat – what had put that melodramatic phrase into his mind? – was out on the canal.
OK, it should be simple. They had her trapped between the canal basin and Tinsley locks. But searching the canal wasn’t an easy task. First thing – get the helicopter up. The helicopter could search the length of the canal more quickly than anything, with its searchlight and its night-vision cameras. It could be in the air in ten minutes. And he needed to get people on to the towp
ath – there was access at various points all the way along. Fast movement along the towpath? Low-tech solution the best – bikes. A boat? The chances of the official patrol boat being on this stretch were remote. He needed to get a boat on that water. If the Mary May was on the canal, they would find it.
How long was it since the Mary May left her mooring? How much time did the killer need? He was making the calls as his mind worked, getting the team assembled, getting people out along the canal. Who was at risk? Who was the killer’s next target?
Kerry. If he was right, and Stacy McDonald had died a victim of mistaken identity, then one attempt had already been made on Kerry’s life. If the boat was abroad, then she was in danger, now. He needed to put her somewhere safe until this was over. What was holding them up at Meadowhall?
Was there anything else? Something was trying to get his attention, something he’d missed. He’d checked on Eliza earlier – she was away from the gallery and she wasn’t on her own. She should be safe. After the other night, she wouldn’t take any stupid risks. So why was he jumpy? Why wouldn’t his mind let him drop it? He went over what he’d done. He’d phoned her at the gallery, which was shut. The answering machine had taken the call. He’d phoned her at the flat, and there had been no reply. Fair enough. Except…
A picture was forming in his mind. He could remember standing in the doorway to her flat, looking round, noting things almost subconsciously with the eyes of an investigating officer, eyes that knew the importance of small details. And he could see it clearly, the phone and the answering machine beside it, and he could remember the almost automatic way Eliza had checked it with her eyes as she went past, zero, no messages. She had an answering machine, she used it, it had been switched on.
But he’d let the phone ring over twenty times before he’d been satisfied there was no one there. The answering machine should have taken the call. Unless she’d decided to stay at the flat after all and had unplugged the phone so she wouldn’t be disturbed. But why? She could just turn the ringer off and let the machine take all the calls. Unless…He phoned the operator and got the woman to check the line.
‘I’m sorry, sir,’ she came back with after a short, but infuriating delay. ‘There’s a fault on the line. I’ll report it.’
Shit! It could mean something or nothing, but he needed to get there, to get someone there. He had no one else to send. The phone rang again. It was Dave West. ‘We’ve found Kerry Fraser’s friends, sir,’ West said. ‘But she isn’t with them. She got off the tram before Meadowhall, somewhere around Don Valley Stadium, a good hour ago.’
Christ on a bike. The stadium was near the mooring where the Mary May had been. Kerry had been missing for over an hour. The helicopter was up by now. They’d have the boat located in minutes. Eliza? What could he do about Eliza? He remembered Barraclough, in her car, heading back towards the city centre. He phoned her as he was pulling on his jacket and running to the car. They had to be in time!
Tina was heading for the gallery. Farnham’s message had been quick, curt. Get there, check that Eliza Eliot was gone. The gallery. Everything that had happened was associated with that place, with that exhibition. She was aware of Calloway following her as she ran to her car, but she didn’t have time to worry about that. The traffic was moving, the roads were fairly clear, though the snow was still falling. She tested the grip. The roads seemed to have been gritted. She put her foot down, remembering the sudden light of excitement in Calloway’s eyes.
Excitement? She could remember when it had felt like that, rather than the sick apprehension she was feeling now, the apprehension that came from knowing what she might find, where her mistakes might lead. She followed the road round, round past the old market, the hotels, past the old station and under the bridge that marked the end of the gentrification.
The roads were darker here, the old streetlights more vulnerable to vandalism, less quickly repaired. She slowed then speeded up past the brick walls of the old factories and warehouses until the gallery was in sight. The sky was suddenly lighter, as though the lights here were working better, casting an almost orange glow up towards the sky as the snow fell monotonously, heavily. Then she realized what she was seeing, and was on the radio as she came alongside the gallery.
It was ablaze. Smoke – thick, black smoke – was pouring out of the building, and she could see the red of flames deep through the smoke, the ground floor, the first floor, and the first tongues starting to flicker through the roof. The sky lit up and the air filled with the throbbing sound of a motor. The helicopter. It was hovering above the canal, the other side of the gallery, the searchlight illuminating the building, the car park, throwing the detail into relief, the falling snow, the smoke exuding through the windows and the walls and the doors and curling thickly into the air.
She looked up. The flats. The fire was already in the roof at the front. She listened for the sound of the fire engines, but there was nothing, only, over the sound of the fire, the helicopter, closer and closer, so loud that nothing else could be heard. Eliza. Farnham thought she might still be in there.
She was on her radio talking to control as she ran. There was no time to wait for the fire engines. If Eliza was in there, she had minutes, less than minutes. It was probably too late already. The door on to the stairway was locked, but it gave way to one good kick. The smoke wasn’t too bad on the stairs – they were open to the air on the landings. She tied her scarf round her mouth as she ran.
The water seeped through Kerry’s clothes, seeped around her, making the rug under her sodden, then a pool, and she rolled over, trying to get her knees under her, get her face clear. Cold was creeping through her, chilling her flesh, her bones. The tape round her body meant she couldn’t use her hands to help her, and she fell forward again, her face under the surface of the water for a choking moment, her hand crushed. The boat had moved after he had gone, as if he had pushed it away from the side. She could feel it rocking slightly with the gushing of the water, and it would sink and it didn’t matter that the canal wasn’t deep, the water would fill the cabin and she’d choke and drown and rot. She tried to stand again, but the stabbing pain in her ribs made her curl up, tears filling her eyes, clogging her nose. Help me!
Then – it was very faint, a thump, a judder, and she was listening, still, intent. There was someone on the boat, someone walking around. Her heart raced. The boat was rocking slightly. She couldn’t hear the engine. It was hardly moving at all, as though it had been pushed off and left to drift.
A circle of light dazzled her. She screwed up her eyes and turned her head away. ‘Ellie…’ a voice said. Then, ‘Oh, Christ, oh Christ!’ There was someone crouching over her. A flood of relief rushed through her as she realized it wasn’t the person with the clown face, it was someone else, someone come to help her. But he’d called her Ellie. He sounded as though he was crying.
‘The water…’ His voice sounded odd, far off. Why wasn’t he pulling her out? Why wasn’t he helping her? He stood up, moved away and she felt the water swirl round her and splash over her face. You’ll choke and you’ll… Her face was under the water. She struggled against the tape that held her arms.
Then he was back, pulling her head up. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you, Ellie. I truly didn’t. I scared you. I’m sorry. I just wanted to explain. I wasn’t going to hurt you.’
Kerry was still struggling. She could hear what he was saying, but it didn’t make sense, and the water was rising now, faster, and she was going to drown, they were both going to drown and rot in the mud. ‘Ellie!’ There was panic in his voice and she felt his hands gripping her throat, tighter and tighter. She made herself lie still. She made herself lie very still, and his hands slowly relaxed.
Then she realized he was talking, he’d been talking for a while. She kept very still, listening, the cold fingers were round her neck, the water rising inexorably around her. ‘…Why did you think I was going to hurt you? It was so lovely to see you when you came back t
o the boat. I’d been watching you.’
The last day. He was talking about the last day. He was talking about Ellie. And as the cold water rose up around her, Kerry suddenly realized what had happened. They thought the boat had gone away, but what if it hadn’t? What if Ellie had gone back to the boat? She didn’t like using the bushes. She was shy. But they’d seen the signs on the water-bus and Ellie had gone there, after everyone thought the water-bus had gone. It hadn’t been her dad. It had never been her dad. They might listen now, but it was too late.
There was a moment of blackness, and then Eliza was on the floor, and she could breathe. Her mind was starting to work again. She must have fallen into the cleaner air beneath the smoke. She had to get out.
She was in the corridor. She crawled towards the door. The air above her was thick and toxic. Keep down. Keep low. But the smoke was everywhere. Her head swam as she tried to reach up to the handle, to push it down and release the lock.
Her arm was hurting. Something was burning her arm. She was in the corridor outside the flat and she had to get out, get down the steps. She had to reach the handle, had to pull it. She couldn’t do it, her legs were water, her head was on fire, but just a short way away, just down the steps, the car, safety, people, Roy, Daniel…Un cuadro interesante, no? Daniel in the Prado, watching her, intense, smiling, smiling.
And the handle was down, but the door wouldn’t open. She couldn’t force it open. She pulled herself upright and pushed against the door. The fire roared behind her. Down, she had to get down. Down was easy, except when your legs gave way, except when your hands forgot to grip and the canal, no, the river, it was flowing fast so it had to be the river, was underneath and there was something in the water, something with tangled hair and empty eyes staring up and the sky where the ravens of the valley shall pluck them out, and she was by the canal and it vanished into the distance that way and this way and the lights of the bars and restaurants flashed blue and red and green in the night and she could go in and it would be fun, fun, fun only her legs weren’t there any more and she was hot except she wasn’t sure if she was hot or if she was cold and it was all going away like a rush she was rushing away on a boat to the river on the canal far away and she was falling, falling…
