by Danuta Reah
He moved across the room to the door and opened it. ‘What did I say that sounded like “I want to talk to you,” Roz?’
OK, if that was the way he wanted it. ‘I’ll go, then.’
She couldn’t resist slamming the front door behind her. She was halfway down the path before she realized it was raining again. The wet leaves of the shrubs overgrowing the path brushed against her legs. Her jacket wasn’t waterproof and she hadn’t brought her umbrella. Well, that was all right. She’d get wet. She headed down the road towards the bus stop, feeling the rain start to soak through her hair and drip down her neck. Fuck him! Luke, with his stiff-necked pride and his arrogance and his moodiness, just…fuck him!
16
Hull, Saturday night
And now Anna just had to keep moving. The city streets raced past, cars and lights on the main roads, silent pavements and pools of darkness on the back streets. Anna, with nowhere to go, no plan, no place, no friend. She kept her eyes on the ground; her mind was a blank that refused to think. Keep moving. She had walked this way before, maybe an hour ago. She was coming to the road that divided the city centre from the docks. Across the road were the car parks and shops of the docks area. Somewhere she could find a quiet place, somewhere to sit down and think.
She was in quieter streets. She hadn’t been this far before. There were people around now. A woman in a short skirt and cut-off top walked slowly by, close to the edge of the pavement. Her shoes had very high heels, looking heavy and out of proportion at the end of her long, thin legs. Her hair was fair in the streetlight. She stood on the corner for a moment, then turned and sauntered slowly back. She didn’t seem to notice the cold that was chilling Anna through her coat. Anna retreated into a doorway. She knew what the woman was doing.
The woman was like a child’s drawing, bright in the darkness. A woman behind a drawing, like the mechanical doll that had lain on the bed with Angel’s…friends? Clients? You could do what you wanted with it, the doll. It would do all the things that you wanted it to do, and it didn’t matter because the doll wasn’t real. Krisha’s doll, its face smashed on the floor behind the translucent curtain of the shower smiling smiling…The woman who was like a drawing with her bright hair and her bright face, the features all drawn in bright colours, turned again in her saunter and a car drifted past, slow, silent, just the sticky noise of its tyres on the road. The woman stopped, looked, but the car passed and disappeared down the street. Anna shrank back in the doorway. But the driver had been – just a man, hunched down over the wheel, timid, nondescript.
Angel wouldn’t be on the streets looking for her, not here, not at this time. The car was coming back now. The drawing woman had been expecting it. She had been watching out. She knew how they worked. Anna watched her make eye contact, watched her dip and smile, watched her move over as the car slowed, stopped, watched her lean into the open window and begin the negotiations. Then the door opened and she was in. The car drove off.
Anna moved out of the doorway and hurried down the road. Some of the streetlights weren’t working, and the unevenness in the pavement made her stumble. A car went past her on the road and turned left ahead of her. She could hear the sound of another car behind her, and looked over her shoulder. The car was moving slowly. It was sleek and black. She turned round and kept walking, kept her head down inside her collar. Go away, go away.
The car drifted past her, slowing. The interior was dark and impenetrable. She hesitated. Turn back or walk past it? She couldn’t stop now. She speeded up her steps; not quite a run but fast, purposeful, trying not to look at the car, her eyes pulled sideways as she drew abreast. A low hum. The car stopped, and the window began to slide down.
‘Anna!’ A hand circled her wrist as she leapt back, her heart hammering, her breath stopped in her throat. Her legs turned to paper, to water, as the car pulled away with a screech of rubber, leaving Anna gasping by the side of the road, seeing the edges of her vision start to darken and cloud at the edges. ‘Anna!’ And hands held her arms as the darkness retreated and her breathing slowed and Matthew was there, his face twisted with alarm and concern. ‘I didn’t mean to frighten you, Anna. I’ve been looking for you. Why did you go? What are you doing?’
She knew what he thought. She tried to explain. ‘I need…get away.’ Her voice was catching in her throat, which felt dry and gritty. Matthew looked at her and touched her forehead with his hand, shaking his head. He carefully asked her no more questions. She kept looking at his face to see if there was reproach or disgust, but he was just frowning slightly, looking concerned as he helped her.
‘Come back, Anna,’ he said. ‘Whatever this is, we can sort it out.’
She let him lead her back through the streets. ‘I’ve got my car,’ he said. ‘That’s how I saw you.’ She remembered the car that had gone past a few minutes earlier. ‘I didn’t realize it was you at first.’
She shook her head. ‘The police,’ she said. ‘The trouble.’
‘I know,’ he said. He looked worried. ‘There’s somewhere else I can take you. Listen, Anna, I’m going to see someone tomorrow. I told you.’ They’d reached his car now and he opened the back door, looking round nervously. She thought about Angel, about the way he’d looked at her, about Matthew’s smallness and his frailty, and was frightened for him.
She huddled down in the car, curled up on the back seat, keeping her head low. ‘Keep out of sight,’ he cautioned her. ‘In case the police are looking for you.’ He didn’t say any more, but kept driving. She could hear the note of the engine change as he switched gear, felt herself pulled in different directions as he negotiated the corners. She could see the streetlights moving and turning above her head. It felt as though he was driving them through the back streets, keeping off the main roads. Then the car lurched and bumped as if they were driving over a badly rutted surface. ‘It’s all right,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I’m taking you back to the advice centre, but we’re going by the back lane.’
She could remember it now, the uneven path she had run along in her earlier flight. She had done no good by that. She should have stayed, told him everything and let him help her if he could. Anna was tired of running. ‘I am sorry,’ she said.
‘Anna…’ His voice sounded tired. ‘You’re not to blame for what happened to you.’ The car slowed and stopped. There were no lights here, and the darkness filled the car. His voice was low. ‘I couldn’t see anyone at the front when I went past. There’s no one here. Listen, Anna, I daren’t take you back in, not where you were. There’s a place next door. It isn’t very nice – I’m sorry – but I’ve used it before.’
He tucked the car in by the wall behind the centre, and helped her out. The moonlight made the wall gleam faintly in the night, but the car was in deep shadow. He pushed open the yard gate, and led her across to the high wall of the abandoned warehouse. She could remember rather than see boarded-up windows and broken glass. She heard muffled sounds, something being lifted, a slight grunt of effort, his breathing getting heavier. ‘Matthew,’ she whispered.
‘It’s all right,’ he said. He was panting. ‘It’s just a bit heavy. The boarding over the door here – you can take it off.’ He was silent for a moment and she could hear him catching his breath.
She thought about his twisted back and his awkward walk. ‘Let me help,’ she said.
‘It’s done, Anna.’ His breathing was easier. ‘Come on.’
She was aware of cold air in her face as he took her through the black hole that was the entrance. There were steps leading downwards. He held her arm to guide her. She heard a door open and close, the sound of a match and the sudden, sharp smell as it ignited. She saw his head turned away from her, narrow tiles, and then the light went. ‘Got it,’ he said. And then there was a brighter, steady light. He looked at her in the light of the storm lantern, smiling.
She was in a small room under the stairs, almost a cupboard. The walls were tiled in narrow white lines and the floor was fl
agged. There was a bench across one wall with a mattress on it. There was a small cubbyhole adjoining it with a deep sink low down on the wall, a tap and a bucket. The corridor went past the room and ended in a door. He put his hand over the lantern to dim the light, and tugged at the door. It opened into darkness. She felt a sense of space. ‘Where…?’
‘It’s the basement of the warehouse,’ he said. ‘It runs along underneath it. But be careful if you go through there. The lane runs along the back. Someone might hear you if you made a noise. Safer to stay in here.’
They sat together in the small room, and he gave her an anxious smile. ‘Tell me what happened, Anna,’ he said.
And she told him then, sitting quietly in the dark, and he listened to her story about Angel’s friend, about the way she had hit him, about the stolen money. She told him about the woman in the bath, about how she’d run away. She heard his slight intake of breath then. ‘You said – police. Looking for me,’ she said. ‘For a murder. I…’ I had to run!
He sat there in silence when she’d finished, his hands clasped between his knees, his head hanging down. ‘I wish you’d told me this at the beginning, Anna,’ he said. She nodded. She should have done. She had let him help her again, before he had known what she had done. But his voice, when he spoke, was gentle. ‘You did what you had to, Anna,’ he said. ‘Listen, this murder – it wasn’t the man…’ Here, the distaste in his voice was clear. ‘This – man who hurt you. You’re a witness, Anna, that’s all. You found the woman in the hotel.’ She felt a slow relief flowing through her.
He took her hand. ‘Listen, Anna, you’ll have to go to the police. No, don’t panic. You’ve done nothing wrong. But there’s your immigration status…I’ll go and see this person who can help you. He’ll know what to do.’ He was looking worried again and she felt the anxiety start to gnaw. ‘It’s the weekend. I need to go to…It’ll take a bit of time. And I’ll have to find him. Anna, you might be in for a long wait. I may be gone overnight. Here –’ he pointed to a carrier bag he’d dumped on the makeshift bed. ‘There’s some food in there: chocolate, some peanuts. And there’s water in the tap. I’m afraid the plumbing’s a bit…’ She could see that his face looked uncomfortable. ‘There isn’t a…just a…’
She realized what he was trying to say and felt a wave of affection for him, to be embarrassed for her, after everything that had happened. She smiled at him. ‘There is bucket,’ she said.
He blushed and nodded. ‘You’ll be all right, Anna,’ he said. ‘I’ve used this place before.’ And then he left her.
Roz fought her way through the storm to the bus stop, which was on the most exposed corner on the top of the hill. The wind cut through her. She could feel the damp start to seep through her clothes. She began to shiver. She’d forgotten to pick up her gloves in her sudden exit from Luke’s and now her fingers were starting to ache with the cold. She shoved her hands deep into her pockets. The rain was getting heavier now, and she had to choose between standing in the inadequate shelter of the bus stop and peering through the obscured glass, or getting a clear view of any approaching bus but getting soaked in the process.
She could feel the loose change in her pocket. She pulled it out and checked it quickly. It was enough to get her back into town. Then she could go to the cashpoint and get money for a taxi. Maybe she could find a phone and get a taxi from here. They could stop at a cash machine. It would cost her a fortune but it would be worth it to get out of this cold. She looked round to see if she could see a call box. There was nothing in sight, but further down the hill on the corner where a cypress, its branches heavy with water, overhung the road, there was someone standing. She could see the glimmer of a light-coloured coat. Someone else waiting for the bus? That might mean a bus was due. She checked her watch and her heart sank. She hadn’t realized how late it was. It was after midnight. There wouldn’t be a bus at this time. She’d just leapt on to the bus outside the station on impulse. She hadn’t thought about what she was doing, and now she was stranded in this godforsaken part of Sheffield in the freezing cold and wet with no idea about how or when she was going to get home.
The reflections of the streetlights danced as the rain splashed up from the ground and the road stretched away in front of her, wavering and obscured in the shattered light. Headlamps appeared in the distance. A bus? No, a van that swept past sending a spray of water up from the gutter that splashed into the shelter and soaked her calves and feet.
She could feel the tears of self-pity begin to prick behind her eyes. She concentrated on the anger she felt at Luke and the tears retreated, but she could feel a bleak hollowness inside her that wouldn’t go away. She had to make a decision. She couldn’t spend the night standing at the bus stop. She looked behind her, towards the corner where the man had been waiting but now there seemed to be no one there. Or was there? The bushes around the tree moved in the wind making a shape like a man standing close in against the trunk…no, it was just the tree…she couldn’t tell. She wrapped her damp jacket round her for the illusion of warmth, and set off down the road. There had to be a phone box somewhere on this route. And if there wasn’t? Then she’d walk back into town. That was better than standing freezing at the bus stop.
Her shoes weren’t waterproof and the rain had soaked through them. She could feel the wet cloth of her trousers clinging to her legs. You should have thought this through, Bishop. It was almost Luke’s voice in her mind, the way he talked to her when they were disagreeing about the solution to a problem, or when they hit a snag in a project. What makes you the authority, Hagan? She was so tired and cold, it was hard to concentrate. There were no mirrors on the walls. Nathan looked at her and said, I don’t seem to do much. She was falling asleep on her feet.
The storm abated for a minute, and in the new silence she thought she could hear someone walking in the road behind her. She remembered the figure waiting under the tree and glanced quickly over her shoulder. The road was empty. She told herself not to imagine things, but she was alone and it was dark and lonely. The houses were set back and the cars were few and far between.
She couldn’t stop shivering now. A car swished past, sending up an arc of spray, and vanished into the darkness. There was someone on the road ahead of her now, walking quickly away from her down the hill, hunched into a light-coloured mac. She was walking into the wind, and it blew the sleet into her face and through the gaps in her jacket, wetting her, chilling her to the bone. Her face was starting to feel stiff and numb, and she put her head down and pulled the wet collar of her jacket round her.
When she looked up, the road was empty. Whoever had been walking ahead must have turned off at one of the side roads. She was approaching the end of Luke’s road now. She could go back, ask to use his phone, but she wasn’t sure if she could face his hostility again. A car was pulling out from a side road further down the hill. It was coming up the hill towards her, slowly, as though the driver wasn’t sure where he was. It was illuminated briefly as it passed under the streetlight, a dark, expensive-looking car, and she felt a stab of envy for the person who was safe behind its wheel. She wondered why the driver was going so slowly. Looking for an address?
Then she wondered if she might be the target of the driver’s attention. A single woman walking alone after midnight – he could be an opportunist…someone who’d driven past earlier and seen her on her own, vainly waiting for a bus that wouldn’t come. The empty road and the silent houses told her that there was no one out here to help her. Without thinking about it, she turned the corner towards Luke’s and speeded up her pace. His house was just across the road now. Through the sleet, she heard the note of the car engine change and she began to run. Car lights illuminated the road, and she heard the deeper engine note of acceleration. The shadows in the moving light disorientated her for a moment. She tripped, feeling the sting of gravel on her knee, and the car lights overwhelmed her, then she was scrambling to her feet and through the gate, hammering on his window, no
t bothering with the front door. ‘Luke!’ she shouted. ‘Luke!’ Silence, and the swish of car tyres on the road. She hammered on the door. Where was he?
Then the light went on and the door opened. The car swept by and into the darkness. She pushed past Luke and slammed the door shut behind her, leant against it breathing hard, feeling her legs start to shake as the shock took her. ‘Roz?’ Luke was looking at her in bewilderment. ‘What…?’ He stared at her. ‘For fuck’s sake, look at you! What have you been doing?’
She looked down at herself. Her jacket was wet and her trousers were soaked. One trouser leg was ripped and her knee was bleeding. Water dripped from her hair and from her clothes on to the floor. Her face was numb with cold. ‘I missed the bus,’ she said. ‘I just need to use your phone.’ She heard her voice sounding so matter of fact and conversational that she started to laugh, then she was shivering so hard she could barely stand up.
He grabbed her wrist and pulled her through the door of his flat. ‘Where’s your car? What are you doing running round the streets at this time? Shit, Roz, sometimes you shouldn’t be let out off a lead.’ His face was tight with exasperation and concern.
‘I came on the bus from the station.’ He helped her peel off her wet jacket and draped it over the radiator. Her shoes, which were sodden, were leaving marks on the carpet. She pulled them off. Her socks were soaked, so she tugged at them, her fingers clumsy with the cold. ‘I’d been to see Nathan. I just wanted…’ What had she wanted? She bit her lip and the shivering overwhelmed her.
There was a look of regret on his face now. ‘Of course you did,’ he said. ‘Come here.’ He put his arms round her and held her close against him, pressing her face into the roughness of his jersey. ‘I’m sorry I was a bastard. Oh, Christ, look at the state of you. Let’s get you dried off.’ She remembered him arriving at her house just five days ago, drenched in a sudden rainstorm, the night before the police came and took him away.
