by J. S. Law
‘My God,’ said Dan. ‘Were Simon’s ears actually bleeding?’
‘Pretty much,’ said Charlie.
Dan imagined her sister’s husband trapped at the kitchen table, being force-fed real ales and being too frightened to just end the conversation and leave.
Charlie would have been heckling her father, telling him he was boring and to leave Simon alone, but Simon, now a sergeant in the Royal Marines and stationed at the Clyde naval base, Faslane, would have sat motionless, interested or feigning it, as her dad, known to all in the Corps as ‘Taz’ Lewis, waxed lyrical.
‘Retirement isn’t suiting Dad at all,’ Charlie continued. ‘He talks about the marines now more than he ever did, and Simon’s frightened to pop round with me in case he gets dragged into a whole evening of reminiscing.’
‘I’ll talk to him when I get home,’ said Dan. ‘He just needs another interest.’
‘Yeah, he does. Anyway, what were you doing?’
Dan sighed and looked in through the window of the tiny pub.
A loud roar of laughter penetrated the glass and she saw the group she was with, a mixture of navy police and support workers, some with their partners and some without, getting in another round of drinks.
‘Work social,’ said Dan.
‘Do you mean work anti-social?’ asked her sister.
Singing started inside the pub. Some of them were singing the naval sea shanty ‘Hearts of Oak’ in harsh, bawdy voices.
The window shook violently as a gust of wind hammered against it.
‘Yeah,’ said Dan.
‘Fuck ’em, Danny,’ said Charlie, her uncharacteristic swearing catching Danny out, as it always did on the rare occasions she heard her sister use such language.
Dan sighed.
‘Is it the same ones?’ asked Charlie.
Dan nodded, aware that Charlie couldn’t see that response, but knowing that her sister was pausing for breath, not an answer.
‘It’s not a problem,’ said Dan, cutting in before Charlie could continue.
‘They’re just jealous of you, Danny. That’s all it is.’
Charlie carried on, detailing her thoughts on why the majority of the Royal Navy Special Investigation Branch barely spoke to Dan, if at all.
Inside the pub, Dan could see John Granger seated at one end of the table.
‘Roger also told Dad that he was investigating the leak personally,’ said Charlie. ‘So there’s a great chance they’ll find someone soon.’
It’d been more than four months now since Dan’s papers had been leaked.
Her scathing assessment of current police procedures during long-duration, major investigations had only whetted the appetite of the news agencies. Her theory that Hamilton had not always worked alone, that there was an accomplice still at large, was what made headlines.
Then, with only the shortest break to draw breath, the news channels discovered a later conclusion buried in Dan’s draft paper.
Dan had written that it was possible that Hamilton had used his position on board navy warships to travel to foreign countries and kill, undetected and unchecked.
This story – and afterwards Dan herself – was devoured by a hungry media. The greatest achievement of Dan’s life had turned into a genuine nightmare and Charlie had been on the phone or by her side throughout it all.
‘It’s exactly a year today that he was sentenced, isn’t it?’ asked Charlie.
Dan jolted at the silence when she realised she was required to reply.
‘Yup, a year today,’ she said. ‘Thirty years’ minimum sentence, before they’ll even consider parole, and a drop in the ocean compared to what he should have been given.’
‘But you got him, Danny, and even if he is ever released, he’ll be an old man and can’t ever hurt anyone else.’ Charlie paused. ‘Speaking of old men, is Roger out tonight?’
‘No,’ said Dan. ‘He’s not been well, but I’ll probably pop in to see him on my way home now. See how he’s doing.’
Charlie was silent for a long time before she spoke. ‘You know, Danny, we’re all super-proud of you, you know, Dad especially. What you did, what you can do—’
‘I know, Charley-pants. Thanks,’ said Dan, using the childhood nickname for her big sister, knowing it would stop that line of conversation in its tracks.
‘I’m just saying that once you get home, then it won’t matter what they think. Team Lewis will be reunited. Agreed?’
‘If I agree, do I have to do that daft handshake thing that Dad made us do when we were little?’
‘Ha,’ said Charlie. ‘He didn’t make us do it when we were little; back then we loved the Team Lewis handshake. It was when we hit our teens, that’s when he made us do it, or tried!’
Dan laughed. ‘OK, I’ll be home tomorrow afternoon. My flight’s at two, so get Daddy Taz to meet me at the airport. And tell him I called him that, he’ll love it.’
They said goodbye and Dan looked back into the pub, deciding that she wouldn’t go back in. Roger would still be up, it wasn’t late, and she could pop in to say Happy Christmas before heading home to pack for her trip north.
Through the window she could see the partygoers reaching for drinks and laughing at unheard jokes, the party in full swing. It would remain that way for several hours to come and would be followed by a Christmas Eve spent with some enormous hangovers.
She turned away, walking across the dark car park and up the short hill towards the overflow area where she’d had to park after arriving late. It was dark, rough ground, surrounded by trees that loomed like a semi-sentient wall dancing in time to the wind; hardly welcoming.
As she reached the top of the small slope and turned in the direction of her car, the wind, shielded by the trees, stopped.
She looked around. She was alone. Her car was parked against some trees a few metres away and she walked towards it quickly and then turned.
There was a sound behind her.
She looked around again. Nothing.
‘Sod this,’ Dan whispered and started to jog to her car. She was there quickly, too quickly, and she had to fumble with her keys, trying to find the fob that would remotely unlock the doors.
She heard the sound again, behind her and near to the treeline.
She turned and looked around the empty space, trying to stare into the impenetrable darkness that sealed in the gaps between the trees like mortar between bricks. Anger was growing with every beat of her heart, anger at the fear she felt and the weakness it implied. Again, Dan scanned around the car park, as though proving to herself that she wasn’t, wouldn’t be, afraid.
She considered running back to the pub, joining her colleagues for one more drink, maybe hanging around until others came to their cars, although the vast majority were in the main car park below. She could sit with John, try to make peace and then see if he would walk out with her.
He would do it; without doubt he would. He would walk with her in silence and his confidence and presence might well make her feel better; he was nothing if not loyal and protective of his team. But Dan wouldn’t go back and she knew it.
The car doors unlocked with a recognisable thud and the interior lights came on. She yanked the door open and stopped.
A sound again, somewhere in the darkness, a spoken word this time, low and calm.
Her night vision was gone and the light from the car’s interior spilled out onto the rough, stony surface, leaving black clouds drifting across her vision. Dan dropped into the car, pulling the door behind her.
A hand grabbed at the door, pulling it, stopping her from sitting down and closing it.
She turned fast, confused that she hadn’t seen anyone approach, hadn’t heard their footsteps on the rough ground. ‘Get off,’ she shouted, gripping the door harder and pulling it towards her as she leaned back inside.
She heard quiet laughter from close by, and the door was moving away from her again, opening wider and wider.
A second voi
ce was barely audible on the periphery of her hearing, away from the laughter, away from whoever was dragging the door open. This voice was speaking low, the one she had heard before, providing a kind of commentary.
The car door was fully open now and Dan could see a man’s body as he reached in for her, his grip on her arm tightening, starting to hurt, his head and face remaining out of view.
She swung a slap with her free arm, aiming for his hand where he held her, and dug her nails in as hard as she could. As soon as she felt his grip weaken, Dan turned in her seat and kicked out hard, aiming for his groin. Her foot landed with a deft thud that she was sure punctuated the end of the laughter. Then she turned and grabbed for the door again, pulling hard and trying to slam it closed behind her, almost succeeding.
It wouldn’t shut.
She could feel someone holding it; see fingers at the top of the frame. Leaning back, both hands on the handle, Dan pulled with all her weight, hearing a yelp as she trapped fleshy fingers between metal pincers.
Her phone rang and she couldn’t help but glance at it; it was her dad.
Then the door was dragged away from her in a quick, powerful movement that nearly pulled her bodily from the car. Dan was clinging desperately to the handle, but released it at the last moment, reaching instead for the ignition and the keys that weren’t there. Her hand went to the seat, the spot between her legs where she’d dropped them, but she couldn’t find them. Suddenly, the seat seemed to be getting further away. Her hair was being stretched too, her long hair, pulling her through the door.
A scream escaped from her lips, but not just fear, anger too. She pushed off the door frame with her feet as she passed through it, driving herself towards the man who had her and taking him to the ground. Her hands were claws, scratching at him, scavenging for his eyes. Her teeth were bared, biting anything that came near; Dan was going to fight and she was on top.
Stars filled her eyes and she felt as though her brain had exploded like a firework inside her skull. Her hearing stopped, replaced by a constant, high-pitched ringing, a long monotone that emanated from the centre of her head. A wave of nausea followed and she fell off him, but not to the ground; someone else had her now. Through the haze she could feel someone wrapping her long hair around their hand as though it were the reins of a powerful, unbroken horse. Her eyes closed.
No. Stay awake. Fight.
She drew in a deep breath and screamed again, digging her nails into the hand that was now firmly secured to her hair.
He cursed, definitely a man. Then he hit her again, same side of the head, and she felt the life drain out of her.
She was moved around, manhandled, and now looked down at her car bonnet, felt her features contort and her lips and nose spread out as she was bent over and her face was slammed against it.
She felt her nose start to bleed, even thought it might be broken, as one man used his grip on her hair to slam her face against the paintwork again. She edged her face slightly to the side to try and ease the pressure. Now her cheek was crushed up against the bonnet, blood running down from her nose and into her mouth, flowing out like spilled ink onto the silver paintwork.
There was more low laughter from behind her.
She couldn’t tell how many were there, but definitely two, maybe even more than three.
Her hair was taut across the back of her neck as one of them held her face down and when she felt another pressure, thin and cold, touching down onto the skin of her neck, burning, as only steel can, she knew he was holding a knife against her.
The commentary was low and quiet, reaching her ears from beneath the other sounds, as though the commentator was standing slightly away from the attack, in the treeline maybe, watching and talking. ‘Control her head,’ the commentator said. ‘Control her.’
She was moving again, her body being tossed around as though she were in a stormy sea, as they grabbed her waist, taking off her black leather belt.
The movement, as they pulled her around, caused tiny little increases in freedom as the knife, hovering over her hair, cut into it, releasing her strand by strand from his grip.
Dan moved her head slightly, feeling more of her hair let go as it met with the cutting edge of the knife.
The one that was holding her hair moved around to the side of the car, the knife moving and pressing down, more hair breaking free like the berthing lines of a departing ship.
‘Now,’ said the commentator from his vantage point. ‘Now.’
There was a pause. And then she felt the blade disappear for a moment, before the cold air licked her back as her shirt was cut open, exposing her skin and her spine to the night.
‘Now!’ the commentator repeated, and she felt a pain cut across her back, her whole body tensing up in response, more hair being freed by the blade as it returned to subdue her.
The sound was odd, familiar, but he had hurt her again by the time she realised that he was flogging her with her own belt.
‘Thirty,’ said the commentator, his voice louder, more excited, but no closer.
She felt the one with the belt stand close behind her, pressing against her as the blows sped up, became harder, alternating from side to side as though he were thrashing a horse at full gallop.
Exhausted breaths.
The blows slowed and she heard him panting.
‘That’s half,’ said the commentator. ‘Change over.’
Her attacker paused, she could hear his breathing, hear him unwrapping the belt from around his hand again, getting it ready to pass over to a second attacker who would finish.
Each moment he waited in silence, the grip on her hair became lighter and the knife worked soundlessly, cutting her a pathway to possible freedom.
The commentator’s voice was there again and she could hear him speaking in a low, continuous stream but couldn’t make out what he was saying. The man holding her was half turning to listen, his grip light as he began to speak back to the commentator or his other accomplice in a hushed, and rushed, tone.
He turned further, the knife moved away from the remaining ropes of Dan’s hair, and then it appeared next to her on the bonnet, a thick wood-handled hunting knife, gripped in a leather-clad hand as the man turned further away, leaning on the car as he spoke.
Dan could move her head a bit. It felt as though half of her hair was free and the other half still joined to his other hand.
They were still talking, the words quiet and continuous, but shrouded from her by her own concentration.
It was then that she did it.
Dan reached for his hand, only a few inches from her face, and grabbed it, using the small amount of head movement she had to bring his covered flesh to her teeth. She felt leather tear and maybe a bone crack, but she needed the knife and that was her focus.
He released it, shouting in pain, and Dan was waiting.
She felt her head jerk back as he pulled on the remaining hair to control her, but as he did, as he pulled it taut, she slipped her hand around the heavy carved wooden handle, and ran the blade across the back of her own neck, cutting the last strands of hair and freeing herself from him.
She rolled over on the bonnet, turning to face them.
The man had staggered back, clutching his injured hand to his chest, her hair still dangling down from between his fingers.
There were three of them.
Their faces weren’t visible to her, but she saw three shapes, two standing close to her, one of them clutching his injured hand, and behind them, barely visible against the dark treeline, she saw the final one, the commentator, and she knew he was looking at her, his speech broken.
In that moment, she rolled again, off the side of the car bonnet and onto the stony ground.
One of them stepped forward, the one with the injured hand, reaching out for her, grabbing at her with his good, gloved hand, her severed hair hanging from it like tassels.
Dan slashed with the knife, feeling it strike home and dig in, feeling mi
nimal resistance as it parted his skin.
He recoiled.
She ran.
They were standing between her and the slope that led back to the pub, and so Dan made for the trees that moments before had seemed like a boundary wall, impermeable, impassable, but was now her only route to safety.
She clutched her torn clothes to her chest, oddly aware again of the freezing air touching her as she ran at full pace. She didn’t know if she heard the commentator order the men after her, or if her mind had added that to give further speed to her escape, but behind her, she heard the sound of shoes on stone as she was pursued.
A hand gripped her shoulder, pulled her back, turning her away from the safety of the trees.
Dan allowed it, allowed herself to be turned, but only for a moment. She thrust the knife into him, pushing until it would go no further, and left it in there as she turned again to run on. She broke the treeline as though it were the ribbon at the end of a race, but someone else was coming.
She could hear him behind her, and was now sure that the low voice was near to her too, whispering to her, but she didn’t stop.
The trees tore at her loosened clothing, ripping at it as she ran, wooden fingers reaching out for her bare flesh and trying to slow her down, to restrain her, but she never broke stride.
The thick branch jutted out at eye level, an invisible blockade in the darkness, as though this tree were holding out its arms to stop her. The blow to her face was hard, her own momentum providing the force, and her body and legs continued forward where her head couldn’t.
Stars and lightning, swirling shapes and patterns, and she was on her back on the freezing ground, unsure of how long she had been like this. She blinked. Her hand went to her face and felt a liquid that she couldn’t see. There was no pain, though; she was numb to that.
Consciousness was now a question and as her arm flopped back down to the ground beside her, she could no longer tell if her eyes were open or shut, if she was awake or asleep.
The voice was still there, though, penetrating the haze. ‘Control,’ it whispered, deep and low. ‘It’s all about control.’
