Purgatory Is a Place Too

by Dominique Kyle

  Jo shook her head.

  “Ok,” I said with a slow smile. “We’re going to have a bit of fun now. At the next red light we are going to both get out of the car and blatantly walk round the front and swop positions, and then I’ll show him what it means to take on a Stocks driver shall I?”

  She glared sideways at me. “Don’t you dare smash my car up, Eve! Don’t forget that normal cars crumple in places that Stock Cars don’t!”

  I smiled at her and patted her knee comfortingly. She didn’t seem comforted.

  “If I do any damage I’ll mend it personally,” I promised her.

  She snarled.

  At the next red light I gave her a sharp nudge and she reluctantly took her seat belt off and got out. Without looking behind at him, I walked round the front of our bonnet and took her place at the wheel. I adjusted the seat position, clicked home the seat belt, and adjusted the mirror. I looked straight back into his eyes and smiled, though I’m sure he couldn’t see that.

  “Don’t get a driving ban,” Jo warned, folding her arms defensively across her chest.

  The green light turned and I was off. Into gear and away at enormous speed, the revs screaming upwards. He was taken by surprise, but soon caught up with the nature of the busy roads. I turned a sharp right and then a quick left and I wove us a complicated path in and out of back streets, then back out into the crowded rush hour streams of traffic on the main roads, changing lane, darting out then back in again. To give him his due, I expected him to be loving this. He’d be really enjoying the driving challenge. He mostly managed to keep up.

  “You won’t lose him,” Jo said, watching her wing mirror.

  “I’m not trying to,” I said. “I’m just letting him think that’s what I’m at.”

  She glanced at me. “Then what?”

  “This,” I said. We now on a dual lane thirty mile an hour zone and were at full speed. Suddenly I took my foot off the accelerator and slammed it on the brake. He smashed straight into the back of us.

  “Shit Eve!” Jo was furious.

  I got us away again in a millisecond. “Bet his heart is thumping a bit now,” I said in satisfaction. I headed away fast then turned left off of the fast road into a feeder road and left again onto an estate. I quickly backed us round and brought us back to the intersection and waited. He appeared at the entrance to the feeder road and came down. I lay in wait. As he came alongside us I attacked like a Great White, slamming on the accelerator and hitting him broadside so hard that he was driven right to the other side of the road and mounted the pavement skidding sideways to smash against the low wall of a residential garden. A car coming the other way put their hand furiously on their horn and had to screech to a halt, centimetres from his bumper.

  “Fuck it, Eve!” Jo was hanging on to the strap above her door.

  I twirled us away and took us back out to the fast road, keeping to the speed limit and watching in my mirror until I saw a flash of green turning out of the feeder road and back after us. Jo glanced nervously at me. I’m sure my smile wasn’t reassuring her any. Once I knew he’d seen us, I turned down another thirty mile an hour road, but with only one lane in each direction. Once he’d turned down it too, I did a U turn and headed back at the full thirty miles an hour. I wonder if his hands are gripping that steering wheel really tightly, I thought, as he sees me bearing down on him?

  “For God’s sake don’t hit him full on,” Jo begged. But her eyes began to narrow as she automatically started to judge distances.

  I judged it down to the last millimetre. I scraped him hard all the way down his right hand side, and then I sped off down the road.

  “If he didn’t want to kill you before, he sure will now,” Jo told me dryly. “And I might just join in…”

  As he turned his car round and came back after us, I turned sedately down the next road and drew up outside the front door of the main town Police Station. Jo stared at me.

  “Out you get,” I said. “If he thinks I’m going to fart around driving circles round town all evening for his amusement, then he’s wrong.”

  I locked the car and we both walked up the steps to the entrance. I saw a flash of green out of the corner of my eye as we walked in.

  The guy on the desk looked up, “Can I help you?”

  “A man who’s been sending me threatening text messages has just been following us through town in his car,” I said.

  “Ok, do you want to report it?” He asked.

  I frowned. “Actually, I’m not sure yet. Do you mind if we just sit here in the lobby for a bit until he goes away and discuss what we want to do?”

  He nodded.

  We went and sat on a couple of plastic chairs that were in a line along the wall. I rang Nick and explained that we were sat in a police station wondering whether to report Mohammed for threatening behaviour. “And you know that he’s been coming round the garage and you know the content of the text he sent me?” I established.

  Nick had been keeping a close eye on my updates, he assured me. He was silent for a moment. “I’ve got an appointment booked with Detective Inspector Finch of the Serious Organised Crime Squad for Monday week.” He told me. “I was going to present the dossiers then, and screen the programme on the Tuesday. But I can see that it’s getting more urgent than that at your end and we need to keep you safe. I know I can sort it with the Schedulers if we brought it forward by a week, so I just have to see about Finch. Give me a few minutes while I try to sort things. I’ll ring you back.”

  “He’s just ringing a Detective Inspector Finch to see if he can bring his meeting forward by a week,” I reported to Jo. “Serious Organised Crime guy apparently.”

  The Officer on the desk was earwigging outrageously. I saw his eyebrows go up.

  We sat and discussed what to do next.

  “We can’t lead him up to your parents,” I said.

  “We’ll have to load the Beast up tomorrow morning at six-thirty.” Jo suggested. “No-one in their right mind would be hanging around then waiting to follow us.”

  “Then we’re safely away up in Edinburgh all weekend,” I assessed. “I’ll get a taxi now, to take me to Pete’s so we don’t lead him there, and you can be the diversion by going out and driving back to the flat.”

  “The bait you mean?” Jo said with a less than happy look. “What if I go out there and find he’s slashed all the tyres?”

  “Anyone who is dumb enough to slash all your tyres when you’re parked right in front of the CCTV cameras outside a Police Station, needs their heads seeing to,” I told her.

  My phone rang. He’d done it. Finch was apparently on edge enough about what Nick would be bringing in, to be willing to clear his diary at short notice. And then Nick predicted that the Police would have to go in fast to pick up the main perpetrators over the next twenty four hours before the documentary was screened.

  “Do you have a back entrance you’d be willing to let me leave by?” I asked the guy on the desk.

  He looked at me under his brows. “Sounds like you should be in witness protection,” he said dryly. But he let me leave by a back entrance.

  We both got safely home without any glimpses of scraped green metal. And we met up again at the barn at a painful six thirty in the morning.

  “We can park up when we get there and have a nap in the back of the Beast,” Jo said with a yawn.

  “Great idea,” I agreed, catching her yawn.

  “And you are so going to keep up your end of the bargain on my car,” Jo told me.

  Horrocks had little Harry along again at Cowdenbeath. “Look, I’m a car,” Harry said and put his arms out either side and slammed himself repeatedly against Horrock’s bumper.

  “Looks like he’s taken lessons at the Eve McGinty School of Motoring,” Jo observed sarcastically.

  “Do you think they’d let him drive when he grows up?” I speculated to Horrocks.

  “Not if they see that!” Jo dismissed.

  “No, I
mean in the Bangers,” I suggested. “It wouldn’t matter then which way he headed or if he can’t aim straight would it? As long as you can train him up enough to actually manage to start the thing up and turn the wheel. He might become the first Downs Syndrome Banger driver, as long as he can pass his basic competency test…”

  Jo and Harry’s father both stared at me. Jo, as though I was mental, Horrocks as though I might just be on to something.

  “Haweee Howoxth!” Harry said cheerfully, looking up at me with a cheeky grin.

  Horrocks sighed. “But first I need to teach him just to stop saying that!”

  I looked down at Harry. “Zanzibar, Zetec, Zebra, Zoo!” I said to him.

  Jo’s jaw dropped.

  “Come on Harry!” I enthused. “Zanzibar, Zetec, Zebra, Zoo!” I clapped my hands along in time to emphasise the rhythm of the words.

  “Zebba, Zoo,” Harry tried tentatively.

  “Get with the vibe Harry,” I urged. I clapped my hands and clapped on my thighs and turned around in a jiggly dance to the rhythm, repeating, “Zanzibar, Zetec, Zebra, Zoo! Zanzibar, Zetec, Zebra, Zoo!”

  Harry’s face lit up and he started joining in.

  Jo walked rapidly away.

  We got home about nine and unloaded the Beast, then Jo popped up to the house to see her parents. I looked over my tarmac car to see what might need doing before the big races at Birmingham in a fortnight’s time. Next weekend was two days of shale. Firstly a Saturday at Stoke and then the big World of Shale Final on Sunday at Mildenhall. I’d rather have skipped Stoke to save my shale car for the big event, but I’d be needing the points. I sighed and straightened up. Then I froze.

  There was a silhouette standing in the door, and I recognised it instantly.

  “Hello Mohammed,” I said coolly.

  He stepped into the light. His dark eyes fixed on my face. “Hello Eve,” he said expressionlessly.

  In my pocket I pressed my alarm.

  “Have you come for a tour around my cars?” I asked him pleasantly.

  Despite himself, he glanced around at the seven brightly coloured vehicles spread out round the barn.

  “I designed and built that one myself,” I informed him, pointing at the royal blue and dark green one.

  He stared at it for a moment, then turned his eyes back on my face.

  “Don’t think I won’t kill you if you lay a finger on me,” I said politely. “Because I’ll strike so fast you won’t know what hit you. And if you’re thinking of dismissing that statement, just ask your mate Hussein what I did to his friend when I was only sixteen…”

  I could sense the rage banking up in him from here. His eyes flickered up and down me. He had moved closer. I held my ground. I knew where all the heavy metal objects were in this workshop, and all the sharp ones too.

  “…when I was just two years older than poor little Ellie.” I continued in conversational tones. “She was a sweet vulnerable little soul wasn’t she? But it didn’t seem to make you pause any, or have any pity. What were your plans for her I wonder?”

  He took another step closer, his eyes narrowed. He was closing the gap, but I still knew I had time to get to the object I wanted if he chose to try and pounce. He stopped there for a moment. My tarmac car was between me and him.

  “Why did you do it?” He asked, seemingly despite himself. It was the first time he’d spoken. The sound of his voice broke through my preternatural calm. I began to be aware of my heart thumping in my chest.

  “I guess you’ll find out soon enough,” I dismissed. I needed to keep the upper hand. “So who was it you didn’t want me to see at that party when you kept pulling my head down? The GP, the Community Support Officer, or the property tycoon?”

  I sensed him freezing up at those words. “Bit of a mistake taking me in to watch Zahoor Umrani’s Uncle getting his rocks off wasn’t it?”

  I couldn’t tell which way it was going to go now. Maybe he’d just go for me, or maybe he’d now be thinking twice. Keep him talking, I thought. He’ll be waiting to see what else I know. He’ll be wondering how the hell I know who all those people were.

  “Still, I have one thing to thank you for,” I said. “Introducing me to foot massages. I’m hanging on to that one. They’re genuinely great. And you do have lovely feet. I was telling the truth when I said that. You wouldn’t be able to go barefoot though,” I observed. “Too soft.”

  I waited a moment, sensing out the anger levels. “And your skin is a lovely colour,” I added. “Sort of golden…”

  I knew that would do it. He’d go for me now. As he coiled, I tensed, ready for him, then we both froze. The sound of police sirens echoed up the hill.

  “They’re probably for you,” I informed him helpfully. “I pressed my alarm when you walked in. I’ve always got a GPS locator on me. It was in one of Ellie’s shoes that you rightly teased her for being so attached to.”

  “And your terrible earrings?” He asked, his eyes hooding.

  “Alarm,” I said. I carefully avoided boasting about cameras. I didn’t want him to know that everything was recorded. Even now I had my watch switched on. “I was impressed at your good taste in protesting those shoes and earrings,” I added with an involuntary smile.

  “And the perfume?”

  I frowned. “Why are you asking about that?”

  He shrugged. “If Kaz didn’t give it to you, and you didn’t steal it off your foster mother?”

  “My fiancé gave it to me a few days before he died,” I answered despite myself. He was doing it again, making me respond to him like a human being! “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to make yourself scarce?” I asked dryly as the sirens got so close that we could hear them turning into the yard.

  This is where he pulls out a gun, I thought. His eyes were fixed darkly, malevolently on my face. But he didn’t. He turned and walked out of the barn door and disappeared into the darkness. I felt myself go weak with relief. I walked out after him to greet the police.

  Obviously the police couldn’t do anything as nothing had happened. I thanked them profusely for coming so promptly though. “Because he would definitely have attacked me if you hadn’t turned up just then…”

  Paul, Sue and Jo had all rushed out when the police cars had turned into the yard. Now that the Police had left again, I went back into the house with the Satterthwaites.

  Sitting in the kitchen, with a grim looking Paul sitting opposite me, I rang Nick.

  “I’m sorry for saying so much, Nick,” I said, after confessing I’d just blown a bit more of our cover. “but I was just saying stuff to stay alive until the police arrived.”

  He sighed but said that he understood. He thought about it. “I’m staying at the Travelodge in town right now, to be ready to go into Finch tomorrow morning. I’ll come up and fetch you immediately. We’ll have to go in and lay some claims against them tonight and see if we can persuade them to go and arrest them straight away, in case they start destroying evidence, or doing a runner…”

  “I’m sorry Nick,” I said.

  He came up and got me and took me to the police headquarters. And then we were there all night. Literally all night. Interview after interview. Nick sat with me any time he was allowed to, and presented all the background material. At nine am he went into Detective Inspector Finch and at one point someone came to get me from where I was lying along a row of plastic chairs, fast asleep, to take me in to the meeting too. Finch wanted to see me to assess my veracity I guess. Not sure what impression I made, so exhausted and with dark smudges under my eyes. He didn’t ask me many questions. He was a middle aged heavy set man with dark eyes and an abrupt manner. They led me out again.

  After a bit, a WPC took pity on me and led me to a small room with a bed in it. “Have a lie down here for a bit while they sort out what they’re doing.”

  Nick came in a full two hours later. I’d drowsed a bit between tensely jerking awake at all the unfamiliar noises. He sat in the plastic chair in the
re and he looked haggard but pleased. “They’re going off out now to at least pick up the three gang leaders,” he told me. “We’ll wait here until we know one way or the other who is being held in custody, so you can gauge how safe you’re going to be, and then we can go. The trailers for tomorrow’s programme will be airing from this evening, and the show will go out on Tuesday at nine after the watershed, and we’ll be getting it talked about in the national press and on the news bulletins throughout Tuesday. You’re going to have to be very careful to keep safe for some time now…” We sat and stared blankly into space for a few minutes, barely aware we had both stopped speaking, we were so tired.

  “Oh yeah,” he added suddenly. “And you’d better check that little girl, the policeman’s daughter has told her Dad. We pixilated her face out, but he’s bound to recognise her. Parents always do.”

  “And Ishaq?” I asked. “Hussein knows who he is.”

  Nick was silent. “Ishaq is a very courageous lad,” he said at last. “I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes, having to testify against his own community.”

  I groaned. “I feel terrible for getting him involved!”

  “No, it’s just what we needed,” Nick interrupted. “And I think he’ll be bound to gain support from the members of his own community who are appalled to find out what is going on…”

  I hope so, I thought. Because I didn’t want him to have to leave town because of me.

  By two pm they’d picked up Hussein and Kaz, but Mohammed had taken my timely advice about making himself scarce. Me and my big mouth! They sent me home anyway. Pete came and picked me up.

  The trailers started on ITV. They showed a clip of me pushing my sleeve up to reveal a single new burn mark. “So here goes; I’m informed that one mark is for Kaz, two for Mohammed, three for Hussein. Let’s see who tries to pick me up shall we?”