He thought. He closed his eyes. But he didn’t know anyone’s number. Even if Otis still had his old phone, Michael had never memorised the number. Then he remembered the place where Otis had bought the second hand phone. He ran an internet search, found the number of the shop and dialled.
A ringing tone.
Michael looked behind. The BMW still following.
It kept ringing.
“They’re gonna catch us,” said Michael.
As he looked back, he saw Page’s eyes reflected in the rear-view mirror. Pained, frightened, desperate. She lurched the steering wheel to the right. The seatbelt dug into Michael’s ribs as he was thrown forward against it. He saw the traffic lights up ahead turn from amber to red. The Peugeot kept roaring. Through the red light, turning hard to the right, almost tipping over as it sped round the corner.
A car honked. But they made it through without hitting anything and were on a new road. A wide dual carriageway heading out of town.
No sign of Cooper behind. Trapped, no doubt, behind the red light.
“Phone Palace,” mumbled a bored voice in his ear.
He’d almost forgotten the phone pressed to the side of his face. “Uh, yes,” he said into it. “I came in with a friend of mine yesterday to buy a phone. I wrote down his number, but I seem to have got it wrong. I don’t suppose you have a record of what it is, do you?”
“Erm …” said Mr Bored.
Michael drummed his fingers on the leather seat. Being chased by two gunmen in a car was the wrong time to have a conversation with someone who had all the time in the world.
“Two white boys?” said Mr Bored. “One, a big blond fella?”
“Yes!” He glanced out the back window. The stretch of Cooper-free road was lengthening behind them. “Do you have the number?”
“Erm … I’ll check.”
Michael sighed and rolled his eyes. This brilliant plan of his was taking too long.
A police siren wailed into the air. Not an unusual sound for London, but it was close and his body tensed.
“Hello?” said Mr Bored.
“Yes, hello,” Michael said, rather too keenly.
“Got it. You got a pen?”
Michael rummaged in Page’s handbag for a pen. The man rattled off a series of numbers. Michael wrote them on his hand.
“Shit!” said Page.
“What?” said Michael. But she didn’t need to answer. Her worried eyes in the rear-view mirror said it all. Michael looked behind and saw what she saw – Cooper’s BMW, red and blue lights flashing from a strip at the top of their windscreen as the siren wailed. Through the passenger window, the barrel of a handgun pointed towards them.
Michael disconnected the phone without a thank you.
A loud pop and the car shuddered like it had hit a pot hole. It swerved, but kept going. Bumping like they were driving over fist-sized stones.
“What was that?”
“I think they shot out a tyre,” said Page. “We can’t outrun them now.”
Michael looked up ahead. The dual carriageway narrowed to one lane as it left the urban landscape towards suburbia. On either side were green fields. “Can you make it on foot?” he said.
“I can’t make it on a flat tyre,” said Page.
“Then park. Anywhere.”
Half a plan was in his head. Crazy as hell, but better than nothing. He fumbled as he rushed to dial the number he’d written on his hand.
It rang.
He looked behind at the closing BMW. The phone kept ringing. “Come on, Otis!” His plan depended on Otis still having the phone and answering the skanking thing.
The Peugeot braked suddenly. A skid of tyres and it came to a halt. Not parked, just stopped.
Michael released himself from the seatbelt and jumped out of the car.
The ringing stopped. “Hello?”
“Otis?”
“Michael?”
“Thank God!”
The flashing lights of the BMW were almost on top of them. Page hadn’t even opened her door.
“Do you know the dual carriageway that runs out of town near the car park with green fields either side?” Michael said into the phone.
He grabbed the handle of the driver’s door and flung it open. Page sat inside: pale, sweaty and unmoving. Trails of blood from the bullet wound in her shoulder were drying down her right side.
“Come on!” Michael urged her.
“You go,” said Page.
“Not without you. You’re the one with the answers.” He took her left arm and helped her out of the car. Her reluctance gave way to renewed effort and she allowed him to lead her to the side of the road where a slatted wooden fence marked the edge of the field. The BMW was almost upon them, slowing with the confidence of a hunter who knows its prey is almost in the bag.
Michael put his foot onto the bottom rung of the fence and swung his other leg over. He took Page’s hand to help her.
Otis’s distant, tinny voice shouted through the speaker of the phone. Michael lifted it to his ear. “Otis, on the left of the dual carriageway, there’s a field. Pick us up at whatever the road is on the other side.”
“Michael, what the—?”
“Hurry.”
Michael terminated the call and pocketed the phone. He and Page were over the fence and in dewy grass up to their ankles. He ran – his hand still holding hers – pulling her behind him.
“Michael, I don’t think I can.”
“Run or get caught,” he said. He tugged at her hand. She stumbled, but kept going. Finding energy from somewhere.
Behind, Cooper and the other man were out of the BMW and climbing over the fence. Michael’s legs pushed on. He let go of Page’s hand. He couldn’t let her slow him down. “Try to keep up,” he said. “They won’t shoot you for fear of shooting me.” He hoped.
The field was vast. A farmer’s field, bumpy from ploughing, left fallow for the winter. His feet slipping on mud every fourth step, grass swishing at his ankles, soaking his socks with dew. And the opposite side, so far away. Green, almost to the horizon, where a line of trees spread their bare branches across the grey sky. Between them was the dark line browny black line of another fence and the tarmac of a road beyond. If it wasn’t just wishful thinking.
Page gasped behind him, her uneven steps thudding down in the mud. Behind her, Cooper shouted at them to stop. But Michael kept on running, trying to put as much distance between him and Cooper as possible.
As they got closer, the black of the road became clearer. But it was empty. No Otis, no nobody.
He felt the ache in his lungs and legs as hope slipped away. But he kept running. Towards the fence, towards the road, like a marathon runner striving for the finishing line.
He crashed into the fence. As he swung his leg over, he saw Page’s exhausted body staggering towards him. Closing fast was the thin man from the BMW; lean, fit and long-legged. Cooper brought up the rear, huffing and puffing in his suit.
Michael jumped over onto a grass verge by the road. “Come on!” He beckoned to Page.
The sound of a car engine caused Michael to turn. It was Otis’s ugly, dented hatchback. A beautiful sight in a world of grey. New energy rose within him. He helped Page over the fence as the hatchback reached them and braked hard.
“You all right?” said Otis through the open driver’s window. Beside him, in the passenger seat, was Jennifer.
“I am now,” Michael panted.
He flung open the back door and pushed Page inside.
“You’re not bringing her!” Otis protested.
But she was already in the back seat. Bloody, exhausted, and gasping.
A crash of something hitting wood made him turn. The thin man had made it to the fence. Red faced, breathing hard, with staring eyes. He lifted his gun with both hands and pointed it at Michael. His right index finger wrapped around the trigger.
“Stop,” he said. “Or I’ll shoot.”
Michael bet his lif
e it was a lie. He stepped into the car.
Cooper reached the fence and collapsed his unfit body on top of it. Eyes flashed from Michael, to the car, to the gun.
The thin man’s arm muscles tensed, ready to fire.
“No!” shouted Cooper.
Michael’s bum hit the back seat.
Cooper pushed the man sideways. His gun veered left and went off. Gunfire rang out across the field. Birds screeched.
“Drive! Drive!” shouted Michael, closing the door.
Otis’s foot hit the accelerator. Tyres spun, gripping tarmac and propelling them forward.
Out the back window, Michael watched the figures of Cooper and the thin man recede into the distance. They were stuck in a field with no transport as their prey raced to freedom.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
OTIS DROVE the car round the back of the office building and turned off the engine. It rumbled into nothing and left a ghostly silence.
They’d driven through a virtually deserted industrial estate, right to the last building where only Monday to Friday people worked. Lights were off, windows closed and doors locked in the Sunday morning quiet. There was no sign of Cooper and his men.
“What now?” said Michael.
Otis flipped the button of his seatbelt and got out of the car. The cold of the morning air flooded inside.
Michael got out too and watched Otis as he helped Jennifer out of the passenger door.
In the light of day, without the blinding brightness of headlights, she looked so fragile. She usually covered her thin body in a baggy coat and, without it, she looked almost skeletal. One bony knee stuck out of a hole in her tights where a ladder ran up to her thigh and down to her calf. The breeze lifted strands of her dishevelled hair in front of her face.
Otis took her hand and led her from the car. She leant on him, like an old woman.
“Jennifer, are you okay?” Michael asked as they walked past him.
She didn’t answer. She didn’t look. It was as if she didn’t know he was there.
They stopped at the wall of the office building. Sheltered from the breeze, Otis allowed her to rest her back on the red brickwork. She let go of his hand and slid down the wall until she sat on the dirt of the ground, surrounded by cigarette butts abandoned by office smokers.
“Otis?” said Michael. “She’s all right, isn’t she?”
Otis turned to answer his question. His mouth opened, but no words came out. He shook his head and shrugged at the same time.
Michael looked at Jennifer again; sitting on the cold ground, huddled up like a hedgehog in winter. Small and lost. Otis squatted next to her, he brushed the strands of her black hair from her face. “What did they do to you?” he whispered softly.
She stared back at him with blank, glassy eyes.
“I’m going to take a look, okay?” said Otis.
Jennifer continued to stare. Not giving him permission, but not resisting him either.
The concern on Otis’s face turned to concentration. Looking into her eyes at first. Then looking beyond them. Inside of her. Hard. Deep. The unmistakable, burrowing stare of a perceiver.
“My God,” he breathed.
He stood. Backed away.
“What?” said Michael.
“Shit.”
“What?”
“Shit! Shit! Shit!”
“What is it, Otis?”
Otis kicked the wall. Splinters of brick flew off and scattered to the ground. “Shit! Shit! Shiiiiit!” His cries dispersed in the wind. Carried away to where no one would hear them.
Otis spun and slammed his own back against the brickwork. His face was red. There were tears in his eyes.
Michael glanced at Jennifer beside him. She hadn’t moved. Her expression still blank. Like a coma victim whose eyes are open, but whose mind is barely alive.
“Otis?” said Michael.
“She’s been cured,” he said. The tears in his eyes fell to his cheeks. He wiped them on his sleeve. He sniffed.
“Are you sure?”
“’Course I’m skankin’ sure!” Otis spat back at him. “That’s why they were willing to give her back to me. They turned her into a norm. They took my Jen away and turned her into a skankin’ norm!”
More tears fell. Suddenly embarrassed, he pulled himself away from the wall and strode towards the car.
“Otis, you’re not leaving her here?”
But it wasn’t the driver’s door he was heading for. He went round the other side and yanked open the back door. He dived in and came out dragging Page by the arms.
Her screams ripped through the air as he threw her body against the boot.
“Did you do this?” he shouted into her face.
“What?” She had to be confused and terrified.
“You work at the clinic. Did you do this to her?”
Page’s eyes followed Otis’s pointing finger to where Jennifer sat curled against the wall. “She’s been cured?” said Page.
“Don’t act like you don’t know!” Otis slapped her across the face. She yelped in pain and shock. Her hand went to her cheek where a red mark was forming.
“Otis!” said Michael. “What are you doing? She saved me!”
Otis looked back with a narrow stare. “Saved you – sacrificed Jen.”
“I didn’t know,” said Page. “I’m sorry, I really am.”
“Don’t lie to me, bitch!” He slapped her again. The sound of flesh on flesh rang out across the emptiness.
“I had nothing to do with it, perceive me.”
Otis went quiet. He stared at her. Into her. Perceiving her.
He broke off eye contact and hung his head. “That doesn’t make you innocent. You’re involved in all this somehow.”
“What are you going to do?” said Page.
“Why should I tell you?” said Otis. He abandoned her on the boot of the car and went back to leaning against the wall.
But it was a valid question.
Michael walked up to him. He spoke to him softly so the women couldn’t hear. “We can’t stay here.”
“Don’t you think I don’t know that?” said Otis.
“And we can’t go back to the squat.”
“Are you going to stand here and state the obvious to me all day, Michael mate? Or are you actually going to have some ideas?”
Otis was the leader. He was the one who was supposed to have ideas. “You’re not going to abandon Jennifer,” said Michael.
“Don’t be a fart.”
“You abandoned Jack.”
“That was different, that was …” Otis shook his head. “Jesus, I don’t know! Cooper’s seen my car, that’ll be a target too.”
“And Doctor Page?” Michael glanced back at where Otis had left her.
“What about her?”
“Wound looks pretty bad.”
“Fine,” said Otis. “We leave her here and call an ambulance.”
“With a gunshot wound?” said Michael. “They’ll notify police. Cooper’ll find her.” He shivered at the memory of his own near miss with Cooper’s men at the hospital.
“Like I care!”
“But, Otis, she knows stuff. She knows about the clinics and the cure, and … she knows about me.”
“What does that matter now?” He glanced down at Jennifer, curled up on the floor, dumb and apparently deaf to their conversation.
“It matters more than anything,” said Michael. “Jennifer sacrificed herself to get information about what’s going on. If we don’t honour that, then it’ll all have been for nothing.”
Otis went quiet. It seemed Michael had struck a nerve.
“I think I need a doctor,” Page called out from where she leant against the car boot. Her hand clutched her shoulder where fresh blood oozed through her fingers. Her wound had probably re-opened when Otis dragged her out the back seat. “Take me to a hospital and I’ll tell you everything.”
“So you can meet up with your friend Cooper?” Otis shouted ba
ck at her. “You think I’m stupid?”
“He’s not my friend,” said Page. “My friends don’t shoot me.” She slipped sideways on the boot as if she were about to faint. She let go of her wound, grabbed hold of the car and managed to stop herself. “If you won’t take me to hospital, at least take me to a hotel.”
Otis laughed. “A hotel? This ain’t a holiday, sister.”
“If it’s about money, I can pay,” she said, her breathing laboured, perhaps through pain, perhaps through blood loss. “Michael, have you still got my phone?”
Michael reached into his pocket where he had stashed it just before they ran across the field. He’d forgotten it was there. “It’s not a bad idea, Otis. We could take a taxi; Cooper won’t be looking for that.”
“I dunno …”
“It’s better than staying here.”
“Fine,” shrugged Otis. “Whatever.”
“Michael, give me the phone,” said Page.
He passed it over to her and, with cold trembling hands, she made the arrangements.
~
MICHAEL KICKED OPEN the hotel room door and helped Page inside. The fully grown woman – although slim – weighed heavy, with her good arm draped across his shoulders and his arm clasped around her back. The two of them made it down the narrow passage between the wardrobe and the bathroom to the double bed. He turned her round and dropped her, bum-first, on the mattress. She sagged like a soft toy with barely the strength to keep herself upright. Michael swung her legs up onto the bed and helped lay her head down.
She was a bloody mess. Red, in various stages of coagulation, spread out from her shoulder, down her arm and right side. Looking all the worse against the hotel’s pristine white sheets.
The room was probably the same as a thousand other hotel rooms across the country. Walls painted in fresh magnolia, with a bold modern art picture of red, yellow and purple stripes above the bed. Bed of white, fluffed up pillows and duvet. Window with an uninspiring view across the car park estate where Otis had left the car. There was a kettle, white china mugs and sachets for making tea and coffee on the side. There was a small wardrobe with a full length mirror set in the door, a work desk and chair with a complimentary box of tissues. Everything was clean to the point of clinical, with a vague smell of freshly laundered sheets and furniture polish. Until that smell gave way to the body odour of four people on the run.
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