Shadows to Ashes

by Tori de Clare

  He pressed on towards them. Red dots were plentiful in the upper branches. Some were moving. The biggest were owl-sized, he guessed. He’d entered the wood now and was having to watch his step and thread between trees. His phone had a torch, which he shone on the ground to avoid broken branches, scatterings of litter and great patches of squelching mud.

  The ground was uneven. The soil rose and dipped. The dips were a magnet for leaves and twigs. He dodged the odd empty bottle or can, the occasional needle. His next hideous find was a strewn condom which he swerved to avoid and wasn’t tempted to study.

  ‘Foul,’ he muttered.

  When he’d gone another few metres, he stopped and put his phone away and endured seconds of blindness while he lifted his thermal camera to his right eye and opened up the night again. He surveyed the area, doing a slow 360 degree turn.

  Under the camera’s gaze, the wood was throbbing with life. Just ahead in a clearing was the bridge. He had an unobstructed view. The bridge traversed a black void. He’d researched it on Google Earth that day, done his homework. Beneath it was a disused railway line. Along the hem of the bridge on either side was a stone wall four feet tall, or thereabouts. Would Naomi appear on the bridge itself, or would he deposit her in the mysterious depths beneath it?

  Solomon pressed on until the bridge was twenty or thirty metres to his left. He was looking down an embankment at the abandoned railway line. The whole place had a feel of complete desertion, as though it had been discarded by the modern world, cast aside and forgotten about. He pressed on down the embankment, thistles clawing at his trousers, and found the perfect hideout. It was a concrete box, open-fronted, facing the railway line.

  He shone a light on the railway line that once was, now smothered by an epidermis of moss. Tall stalks of grass stood erect from the sleepers. Maybe small stones surrounded the line once, until grass had seeded itself and settled in every crevice. Inside the concrete shell, there was nothing but scraps of litter. Solomon bent down to slip inside, though he was never comfortable with litter for company, then, crouching, he leant out of the opening and trained the camera on the bridge. It was lifeless.

  A small creature crossed the old line close to the bridge. Too big to be a mouse. Too quick to be a hedgehog. Another followed and a minute later, something much bigger. A fox?

  No sign of Naomi or the guy who had her. Whatever he did, whichever route or option he’d plotted, the camera would capture every movement and Solomon would corner him.

  Solomon felt strangely at ease. He was king of the jungle here, top predator, which sent a pleasant rush of blood through his veins. His reflexes would never be keener than now. He felt strong and alive despite chronic sleep deprivation. He was eager to see the girl who’d haunted too many restless nights for longer than he could stand. If Janes had laid a finger on her, looked at her in the wrong way even, he was a dead man.

  The baton stretched across his right thigh as he squatted uncomfortably. He touched it for a moment, which seemed to inject in him some extra strength, an added splash of confidence. This robbed his patience though. He was eager for midnight, for Naomi to be led into these deserted woods to the bridge now in his sights, she the captive female, he the deliverer. He was anxious to confirm that she was unharmed and untouched.

  Months of waiting to see her and he was expecting the final half hour to be the least bearable. It was 11:25 exactly. It would be difficult to remain still.

  Thirty-five minutes ahead of schedule. Solomon was ready.

  ***

  11:40. Fifteen uneventful minutes had passed. The night had grown still. The cold had seeped through Solomon’s trousers, his shirt, his pullover and coat, and up through his shoes and socks. He was firmly in its grip now as it clung to his skin, breathing chilled air into his ears, his muscles and bones.

  Bats flapped and circled overhead. Owls called to one another – reporting an intruder with a camera, perhaps. Like little spies, the stars had stealthily appeared. Two of them had been bought. Two in close proximity, forever in collusion. Were they here now, watching? The moon had veiled herself in thin vapour. The radiant bride waiting for the groom. Focus, Solomon told himself. Wherever he looked, wherever he went, he saw her. Even now.

  Despite a constant vigil at his post, everything crept and moved, but nothing changed. No human life at all.

  Another ten minutes slunk by, each one more uneasy than the last. 11:50. During this time, he’d crept to the top of the embankment, briefly, and scanned the wood. It was crawling with insects and small scurrying creatures as he stood under the cover of a large tree, searching frantically, all directions. But no bodies.

  Lorie called him again and again. She left another message, which he ignored. He hadn’t expected her to be quite this persistent.

  Solomon returned quickly to his tiny concrete shed. He could hear his heartbeat and feel the rush of blood countering the cold. A battle raged inside him. He was certain he should have detected someone by now. With the stakes this high, with millions in the balance, being late was inconceivable. Even ten minutes early was late. Yet no one was in sight, not at the bridge or beyond or around it.

  11:55. Nothing. 11:56. Same. 11:57. Testing his sanity now. 11:58. Not a murmur, but his heart was banging uncertainly. What the hell? 11:59. He was studying the bridge for ten-second periods, then shifting out of his cave, doing a 360 degree turn for another count of ten, up the railway line, up the embankment, back to the bridge, then repeating the process again and again. For the last five seconds of the day, he glared at his watch in disbelief. Midnight. It was here. His watch was second-perfect. The baton was hard and cold against his leg.

  Should he approach the bridge? Stay where he was? Seconds of indecision followed. His only real thought had been seeing Naomi. He was accustomed only to giving instructions. Following them was foreign. The indecision was disarming.

  He touched the baton for reassurance and then a sound rang out, piercing the air, echoing through the trees. It was a phone ringing from the direction of the bridge. He held the camera still and searched for a body or bodies. Nothing. What if the sound was coming from beneath the bridge and the camera hadn’t picked up the heat? The bridge was shallow, and in any case, he was certain he’d seen no one approach. What if someone had been waiting down there the whole time? If he didn’t shift quickly, the deal might be off.

  He stowed his camera in a pocket and held up his phone torch and started at a run, closing the gap between himself and the bridge, unable to help the loud thumping of his feet against the hard ground. The phone kept ringing. He was vulnerable here, a target, potentially. With the bridge a few metres away, he called out.

  ‘I’m here.’

  No one called back. He’d have to head for the sound. No choice. He raised the camera to his eye and bolted into the gloom. Then he saw it, a glowing light on the ground. No sign of human life at all. Just an abandoned phone, calling out.

  On impulse, he rushed towards it. If it stopped ringing, it could be over. The end.

  Solomon reached down and snatched it off the ground.

  ‘I’m here,’ he panted.

  Silence for a few seconds. Solomon held his breath.

  A male voice. ‘I’m about to send bank account numbers. Transfer the money immediately.’

  He breathed again. ‘I want to see the girl.’

  ‘Transfer the money now. Three minutes. I’ll call back.’

  The line went dead. Account numbers appeared on his screen. For a millisecond he thought about getting the number that had reached this phone, the details of the caller.

  No time though. No choice but to act, and quickly. Fuelled by fury, he hurried to the top of the embankment for a swifter connection and logged on to the internet. Millions to pay and no promises! No negotiation. No time for thought. When the phone rang again, he was heading back into the gloom under the bridge, a couple of million lighter in the bank, carrying his bag with fifty thousand in cash.

  He
answered. ‘It’s done.’

  ‘That’s good. Do you have the cash?’

  The bag was over his shoulder. Solomon glanced about him again. He was completely alone. ‘Do you have the girl?’

  ‘Do you have the cash?’ Same tone of voice, no variation.

  ‘Yes, I have the cash,’ Solomon said, more patiently than he felt. ‘Do you have Naomi?’

  Then a glorious moment. ‘I’m OK.’ Naomi’s voice in the background, no mistake. A weight lifted.

  It was a spark only. A moment later, the guy’s voice was back in his ear, ‘Cast your light on the ground behind you. You’ll see a black bucket.’

  Solomon obeyed. ‘I see it.’

  ‘Put the bag and the phone in the bucket.’

  Solomon froze. He was reaching for his camera again now, looking for red bodies. A sign at least. ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Here.’

  ‘Where’s here?’

  ‘Put the money in the bucket, followed by the phone. Then look out along the track to your right. You’ll see her.’

  To his right? His little cave had been in that direction and no one had been anywhere near it.

  The line went dead again.

  Solomon pulled his baton from his pocket and crunched it into the nearest wall with the force of both hands.

  Who was this guy?

  Keep your head. Solomon pushed the baton inside his pocket and stamped over to the bucket on the far side of the track against the wall. It was just inside the mouth of the bridge.

  I'm gonna kill this guy.

  He hesitated before removing the bag from his shoulder and depositing it in the bucket, along with the phone. He wasn’t prepared to move. Not until he saw her. He didn’t like his position here. He’d prefer to be amongst the trees, not out in the open. It was claustrophobic here, dark, oppressive, far from safety.

  Plan revision. When he saw Janes, he would smash the baton into his skull and leave him for the rodents and scavengers who were darting about in his thermal lens.

  Solomon crouched, his back against the wall, one hand on the bag of money, the other holding the thermal camera. His head was twisted, watching, waiting. Intermittently, he glanced to the other side of him, not trusting the voice.

  Hope was running dim when a body burned in his lens, suddenly.

  He stood up, bag forgotten and rushed from under the bridge towards it. When he removed the camera, he couldn't see anyone. Too dark. A dozen paces out of the cover of the bridge and he remembered the money. The red figure advancing toward him could be anyone. Why was he behaving like a crazy person who possessed no brain or logic?

  He stopped walking and looked back. The bridge was black under the camera’s gaze. In front of him, the red figure was growing closer. If he called out, he was giving his position away without any certainty of who this was.

  He slipped the baton out of his pocket with his right hand, forcing the camera into his other, less accomplished hand. What to do?

  He retreated back beneath the bridge only to discover that the bucket had vanished. It was impossible. He’d been gone twelve, fifteen seconds at the most. He exited the bridge at the other side, searching frantically now for a thief who must be in range. He discovered nothing.

  He resisted the urge to yell and bolted back beneath the bridge where the body was glowing in the camera lens, very close. Whoever it was had stopped moving. He removed the camera from his face and could see the outline of a black figure splashing weak light onto the ground a few metres away. No one spoke. Pulse pumping, Solomon tightened his grip on the baton and wished he’d brought a gun. This person was frozen in front of him, watching as he emerged from the bridge again.

  He could hear his own breathing bursting from him, uncontrolled. He couldn’t make out a single feature of the person in front, couldn’t even judge height in this light, or the distance away.

  He sliced the baton through the silent air, three times. The sound was quite terrible and the person in front cried out.

  A female. Terrified and alone.

  ‘Naomi?’

  Did she answer? He didn’t know. He only knew having rushed forward, that seconds later, he’d reached out and pulled her to him and she’d fought him and then eventually stopped struggling. Then she stood, tense, quivering in his arms on a disused railway line in a place that had lost relevance in recent decades. She was gushing warm tears against his neck and repeating over and over how much she hated him. And a sweeter moment than this, Vincent Solomon couldn’t recall.

  19

  Miles passed without words, Solomon at the wheel, staring out of the windscreen, barely moving. Naomi’s head was scrambled. She couldn’t concentrate enough even to ask questions and suspected she was in shock. Her hands were trembling whenever she looked at them, so she had them lodged between her thighs, her leg muscles locking them still. And she was cold right through despite the warm air, the heated seat. Her eyes wanted to fold. She wouldn’t allow it. Not here. With him.

  She was still wearing the same clothes, the same underwear she’d selected for court. Thirty-odd hours had felt like the same number of days. She felt filthy. Worn. Used.

  She looked out of the window. She had no idea what was out there, where they were.

  ‘I knew you were behind this.’

  ‘I wasn’t behind it.’

  Naomi shook her head. He seriously expected her to believe that?

  ‘Where are you taking me?’ Speaking was an effort.

  ‘Home.’

  After a further few minutes of silence Naomi began to notice things outside. Things she recognised. The familiarity washed over her and her muscles began to unlock.

  ‘Did he hurt you?’ Solomon’s voice broke the silence and Naomi wondered whether or not she could be bothered to answer. Her eyes had closed, she realised.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Touch you?’

  A long pause. ‘No.’

  ‘Starve you?’

  ‘Enough.’

  Solomon said nothing more and a short time later, he was pulling up beside the gates of her house in Alderley Edge.

  ‘Here we are.’

  ‘Have you been watching me? Coming here? Did you drop me a note?’

  She wouldn’t look at him. She had a hand on the door handle.

  ‘No. No, and . . . let’s see. No.’

  Someone had! She felt too exhausted to speak.

  ‘Why are you here tonight, Vincent? If you had nothing to do with this, why you?’

  ‘Long story for another time.’

  She shook her head. She felt oddly disassociated from her body.

  ‘See you soon, Naomi,’ was what he said next.

  Which yanked her back into the present. ‘Like hell you will.’

  ‘Get some sleep. You’ll be burning to talk to me when you’ve had some rest. Ironic isn’t it, that you’ve been desperate to find me, that you’ve come to my house and dropped notes through my door.’

  She looked at him now in a fit of anger. Yelled, ‘Where’ve you been?’

  He looked steadily back at her. His response was quiet. ‘Another long story for another time.’

  ‘You’ve got a lot to answer for.’

  ‘I’m looking forward to getting started.’

  Her hands shook with rage. ‘This isn’t a game.’

  ‘What is it then?’

  She glared at him and was twitching to lash out, to strike his face. Instead, with a sudden flare of energy, she turned and opened the door and threw herself out of the car. And Solomon was on the move at the same time as Naomi hurled the door shut. She watched as he sped into the night and was still standing in a frozen daze when the world was peaceful again and the night closed in on her.

  With his disappearance, her energy failed. Next thing, she heard footsteps on the drive, running.

  ‘Naomi?’

  She mustered the energy to turn. Her dad was hurrying towards her. Then he was taking hold of her and tears rose to the surface
again. Henry was talking, but nothing was penetrating her brain. It was all noise. Too much noise, coming at her too quickly. And in that moment, she wanted to crawl into her bed and inhabit a sleepy, silent world, for ever.

  ***

  Solomon zipped along quiet roads, aware that his body was behaving abnormally. He’d never been especially interested in feelings. A sensation was the body’s way of demanding an action, which made perfect sense. Hunger meant food. Thirst meant liquid. Fear, he didn’t really do, not like other people, he knew that. So he was curious about the current of adrenaline which was firing through him, making a chore of driving.

  The beauty of the clear night outside of the car was tugging at him instead. The car looked oddly ugly from inside, in fact, a blur of lit numbers and too much information. His normal adoration for it had left him. He felt a yearning to be free of it and had a fleeting thought to abandon it at the roadside and run home, allowing cold air to rush at him and blow away this senselessness.

  He liked it though. It was a feeling of expansion. Of having his capabilities stretched, his senses heightened. He reckoned, as he looked through the front windscreen at the sky, that he could see every minute shadow and crater on the moon’s surface. And, having drawn his attention, he noticed how intriguing the moon really was, a huge illuminated ball, hanging in the blackness.

  Every thought, every observation about the mystery and magic of tonight, was accompanied by the memory of holding Naomi Hamilton, and her clutching at him in the darkness of an abandoned space, breathing angry words against his neck. Cold words, but her breath was hot and made him want to possess her urgently. He was clutching that memory to his mind now, keeping it close, refusing to let go. He couldn’t let go. It had fused to his memory, that picture, and was firing the kind of ecstasy that was more powerful than any drug.

  At the same time, the department of his mind responsible for logic had opened a sleepy eye. It was sounding a faint alarm somewhere, warning for care to be taken, order to be maintained. Control was everything, remember. Order was life! But Solomon – and this perplexed him – wasn’t really listening. Wasn’t interested, even.