Guilt Trip

by Judith Cutler

  ‘No signal! Run till you find one. Ambulance, of course.’

  I ran. And dialled as I ran, even remembering the map references to get them there more quickly.

  There. The ambulance was on its way. Sorted. But it wasn’t. I wasn’t the only one on the estate. When the police had picked up Montaigne, they’d missed some of what I were sure were his mates, the heavies that had yelled at Paul. And they’d spotted me. There wasn’t time to call Morris. Still clutching the mobile, and pressing the redial button, I asked for police. Got them. Told them where I was. Coordinates again. But it’d take them ages to get here. So I pretended I still thought I was on my own and crouched down as if I was throwing up or having a wee – whatever. The mobile – thank God Griff favoured a sleek dinky little job – went in the place some of my old mates had used when they needed to smuggle something to their boyfriends in the nick. Since I’d left it switched on, it would give the police a signal wherever I fetched up.

  Now wearing scarves across their faces, the heavies were on to me. I managed a couple of really good screams, enough to make Morris and Griff look my way, before a hand clamped my mouth. It was too big to bite, but smelt amazingly of lavender soap.

  Morris was running towards me but stopped in his tracks. I felt something cold and hard against my temple, so I gathered they had a gun and I was the target if anyone did anything daft. Me included, of course.

  The only way I could stay sensible was to think as if I was Morris. He’d got at least one sick person on his hands. With his heart, Griff might make Patient Two. And rushing a man with a firearm from a hundred yards away wasn’t a great idea either. He’d be on the phone. Or – I saw him drop to his knees – was he doing CPR? If only I could see on whom.

  By this time I knew I wasn’t going to see anything more. I was in the back of a predictable white van. At least, as they duct-taped my hands, feet and mouth, I managed to get in a couple of serious bites, earning kicks for my pains. I told myself the bruises would heal. With luck the bites would leave scars a dental expert could match to my teeth if I was no longer around to identify my kidnappers.

  Strange, I thought as I looked at the things I shared the van with, that I could think quite coolly about my own death, but not about Griff’s.

  But positive thinking would be better all round. I was giving the police all the help I could, after all. And Morris would make sure they pulled out every stop going, so long as such things like violent abduction weren’t in the hands of someone as uncommunicative as Freya. So I stared at the ropes and spare tyre and toolboxes, big metal jobs, nothing like the plastic one I stored some of my tools in, as if I was playing a game that Griff used to play: he’d put a load of items on a tray, give me a few moments to memorize them, cover them – and then ask me what I’d seen. So I made myself register them, and then turn my attention to smells – glue and wood.

  Evidence, of course. But what if Montaigne told his gorillas to get rid of all the evidence – including me – by driving to some isolated spot and torching the lot? I would in his situation. But I rather thought he was the sort of man to enjoy playing cat and mouse. He’d torture me a bit first – probably break my fingers, as he’d once threatened. If I knew him, he’d do it himself, assuming he was around.

  Don’t be silly, I told myself. He’s in custody, being questioned.

  Only fraud. He’ll easily get bail.

  Not if he’s defrauded a prime minister, for goodness’ sake.

  What if the gorillas are acting on their own initiative? Where does that leave me?

  We’d been on the move about ten minutes, I thought. After a dreadful jolting on the industrial estate roads, we were now on something much smoother and going pretty briskly. So which road would that be? Now would have been just the moment for the bloody satnav. Some hope. They weren’t going all that fast – I could hear vehicles overtaking us on the right, not the left. Presumably, they didn’t want to attract anyone’s attention by speeding. Then there was a huge swerve that almost tipped the van. I told myself someone had tried to block their path. The police? Let it be the police, please. But it could easily have been someone on a bike or just a Sunday driver.

  Now we were bucketing along. A look at all the loose stuff already battering me told me that a crash at this speed could hurt a lot. There were things that might fall on my head, things I might hurtle into. I tried to get into a hedgehog ball, but it was impossible to stay balanced with my hands behind my back. In any case, that sort of position didn’t do much for hedgehog survival on the roads, did it?

  The van swung right and ricocheted off something metallic. I dreamed of stingers and proper road blocks, maybe even a helicopter – but then I recalled reading something about airborne crime-fighting being off the menu because of the cuts. Just a rumour, I hoped. If the French thought I deserved a bulletproof car (OK, it was probably just a prime ministerial spare), surely Kent and Sussex between them could manage something.

  A huge lurch to the left threw me into one of the metal toolboxes. I bounced; it didn’t. A few more bruises, I told myself, that’s all. Actually, I wasn’t so sure. Knees have a lot of bones near the surface, not to mention nice vulnerable cartilage. What if I had to use a crutch? What use would I be to Griff after his operation?

  This road was much bumpier, and there was no sound of traffic. None at all.

  Hell, we weren’t on some private estate, were we? The South-East’s got plenty of those, not all owned by decent upright guys – and I’m not just thinking of Pa and his low-key forging activities.

  That was a cattle grid, surely. And then we started to bounce across potholes. I spat out all the rude words Griff wouldn’t let me use before seven in the evening. They’d never trace me here – not if coverage was as bad as it was in lots of rural Kent.

  This was stupid. I should be planning what to do next. I should be trying to saw through the duct tape on my wrists using the sharp edges of the damned toolbox. I should be—

  We must have hit another extra-deep pothole. Because I heard something slithering, sensed movement towards me and all these bright lights came rushing towards me. There must have been one moment of consciousness left, because I wondered if these were the lights that meant I was dying and going to heaven.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Maybe St Peter didn’t like the look of me, or maybe the blow wasn’t as hard as it could have been. In any other situation I’d have groaned and stretched a bit, and then quipped about no sense and no feeling. However, since the van had stopped and I heard footsteps approaching the doors, I lay doggo. I’d like to say I planned to leap up and run, but the duct tape stopped any thoughts of that. The more I knew about their activities the better, and if they thought I was spark out then they’d speak more freely. I had an idea that if you were unconscious, your body was floppy, so I concentrated on relaxing as deeply as I could in the circumstances – which were not exactly a yoga mat in a scented room.

  ‘What the hell have you done to her?’ I didn’t know the voice. If – big if – I’d hoped to confront Montaigne, it wasn’t going to be now.

  But whoever the guy was, he was talking about what to do with me.

  It would have been nice to chip in with one or two suggestions, but I was beaten to it. There was a helicopter overhead. It was hard not to sigh with relief. The police had arrived. Or had they? I couldn’t imagine a man like Montaigne, almost certainly with access to the sort of fancy lawyers to get him immediate bail, wouldn’t have his own rapid transport, or at least access to someone else’s.

  By now it was so close that I could hardly think for the noise, funnelled towards me by the open van doors. There was yelling, but I couldn’t hear what or from whom.

  What I did smell was petrol – felt it too as it sloshed over me. My God, they were going to do what I’d been afraid of; they were about to torch the van and me with it. And I couldn’t move – not because it was unwise, but because I was still taped up. I couldn’t even yell, of course. D
are I risk a wiggle, to show that I was coming to? Would that make them more or less likely to roast me alive?

  The chopper sound got less. And less. The newcomer and the heavies must still be there, but I couldn’t hear them. Ah, muttering. I strained my ears.

  A mobile rang. Please God it wasn’t the one I’d hidden. That was one secret I certainly didn’t want given away.

  No. It must be one of the heavies’.

  ‘Fuck off,’ he said. No, it was the newcomer.

  It rang again. ‘Just fuck off and tell the boss I’m handling it.’ He must have cut the call and turned to talk to the gorillas. I could hear muttering. They sounded less keen on the fire option than he did.

  At last I picked out a voice. ‘It’s one thing killing one of the filth, but she’s only a bit of a kid.’

  One of the filth? Please don’t let it be Morris! Not when he told them to leave me alone. It couldn’t be. I’d have heard the shot. Wouldn’t I? So who was it? One thing: if a police officer is killed, all the stops are pulled out.

  Meanwhile, there was a rumble of what sounded like agreement. So both heavies were more soft-hearted than the newcomer.

  Another phone call. Please let him agree to hand me over. Please. But it wasn’t the police after all.

  ‘I’m in a bit of a spot. We’ve got a passenger we don’t want. No. Not yet. The boss’s lawyer says she could be useful.’ He didn’t specify how, but useful sounded like a vague promise of a future, after all. And I wanted a future. Someone had to look after Griff. And Pa. But having a future involved getting rid of the petrol. No one would want me anywhere near a spark the way I was. Me especially. Maybe it was time to regain consciousness and persuade him that it’d be better not to kill me, which his heavies would agree with. I could do innocent waif easily enough.

  A bit of a twitch, bit of a moan. The moan was genuine – my God, that leg hurt. And my head, come to think of it. I tried to push myself upright, but failed, very convincingly, for the simple reason I couldn’t actually manage.

  ‘Now what?’ asked a heavy.

  I didn’t hear an answer, but I was lifted out, fairly gently, and dumped on grass. I saw them backing away. Well, I was pretty much a fire bomb, primed and only needing a careless fag to finish me off. Maybe not too many naked flames in the middle of what seemed to be parkland, however. I closed my eyes as if drifting off again. It was either that or try screaming for non-existent help through a taped mouth.

  ‘Sand? That’s what they use for petrol spills at a filling station,’ the other heavy muttered.

  ‘And where are we going to find sand? If he hadn’t been so fucking gung-ho, we wouldn’t be worrying about sand.’

  The newcomer – a man with a fashionable shaven head – said, ‘Strip her off. It should evaporate off her skin.’

  ‘We need to wash it off, too – remember young Dean. He got a bad rash messing with petrol – couldn’t work for months – and that wouldn’t please his bloody nibs.’

  ‘The grass is pretty wet – we could roll her on that. And maybe if the rain comes on harder . . . Look, just cut the bloody trousers off. If you cut the tape round her legs she’ll scarper.’

  Not with this knee, I couldn’t. Bugger that, Lina, I told myself – you’ll bloody run if you have a chance. On the other hand, what about their guns? Shooting someone in the back might be easier than burning them alive. Less smelly, too.

  Time to remind them I was human. A few whiny, grunty noises.

  Despite his boss, Heavy One pulled the tape from my mouth. And then my wrists and ankles.

  ‘Strip,’ Shaven Head said, encouraging me with a gun.

  ‘But—’ Heavy Two began. They weren’t very good at this, were they? It was as if their main job was something else, and they’d suddenly found their job-descriptions had been enlarged.

  ‘OK, I’ll do it myself,’ I gasped. ‘But put the gun away. Or we’ll all go up.’ I liked the way I’d said we. I’d read somewhere that victims should remind their assailants they were all human. Or was that kidnappers? ‘Like a suicide bomber,’ I added, trying to stand but failing, with a mixture of dizziness and pain. ‘But . . . I mean, would you watch your daughters do this?’ I unbuttoned my jacket, managing to swivel away on my bum. Over my shoulder I asked, ‘Can’t I borrow a sweater or something? Overalls?’ Then I remembered two problems. First, as they said, I wanted to wash off as much of this as I could, so bugger modesty for a bit. Second, when they did strip searches at prisons, my mates had told me, they made you squat, so whatever you’d hidden dropped out. And I really did not want them to know about that phone.

  I was down to my bra and pants. And dithering with cold and fear, while I used every drop of rain that landed on me to sluice away the petrol. One of them dug in the van and produced a couple of Buxton water, half empty. Sheepishly, and looking anywhere but at me, he handed them over.

  Shaven Head’s phone rang. ‘You’re joking,’ he told the caller. ‘No, we’d have seen them. I tell you, I’m handling this,’ he added.

  Them? Could the cavalry at last have got its act together? But where on earth were they? Pretending to be trees, like in what Griff insisted must only be referred to as the Scottish Play? Or were they relying on clever things like guns with telescopic sights?

  Shaven Head hunched over the phone, turning so none of us could hear. Us? I had an idea the heavies were as keen as I was to go home. I turned to Heavy One – he had a knobbly face, the sort you see in World War I photos of working-class lads turned soldiers and shoved out into the trenches, and was holding out his sweatshirt. On me it was long enough to be an almost decent mini. I pulled it on with a grin of thanks.

  ‘I need a wee,’ I called, gesturing to a small bush twenty yards away the bush.

  I limped away, just a few paces. And then a few paces more. Still Shaven Head talked.

  ‘Could you just—? You know?’ I suggested.

  As embarrassed as I was, they turned away. I managed a stiff, awkward squat. Within a second, the phone was out – yes, it was still on, the call still open – and in the huge sleeve. And then, since I’d not exactly been lying, I used the bush anyway.

  Given half a chance, I’d have spoken into the phone, but Shaven Head wasn’t pleased at his underlings’ kindness. To spare them a further bollocking, I hobbled slowly back towards them. Hell, I wasn’t getting that syndrome you got when you became fond of your kidnappers, was I?

  Here we were, grouped loosely around the van. No one seemed to know what to do next.

  ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got a first-aid box, have you? I really ought to strap this knee before it seizes up altogether.’

  Heavy Two burrowed in the cab.

  I turned to Shaven Head, stroking my chin with the hand nearest the mobile. ‘There’s no need for Montaigne to do this to me, you know.’

  ‘You might tell him that when you see him,’ Shaven Head said.

  ‘I will. And I’ll tell him I really didn’t like it when he tried to kidnap that little girl.’

  The heavies emerged, one carrying a first-aid box. ‘What’s that about a little girl?’

  ‘None of your business.’

  ‘My boyfriend’s baby daughter,’ I said at the same time. ‘Trying to kidnap her really wasn’t necessary.’

  I shut up. Shaven Head was looking at a point over my shoulder. His eyes rounded. I turned too. Out there, strolling towards us, was none other than Montaigne. What the hell was he doing roaming round Kent when he should surely have been in custody? Bloody clever lawyers! I almost snorted with rage, feeling in my attitude to criminals horribly like Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells. However, I didn’t. It’d be nice to know exactly what Montaigne had in mind for me before he inflicted whatever it was. Or maybe it wouldn’t. After all, he was carrying a gun. He raised it, aimed and fired at the van.

  Talk about making a statement.

  We all backed away, the heavies grabbing me, one on either side, seemingly to detain me, but actuall
y helping me move faster.

  ‘Get her to the house,’ Montaigne said.

  ‘The house?’ I squeaked, still hoping there was someone in the police control room listening. Surely, they couldn’t wait much longer before trying to rescue me? ‘I thought we were in some park.’

  ‘Never stops talking, this one doesn’t,’ Shaven Head muttered. ‘You heard the boss. Get her moving,’ he added anxiously. When that van went up, it could still take all of us. I knew nothing about the explosive powers of diesel, but the petrol they’d sloshed was going nicely, and all those tools would make neat little missiles.

  We moved. And found, just over the brow of the nearest hill, a couple of what looked like golf buggies. I was to share with Montaigne and Heavy Two.

  ‘Ooh, I’ve never played golf,’ I told Griff’s mobile. Please, please come soon. Any moment now I’d run out of silly things to say. Or they’d tape my mouth again.

  We all piled in. Given the circumstance, you’d have expected pace, urgency. But, of course, the little procession was incredibly sedate, even when the explosion we’d all been waiting for shook the skies. All the birds that had been quietly minding their own business rocketed into the air, yelling much as I wanted to yell. Then, as the house, a pretty Georgian gentleman’s residence, came into sight, I wanted to coo aloud with pleasure. Why not? Another bit of assistance for the silent listener. I hoped.

  ‘What a gorgeous house. Eighteen hundreds?’ I asked.

  ‘You know too damned much,’ Montaigne said.

  I shut up and looked at the house. At least, unlike the parkland, it would provide plenty of cover for the police, should they need it. Not the house itself, with its plain, elegant lines, but the outbuildings.

  ‘So where’s the pot you want me to glue?’ I asked.

  ‘You’d have saved us all a great deal of trouble if you’d asked that before,’ he said bitterly. ‘But then you had to go poking your nose into matters that didn’t concern you.’