by Sam Hepburn
I pushed through the crush of people and laid Nina across a row of chairs. She’d gone totally limp and just lay there eyes half closed, covered in blood. I looked round wildly. A couple of nurses came towards us, not running but moving fast.
‘It’s her hand,’ I gasped. ‘It won’t stop bleeding. She sliced it with a saw and she keeps passing out.’
The nurse grimaced as she untied the grimy blood-soaked strip of T-shirt. ‘All right. We’ll make her a priority. What’s her name?’
Nina groaned and her eyes half-opened, darting me a warning. I’d forgotten. She was illegal, no right to be here, maybe no right to treatment either.
‘Sadie,’ I said quickly. ‘Her name’s Sadie Slattery.’
‘Give reception the rest of her details.’
I lied some more to the receptionist, giving her Doreen’s address, my date of birth and pretending that Nina’s aunty was parking the car and would be aIong any minute to sign the forms.
I sat down, dizzy with relief that Nina was being taken care of, petrified that Viktor’s thugs were going to storm in any minute and woozy with hunger. All I’d had in the last eight hours was a bite of chocolate, a slurp of tap water and an overdose of adrenalin. I headed for the vending machines and started stabbing the coin return buttons in the hope of scraping up enough money to buy a packet of crisps. No luck. I lurched back to my seat and as I dropped my head in my hands almost ready to cry, I got that tight itchy feeling in my scalp. Someone was watching me. I looked up warily and caught the probing stare of a burly black guy sitting across the aisle. He had a slash on his cheek and looked like he’d just finished one argument and was up for another. He wasn’t Ukrainian, that was for sure, but he was striding towards me, one hand stuffed in his pocket like he’d got a gun or a knife in there. I shrank back. He whipped out his fist. My heart jack-knifed. His fingers opened and a handful of coins bounced into my lap. Mainly coppers but one or two pound coins and a few fifty, ten, and twenty-pence pieces.
‘Looks like you could do with a snack,’ he growled.
I stared up at him, shocked and grateful.
‘You’ll never know,’ I croaked.
‘Been there a few times myself.’
The big guy clenched his fist again and touched mine. As he went back to his seat a nurse called out ‘Ronan Bellfield’ and he picked up a battered guitar and disappeared through the swing doors.
I fed the money into the vending machines, wondering how many songs he’d had to sing to buy me that cheese sandwich and that bottle of Coke. I divided the sandwich into three pieces and ate mine hunched in a corner with one eye on the swing doors watching for Nina, and the other on the entrance in case Viktor, Bogdan or Shrek turned up. My nerves were in shreds. What was taking so long?
Finally she came out. She’d got her hand in a sling and she was walking without help but her clothes were still covered in blood and there were deep purple smudges under her eyes that stood out against the pasty white of her face.
I handed her a chunk of sandwich and the rest of the Coke. ‘C’mon. Let’s get out of here.’
‘Sadie Slattery!’
Like an idiot I swung round, looking for Mum. A nurse was walking towards us holding up a little white packet. ‘You forgot your pills, Sadie.’
I tried to ward off the pain by telling myself Mum would have been pleased that her name had come in handy.
‘Take two every four hours,’ the nurse said. ‘And make sure you rest that hand and take things easy.’
Take things easy. Yeah, right.
Sneaking into the half-empty car park we made a dive for the shadows and crouched by the wall, watching headlights criss-cross the tarmac as a straggle of nightshift workers came and went. I pressed the key remote. The Lexus squawked, flashing a response. We counted the seconds, waiting for Bogdan or Shrek to come running. Nothing. I made a move towards the Lexus. Nina grabbed my arm and went rigid.
‘What’s up?’ I said.
‘It was shock of cutting my hand. I was not thinking.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘Viktor. He has tracking devices in all his cars. If he gets to computer he can follow us wherever we go.’
I scanned the parked cars, searching for one that would be old enough to hot wire. It was a toss-up between a beaten-up, soft-top Mini and a rusty white van. I picked the Mini. But when it came to the actual hot wiring I’d have to rely on my recall of the it’s-so-easy-I-can-do-it-one-handed auto theft scenes I’d watched in a million movies and the time the Farm Street joyriders dared me to have a go at Eddy’s Fiesta and I nearly got fried.
‘Get Oz and keep a look out,’ I said.
Nina scurried over to the Lexus, pulled Oz off the back seat and tried to drag him over to the Mini. He dug in, refusing to budge, and when she tried to pick him up he wriggled free and jumped up at the boot whining and clawing the paintwork.
‘Oz, for God’s sake, we haven’t got time for this,’ I hissed, running back and grabbing his collar.
Nina waved me quiet. ‘Listen, Joe. There is something in there.’
Even with all the noise Oz was making I could hear a muffled thumping coming from the boot.
‘Stand back.’ I pressed the key fob. Slowly, the cover rose up like the lid of Dracula’s coffin and the interior light clicked on. There was a huge bloke curled up inside, all wrapped in duct tape like a half-finished mummy with a black hood over his head.
‘Je-sus!’ I said.
Oz was going crazy so I threw his bit of sandwich on to the back seat, chucked him in after it and shut the door. Then I tugged the hood off the man’s head. The first thing I saw was a bloody gash across his forehead. The second was a pair of black bloodshot eyes blinking up at me like I was some kind of angel in a vision.
It was Yuri.
Wrong time, wrong place to start asking all the questions I’d got backing up in my brain. But still . . .
Viktor’s boys had done a thorough job of tying him up and without the Swiss army knife I’d never have got the tape off his arms and legs. He was totally out of it and it took me, Nina and a lot of heaving and pushing to get him out of the boot and lean him against the side of the Lexus.
I ran to the Mini, slit the soft top and reached inside for the handle. Groping under the dash I pulled out the tangle of cables, trying to work out which ones were the ignition and starter wires. It wasn’t like this in the movies. I took a risk and flipped on the interior light, just for a second. Keep calm, Joe, you can do this. I picked out one red and one black wire, and used the pliers attachment to clip them and strip back the insulation. Bracing myself against the fifty-fifty chance of getting frazzled I twisted them together and gave a yes of triumph when the dashboard warning lights flickered on. As I fiddled around, the starter wire made contact and gave off a grudging spark. The ancient engine grunted and turned over. I fumbled with the clutch and crashed the gears. The car hiccoughed, lurched about two yards and stalled.
Hurrying to restart it, I saw Nina, lard white and scarecrow-haired, her clothes still covered in blood, trying to help Yuri towards the Mini. Bits of duct tape flapped from his clothes and he was swaying around, opening and closing his mouth like a landed trout. In the sickly yellow car park lights they looked like a couple of extras from Night of the Living Dead.
I pulled up beside them. Yuri was in a bad way and I only just managed to manoeuvre him on to the tiny back seat before he passed out. I ran to fetch Oz. By the time I got back Nina had taken off her sling and was sitting in the driver’s seat wrapping the filthy hood we’d taken off Yuri round her own head in a kind of turban. Rather her than me, but it did the job of hiding her silvery hair.
‘Put your sling back on and move over,’ I said.
‘I am driving,’ she said. ‘I have driven tractors, remember?’
‘What about your stitches?’
She pulled a face. ‘This car has gears. Even with one hand I will drive it better than you.’
‘
Thanks.’
But she was right and there was no point beating myself up about it. I got in the passenger seat, pulled Oz in after me and tossed her a pair of thick black-framed glasses I’d spotted on the dashboard.
Headlights swept the tarmac and a silver Volvo screeched to a stop in front of the Lexus. Viktor’s tracking system had worked. Two big guys in leather jackets got out and opened the boot. As soon as they saw it was empty one of them got on his phone and started walking up and down, peering between the parked cars, while the other one struck off towards the entrance to A and E. A couple of nurses hurried past and a little Fiat pulled out of a space opposite.
‘Go! Go now!’ I hissed. ‘He’ll think you’re one of the night staff going home.’
I rammed Oz into the footwell. He didn’t like it but I crouched over, holding him down. Nina eased the car into first and puttered past the Lexus. I watched in the wing mirror as the bloke with the phone glanced round, looking for three people – an ash-blonde girl, a mixed-race boy and an old man trussed up like a chicken. What he saw was a woman in a dark hat and glasses, driving sedately towards the exit in a beaten-up Mini. What I saw was the stubbly face of the man who’d watched me smash up that over-the-top wreath on Mum’s grave.
As soon as we hit the road Oz made an excited scramble into the back and hurled himself at Yuri, licking his face and prodding him with his paw. Nina pulled off the glasses and pumped the accelerator till she’d put at least a mile between us and the car park. Even though she was only using her left hand to change gear, the new bandage was already soggy with blood and her lips puckered in pain when she asked the question I’d been dreading.
‘Where to?’
Good question, Nina. Farm Street was a total no-go and I couldn’t see Doreen wheeling out the welcome wagon for a couple of blood-stained illegals on the run from the Ukrainian Mafia. As for the Besedka . . . . yeah well, let’s just say that when it came to safe hiding places we weren’t exactly spoilt for options.
‘Find some woods. You can rest for a bit and I’ll try to get some sense out of Yuri.’
I leant over the seat and tried to bring him round, slapping his face and dribbling Coke into his mouth. All he did was spit it out, thrash his legs and groan.
‘Yuri. Wake up. Why’s the Vulture after you? Why did she kill Ivo Lincoln and Sadie Slattery?’ I slapped him harder. ‘She was my mother, come on, tell me!’
Barely conscious, he just stared through me, mumbling in Russian.
‘Nina! What’s he saying?’
‘That he would rather die than go on running.’
I was with him there. Suddenly Yuri lunged forward, gripped Nina ’s shoulders and started shouting in her ear. The Mini swerved. Wincing with agony she slammed her bandaged hand on the wheel, struggling to regain control. I shoved Yuri back. ‘Stop it! You’ll get us all killed.’
Somewhere in his angry rant I picked out two words I recognised: Elysium and Korshun.
‘What is it, Nina? What’s he saying?’
‘He is confused. Words are not clear but he says bad thing happened at Elysium and now he must make Vulture pay for what she did.’
It was like she’d punched a hole in the darkness. In the trickle of light I could see all the random bits of data I’d picked up about the Vulture flying together, building up a picture of real person. She was a powerful woman, obsessed with secrecy, rich enough to put a million quid on Yuri’s head, ready to kill anyone who got in her way, and now he was saying she’d been involved in something bad at Elysium. Snatches of Norma Craig’s voice kept breaking through, like interference on Mum’s old radio, getting louder and clearer till they were all I could hear . . . there are far more inhuman crimes than murder . . . when you do something truly terrible . . . The lies, the pretence, the guilt . . . It was her! Norma Craig was the Vulture! Not Clairmont! This time it all fitted. Think about it. Norma, the daughter of a sixties gangster, Norma weighed down by guilt, Norma with her endless millions, flashy office and thirty-year blank on her CV. Sickest of all, Norma fixing it so she could meet me face to face and harp on about forgiveness. I’d thought she was crazy. But she was more than that. It was like she’d got a split personality, murdering Mum and Lincoln one minute, spilling her guts to me the next. Struggling to breathe, I seized Yuri’s arms, trying to shake him awake. ‘It’s Norma, isn’t it? Norma Craig is the Vulture!
His head jerked up and his eyes flickered open and shut as if they were wired to a faulty circuit. ‘Miss Norma. Where is she? Where is Miss Norma?’
‘At Elysium.’
‘No. No. No.’ He was slurring his words. ‘House empty. She not there.’
‘She came back. That’s why the builders turned up. Remember? You had to get away. I’ve been looking for you ever since. Yuri, listen to me, the Vulture had Ivo Lincoln killed.’
He smiled a crazy smile. ‘No. He help me. He write my story in newspaper. He tell everyone who Vulture really is.’
‘No. He can’t. He’s dead!’ I was talking loud and slow but it wasn’t going in. ‘She had him and my mother killed. In a car crash. Why did he go to see Sadie Slattery that night? What did she have to do with the Vulture?’
His peered at me as if I was the one talking gibberish. ‘Sadie? Who is Sadie? I do not know Sadie.’
‘She was my mother. She lived in Saxted as a kid. Is it something to do with her mother working for Norma Craig?’
‘Miss Norma.’ He punched his chest and gazed into the distance, as if he could see her coming. ‘Take me to Miss Norma. If I can look in her eyes and tell her what is in my heart I do not care if they kill me.’
‘Tell her what, Yuri?’ I shook him hard.
His eyes rolled back and he drifted into unconsciousness. I let him go, feeling like I was going to burst. Every time I thought I’d found a way out of this weird maze of mirrors, I’d turn a corner and smash into my own reflection. I couldn’t take it. I was sick of mysteries and even sicker of running.
‘Stop the car!’
‘What?’ Nina pushed my hand off the wheel and screeched to a stop.
I fumbled for the last few coins I’d got left from the hospital. ‘Take it. Go and wait in that bus shelter. If I can, I’ll come back for you. If not, you’ll still be better off than coming with us.’
‘Coming where?’
‘Elysium. Yuri wants to have it out with Norma Craig and so do I.’
‘You are mad. If she is Vulture she will kill you.’
‘Maybe. But first I’m going to make her tell me why she killed Mum.’
‘Why would she tell you this?’
‘She’s a psycho but she’s screwed up with guilt. If I can get her on her own, just her and me, like last time, I think I can get her to talk.’
‘Then what will you do?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t care.’
‘She will have bodyguards everywhere.’
‘No, at Elysium she’s just got the one. Probably so no one susses she’s leading a double life.’
‘I come with you.’
‘No.’
‘You cannot even drive properly.’ Nina revved the engine and swung back into the road. ‘Besides, I have nowhere else to go.’
I glanced at her and saw her mouth set hard.
‘OK. But you’re going to wait in the woods.’
She drew up by a signpost that meant nothing to either of us.
‘See if there is map,’ she said.
There wasn’t but I kind of knew that Essex was north of Kent so we should head south till we hit signs I recognised. The only problem was, which way was south?
I gazed into the night trying to remember this documentary that me and Mum had watched about an escaped POW who made his way across Europe navigating by the stars. That kind of stuff doesn’t usually stick in my mind, but Mum had been writing a song about finding your way when things get tough, and having a bit of trouble with the lyrics. So we’d stood on our balcony and had a go at picking out the stars h
e’d used to guide him. But she still couldn’t make the lyrics work. And she never did finish that song.
I poked my head out the window, stared up at the sky and told Nina to take a left as soon as she could. She thought I’d flipped till I told her about the documentary. She made a snorting noise and swung a left. I don’t know which of us was more surprised when my plan finally started to work.
Between checking signposts and giving Nina directions I replayed my last meeting with Norma Craig. A dark, sticky anger bubbled up inside me, erupting in bursts of fury whenever I got to the bits where she’d looked me in the eye and talked about guilt and regret. But I knew I’d have to keep a lid on it when I got to Elysium, at least for long enough to make her tell me why she ordered Mum’s death. First I’d drop Mum into the conversation really casually then I’d draw the truth out of Norma bit by bit, like one of those cop-show psychologists. Once she’d confessed, somehow I’d find a way to make her pay for what she’d done. The struggle to hold back the hatred was waking me up, sharpening my brain, blocking out the hunger, pain and thirst. Which was good because Nina had started nodding off and if I hadn’t kept prodding her, turning up the radio and opening the windows, we’d never have made it. As the Mini rumbled into Saxted woods and the floodlit outline of Elysium loomed through the gates she stiffened and stared up at the house, suddenly wide awake.
‘What’s wrong?’ I said.
‘That is Elysium?’
‘Yeah, why?’
‘Viktor has been watching CCTV of this house.’
‘What? How?’
She frowned down at her hands. ‘It has security cameras. My father cloned feeds. It is not difficult, Viktor makes him do it a lot.’
‘I don’t get it. Why’s Viktor spying on the Vulture?’
‘Probably to steal from her. He got my father to disconnect alarms in house as well.’
‘Well, at least that’s one less thing to worry about. The CCTV’s going to be a problem though.’
