by A. L. Bird
Shit. Of course. I have to be careful.
‘Well, you know, it’s a mother’s prerogative. And I’d quite like to get into the office early. Do the work on – Rhea.’ I make my voice crack a little. That way, if Dan is in on the game, he won’t think I’ve lost my nerve. He’ll understand what I have to do tomorrow.
‘Mum always drops me off on triathlon days,’ Josh pitches in. ‘She’s my lucky charm. I need all the luck I can get.’
This is true. We both do.
Dan shrugs. ‘OK, then. I’ll bus it.’
‘Where’s the car key, then, so I can sort it out? Actually, Josh and I could even load the car tonight, save time tomorrow.’
He pats his pockets. ‘Here, somewhere. But what, do you have to take the bloody javelin or something? Relax, tomorrow morning is fine. Besides –’ he looks out of the window ‘– it’s filthy out there. You don’t want to go down to the car park now.’
I follow his glance. The night is dark, wet, and cold. Not ideal for loading cars. Or making a night-time escape attempt.
But is he really thinking about the weather? Or is he trying to keep us here? I’ve got to assume the latter. Which means we need to get away as soon as we can.
And I think I know how to do that.
After supper, I suggest Josh might like to get an early night, be fresh for tomorrow.
‘I’ll come and read with you,’ I tell him. ‘Page and page, like we used to do, hey?’
‘Ah, Josh’s a big boy, I’m sure he doesn’t want to do that, does he? We can all watch something together.’
‘I’d love to, Mum,’ Josh says. Good boy.
So I go into his room and we select a book. The Lord of the Rings. Fine.
‘You start,’ I tell him. ‘Read loudly.’
So he does. And while Josh reads out tales of hobbits, wraiths, and precious rings, I tell him to leave his clothes on under his pyjamas, that we’re going to go in the middle of the night when I’ve got the key, and that he is to tell no one (no one at all) of our plans. And I tell him that I love him, I love him very much.
And while I read – of climbs up mountainous precipices, of hidden doors, and battles with Orcs – he asks me where we’re going, why we have to leave, and if we will ever stop running.
But by then it’s the end of the chapter we’re reading. And Dan is standing outside the door. Besides which, I don’t have the answers.
So I just kiss Josh goodnight, and tell him to switch off the light when he’s finished.
‘And Josh – there’ll be a happy ending, OK? When everyone is safe again.’
Josh shrugs. Dan stays, listening.
‘I can’t think, right now, in the story, where it’s safe, or how they get there. But they do, OK?’
Josh nods a little bit. Dan tugs my arm.
‘Come on, Jen,’ Dan whispers. ‘Let him read it for himself.’
So I have to leave the room with Dan. And I let him lead me into his bedroom, towards the bed. Because it’s the only way I can think of to get the key to unlock the flat. The key to get us out of here.
Chapter 36
This time, I’m underneath. Dan has me pinned down, moving rhythmically in-out-in. I jerk my hips towards him up-down-up. Our eyes are locked together. But then he obviously decides he needs to be closer, or that I need to be even more pinioned, because he lies down on me fully, his face in my neck. Over his shoulder emerges the poster of The Godfather. The marionette’s strings are there in all their glory, an unknown hand ready to manipulate them.
‘I love you, I love you, I love you,’ Dan is panting in my ear. He sounds like he means it. But does he? Why would he say that so soon? Did Tim tell him to? Did Tim say: Hey, when you fuck that no-good bitch who helped mess up Mick’s life, tell her you love her. She’ll think she needs to be a good girl, and get her arse in gear to confess. I don’t care if you don’t mean it – lay it on thick.
Or did Dan decide on his own that was what was needed? That it would be a test, to see if I said ‘I love you too’? That if not, it meant I was on to something, suspected them of manufacturing Rhea, her daughter, everything? Or did Mick send them a memo, based on his inside information: She needs a good lay, gets soppy-eyed on the pillow, particularly if you smack her in the face straight afterwards.
Just in case it’s a test, I say, ‘I love you, too.’
There’s a possibility it might have been true at some point in the future. Were it not for – everything.
Dan rises up again and the marionette strings disappear.
‘You mean it?’ he asks me.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I mean it.’
He leans towards me for an intimate kiss, but then I roll us over, and I’m on top. And I ride him harder and harder and faster until – crash! We’re done.
I unstraddle him and rock myself over so that we’re lying side by side, staring up at the ceiling. Except Dan turns his head and he stares at me. I force myself to turn towards him. He lays one hand over my stomach, trapping me. With a finger, he traces one of my scars. I flinch.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says. I’m not sure what he’s apologizing for, the scars or the touching. ‘Whoever did this to you, they deserve whatever they get, don’t you think?’
The answer is so obviously ‘yes’ that it seems unnecessary to respond. But he’s looking at me deeply, like he needs an answer.
‘It was so long ago,’ I say, like the elapsed time means something. The scars are still there.
But he won’t let it drop.
‘The person who did it, it’s not the guy you told me about is it?’ he asks. ‘Mick?’
The name hangs there. The first time it was mentioned, I thought Dan could never know him. Now, for all I know, they are in on some elaborate conspiracy together.
‘It’s the past,’ I tell him. ‘Forget about it.’
He looks at me hard, then rubs his eyes, like he’s trying to wipe an image from his retinas. He lies on his back and blows out his cheeks.
‘You ever had a dilemma, Jen?’ he asks.
I try not to snort. ‘Yep,’ I say, understating.
‘What if someone you’d bonded with in the past, someone you promised to look after like family, someone who’d paid your way, what if they turned out to be no good? But they need your help. What do you do, do you cut the ties, move on, or stick by their side?’
Who is he talking about? Mick? Tim? Louise? Me? Or nobody linked to this whole shitty mess at all?
‘You can always cut the ties with the past,’ I tell him. I’ve told it to myself often enough. Look at Mick. At Chloe. At Mum.
He rolls back to face me again. ‘I’m so lucky I found you,’ he says. His voice is soft.
‘No, I’m lucky,’ I tell him. ‘Who else would have looked after me and Josh in this way?’
‘Someone would’ve taken care of you.’
I don’t like the word choice. Gangs take care of people. Then they don’t look a whole lot like people any more.
I shrug. ‘I guess.’
Dan’s eyes are penetrating deep into mine. ‘I could choose you over everything, you know,’ he tells me. ‘If you gave me the word.’ His voice is earnest. He kisses me, so softly, on the lips.
‘I can’t choose you over Josh,’ I tell him, when he pulls away. Or myself, I add.
Dan nods. ‘Sure. But what if you didn’t have to make that choice? What if we could all be together always?’
‘We are now, aren’t we? You told me to hold on to those moments.’ But I don’t deliver the line well. It comes out like a reprimand, brittle. It’s too much, this, right now.
He pulls back a little, reading me. ‘You OK?’ he asks me. ‘You seem on edge.’
I shake my head. ‘Not on edge. No more than usual, anyway.’ I’d like to tell him everything. But also nothing.
‘Is it work? The Rhea Stevens case?’
‘A bit,’ I say.
‘It’s a difficult case,’ he says. ‘Unusual.’
‘Unusual how?’ If he finds it strange, maybe he’s not on Tim and Mick’s side. Maybe I don’t have to steal the key and run. Maybe he’s a good guy, like he’s always seemed.
‘Unusual for it to be so linked to you. The Mick confession stuff. We haven’t really talked about it. That must be freaking you out though, right?’
I look at him for a moment. Where does the question come from? Genuine interest in the level of coincidence? Or malevolent tinkering to find out if the plan has worked, if they’ve got me hooked?
I can’t tell, so I won’t. ‘Why don’t you go and have a shower, hey?’ I ask him. I kiss him softly on the lips. He doesn’t know it’s goodbye.
He gives a big sigh. ‘Yeah, I guess I should. School day tomorrow, and all that stuff.’
So he gets up off the bed and walks towards the door. As he’s about to open the door, I call out to him. He turns.
‘I love you, Dan.’ Just in case, you know? In case of whatever happens next. In case he would have chosen me, over all else.
In case it’s true.
‘I love you, too.’
I take a mental snapshot of that moment, to treasure in my internal album. Or to hold as an image of treachery for future reference. Either way, it will stay.
Then Dan goes out of the door, towards the shower.
OK, all systems go!
I jump off the bed, find Dan’s trousers on the floor, stick my hand into the pocket and – there we are. Keys! Then I grab my underwear, shove my legs into some trousers, pull on my top, pick up my handbag. It’s time to go, it’s time to go.
The door starts to open. Shit! I put my hand out to the razor on Dan’s chest of drawers. But it’s not Dan. It’s Josh. And he has his bag.
‘Is it time to go, Mum?’ he asks me.
‘Yes, sweetie, it is.’
I put the razor in my pocket for safekeeping. You never know.
Then we’re off. We race down the corridor towards the door, and I bundle Josh out ahead of me. As I close the door, I hear the shower turning off. If I linger a couple of moments longer, Dan’s face will appear round the bathroom door.
Come on, this is an escape, not a fond farewell!
I pull the front door shut behind me and we’re out in the hall.
Then racing down the stairs, out the door, into the car park. We find Dan’s car, unlock it, and bundle ourselves in. As I adjust the mirrors, I look up. Is that Dan at the window of his flat, or a shadow? Is that him, slamming on the window, or just my conscience summoning him?
‘Mum, Dan’s seen us! Come on!’
Shit! This isn’t about my conscience. It’s about keeping Josh safe from Tim, and Louise, and Mick, and maybe Dan. And Chloe. Above all, from Chloe.
I stick the key into the ignition and shove the car into gear.
‘My seat belt isn’t on, Mum!’
‘Quick, do it up, then!’
I flick a look up towards Dan’s flat. I can see him throwing on a coat.
‘Come on, Josh – is it on?’
‘I can’t do it, Mummy!’
‘Oh Christ, Josh – yes you can!’ I shout at him.
He keeps saying, ‘Mummy, Mummy, Mummy, I can’t,’ but there isn’t time. I rev up the car, and we speed towards the car park gate.
As I turn out of the garage, Dan emerges at the front door of the flats.
He is waving his hands frantically at me. His face is red. I can hear him calling my name.
I put my foot on the accelerator and Josh and I squeal out of the car park into the night.
I look in the rear-view mirror. There is Dan. His hands are on his head. He’s just staring. Staring at whatever it is he has lost.
Once we’re round the corner, I look back to Josh.
‘Have you managed to do your seat belt, Josh?’
He nods.
‘I’m sorry for shouting, OK, Joshy?’ I tell him. ‘We just needed to get away quickly.’
‘It’s Josh,’ he tells me. I’m not forgiven. And quite right. I’ve never shouted at him before. Not ever.
I focus my eyes on the road ahead. I have to.
‘Where are we going, anyway?’ Josh asks from the back seat.
‘Home,’ I tell him. But I don’t mean the Luton flat. I mean real home. Doncaster home.
Chapter 37
I’m not stupid.
I’m really not stupid.
I totally get that I’ve spent the last ten years hiding from Doncaster. That the good old taxpayer has spent ten years protecting me from it. That I told the witness protection service that if I told the ‘truth’ about Mick, thus taking him down with his merry band of colleagues, there would be gangland style recriminations and they would have to move me and my unborn child.
But look: here’s the thing. Mick’s associates have somehow found me. They’ve found me in Luton. Therefore they aren’t going to expect me to turn up in Doncaster in the small hours of the morning, at my old family home. Are they?
Fuck it, maybe they are. Maybe Dan is on the phone to the traffic police even now, getting them to track his car’s movements. Maybe there’s a GPS ‘Find my car’ gadget linked to his phone, or something.
Not that he’s ringing them – if the non-stop vibration of my mobile is anything to go by, he is ringing me constantly. Or at least someone is, anyone, and I bet all the money I don’t have that it’s Dan.
But I’ve got to go somewhere, haven’t I? And if I check in somewhere, they’re going to have our names, and before we know it there’ll be a knock on the door, and it will be Tim or Dan or child protection or witness protection or any of the others who’ve failed to protect me from all this shit.
Or the shit. Mick. Because somehow he’s managed to squeeze his will through prison bars and monumentally fuck up our lives. I mean a made-up fucking court case? Why not just send someone round to stick a gun to my head? Why mess with the inside of my head with words and a little fantasy story when a bullet would do?
But I know why, of course.
He wants to be free. Not just from prison, but all the other shit he’ll have had, and the shit he’ll have to deal with yet. The shit from his family. As I said, I’m not stupid. So I know what he’ll have to deal with. That they may not believe him when he says he’s innocent.
But he should have thought of that before he punched me in my pregnant stomach. Everything else I could have put up with. What he did to Chloe, even. But not that.
I look in the rear-view mirror at Josh. He’s sleeping now. Better than him staring out wide-eyed at all the night-time darkness, hugging his spaceship to him, like he was before. He’d understood the theory of escaping, but not the practice. That it would be dark, that it would be cold, and we wouldn’t be able to stop.
So I turn my attention back to the M1.
Maybe I hadn’t thought through the practicalities of escape either.
Or even the theory. Why the fuck am I going back to the land of Chloe and Mick? What makes me think I’ll be welcome in a house my parents basically kicked me out from at the age of ten? Am I going there for refuge, or to shame them?
I should just talk to witness protection again, get them to find me somewhere else. Tell them they’ve failed me utterly. Tell them that this time, we need somewhere we can’t be traced. Somewhere outside the UK, maybe. Although they’ll fucking whinge it’s outside their jurisdiction and we have to stay here on this stupid small island. Maybe when we’ve done Doncaster, I’ll just keep driving, and we’ll make it north, to Scotland, and we can live in the Outer Hebrides, and burn our clothes for fuel by some loch somewhere.
Or maybe not.
My phone vibrates again, and Josh stirs in the back. Shut up, phone. I wriggle around, trying to get access to it to turn it off. I daren’t take my eyes off the road but I can’t be doing with this constant calling. I want to be free. I want me and Josh to have t
hese two, three hours to ourselves. In the dark. On the way to Doncaster. A hiatus, incommunicado. If I don’t answer, if I don’t stop, then no one can get to us until I turn up on my mother’s doorstep and announce myself. Freedom again, like those nights on the run from the care homes.
I manage to turn the phone off, but it’s too late. Josh is murmuring his hellos from the back seat.
‘It’s OK, go back to sleep,’ I tell him.
‘Are we there yet?’ he asks me.
‘Not yet,’ I say.
‘I need the loo,’ he says.
Of course he does.
‘You’ll have to hold it in, sweetie. We can’t stop. We’ll be found.’
‘I’ll have to go in the car then.’
Poor Dan. When he eventually gets his car back it will stink of piss. But if he’s as corrupt as he could be, it’ll suit him.
Josh starts to cry.
‘Sweetie, what’s wrong?’
‘I just want to go to the loo,’ he says. But he says it with such force I know he also means: I just want to go to the loo in somewhere warm and safe and secure that I can call home.
I get it.
‘Really badly?’ I ask him.
‘Really badly,’ he says.
I’m going to have to stop. I think there was a sign a while back for some kind of services, so they should be coming up soon. It’s either that or I pull into a lay-by and make Josh wee by the side of the road. But it’s dark, it’s started to rain, and although that might meet his physical needs, it won’t meet his emotional ones. He’s not as tough as me; this is not his journey.
‘OK, sweetie. We’ll stop. But you have to wear your disguise hat, OK?’
‘OK.’ He nods.
The service station comes into view and I park up in a dark corner away from the entrance. When Josh and I both have our hats on, we get out.
‘We have to be quick,’ I say. ‘Heads down.’
We walk as unobtrusively as possible towards the bathrooms. Josh makes to go into the gents’, but I drag him with me.
‘I’m old enough to go by myself,’ he says.
‘Not tonight, you’re not,’ I tell him.
No child of mine is getting snatched in a motorway service station. That is not part of the plan. So I propel him into a cubicle in the ladies’ and I go in with him.
