by Penny Grubb
She glanced towards the shed, but, seeing nothing new, allowed her gaze to rake the length and breadth of the house; that door Christa had chanced; the small window at the other end that might be ajar; the French door that led right into the lit room where they all sat.
Whatever happened, she knew she would be snatching at split-second half chances; invading a building she knew nothing about. Circumstances and Pat’s agenda had dragged her out here without the chance of even a cursory recce. She didn’t know how many people were in there, where they were, what layout she would meet, what alarm systems they had in place.
Eighteen minutes since her call. The time crawled by. Staring through the gloom played tricks with her eyes, making her imagine details she couldn’t possibly make out.
As she crouched lower, a new sound pierced the night. The distant scream of a car engine growing rapidly in volume. If this were Carl, he’d been recklessly quick.
She tracked the sound as it grew louder; heard the sliding squeal of a vehicle skidding round from tarmac on to gravel as it entered the far end of the long drive.
This must be Carl. She tensed, ready to act. If her chance came, it would be fleeting.
The spray of gravel peppering the front of the house melded into a screech of brakes. Carl had parked round the front.
No he hadn’t. He must have taken the turn too fast and had to stop. The scream of the engine revving up again competed with another harsh screech of metal on metal, swinging Annie’s attention back to the big shed, where she saw a figure in silhouette wrestling with the mechanism for the huge curtain that hung down, obscuring the front. The figure struggled to pull it open. It wasn’t the flimsy curtain she’d assumed. It was a heavy duty thing that had been insufficient to block the piercing light that now speared out.
She hadn’t imagined any of it. It really had been getting lighter as they struggled to open the front of the barn. Horrified, she saw that a multi-watt beam was about to spill out and light up the whole yard. And it would coincide with the arrival of Carl’s car, which was skidding round the back of the house as she pushed her legs into action. At the edge of vision, she could see the people inside the house starting up in alarm at the sudden commotion. Carl’s dramatic entrance would focus their attention on the yard outside at just the moment it was to be lit up, leaving her with no place to hide.
The only obstacle between her and the lit window would be the moving car. At the speed it travelled, it wouldn’t come to a rest until it was at the far side of the yard. Crouched low, running with it, she hurled herself alongside the vehicle, feeling her legs almost whisked from under her as the gravel wave hit them at close range. Fleetingly, her hand held to something, her fingers grasped for traction, she tried to hold herself off the ground before the movement sucked her under the wheels and disposed of her right there. In the final flurry of the car’s parabolic skid, she pushed herself away and felt the momentum roll her body painfully across the ground. There was nothing she could do but tense every muscle, waiting for the crash.
The stop was abrupt and painful, banging her shoulder up against a stone step. For a fraction of a second she didn’t know which way was up, where the house was, whether Carl had seen her clinging limpet-like to the side of his car for that last couple of metres, or whether she now lay exposed for all to see.
The stone step was the side of a raised bed. Its tiny lip provided a pretence of cover, the palest of shadows that might hide her if no one looked her way. But she’d been flung to the far side of the yard and the focus would be all on the car for the next few moments.
Holding as still as the night air, barely daring to turn her head, she saw the figure of Carl Sleeman leap from the car, stumbling in his haste, and rush round to the back to raise the boot lid.
Inside the house two heavies, including the one who had held Christa earlier, wrestled with the door, giving the impression their meat-plate hands were too elephantine to manage the handle.
From behind them, clearly fizzing with emotion, Leah pushed through, her tiny hand reaching forward to open the door, at which they all spilled out and the night air was filled with a babble of voices, joined at once by Carl who shouted from beneath the boot lid.
The small window Annie had noticed before was tantalizingly close, but too far from the ground for there to be any chance of clandestine access. But Leah and the two heavies were now clustered around the car boot where Carl still rummaged. The cacophony of voices hadn’t begun to die down, though none of them could have a clue what the others were saying.
The figures by the big barn were intent on their own tasks, or so Annie had to hope.
Pat was still inside. From this angle, Annie couldn’t see her. Nor could she see the woman from the sea.
This moment of chaos was her only chance, her only option, because if she stayed where she was they’d see her just as soon as they calmed down and turned back towards the house. They couldn’t miss her.
She clawed her way across the gravel, frantic to reach the inadequate shadow of the wall of the farmhouse. Once there, she scrambled on her hands and knees, keeping low, every nerve at breaking point for the cry from behind that would signal discovery. She made for the open French door and pulled herself inside.
Once through the doorway, her hand shot to her lips to signal Pat to keep quiet. But Pat had turned away, twisted right round in her seat and was hissing something at the woman from the sea, who lay back in her chair, eyes closed. Pat, too, had taken advantage of the sudden diversion to interrogate this woman. Annie had no time to wonder what it was about.
As fast as she could, she eased herself upright, gliding her feet across the polished floor, her eyes never leaving Pat or the sleeping woman behind her. It seemed too much to hope that she could creep right across the room and out of the other door under Pat’s nose, and she was ready to shush Pat the moment she turned and spotted her. But Pat didn’t turn round. Annie felt a door handle behind her. Silently, she twisted it and felt the door ease away from her. Her stare fastened on Pat, she had to trust to luck that she wasn’t about to step backwards into the arms of another of the heavies as she slipped through and pushed the door to again.
She found herself in a gloomy, old-fashioned hallway. Tired wood panelling surrounded her. She smelt decay in the air as though the house had lain empty for a long time. Yet, clearly it hadn’t. She stepped to the nearest door and opened it a crack. It led to one end of a long kitchen. She saw the small window she’d wondered about from outside. It looked no better as an escape route than it had been for access in the first place. She eased the door shut, and crept to the foot of the stairs. Light leaked down from above, but it wasn’t clear where it came from. The sturdy front door lay at the bottom of the flight. Well locked and barred, but was it alarmed?
From outside the two big rooms that faced this way looked empty, deserted, but Christa might be behind either of the closed doors. She’d taken no more than a step towards the nearer of them when a tiny sound froze her to the spot. A small whimper. It was Christa, she was sure of it, and the sound had come from upstairs.
Annie daren’t leave herself without an escape route, so reached for the highest of the bolts on the front door. It was stiff, but surrendered to her and slid back quietly. The bottom bolt was easier. She slid open the heavy old-fashioned chain and looped it back on itself so it might pass a cursory glance. The door had only one lock: a large metal box of a thing with the key twisted at an angle in the hole. It, too, was stiff and semi-rusted, but turned smoothly enough.
The argument that still raged outside the back of the house was muted from here. Listening all the time for the commotion coming nearer, she examined the edges of the door. As far as she could tell, all she need do now was turn the handle and it would open. It wasn’t necessarily the exit she would take, it might trigger an alarm, but it gave her options.
She looked up into the dim light on the stairs and, treading lightly, began to ascend.
CHAPT
ER 21
At the top, she found a landing that held two doors and three more short staircases sprouting from it in different directions. As she stood undecided, another small sound took her to the first of the doors. It was a tiny space, enclosing an old porcelain toilet without seat or lid, served by a tank high on the wall above it. Slumped on the floor, curved round the bowl, lay Christa.
‘Christa!’ Annie hissed the woman’s name urgently and pulled at her arm.
Christa’s head lolled sideways, her eyes closed. Annie threw herself down at the woman’s side, pressing her fingers into her colleague’s neck, feeling for a pulse. It was reassuringly steady, but Christa didn’t react to her touch. Annie’s priority was to get Christa away, but how? The upstairs lay in half-gloom, light leaking through from somewhere. It was hard to make out detail. No sounds from near by, just the faint whiff of disinfectant mixing with the musty smell of the house, and the background hubbub from downstairs, still muted, still focused outside the back of the house.
She shifted her weight, kneeling painfully on some object which she pulled aside. It was a shoe: one of Christa’s. Pushed into the space at the back of the toilet bowl was the other shoe and Christa’s jacket. Annie yanked them out. If she were to get them both out of here, and she had every intention of doing just that, Christa would need her jacket or she’d freeze in the night air, and she’d need shoes as well, just as soon as Annie could bring her round, because she wouldn’t be able to drag her comatose form very far.
Annie ran her hands up and down her colleague’s limbs, feeling for injury or broken bones. Christa let out a tiny sigh when Annie pulled her arm from under her. A recent graze painted a pattern above her wrist. Nothing to worry about. With more care, she felt around Christa’s head, her fingers easing their way through the fine mousy hair. She was pretty sure Christa’s unconsciousness had come from chemicals and not from a blow to the head, but she mustn’t risk moving her if she were badly injured. Satisfied that she could manhandle her without doing more damage, she shoved Christa’s shoes into her jacket pockets and tied the jacket by its sleeves round the unconscious woman’s waist.
She must drag Christa out of the house, dump her over the boundary fence, rush back and lay a false trail from the front door. A boundary fence was more than a physical boundary, it was a psychological barrier. An initial search would be conducted within it. It would give her time to cart her back across the fields to the car. Annie dragged Christa out of the tiny room and on to the landing, elbowing the door shut behind them, eyeing the steep staircase and door below.
By shoving Christa’s limp form against the wall, Annie managed to heave the woman’s leaden weight across her own shoulders so that she could keep her in place by hanging on to one of her arms, leaving one of her own hands free. She couldn’t carry her far like this, but it didn’t have to be far. It just had to be balanced enough for a fast, no-hesitation rush down the stairs, outside, then sideways hugging the front of the house. All activity was focused at the back and the far side near the barn. If she could get Christa beyond the perimeter fence, she was halfway home.
Annie pulled in a deep breath, braced herself against Christa’s weight and made for the staircase. As though her movement had triggered it, a door slammed somewhere below and the hallway flooded with light. Voices erupted from the back of the house. She could hear Carl shouting; Pat’s voice raised.
She stumbled under Christa’s weight, pulling back. Too late. Her escape route was blocked. Fighting not to pant with the effort, she turned. Three small sets of stairs faced her, heading for further mini landings of their own. With no time to think anything through, she staggered towards the one that seemed to give the greater promise of cover, the one that backed up in the opposite direction from the main staircase. She hauled herself up on to the first of its seven steps, knowing at once that she should have made it to the shortest, not the darkest. She’d never counted on carrying Christa uphill. Each stair seemed higher than the last as her knees began to buckle.
And all the time, the furiously arguing voices rose in volume. Footsteps clattered in the downstairs hallway, becoming the creak of someone’s feet on the main stairs.
With one hand clasped round a doorjamb to pull herself up the last step, and one hand gripping frantically at Christa, her fingers digging hard into the woman’s flesh in an effort to prevent her body slipping back and tumbling down to the first landing, Annie made it to the top and almost threw herself through the nearest door, letting them both fall to the floor and praying that the argument would mask the sound.
On hands and knees, she rolled Christa’s limp form aside, pushed the door almost shut, and put her eye to the crack. She peered through on to a stage showing the top of the main staircase, the door to the room where Christa had been and the stairs up which she had just carried her.
Meat-plate hands stomped up first, showing Annie the back of his head, then making her heart lurch as he turned to argue with someone behind him. If he looked up instead of down, he’d be looking into her eyes. There’d be only the darkness to hide her. The few words she caught were meaningless, but she recognized Carl as the person ascending with him. She watched the huge hand reach out to yank open the door, whilst its owner’s attention was still on berating the man behind him. There was a moment when his voice disappeared from the mix, shocked into silence by the empty room. Then he spun right round.
‘The bitch is gone!’ he yelled, cutting off the argument upstairs and down.
‘Where the hell…?’
Annie saw Carl push his way past meat-plate hands to look for himself. They looked at each other and then turned to peer at the other landings.
Annie’s mouth dried. They were going to search the rest of the upstairs. She couldn’t get herself out, let alone Christa.
A sudden banging from downstairs turned both men’s attention downstairs. Someone was knocking for admittance at the big front door.
‘Hey!’
Annie heard the angry shout along with the creak of rarely used hinges. They’d found the unbarred front door.
Annie felt the pounding of her heart. The two men clattered back down. She’d been handed a reprieve, but it might only be seconds before they realized that no one had gone out through that door.
Frantically, she scoured the room with her eyes. It was tiny: an anteroom. No windows, no hope of escape. Nowhere to hide. A door at the far side showed a line of light beneath it. It was the only way to go. She crept across towards it, felt for the handle, turned it gently and pulled the door towards her. The smell of disinfectant and an underlying sour reek made her recoil. She could see a bed. There was a light on, but not the main one. A bedside light. The blank back of a huge TV obscured her view, so she couldn’t see who was in the bed, but felt sure it was occupied. It wasn’t rocket science to work out by whom.
As she crouched there, momentarily unsure, she became aware of a soft sound that had been smothered by the pandemonium downstairs. Gentle snores. Whoever was in that bed was asleep.
Annie eased the door open further, then reached back and dragged Christa’s inert form across the lino. Crouching low, she pulled Christa into the room, then pulled the door closed again. A pause to be sure she hadn’t woken the occupant, then she crouched behind the big TV and surveyed the room she’d brought them to.
A sharp breeze blew in from a window at the far side. It was only open a fraction but looked as though it might open wide enough to let her through. Whether or not it was a viable escape route depended on what was below and how high they were.
Keeping below the level of the tall bed, she dragged Christa further into the room. As she moved beyond the boundary of the bed, she saw a heap of bedding in a corner by the window. Pulling Christa further round brought her in sight of the bed’s occupant. She caught her breath. It wasn’t unexpected, but the sight of Vince Sleeman turned her insides over. He lay back on a single pillow, his face gaunt and hollow, mouth agape, breathing shallow. If she�
��d had any doubts about the reports she’d heard, they vanished at the sight of him. He was close to death. At the other side of the bed she saw the paraphernalia of his care. A drip stand; a cabinet stacked with medicine bottles.
Thankful it was lino and not carpet, she slid Christa to the corner, pushed her up against the heap of bedding out of which she pulled a stained duvet cover, which she put over her comatose colleague. If they were convinced by the fiction that Christa had made it outside and no one came to fetch the laundry, she was well enough concealed for the moment.
But what next? To try to leave now with Christa would be suicide, but she might make it on her own and summon help. She fingered her phone but daren’t use it for fear of waking the sleeping man.
Voices floated up through the open window. Annie crouched low trying to distinguish what they said. Then she became aware of another sound. Footsteps thumping up the stairs, coming closer. She heard the break in rhythm as they swapped from the main staircase to the smaller one, heard them approach the outer door. The bed creaked as its occupant moved. Annie flattened herself to the floor and slid silently under the bed.
CHAPTER 22
It was a high bed with room enough underneath, but the bedding barely hung over the sides. Pressed to the back wall, she was out of sight unless anyone deliberately bent down to look. She felt she was being cornered bit by bit, trapped far worse now than when in that shrubbery with the light encroaching. And Vince Sleeman lay right above her. The thought was so creepy that she had to fight an urge to scramble out and make a run for it. But the footsteps were in the anteroom now. The mattress above her creaked. She pulled dust into her nostrils with every breath. Her throat felt raw with it. After the exertion of carrying Christa up the stairs, the sour smell of the room made her want to gag. She crouched in a tight ball as she heard the door open. A voice she didn’t recognize said, ‘Now then, Vince. You wanted to see me,’ and degenerated into a cracked laugh.
