by Andy McNab
I heard some scuffling.
"I can see that."
"How many blocks are there in the picture?"
"Three. There's three blocks. One of them is flashing."
"That's good." It wasn't really. I was sweating: two blocks meant she hadn't recharged it and the battery was down to less than half-power, and I was going to need a lot of air time to talk her through the whole process.
"What's that noise?" she said.
The truck driver was now really pissed off and hollering into the phone, the cigarette in his hand making the phone booth look like a steam room.
"Nothing to worry about. Kelly, I'm going to tell you what to do, but you need to keep listening to me on the telephone.
Can you do that?"
"Why is Euan bad, Nick? What.. " "Listen, Kelly, Euan wants to hurt me. If he finds you doing this thing for me, he will hurt you, too. Do you understand that?"
I could hear lots of rustling; she was obviously still under the bed covers. Then there was a very quiet "Yes."
She wasn't sounding like a happy bunny. I was sure there was a better way I could be going about all this, I just didn't have time to think what it might be.
"If Euan wakes up," I said, "or if the telephone stops working, I want you to leave the house very, very quietly. I want you to go down the track to the road and hide behind the trees, just by the big gate that Euan drove through to get to his cottage. Know where I mean?"
"Yeah."
"You must hide there until you hear a car come and stop, but don't get out from your hiding place unless it toots its horn two times. Then come out. Do you understand that? I'll be in the car. It's a blue Astra, OK?"
There was a pause.
"What's an As--Astra, Nick?"
Shit, she was seven years old and American. What was I expecting?
"OK. I'll stop in a blue car and come and get you."
I got her to repeat it, and for good measure I said, "So if Euan wakes up and sees you, I want you to run to the trees as fast as you can and hide. Because if Euan catches you doing what I want you to do, we will never see each other again.
Don't let me down, OK? And remember, don't you come out from behind those trees, even if Euan calls for you, OK?"
"OK. You will come and get me, won't you?"
There was a bit of doubt in her mind.
"Of course I will. Now, first of all, what I want you to do is get out of bed, then put the phone on the bed and get dressed, very quietly. Put on a nice thick coat. And you know those sneakers we bought? Make sure you take those as well, but don't put them on yet."
I heard her put the phone down and start rummaging around the room.
For God's sake, hurry up!
I forced myself to calm down.
It was almost two minutes before I heard: "I'm ready, Nick."
"Now listen to me very carefully. Euan is not a friend; he has tried to kill me. Do you understand, Kelly? He has tried to kill me."
There was a pause.
"Why? I--I don't understand. Nick. I thought he was your best friend."
"I know, I know, but things change. Do you want to help me?"
"Yes."
"Good. Then you must do exactly what I tell you. I want you to put your sneakers in your coat pockets. OK, now it's time to go downstairs. I want you to keep the telephone with you. All right?"
"Yeah."
Time was running short, and so was my money.
"Just remember, you must be very, very quiet, because otherwise you will wake Euan. If that happens, you run out of the house toward the hidey hole--promise?"
"Cross my heart."
"OK, I want you to creep very, very gently down the stairs. Don't talk to me again until you're in the kitchen; and re member, from now on, what we must do is whisper all the time. OK?"
"OK."
I heard the door open. As she came out of the room I imagined her passing the bathroom on her left. Ahead of her, up a half-landing and about twelve feet away, would be the door to Euan's room. Was it open or closed? Too late to ask her. A few steps now and she'd be at the top of the main stairs and next to the old grandfather clock. On cue, I heard its slow, ponderous tick-tock; it was like something out of a Hitchcock movie.
The sound receded very slowly: good girl, she must be going down the stairs very carefully. Only once did I hear the creak of a board and I wondered again about Euan's door. Did he usually sleep with it open? I couldn't remember.
At the bottom of the stairs she'd be turning back to the right, heading toward the kitchen.
I tried to imagine where she was but lost her in the silence.
At last I heard the barely perceptible sound of a protesting hinge; that was the kitchen door. I felt a stab of guilt for using the girl like this, but she knew the score well, sort of. Fuck it, the decision was made; I just had to do it. If it worked, fine;
if it didn't, she was dead. But if I didn't try it, she was dead anyway, so let's get on with it.
"I'm in the kitchen, but I can't see very much. Am I allowed to turn the light on?"
It was the loudest whisper I'd ever heard.
"No, no, no, Kelly, you've got to speak very slowly and very quietly like this," I demonstrated.
"And don't put the light on; that would wake Euan up. Just go more slowly, and listen to me all the time. If you don't understand anything, just ask, and remember, if anything goes wrong or you hear a noise, stop and we will both listen. OK?"
"OK."
The problem with her being quieter on the phone was that it was harder to hear her. The truck driver had now finished, slamming the phone down and storming into the Burger King. A woman took his place and was yammering to a girlfriend.
The kitchen was two areas knocked into one, the old back room of the house and what had used to be an alley between the cottage and the old sheep-pen wall. The alley had been closed in by a sunroom, with all the kitchen units arranged galley-style in one long range beneath it. There were plants on pedestals and a large circular wooden table in the middle of the area; I hoped Kelly wouldn't knock anything over onto the squash-court floor. Thinking of the night we'd spent "rescuing" the wood made me shudder at all those years of friendship, trust, and even love. I felt let down, used, fucked over.
There couldn't be much battery time left.
"Everything OK?" I said. I tried hard not to convey any sense of panic, but I knew we would be in trouble soon. If the phone went dead, would she remember what I'd told her to do?
"I can't see a thing. Nick."
I thought for a few seconds, trying to remember more of the layout.
"OK, Kelly, go very slowly to where the sink is.
Go and stand by the hob."
"What's that?"
"It's the bit you cook on with saucepans. You see it?"
"Yeah."
"OK, there's a switch on the right-hand side. Can you see that?"
"I'll look."
A second or two later she said, "I can see now."
She must have switched on the small fluorescent light that illuminated the stove top; she sounded relieved.
"Good girl. Now I want you to go back and very gently close the kitchen door. Will you do that for me?"
"OK. You are coming for me. Nick?"
I wasn't feeling confident about this at all. Should I stop it now and just get her to open the door for me and wait? No, fuck it. He might be getting a phone call any minute about Simmonds's death.
"Of course I am, but I can't come unless you do what I say, OK? Keep the telephone to your ear and very gently close that door."
I heard the telltale click.
"What I want you to do now is go and have a look under the sink and put all the bottles and things on the table. Will you do that for me?"
"OK."
There was silence, then a soft clatter as she moved bottles and cans around.
"Everything's out now."
"Well done! Now, very quietly, read out the labels to
me.
Can you do that?"
"I can't."
"Why not?"
"There's too many things and it's too dark. I can't do it."
She was sounding under pressure now; there was that wobble in her voice.
Fuck, this is taking too long.
"It's OK, Kelly, just walk over to the light switch by the door and turn the light on. Don't rush. Will you do that?"
"OK." It sounded as if her nose was stuffed up. I knew the sound so well by now. The next stage, if I wasn't very careful, would be tears and failure.
I heard her shuffling toward the light switch.
"I can see now, Nick."
"OK, go back and read to me what the labels say, OK?"
"OK." She moved back to the table. I could hear her pick up the cleaning products.
"Ajax."
"OK, Kelly, what's the next one?"
Fucking hell, this was outrageous. I held the phone hard against my ear, almost holding my breath as I silently willed her to succeed. I was really pumped; I could feel my heart going. I was writhing like a madman in a straitjacket, twisting and turning in the kiosk, miming Kelly's actions to myself. I looked across at the other booth; the woman who was talking to her friend had wiped the condensation from the glass to get a better view of me and now seemed to be relaying a running commentary. I must have looked like a mass murderer, with cuts and scratches on my face, and my hair and clothes soaking wet.
The loud noise of metal clattering onto wood made me jump.
Kelly? Kelly
Silence, then the phone was picked up.
"Sorry, Nick. I knocked a spoon off. I didn't see it. I'm scared. I don't want to do this. Please come and get me."
It wasn't long before the crying was going to start.
"Kelly, don't worry, it's OK, it's OK."
No, not now, for Christ's sake! I heard sniffing on the phone.
"It's OK, Kelly, it's OK. I can't get you unless you help me.
You must be brave. Euan is trying to kill me; only you can help me. Can you do that for me?"
"Please hurry. Nick. I want to be with you."
"It's all right, it's all right."
It wasn't all right. Nick, because Nick's fucking money was disappearing. I was down to my last few coins. They weren't going to last. I put another coin in and it rattled out into the coin return; I had to scramble for another one.
Kelly started to go through more of the labels. Most of the words she couldn't read. I asked her to spell them. As she got three letters out I worked out the rest.
"No, that one's no good. Read the next."
My mind was now racing, trying to remember ingredients and formulas. At last she read out something I could use.
"Kelly, you must listen very carefully. That's a green can, isn't it? Put it where you can find it again. Then I want you to creep out to the room next door, where the washing machine is. You know the one?"
"Yes."
Euan had a place for everything, and everything had its place. I even knew that his forks would be lined up beside each other in the drawer.
"Just by the door is a cabinet, and in it there's a blue bottle.
The label says antifreeze."
"What?"
"Antifreeze. A-N-T-I... I want you to bring it to the table,
OK?"
The phone clunked onto the stove. I started to sweat even more.
After what seemed like an eternity she came back on.
"I've got it" "Put it on the table and then open it."
I heard the phone go down again and lots of heavy breathing and sniffing as she struggled with the bottle top.
"I don't know how to do it."
"Just twist it. You know how to open a bottle."
"I can't. It won't move. I am trying. Nick, but my hands are shaking."
I then heard a soft, long moan. I was sure it was going to turn into crying.
Shit, I don't need this. It isn't going to work.
"Kelly? Kelly? Are you OK? Talk to me, come on, talk to me."
I was getting nothing.
Come on, Kelly, come on.
Nothing. All I could hear was her holding back tears and sniffing.
"Nick... I want you to get me. Please, Nick, please." She was sobbing now.
"Just take your time, Kelly, just take your time. It's OK, everything's OK. I'm here, don't worry. OK, let's just stand and listen. If you can hear anything, you tell me on the phone, OK, and I'll try to listen at the same time."
I listened. I wanted to make sure Euan wasn't awake. I also wanted a break: there needs to be a cut in the action at a time like this, otherwise the errors snowball and people start tripping over themselves; so let's take our time, but at the same time be as fast as possible. I knew exactly what I needed to do, but the frustration lay in trying to interpret it to this child, under pressure, and to get her to work quietly and all the time I was running out of money and the mobile was running out of battery life.
The woman left her booth and gave me a grin of appeasement in case I was going to lunge at her with a meat cleaver.
"Are you OK now, Kelly?"
"Yes, do you want me to unscrew the bottle still?"
I couldn't understand why she couldn't do it. I started giving her more instructions. Then I remembered: the bottle had a childproof top. As I started to tell her how to undo it, there was a soft bleep.
Battery. Shit!
"Yes, remember to push the top down before you turn. We just have to be a bit quicker or the phone is going to stop before we finish."
"Now what?"
"Is it on the table with the top undone?"
Nothing.
"Kelly? Kelly? Are you there?"
Was the battery dead?
Then I heard, "What do I do now?"
"Thank goodness, I thought the battery had gone. Is there anything you can open that green can with? I know, use the spoon, Kelly. Very, very carefully now, pick it up, put the phone on the table, and then open the can. OK?"
I listened, running through all the different options there were left if this scheme fucked up. I came to the conclusion there were none.
"Now here comes the hard part. Do you think you can do this? You've got to be pretty special to do this bit."
"Yes, I'm OK now. I didn't mean to cry, it's just that I am--" "I know, I know, Kelly. I am, too, but we will do this together.
What I need you to do now is put the phone in your pocket with your sneakers. Then take one of those big bottles from the table and walk to the front door of the house and open it just a little bit. Not wide open, just a little bit. Then put the bottle behind the door, to stop it swinging shut. Now remember, it's a big heavy door, so I want you to do it really slowly, really, really gently so it doesn't make a noise. Can you do that for me?"
"Yeah, I can do that. Then what?"
"I'll tell you in a minute. Now don't forget, if the phone stops working and you can't hear me anymore, I want you to run to the trees and hide."
Chances were Euan would find her, but what else was there to do?
"OK."
This was going to be the tough part. Even if he was sound asleep, Euan's subconscious was likely to detect the change in air pressure and ambient noise when the front door was opened and make something of it in a dream, giving him a sort of sixth sense that something was wrong.
If so, at least she'd have a head start as long as she remembered what I'd told her.
"I'm back in the kitchen what do I do now?"
"Listen to me. This bit's very important. What number can you count up to?"
"I can count to ten thousand."
She was sounding a little happier now, sensing the end was in sight.
"I only want you to count up to three hundred. Can you do that?"
"Yeah."
"You've got to do it in your head."
"OK."
"First, I want you to go to the hob again. You know how to turn the gas on?"
&n
bsp; "Of course! Sometimes I help Mommy with the cooking."
I had never felt so sad.
I made myself concentrate again. There was no room for distractions. She might be dead soon anyway. I felt enough of a shit for getting her to do my dirty work; while I was at it, I might as well make sure she did the job properly.
"That's good, so you know how to turn on the gas in the oven, and all the rings on the hob?"
"I told you, I can help cook."
A coach load of teenage kids returning from a school trip was streaming into the Burger King. A gang of six or seven of them hung back and headed for the phones, laughing and shouting in newly broken voices, all trying to cram into the one vacant booth. The noise was horrendous; I couldn't hear a thing Kelly was saying. I had to do something.
"Kelly, just wait a minute."
I put my hand over the mouthpiece, leaned out of the booth, and shouted, "You shut the fuck up! I've got my aunty here, her husband's just died and I'm trying to talk to her, OK? Give us some time!"
The kids went quiet, their cheeks red. They slunk off to join their friends, sniggering with mock bravado to disguise their embarrassment.
I got back on the phone.
"Kelly, this is very important. The phone might stop soon because the battery is running out. I want you to turn on all the gas jets on the stove. Take the phone with you so I can hear the gas. Go there now while I talk to you" I heard the hiss of the bottled propane that Euan used.
"It's very stinky, Nick."
"That's good. Now, just walk out of the kitchen and close the door. But be very quiet in the foyer. Remember, we don't want to wake Euan. Don't talk to me anymore, just listen.
Ready?"
"OK."
I heard the door close.
"Nick?"
I tried to keep calm.
"Yes, Kelly?"
"Can I get Jenny and Ricky to take with me, please?"
I tried hard to keep myself in check.
"No, Kelly, there is no time! Just listen to me. There isn't time for you to talk. I want you to count up to three hundred in your head. Then I want you to take a really, really deep breath and walk back into the kitchen. Don't run. You must walk. Go into the kitchen and pour all the antifreeze in the blue bottle into the green can.
Then I want you to walk out of the kitchen don't run! I don't want you to wake Euan."
