Salt Lane

by William Shaw

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Connie Reed. ‘I’m not the one voting for the greedy politicians’ parties who make these people illegal. I’m not the nationalist building walls. “England for the English.” I’m the one struggling to give them a fair fucking crack of the whip. And the farms round here…’ She waved her arms. ‘Do you think half of this would survive if it wasn’t for people like this? The harder you people clamp down on them, the more they have to exist like this. What do you expect them to live off?’

  ‘I had no idea you were a social worker.’

  ‘I don’t find you funny.’

  ‘I don’t find me funny,’ Cupidi said exhaustedly. ‘Nobody does.’

  Connie Reed stepped towards the door. It didn’t seem worth trying to beat her to it. She was too tired, but she had figured it all out, at least. She was relieved that Reed hadn’t ordered her men to kill her right here. Maybe she wasn’t going to kill her after all. She was a police officer; nobody would kill a police officer. She would lock her up for long enough to get away.

  ‘Who was Salem? Someone who stood up to you? Somebody who didn’t like what he saw you were doing?’

  Reed didn’t answer. It would be OK, being locked in here. She could make a noise; someone would find her.

  Reed took one last look at Cupidi before she closed the door. Cupidi met her eyes, but there was nothing to see in them, and then the room was suddenly black. Cupidi heard Reed turning a handle on the outside, sealing it.

  What about oxygen?

  The room was quite big; surely there was plenty of air in here. She could survive several hours. That would be enough time for her to get out.

  Wouldn’t it?

  They were just making sure they had time to get away. Probably.

  She relaxed. She would find something and start banging on the metal soon. It would be OK.

  And then came a gentle whirr, and a cool breeze hit her face from the vents above. It felt nice; soothing.

  And then she realised it wasn’t air. She had not been thinking straight. What had the farmer said? They stored apples in here; they pumped in nitrogen to preserve them.

  Nitrogen would replace the oxygen in the room.

  She was going to suffocate. Panic cleared her mind, focusing her. She had been so stupid. It was suddenly clear how Freya Brindley had been killed; she had been asphyxiated in nitrogen. It would not have looked abnormal in Brindley’s blood.

  Atomic number 7, she thought, obscurely. The commonest element in the universe. That’s why the pathologist had not been able to find out what killed her.

  How could she think so coldly, so plainly, at a time like this, she wondered, when she was already starting slowly to die?

  FORTY-SIX

  She scrabbled around, feeling with her fingers in the darkness. In the middle of the room she found the shelves. She tugged at their cool metal, trying to shift them, or break them apart to see if she could turn them into some kind of weapon or tool, but they were very solid, well screwed down.

  She dropped down onto her knees. Arm throbbing, she padded around the floor, hoping to find anything that she could bash on the door with, but again found nothing.

  Unsteadily she stood, realising that she had become disorientated already. Where was the door?

  How long did she have. An hour?

  Or less maybe.

  The gas was cold, chilling the room.

  Gingerly she felt her way forwards until she reached a wall, then moved sideways around the room, trying to find the door.

  Connie Reed, the independent woman living alone with her horses, had been the one behind this all the time. A gangmaster hiding behind gangmasters; a dark business concealed behind a shady one, using a hidden army of unofficial workers who were always there. Every year, more migrants were deemed non-people. If the world was being divided between people who had rights and those who didn’t, that was a business opportunity.

  Freya, a ghost herself, had died in here, she guessed. A woman who had disappeared, living a half-life, pretending to be the friend whose life she had ruined. She would have known this world of gangmasters and surreptitious work.

  Freya must have survived, hiding in caravans, working on farms, just as the real Hilary had done for so many years. She had been too good for that kind of work when Hilary had known her, but after killing the children, she had no choice. She had stolen Hilary’s identity, keeping under the radar, taking jobs where she left no trace, where no one would question her. It was not clear why Connie had ended up killing her. Because she was sure now it was all Connie. She was the one giving the orders.

  Connie had killed Freya. And Najiba and Salem.

  Najiba had been a whistleblower; perhaps Salem, too.

  Her fingertips had found a corner. Now she continued to inch left, bumping into shelves, and working her way around it back to the wall.

  No light made it into the room. After another agonisingly slow minute she discovered the handle at waist height. The door had opened inwards, she remembered. She tugged on it knowing that it would not open. It would have been firmly bolted: DANGER. DO NOT ENTER.

  With the flat of her right hand she thumped. ‘Let me out.’

  Again. Thump. ‘Let me out.’

  Thump. ‘Let me out.’

  She kept it up for a minute until the palm of her hand stung. But the shouting would be exhausting her supply of oxygen, wouldn’t it? Would it be better to wait for longer?

  She stopped. The next shift would arrive at what time? Eight? Nine? What time was it now? Six, maybe? Six-thirty? How long could she last?

  She slid down to the floor. Connie Reed would have made that calculation.

  If she died here, how would they find her? No. Reed’s plan would be to return to collect her body, to dump it somewhere.

  She thought of Yusuf, drowning in shit. Of Najiba, bleeding out. At least her death would not be as ugly as theirs.

  Suffocation was quite a gentle way to go, anyway, compared to what they had gone through. She was already feeling light-headed. She guessed she did not have long at all.

  Zoë.

  Poor girl. Poor, fragile, brilliant girl.

  That was the worst of it. She would not have a chance to talk to her again.

  She should have spent more time with her. It was not fair to have left a girl her age with so much time and only her own, teenage thoughts.

  She was crying now. Her beautiful, clever daughter. Troubled, yes, but so bloody smart and sensitive. If she had just another year with her, she could have made it all right with her. They wouldn’t drift apart the way she and her mother had done. Just a little more time, looking after her, helping her pass through a difficult time. Which she didn’t have now.

  All she had wanted to do was prove to her daughter that she wasn’t just a mother. She was the woman who found the killers. It was meant to be a kind of gift to her. She had never wanted a girl who thought mothers were supposed to be at home, baking pies. This was something she had learned from her own mother.

  She wished she had been nicer to her mother, too. She should have been proud of her, going to Greenham, being fierce, being different from the other mums. Why was it so hard to admit?

  Stupid Alex Cupidi. Always getting into shit. Always acting, always speaking, but never thinking it through before it was too late. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  And now it was killing her.

  She lay down on the cold concrete floor and spread out her arms. Would it be better to be standing up? Was nitrogen heavier than air, or lighter? Lighter, she thought.

  Shivering gently now, she realised that the pain in her arm was not as bad. Was that the lack of oxygen, she wondered? She should relax. Try and use as little energy as possible. Try and last an hour.

  She thought she saw a light.

  A fine bright ray reaching her from up above.

  But it was just her brain playing tricks as she died. She knew that.

  She is a policewoman. It is a bright sunny da
y; she sweats in her uniform as she marches in the passing-out parade. Her mum and dad have come to Hendon to watch.

  When they have finished, and all the friends and parents have gathered around, her father salutes her; she laughs. Don’t be stupid, Dad. He is so proud.

  I’m going to be a detective, just like you, Dad.

  Mum wears a huge yellow polyester coat and big round dark glasses, like she is some kind of film star. It’s embarrassing.

  ‘I did this once,’ her mum says. ‘Just like this. Down in Bristol. I was a policewoman too,’ she announces, loud enough for other mums and dads to hear.

  ‘You’re always saying that,’ scoffs her daughter. ‘That was bloody ages ago.’

  She is a little girl, back from school. Her mother is cooking her tea, slapping down pans. There is rock music on the record player. He mother can’t sing but she is trying to.

  Dad must be working still, she realises. Mum is in a mood because he is working late. But he is a policeman. A detective. It is a really important job.

  Alex knows that.

  One day she will be a detective too. She won’t stay at home and get angry at the cooker and sing bad rock songs.

  Shut up with those pans, Mum, for goodness’ sake.

  Just let me sleep.

  Because you had to give up being a policewoman and become a mother instead. You don’t have to be furious all your life. Her mother lifts a pan and throws it onto the floor with a loud bang.

  Her mother turns to her, cigarette in hand, and smiles. ‘It was something I had to do at the time,’ she says.

  Bang bang bang. Bloody hell, Mum. You’ll break the cooker. And she wasn’t even hungry. She never wanted to eat again. There was no point in eating, was there? Because she was dead.

  She opened her eyes. It seemed like an effort in itself.

  The banging was real. Someone was battering the door.

  She rolled onto her side.

  ‘Help,’ she called, but her voice was weak. It was as if there were not enough oxygen to carry her syllables in the air.

  Shaking her head, she crawled slowly to the door, felt for the handle, grabbed it, pulled herself up on it.

  Pressing her ear to the door she heard shouts. More banging. Someone was screaming.

  There was a fight going on outside.

  She thumped her palm back on the door, then slid downwards again.

  This time she really was going to go. Her brain was closing down. A big dark curtain was being drawn around her. The thumping became a muffled noise and disappeared and then all was silence. And blackness.

  It seemed like an age later.

  A man lifted her gently in his arms. ‘Safe,’ he said.

  She winced as he carried her into the sunshine. It was so absurdly bright, she could not see anything at all.

  ‘My arm,’ she croaked. The pain was back now, ugly and real.

  ‘Sorry, sorry.’

  Carefully the man laid her down on the ground outside and knelt beside her. She realised that she recognised him. It took her a few seconds to figure out that he was the worker, Yusuf, who had spoken to her in the field, the one who had taken his trousers down in front of her. Now he smiled at her; she noticed that there was a graze on his cheek, trickling blood. He had been fighting. ‘You are safe.’

  She sucked in clean air. People stood around, looking at her, chattering anxiously.

  The girl she had seen watching her earlier arrived at her side with a bottle of water and held it to her lips. Liquid spilled down the side of her face.

  Everything seemed so still. Cupidi tried to struggle to her feet to look around, but she was too weak. Her head spun. She looked around.

  The minibus was still parked at one side of the yard. The man who had assaulted her, riding on his quad bike, was sitting against the rear wheel, blood dripping from his head. He seemed dazed. He had been attacked and beaten.

  ‘What happened?’

  Yusuf smiled. ‘Fuck them.’

  ‘You saved my life.’

  He shrugged; grinned. ‘They were trying to kill you. We saw them. They killed Salem and Najiba. And Miss Keen.’

  ‘Yes. They did, Yusuf.’

  He shook his head. ‘No no. No name,’ he said.

  ‘Because you’re a ghost?’

  ‘A ghost?’

  ‘You are an invisible man.’

  He smiled. ‘Yes. We are ghosts.’

  She looked around slowly and put the pieces together. From behind the metal door, the fighting she had heard was this ragged group of workers, overpowering the gangmasters who were leaving her to die.

  ‘You did this?’

  ‘Yes,’ said the man. ‘Of course.’

  From far away came the sound of sirens. Yusuf’s face changed. He clapped his hands. The people in the farmyard began running in several directions at once.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because they were bad.’ The simplest explanation possible.

  The teenage girl joined them, squatting down at Cupidi’s side. She reached out and put her hand on Cupidi’s bruised head.

  ‘Thank you,’ Cupidi said.

  ‘Run,’ the man told the girl, but he stayed next to her, not moving. ‘You should go now.’

  ‘Bus,’ someone else was bawling. ‘Into the bus.’

  Another man was yanking the bloody-headed man clear of the vehicle, dragging him away from it so the wheels could move and the migrants could escape.

  A woman had got behind the steering wheel and was trying to start the engine as people pushed towards the door.

  Another grabbed the teenage girl’s hand and yanked her away from Cupidi. The workers were panicking, scattering everywhere. It was chaos.

  But the man who had saved her life stayed kneeling by her side.

  ‘They’ll catch you,’ she said.

  He looked around for somewhere to run. ‘It is too late. The police are coming now.’

  ‘What happens to you if you are caught?’

  He didn’t answer.

  ‘Lean close,’ she said.

  He did; she smelt the sweat of the morning’s work, and the blood of a man who had just fought other men. And she whispered something into his ear. She said it twice to make sure he understood. And he smiled, nodded, raised his palms as a goodbye, and then sprang up and ran.

  And then there was the sound of tyres spinning on loose gravel and engines roaring and sirens wailing, and the yard was full of uniforms. ‘Grab them. Get the bastards.’

  Men and women, scattering everywhere.

  ‘No,’ Cupidi was trying to shout. ‘You don’t understand. You don’t understand. It’s not them.’ But her lungs were weak still, her voice was thin.

  For coppers, it was instinctive. When people run, they must be guilty. So the police officers chased after the people who had just saved her, tackling them, throwing them to the ground as they screamed in fear.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  It was a nice bungalow in Tunbridge Wells, with neatly trimmed bushes and a careful lawn. The interpreter had arrived before them and was standing outside on the pavement, waiting. She was young and plump and wore a loose cotton dress. Cupidi had found her name on the contact list that Serious Crime kept for times like this. They had been keeping them all busy these last few days, interviewing witnesses from the fruit farm.

  ‘Hurt your arm?’ the interpreter asked Cupidi.

  ‘Yes. Dislocated.’ It was in a blue sling.

  ‘Ouch,’ said the woman. She turned to Cupidi’s daughter. ‘You must be Zoë,’ she said. ‘Do I need to know what this is about?’

  ‘No,’ said Zoë firmly.

  ‘OK,’ she said in a sing-song voice. ‘Are we ready?’

  ‘I guess,’ said Zoë. She looked nervous.

  ‘Are you not coming in too?’ the interpreter asked Cupidi.

  ‘No. It’s Zoë who needs to do this. I’d only start asking police-y questions. I shoot my mouth off.’

  ‘She does. It’s tr
ue,’ said Zoë. She turned to her mother, took her good hand and said, ‘Thanks, Mum.’

  Everything Zoë did these days made Cupidi tear up. She knew all about that kind of thing. Post-trauma. She had thought she would never see her daughter again.

  The local authority had handed over the contact details of the emergency foster family. The girl Zoë had met in the field was seventeen years old and was called Esin; she had come from Afghanistan. It had been Zoë’s idea to come here. Right away, Esin had agreed to meet.

  Cupidi went back to the car and watched her daughter walk up to the front door and ring the bell. A middle-aged Asian woman came to the door and welcomed her in, and then she was gone.

  Jill Ferriter said, ‘I brought some biscuits, if you want. They’re home-made.’

  ‘You fight crime and bake too?’

  ‘Actually, Peter Moon’s mum made them.’ She laughed out loud. ‘They’re a bit weird.’

  Cupidi took one.

  ‘It’s all a bit weird.’ She giggled.

  ‘You finally went out with him?’

  ‘We went to Cameo at the weekend. You know, the nightclub? Worst dancer I’ve ever seen.’ Ferriter had offered to drive. Cupidi couldn’t, with her arm.

  ‘How is it going?’

  ‘It’s OK. I mean, he’s good-looking, but…’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘A bit up his own arse, really.’

  It hurt to laugh. When Cupidi stopped, she said, ‘Did you bring the photograph too?’

  ‘God. Yeah.’ Ferriter dug in her bag and pulled out a brown envelope. Cupidi pulled out the old photograph and looked at it. Two long-haired boys in a meadow, sitting in front of a caravan.

  ‘You all right?’ said Ferriter.

  She nodded slowly, then put it back in the envelope.

  ‘She’s one of the lucky ones, that girl,’ said Ferriter, nodding towards the house.

  ‘Lucky?’ said Cupidi.

  ‘Well. You know what I mean. Maybe they won’t repatriate her.’

  Ferriter had been part of the team who arrested Connie Reed on the same day that she had tried to kill Cupidi. She had been at home, brushing down her horses, as if nothing was wrong with the world.