One wrong turn, p.26
One Wrong Turn, page 26
‘Oh my God, please come on.’
The steering was heavy and ponderous without the engine on. The car doors flapped and swung.
We rolled faster as the incline increased. Ducking my head, I peered at Collette and Jason through the swinging passenger door. Jason was running flat out. Collette’s eye-brows were forked, her face all scrunched up. Then, as Jason burst past her, she raised her hand and her arm jumped.
Glass exploded behind me.
I yelped.
Lila wailed again.
Fragments of glass peppered my hair and body. I ducked lower, pulling Lila tighter to me, curling my shoulder and upper body around her as the car continued to arc away and we plunged on.
I looked in my side mirror.
Jason was almost on us. His knees were pumping high. His arms were a blur.
He streaked nearer and touched his hand to the rear offside of the car. Then he gasped and reached out with his other hand, thrusting it inside the space created by the open rear passenger door, feeling around for a grip.
I turned and looked at him over my shoulder.
His hand had seized on the inside of the opening to the door. His fingers closed and curled. The duct tape on his neck was rippling with his breaths. Then he took two giant, loping steps and swung his legs forwards, aiming to scramble inside, just as I wrenched the steering to the left, the gash in my arm opening up.
The car swerved.
He hadn’t been expecting it.
He lost his grip and his legs tangled, and he fell under my car with a gargled cry.
The rear wheel thumped over him and crashed down hard.
He rolled several times in the gravel, then lay very still.
I panted, shocked, and whipped my head frontwards to look through the windscreen, holding Lila closer to me.
The low grassy hump that bordered the field was hurtling towards us, but it didn’t look quite as low any more. It was fringed with a single thread of barbed wire strung between stubby posts.
Normally, I would have braked.
I would have stopped.
I never would have put Lila through this.
But again no choice.
I braced my body for impact just as there was a loud crump, and the steering wheel leapt out of my hand. I held Lila securely. The bonnet launched skywards. There was a pop as the barbed wire strained and twanged free. We slammed down into tufts of grass with a bone-crunching jolt and bounced and rolled on.
My head rocked forwards and then back against my headrest. My knees banged off the underside of the steering wheel. I slid sideways in my seat.
Lila screeched.
Car doors slammed all around us, but not the boot.
For just a moment, there was the slightest pause – a tiny dip in our progress – then the ground fell away even more sharply and our speed dramatically increased.
The ground was very uneven. I didn’t have headlights and it was so dark that I could barely see what was coming our way.
‘Hold on, Lila.’
We bounced and jolted over humps and furrows. The car yawed and swayed. The boot lid flapped up and down. Lila cried and wriggled and I locked my arm around her.
It took me a few attempts to grab the steering wheel again. When I did, I had trouble holding on to it.
Another gunshot in the dark.
A metallic thwang.
I let go of the steering wheel and reached up for the rear-view mirror, tilting it until I could see behind from my low position.
The left rear window was gone.
As the boot lid bounced downwards again, I could just make out Collette standing on the grassy hump, backlit by the festoon lights, watching after us as we careened madly into the black.
She was getting smaller, receding behind us.
Lila was crying against me, squirming and shaking.
I didn’t let her go. I cushioned her as much as possible.
The gradient was much more severe than I’d realized, and we began to slide sideways.
‘Crap.’
I grabbed the steering wheel and swung it to the right.
The car bounced and slewed, tipping alarmingly as if it might flip and tumble.
I straightened the wheel, using the heel of my hand, white-knuckling it as we flailed on.
Thump.
We must have hit a rut or a trench because my stomach went light and I was thrown upwards, the top of my head glancing off the roof of the car, Lila going weightless in my arm for a split second before we both crashed back down and I secured her again.
My spine jangled.
My ankle screamed.
I bit my tongue.
Then the jagged outline of a dry-stone wall formed out of the darkness.
Shit.
The car was plunging for it and I hit the brakes.
But not quite soon enough.
And not effectively enough.
Because the gradient had dipped again into a vertiginous drop, and the wheels simply locked and we sledged downhill.
I adjusted my grip on Lila and yanked on the handbrake.
We sledged some more, beginning to slow.
The stones were pale, jagged boulders. The wall loomed higher than my car. It was backed by overhanging trees.
We weren’t going to stop in time.
I didn’t have a seat belt.
Lila wasn’t in her car seat.
I screamed and swung the car to the right, arresting quite a lot of our momentum as the car slid side-on towards the wall.
Then I turned my back, shielding Lila with my body, protecting her head with my upper arm, and clung to the moulded plastic handle in my door.
85
I was jolted violently to my side as airbags detonated around me, pluming in my face, releasing puffs of smoky residue that filled my nostrils with a hot nylon stink.
I pushed the bags away, coughing, spluttering. The bridge of my nose hurt. The back of my neck was stiff and sore.
Then I noticed the silence.
Lila wasn’t crying.
She wasn’t making any noise at all.
Oh, God.
I batted the airbags away from her and brushed my hair clear of her face.
It was dark at the bottom of the field, but I could see that her eyes were closed, her budded lips parted. Beneath the fleece blanket, her tiny chest rose and fell.
I was afraid she’d bumped her head. I was scared she was unconscious.
‘Lila?’
I rocked her very gently, blowing air across her face. Her nose wrinkled. Her lips moved. But still her eyes remained closed.
I parted her blanket and raised her chest towards my ear, feeling her heart racing against my cheek.
‘Lila?’
I stroked her forehead with my thumb, but she didn’t react.
‘Oh, Lila.’
The car was creaking and canted to the left, wedged into the wall. Some of the bricks had punched through the windows. A few of them were scattered across the passenger seat. It looked almost as if the wall was trying to absorb my car.
I opened my door. It was harder than it should have been because I was pushing against gravity. I had to hold the door open with my foot as I cradled Lila, and twisted around, then emerged.
Something was leaking from underneath the car as I staggered away. A soggy persistent splatter. A slight hiss. I was suddenly scared it might catch fire.
My head swam.
The darkness was disorientating but there were different tones and shades to it now. My shattered car was an indigo-blue mass. The wall and the splayed willow trees behind it were rendered in variations of charcoal and grey.
My ankle hurt so badly I could barely stand.
Then I looked up the slope. Torchlight was winking in the night, coming my way.
Collette.
Behind her, I could hear Jason’s agonized screams.
I cradled Lila to me and hobbled towards the dry-stone wall. When I got there, I levered myself off the top using the elbow of my free arm, rolling onto my hip and sliding down on the other side, scraping the skin of my flank.
I shambled away, favouring my bad ankle, knowing Collette would be much faster than me now.
I limped on past the thin grey trunks of the willows. I hadn’t gone far before I discovered that they wouldn’t offer me any cover. This was no woodland. The willows were arranged in a thin band and beyond them there was only the night and an expanse of silvered reeds draped in mist.
‘Lila?’
She still wasn’t responding to me, but when I put my hand to her chest, her breathing was steady and regular, almost as if she was sleeping peacefully.
Then I heard it.
A crackling soundscape. A thunderous whisper.
Water.
The reeds parted around me as I loped on, brushing along my body as my feet slopped and squelched through soft mud. Gradually the reeds thinned, and a slick of river revealed itself to me.
The river shimmered and shone a luscious black. From what I could make out, it appeared wide and deep, threaded with frothy torrents, scattered with stones and boulders, the rapid flow interrupted here and there by natural dams and weirs. The surface was overhung with wide bands of low-hanging fog that obscured the opposite bank.
I couldn’t see a crossing point or a bridge. There was no footpath. I couldn’t go back.
I looked down at Lila, coddled in her blanket, reliant on me to keep her safe.
Then I turned and looked behind me, unsure what to do, as the light of Collette’s torch flitted through the trees, jinking my way.
86
I stepped into the river.
The water was shockingly cold. It iced my calves and numbed my aching ankle.
I tightened my hands into fists and edged forwards, the black water creeping up past my knees to my thighs, then up to my waist.
I went deeper still, painfully aware that the fog wasn’t thick enough to conceal me completely. I didn’t know how long it would be until Collette was here.
Don’t panic.
The water seemed to pass right through me, a gushing darkness.
Then my foot slipped on something slimy and I jarred my bad ankle, yelping in shock, stumbling to regain my balance as the riverbed fell away beneath my feet. The water rose to my chest. Murky sediment swirled around me. Hidden currents tugged at my legs and waist.
I took another step. The water was getting so deep I was having to lift my elbows high to keep Lila’s blanket out of it.
My clothes were soaked and shrink-wrapped around me. My shivering was out of control.
‘Abi!’
I stopped.
I was trapped.
The currents raged against me, but I hadn’t got far enough away from her. I could hear her voice too clearly.
‘I think you broke both of Jason’s legs, Abi. You just know my sister’s going to give me hell about that.’
I turned very slowly, shivering hard. But not just from the cold and my fear. From my anger, too.
Collette was standing on a small rocky outcrop at the edge of the reeds, one foot submerged to her ankle, the beam of her torch playing around me, her gun pointed my way. Her padded coat was unzipped. Her breath was visible on the frosted air.
This woman. I hated her. Everything she’d cost me. Everything she’d done. All her lies and deceit.
‘What are you doing out there, Abi? Are you trying to make this easier on me? If I shoot you, you’ll drop Lila. She’ll drown.’
‘No.’ I shook my head, angling my upper body away from her, trying to evade the light of her torch. ‘You already killed her parents. And for what?’
All I wanted was to shield Lila, protect my unborn child. I wanted so badly to keep them both safe. I didn’t want this to be it.
‘I still have the money, Abi. What exactly do you think you’ve changed?’
I shook my head. I didn’t want to think about that.
‘Can’t that be enough for you?’ I shouted. ‘The money? You don’t have to hurt Lila. You don’t have to hurt me.’
‘You’re saying it’s a choice?’
‘Yes, it’s a choice. You know it’s a choice.’
‘OK.’ Collette seemed to think about it for a second, moving her head from side to side as if she was weighing things in her mind. ‘OK, then I choose.’
Her torch beam settled on me and she straightened her gun arm, the revolver locked solid.
I felt myself shrink. Water pummelled my body. It nearly pushed me off my feet. I could have backpedalled or dived under the water, but I refused to do that. I was done running from Collette. I stood my ground, holding her gaze.
Which is when Lila wailed.
One note.
It was piercing. Shrill.
But it didn’t come from my arms. It didn’t come from the blanket I was cradling like an infant.
Lila was crying from the spot where I’d secretly hidden her among the reeds, behind and to the side of Collette.
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It took Collette a moment to adjust to the reality of what she was hearing. She leaned back in surprise. Then she swivelled and aimed her torch towards the origin of the noise.
And I moved.
I swung my body at the hips and plunged forwards crazily fast. Water surged around me. It sloshed around my chest and shoulders.
I dropped Lila’s blanket. It floated away.
Collette was striding through the reeds, zeroing in on Lila’s cries, the blue wash of her phone light shining into the dark.
She was getting close.
Too close.
And I was much too far away.
‘No!’ I shouted. ‘Please!’
Collette didn’t slow. She moved purposefully on, sweeping her torchlight from side to side, illuminating the reed beds, searching them quickly.
Then she stopped.
She was standing immediately above the clump of reeds where I’d set Lila down.
Lila was wailing.
I was ten or fifteen metres away in knee-high water.
I waded on, water splashing around me, crunching down on my bad ankle on the uneven riverbed and kicking waves up in fans around my legs.
It was hopeless.
Collette aimed her gun downwards. I saw her back stiffen.
Lila’s cries became even shriller.
I wasn’t going to get there.
And then there was movement.
A rushing through the reeds.
A figure exploded out of the darkness, clattering into Collette, knocking her off her feet.
She yelped and fell backwards.
Ben.
Time seemed to stand still.
A split second of disbelief.
I clapped my hands to my mouth. The emotions were overwhelming. They started in my heart, a burst of heat that rushed outwards, warming my veins, tingling in my fingers and toes. Tears leaked from my eyes. I sobbed.
Then time sped up again.
I could see that Ben’s face was bruised, his left eye grossly swollen.
Lila’s cries tore through my heart and I heard two splashes to my side.
Collette’s arms had gone skywards. Ben had hit her so hard, knocking her down with a rugby tackle, that she’d let go of her gun and her phone. The torchlight died instantly.
I waded through the water in the direction of the splashes as Ben wrestled with Collette in the boggy hinterland between reeds and river. Collette was wriggling and twisting. Ben was struggling to keep hold of her.
The gun.
Plunging my hands into the icy currents, I felt all around, touching stones and sediment, weeds and who knew what else.
‘Ben!’
He didn’t reply. He was thrashing around with Collette. Lila’s cries would be loud in his ears.
I swept my hands in crazed circles. I touched something slimy. My fingers smashed against a boulder.
Then something else.
Something small and compact and metal.
With a splash of water, I raised the gun in both my hands and waded closer until I was standing in the shallows and I could see them more clearly, Lila crying and bawling close by.
‘That’s enough!’
Collette froze and looked up at me. Ben was on top of her, pinning her legs with his knees and her shoulders with his hands, staring at me with his good eye. Collette was panting from her exertion. Her face was striped in mud and rivulets of water. Her hair was soaked and knotted, her coat glossy and drenched.
‘Is it?’ she asked me.
I shivered. I was drenched and so, so cold.
‘Are you going to shoot me, Abi? You do know it’s a choice, right?’
I stared at her. I wanted to do it, but I wouldn’t. I think she knew that. I think it was something she was relying on.
‘It’s OK,’ Ben told me. ‘I’ve got her. I’m here.’
He smiled wanly through his exhaustion. His hair was drenched. His bruised and swollen face was coated in slime. Air bubbles emerged from his nostrils. I didn’t know how far he’d run to get to us, but he looked almost completely spent.
In the distance, at the top of the hill, I could hear sirens and when I looked up, blue lights twitched and writhed in the darkness around where the cabin was located.
Somewhere in the blackness above us, there was the thump-thump-thump of rotor blades, accompanied by the sweeping arc of a powerful searchlight that strafed the churning river with violent brightness, then found us and jinked back, casting us in a stark halo that made my eyes sting as the down blast from the helicopter churned the misted water into peaks and troughs.
My hair was flying in streamers. It was all I could do to stay on my feet.
Collette looked up at the helicopter for a moment, and then the awareness seemed to hit her and her head sank backwards into the boggy water as she released a groan. She wasn’t going to collect her money. She wasn’t going to move on from this.
‘It’s over,’ I told her. ‘All of it.’
She rolled her head and looked at me, and I shivered as that same dark light flickered in her eyes again.
‘Almost,’ she said.
Her hand slipped into her pocket. Her knife was in her fist. The blade flicked out.
