One wrong turn, p.22
One Wrong Turn, page 22
‘Ooh, you do. What is it? I’m intrigued.’
I swallowed again, my gaze on Paul. He seemed to be having some difficulty with the padlock.
‘No plan,’ I said quietly. ‘I just want you to let me go.’
‘Is it Paul? Do you think he’s the weak link?’
How to answer?
‘I don’t think he trusts you very much.’
‘Well, that’s understandable, wouldn’t you say? I’m going to tell you something, Abi. I had my doubts about Paul, too. Once he had the money, I knew that would change things for him. I wanted to make sure he would follow through.’
I stopped and looked back at her in surprise.
‘Oh, not about paying me,’ she said, scrunching up her face. ‘I know he wants Lila. I’m relying on it. But a conscience can be a tricky thing. Assuming you have one, which I’m pretty sure Paul does. He couldn’t come clean to Samantha’s parents. He knew the risks of that, and he also knows they have a very low opinion of him. And he could hardly go to the police. But I was worried about Samantha. It would have been a long drive back to Bristol for the two of them. And Samantha was a mess. They’d been married eight, nine years. I was concerned he might unburden himself to her. Confess, to an extent. So I intercepted them a lot sooner than we’d discussed. We’d put a tracker on his phone. A camera on the entrance to his in-laws’ house. It wasn’t hard.’
I exhaled slowly, watching Paul as he adjusted his body position and attacked the padlock from a new angle, thinking of how I’d planned to talk to Ben on our drive home. I could see what Collette was saying. A car was a safe space to talk.
Usually.
‘But do you know what?’ Collette continued. ‘Paul rallied tonight. He didn’t like it very much. You probably picked up on that. But he adapted.’
‘You killed his wife.’
‘Because of the breakdown.’
Was it, though? I wondered about that.
But before I could say anything, there was a clinking noise followed by the rasp of metal as Paul finally freed the padlock and unravelled the linked chain that was wrapped around the gate and the post.
‘Little tip for you, Abi,’ Collette said. ‘Paul isn’t the weak link you think he is. There is no weak link. And your plan?’
Her bandaged hand snaked forward and she plucked the cigarette lighter from the cubby hole, holding it for me to see.
‘Oops. Was that it?’
66
Oops. Was that it?
My stomach roiled as Collette withdrew her hand and tossed the cigarette lighter down into the darkness of the footwell behind me. My hands seemed to buzz and hum. I felt weak all over.
A cigarette lighter that I no longer had. A Biro in a glovebox.
What had I been thinking? How could I have thought that either of those things might be enough?
My heart pounded and my eyes stung as I watched Paul begin to push the gate open. The woodland path was so gouged and rutted that the gate got stuck, and he had to lift it on its hinges and walk it inwards until he was able to wedge it fully open amid a bank of ferns. His shoes were mired in mud, his trousers clinging wetly to his shins. He then turned and wiped the dirt off his hands, waiting for me to drive through.
In the periphery of my vision I stared at the empty space where the cigarette lighter had been. Then I reached out on instinct and slapped my hand down against the middle of the steering wheel.
PAAAAAARRRP!
The horn was loud – for the first fraction of a second – but it was quickly swallowed by the woodland and the darkness. My car was only small, which meant it had a small horn to match. A horn that was designed to make a polite beep on urban streets. Not this tinny, forlorn bleat in the small hours of the night.
It also didn’t last for very long, because Paul came sprinting up to my window, leaning in to grab my wrist and snatch it roughly away, then seizing my other wrist as I tried to press down on the steering wheel for a second time, holding both my arms upwards as the horn faded with a sad and fractured note.
I struggled against him, the wound on my left arm opening up like a tear, my skin stretching, flesh aching.
‘There’s nobody close,’ Collette told me. ‘Nobody who can hear you.’
I stopped fighting, then. I went very cold. Paul waited another second or so before releasing me, watching as I whined and thumped my body back against my seat in frustration, nursing my arm.
Because I knew she was probably right. She’d prepared for this. She’d planned for it. I doubted there were any other properties nearby. The chances of a passing motorist hearing the horn and stopping to investigate were slim to non-existent. The possibility of somebody being in these woods was even more remote.
No witnesses.
‘Lock the gate after us,’ Collette told Paul. ‘It’s all right. If Abi tries anything else, I’ll shoot her now.’
I quivered.
Paul didn’t back off right away. He remained cautious and watchful, his hands spread and ready to make a grab for me if I went for the horn again. But he must have decided Collette really would shoot me if I tried it because he glanced at her for a long moment, then looked back at me with a small, guilty twinge pulling at the corner of his mouth.
‘Don’t do anything else,’ he muttered.
As if that would make any difference. I think he knew it was a stupid thing to say. I think he understood Collette would kill me soon, either way. Which is why I didn’t say anything as he gave up and marched back to the gate.
‘Pull forwards,’ Collette told me.
I delayed for a few seconds, fighting to keep it together, then I took my foot off the brake and gingerly selected first gear. The car wheezed and puttered onwards. We sloshed down into a muddy trench and then rose up out of it again. I drove slowly on for another few metres, my body alive with nervous energy, and stopped just beyond the gate.
In my mirrors, I watched as Paul walked the gate closed and secured the chain around it with the padlock. Within moments he was back, dropping into the seat next to me, returning the keys to Collette.
There were tyre tracks ahead of me, snaking through the mud. Perhaps more than one set.
‘Go on then,’ Collette told me.
My foot felt crazily heavy as I pressed down on the accelerator and drove on, splashing through puddles and patches of loose mud, skirting rocks and fallen tree branches that blurred in my vision.
The car bounced and rocked and yawed. The headlights sloshed from side to side, up and down, illuminating tree trunks and treetops and the stubby, splintered remains of stumps and roots. The gate slowly diminished behind me and then vanished altogether. The track wound to the right, then to the left. It rose up and fell away again.
The interior of the car was a chorus of creaking springs and clicking plastics, the thump of knees and elbows and limbs against doors, the slip and shuffle of the luggage in the boot, and the baby changing bag behind me, and the rattle of loose coins and other detritus inside the glovebox.
Including a Biro.
Maybe two.
‘Watch the bouncing,’ Collette told me.
I couldn’t. The track was too bad. My driving was too twitchy. And the suspension on my car was no match for the terrain. Even with a 4x4 it would be difficult to navigate. I started to wonder if we might get stuck.
Then, a short distance later, we rose up over a hump in a gap between two squat stone pillars – no gate this time – and after the headlights had shot up into the sky and then back down again, the tyres crunched and pattered over loosely packed gravel.
I sat up in my seat a little higher, raising my chin as my heart seemed to plummet.
We’d reached a rudimentary driveway.
My fifteen minutes were almost up.
67
Ben
Ben eyed the mobile lying on the map next to him as he exited a roundabout and veered onto a section of dual carriageway.
‘Hello?’ he shouted.
The call from Samantha’s mum was still open. There was still silence on the other end of the line.
The phone’s battery had dropped to 6 per cent.
‘Can you hear me?’
She must have fainted. He was almost sure she’d fainted. But he had no way of telling if she’d hurt herself, or how long it might be until she came around.
He banged his hand off the steering wheel in frustration.
Is Samantha hurt? Have they harmed her?
Ben was afraid to think why those had been some of her first questions or why she’d sounded so scared.
He couldn’t hang up.
Not yet.
If he ended the call, there was no guarantee she’d call back again. And if she did call back later, it might be after the phone had run out of battery. Since the phone had been locked with a passcode when he’d found it, he couldn’t get into the phone’s settings and put it on low-power mode. There was no way he could access her number and call her back himself.
So maybe he should hang up? Conserve what little battery the phone had left?
Every decision he could make seemed like a bad one.
The road was wide and empty ahead of him, and Ben suddenly had the strangest feeling he should peel off at the next junction, turn around, go back.
Because what if Abi was somewhere behind him?
What if he never found her, or saw her again?
68
The trees began to thin out to my right, then vanish altogether, replaced by what looked like open fields dipping into a valley. I couldn’t see far in the darkness, but close by, threads of barbed wire glittered in the light of my headlamps. The wire was strung between rotted fence posts that were mounted atop a low mound of earth that formed a border between the track and the fields.
To my left, the woodland trees continued, slanting precariously and leaning inwards as the track curved around before opening up into a broad, semi-circular clearing that sloped steeply away from the woods. Towards the back of the clearing, at the top of the slope, a woodland cabin with timber decking surrounding it was positioned near the trees. The front of the cabin and the triangular deck that extended beyond it were elevated on tall metal pillars to compensate for the steep decline of the ground.
A string of festoon lights blinked on as we approached. The lights were looped between a corner of the cabin and the trees, casting the area in a soft yellow glow. At the far side of the elevated deck, I could just see the front end of a car that had been parked behind the cabin, nestled into
the woods. I supposed it was the vehicle Collette and Jason had used to drive here, either with or without Lila.
The timber of the cabin was painted black, the window frames were orange or red – it was hard to tell under the glow of the festoon lights. I could see two Adirondack chairs with blankets draped over them and a bench covered by a sheepskin rug. Nearby was a small SMEG fridge and a lantern.
It looked like a cute, Insta-ready location for a romantic weekend break. It struck me as an unlikely destination for two criminals to hide out with a kidnapped baby.
And maybe that was the point. Collette wouldn’t have wanted to be found here. Or maybe the cabin was just another example of Collette’s smoke and mirrors. Maybe Lila wasn’t here at all.
‘Put on the handbrake,’ Collette told me. ‘Turn off the engine.’
My hands shook.
A taste like old pennies flooded my mouth.
For what felt like hours, I’d been trying to find a way out of my car, but now all I wanted to do was turn around and drive away from here, fast.
‘Do it,’ Collette said, pressing the gun to the back of my neck. ‘Now.’
I was conscious of Paul watching me in horror as I reached out slowly and pulled the handbrake on, then cut the engine.
The car shuddered and died.
Absolute quiet swept in.
My parking lights shone for a few seconds before they extinguished.
I closed my eyes briefly and thought of my baby. Then my eyes snapped open as I heard the click of Collette undoing her seat belt, followed by a clunk as she partially opened her door. But she didn’t get out. Not yet. She was waiting for something.
‘I’m sorry,’ Paul whispered to me.
‘Don’t,’ I told him.
A door opened inwards at the side of the cabin. A wedge of light spilled out and a man stepped through with his head down.
Jason, I thought.
His hair was clipped close to his scalp and he was wearing a dark padded outdoor vest over a thick knitted jumper, jeans and hiking boots. The jumper clung to his muscular upper arms and wide shoulders.
From the way Paul tensed and withdrew, I got the impression he was afraid of him. It made me wonder what exactly it had taken for Collette and Jason to get Lila away from Paul. It also made me wonder if Paul had the nerve to face them together and get his daughter back.
Jason jumped down off the deck onto the gravel. He then looked up, and the light hit his face, and it felt for a moment as if an imaginary truck had rammed into my car.
He was the driver of the silver BMW from the petrol station.
69
My body went numb. I stared at Jason, trying to tell myself I was wrong, that I was confused, that I’d only seen the man at the petrol station for one or two seconds, and I couldn’t be certain.
But my instincts told me otherwise.
It was him.
He’d been there.
‘I remember him,’ I whispered.
Jason strode towards us with purpose. Gravel crunched and shifted under his boots. He was big and tough and physically imposing. There was a charged intensity about him. A determination. Like he was on a mission.
I turned to Paul, needing him to confirm it. ‘He was re-fuelling his car when we were talking to Gary.’
Paul was staring at Jason, too, but looking afraid and lost.
‘Paul.’ I grabbed his sleeve, shaking him. ‘You were scared. At the petrol station. Seeing him scared you, didn’t it?’
Because I could remember how Paul had looked out at the man who was filling his car. How his mouth had gaped. How he’d seemed transfixed.
It was immediately afterwards that he’d asked Gary for nappies, not wipes and formula. Because he’d panicked, got confused?
‘Why was he there?’ I asked.
‘Because I texted him,’ Collette said, casually. ‘Jason is my nephew. You could say he’s learning the family business. Something my dad taught me. I messaged him when we first broke down.’
That stopped me.
We could have waited, Paul had said. For Jason to pick us up.
But I’d got there first. I’d arrived in the fog. I’d happened upon them without knowing what I was getting myself into. One wrong turn and I’d been caught in the middle of this nightmare.
Maybe if you hadn’t been arguing with Ben.
I pushed the thought away, blocking the pain. I couldn’t think about Ben now or the mistakes we’d made. I had to focus on what was happening, what it meant.
Jason had intercepted us at the petrol station. Collette had told me they had a tracker on Paul’s phone. But once he’d got there, he’d left soon afterwards. Why?
‘Was Lila in the car with him? Paul?’
It was a terrible idea.
An awful thought.
Collette didn’t say anything, but from the way Paul sniffed hard and clutched his leg, like he was trying to stop it from jiggling, I guessed he’d been tormented by the same question.
If Lila had been there, she’d been so close.
And didn’t that put a new complexion on Paul’s response inside the petrol station?
He must have wanted to rush outside, go to the car, look for his daughter.
But he hadn’t.
We have to go, he’d told me later, when I’d tried to help Gary. We have to hurry.
And then afterwards, when he’d made me drive them away from the petrol station, when he’d been peering into the fog with such intensity, had he been searching for the BMW Jason had been driving, hoping against hope to catch up to Lila?
‘Was it a threat? Paul? Was that why he was there? Were they threatening you with Lila?’
But before Paul could react, my door opened and a giant hand reached in. The terror drained out of me. Acceptance gushed in. I thought about resisting but I was afraid of getting hurt. I didn’t want to risk any kind of injury to my tummy.
Jason grabbed my arm by the wrist and pulled me out, turning me around and pushing me against the side of the car. He seemed a bit surprised when I didn’t shout or fight with him, but he didn’t loosen his grip on me at all.
It was cold in the clearing. The air reeked of damp leaves and timber and forest decay. The small hours of the morning, and the only sound was the stirring of leaves in the trees and my feet scrabbling in the gravel.
Jason grunted, bending my wrist behind me and clenching it in his massive hand as he pulled a roll of duct tape from his pocket.
A twist of fear in my belly.
He raised the roll of tape to his teeth, biting down to get it started.
Collette’s nephew.
He looked young enough, just. Early to mid-twenties. His features were flat and slab-like. Handsome, in a rugged way. His eyes were sunken beneath a heavy brow.
He wrapped some of the tape around my wrist before taking hold of my bad arm.
‘Ow!’
‘That hurts?’
He paused very briefly, turning my arm upwards to appraise my wound. He then pursed his lips as if he wasn’t very impressed by what he saw, before clamping both my wrists together behind my back and circling the tape around and around.
A torrent of pain streaked up my arm to my shoulder. I buckled at the knees, but he didn’t relent.
Then I glanced back over my shoulder, our eyes met, and I saw something.
Not anything normal.
Nothing like compassion.
His eyes were cold and hard, as ruthless as his aunt’s. A family resemblance, maybe.
