Blood Rush (Lilly Valentine) (35 page)

‘Christ,’ she sobbed. ‘Is everyone still here?’

A tiny voice scratched across the floor. ‘I can’t move.’

‘Demi?’

‘I can’t move.’ Her voice was weaker still.

Lilly felt her way and found Demi. Another concrete slab had fallen on top of her, pinning her by the chest to the floor.

‘I’m going to get this off you,’ said Lilly.

She jammed her hands beneath it and pushed. Demi let out a scream.

‘Stop,’ she cried out. ‘It hurts too much.’

Lilly found Demi’s face and smoothed the dust from her cheeks. ‘Don’t you worry, I’m going to get us out of here.’

Jamie opens his eyes, leans to his side and vomits. He hasn’t felt this bad since that other morning in the boarding house.

‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing?’

It’s the girl called Tanisha. He can’t see her properly, can only just make out her outline.

‘Sorry,’ he mumbles.

‘Demi?’ she asks.

‘No,’ he says. ‘I’m Jamie.’

‘You’re kidding me,’ she says. ‘I thought you two was dead.’

‘Sorry,’ he says again, though he has no idea why.

‘Where’s the other one?’

‘I don’t know,’ Jamie says.

But he does know. Trick is beside him. Jamie hasn’t let him go since the first collapse. He’s not moving now. Not breathing.

‘You don’t sound like you belong round here,’ she tells him.

‘It might sound like existential angst, but I don’t honestly know where I belong.’

‘I have no idea what existential angst is, but I completely
understand
,’ she says.

There’s a moment of silence when all Jamie can hear is the sound of his own heart breaking.

‘You and your friend,’ says Tanisha, ‘are you, like …’

‘His name’s Trick,’ Jamie squeezes Trick’s hand. ‘And yes, we’re gay.’

‘Boy,’ Tanisha lets out a whoosh of air. ‘Round here that’s a big thing to admit, you get me.’

‘Where I’m from it’s a big thing to admit, but I’m past caring.’

‘Respect to you,’ she says.

‘It’s more than that, though,’ says Jamie. ‘He’s the only person in the world who cares about me.’

‘What about your family?’ asks Tanisha.

Jamie thinks about Mum and Dad and all the trouble he’s caused with the bunking off, the stealing and the drugs.

‘I think they’d be quite happy if I got stuck in here for ever.’

‘My mum probably thinks I’m already dead,’ says Tanisha. ‘When it comes down to it, we’re all on our own.’

‘You’ll have the baby,’ he says.

He reaches his hand across and finds the bump in her stomach. She doesn’t stop him. It’s surprisingly hard, the skin stretched tight. Suddenly it jerks against his hand and he pulls it away.

‘What was that?’

Tanisha laughs. ‘The baby moving, you fool.’

He laughs too.

‘Do you think we’ll get out of here?’ he asks.

‘Definitely. Don’t you?’

He doesn’t answer, just listens to the sounds of the building complaining around him.

‘Tell me what we do now?’ Jack’s eyes pleaded with Freeman.

They looked along the walkway from their vantage point at the exit. At least half had crumbled away.

‘We wait for the crane,’ said Freeman.

‘What crane?’

Freeman gestured with his head to the quad below, where a huge crane made its way on caterpillar tracks through the crowd.

Was it Lilly’s imagination or were things less black and more
charcoal
grey. She screwed her eyes closed, then opened them. Perhaps it was wishful thinking, but she could swear that shapes were appearing around her. In front of her, for example, was something large and square. She leaned towards it and her hand made a clang against it. Metal.

‘Apart from the shutters was there anything else in the flat made of metal?’ Lilly asked.

Demi’s voice was weak. ‘I don’t think so.’

Lilly nodded and pressed her back against it.

‘Why does it matter?’ Demi asked.

‘Because if this is a shutter,’ Lilly steeled herself against it, ‘it means there’s a bloody great hole where it used to be.’

She shoved with her shoulder-blades and the shutter fell to the floor. There was the window, partially blocked by a pile of bricks and wood.

Outside it was night, but the light that poured in was blinding. Instinctively, Lilly turned away. The room around her made her gasp. The ceiling had completely gone and part of the ceiling of the next floor was hanging precariously, streams of dust and rubble raining down.

The floor was littered with broken furniture, fallen from the flat upstairs, but worse were the gaping holes. Lilly shuddered as she thought of herself and the girls, wandering blindly around them.

A few feet away, covered in a coat of grey dust, were Tanisha and one of the boys. They blinked at her.

‘This is Jamie,’ said Tanisha.

‘Hello, Jamie,’ said Lilly.

He smiled at Lilly in astonishment until Demi cried out in pain. When Tanisha caught sight of her she scrabbled over.

‘It’s going to be okay.’ She smoothed Demi’s hair back. ‘We’re right here beside you.’

Demi’s breathing was laboured and Tanisha flicked Lilly a glance. Lilly nodded and ran to the window. She threw aside five or six bricks until she could lean out. The cold air was delicious. Then she looked down. No balcony. No walkway. Nothing.

Jack flung open the door to the stairwell and raced to the crane. He dived in front of it, waving both his arms. The driver brought it to a shuddering halt less than a foot from him and jumped out.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ he yelled. ‘I could have killed you.’

Jack thrust his ID under the driver’s nose.

‘Take me up.’

‘You have got to be joking,’ said the driver.

Jack jumped into the bucket. ‘Am I smiling?’

Tanisha and Jamie joined Lilly at the window and cleared away the last of the bricks.

‘I can’t help but notice the sheer drop,’ said Jamie.

Lilly sucked in her breath. Every inch of her was ripped and bruised. She was all out of ideas.

Then outside, a man appeared from nowhere, floating in the air, like an angel.

‘Jack?’

The rest of the crane came into view and stopped a short
distance
from the block.

‘We can’t get any closer,’ Jack shouted. ‘You’re going to have to jump.’

Tanisha looked down at the six-storey drop. ‘There is no way I can do that, you understand me.’

Above them, the building gave a deep howl. A piece of plaster board fell with a crash, sending splinters around the room. Tanisha grabbed on to Jamie.

‘We have to,’ he said.

‘I’m too frightened.’

He looked into her eyes. ‘I’ll go first, show you how easy it is.’

She didn’t move, so he prised away her fingers and steadied himself.

‘Come on, son,’ Jack held out a hand.

Jamie pressed his lips together, took a step back and leapt.

For a moment he was suspended in mid-air, the next Jack was gripping his arm, hauling him into the bucket. He turned back to the flat, tears pouring down his face.

‘See,’ he told Tanisha, ‘I said it was easy.’

Tanisha looked at Lilly. The kid was pregnant. How was it possible?

‘Don’t look down,’ said Lilly.

Tanisha held the window frame with both hands and leaned as far back into the room as she could. She swayed backwards and forwards three times for momentum, then propelled herself into the air, her legs peddling furiously.

Like Jamie she seemed to fly. But too soon she began to drop.

Lilly watched in horror, as Tanisha began to sink, her arms above her head, reaching up to the sky.

‘Catch her, Jack,’ she screamed.

Jack leaned over the side of the bucket and snatched at Tanisha, taking one of her hands in his. Her weight dragged him forward so that he almost fell from the platform, but Jamie threw his arms around Jack’s waist, reeling him back in.

For a moment they remained in position. Jamie holding on to Jack, Jack holding on to Tanisha, Tanisha swinging almost a
hundred
feet above the ground. Lilly held her breath.

Then slowly, Jack began to drag Tanisha up to the bucket, until she was able to scramble aboard. She fell against Jamie and they clung to one another, sobbing.

Behind Lilly, another piece of the ceiling fell, spraying Demi with rubble. Lilly knelt next to her.

‘Did they make it?’ Demi whispered.

Lilly nodded. ‘We’re all going to make it.’

Demi’s breathing was so shallow it came in a rattle of tiny gasps. High above them came a rumble. Distant at first, then getting louder. The walls began to shake.

‘Go,’ said Demi.

Tears filled Lilly’s eyes. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘There’s no point us both dying.’

A howl caught in Lilly’s throat. Demi couldn’t be more than thirteen.

‘I can’t possibly leave you.’

The shuddering around them worsened and cracks began to appear across the floor. Small, black spidery lines that soon began to grow and gape.

‘Go,’ Demi’s voice was barely audible, ‘and tell Tanisha I owe her.’

Demi’s eyes closed as one of the cracks opened up, splitting the floor in two. Lilly threw herself at the window as the black swallowed Demi whole. The frame was crumbling in Lilly’s hands. Any second it would collapse in on itself.

She looked across at Jack. He was shouting something at her but the roar behind her drowned him out. Above her was a huge expanse of night and stars. Below her, space, then hard ground.

She looked into Jack’s face, saw Alice looking back at her, and jumped.

One week later

Lilly’s suit jacket chafed her shoulders. The myriad of cuts that criss-crossed her body were healing, but she wished she’d chosen something looser.

She carried her briefcase under her arm, and winced as it pushed against her bruised ribs, but both her hands were
bandaged
and she found it impossible to get her fingers through the handle.

As she tried to open the door to the office with her backside, someone dashed forward and held it for her. It was Jamie. He looked pale and tired and thin, but he smiled at her.

‘Are you okay?’ she asked him.

He looked over his shoulder at a woman locking a Porsche Carrera. ‘That’s my mum.’

Lilly showed them both in.

‘I’d make some tea,’ she held up her outsized paws, ‘but cups are a step too far at the moment. My assistant, Karol, should be here soon, though.’

‘Please don’t trouble yourself.’ Mrs Holland crossed her feet at the ankle and placed manicured fingers over her knees. ‘We don’t want to take up any more of your time than is necessary.’

Mrs Holland’s discomfort was tangible and she didn’t return Lilly’s smile.

‘How’s Tanisha?’ Jamie asked.

Mrs Holland sighed. ‘We’re not here to talk about her, Jamie.’

‘She matters, you know,’ said Jamie. ‘People like her matter.’

‘Yes they do,’ said Lilly, ‘but your mum’s right, we do need to discuss you.’

Jamie glanced at his mum, then nodded at Lilly.

‘I told you what I did,’ he said.

He had telephoned Lilly the day before and admitted to his part in an attack on a crack dealer.

‘I want to confess to the police,’ he said.

Mrs Holland pressed her lips together and cleared her throat. ‘I don’t think that’s wise, Jamie. This other person you were with was the one who committed the act. Whatever his name, it was he, not you, who hit the woman. Daddy has spoken to his lawyer and he confirmed that it puts an entirely different spin on the situation.’

Jamie slapped Lilly’s desk with both hands. ‘Daddy’s lawyer says whatever Daddy pays him to say. Don’t you get it? He just wants this nasty business to disappear. He doesn’t care about me or Trick or Tanisha.’

‘I care.’ Mrs Holland’s voice was small.

She leaned forward and gently placed her hand next to his so that the little finger of her right hand touched the left of his.

‘I care very much.’

Jamie’s eyes filled with tears and he shut them tight. ‘I did a really terrible thing and I should pay the price.’

‘Listen, Jamie,’ said Lilly, ‘what you and Trick did was wrong, but you making a statement to the police won’t change anything.’

‘It’ll set things right.’

Lilly shook her head. ‘I’ve spoken to Jack McNally, the copper dealing with all this, and he says the victim made a full recovery and jumped on the next plane back to Nigeria.’

‘What?’ Jamie and his mum shouted out as one.

‘She had no interest in answering any tricky questions, so as far as they’re concerned the case is closed.’

‘That’s fantastic news,’ Mrs Holland laughed.

She turned to her son and threw her arms around him.

‘Someone has to pay, that’s how it works,’ said Jamie.

‘Shush now.’ Mrs Holland kissed his head. ‘Didn’t your friend Trick do just that?’

She held on to him for a long moment, rocking him back and forth, beaming into his hair. A woman who had almost lost her son and didn’t want to let him go ever again. Lilly couldn’t wipe the smile from her own face.

At last, Jamie looked up. ‘What about Tanisha? Did they drop the case against her too?’

Lilly’s smile slipped. ‘They charged her with murder this morning.’

‘But she said she didn’t do it.’

‘There’s a knife with her prints all over it that says she did.’

Jamie shook his head. ‘After everything she’s been through, it doesn’t seem fair.’

Kerry looked up from her prosecution files. If she was surprised to see Lilly in such a battered state, she didn’t show it.

‘I suppose you’re here for McKenzie.’

‘Well, it was either that or breakfast in bed with Brad Pitt,’ said Lilly.

Kerry gave one of her curled lip smiles that showed pink gums above yellow teeth.