Bloodline-9 (40 page)

‘Gone where?’

‘If you climb over the fence at the end of your garden, where do you come out?’

‘What?’

‘Where does it go, Nina?’

‘Fuck’s sake, she’s climbed over the fence?’

‘Where might Debbie go?’

There was silence for a few seconds, then Nina began to curse again. Thorne told her several times to be quiet, and when she had finished, he could hear a man’s voice in the background.

Thorne said, ‘Where would Debbie take Jason, Nina?’ He waited until he could hear her breathing and said it slowly. ‘If she was frightened. ’

‘I don’t know, Christ!’ The man was talking again, and Nina’s voice was muffled as she put her hand over the mouthpiece and told him to shut up. ‘The park, maybe.’

‘The park?’ The kid’s favourite place. ‘Are you sure?’

‘They go there al the time.’

When the man with Nina started to shout, Thorne hung up. As he turned, he saw a woman standing in the garden next door. She was cradling a child and staring at Thorne over the fence.

‘It’s like a madhouse here,’ she said.

‘Did you see anything?’

She shook her head, then nodded towards the phone in Thorne’s hand. ‘I was listening,’ she said. ‘Sorry.’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘Thing is, there’s a quicker way.’

It had been so easy, there had seemed no other choice, as she had stumbled across the patch of wasteland beyond Nina’s garden, through the hole in the fence and out from the tangle of trees into the park. The thought of what might be behind her had driven her forward, compel ed her to keep Jason moving, pul ing him away from the old woman with the dog and across the footbal pitches towards the bridge. The certainty had been as total, as al -consuming, as the panic.

Now, though, looking down from the bridge, she was paralysed by a very different sort of terror.

Rigid with it and helpless.

In her head it had al been so simple, and so obvious. She had not chosen this way of doing it and if she’d been given any option, she would have gone about things very differently.

Unable to sleep and listening for Nina’s key in the door, she’d imagined the final moments and settled on a long lie down, with crushed-up tablets and booze, and Jason pressed against her beneath the covers. Drifting away together with the radio on, or maybe the music from Jason’s video coming through from the next room. His long, warm body stretched out next to hers.

Knowing nothing. Unafraid.

Next to her now, Jason slapped his hands against the edge of the bridge, grunting with excitement. She opened her eyes and watched the broken snake of the train curl out, the tracks crackling beneath it as the final carriage rumbled on to the straight.

This would be quick, she knew that, but the drop was so terrible and for a few seconds, she was a little girl again, no older than Jason was now. Shivering, her toes curled around the edge of the high board as her father pushed her in the smal of the back and told her not to be so stupid. Not to be a baby. She blinked away the tears, staring down at the black lines on the bottom of the pool, wavy beneath that solid block of blue. Leaning back against her father’s hand. Closing her eyes and swal owing back the sick feeling.

Was that what was stopping her now, pressing her down against the stone and shredding her heart like wet paper? Or, Christ . . . perhaps she was wrong. Was she being stupid and selfish? She had been thinking of nothing else since the police had first come to her door to warn her. Had been so sure that it was the right thing.

For both of them.

Jason could not survive without her, she’d always known that. He would have no sort of life with anyone else. Nobody but Debbie could truly understand him or make him happy.

Nobody could ever love him as much as she did.

Now, though, with the bricks humming beneath her, the voice that screamed inside her head told her that she was thinking only of herself. How could she possibly know the way things would turn out for Jason? The sort of future that he might have? They were discovering stuff al the time, making medical advances and coming up with new ideas. Finding ways to get through to kids like him.

‘Puff, puff . . .’

Debbie dragged her head around, looked down at Jason, his lips moving, his eyes wide and bright. Fearless. Movement at the edge of her vision told her that the man who had brought them to this was no more than yards, no more than moments, away.

She could smel her own sour stink, feel the rush of wind slapping against a face she knew was blank and bloodless. Like someone who was dying.

Which, of course, she was.

It was then, as she sucked in the strength, that she heard Thorne’s voice, hoarse and desperate above the clack-and-grind of the train. He was cal ing her name every few seconds, first from the street and then from the path, up and away to her right.

His timing is as bad as his jokes, she thought, turning back.

Closing her eyes, her fingers reaching to adjust the tight, thin straps of a long-lost swimsuit.

Her father’s hand in the smal of her back.

FORTY-THREE

Thorne had fol owed the instructions that the woman in the garden had given him. He had rushed back through the house and out of the front door, ignoring the looks of those he al but flattened and the questions as he legged it past Russel Brigstocke. He had grabbed the keys to the nearest squad car and floored it. Back on to the Great North Road and south towards Whetstone, counting off the turnings until he’d reached the correct one, then heading downhil into a U-shaped side street.

Looking for the path that ran above the Tube line.

This was the normal way in, the woman had told him, the way that the local kids and dog-walkers usual y went, and it would get him into the park a damn sight quicker than the route Debbie Mitchel appeared to have taken. There were a couple of cut-throughs off the same street, she’d said, narrow al eyways between blocks of houses, but this was definitely the way to go if you were looking for someone. It would give him the best view of the whole park as he entered it from above, would take him in across the railway bridge.

Thorne double-parked as soon as he had found the entrance and when he came around the car he saw an old woman with a dog emerging from one of the cut-throughs a dozen or so houses to his left. He ran towards her. He saw the look of alarm on her face as he approached, watched her step towards the nearest front gate and pul the Labrador tight to her leg.

Thorne dug into his pocket for ID and began shouting when he was stil fifteen feet away.

‘Police,’ he said. ‘I’m looking for a woman and an eight-year-old boy.’

The dog started barking and the woman told it to be quiet.

‘Did you see them in the park? She’s tal , blonde hair.’

The old woman fed the dog something from her pocket. ‘That’s right, with her son,’ she said. ‘Bless him. He doesn’t say much—’

‘Was there anyone else with them?’

The woman shook her head, suddenly flustered. ‘I don’t think so, love. I didn’t see anybody.’

‘Where?’

She thought for a few seconds and pointed over Thorne’s shoulder. ‘They were heading towards the bridge, I think.’ The dog was barking again, in search of another treat. ‘This was only five minutes ago, but they were in quite a hurry.’

Thorne was already running.

Where it left the road, the path was just wide enough for a car, but Thorne could see that it narrowed ahead of him. It ran straight for fifty yards or so, before curving to the right. His view of what was round the corner was obscured by treetops and a block of low buildings where the straight ended.

Thorne shouted Debbie’s name.

For half its distance, once it was past the gardens, the path was bordered by garages and other outbuildings at the back of houses. Fences in various states of repair bulged or rose up on either side of Thorne as he ran. Overgrown bushes and smal trees gave way to stretches of flaking wood and brick, the graffiti that covered them no more than flashes and washes of colour as he sprinted past.

‘Debbie!’

My fault, Thorne thought as he ran. My fault, my fault, the words sounding in time with his feet as they pounded against the dirt and loose stones. Or if not, then my
responsibility
. . .

He shouted again, heard only his ragged breath, the loose change jumping in his pockets and the cawing of crows high away to his right as he charged towards the curve of the path.

Down to me.

At the end of the straight he kept as close to the right-hand side as possible, trying to cut the corner, but lost his footing as a cat darted from under a gate and he changed direction hard to avoid it. He was sweating and breathless now, felt as though something had torn behind one of his knees, but he could see that the path cut sharply left again only thirty feet ahead of him. Through gaps in the trees he caught glimpses of the Tube line below. He knew that the bridge was around the corner, that he would get the view he needed as soon as he made the next turn.

He could hear a train coming.

He ran, picking up speed as the downhil slope grew more pronounced, as the panic gained momentum equal y fast. Scuttling around in his head, dark images and ideas, like trapped rats.

Garvey reaching for a brick and a bag. The boy screaming. Blood in Debbie Mitchel ’s dirty-blond hair.

Thorne shouted again as he took the final turn, tried to scare away the rats.

There was a series of metal gates on his right as he turned on to the section of path that approached the bridge: yards fil ed with engines and old tyres; a col ection of logs and antique lawnmowers; a row of dirty greenhouses and a sign made out of plastic leaves saying, ‘Whetstone Nurseries’. After a few steps, Thorne could see that the woman in the garden had been right. The land swept away below him, granting him a fantastic view of the park. He could see across the treetops to the two footbal pitches; the paral el foot and cycle paths snaking around them towards a smal lake with fields on the far side; and, beyond them, perhaps half a mile from where he stood, the edge of a golf course. But he didn’t need the view.

Debbie and Jason were on the bridge right ahead.

Thorne stopped dead when he saw them sitting on the wal . He felt his stomach turn over and his breakfast start to rise up. Should he stay where he was or move towards them?

Should he shout or keep quiet? The last thing he wanted to do was startle her. He needed her to stay calm and stil , but Christ, the train was coming. Then he saw Garvey jogging on to the bridge from the other side, no more than a few steps from them, and he knew that he had no choice.

He shouted Debbie’s name - a warning and a plea - and began to run. He saw Garvey raise his head to look at him, saw Debbie do the same. He ran, with no thought of what he would do when he reached the bridge, his eyes flashing from the figures ahead of him to the train moving fast from his right, then watched in horror as his path was blocked by a metal trailer rol ing out in front of him from one of the yards to his right.

Thorne shouted, but the trailer kept coming, piled high with plastic water-butts, bags of compost and potted palms; shunted out of the nursery gates by a miniature tractor whose driver stared at Thorne as he reversed on to the path, stopped and prepared to turn round.

‘Get out of the fucking way. Christ
. . .
’

For precious seconds, Thorne lost clear sight of the figures on the bridge. When he was final y able to see anything at al , it was obvious that Garvey had reached Debbie and Jason.

That there was some sort of struggle going on.

Thorne saw arms grappling for purchase.

Heard Debbie shout, ‘No!’

He bel owed at the tractor driver and flattened himself against the gate, looking for a chance to squeeze past. When he heard the scream of the Tube train’s brakes, he decided to clamber right across the driver’s lap, but as soon as he was clear of the obstruction and ready to move again, he could see that there was no longer any need to hurry.

There was only one figure ahead of him now.

To his right, the train had emerged from beneath the bridge, hissing and squealing as it slowed. He could just make out passengers pressed against the windows, eager to see what had happened. Why they were stopping so suddenly between stations.

He took two smal steps, then looked down at the tracks to his right.

The bodies could easily have been twin bundles of rags.

Behind him, somebody was shouting. Someone who had seen it happen. The tractor driver, maybe.

Thorne stayed where he was for a few seconds, then gave up waiting for the shaking to stop and walked slowly towards the figure on the bridge.

ALL THAT REMAINS . . .

AFTERWARDS

Michael

His wife brings in his dinner: jerk chicken and sweet potato mash, his favourite. He thanks her and picks up his knife and fork, but there’s little chance of him eating,
and when he turns to see her looking back from the doorway, smiles and says thanks again, he can see that she knows it, too.

He’s been picking at his food ever since it happened. He’s also been sleeping a lot during the day, which he thinks is strange, because he’s always been so active,
and when he wakes to find his wife standing over him, he can tell that he has not been sleeping peacefully.

‘Shush,’ she tells him. ‘Why don’t you ask the doctor for something?’

But he doesn’t believe in popping pills for this and that; never has. He knows that it will pass eventually; and, anyway, he would worry about what kind of a man he
was if he were
not
changed by it. If he were dreaming sweet dreams and eating like a horse.

‘It’s always worse underground,’ another driver told him. ‘You were lucky in a way. Easier than when you come barrelling out of that tunnel into a station, see that flash
of colour as some nutter jumps at the last minute.’

Michael nodded, kept his own council, same as always. The man doing all the talking had never had ‘one under’, but he claimed to know plenty of drivers who had.