No Way Out (6 page)

But Marcus didn’t hear the rest, barely felt the handcuffs latching his wrists together, didn’t say a word as the officers bundled him into the car. All he saw was the ghost of Ellie’s face pressed against her bedroom window, watching as he was driven away.

*

‘You raped her, you fucking bastard!’ I scream at Tom, turning back to the phone, butting the screen with my nose. I pray I hit at least two of the nines in order to connect. Then I swing around again to see Tom coming close, the scent of sex smothering him. His top half is naked and the button and fly of his jeans are undone. The leer spreads across his face in a waft of pleasure.

Suddenly, Ellie is behind him in the doorway. She looks pale and ashen, naked apart from Tom’s donkey jacket pulled around her like one of those provocative fashion adverts. Her eyes are dreamy and dark, her make-up smudged, her lips cherry red.

‘I’m going to
kill
you!’ I scream, hurling my tied-up body at him, spitting down his chest. Tom jumps back, avoiding it. He draws Ellie in from the doorway, pulling her close, nestling her under his arm.

‘Get the fuck off her. I called the police. They’re coming!’ My voice burns with rage.

I wish I’d saved her before.

I don’t care about my ear, or Marcus’s fingers, I just want to take time back to that day when she was in the bath. Make everything right again. The tears fall from my eyes, hot and thick as if it’s blood gushing out of me. It might as well be. I want to die, to bleed to death, to escape the guilt. I fall down onto the sofa, giving up, sobbing piteously for all of us.

Then I hear her voice. Right next to me. She is kneeling down beside me.

‘Mum,’ she says. ‘Mum, listen. Stop.’

My face is pressed into the stinky cushions. I lift my head to look up at her, snivelling. I try to get close, perhaps give her one last kiss before Tom kills us both, but she backs away, fitting herself within his arms again.

‘I love you, Ellie,’ I say to her, hoping she’ll believe me. I’m shaking, waiting for Tom to make a move on one of us.

‘I said
stop
, Mum.’ Ellie pouts and looks up at Tom. ‘You and Dad needed to be taught a lesson.’ She’s perfectly calm, shaking her head. ‘I wanted you to feel some of my pain, my fear, even if only for a few hours.’ She hugs herself within the big coat. ‘Imagine living like that for your whole life – in terror, misery, anxiety and despair. There was no way out for me.’ Her eyes narrow and her pale cheeks flush. She looks disgusted with me, yet at peace with herself.

‘
What?
’ I say, struggling to sit up. I end up in an awkward foetal position, my arms trapped, my neck bent back. My damaged ear must be distorting what I’m hearing. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘This is all my doing, Mum. Tom helped me plan it. To teach you both a lesson. We’re going out, you see. We’ve been together for nearly a year now. Not that you’d have noticed. You never notice anything in my life.’ She closes her eyes for a beat. ‘Those acting lessons finally came in useful, right?’

Tom gives a single nod, confirming what she said.

For a second, my world goes blurry and I believe I’m dead, that Tom has finished me off. I want to feel safe again, in control of the evil in our lives. I can manage that, but I can’t manage the truth.

‘What are you talking about, Eleanor? Don’t be so stupid.’ My throat begins to close up. ‘If you know this man, then for God’s sake get him to untie me. We can just go home and not say anything more about it.’ I glance at my ear sitting on the table amongst the tins. ‘I need to get to the hospital, love. There’s probably still time.’

Ellie stares blankly at me. Then she pulls something from the pocket of the navy jacket. ‘Sorry, Mum. We’ve got a flight to catch.’ She waves two passports at me. ‘I’ve had enough.’

I don’t know what to say. Ellie turns and heads upstairs, while Tom keeps watch over me. He pulls a hold-all from the cupboard.

‘We packed a while ago,’ he tells me, almost sheepishly as he drags on a T-shirt and sweater. ‘And don’t worry, I’ll take good care of her. I really love her.’ He gives me a nod, a steady, honest nod that for some reason makes me believe him – more than you ever did.

I can’t speak. Don’t want to speak, because I don’t know what to say. I hate it that I’m worrying about what I’ll tell you, how I’ll explain to you that our daughter has run away.

‘I’m the car cleaner’s son, by the way,’ he says with a coy smile. ‘And my name really is Tom.’ He laughs a little, grinning, and it almost makes me feel better because underneath it all he seems nice. I still can’t speak.

‘I help Dad with Marcus’s cars sometimes. Your husband was very exacting and cruel. He often threatened not to pay Dad if he got it wrong. He couldn’t afford to be treated that way. Anyway, that’s how I met Elle. I found her behind some boxes in the garage. She said she was hiding. Over the next few weeks, she made us tea, sat and talked to me as I worked. We hit it off. Had things in common.’

Tom seems good. Tom
is
good. I wish this had happened before. Years ago, before you had a chance to get your hands on her.

‘And then Ellie told me,’ he says. ‘Everything. I promised her I’d help.’

I give a little nod. It’s all I can manage.

Ellie appears in the doorway of the old cottage, dressed in an outfit I’ve never seen before – patterned leggings, a baggy sweater, a knitted hat. She looks beautiful. Grown up. A woman of her own. Then I see her left hand. The bandage has gone, and her finger is undamaged. Her wrist is still smeared with what must have been fake blood.

I bite my teeth together. Bite my useless tongue until it bleeds. My ear is gone because I refused to hear what was going on, and your fingers are gone for doing those things to our daughter. We deserved it, and I’m glad.

‘Go,’ I whisper to them both. Blood froths from my mouth. ‘Just go and never come back. Get out of here
now
!’

I watch as they leave, how Ellie casts a last look back at me, almost the same as the one she gave me from the bath, yet somehow different. Thank God, so very different.

Oh God, please don’t let me die
.

It has taken nearly two years for the Warwickshire village of Radcote to put a spate of teenage suicides behind it.

Then a young man is killed in a freak motorbike accident, and a suicide note is found among his belongings. A second homeless boy takes his own life, this time on the railway tracks.

Is history about to repeat itself?

DI Lorraine Fisher has just arrived for a relaxing summer break with her sister. Soon she finds herself caught up in the resulting police enquiry. And when her nephew disappears she knows she must act quickly.

Are the recent deaths suicide – or murder?

And is the nightmare beginning again?

I CLING TO
him as the wind blasts over my body, cutting through my mind, sweeping clean my thoughts. The trees and hedges are dark flashes of danger streaking past in a midnight blur. As his right hand twists the throttle, I grip his waist and press my face against his T-shirt. His back feels warm and his muscles are tense through the fabric.

‘You OK?’ he yells, half turning his head.

‘This is am-
azing
!’ I call back, but I don’t think he hears me from behind my visor. There was only one helmet dangling from the handlebars when we nicked the bike. He insisted I wear it.

‘Want to go faster?’

My heart kicks out a frightened yet exhilarated beat. I glance over his shoulder at the speedometer. Fifty-six miles per hour yet it feels like twice that.

‘Yes!’ I scream out, nodding my helmet-head to make sure he knows I’m up for it.

We round the corner and I see the road pulling out long and straight ahead of us. They call it Devil’s Mile.

I give him a squeeze beneath his ribs, so he knows I want to go all the way, that I’m up for it. He opens up the throttle with his right hand. The bike strains, the engine noise increases, and I slide back in the seat as he releases the clutch. I hold on to him tighter and grip the bike with my legs. The road whips past us in a tarry, moonlit ribbon.

He notches up the accelerator, pushing the bike to its limits. The engine screams its power, carrying us through the desolate night-time landscape, sucking out everything that’s been blowing up my head from the inside out. It’s the release I need.

The end of the straight section of road approaches faster than my thoughts. I feel my fingers digging into his ribs as I wonder when he’s going to brake. If we take the corner at this speed, we’ll end up in the ditch.

‘Slow down!’ I yell.

Immediately the engine noise decreases and I lurch forward, my hips pressing against his, my body feeling like a great weight against him. He’s laughing; half turns to let me know it. His white teeth flash sheer fun. As we slow down, my hands take hold of the curved metal bar behind me and I tip back my head.

‘That was fucking amazing!’ I say.

We bring the bike to a stop and it purrs throatily beneath us. His feet go down on the muddy verge to steady it. He’s only wearing flip-flops.

‘You’re not exactly dressed for the occasion,’ I say, swinging my leg over the back of the bike. ‘Nice machine, though.’

I sound as if I know about such things, but the reality is that I’ve never really been into motorbikes. Now, after just one ride, I feel addicted to the thrill of speed and the temporary amnesia it brings. The engine makes a grumbling sound as I unstrap my helmet, pulling it off over my ears. My hair crackles with static and sticks up.

‘I knew you’d like it,’ he says, kicking down the stand and pressing up against me.

A white van comes slowly round the corner, the man inside texting or doing something with his mobile phone. I can see the glow reflected on his face. He doesn’t pay us any attention.

‘We haven’t got long,’ he continues. ‘Someone’s going to miss this beauty pretty soon.’ He strokes the bike’s seat with one hand, my backside with the other.

My stomach lurches and twists from what we’ve done, and my head spins from the alcohol and whatever it was I smoked.

People like me don’t do things like this.

‘Perhaps we should stop now,’ I say. ‘You know, just dump it and get out of here.’ I’m suddenly terrified of getting caught – police cars, blue flashing lights, officers, cuffed hands, spending the night in a cell . . . 
prison
.

‘What? You don’t want to take her for a spin?’ He sounds disappointed. ‘After all the trouble I went to?’

I stare at the motorbike and feel the rev of my heart again. The bike’s sleek lines, shimmering paintwork, chunky silver exhaust – the sheer thrill of its hidden power – win me over. ‘You think I can do it?’

His mouth swipes over mine. I’ve never felt like this before.

‘Of course. Get on the front.’

He shifts aside, steadying the rumbling bike as I climb on. I pull my helmet back on, visor lifted up. The handlebars seem too far away and I have to stretch to reach them. Even just ticking over, the engine vibrates a thrill up my legs, my spine, and into my fuzzed-up brain.

‘You know how to drive, right? Well, it’s not so different.’

His breath smells of beer mashed up with vodka. I wonder if mine is the same; if we’ll be locked up together for ever.

I move in to kiss him –
what am I doing?
– but the opening in the helmet is too small and I end up bumping him on the forehead. We burst out laughing in uncontrollable fits of loose-limbed hysteria, which nearly causes us to drop the bike between us.

‘You’d better show me how it all works before I lose it completely,’ I say. Then I reach and grab hold of his wrists in a surge of horror as another moment of clarity strikes me in the face. ‘We’ve stolen a fucking motorbike! We’re going to get into a crazy load of trouble for this.’

My hands and arms and shoulders are shaking and even holding on to him doesn’t ease the trembling. I start to get off. This is so very wrong.

‘Chill out,’ he says with a cocksure laugh. ‘Now, do you want to have some fun or not?’

Then his hands are on the side of the helmet, gently easing it up off my head again. His mouth is pressing down on mine, searching out the fear, kissing it all away. Making everything better.

I nod. ‘Yes,’ I say, loving him all the more, never wanting him to stop.

He shows me how to pull in the clutch, when to accelerate, where the gear and brake levers are and, finally, how to slow this great beast of a bike with my right hand and foot. I run through it virtually, pretending to work the controls.

‘I’ll be sitting right behind you and we’ll just go slowly. I’ll tell you exactly what to do. Now, put this back on.’

He gives me one last kiss, deeper and more tender than ever before, then slips the helmet back over my head, snaps down the visor, and climbs on.

I feel a brief pang of guilt that he should be wearing one too.

With his feet fixed on the ground, he helps me turn the motorbike around. Once again we are faced with the long stretch of road ahead of us. Its slick surface glows in the moonlight, shiny from the recent rain. All I can think of are his hands wrapped tightly over mine on the handlebar controls. He tweaks the right one back and the engine immediately responds.