Numbers 3: Infinity (19 page)

‘Where are you?’ I call out.

There’s no reply this time, but something scuffles behind a gravestone in front of me to my left. I walk forward, slowly, placing my feet softly on the ground, willing them not to make a noise. I draw level with the stone. There’s someone there, two feet sticking out, bigger than a child’s feet, in heavy leather boots.

One more step and I can see. Someone sitting on the ground, back against the stone, knees drawn up.

It’s not a child.

It’s a man.

He turns his head and looks at me. His eyes seem brighter, more piercing than ever. He starts to move his lips.

‘Mum-my!’

It chills the blood in my veins. He smiles, mocking me, and I understand now, the thing I can see in his eyes. Maybe it’s power, maybe it’s magic, but it’s something else too. There’s madness there.

‘Saul,’ I say.

He sits up, stretches out his legs.

‘Sarah,’ he says. ‘On your own?’

If he’s after Mia, I won’t let him get her.

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘It’s just me.’

‘Where’s that lovely girl?’

Where is she? Keep still, Mia. Stay hidden, wherever you are.

‘She’s somewhere safe.’

He smiles again.

‘Somewhere I won’t find her?’

‘That’s right.’

He shakes his head.

‘Have you forgotten?’

‘Forgotten what?’

‘She’s chipped, Sarah.’ He moves his hand and flashes his torch into my eyes, laughing. ‘I can send up a couple of drones. I can look for her myself. If I want to.’

‘I’m not chipped. How did you know I was here?’

‘I wasn’t far behind, Sarah, and I had your lovely picture to help.’ He reaches into his pocket and brings out a piece of paper. ‘So helpful of you to draw me such a strong visual clue.’ He unfolds it. My note to Adam.

I curse Adrian in my head, and I’m cursing myself too. I was a fool to trust anyone.

‘What’s this all about, Saul?’

‘We’ve got business, you and me.’

He’s playing with the torch now, letting the beam pick out the words carved on the neighbouring stones.

Eliza Sansom, 1893–1911. Taken by angels.

Bernard McAllister, departed this world 19th February 1932. At peace.

Emily Barker, b. 1854. d. 1943. Much loved wife to Rupert, and mother to Violet and Isabel.

‘I’ve got no business with you, Saul.’ The ache spreads from my back to my stomach. Another contraction’s on its way. I don’t want him to see me like this. Hurting. Vulnerable. ‘I’m going,’ I say. ‘Don’t follow me.’

But I only manage a couple of steps before I’m gasping with the pain.

Saul springs to his feet. He’s next to me in a second, putting his arm round my shoulder. My skin crawls.

‘It’s coming, isn’t it?’ he whispers.

Breathe. Breathe. Keep breathing.

He’s gripping my arms through my coat, pinning them to my sides.

I can’t speak. I can’t move either.

The pain eases.

His face is close to mine. I can smell his sourness, see the stubble pinpricks on his jaw. He licks his lips, but misses a small bead of saliva at the corner of his mouth.

The images I see match the pictures in my head. It was Saul. Of course it was Saul.

He’s breathing almost as fast as I am.

‘Leave me alone,’ I say. ‘I’ll do this on my own.’

‘How long?’ he says. ‘How long will it be?’

My breathing’s back under control now, but his isn’t. He’s panting like a dog. The bead of saliva swells and bursts, trickling down the side of his chin. He doesn’t wipe it off.

‘Five minutes? Ten?’

‘I don’t know.
I don’t know.
An hour maybe.’

‘An hour. An hour.’ His eyes flick from side to side. ‘I don’t know if I can wait that long.’ The tiny muscles in his face are alive, twitching, and this twitchiness seems to be racing through his whole body.

What does he mean?

‘Sarah,’ he says, ‘an hour is a long time. But I’m here. I’ll help you.’

I’m trapped; I’m in labour, I can’t run anywhere, I can’t fight him. I don’t want him here, but I can’t do a damned thing about it. This is how I felt at home, for years and years. Powerless. My power taken away by a man. Anger surges through me. I never wanted to feel like this again. That’s why I left home. I left everything; home, school, my brothers.

‘I don’t want your fucking help, Saul. I don’t want it and I don’t want you here. I want you to leave.’

Maddeningly, he smiles.

‘I’m staying, Sarah. And if that baby’s not here in an hour, I’ll cut it out of you.’

‘What?’

He reaches to his waist and draws a knife. The handle looks like some sort of bone or horn. The blade is long, maybe twenty centimetres, and slightly curved. It’s a hunting knife.

Please, please don’t … 

I’ve done it before.

‘I’ve done it before,’ he says, running his index finger along the side of the blade, ‘but I like you, Sarah. I don’t want to hurt you. You believe me, don’t you?’

I don’t know what to say. His madness is written all over his face. I thought he was after Mia, but all the time he had me in his sights, or rather, my baby. Adam knew. That’s why he went for Saul when he touched my stomach. Oh God, Adam, where are you?

The ground’s dropping away all around me. Nothing’s solid. Nothing’s real. Nothing’s safe.

Another contraction starts. I gasp, and Saul puts his knife away and grips me again.

‘Get off me! Get off!’

He backs off.

‘Is it coming? Is it coming now?’

I can’t answer him. The pain’s got me again. I hold on to the nearest gravestone and concentrate on my breathing.

Saul’s pacing up and down, like a tiger in a cage. I wish he was in a cage. I’m scared of him, really scared.

‘New life, Sarah. New life.’

That’s all he says, over and over.
New life. New life.
What’s
that got to do with him?

He’s still pacing.

Then he stops and looks directly at me.

‘I haven’t got time.’

And he reaches up to pull his scarf from round his neck.

‘Saul—?’

He springs forward and starts wrapping the scarf round my face. His fingers are in my mouth, forcing it open, stuffing material inside. I twist my head away from him.

‘No, Saul. No!’

I spit and cough, but the scarf’s there now and he’s pulling it tight behind my head.

‘Bite on it,’ he says. ‘Bite on it if you need to.’

He shoves me down onto the grass and draws his knife again.

I scramble with my legs, pushing myself away from him, scraping my back along the ground, but it’s hopeless. He catches me easily and sits on my legs.

‘Keep still,’ he says, ‘this’ll hurt less if you keep still.’

I’m twelve again. I’m seeing the emptiness in Dad’s eyes as he holds me down. They’re the same: Dad, Saul. I hate them. I hate them so much. I didn’t fight Dad – I was too scared of him – but I’m fighting now. Fighting for my life. Fighting for the life of my baby.

He comes at me with the knife and I try to grab the blade. I don’t feel the cuts. The pain’s blotted out by my anger. He pulls the knife from my fingers and comes at me again. Again I block him. He wrenches the blade away and throws it on the ground beside him. Then he scrabbles at his belt buckle and rips his belt out of his trousers. He grabs my wrists and, easing off my legs for a minute, takes them behind me, wraps his belt round them and ties it in a knot.
Then he’s back on top of me and the knife’s back in his hand.

There’s nothing else I can do. The anger’s ebbing away now, leaving raw, naked terror in its place.

‘Please, Saul, please don’t.’

My words come out as muffled grunts, but he could read them in my eyes if he was looking. Only he’s not looking at my face. He’s pulled my top up and my joggers down, and he’s holding the knife to the bare skin of my stomach. He’s poised and ready and just for a moment everything is still, almost calm.

I think,
he can’t really do this. It isn’t happening.

He stares as another contraction takes hold of me, watching as the skin on my belly tightens. It’s more painful lying down and I start to cry, tears trickling from the outside corners of my eyes and into my ears. The pain’s changing, or rather, there’s something else now, the desire to push. The need to push.

He doesn’t have to cut me. The baby’s coming anyway.

‘Saul! Get off me!’

The urgency in my grunts reaches him. He tugs at my gag, pulling it roughly down over my chin.

‘What is it?’

‘It’s coming, the baby’s coming now. Please, untie my hands. Let me get on with it.’

‘It’s quicker my way. Easier.’

‘No, no, it’s riskier. You might cut the baby. Let me do it my way. Untie me.’

‘I’m not untying you. Do you think I’m stupid?’

‘For Christ’s sake. What do you think I’m going to do? I’m in labour, you stupid bastard!’

Instinctively he raises his hand to slap me, but as he does so, I start breathing heavily, grunting and growling with the
pain and the need to push. He stops, hand frozen in mid-air and stares, fascinated. He gets off my legs but he doesn’t move away. He stands, watching.

I was alone last time, and, God, I wish I was now. No, I wish Adam was here. This isn’t how it was meant to be. I can’t think about him. I can’t think about anything else.

Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.
That’s all I can do now.

The baby’s crying. My baby.

Saul’s holding the child. His hands are so covered in blood he could be wearing red gloves. Is it blood from the baby or blood from me?

‘A girl,’ he says, talking to himself. ‘A good, strong girl.’

She’s got her eyes tight shut, crying her head off.

I want to hold her. I need to.

My hands strain against the belt tying them together. The knot has loosened already and I wriggle one hand free, then the other. I’ve been lying on them so the feeling’s gone. I move my fingers, willing the life to come back into them.

I hold my arms forward.

‘Saul,’ I say, ‘let me hold her.’

He looks up then, startled, like he’d forgotten I was even there.

‘It’s better if you don’t,’ he says, ‘easier for you that way.’

And then he stands up and starts walking away.

I can’t believe it. This can’t be happening. I try to move but it’s impossible. I’m pinned to the ground with pain. There’s a lot of blood, more than when I had Mia. My stomach is still contracting.

‘Saul, what are doing? Where are you going?’ He doesn’t answer. ‘She needs me, Saul. She needs her mum. Don’t take her.’ I try to get to my feet, but the world turns red and then
black behind my eyes and when I come to I’m lying face down. I look up and Saul’s thirty metres away. ‘Saul! Saul! Come back! Please!’

I’m on my hands and knees now, crawling across grass and leaves and gravel. And then another contraction stops me in my tracks. The afterbirth. I’d forgotten about that. The thing that nourished this baby. The thing my body doesn’t need any more. It’s coming out too. I can’t fight it. And now I know that I’ve got no chance of catching up with them.

Saul’s taking my baby and I can’t stop him. I rest my forehead down on the gravel. I’m too tired, too desperate even to cry.

Chapter 44: Adam

I
n the tunnel, I knew where Sarah and Mia had been. I was following in their tracks, even though I couldn’t see an actual trail. Out here, it suddenly strikes me that they could be anywhere. There’s a whole world out here. I don’t think they’d have stayed in the field but when I start to get into the city, I feel even more hopeless.

I try asking myself what they’d do. Find somewhere nearby to hide, or keep running? Look for a quiet corner, or go where there are people?

Sarah was getting pretty slow on her feet, and Mia’s not the best walker in the world, so I reckon they’d both run out of steam fairly quickly. They could be in any of these buildings, or tucked away between piles of rubble.

I half-walk, half-run through the ruined streets. You can still see that this place would have been beautiful. The stone is pale, almost like honey. It’s got a sort of light of its own, even in the fog.

I’m in Bath. The place where my dad died, fell off a big
church and broke his neck. He was fifteen, younger than I am now. Once I’d read about it in the press cuttings Nan kept, I looked it up on the net, saw pictures. Being here feels like an omen – like I’ve come to a place of death. I don’t want anyone else to die here. I want my girls to be all right.

I start running more quickly, jumping over potholes and cracks in the road. There are abandoned cars everywhere. They could be in one of them. Do I stop and look in each one?

This is useless. I’m like a headless chicken.

I need help. I need other people, people who may have seen them.

There’s smoke mixing in with the fog, woodsmoke. It smells like every fire we made when we were camping out together and it fills me with memories of food, company, sitting with my arms round Sarah, watching the flames together until our eyelids went heavy. Fire means people. I follow the smell and come out into a big public square, next to a church.

One half of the church has gone, but the front’s still there, a big doorway and a massive wall of stone dotted with holes where the windows used to be. The area in front is a sea of makeshift tents, a refugee city. There are fires going and people picking their way around or just sitting. I scan the scene. What were Sarah and Mia wearing? Is there any way I can pick them out?

I start weaving my way through. The ground is wet and filthy. These people are sitting in filth. The whole place stinks. I can’t imagine Sarah stopping here unless she was desperate. But maybe she was …

I go up to to a woman squatting by a fire, heating some water. Her hands are grey with dirt, her hair’s all matted and
stiff. ‘Scuse me,’ I say. ‘Have you seen a woman and a little girl, a toddler?’

She looks at me and screws up her eyes, like she’s trying to work out if she knows me or not. Then she shakes her head.