Running Girl (35 page)

Garvie was silent for a moment, pedalling in the darkness. Then he said, ‘Are you familiar with a redhead in tassels who's just won a fortune on the roulette wheel.'

There was a pause. ‘A punter?'

‘Imperium's pin-up girl. You've seen her, over the entrance at the casino.
All you got to do to win is play
.'

‘So?'

‘Looks like last year's model to me. I think Darren brought Chloe there to take pictures of her. I think she was going to be Imperium's new poster girl. Or that's what he told her. She wasn't dressed up like that just to get in. She wanted to look as old as possible so when she was three metres high on that concrete wall, people wouldn't rumble her as a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl.'

‘I see. And what do you think happened?'

‘Your guess is as good as mine. Actually it's probably not, but you know what I mean. How well do you know Mr Pig Crazy?'

‘Darren? Not at all. But the psychological profile in his records makes interesting reading. He underwent a compulsory course of counselling after an incident when he was seventeen.'

‘What incident?'

‘Exposing himself in public. He's a mass of compulsions. Who wouldn't be with a father like that? There's a history of suspected beatings at home. Social services were called in three times when he was at school. At the same time he had a record for bullying. It's classic.'

‘Right. So you can imagine. Dad away abroad. Weirdo with uncontrollable urges and a camera. Girl in low-cut dress. Things got out of hand, I expect. I'm thinking of that private suite at the top of the staircase covered in black shag-pile.'

‘Whatever it was, it upset her.'

‘Course.'

‘Then, on Friday, things got worse for her. My belief is that all the calls she received from that untraceable number were from Darren Winder.'

‘Yeah. He was sweating about whatever he'd done the night before.'

‘Yes.'

‘Probably he'd found out she was only fifteen. His dad wouldn't have liked that.'

‘He must have been terrified. I think he was trying to get her to meet him.'

‘Yeah. Put some pressure on her. Show her who's boss. Make clear what his dad'll do to her if she tells anyone what went on the night before.'

Taking his bearings from the pale line of hedge at the roadside, Garvie sped into the darkness, looking around. Somewhere nearby there was the quietly gurgling noise of a stream. He glided on between tall hedgerows, past five-bar gates and, as he went round a corner, saw faint lights up ahead and pushed himself on, panting.

Singh said uncertainly, ‘Are you jogging?'

‘No. Thinking. You still have to explain how she ended up at Pike Pond.'

‘I don't know. Perhaps he told her to meet him there.'

‘Or she told him. Are you familiar with the term
terra incognita
?'

‘Of course, but—'

‘And you realize Chloe was a blonde?'

‘Yes, but—'

‘Blonde, attractive and utterly ruthless. It's a type of
terra incognita
psychology, man. She might have been scared but she was tough too. She was at risk of getting entangled with the wrong sort of man so, naturally, she decided to dump him, blow him off. Pike Pond's perfect from her point of view. She doesn't want a scene outside her house. She doesn't want anyone wondering what she's up to. She can jog up there like she's done loads of times before and no one will question why.'

In the darkness ahead of Garvie the glow of lights slowly grew brighter and he pedalled harder.

‘There was a problem, though,' he said reflectively.

‘What problem?'

‘The running shoes, of course. Naylor'd nicked them the night before. That's why she went round to Jess's on Friday afternoon, to borrow some. But Jess's feet are really big. So she had to buy a new pair pronto. No time to be fussy. Any sort would do, even orange and lime green. Soon as she got them she set off. I've always thought it odd no one noticed her running up there at seven. I mean, she was really noticeable. If she ran up at five, that would explain why.'

Up ahead in the shadows the hedge gave way to a high brick wall, and Garvie accelerated, panting as he went.

Singh said thoughtfully, ‘Yes. Yes. It could have happened like that. But we need proof. We need a sighting of Chloe at the casino on Thursday.'

‘Exactly,' Garvie said, crouching forward over the handlebars. As he shot towards the trailer park entrance, he could see, over the top of the wall, the steady glow of an arc light, and he was just daring to think he'd made it in time when the quiet of the rural night was shattered by the explosive noise of a car engine starting up somewhere nearby. A second later headlights came out of the trailer park entrance a hundred metres ahead and swung away in the opposite direction. The engine roared and the tail-lights disappeared down the lane at speed.

‘Oh no!' he said savagely under his breath. ‘Not that.' He pedalled furiously.

Singh said, ‘Garvie?'

‘I'm out of time, man. Listen. As you say, we need that sighting of Chloe at the casino Thursday night. Is there no one talking?'

‘No. The staff are too frightened of the Winders to say anything.'

‘Course. But what about the ex-staff?'

‘You said that before. We've talked to several, nearly all of them.'

‘Just one to go?'

There was a pause. When Singh spoke there was a new note of suspicion in his voice.

‘How do you know that?'

‘Girl called Hannah Clark?'

‘Garvie? We haven't found her yet.'

‘You're not the only ones looking for her,' Garvie said through gritted teeth. ‘Thing is, she's the one who saw something.'

‘Garvie?' There was alarm in Singh's voice. ‘What are you up to?
Where are you?
'

Garvie said nothing. With every last ounce of his strength he pedalled. Glancing up, he saw there was a new light at the top of the wall, a flickering soft light glowing pale orange, and he frowned.

‘Nearly there,' he panted into the phone.

‘Nearly where?'

‘Nearly at the place where Hannah Clark's hiding out with her baby. Here we go now. Pray that I'm not too late.'

He swept round the end of the brick wall into the trailer park, and his face was suddenly lit up by a red glow.

‘Oh God!' he yelled.

Ten miles away, in his office, Singh shouted too. ‘What are you doing? Where are you?'

He heard Garvie begin to say something; then there was a wild engulfing noise like an explosion in a bucket, and the phone went dead.

THE TRAILER PARK
was exactly as Abdul had described it. Near derelict. A construction company's billboard at the entrance gave out information that the site was being redeveloped. Many of the mobile homes had already been removed: regular dark patches of earth indicated where they had stood. The ones that remained, in three short rows at the back of the lot, showed all the usual signs of abandonment – smashed windows, graffiti, litter – except for the one at the end of the nearest row. And that was on fire.

Garvie took in all this in an instant before crashing the bike into a pile of builder's sand, and scrabbled up again, spitting grit, to run towards the flaming caravan, yelling.

‘Hannah!
Hannah!
'

There was no reply from inside. It stood slightly separate from the others in the row, once white, now mildewed, with an aluminium door and three black windows set flush with the walls. Flames rose from the back of it, writhing into the air, dirty red against the blackness of a copse of trees behind.

‘Hannah!' Garvie yelled again, and cursed himself for wasting breath.

The door was locked.

He ran round the back, shielding his face from the heat, and saw fire coming out of a gash high up in the metal of the caravan wall. He ran back round to the front and thumped the windowpanes again.

Still no reply.

As he stood there, panting, there was a second small explosion at the back – another gas canister perhaps, or an electrical appliance. He tried the door again, a thin metal panel warm to the touch and locked fast. He tugged violently at the handle, and let it go, and stood there, panting uselessly.

‘Think!' he said out loud.

And then: ‘Don't just think!'

He ran back to where the bike lay at the edge of the pile of sand, and took a deep breath and charged forward. He ran hard over fifteen metres, accelerating all the time, and at the last second took off into the air, leaping feet first into the door, which buckled and burst with a hideous noise of metal on metal, and flung him backwards onto the ground.

He lay there in agony. The pain shot up his legs into his pelvis and further into his chest. He put a hand to his face and it came away bloody. When he tried to stand, his ankle gave way, and he yelled once before forcing himself forward, crawling over the threshold into the caravan. At last he hauled himself to his feet and stood, looking.

At the far end flames were consuming what had once been the kitchen area. Curtains and furnishings roared. A cloud of black smoke rolled towards him, as solid as surf.

He wrapped his hands in his sleeves and thrust himself forward into the smoke, choking and blind, feeling about him. Everything was already scalding hot to the touch, the ragged bits of carpet on the floor smoking and shrivelling. Kicking his way past toppled furniture and other debris, he groped in the swirling incendiary murk and felt a narrow bed against the caravan side. There was no one in it. He turned round, lost his bearings and tripped over something lying on the floor. At the same moment he heard a noise, a tiny cry. He fell to his knees and found the girl lying huddled with the baby wrapped in a blanket pressed against her chest. She didn't respond when he shook her. In desperation he tried to lift them both together, but they were too heavy and awkward. Snatching up the baby, he stumbled away from the leaping flames, lurching in pain and confusion back along the caravan to the door, and fell through it onto the ground outside.

As he placed the baby on the hot grass, there was a third explosion from inside.

He knew then that he'd failed. Nevertheless he turned back, bleeding and filthy, and forced himself into the caravan again. Flames were everywhere now, spreading with incredible rapidity. Groping blindly, he went forward until he found Hannah lying on the smoking floor in exactly the same position. Her feet were on fire. He ripped off her shoes with his burning hands and, taking hold of her ankles, began to drag her towards the door. Something cracked overhead and a sharp hail of glass raked his face and he staggered sideways, eyes shut. Fire was all round him now, and he blundered among the flames. He was sure he was on fire too, but it didn't seem important. More important was the fact that he no longer knew which direction the door was. He stopped moving. He reeled slowly round on himself. In the flames there were noises. The noises themselves seemed to burn his ears. For the last time he opened his mouth, but there was no air left, only fire; his tongue seemed to burst into flames and he reeled again and staggered, and the last thing he heard was the shouting of his own voice in an oddly tangled uproar like the roar of many other voices, all of which were inside his own head.

Then he toppled forward into blackness and was lost.

THIS IS WHAT
he became. A silence in the noise. A rag of smoke floating, softly torn to shreds in the tops of the trees, a spreading drift of final thoughts. He was glad he'd left his body behind. Watching it dance and crackle, he felt nothing but a bystander's mild curiosity. Other figures now rose out of the noise to keep him company: a hanged man who slipped his noose of flaming curtain and swam gravely out of the smoke, a red-head in tassels lit up like candles, a girl with chestnut-brown hair and grey eyes who opened her mouth and laughed a jet of orange light, bright as a blow-torch flare. A huge sheet of lined notepaper turned into a flying carpet of smoke, and he lay on it remembering things he'd never seen. Darren Winder breaking open Abdul's face with a photographer's tripod. Detective Inspector Raminder Singh sitting naked and cross-legged in a temple. His mother dancing heavily on her own in a tiny room of plain white walls. They were all indices in the same equation, numbers rotating like smoke through the air to lead him to the perfect solution, and he rotated with them, slowly, among the treetops, following the trail of a smoke-filled girl dressed immaculately in heliotrope-coloured running shoes. But something was wrong. This wasn't what dying should be. For a moment he swam on effortlessly with the others. Then he faltered. He grew heavier. The silence swelled, slowly at first, then faster. He rose with it and fell, leaped and plunged like a fish in water, like a little kid on a roller-coaster, holding on grimly, feeling sicker and sicker, swooping and lurching heavily in and out of the flaming treetops until he reached the end of the ride and fell suddenly downwards, and rolled over on the hard sandy soil, and threw up.

‘Is better,' a voice said quietly. ‘My Garvie man.'

Then blackness again.

When he woke, minutes or hours or days later, he was in pain, writhing on the ground while people bothered him with things and noises and flashing blue lights until finally it came clear, and he opened his eyes and looked up at Detective Inspector Singh.

‘Don't talk,' the policeman said.

Others were talking. They gave each other low, urgent instructions obscured by the noise of vehicles arriving and leaving. Blue lights swirled over everything. There was pain in his hands and legs, and his face was numb.

‘I'm not dead any more,' he said to Singh woodenly. The pain flared up and he began to think again. ‘Where are they? Hannah? The baby?'

‘Don't talk. It's bad for you.'

‘Tell me!'