Chapter 35: Chapter 35

Charlotte My head bangs and with every movement, every vibration, every swerve, the throbbing pulses through from some epicentre, I think where I banged my skull as I fell. My knees too, feel stiff and heated. As I try to shift into a more comfortable position, pain stabs up from one ankle.

I can barely move. I’m lying on my side, one cheek flat down.

My baby…

Something soft, maybe a towel, sandy and hairy, presses against my face, smelling of seaweed and wet dog. I keep having to blink as with every jog of the car, grains of sand dislodge against my eyes.

From somewhere, I hear classic small-dog yapping. Excitement?

Or worry?

Scruffy…

My mouth is taped, very securely, the adhesive pulling and tearing at the softer skin of my lips as I try to work my jaw. My feet are bound; my wrists too, behind my back and too tightly. My hands went numb long ago and my fingers feel bloated.

My Master ties, binds or restrains me regularly, but it never feels like this.

If I don’t get some blood to my fingers soon…

My knees hurt.

Breathing’s not easy. A warm trickle from one nostril pools and crisps on my skin, and my cheek presses into something warm and fluid.

It’s not quite dark. Light spills through odd chinks in the bodywork, outlining blankets, dog leads and one of those long-handle-things that launches a tennis ball.

My mother?

Kirstie?

I heard them before. Kirstie’s yell of fury, cut short. Scrabbling. The impact of something against the car. My mother’s scream of fear, also cut short. Running feet and another scream.

Then just the sound of the engine, the rumble of tyres, Scruffy’s barking.

And later, the screech of brakes, the swing of the car, throwing me sidelong, jarring my head again against metal…

Ben’s cursing and the clunk of a car door…

What happened?

Something…

The smooth vibration of a cruising vehicle changes to the jolt and tumble of uneven ground, the engine grinding down to a lower gear. Rocked one way and the other, I can’t avoid the impact of my knees and head against bodywork.

Curling up as best I can, I try to shelter my belly from the worst.

*****

The car jerks to a stop and the engine dies. A door thuds and footsteps crunch closer.

The sound of yapping again.

“Quiet, Scruffy!” The yapping stops. “Good Boy.”

Keys rattle and scrape, the lock clunks. The trunk cracks open and light spills in.

And silhouetted against the sunshine spearing my eyes, I see the face of my Enemy.

“I promised you I was going to put a stop to this. And I’m going to,” says Ben. “What a catch. The adulteress, the whore and that mother-fucker and his bastard to boot. Klempner’ll take care of him. And I even got that slut, Kirstie. She’ll not be making any more trouble. I’d say that makes it a full house.”

I want to shriek at him. Scream at him. Punch his fucking teeth in.

But I’m tied, hand and foot and taped over the mouth.

So, I settle for a glare.

“Out you come.” He reaches in, hauls me up and slings me over his shoulder, then whistling, carries me through the door of the old ruin.

*****

James Kirch sets off at wheel-skidding speed in Michael’s stolen car towards the swarm of police and medical vehicles. Brakes and tyres screeching, he skirts past, blasts his horn and shouts something out through the window at a pair of harmless cops leaning back against their car sharing something that steams from a flask.

I can’t pick out the words, but whatever it is, the two jolt to attention, jump into their car and go screaming after him, quickly followed by others.

Baxter snorts and chuckles.

“You’ve done this before,” I comment to Klempner, keeping my face straight.

“You have no idea…”

Only Michael doesn’t raise a smile, staring down at his hands. Klempner turns on the engine. “Which way?”

His voice is dead. "Um… back the way we came, a couple of hundred yards. There used to be a gate and an old farmer’s track…"

*****

The ‘track’ is barely that; really just a set of ruts over hard-packed earth where generations of heavy vehicles have cut past fields and meadows. Early sunshine splashes over sprouting winter wheat as we rock and sway over uneven ground.

Klempner drops from second to first. “You sure this is the right way?”

“Yes. Old McAlister’s place is just behind those woods ahead.” Michael points to where what might be a rooftop pokes above naked branches and just-leafing beech.

I watch Michael from my place behind Klempner. The red-faced fury he displayed as he arrived has vanished. He’s beyond pale. His face, what I can see of it, is pallid, almost sallow. The pulse at his neck pumps and his breathing is heavy.

Klempner glances at him then meets my eye in the rear-view. “How close can we get without being seen?”

“I’m not sure. It’s a long time since I was last here. But there used to be gardens and orchards planted this side of the house. If we park up, we can walk the rest of the way.”

Klempner nods, a short, curt gesture, then indicates a tangle of shrubbery. “We’ll pull up in there, then see what we find.”

The car draws against the dark shelter of rhododendrons gone wild. Leggy stems sprout deep green leaves and purple blooms, reaching high over what could once have been apple trees but are now just rotted trunks.

Klempner ratchets on the handbrake. “This’ll do.”

As he gets out, Baxter draws his handgun. Klempner does the same, then glances at me. Feeling a fraud, I take the unfamiliar thing from my belt.

“Where the hell did you get that?” says Michael.

“He gave it to me.”

Michael looks between me and Klempner. “Don’t I get one?”

Klempner weighs him with his eyes, then drawls, “No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t trust you to look after my daughter before your brother.”

*****