Another Life (25 page)

How was he meant to know that Sylvia’s brother is Tommy White, the biggest gangster in east London? How was he meant to know that Shannon’s her daughter, that Shannon introduced
Arron to her cousin Jukes, that she was the one who got him into the gang in the first place?

I can’t really blame Archie. I’ve known these people all my life and I never worked it out myself until it was too late.

It’s strange how you think you know people, and they’ve got so much going on that’s hidden away.

None of that matters now. I have to get us out of here.

What I can’t understand is why we’re still alive.

A guy comes into the room. He’s old – he’s got a white beard – and he’s not too steady on his feet. He’s got a foreign accent – I can’t identify
it. It’s actually hard to understand him. He’s laughing at us.

‘Well!’ he says. ‘What have we here?’

He takes off the gags. Archie vomits as he does, and the guy steps back in a hurry. Now the room smells of sick and pee and something even worse – something ripe and shitty and old.

Archie starts yelling, ‘Help! Help us!’

The guy just laughs. ‘No one’s going to hear you. What’s your name?’

Luckily Archie’s not completely stupid. He shuts right up. He’s crying, though, sniffing and whimpering and trying to move his hand to wipe his eyes. He doesn’t seem to realise
he’s tied up.

‘Which one of you is Ty Lewis?’

Neither of us says anything.

‘It won’t make much difference. You might as well tell me.’

‘I’m Ty Lewis,’ I say.

‘I’m Ty Lewis,’ says Archie.

‘Oh, very clever. Well, we’ll find out soon enough.’

‘What happens to the one who isn’t Ty Lewis?’ I ask.

The man shrugs. ‘I know not. I care not.’

‘Will he go free?’

He ignores me.

‘He’s going to go free, isn’t he? Otherwise you’d just kill both of us.’

‘I’m Ty Lewis,’ says Archie. ‘Let him go free.’

‘You stay where you are. I don’t kill people.’

Archie relaxes a fraction, but I don’t. All he means is that someone else has that job.

He goes out and closes the door. We stare at each other.

‘I’m sorry,’ says Archie. ‘This is all my fault.’

‘What was all that about? “I’m Ty Lewis?“ Are you trying to get yourself killed?’

‘I saw it on a film. Grandpa’s favourite. They want to kill Spartacus and they all get up and say, “I’m Spartacus,” and then they can’t.’

‘Archie, this is not some stupid film. The question is whether they’ll let you go if we can persuade them that you’re nothing to do with any of this.’

‘Why are you so calm? They’re going to kill you! They’re going to kill both of us!’

I have no idea why I’m so calm. I suppose it’s because I’ve dreaded this for so long, and now it’s going to be over. At least being dead won’t be so scary.
I’m assuming that my gran had it wrong about the hellfire and demons.

Maybe it’ll be peace and quiet and nothingness – not being scared, not looking over my shoulder all the time.

‘You’ve given up, haven’t you?’ Archie’s voice is furious. ‘You’ve given up. What am I going to tell Claire? What am I going to tell Grandpa? Your mum?
“Ty wanted to die, so he just gave up.”’

‘There’s nothing we can do.’

‘There bloody is. Look at that nail sticking out of the wall.’

I look. It’s a rusty old nail. It’s sticking out about an inch. There’s nothing special about it.

‘Yeah, and?’

‘Rub the rope against it. That’s what James Bond always does. It’ll fray it.’

‘In about a million years. And we don’t have. . .’

Archie’s wriggling like a maggot. ‘Actually,’ he gasps, ‘I don’t think these ropes are great. Mine are giving . . . just move around like I am. . .’

I give it a go. There’s a minute amount of give.

‘Hang on,’ says Archie.

‘What?’

‘There’s a lighter in my pocket. If you roll over here, maybe you can get it.’

‘Even if I can, then what?’

‘You can burn the ropes off.’

‘Burn the place down, more like – with us trapped inside.’

It’s a farm building, I realise now – wooden walls, hay stacked inside. It’d go up in flames in seconds.

‘It’s got to be worth trying.’

We inch towards each other until I can just about put my hand near his pocket. Then Archie attempts to turn himself upside down, to get the lighter to fall out. It’s like playing the
stupid game where you can’t take your hands off the floor, and you tie yourself in knots. That usually ends in collapse and giggles. This is all sweat and swearing.

Ten minutes or so later, the lighter falls out of his pocket. I throw myself on the floor and roll around until I can feel it under my fingers. But I can’t actually pick it up. I let out a
groan of disappointment. He had me hoping there for a minute.

He’s bum-shuffled over to the nail and is rubbing his wrists against it. ‘Ow . . . it looks really easy in the movies, but it’s killing me. . . I’m going to get blood
poisoning. . .’

‘Shh,’ I say. I can hear voices outside. They’re not speaking English, though. It’s a language I don’t know . . . a bit like English . . . bit like German.

‘Dutch. . .’ Archie hisses. ‘They must have brought us to Holland on the boat. Or Belgium.’

‘What boat?’

‘I woke up in the night. We were on a motor boat.’

A boat – I can’t believe it! I’ve wanted to go abroad my whole life. I never thought it would be like this.

‘I thought they were going to chuck us in the sea.’

Again the question – why didn’t they?

I can’t understand them at all. Stupid me. Why didn’t I ever learn Dutch? I sift the words in my mind, trying to make sense of them. Something about a mobile – a mo-bee-ler
tell-a-fon. Something about a fo-to-graff. And then someone says Archie’s name. Stone. They say, ‘Er-is-van-der-Stone fam-il-ee. Der Stone fam-il-ee.’ And then,
‘Dat-can-neet.’

‘That means, “It’s not possible,”’ says Archie in my ear. ‘Dad and I came here and that’s what they said at the cycle shop when we asked about getting a
new wheel. Dat-can-neet. They said it a lot.’

‘It’s not possible for them to kill you,’ I say. ‘Good news, Archie.’

‘Why not?’

‘No idea.’

‘Good news for both of us, because they’ll never work out which is which.’

Just for a split second I believe I’m going to see Claire again. But then, ‘Fo-to-graff. Mo-bee-ler tell-a-fon.’

‘They will, because someone’s sending them a picture of you on their mobile.’

‘Who?’ he says, and then, ‘Oh. Shannon. Bugger.’

‘You know Jukes, the guy who stabbed me? Shannon’s his cousin.’

‘I’m really sorry.’

‘It’s OK.’

The door creaks open. Old Dutch Beardy has some food for us. Cheese rolls and cartons of milk.

‘How’re we meant to eat these with our hands tied up?’ says Archie.

‘I will untie . . . one at a time. No funny business.’

We’ve not got much time, I reckon. When they get this photo, they’ll want to get rid of me as soon as they can. I’m not sure what will happen to Archie, but it’ll involve
getting him a long way away from here so he has no idea where he’s been held.

He unties me first, holds the carton to my mouth. Out of the corner of my eye I see Archie’s face. He’s . . . he’s winking at me. He’s. . .

Wham! Archie launches himself at the old guy. Smash! I shove the milk carton in his face. Bam! Archie’s got his hands free – that rusty old nail did the trick – and he’s
hit Old Beard with a great punch to the jaw.

I’m on him before he can cry out, stuffing the cheese roll, wrapping and all, into his mouth. We use the rope that was round my arms to tie him up, and sacrifice Archie’s T-shirt to
gag him properly. Archie’s already got rid of the ropes round his legs – he unties me too.

Archie gets hold of the lighter, eyes the haystack.

‘We can’t, give it to me,’ I say, pointing at Old Beard struggling on the floor. ‘He’d be toast.’

‘Serve him right.’

‘We can’t. Quick, before his mate comes back.’

I grope in the old man’s pocket, take his phone, his keys, some money.

‘
Auf wiedersehen
,’ says Archie.

‘That’s German, fool,’

We lock the door behind us, chain it, padlock it. Then we look around.

In front of us it’s nothing but flat fields. You’d spot someone running away miles off.

And behind us, farm buildings, machinery and more flat fields, as far as the eye can see.

M
y plan is that we burn down the farm to create a diversion, then run away as fast as we can. Ty shakes his head.

‘We could be miles from anywhere. There’s no point.’

‘What do you suggest, then?’

I’m going to be 100 per cent honest. There’s this tiny, tiny bit of me which knows that if we get caught I can just say, ‘I’m Archie Stone, let me go,’ and they
probably will. I don’t know why they will, but they will. I’m not really in danger here – not like Ty is.

We sneak around one huge shed and into another one. It’s full of rusting machinery – things that cut and bind. It’d make a good torture chamber.

‘Where’s his phone?’

Ty hands it to me.

‘No GPS,’ I whisper, ‘but here’s the photo.’ I delete it. ‘We were just in time.’

‘I don’t know why they’re so bothered about you.’

‘I don’t know either.’

Maybe Shannon asked them to save me
, I think, but then, why would she have set me up like this?

‘Where’s the other guy? What are we going to do about him?’

It’s too quiet, too creepy. The sun’s setting and soon it’ll be dark. I wonder about setting out over the fields in the dark. But we’d have no idea where we’re
going.

Crack! We whip around and he’s there – a younger, stronger, taller guy. He won’t be so easy to overpower. Even with two of us, I’m not sure we can fight him.

Plus, he’s holding a gun.

‘How did you get free?’ he demands. ‘What have you done with Maarten?’

Ty narrows his eyes. ‘You’re not going to shoot us,’ he says.

‘Who says?’

‘I say. Because we’re under the protection of the Stone family, both of us. And you don’t want to mess with them.’

What the hell?

The guy’s still smiling, but his gun wavers for a split second.

‘Only one of you, I think,’ he says. ‘This one.’ He points at me. ‘Mr Archie Stone.’

‘Nah,’ says Ty. ‘You’ve got that wrong. We’re both members of the family. You kill either of us and they’ll take revenge. Don’t worry, they’ll
find you.’

I think of my mum and dad tracking down this guy and shooting him, and a terrified giggle forms in my mouth. I swallow it down.

‘Where’s Maarten?’ he says, and that’s when Ty flings the lighter straight at his eye. He yells, steps back, slips in a puddle and the gun goes off, bang! It flies out of
his hand, falls into the field. . .

Ty goes for his throat, I chase the gun, searching frantically among the green, down in the soil. . . Here it is! Shouldn’t it have a safety catch or something? What if it explodes in my
hand?

Obviously, I’ve shot hundreds of people in my time, but only on the Xbox.

Ty turns him over, grinds his face in the mud, I pick the gun up gingerly, try and work out how to . . . how to lock it? Shut it off? Use it?

I settle for pointing it at the guy in the mud and saying, ‘Do what we want, or I’ll kill you.’

Ty looks a bit alarmed, and I realise that the gun’s pointing straight at him, too.

The guy stops thrashing around.

‘You did it, didn’t you?’ says Ty. ‘You killed Alistair.’

He says nothing. I move closer, hold the gun carefully, poised. . .

‘Answer,’ I say.

‘We could kill you now, like you killed him,’ says Ty.

The guy’s almost crying. ‘You got no proof,’ he says. ‘You got no proof.’

‘Alistair never did anything,’ Ty tells him. ‘Come to that, nor did I.’

What am I going to do if Ty tells me to shoot him? I don’t think I can do it. My hand is all sweaty and the gun’s really heavy and my arm is shaking and. . .

The gun falls out of my hand.

It hits the ground, explodes with a massive bang.

The guy leaps up and runs over to a motorbike.

Ty falls back, into the mud.

The motorbike roars, runs over Ty’s arm, disappears down a track. . .

And nothing. Silence. Nothing.

The sky is purple and the fields are grey and I can only hear the sound of my breath, in and out, in and out.

Ty’s just lying there, twisted and still, and his blood’s as dark as the muddy puddles around him.

I
f you’re going to screw up your education, then getting kidnapped by a ruthless gang is a pretty good excuse. I never made it back to
Butler’s. Me and Lily, we sat out the rest of the year. She was in a rehabilitation hospital in Putney. I was just taking things quietly.

I was there when she started physiotherapy, crying with the frustration, angry with everyone, especially herself.

I was at the side of the pool when she started hydrotherapy.

I was there when they told her it was extremely unlikely that she’d ever recover the use of her legs. And I held her as she cried and cried, great silent gulps shaking her torso.

Claire’s sister came to see her, gave her a pep talk about doing as much as you can, even though you might be in a wheelchair. Lily made faces and didn’t say much.

Claire didn’t come. That was too much to ask – in the circumstances and all.

My job is to keep Lily going. Her job is to keep me going, but we never mention that. We watch telly together, DVDs, box sets. We listen to music. We read magazines and books. I tell her jokes.
If I get a smile, then I’ve done really well.

Last week I made her laugh – best moment of a crappy year.

Lily and I talk all the time.

We talk about Marcus, how he’s refused to go to the expensive clinic his parents picked out, how he’s living in a squat now, some supposed dive in Dulwich. We talk about Lily’s
mum, how she was charged with possession of drugs, because the uppers Lil had taken, she’d found them in Frieda’s bedroom. We talk about my dad and how he’s decided to quit his
job.