“Anyone else?”
“No.”
“Neighbors?”
“No.”
“This track—the one through the woods—it’s drivable?”
“Yeah.”
“Right, listen—I’ll be there in two hours. This is what you do—you don’t go out, you don’t ring anyone, you don’t do nothing. When I get there, I wanna see the lights turned on and the curtains open. I wanna see you and the bitch at the window. You stand there, right? Just stand there. You got that?”
“What about Gina?”
“You want her in pieces?”
“What?”
“You keep asking me questions and I’ll bring her back to you in plastic bags. You
got
that?”
“Yeah…”
“Sure?”
“I’ve got it.”
“All right—what do I see when I get there?”
“What do you—”
“What do I
see!
”
“The lights,” I said rapidly. “You see the lights turned on and the curtains open, and you see me standing at the window…”
“With the bitch.”
“Right.”
“Say it.”
“What?”
“Say it.
”
“With the bitch,” I forced myself to say. “I’m standing at the window with the bitch.”
“Yeah,” he sniffed, “that’s right.” He paused for a moment, then said, “She there now? She listening?”
“No.”
He laughed, knowing I was lying, then suddenly his voice went cold. “Two hours,” he said. “Make the most of it.”
The line went dead.
I breathed out slowly and closed the phone and sat there staring into space. The fire had gone out. The room was cold. I could feel Candy’s stillness beside me. She hadn’t moved. She was still staring at the floor.
“I’m sorry,” I said quietly. “He made me say it.”
“I know,” she said, without looking up. “It’s all right. When do you think he’ll get here?”
“I don’t know…It depends where he’s coming from. He said he’d be here in two hours, but if he’s in London, I think it’ll take longer.” I glanced at the clock. It was five to six. I knew it didn’t matter, but I had to say something. “I don’t think he’ll get here until nine at the earliest—”
The phone rang again, cutting me off.
I stared at it.
Too shocked to think…
It’s Iggy.
Too scared to hope…
It’s Gina.
I snatched up the phone and read the display:
17:56,
it said,
MIKE.
I fumbled it open. “Mike!” I gasped. “Where are you? Mike?”
“Hey, Joe—is Gina there?”
“What?”
“Gina…is she with you?”
Oh God,
I thought,
he doesn’t know.
“Joe? Can you hear me? I’m trying to find Gina…I was supposed to meet her at four, but she never showed up. She’s not at home, and her phone’s switched off. I thought she might have gone to see you…Joe? Can you hear me?”
“Yeah, I can hear you…”
“Have you heard from her? Has she called you?”
Tell him,
I thought.
You’ve got to tell him.
“Joe…for God’s sake—what’s the matter with you?”
“Gina’s in trouble,” I said.
“What? What trouble? What do you mean? Where is she?”
“Iggy’s got her.”
“
What?
”
“He just called me…about five minutes ago. He’s got Gina. I spoke to her. I think she’s all right—”
“I don’t understand,” Mike said.
“He took her…he’s holding her somewhere. He wants Candy back—”
“Iggy?”
“Yeah.”
“Iggy’s got Gina?”
“Yeah…”
“No.”
“He’s bringing her to the cottage—”
“No.”
His voice was bleak. Dead. Broken. I didn’t know what else to say to him. What could I say?
Help me?
Don’t
help me? Don’t worry, it’ll be all right. Just don’t do anything stupid…?
“Tell me what happened,” he said, his voice suddenly calm. “Tell me exactly what happened.”
I explained everything as quickly as possible—the phone call, the threat, the deal, the instructions—and as I talked, I could tell by Mike’s silence what he was thinking. I could hear his thoughts echoed in mine:
There’s no
deal…
there never was—no one’s walking away from anything…not you, not Gina, not Candy. No one. Once Iggy gets there, you’re all dead and buried.
He didn’t have to tell me. I knew what I’d done. I’d
done
it. I’d told Iggy where we were. I’d given up our only bargaining tool. He didn’t
need
anything else. He didn’t need us. Not anymore. We were expendable.
I
knew
that.
And Mike knew it, too.
But I think we both realized there was no point in talking about it. It was done. Talking wouldn’t change anything. All it would do was make things real, and that was too much to bear.
“All right,” Mike said, after I’d told him everything. “What time was it when Iggy hung up?”
“Five to six.”
“OK…I’m leaving now. I’m in Heystone, at your
place, so I should get to the cottage before Iggy. Don’t do anything till I get there. Just lock the doors and wait. If he rings again, just do whatever he says, but let me know. Have you got my number?”
“Yeah.”
“Good.”
“He won’t come alone, Mike.”
“I know.”
“What are we going to do?”
“Whatever it takes.”
The next couple of hours could have been anything—a couple of days, a couple of seconds, a couple of years…It was impossible to tell. The passage of time seemed to melt. If I was thinking of Mike, waiting for him to arrive, every minute felt like an hour, but when my mind turned to Iggy and I found myself waiting for
him,
the world started spinning like crazy.
Too slow…
Too fast…
Too slow…
Too fast…
It made me feel sick.
Or maybe that was just the fear?
Because, believe me, I was scared. I was
more
than scared—I was scared of dying, and that’s almost indescribable. It’s like coming face-to-face with all your deepest fears, all at once—only ten times worse. It reaches inside you and crushes your heart. It kills you. It screams. It makes you small. It makes you nothing…
It makes you sick and selfish and incapable.
Just like heroin, I suppose.
Just like Candy.
Too fast…
Too slow…
Too fast…
Too slow…
She hadn’t moved since I’d told her that Mike was coming. She was just sitting there like a zombie, staring at the floor, not saying anything. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking…or even if she was thinking at all. I couldn’t imagine how she felt. I just couldn’t imagine it. I sat beside her for a while, sharing her silence, then I got up and went to the bathroom.
It was a strange thing to think, but I guessed if I
was
going to die, I might as well die with an empty bladder.
When I came back from the bathroom, Candy still hadn’t moved.
I sat down and put my hand on her shoulder.
She looked at me. “It’s not going to work, you know.”
“What isn’t?”
“Whatever Mike thinks he can do—it won’t work. He’ll just get himself killed. You, too, probably. It’s stupid.”
“Maybe,” I said, “but there’s no harm in listening to him, is there? We can decide what to do when he gets here.”
“And what if Iggy gets here first? We don’t
know
that he’s starting from London, do we? He could be coming from anywhere. For all we know, he could arrive any minute.”
“Well, if he does, it won’t matter what Mike thinks, will it?”
“No…I suppose not.”
She went back to staring at the floor again.
And I went back to wondering about her.
Does
she
think she’s going to die?
Is she as scared of it as I am?
Or does she really believe she’s going back to her old life?
And if she does…God, how scary must
that
be?
Back to Iggy.
Back to the drugs.
Back to the prostitution.
Maybe she’d prefer to die…?
Maybe that’s what she wants?
Maybe
—
“Don’t worry,” she said.
I looked at her. “What?”
“Don’t worry about Gina—she’ll be all right. Iggy won’t do anything to her. If he was going to hurt her, he wouldn’t have called you. He would have just done it. He’s not stupid—he knows the easiest way to get what he wants. This is the easiest way. Hurting Gina would just mean trouble. He doesn’t want any trouble.”
“No?”
“Not that kind. That kind of trouble’s more trouble than it’s worth.”
She giggled then, which shocked me, and then it struck me how much she was jabbering…and I guessed she was going a little bit crazy. Not
mad
crazy, just scared crazy—the kind of craziness that protects your mind from facing the truth. I didn’t like it—it was unnerving, and kind of sad—but I could see how it served a purpose, so I didn’t say anything. I just let her jabber away.
“And another thing,” she said, “another thing…” She frowned at me. “What was I saying?”
“That Iggy wouldn’t hurt Gina…”
“Oh, yeah…because of the phone. That’s how he
must have got your cell phone number—from Gina’s phone. He didn’t have to
make
her tell him—all he had to do was take her phone and look through the phone book. You see? He didn’t
have
to hurt her.”
“Right,” I said, playing along.
She frowned again. “What I don’t understand is how he found Gina in the first place.” She looked at me. “What do you think?”
I think I should have listened to myself before we got on the train,
I thought.
I think I should have had faith in that half-formed worrying shadow…
“I think he probably went back to The Black Room,” I said. “That’s the only link he had between me and you.”
Her eyes brightened. “Of
course…
God, I’d forgotten all about that.”
“Me, too.”
“But would The Black Room have had a contact number for you?”
“No, but they would have had one for Jason. He’s been ringing me at home, leaving urgent messages…but I thought it was about the group so I never called back.”
“Who’s Jason?”
“The singer in The Katies.”
“You think Iggy rang him?”
“Probably.”
“And Jason wanted to let you know?”
I nodded. “He probably gave Iggy my home number. There were a couple of silent messages on the answering machine. Maybe he told him where I lived, too.”
“Iggy could have found that out from the telephone number. He knows people…he knows people who can do that…I don’t know who they are…I don’t know…
He knows…” Her voice trailed off and she put her hand to her head and breathed out heavily. Her eyes were suddenly dull.
The craziness had evaporated.
The room was ice-cold.
“God, Joe,” she whispered. “I’m so scared…What are we going to
do?
”
I looked at the clock.
It was seven-thirty.
I didn’t know what we were going to do.
I still don’t know if there was anything else I could have done. I’ve thought about it over and over again—thinking, thinking, thinking…staring out the window…lying on the floor…staring into the past…trying to convince myself that I was right, that there
wasn’t
anything else I could have done—and most of the time I come to the same conclusion.
You had no options.
You
had
to tell Iggy where you were.
You couldn’t hide.
You couldn’t run away.
You couldn’t call the police.
You couldn’t
do
anything.
All you could do was wait.
And hope.
And I think I’m right…most of the time.
I’m almost convinced.
But it still doesn’t make me feel any better.
As the minutes passed and the time melted around from seven-thirty to eight, we kept waiting and hoping. Candy
slipped back into a state of mind that was somewhere between crazy and zombie, and I tried to keep my hopes up by behaving as normally as possible. I got the fire going, washed some dishes, tidied up, and then I started packing.
It sounds ridiculous, I know. And at the time, I don’t think I knew why I was doing it. But I suppose I thought—in the back of my mind—that if I
didn’t
start packing, I was giving in.
Not
packing up meant we weren’t going anywhere. We weren’t leaving.
Not
packing up meant no future.
So I went into the bedroom and started packing.
After I’d gathered up all my clothes and stuffed them into my bag, I turned my attention to Candy’s stuff. Her clothes were still strewn all over the place—jeans, T-shirts, sweaters, all sorts. I wasn’t quite sure whether to pack them away myself or leave them to her. I couldn’t make up my mind, and the more I thought about it, the more it bothered me. I knew it
shouldn’t
bother me, that there were far more important things to worry about, but I just couldn’t help it. It was really weird.
I was still standing there, undecided, when Candy appeared in the doorway and asked me what I was doing.
“Packing,” I told her. “I was just wondering what to do with all your stuff.”
“Packing?”
“Yeah.”
She didn’t say anything, just blinked in confusion, then looked at the floor. I thought at first she simply didn’t know what to say, but then I realized there was more to it than that.
I was packing.
Packing meant leaving.
Leaving meant a future.
And Candy didn’t want to know about the future. It was all right for
me
to look to the future and hope for the best, because I had a best to hope for. If
I
got out of this mess in one piece, I’d probably end up OK. But the best that Candy could hope for was a return to the life she’d led before…
So why bother hoping at all?
I should have realized, I suppose.
I should have given it a bit more thought…
But I didn’t.
And now I felt bad.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said, trying to sound casual. “I was just—”
“I’ll do it,” she said.