Deathwatch (20 page)

NOW
a much stronger torch beam shone straight at her eyes, painfully. Cat could see nothing of who was behind it. A quiet voice snarled, “Shut up! I have a knife. Scream again and I’ll use it.”

She could hear Polly scratching on the other side of the dining-room door. And then barking.

The figure pushed past Cat, opened the door where Polly was, and snapped, “Shut it!” Polly barked again. The door slammed hard and there was a yelp. Cat cringed and a sob of fear rose in her throat. The man turned his attention to Cat.

“Don’t think about fighting. You want to see the knife?” As soon as she heard the voice again, she realized, confused, that this wasn’t a man – it was a woman.

But the knife, held up in the torchlight, was terrifying whoever held it. Sickeningly fat, tapering quickly to a sharp point, it was not the sort of knife Cat had ever seen in a kitchen.

The woman’s next words were said in a voice so flat, so soft, that Cat struggled to make sense of their cruelty. “And then even your daddy’s skills won’t save you.”

Cat felt her arm grabbed, fingers like talons pinching her flesh. She was propelled towards the front door. The woman opened it slightly, peering out while shining the torch in Cat’s face, blinding her. Pulling her out of the door, the woman shut it behind them, and pushed her forward. A motorbike leaned against the fence, half hidden by the bins. Cat’s vision was still blotched from the torch and she struggled to see in the dark.

A helmet was pushed onto her head. “Put it on – you’ll need it. Then get on the bike.” Fumbling, she managed to fasten the strap. Why was there no one around? There were people in houses close by: she should scream. She wanted to but she couldn’t even breathe properly. And there was the knife. The idea of its slim point pressed against her side, slicing into her, was so horrible that she could only do what she was told. She climbed onto the seat.

The woman jumped on in front, switched the engine on and slammed it into gear. Where was the knife? Cat knew it must be somewhere. The bike lurched forward with a roar. Cat grabbed the woman. Could she jump off now? But everything was happening too fast. The thought of landing at speed on the road was too … horrible. She couldn’t do it. In a few seconds, they’d have to slow before turning the corner. Could she…? No! The moment had passed. Too late. Fear paralysed her.

Left onto the main road, speeding down the hill, over the pedestrian lights. Cat shut her eyes as she was swept away from everything safe.

All she could do was hold on, gripping the thick leather jacket of her abductor, burying her face in its animal smell. Her fear was so terrible that she had no words for it, no thoughts other than the need to scream.

At some point they turned sharp right, and she leant precariously with the woman. She heard the angry hooting of horns. If they’d gone across a red light, maybe the police would have seen. Maybe someone would report them.

She forced her eyes open – she must see where they were going. They hurtled down a hill, across a junction and then up a steep hill. The bridge over the canal. Skidded almost to a halt. The woman steered deftly onto the footpath and within seconds they were by the canal. The woman jumped down and pulled her passenger off. Cat’s legs crumpled, weak from gripping the seat. She was hauled roughly to her feet. The woman took her helmet off and gestured to Cat to do the same. She did, relieved to be rid of it.

Through the wet darkness, she saw someone approaching – a man with a dog. Her heart leapt: surely he would notice that she was not going willingly?

But she felt the horrible point of the knife at her side and heard the whisper, “Say nothing. One wrong sound and that’ll be it. You’ve got more to lose than me.” And the dog-walker turned off the path and went in the other direction.

Foul weather had kept everyone else inside. Scudding clouds across a thick sky meant no moonlight. And there were few lights at this part of the canal, though Cat could see the murky water well enough.

She wished she could shrink away to nothing, become invisible, wake up from the nightmare. Fear drenched each part of her, skin, blood, the roots of every hair. It clogged her breathing. Sapped her ability to think. She could die here. Somehow. She did not know how or why. Who would find her? What would it be like to…

The need to scream was welling up inside her – but that knife at her side kept her silent. And a bubble of fear clogged her throat.

Cat tried not to look at the foul silty water. At a mooring place, sat a houseboat. Cat recognized it: it belonged to the woman who’d given a crisp to Polly. Her brain was slow to understand. Until, suddenly, she did. This
was
that woman. But why, and what this meant, she could not imagine.

The woman took Cat’s helmet. “Jump!” she instructed, with the knife still in her hand. Cat obeyed, grasping the rail. The woman then threw the helmets onto a coiled rope on the deck and unhooked a small ramp from the side of the houseboat. Cat should have done something then, jumped into the water, leapt at the woman while her hands were full – anything. But the sight of the knife took away all her courage and strength – her power to think or act.

She watched dully as the woman wheeled the bike up the ramp, leaving it occupying most of the deck. There was another narrow ramp that the woman must use when she put the bike on the low cabin roof, but she did not do this now. The flowers on the top of the cabin were dead. An old discoloured saucepan sat there, and a plastic petrol container where the motorbike had been. All this, Cat vaguely noticed as she waited, powerless as a frightened rabbit.

The woman unlocked a small door, opened it and pushed Cat in, so that she fell down two steps into the cabin. A smell of dead cigarette smoke hit her. And flowers, Cat knew the smell: lilies. Her mum was paranoid about the pollen staining things, always insisted on cutting the middle bits out. Stamens. The word came bizarrely to her. There was barely room to stand, and little surrounding space, though more than there had seemed to be from outside. Closed curtains and shutters kept the cabin cave-like. A sallow light from the canal path came through the door but otherwise all was dark.

The woman had cast off the rope now and scrambled into the cabin, pulling the door behind her, forcing her way past Cat and pushing open another door at the far end, the back of the boat, where she could dimly see a wheel and a few dials. Cat saw her turning something and then there was a jarring rattle as the engine started up and the houseboat began to move. A dim electric light hung by the woman’s head, as she stood controlling the vessel. Cat could make out a little more of her surroundings: a bed further along, and the shadows of items, a box or trunk of some sort. And a vase on the table – lilies, huge, too big for the space. She felt the boat moving sluggishly, then picking up some speed.

Unreality merged with real, gut-churning fear. Cat struggled to control her thoughts. She should rush the woman. Hit her on the head with something. But no, the woman could see Cat. And she still had the knife. Even if Cat tried to escape through the door they’d come through, the woman could throw the knife. The very thought of it was paralysing. It made her almost sick. She swallowed. Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth.

She shivered, with cold, damp and terror. Her mum … there’d been no sound in the house. What if…?

There must be something she could do. Her phone. Could she send a text without looking at it? Coat pocket. Slowly, very slowly, she moved her hand towards it.

The woman shouted through the open door. “Looking for your phone?”

“No. I haven’t … I don’t…”

“Liar. Throw it here.”

Cat hesitated.

“Do it! Fast! I’m counting. One … two…”

CAT
did as she was told, sliding the phone along the floor towards the open door. There were two missed calls, she could see.

“Now sit down and shut up.” The woman left the phone there, only inches from where she stood.

Cat’s body, colder now, began to shiver. It started with her leg, an uncontrollable shaking of one knee. And then, as she tried to tense her muscles against it, her whole body started to judder. Tears were not far away. She tried to breathe deeply, to tell herself that something would happen to save her. That if the woman wanted to kill her, surely she’d have done it by now. And as long as she didn’t kill her, she could cope with anything.
Just don’t kill me, please don’t kill me, please don’t kill me,
she silently prayed. She longed for her own house, her family. As she thought of them, the tears came closer.

Damp was seeping through her clothes, cold on her skin.

Time disappeared as the boat chugged along the canal. It could have been half an hour, or less, or more – ten minutes or forty – before she felt the vessel slow down. She looked through the far door, past the woman’s head. It seemed much darker here. Where were they? Why hadn’t she kept concentrating? If she’d been looking out properly she could have worked out where they were.

She must keep her wits about her, look for any chance to escape. Breathe, control, breathe. Somehow, she would get through this.

All she could see outside were trees, stretching high above them. There was a judder as the barge gently hit the side of the canal. The woman switched the engine off, rushed past her, out of the door and onto the deck, where she expertly looped the rope into a metal ring set into the wall. Cat could see that they were on the opposite side from the towpath, at a wide and lonely part of the canal.

Back in the cabin, the woman closed the door behind her, switching a small light on. She picked up Cat’s phone. Her face showed nothing, though her thin hands shook a little. She was tall, slim, reedy, her legs – like a leggy spider’s – folding beneath her as she sat on a chair beside the table.

“Stay where you are, where I can see you.” And she did look at Cat – stared, in fact.

“What have you done to my mum?” Cat’s voice sounded loud in the small space.

“She’s tied up.”

Not worse then. Someone would find her. Her mum would be fine. Cat held onto that, not knowing if she could trust the woman, but needing to. So needing to.

A squashed cigarette packet lay on the table beneath the lilies. The woman threw it into a bin and took a packet out of her pocket. The knife lay beside her on the table. With the phone. Out of Cat’s reach. Unless she moved very quickly. But her captor would get there first. The woman lit a cigarette and drew deeply on it.

“Do you smoke?”

“No.”

“No doubt you think it’s a disgusting habit.”

Cat said nothing.

“Yes, well, I will smoke if I want to. This is not a public place.”

Cat still said nothing. She tried to think of every story she’d ever read, every film she’d ever seen, where someone is kidnapped. Does the victim keep quiet? Or engage the captor in conversation? Should she agree with everything? Should she try to argue the woman out of whatever her plan was, or should she just go along with everything and wait for a moment to escape?

She had no idea. Her mind was frozen. She hunched her shoulders up suddenly, wrapped her arms round herself. The woman’s hand jerked towards the knife. And then relaxed.

The cold was in Cat’s bones. Her skin was clammy, soaked from the rain and sweat. Icy wet denim stiffened round her thighs. Her coat had given her some protection at first but now it too felt wet. The tiniest movement made the cold feel worse as another part of her body touched sodden garments.

“Why are you doing this?”

The woman did not answer immediately. Cat looked at her face properly. The scar was worse than she’d thought when she first saw it. Small but white and raised. Dark bags dragged her eyes down. She looked … Cat wasn’t sure. Scared. Sad. Fragile. And yet, she had a knife. It was impossible not to think about that knife. It was sickeningly physical.

The woman dragged deeply on her cigarette and slowly blew the smoke. Her hand was shaking more now. She reached for something on a low shelf just behind her. A packet of tablets. She pushed two out onto her hand and swallowed them without water. Pressed her fingers hard against her forehead.

And then she spoke, her voice now soft and flat, watching Cat with eyes that barely moved. “Do you have dreams?” she asked.

“I … what do you mean?”

“Dreams. Do you dream about your future?”

“I … I suppose.”

“Come on! A girl like you, pretty, talented runner and swimmer – oh yes, I know all about you. I had a comfortable life too. Dreams. When I was ten, I was going to be a dancer. And then, when I was about your age, a rich lawyer. But later what I really dreamed of was…” The woman drew on her cigarette again, her eyes narrowing. “Happiness. I had this picture of myself, married, kids, house, yellow curtains. I’d make bread at a farmhouse table. I’d have lilies, big lilies, and their smell would fill the house. I saw it so clearly I could smell it. The bread and the lilies.” She kneaded the fingers of her left hand together.

“Sorry, I don’t…”

“Why would you? But let me tell you this: if you have dreams, prepare to lose them. Dreams are for fools.”

Cat was silent, though anger was growing inside. That this woman should claim she knew her thoughts and dreams. And be so patronizing.

The woman never took her eyes off Cat. But Cat held her own eyes steady as the woman continued. “Well, I know what you dream of. You want to be an athlete, don’t you? I read it. In the paper a few weeks ago. You won some competition, broke a record. And it said you were one of Scotland’s great hopes. You were going to do even better than your grandfather, some Olympic medallist I’ve never heard of. Well, don’t assume that your hopes will come true. It’s easy to think that, when you’re young. Then life happens.” And now the woman looked away, at the floor. She twisted her cigarette end into the table.

“You don’t know!” Cat blurted the words out, stung, angry. “You don’t know what I want and you don’t know what will happen. Just because you…” But what? She knew nothing about this woman.