Land of the Living (26 page)

I didn’t say a word. I stood with the mobile pressed to my cheek. I tried not to breathe. I heard him breathing very softly. In and out, in and out. There was a coldness in my veins. I closed my eyes and listened. He didn’t say anything else. I had the strongest feeling that he knew it was me, and that he knew I knew it was him. I could feel him smiling.

Twenty-six

I felt that I was in a dream running down a slope that was becoming steeper and steeper so that I was unable to stop. There was nothing in the street that I recognized — not the stunted tree with a broken branch flapping down, not the huge wooden buttresses propping up one ramshackle stretch of houses. There was just a smell about it. I had the impression of footsteps sounding ahead of me. Jo’s. My own. If I moved more quickly, I would catch them.

I’d written Arnold Slater’s number on the back of my hand. Twelve. The far end of this insalubrious street. But I was going to the house of an old man in a wheelchair. He couldn’t be the one. I wouldn’t have stopped anyway, now that I was almost scraping at Jo’s heels. I thought of her walking along this street, impatient. Could it be so difficult to get a bloody cat? The street was the familiar mixture of the restored, the abandoned and the neglected. Number twelve wasn’t so bad. It must have been owned by the council because quite elaborate work had been done to enable a wheelchair to get to the front door. There was a concrete ramp and some heavy-duty handrails. I rang the bell.

Arnold Slater wasn’t in his wheelchair. I could see it folded up in the hall behind him. But he was no kind of threat to anyone who could move faster than a tortoise. He was an old man in an outdoor coat, blinking at the daylight and holding the door handle as if for support. He looked at me with a frown. I was trying to remember him. Was he trying to remember me?

‘Hello,’ I said brightly. ‘Are you Arnold Slater? I’ve heard that you might have a cat for sale.’

‘Bloody hell,’ he said.

‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Don’t you have cats?’

He shuffled aside to leave a space. ‘A few,’ he said, with a throaty chuckle. ‘Come in.’

I looked at his thin, sinewy wrists protruding from his raincoat. I assured myself once more that this man couldn’t do me any harm and stepped inside.

‘I’ve got cats,’ he said. ‘There’s Merry. And Poppy. And Cassie and, look, there’s Prospero.’

A mustard-coloured shape darted down the hallway and disappeared into the gloom. I suddenly had an image of a secret society, a freemasonry, of cat nuts dotted around London, linked by their obsession like the secret rivers that run beneath London.

‘Nice names,’ I said.

‘Cats have their own names,’ he said. ‘You’ve just got to recognize them.’

I was in a fever. His words seemed to come from a long way away and take a long time to reach me. I was like someone who was drunk and trying not to show it. I was doing my best possible impersonation of a cheerful young woman who was terribly eager to have a discussion about cats. ‘Like children, I guess.’

He looked offended. ‘They’re not like children. Not like
my
children. These ones can look after themselves.’

My head was buzzing and I was moving from one foot to another in impatience. ‘I was sent by the people in the church. They said you had cats for sale.’

Another scratchy laugh, like he had something stuck in his throat. ‘I don’t have cats for sale. Why would I want to sell a cat? Why do people keep thinking that?’

‘That’s part of what I wanted to talk to you about. Have you had other people coming here wanting to buy cats from you?’

‘They’re mad. I’ve taken the odd cat off their hands and then they send people on to me as if I was a pet shop.’

‘What sort of people?’

‘Stupid women wanting a cat.’

I forced myself to laugh. ‘You mean women have been pitching up here trying to buy a cat? How many?’

‘A couple of them. I told them both that they weren’t for sale.’

‘That’s funny,’ I said, as casually as I could manage, ‘because I think a friend of mine may have been one of the people who was sent to you. Could this be her?’ I had been fingering the photograph of Jo in my jacket pocket. Now I took it out and showed it to Arnold.

Immediately he looked puzzled and suspicious. ‘What’s this? What do you want to know for?’

‘I was wondering if she was one of the women who came here looking for a cat.’

‘What do you want to know for? I thought
you
wanted a cat. What’s all this about? You some sort of police or something?’

My thoughts were scattered all over, I could almost hear my brain humming inside my head. I felt in a rush, escaping something and chasing something both at the same time, and now I had to think of some half-way plausible explanation of what on earth I was up to.

‘I’m looking for a cat as well,’ I said. ‘I just wanted to make sure I’d come to the same place she had.’

‘Why don’t you ask her?’

I wanted to scream and howl. What did it matter? This wasn’t a checkpoint on the Iraqi border. It was a house in Hackney with four mangy cats. I just needed to move on to the next square in the ridiculous game I was playing and he was the only one who could help me. I tried to think. It was so hard. Poor Jo hadn’t got her cat here, that was obvious enough.

‘I’m sorry, Mr Slater,’ I said. ‘Arnold. I just have this need to get a cat.’

‘That’s what they all say.’

‘Who?’

‘That woman in the picture.’

‘Thank God,’ I said to myself.

‘They’ve all got to have a cat and they’ve got to have it today. Can’t wait until tomorrow.’

‘I know the feeling. You get the idea of something in your head, like a hamburger, and you’ve just got to have one. You won’t rest.’

‘A hamburger?’

‘Now, Mr Slater, if I was to come to you and ask you for a cat, which in fact I have done, and you were to say that yours aren’t for sale, as they aren’t, what would you recommend? Where would you steer me?’ Arnold Slater’s attention was still on Jo’s photograph. I put it back in my pocket. ‘Arnold,’ I said, more quietly and urgently, ‘where did you send her?’

‘Who was the other one?’

He was looking at me with a keener expression. He may have been starting to remember me. I paused but it was no good. I couldn’t think of any possible way of telling him anything like the truth.

‘It doesn’t matter. It’s not a big deal, Arnold. It’s only a cat. I just want to know where you sent them.’

‘There’s pet shops,’ he said. ‘Ads in the paper. That’s the best way.’

‘Oh,’ I said. Was this it? The blind alley.

‘I just sent them round the corner.’

I bit my lip and tried to stay calm as if it was all terribly unimportant. ‘That sounds good,’ I said. ‘Did you hear back from her?’

‘I just sent her on.’

‘So she probably got her cat, then.’

‘I dunno. I didn’t hear back.’

‘So it sounds like the place for me,’ I said. ‘Sounds like a good place for cats.’

‘I dunno about that,’ he said. ‘It’s just a place round the corner. They sell all different stuff. Christmas trees at Christmas. I bought logs there for my fire. He dropped them round. He had some kittens. I didn’t know if they’d gone.’

‘What’s its name, Arnold?’

‘Hasn’t got a name. It was a greengrocer’s and then they put up the rent and then it was different shops, and then it was Vic Murphy.’

‘Vic Murphy,’ I said.

‘That’s right. I sent them to Vic. But the shop still says Greengrocer’s on the sign. Well, not Greengrocer’s. Buckley’s Fruit and Vegetables.’

‘How do I get there?’

‘It’s just a couple of minutes’ walk.’

But it took more than a couple of minutes for Arnold to explain the route to me and then I left him there with his cats and his baffled expression. He must have still been thinking about the photograph and wondering what on earth I was up to. I glanced at my watch. It was just after six thirty. I wouldn’t do anything reckless. I would just go and have a look from a safe distance. I looked like a different person. It would be fine. Still, I found it difficult to breathe. My chest felt tight.

To get there, I had to walk up a long, dull street, full of houses that had been boarded up. I knew the street. At first I thought a part of my lost memory was returning, but then I saw the street sign. Tilbury Road. It was from here that my car had been towed away. I walked in a daze of dread and unreality.

It was a row of shabby shops in a mainly residential street. There was a launderette, a food shop with vegetables and fruit on racks outside, a betting shop and the Buckley’s Fruit and Vegetables shop. It was closed. Very closed. Green metal shutters were pulled down in front of it and looked as if they hadn’t been opened for weeks. Posters had been plastered on it and names and insignia sprayed across. I stepped close up and pushed uselessly against it. There was a letter-box. I looked through and I could see a large pile of mail inside on the floor. I walked into the food shop next door. Behind the counter were two Asian men. The younger of them was filling the cigarette rack. The other was older, white-bearded, reading the evening newspaper.

‘I’m looking for Vic Murphy,’ I said to him.

He shook his head. ‘Don’t know him,’ he said.

‘He used to run the shop next door. The one selling logs and Christmas trees.’

The man gave a shrug. ‘He’s gone. Shut up.’

‘Do you know where?’

‘No. It’s a rubbish shop. Different people come but they all end up closing down.’

‘It’s really important I find Vic Murphy,’ I said.

The men grinned at each other. ‘Owe you money?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘I think he went without paying a few bills. A few of them came round after him. But he was long gone.’

‘So there’s no way of tracking him down?’

Another shrug. ‘Not unless you want to ask the bloke who moved his stuff for him.’

‘Who’s that?’

‘That’d be George.’

‘Have you got his number?’

‘No. I know where he lives, though.’

‘Can you tell me?’

‘Baylham Road. Number thirty-nine, I reckon.’

‘What was Vic Murphy like?’

‘Pretty weird,’ the man said. ‘But you’ve got to be pretty weird to run a shop there. I mean, logs and Christmas trees. I reckon he just got a batch of logs and wanted to flog them and move on.’

‘Did he have any cats?’

‘Cats?’

‘I want to buy a cat.’

‘You want a pet shop, love.’

‘I heard that Vic Murphy sold cats.’

‘I don’t know. He may have had a cat. There’s always cats around. But you never know who they belong to, do you?’

‘I’ve never really thought about it,’ I said.

‘They like whoever feeds them, cats.’

‘Really?’ I said.

‘Not like dogs. You’d be better off with a dog. A dog’s a real friend.’

‘I’ll bear it in mind.’

‘Protection as well.’

‘Yes.’

‘I don’t think you’ll get your money back.’

‘What?’

‘From that Vic Murphy.’

‘I already told you, he doesn’t owe me money.’

‘That’s what the other one said. They say they’re friends. Don’t want to scare him off.’

I took my photograph of Jo out of my pocket.

‘Was this girl one of them?’ I asked. The man looked at the picture. ‘She’s a woman,’ he said.

‘That’s right.’

‘They were all men. Except you.’

Twenty-seven

I set off once more. People had left their offices now and were trudging home through the cold, dark streets. Men and women with their heads down against the wind, just thinking about being some place warm. I wasn’t thinking about anything except getting the address. I knew I was no longer following in Jo’s footsteps and my own. At the same time everything had been so tantalizingly close, and I was grimly determined to follow the last lead.

A van roared past, splashing icy mud from the puddles in the road over me. I cursed and wiped the mud from my face. Perhaps I should just go home? Where was home? I’d have to go back to Sadie’s. Except I simply couldn’t bear the thought of turning up there again, coming full circle and ending up right back at the nightmarish beginning, with nothing achieved except dread, fear, danger, deceit.

I took Ben’s mobile out of my pocket and held it for a minute, standing still in the middle of the pavement while people surged round me. I turned it on. There were twelve new messages and I played them back. Three were to Ben, from people I’d never heard of. Eight were from Ben to me, each sounding more frantic than the one before. The eighth just said, ‘Abbie.’ That was all. ‘Abbie.’ Like someone calling tome from a long way off.

There was another message to me, from Cross. ‘Abbie,’ he said, in a stern voice. ‘Listen to me. I have just spoken to Mr Brody, who seems very concerned about your whereabouts. Can I suggest to you that, at the very least, you let us know where you are and that you are safe? Please call me as soon as you get this message.’ There was a pause, then he added: ‘I’m serious, Abbie. Get in touch. Now.’

I turned off the mobile and put it into my pocket. Jack Cross was quite right. I had to call him at once and tell him what I’d discovered. Across the road was a pub, the Three Kings. It’d be warm in there, full of smoke and laughter and spilt beer and gossip. I’d go quickly to this person with the van, find out the address where Vic Murphy had gone. Then go into the pub, order a drink and some crisps, and call Cross to tell him what I’d found. He could take it from there. I’d call Ben, too. I had to give him his mobile back, at least. And after that… but I didn’t want to think about what I would do after, because that was like staring across a stretch of dead brown water.

I felt cheered by this decision. An address, then it would be over. But it was so savagely cold. My toes ached with it, my fingers were turning numb, and my face felt tight and raw as if there was grit in the wind, scraping at my skin. The pavement glinted with frost; parked cars were becoming covered with a thin layer of ice. I walked quicker, breath curling up out of my mouth. My nose stung. I could sleep on Sadie’s sofa tonight then go flat-hunting in the morning. I had to get a job, begin again. I urgently needed the money and, even more, I needed the sense of purpose and normality. I’d buy an alarm clock tomorrow and set it for seven thirty. I’d have to collect clothes from Ben’s, and get Cross to escort me to Jo’s flat for the rest of my stuff. My life was scattered in little fragments around London. I had to get it back.

I turned left, up a narrower, darker street. The sky was clear and there was a thin, cold moon and glittering white stars above me. Curtains were closed on the houses I passed, and through them shone the bright lights of other people’s lives. I’d done all I could, I thought. I’d searched for Jo and I’d searched for me, and I hadn’t found either of us. We were lost and I no longer believed that Cross would find us, but he might find him and I might be safe.

I didn’t believe anything any more, not really. I could no longer imagine that I was in peril, or that I’d been grabbed and held in a dark place, and escaped. The remembered time and the lost time seemed to merge in my head. The Ben I’d known and forgotten seemed inseparable from the Ben I’d rediscovered then lost again. The Jo I’d once met and laughed with was gone, gone even from my memory. Everything was as insubstantial as everything else. I just put one foot in front of the other, because that was what I’d told myself I had to do.

With fingers that felt like frozen claws, I took the instructions out of my pocket and peered at the writing. I took the second turn on the right: Baylham Road, which had speed humps along it, and high privet hedges. The road led up a small hill then down, houses on either side. Lights were on in their front rooms; some had smoke rising from the chimneys, blissful bits of other people’s lives. I trudged on.

They’d said at the shop that it was number thirty-nine, which was on the left side of the road, just at the bottom of the rise. From a distance, I could see no lights on and although I hadn’t really expected anything my dismal sense of having gone astray increased. I trailed down the hill and stopped in front of number thirty-nine.

It was different from the other houses, because it was set back from the road, and accessible by a rotting double gate, which hung loosely from its hinges and creaked every time the wind gusted. I pushed it open. This was my last task. In a few minutes, I would be through with this; I would have done everything that I could. Inside was a yard, full of iced-up potholes. It was littered with objects that loomed out at me in the darkness — a pile of sawdust, a wheelbarrow, a rusty trailer, a stack of rubber tyres, a couple of what looked like storage heaters, a chair, lying on its back with a leg missing. The house was to the left of the yard — a two-storey, red-brick building, with a small porch over its front door. There was a broken terracotta pot in the porch, and a pair of large rubber boots, which for a moment made me hope that the man was in after all. I pressed the bell at the side of the door but couldn’t hear the sound of its ring, so I hammered with my fists instead, and waited, stamping my feet to keep the feeling in them. Nothing. No one came. I pressed my ear to the door and listened. I couldn’t hear a sound.

So that was the end of that. I turned round again to face the yard, which I looked at properly for the first time. I realized that this was an old stableyard. Under the clear sky, I could just make out the individual horseboxes and, when I looked closer, there were still names written above each doorway in fading capital letters. Spider, Bonnie, Douglas, Bungle, Caspian, Twinkle. But there were no horses here any longer, and obviously hadn’t been for a long time. Many of the doors were missing. Instead of straw and manure, I could smell oil, paint, mechanical things. An upper door of one of the horseboxes hung open; inside it was dank, full of objects — paint tins, planks, panes of glass. Instead of the whinny and snort of horses, there was thick silence.

Then I heard a sound. I thought it came from the low building at the other side of the yard, opposite the house. Perhaps the landlord was here, after all. I took a few steps in the direction of the sound. I still wasn’t scared. Not really.

‘Hello?’ I called. ‘Hello, is anyone home?’

Nobody replied. I stood still and listened. I could hear cars in the distance; somewhere music was playing, the faint pulse of its bass quivering in the night air.

‘Hello?’

I went across to the building and stood outside, hesitating. It was made of breeze blocks and wood and had no windows. The tall door was held shut by a heavy latch. There was another sound, like a long hum or groan. I held my breath and heard it again.

‘Is anyone there?’ I called.

I lifted the latch and pushed the heavy door till it swung open enough for me to peer inside. But it was cold and dark — almost pitch black, out of the moonshine. There was no one in here, after all, except perhaps an animal. I thought about bats, and mice, and then I thought about rats, always nearby, growing large and bloated on rotten food and dead animals, creeping about under the floorboards, with their sharp yellow teeth and thick tails… I heard the sound again as the door creaked, blown by the wind.

Gradually I could make out dim shapes inside the building: straw bales heaped up at one end, a machine like an old plough near me. Something indistinguishable at the end. What was it? I edged forward. The door shut behind me and I put out my hands. There was damp straw under my feet now.

‘Hello,’ I said again. My voice sounded small and wavery; it floated in the air. There was a smell in my nostrils now; a smell of shit and piss.

‘I’m here,’ I said. ‘I’m here.’ I took a few more steps, on legs that felt as weak as bits of string and weighed down by the boulder of terror in my chest. ‘Jo?’ I said. ‘Jo? It’s me, Abbie.’

She was seated on straw bales at the end of the building, just a dark outline in the dark air. I felt for her: thin shoulder beneath my hands. She smelt rank — of fear and shit and stale sweat. I put my hands higher and felt the rough fabric where her face should be. She was making small noises through the cloth, and her body jerked at my touch. I put my hand up to her throat and felt the wire there. I felt round her back and there was stiff, cold rope twisted around her wrists and leading back away from her body, towards the wall behind her. When I tugged violently at it, it pulled taut but didn’t give. She had been tethered like a horse.

‘Ssh,’ I murmured. ‘It’s OK.’ A high noise came out of her shrouded face. ‘Don’t struggle, don’t do anything. I’ll do it. I’ll rescue you. Oh, please, please, stay still.’

I pulled at the hood. My fingers were shaking so badly that I couldn’t do it at first, but eventually I tugged it up, over her head. I couldn’t see her face in the darkness and her hair was just a greasy tangle under my fingers. Her cheeks were icy and wet with tears. She kept making the same high-pitched noise, like an animal stuck fast in a trap.

‘Sssh,’ I hissed. ‘Keep quiet, please, shut up. I’m trying.’

I untwisted the wire round her throat. It seemed to be attached from the ceiling or something, so she had to keep her head tilted backwards. Because I couldn’t see what I was doing, it took ages, and at first I twisted it in the wrong direction, making it tighter. I could feel the sharp pulse in her throat. I kept whispering that everything would be all right, but we could both hear the hissing terror in my voice.

Her ankles were tied together, rope wound round and round her calves so she was trussed. But this time it was easier than I’d expected. Soon her legs were free, and she kicked out like a drowning person kicks for the surface. Her left foot thumped into my stomach and her right clipped my elbow. I got my arms around her knees like a rugby player and held her. ‘Sit completely still,’ I begged. ‘I’m doing my fucking best.’

Next I found the knot behind her back. As far as I could feel, it was absolutely tight. I pulled and tugged uselessly at it, my nails tearing, and it didn’t give. I knelt down and dug my teeth into the rope, which tasted oily. I remembered the taste of oil, I remembered the smell of shit and piss that was in the room and on her skin and in my lungs. And the smell of fear. And the way my heart banged against my ribs and my breath came in shattered gasps and bile rose up in my throat and there was darkness in every direction…

‘Hang on,’ I said. ‘I’m going to see if I can untie it from the other end. Don’t worry. I’m not going. Please, please, please, don’t make that noise. For God’s sake.’

I followed the rope from her wrists to the wall, where it was tied to what felt like an iron hoop. If only I could see something. I felt in my pocket, in case I might miraculously find matches, a lighter, anything. There was none, but I did bring out my old car keys. I dug the end of the key into the bulge of the knot and worked it in deeper, wriggled it around until I felt the faint creaking give of the rope. My fingers were stiff with cold. At one point I dropped the key and had to scramble around among the straw on the floor to retrieve it, my fingers scraping on the rough surface. She started to make muffled screams inside her gag again and then she half stood up, before collapsing across the bales.

‘Shut up,’ I hissed. ‘Shut up shut up shut up shut up! Oh, shit, don’t tug on the rope like that, it’ll only tighten the knot. Keep still! Let the rope go slack. Oh, Christ! Please please please.’

I worked away with the key. I could feel the knot loosening, bit by bit, but, oh, God, it took a long time; such a long time. Sweat was gathering on my forehead and turning clammy there. I could just run away, I thought. Now! Run and call for help. Why the fuck didn’t I run into the road and stand there howling and screeching for help? I could hammer at doors and flag down every car. I had to leave, at once. I mustn’t, mustn’t, mustn’t be here. The rope eased further.

‘Nearly,’ I gasped. ‘A few minutes more and you’ll be free. Ssssh, please.’

Done! I stood up and pulled the gag from her mouth and a terrible wailing sound escaped from her.

‘Jo?’ I whispered. ‘Are you Jo?’

‘I’m Sarah. Sarah. Help me. Please help me. Oh God, oh God, oh God, godgodgodgod.’

I felt winded with disappointment, except there was no time for that now. No time for anything except flight.

‘Get up!’ I said, grabbing her by the forearm.

She half rose, falling against me in her weakness.

‘Listen! What’s that?’ I gasped.

Someone was outside. There were footsteps in the yard. The clank of something metal in the distance.

I shoved Sarah down on the bales. I stuffed the gag back in her mouth, stifling the gurgling sound that she was making. She started struggling, but feebly.

‘Sarah! Our only chance. Let me. Fucking
let
me. I’m here, Sarah. I’ll save you. All right?’

Her eyes flickered at me, terrified. I found the wire dangling above me like a giant spider’s thread, and pulled it over her head, pulling it tighter. The footsteps were coming nearer. I wrapped the rope clumsily round her legs. The wrists. I had to find the rope. I bent down and swam my hands over the gritty floor until I picked it up. Now the footsteps were getting nearer. A wheezy cough. There was a scream burning in the back of my throat and I swallowed it back. Nausea. Blood hammering in my eardrums. I felt for the hood on the floor and then the bales beside the seated, shuddering figure, and when I found it, I jammed it back over her head roughly, feeling her neck jerk.