Nowhere Girl (30 page)

They arrived in Metz city centre over an hour early for the designated meeting and Bridget wanted to go straight into the cathedral, but Cate persuaded her it would be a mistake. Two British women, one looking like she wanted to tear her hair out with grief, could hardly sit in a pew for an hour without drawing some attention.

“Let’s get a drink,” Cate said, leading them to an Italian café within the shadow of the cathedral. Although empty, they took seats outside, at a cheerful red-and-white polka dot table under a red awning. Cate asked the waiter for a carafe of wine and even though Bridget said she couldn’t eat, Cate ordered them both a bowl of risotto. It would pass the time, and Cate was hungry; she hadn’t eaten properly since the evening meal with the Massards and Bridget looked like she was wasting away.

After Cate had finished her risotto, and Bridget had picked, moving stodgy grains around the bowl, they paid and made their way to Metz Cathedral. It was oppressively beautiful, ancient stories glazed into over-bright windows, sealed between shapes cut from stone.
Religion teaches harsh truths
. Cate thought to herself.
Jesus, sacrificed by his own father for a greater good. Bridget, the mother willing to sacrifice her daughter to teach her a valuable lesson
.

In the nave, the only light came through the Old Testament images. Cate could not imagine God’s mercy in such a place, though she could surely feel his judgement.

Shivering, Cate sat back in the pew and Bridget leaned against her shoulder for support. Even the square angles of the seat felt like a mild suffering. The woman beside her whispered, “There she is.”

“Auntie will be waiting for you,” the girl had said on the phone.

The woman was shrouded in a lace veil, sitting in the side chapel, dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows, designated for silent prayer and lit by banks of tea lights, their flames flickering specks of orange light.

Cate waited in the pew, watching as Bridget moved forward and took a seat beside the veiled woman.

She didn’t want to watch the conversation unfold, she bowed her head and prayed that Ellie would soon be home.
Let this work out. Let it be soon
, she begged a god that she wasn’t sure she believed in.

I want to tell Jodie about our trip to Metz, but when she arrives home she has a fever. She lies on her mattress, shaking as if she is cold, though she feels hot to the touch. She won’t talk to me, but her bruises speak a language I am beginning to understand.

The only thing she asks about is Ellie. She is concerned, suddenly.

“Ellie will be fine,” I tell her, stroking her back, though gently as the slightest touch seems to be causing her pain.

Jodie shakes her head. “I don’t think so, Amina. Jak is talking about how to get rid of her. He is frightened of arrest.” I want to tell her then, that everything will be okay, that Auntie and I have sorted it all out with Ellie’s mother, but Jodie closes her eyes. Her whole body shakes and I can see that nothing I say will reach her now, she is lost inside herself. Instead I hold her, and rock her slightly, until we both fall asleep.

We are woken in the middle of the night by Auntie’s cries. In the moonlight Jodie and I face each other, both of us listening to the voices, the shouting coming from the bedroom below. Jodie looks startled. Though the words are not clear I know what Jak has been told.

Jodie is wide-eyed with fear. “Jak sounds angry. He may be angry with me. I did not make good business yesterday, I was too sick.”

“Hush, Jodie.” I place my hand on her skin. It is still warm. I want to calm her, to make her see that he is not angry because of her. “It is not what you think.”

Another yell from below, this time followed by a crash of something being thrown against the wall. Jodie begins to shake. “He is very angry.”

“They aren’t shouting about you, Jodie. Auntie is telling him about Ellie. That she is leaving here tomorrow.” I whisper as an afterthought but also as a prayer, “Everything will be well, inshallah.”

Jodie’s pupils are so dark they are like holes in her skull. She is really very sick, I cannot see how she will be able to go to work tomorrow.

“Where is Ellie going?” she demands, her teeth chattering after she speaks.

“Home. Once her mother has taken Fahran to the hospital to make him well again.”

She shakes her head, confused. “Fahran is having treatment?”

“Yes,” I say, feeling how relieved the news makes me feel inside. “It has all been arranged.
Alhamdulillah
.”

Jodie shivers and lays back on the mattress. She licks her lips so I know she is thirsty. “I have fever,” she says, “I must be delirious. I thought you said Ellie was going home to her mother. But her mother is to blame for this.”

“Shhh, hush Jodie, what you’re saying makes no sense. Just rest,” I reply, carefully tipping some water through Jodie’s cracked lips.

Finally, she sleeps. Despite the shouting downstairs that lasts until the first birds can be heard. Then there is silence, and I hope that Auntie has won, that Jak is silent because he has accepted our plan.

I get up and go downstairs. When I walk into the kitchen, Auntie is pulling Fahran’s jumper over his head, and then she holds him close. She is crying silently. Fahran gazes at me and I see he is bewildered, unsure of what is going on. I reach a hand for his fingers and he grips me in his small fist.

“Is it okay, Auntie?” I ask, and she nods. She holds me close and I feel her heart beating against mine.

“We are doing this to save him,” I say, and she nods again. Pulling away from me, Auntie’s eyes are swollen and her skin is blotchy. I have never seen anyone as upset as this. When I left Algeria, Omi cried for me but not like this, there is no glitter of hope in the water of her tears. But she has told Jak, and he must be in agreement. He will drive Fahran to the meeting place, and then all will soon be well.

Fahran is dressed to leave the house, clutching his favourite toy, a brown bear that is missing one eye.

Jodie is still feverish, unable to leave our bed, so Auntie is looking after her. I think she is afraid to leave the house, to be with Jak. He has not spoken yet, and as he moves around the kitchen collecting his keys and wallet his face is full of clouds. Finally, he is ready to go and he reaches for his son, who seems to sense trouble and pulls back.

“Take me too,” I say to Jak, before I have had time to consider what I am saying. “I will look after Fahran on the journey.”

It would be the first time I have left the house since the day I arrived in Luxembourg and I see Jak hesitate. He doesn’t know me. I think of what happened to Jodie when she left the house, and wonder if I have made a mistake.

But then Auntie speaks to him, one hand rested on Jak’s arm. “Yes, this is a good plan. Take Amina with you. I trust her and it will give Fahran comfort.” Jak does not speak. He makes no sign that he agrees, but we all know that he does. And I see that Jodie was right when she spoke of women’s power.

I take Fahran’s hand and together we walk towards the white van.

In the night there was shouting, the bulldog arguing with his wife, and this morning I heard the van leave, very early.

I think I am alone in the house, but then I hear the woman crying. She’s in the room below, which I know is the kitchen, and upstairs is silent so I assume that Jodie and Amina have also left in the van.

Today may be my best chance to escape, it may not come again. The woman is alone and sick with grief. If I’m going to get away the time is now.

I begin to call, like I did when I first arrived but soon learned not to.

“Hello? Hello? Hello?” I yell. “I need to go to the toilet. Toilet! Toilet! Hello?” I am ready to shout for ever, but I know she won’t leave me for long. Too worried that someone else will hear me.

When I hear her coming I stop shouting and get ready.

The door opens, but she is so different it stops me in my tracks. This woman, who has been so cruel, terrifying in her shrill power, is totally changed. Head bowed, slack-jawed, as if her very essence has been stolen away by grief and she is simply a shadow of the woman she was. “I can’t cope with you now, girl. My son is on his way to hospital,” she says.

I don’t pity her. I can’t.

I run at her, fast and powerful. In my hand is the small knife, its sharp point directed at her neck. It isn’t enough just to threaten, I know I have to something more. She has to be too injured to follow me.

The metal tip punctures her neck and blood spurts out, unexpectedly. I did not think at all about the blood, and I can’t now. The woman gasps, clutches her neck, falls back into the open doorway and keeps falling, flat on her back, her head knocking the wall behind, the blood a fountain arching over her chest. There’s too much blood. She’ll bleed to death, but I can’t help her, I have to help myself.

The hallway isn’t how I imagined, it’s darker and narrow. I put my hands to the wall but all I see is the palm print of blood. Moving so quickly, after so long, leaves me dizzy.
They may still be drugging my food, I can’t walk straight. But I have to, I have to leave
. Then I hear a voice, a girl calling from behind me, from the stairwell that leads to the next level of the house.

“Take me with you,” she says.

I turn and see Jodie, standing at the top of the stairs. She is shaking and her hair is damp with sweat. Her eyes are dark with purple bruises and she wears a skimpy vest with some jogging bottoms. I can see her arms are like wires and there are bruises in the shadowy crooks of her elbows.

“Please, Ellie.”

I hesitate, the floor sways beneath me. The woman on the floor moves, her eyes are closed but her mouth is open, calling too.

I must hurry. Downstairs, not knowing which way.

Jodie comes down just a few minutes behind me and is transfixed by the blood on my t-shirt.

“Ellie.” She steps towards me then stops. She’s frightened of me, of something she sees in my face and I realise it’s not just the blood. I think it’s something in my eyes, and the knife is still tight in my fist.

“Which way?” I shout.

She points to behind me. Then says, “Wait.”

She goes back upstairs and I think I’m an idiot to pause, that she could be getting the bulldog. Then I hear a sharp cry; the older woman, in pain, calling from the room that was my cell. I must leave.

I’m about to turn and run when I hear Jodie coming down the stairs once again. She presses a bundle of notes into my hand, there must be a hundred euro here or more. Then I see she has a cloth in her hands and she wipes my face. When she takes the cloth away I see it is not a cloth, but a dress, once yellow but now red with blood, but it’s not my blood. There is only silence now, from the room upstairs.

We must leave.

We step outside, and as the warm air hits me I clench my fists knowing I’ll fight like a cat rather than go back into that house. I won’t go back to that room again, not ever. Jodie’s hand is on my shoulder, as if she needs my support, and I’m moving, fast, pumped with the need to fight then fly.

“We must hurry,” Jodie says. “I saw Jak and Amina leaving in the van, they took Fahran with them. But they may be back soon.”

We stagger, together, and I’m glad of Jodie who seems to know where we are. We are nowhere I have ever been before.

The morning wasn’t welcome, Cate felt exhausted and even as she rallied Amelia, her bed seemed more inviting than the world outside. She was not sure she was ready for the day ahead.

Amelia ate her toast glumly, and Cate knew that she too was affected by the mood in the flat.

“I miss Dad,” she said, and Cate felt a stab of guilt.

“He’s coming to visit in a month, with Sally and Chloe. You’ll be able to take her to the pirate park, she’d like that.”

Amelia looked up, a world-weariness in her blue eyes. “But that’s ages away. And they’re only staying for a weekend.”

Another stab of guilt.

Cate felt unable to remind Amelia of all the joys and benefits of living there, of the school and the opportunities and meeting friends from all over the globe, because it may all be over soon.

She thought of the Ipswich probation office, of Paul’s office. If Ellie’s disappearance was just another case on her workload she could sit in his warm room and let him tell her what to do, remind her that this was her job, not her life.

But somehow, far too quickly and easily, she had become enmeshed with Bridget’s mad world. She was no longer working with criminals, she was friends with one, a mother who had orchestrated the kidnapping of her own child. And Cate could see no way out of this, apart from moving forward and helping her to get Fahran the treatment he needed.

This was how people cross the line. In small, incremental steps.

As Cate pulled up at the school, Amelia didn’t move from the back seat.

“I don’t want to go in.”

Cate looked at her daughter in the rear-view mirror and saw she was crying. She turned, reached forward to touch Amelia’s leg.

“You’ll feel better once you’re in class.”

Amelia pulled her schoolbag onto her lap, as if it was a cushion she was cradling for comfort. “It’s not safe here,” she said. “I want to go home. Back to England.”

“We can’t Amelia. Not yet. But I promise you, you are safe.”

Amelia opened the car door and walked away, not turning when Cate called after her, “I love you!”

Achim had already left, taking Gaynor to school and then going to his work, so Bridget was alone when Cate arrived at the house. This time the shutters were up and the house was flooded with light.

Bridget herself wasn’t groomed, exactly, but she was smartly dressed in a dark pair of trousers and a plain blouse. And though Cate detected with sympathy the faintly sour odour that emitted from her, she had at least brushed her hair.

“I’ve been looking it up on the Internet,” she told Cate, almost panting with anticipation as she led her through to the kitchen. “The whole journey should take us two hours and thirty-seven minutes.”