One Night (25 page)

Eve had been right about the windows at the back, big panes of glass overlooking nothing but d
arkness. They didn't open, so Joel found himself swinging the bag at them, using it as a tool to smash the glass out. It occurred to him as he did it that he hadn’t spent a penny of the cash yet. That as money it had done him no good at all. As an object it had proved pretty useful though, a solid weight that he could use as a weapon or a tool. What would he spend it all on? He had no idea, but it was enough that he could start a new life. He just hoped he could find a way to make Eve part of that.

He didn't know how
much time they had but he guessed it wasn't long. The noise of the car alarm had stopped a minute ago and he expected Harry and his men to come barrelling back into the office at any moment. With Eve’s help he’d pushed the reception desk up against the door but it wouldn’t hold them for long, not with four of them on the other side of the door.

The glass had shattered but not cleanly, shards of it still clung determinedly to the window frame. Joel and Eve worked together, him using the bag, her the bottom of the whiskey bottle Harry's men had been drinking from. When they’d cleared it all he gestured to her. She hesitated.

“Just go,” he said. “I need to pass the bag down to you.” She nodded and climbed out. The sill was about three feet from the floor on the inside of the office but the drop on the outside was nearer five. She swung her legs over, lowered them and then let go, dropping the last two feet. The ground was uneven and she stumbled when she landed, then found her footing.

“Okay,” she called quietly, and he lowered the bag down to her. She took it in her arms, surprised by the weight of it, and then
placed it carefully on the ground, as if the value of it made it fragile. It was the first time she’d held it, all that money. She looked back up at him, saw that he was lifting himself to come through the window too. And then she heard the noise, the crash of a the door slamming into the desk they’d pushed against it and the sound of her uncle’s angry, ugly shouting voice.

She saw Joel looking back at the door as another crash reverberated through the air. For a moment she was worried he would turn back, make a stand of some kind. He didn’t.

“Go,” he shouted as he swung his legs over the sill and dropped easily to the ground.

There was another crash from the office and then Harry’s voice came again, louder this time.

Eve didn’t run. She stood there and waited for Joel to pick up the bag and then she ran with him.

“We’ve done this a lot tonight,” she said. “It’s our thing. Running away from violence. So romantic.”

Joel laughed.

Behind them Harry shouted from the window. "You won't get away. Wherever you go I'll find you. This is my town!"

Eve looked back and saw one of Harry's men climbing out of the window, he landed heavily and set off after them.

Joel had seen too. The plan had seemed a good one when he'd laid it out for her earlier but now
, running with the weight of the bag on his shoulder again he felt so tired that doubt started to creep in. The ground they were running on was uneven and littered with rubbish, cans and bottles and bricks and God knew what else. And it was dark, darker with every step as they moved away from the office and the street beyond it. It would only take one misstep to turn an ankle or worse. If that happened it was all over.

"Run behind me," he said to Eve. "Try and step where I step."

She understood immediately and fell back, matching his pace a couple of feet behind him.

Joel listened to her breathing and felt a warmth rising inside him. He didn't know how it had happened but he couldn't question it. He loved her.

He glanced back and felt that warmth increasing, threatening to overwhelm him. He needed to keep his senses, not lose them as he seemed to whenever he looked at her. Behind her he could see the two men Harry had sent, silhouetted against the lights from the office. Why only two? he wondered. Why not three? Why had Harry not followed them too? It was almost as if he was hedging his bets. As if he had something else up his sleeve. He was there, standing at the window with his hand in his oily hair and the third of his henchmen standing next to him. They looked like a couple of football fans watching their team play. Like they were standing on the touchline as the game approached full time.

Joel looked forward again, checking the ground in front of him. It was a dark blur but here and there darker shapes stood out against the night and he was able to avoid them. He looked back again. The men chasing them were no closer than they had been, probably twenty yards back. Harry and the other man were gone.

He turned his eyes forward again in time to see a rock he hadn’t seen from further away, its smooth surface making it harder to spot. He dodged to the left and avoided it, heard Eve still close behind him. She’d told him that on the far side of the waste ground they should be able to get to a road that would then lead them back to the van. All they had to do was make it there safely and they had it all. The money and the transport they needed to get out of the town. They hadn’t talked about what happened after that. If she would go with him or stay. He knew what he wanted but he also knew it wasn’t as simple as that. With the amount of money there was in the bag on his back someone would be looking for him wherever he went in the world. He needed the money to get away but as long as they thought he was out there with it he’d always be looking over his shoulder. That was no life for Eve.

Up ahead he could see the fence, standing out against the street lights behind it. Probably another thirty yards. He looked back. She was still with him. The men behind had closed the gap a little but not by too much. He thought they still had enough of a lead to get to the fence and over it. They just had to keep going. Keep up the pace. The bag was getting heavy again but he could do it. He would do it.

He looked at the fence and willed himself towards it. One foot after another treading on the uneven ground and propelling him forward. He checked the ground again, saw another big stone and dodged it easily, sidestepping around it. He didn’t see the bottle, the dusty brown glass camouflaged against the dirty ground. His right leg was stretched out sideways to avoid the rock and he trod squarely on it. The bottle rolled to the side under the sole of his boot and he skidded sideways. If he hadn’t had the bag on his shoulder he might have kept upright but the extra weight of it unbalanced him. He felt himself going and knew he couldn’t stop the fall. The best he could hope for was to land without hurting himself.

As he fell he heard a gasp from Eve and behind her a whoop of joy from one of Harry’s men.

The ground came up hard and smacked him in the side like it was a car broadsiding him or the swinging fist of a heavyweight. He’d managed to get his arm out a little, enough so his head didn’t hit the dirt as hard as it might have, it still bounced on the end of his neck though, the weight of it and the momentum carrying it down and driving his temple into the ground hard enough to leave a dent in the cold earth. His elbow was trapped between the ground and his ribs, the hard angular bone poking into his side and knocking the wind out of him. Before he had even had time to get his breath back the throbbing started in his ankle, the damage from the awkward slip already sending messages up his leg to his brain. I’m not going to be doing much more running on that tonight, he thought.

He was somehow facing back towards the office and could see the two men running at him through the bright patches that were swimming around in his vision. One of the men had pulled out a torch and was using it to light their way. The beam played over the ground in front of them, occasionally flicking up to cast its light on Joel. The harsh halogen bulb dazzled him, adding more stars to the ones that were still swarming in front of him from the fall.

They weren’t far away, the men. Not far at all.

He tried to push himself up but as soon as his head left the ground it span like he was on the wrong end of an
all-night drinking session. He let it sag to the floor again and then felt Eve’s hands pulling at him, slipping under his arms, trying to pull him up.

“Too soon,” he tried to say but whether he actually managed to make the words come out of his mouth in a form that another human could understand he wasn’t sure. The fact that Eve kept pulling at him suggested he hadn’t but then she may just have disagreed with his assessment of the situation.

Things were starting to blur in a way that worried him, sounds as well as sights. He could tell that Eve was talking to him but he had no idea what she was saying. The men were close, too close. The light from the torch flicking this way and that, leaving trails in the air like something in a pop video from the 80s.

She gave up at last, pulling her hands away and letting him sink back into the soft ground. It felt like that, like he was slowly being absorbed by it. He saw her legs in front of him. Heard her shout and one of the men laugh. After that all he saw was feet for a while, dancing around in front of him.

Eve stood with Joel at her back and the two men before her. She needed to keep them from him until he had recovered enough to help her. She could tell that he was still dazed and winded from the fall, what she didn’t know was how long it would take him to get back on his feet.

The men were staring at her excitedly. Earlier they’d held back because she was Harry’s
niece. That protection was clearly gone now and the men looked like they relished the thought of overpowering her. Maybe because that’s how they got their kicks. Maybe because attacking her gave them a way to get back at Harry. She recognised them both from the cafe. She’d seen a few things there that made her think that her Uncle’s grip on his empire might not be as strong as he thought it was. His men went along with him because it suited them. Eve had seen, in glances and sneers, in Matty’s attitude when he was away from Harry, that the respect they all had for her uncle was mostly lip service.

She looked around as they neared her, searching for something that might help. The beam of the torch that one of the men held picked it out for her, a bottle laying near Joel’s feet. She skipped to it, bent and picked it up then turned back to the men. The neck of the bottle was cold in her hand as she brandished it in front of her base forward, keeping it between them and her.

One of the men stepped forward, he was older, in his fifties probably, but still looked tough. He grabbed for her wrist, not yet fighting her like he would a man, trying to control her rather than take her down. He went for the arm with the bottle in an attempt to stop her using it.

Eve stepped to the side, pulled her arm and the bottle out o
f his reach and then grabbed a handful of his coat with her other hand. He was leaning towards her already, thrown slightly off balance when her arm had moved out of his reach. Eve pulled him towards her, surprised by how easily he moved, his own momentum carrying him forward. The bottle seemed to have a life of its own as it swung up in her hand, the heavy base of it crashing into his skull just above the eye. She expected it to smash but it didn’t just bounced off his head with a low thud. The skin where it had hit split open like a mouth and bright blood ran down his face, pooling under his eye like tears.

“Bitch,” he muttered and tried to step backwards, shaking his head to clear it. Eve clenched her left hand around the fabric of his coat, stopping him. She swung the bottle again and this time he got an arm up in time to block it. The bottle connected with his ulna, the heavy glass crashing into the long bone running from his elbow to his wrist. Eve heard a snap and the man’s face went pale
. She let go of his coat then, pushing him backwards and watching as he fell onto his backside clutching his arm.

The second man was on her almost straight away. He didn’t hold back like his mate had, just swung a heavy fist at her face. She saw it coming
and turned just as it connected, the hard knuckles slamming into her cheek rather than destroying her nose. The punch rocked her, sent her backwards with her legs flailing beneath her. She thought she was going to fall over Joel’s prone body but she didn’t and even as her panicked brain tried to keep her upright she realised that could only be because he wasn’t there anymore.

She saw him step in front of her, standing between her and the man, protecting her as she had him. Joel drove a fist into the man’s belly and then caught his chin with an uppercut as he doubled over.

He turned back to Eve. “We make quite a team.”

The whole left side of her face was throbbing from the punch but she managed a lopsided smile.

“Yes.”

And then they were moving again, using the torch to light their way this time. Covering the distance to the fence as quickly as Joel’s swollen ankle would allow.

The van was where they had left it. Eve had just pulled the door shut when her phone rang. She wanted to ignore it but she knew she couldn’t. Her heart sank as she reached into her bag. It was going to be Harry, she knew it was going to be Harry. Trying to talk her round, to persuade her. How would he do it this time? Raise the ghost of her father maybe? Get all weepy about what his poor dead brother would think? 

She could almost hear him. “Eve, what are you doing Eve? Your dad, Eve, God rest his soul...”

By the time she had the phone out and was able to see the display she was angry enough that she thought the first word out of her mouth was going to be four lettered.

But when she was the name there the anger faded away and was replaced by concern. She answered it as soon as she saw this three letters on the display. Lifted the phone to her ear.

“Mum”

Harry’s voice bounded down the line at her. “Hello Eve,” he said. “We need to talk. Tell her, Kathy. Tell your girl she needs to come home to me. Bring me what she owes me.” His voice got quieter as he spoke and she realised he was moving the phone away from his mouth. She could hear her mum then. Could hear her tears and the fear in her voice. “Please come, Eve.” she said.