I can’t believe how stupid I’ve been. I think of all the mistakes I’ve made. I should have seen this coming. A huge wave of nausea breaks over me. I’m going to die. My heart thunders in my ears, my knees buckle.
And as I’m falling, he lurches toward me.
I lose consciousness.
37
Saturday, October 1
Mark Is Coming
When I open my eyes, all I see is white. I’m sprawled on the bathroom floor, the bright ceiling lights glaring, my cheek pressed to cold white tile. I bolt upright but I’m alone. The bathroom door is shut; there is only darkness visible through the ornate glass that makes up its top half. My head spins from the sudden movement. On the side of the basin next to me: blood, a long ugly smear, a half handprint. There’s pain coming from the side of my head, and when I touch my forehead my hand comes back dark red and gummy. He must have smashed my head into the porcelain washbasin. A blow to the head. Head wounds bleed a lot, I’ve heard, or perhaps I saw it in a film. I can’t remember. But it means they’re often not as serious as they look, right? Then again I could have a concussion. I try to estimatethe damage, the pain. It feels like I’m drunk and hungover all at the same time. I think of the baby and put my hand to my stomach. And then quickly down between my legs. My fingers come away without blood this time. No blood, no miscarriage. Thank God.Be safe in there, little one. Please be okay.
I pull myself over to the door, head throbbing, waves of nausea. I can’t hear anything coming from the next room. I gingerly wipe the sting of sweat and blood away from my eyes with my T-shirt, then I press my ear to the door, and I wait. Nothing. I think he’s gone. I pray he’s gone. I don’t know how long I’ve been unconscious but it must have been a while. The blood on the white tiles has crusted and dried. I rise up slightly to kneel and peer into the dark glass of the door. There is no movement in the next room.
I try the door handle but I know it’s locked even before I pull back. The small metal key that’s usually on the inside of the bathroom door isn’t there anymore. He’s locked me in.
I try the handle again. Solid. I’m trapped. He wants to keep me here. He’s gone but he wants me to stay. In case they can’t find the USB. That’s the only reason I’m still alive. He’ll be back, after he’s got what he needs.
Who is Patrick? Is he the man on the other end of the phone? Whoever he is, I know now that he’s working for whoever owned that bag. I’ve lost. They have everything. My phone with the location coordinates was by the bed. They’ll know to look for something as obvious as my phone. With enough time they’ll find the GPS coordinates for the USB on it, and they’ll check both areas in that clearing until they find it. I’ve led them straight there.
I need to get out of here before they come back. I need to walk away from this. Leave all of it, go home. Run. Then Mark and I can call the police. We’ll explain everything. At this stage I don’t care what the consequences of that may be. We can work that out later; maybe we can bargain with the information we have. Either way, we need police protection now. I don’t want to end up like the Sharpes.
But then I remember Mark’s text. He is on his way. Where? Here? But how can he know where I am? How can he know I’m here, in Norfolk? I thought he might work out what I was up to once he got home, but how can he know it’s happeninghere? I rack my brain and then I remember. It’s so simple. About three years ago I lost my mobile phone after a night out, and when I got a new phone Mark installed a phone finder app for me so we could track the new one if I ever lost it. All he needed to do was open up my laptop at home and click on the app. Andbing,there I am.
And he’s on his way here to meet me right now. Thank God.
We’ll ring the police as soon as he gets here, and he should be here soon, very soon. And then it hits me. He won’t be coming here. He’ll be going to wherever my phone is. Oh my God. He’ll be going straight to them.
I have to stop him. I have to get to where they are before he does. I have to warn him or he’ll walk right into it. I need to save him. This is all my fault.
I shake the bathroom door, hard this time. I’m trapped and I hear myself let out a muted whimper of frustration. I peer through the empty keyhole. The key’s not on the outside either. No key to poke out ofthe lock onto the floor and pull under the door like they do in the movies. Patrick has tossed it or taken it. I look up at the window in the door. The intricately engraved birds of paradise frozen in song above me.
I rise clumsily to my feet as the bathroom spins sickeningly around me. I wait for the burst of dizziness to pass.
I grab a thick hotel towel off the rail and wrap it around the ceramic soap dish. Hopefully the noise won’t wake anyone. I turn on the shower to muffle the sound, just in case.
A rain of glass smashes and patters across the bathroom tiles and the plush carpet of the bedroom. Shards pepper across my cheeks and my hair. I turn off the shower and hold my breath, listen. I hear nothing. No doors open along the corridor, no voices. I drag the bathroom garbage pail over to the door and step carefully onto it, laying another towel over the jagged window frame to protect myself from cuts. Then I clamber as quickly as I can through the shattered window, back into the main room. As expected, my mobile phone is gone. Ignoring the fresh cut I’ve opened on my arm, I run to the bedside phone to call Mark, to warn him. But then I stop. I can’t call Mark. His number is in my iPhone. I don’t know it by heart. Modern technology. I don’t even know my husband’s phone number. I wish more than anything I had memorized it. But I haven’t. So, I can’t call him. I can’t warn him. The only way I can reach Mark now is to go to the buried USB coordinates myself. I need to go there, find Mark, and warn him before it’s too late. I need to stop him from following my phone right into the middle of all this, right into danger.
I scan the room. My rucksack is gone. Dammit. But it’s something else that makes me pause. The safe door is open and the safe empty. This throws me. That’s where the Glock was. It’s gone. How did Patrick know the code? But of course, I always use the same code. I use the code we have at home, one that is so easy to figure out it’s laughable. Mark’s birthday. Maybe Patrick did come to our house that day. Either way, somehow he knew Mark’s date of birth; he must have gone through the obvious choices and then struck gold. And now I have no gun. I have no gun, no phone, no plan.
There’s broken glass on the carpet. There’s blood on the bedspread. We’ve made quite a mess in here; I’ll have to clean it up at some point but right now I don’t have time. The clock on the bedside cabinet reads 4:18. It will go off in twelve minutes. I slam the off button and toss it onto the bed. I’ll need to take it with me; it’s the only way I’ve got of telling the time now.
In the mirror, the top left corner of my forehead on the hairline is red, swollen, crusted with black. For a second, feeling overwhelmed, I think about calling the police. Sending them to the woods. But I need to get Mark away from there first. I don’t want him caught in the chaos of police gunfire.
Instead I dress hastily, jam shoes on, then pull on the beanie hat that will cover the rest of the mess Patrick has made of my head.
Twelve minutes later I silently lift the latch on the front entrance of the hotel. The Do Not Disturb sign left hanging on the door to my highly incriminating room is the only thing between me and police interference. It will take me an hour to get to that spot in the woods, and I have no phone to call Mark, or Eddie,oranyone else who might help, no GPS to guide me, and no plan of what I’ll do when or if I get there. Just one simple thought:Save Mark.
It’s still dark outside. My breath fogs in the air. Fivea.m.is already the sort of hour that prompts you to question your life choices. This morning, that feeling is particularly apt. I really have made bad choices in my life, but at least now that I know that, I’m in a position to rectify them.
With no phone or watch, I have to rely on the little plastic alarm clock. If I run, it should halve my time. I run. I run for a long time.
At 5:43 I start to panic. I’ve made my way as far as the tiny layby on the B road. I must have passed the spot and missed it. I head back into the forest.
At 5:57 I hear voices. They’re coming from the right, about a hundred yards away over a sloped area. I drop to my knees and crawl up the slope to the top of the incline and peek over. In the clearing, two figures stand talking. No conflict. No guns in sight.
I can’t make out the figures in the predawn light but I listen. I inch closer, desperate to remain hidden even as the leaves and forest debris crunch beneath my weight. The voices are clearer now, but something stops me short.
