The Wicked Girls

Chapter Thirty-nine

The last barrier before Coleridge Close is a yellow-brick wall topped by a trellis through which climbing roses twine. Amber is panting with the effort of her flight, of climbing and running and stooping to stay out of the light; of throwing herself backwards as number seventeen’s Rottweiler bellowed and hurled itself against its chain as she passed. The dog has alerted her pursuers to the path of her flight. As she stares at the obstacle before her, she hears a crack and a stream of swearing as a fence gives way beneath a muscled body, and the lights four doors down blaze into life.

‘Where’s she gone?’ A voice drifts over the night air, alarmingly close. She’d thought she’d put the best part of a road’s distance between herself and them, but this one’s nearer than that. Maybe two plots away. ‘Where the fuck is she?’

‘Coleridge,’ shouts another. ‘She must be heading for Coleridge.’

‘Fuck,’ says the first voice. Takes two deep breaths. ‘Come on. Fuck.’

He raises his voice to a theatrical bellow. Lights are coming on in every house now. The people in this one must be away, or she’d be a sitting duck. ‘Oi! She’s heading for Coleridge!’

In the distance, in her own garden, a yell of understanding.

Shit. Her pulse hammers in her ears. Amber takes a run-up at the wall and vaults, throwing herself bodily into the mat of thorns. It’ll take them no time at all, if they come by the road. She can’t afford to be careful. Needs to be out of sight by the time they turn the corner. She hears the trellis crack beneath her weight and draws blood on an exposed wrist. Feels her shirt snag and catch. Doesn’t stop to think; just forces her way through the debris and hurls herself at the other side.

The shirt holds for a moment, leaving her dangling in dark air, face in the foliage, then it rips and lets go, dropping her on an awkward foot-arch. She feels a sharp pain, something ripping deep within, and stifles a cry as the bones grind together. Then she’s free, and hop-running, adrenalin killing the hurt as it propels her forward.

She glances over her shoulder as she runs, losing precious moments as she slips on the scrappy verge. They’ll be halfway up Tennyson by now. She needs to get off this road; needs to drop out of sight. She limps to the corner of Marvell Street and dives into its temporary sanctuary.

She knows this road well. It’s the route she walks to Blessed’s flat; an empty stretch of garages and feeder roads. Halfway up, a kids’ playground, between the turns leading back to Browning and Tennyson, long since abandoned by families as the tidal wave of crack washed over the south-east. The junkies have moved on, but the playground – and what remains of its slides and swings and its crumbling jungle gym – has never been reclaimed.

The slap-slap-slap of boots on tarmac back in Coleridge, chillingly close behind. She can’t go on much longer on this foot. She hesitates for a second, then dives through the playground gate and ducks below the hedge.

Litter, blown in and dropped; she crawls gingerly among the bricks and ragwort. She hears the footsteps turn the corner, hears them slow as their owners find an empty road. Amber inches forward. Over beyond the sandpit there’s an old plywood climbing frame in the shape of a train, water-warped and splintered and four feet high, buried in a clump of smutty nettles. She knows they’ll look over the hedge, that they might even venture into the park. But they’d never think her fool enough to trap herself like that. She hopes. Has to hope. She has nowhere else to go.

She reaches the train and squeezes through a circular hole designed for a six-year old. Snags, sticks, heaves herself through and into the dark. Portholes throw light on the wall above her head, but down here on the floor, as she closes her mind to the objects she’s sharing the space with, is reassuring darkness.

They come along the road with the swaggering stride of numbers, swipe at foliage as they pass. She hears them pause by the gate, hears the click of a lighter igniting, smells the drift of cigarette smoke across the night air.

‘Fuck,’ says a voice. The man who tried the gate. ‘Where’s she gone? She can’t have doubled back, can she?’

A woman replies, the sound of the feminine more frightening because so unexpected. It’s Janelle Boxer, Shaunagh’s friend from a few doors up. Amber can see her in her mind’s eye: squat, thick-set, a face to match her surname. ‘No time. She’s gone down here. Down one of them two, there. She won’t have had time to get to the end.’

Someone swings the gate. The crunch of boots on gravel. She knows that eyes are scanning her hiding place, holds her breath as though it will cloud the midsummer air. The concrete on which she lies is damp and piled with musty earth and leaves. It smells of body fluids.

‘We could get the dog.’

‘Naah. She’ll be well gone by the time we do that.’

A swish of some long object – baseball bat? Scaffolding pole? – across the undergrowth an arm’s length from her head. Amber stiffens, presses herself deeper into the dark.

‘Fuck,’ says the first man, and something hits the wooden wall. She shrinks away, bites her lip.

‘You think she’s gone home?’ His voice slightly quieter now; he’s moving away. ‘It’s up this way, innit?’

The others fall into step. She hears the gate drag across the gravel, the clang of the broken latch. ‘Naah,’ replies someone. ‘You know where she’s gone? Pig farm.’

‘Well, let’s hope they keep her.’

Someone raises his voice. ‘Annabel!’ A chorus of laughs. ‘Come out, come out, wherever you are!’

They laugh again, their voices fading as they walk away. ‘Can’t believe it. Can you believe it? Fucking right in the middle of us all this time. I remember it. Poor little kid. D’you remember? All cut up. Covered in bruises. Broken bones. Fucking little sadist.’

‘Someone should show her what it’s like.’

‘Can you believe it? It’s Rose bloody West all over again. I’ve got kids, for fuck’s sake. She could’ve…’

‘Let’s go down the police. She mightn’t’ve got there yet… maybe if we split up…’

‘C’mon then. If we get the cars we can beat her down there.’

‘Don’t be a div. There’ll be Plod all over the shop.’

A laugh. ‘I wouldn’t be so sure about that. My cousin Ray’s on duty tonight. They’re fucking furious. Trust me. If anyone’s going to turn a blind eye…’

The voices fade into the distance. Amber sits up, leans against the spongy wall, feels the shriek of pain in her foot. In the darkness the image of Mary-Kate and Ashley, her darlings, her sweet friends, swims back into her mind and winds her. She wraps her arms round her body and weeps.

She doesn’t know what to do. She can’t let daylight overtake her. The darkness is her only protection. She waits for what feels like an interminable time before she dares to use her phone, afraid that someone will hear her voice, that the light from the display will give away her location. Then she calls Blessed, because it’s the only thing she can think to do.

She counts the rings. Six, then Blessed’s voice, blurred with sleep, answers. She must have fallen asleep over the order books. It happens to Amber all the time.

‘Blessed, it’s me.’

‘Who?’

‘Me. It’s Amber. It’s Amber, Blessed.’

‘No,’ says Blessed. The line goes dead, and she is alone in the dark.

She can’t stay here. She wipes her eyes, crawls out into the night. The road is empty. In the distance she can hear the monotonous thump-thump-thump of the nightclub strip, hear the shrieks of Whitmouth’s holidaymakers, unaware of the fear in their midst, celebrating their liberation from the threat of death. Her foot throbs, but takes her weight. She starts down the road towards town, dodging round the pools of light beneath streetlamps, pausing at corners to scope the road ahead. There’s only one place she can think of to go.

It takes her an hour. In daylight, in safety, without injury, it takes half that, though the walk along the A-road is so unappealing that she only normally does it when the buses aren’t running. She pulls up her hoodie and dips her head, looks at her feet as she limps and hopes that passing headlights will not illuminate her features for long enough to make her recognisable. On the seafront, her progress slows to a crawl. She shelters in doorways whenever a figure approaches, feigns fascination with window displays and advertising cards. The town is crowded, but she feels naked, exposed: the only person fully dressed, the only one sober, the only one alone. A group of lads surrounds her, drunk and laughing, gurning with slack lips into her shrinking face.

‘ALLLL RIIIGHT, Grandma!’

She recoils, heart thudding, but they don’t recognise her. Of course they don’t. They’re not locals; come from Yorkshire or Lancashire if their accents are anything to go by, and they’ve been drinking all night, not scouring the internet for breaking news. She’s probably as safe here as she would be anywhere, among the young and careless. And yet…

They must be somewhere. Her neighbours have not gone home, she knows it. Too worked up, too excited, too full of righteous anger. They’re stalking the town, staking out the police station, waiting for her to make her move. Nowhere is safe; not really. But at least she knows somewhere with gates, and locks, and security, even though they are designed to protect valuable assets and safeguard ticket sales, rather than people.

She sees the sign ahead: the garish lights turned off for the night, but the staff entrance still bright and welcoming. Funnland. The closest thing to a home she has left. The turnstiles are long since locked down, the ticket offices plunged in darkness. She feels as though the waters have closed over her head. She’s been off sick for a week and the only one who’s shown any interest in her welfare is Blessed, but even though Blessed is clearly done with her now, it’s the only sanctuary she can think of. Surely Blessed can’t turn her away if she’s actually there.

A hundred yards to cover. The crowds on the pavement have thinned, for there’s little to entertain a teenager on this strip once the park is closed. Amber instinctively tugs at the string of her hood, pulls it up over her chin. Shows nothing to the world but huge, frightened eyes.

She reaches the staff gate. Feels in her pocket for her swipe card, feels a rush of relief as her fingers close easily over it. Jason Murphy sits in the security-office window, reading. Not looking up. Good.

She runs the card through the reader. It emits a hollow, dead boop. She pushes the gate and finds it still locked. She swears under her breath, and tries the card again. Same sound. No cheery beep of ingress, no comforting clunk of lock, no grind of opening hinges. The card has been disabled. She is locked out.

She feels eyes burning her back, and looks up. She’s got Jason’s attention now all right. He sits with his chin in his hand, a faint smile twisting his mouth, and watches her discomfort. She raises a hand, points at the gate. Jason doesn’t move. Just watches. Amber shows him her card, shrugs out a signal of confusion and mimes pressing a button to get him to let her in.

Jason’s smile turns into a nasty grin; triumphant, gleeful. He shakes his head. Then she sees him reach over and pick up the telephone. Their eyes meet.

Still looking at her, he begins to speak. She sees his lips form the syllables of her name. Amber Gordon. Annabel Oldacre.

She turns away and hobbles down the road, towards the beach.