The Wreckage

9

Holly doesn’t stop moving. Doesn’t look back. When she reaches an intersection with a red “don’t walk” sign, she turns left and heads down the road, trying to lose herself in the crowds of shoppers, tourists and commuters. Further along the street, she makes the crossing, skipping between cars and buses.

The Underground is just ahead. No, not the tube, she could be too easily cornered. She walks past the station entrance and heads south towards the Thames.

On Waterloo Bridge a jaundiced sun is setting through the haze. Finally she pauses, sweating under her clothes, cold on her face. For twenty minutes she studies the pedestrians and cars. How did he find her-the man from last night? The ex-copper. He said his name was Vincent. He looked harmless. Old. Crippled.

She calls Zac. He’s not answering. He was the person who taught her about counter-surveillance: how to blend in with a crowd and lose a pursuer. For the next thirty minutes she continues south, occasionally doubling back and ducking into shop doorways where she can watch the street behind her. Her feet are hurting. She’s thirsty.

The streets become shabbier as she gets closer to the Hogarth Estate. Shops give way to factories, railway yards and seventies tower blocks that rise above the rooftops like tree stumps in a nuclear winter.

It’s almost dark on the estate. Children have been summoned indoors and TV sets drown out the arguments. Pushing through the entrance, Holly steps past old food containers and discarded Styrofoam cups.

Why isn’t Zac answering his phone?

She doesn’t trust the lift. Takes the stairs. A smell she can’t place in the stairwell mingles with other odors that she doesn’t want to name.

The door is open. The frame splintered. At first she thinks Zac has locked himself out and broken into the flat. She looks into the living room. The sofas have been disemboweled. Drawers pulled out. Furniture broken. Clothing scattered. A pressure band tightens around her skull.

Stepping across the threshold she can see through the partially opened door of the bedroom. The mattress is no longer on the bed.

Then she sees the chair. Zac sitting upright, his skin slick with blood, his arms bound behind him, his feet tethered together at his ankles. His eyes open at the sound of her cry. She wants to go to him, but he mouths a word through broken lips.

She stops.

He says it again.

“Run!”

As Holly turns she catches a glimpse of a hand reaching for her. She ducks, falling, scrambling on her knees. The hand comes again. She knocks it away, scuttling backwards, kicking with her legs.

“I don’t like hurting a woman, but I have made exceptions,” says the shadow.

Holly tries to scream. No sound comes out.

“Where is it?”

“What?”

“You took something that wasn’t yours.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He grabs her by the hair with both his hands and begins to spin, forcing Holly to run in circles. She grabs at his wrists to take pressure off her scalp. Faster and faster he spins, finally letting go, flinging her across the room where she ricochets off a wall and crumples. She tries to crawl away. He keeps coming. Amid the debris her fingers close around something cold and heavy. A saucepan. Cast-iron.

He grips her ankle and tries to drag her back to the bedroom. She kicks. He has her hair again. Lifting her. She swings the saucepan into his face. Blood sprays from his mouth. The man picks a broken tooth from inside his cheek and stares at it like he’s found a penny in a Christmas pudding.

Twisting her wrist he forces Holly to her knees and the saucepan drops from her fingers. Holly bunches her fist and swings, driving her knuckles into his groin. He doubles over and groans. It’s an animalist sound. Picking up the saucepan she hits him again across the side of the head. He staggers and raises his gun hand. Tries to focus. Pulls the trigger. The bullet hits the wall behind her.

Holly runs. She’s small and agile. Four years of gymnastics. Seven years of running from her father. At the door, along the walkway, at the top of the stairs, letting gravity carry her down. Almost out of control. Zac’s face in her mind, his body broken.

Reaching the ground floor, she hurls herself at the fire door, which bangs open. She’s almost to the road. There are cars. Lights. People. Somebody steps in front of her. She can’t stop. Her arms fold across her head, bracing for a collision.

“Gotcha!”

The girl is screaming hysterically, fighting at his arms, scratching at his face; her cheeks streaked with tears and snot.

Nothing Ruiz says seems to make any difference. Holding her firmly, he tells her to settle down. Getting rougher. He slaps her hard across the face and then holds her tightly, his arms around her chest, her feet off the ground.

“What’s wrong? What are you so frightened of?”

Her eyes shoot behind him, looking over his shoulder.

“He’s got a gun! Run!”

“Who’s got a gun?”

She sucks in a breath. “Him. Upstairs. Please, let me go.”

“Your boyfriend?”

She shakes her head and tries to pull away from him again. This is not another performance. She’s terrified. Shaking.

Ruiz takes her to his car and puts her in the front seat.

“OK. Stay here.”

“Don’t leave me!”

“You’re safe.”

Ruiz crosses the road at a jog and pushes through the fire doors. Looks at the lift. It’s on the third floor. He peers up the central staircase. Concrete. Cold. It’s hard to move quietly. He climbs slowly. Counting the floors.

There is a long walkway, open at one side, overlooking a quadrangle. More concrete. Another set of stairs is at the far end. The flats are numbered, all beginning with “3.”

Glancing over the railing, he peers into the darkness. The lights in the quadrangle float like yellow balls suspended from above. Something moves in the shadows, a hooded figure, head down, walking quickly. It could be anyone.

The flat is fifteen yards along the walkway. Edging along the wall, Ruiz stoops in a crouch and looks through the splintered door. He can only see one half of the entrance hall. Keeping his back to the wall, he steps inside. A darkened bedroom is off to the right. The place has been searched. Ransacked. Drawers pried open, yanked out, emptied. Wardrobes pillaged, clothes ripped from hangers and tossed on the floor.

The sitting room is another disaster. The sofa slashed, a bookcase overturned, the back smashed in. Dishes and cups have been raked from kitchen shelves and lie broken on the linoleum.

The boyfriend is sitting in a chair in the main bedroom. Naked. Rail thin. Covered in wounds. His forearms and wrists are thick and corded with muscles and veins; his thighs are slick with blood.

Ruiz tilts Zac’s head, looking for signs of life. His eyes are open. The neat hole punched through his forehead is like a red bindi on an Indian bride.

Standing frozen for a moment, Ruiz drops his hands to his sides, his senses dulled, his mind deafened by the sound in his head like pounding surf. He backs out the door, not touching anything.