The present
First of all, Bridget needed some clothes. She backed up the stairs, trying to make sure she didn’t make any noise; she knew whoever had hurt Dee was still in the building, probably hurting Estelle.
She looked through Dee’s clothes hurriedly, grabbing a black velour Hooch tracksuit. It was the only thing that went down further than the thighs and higher than the nipples. She crept down the stairs again. She could hear a man talking on the phone, with an accent she couldn’t quite place.
‘What do you mean it’s not her? There’re two women here and one bloke dressed as a fucking baby … Yeah, one of them has black hair and the other is blonde. I sent you the pictures … Well, she’s not here then, is she … All right, all right, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disrespect you. I’ll find her … Don’t worry, they’re all dead … No, no one saw me … There’s definitely no one else here … OK.’
She peered through the crack in the door again. The man was in her bedroom, his shadowy figure facing away from her. She could see her mobile phone on the side table, right above where all her shoes were kept, but she couldn’t go in. Slowly, she backed away from the bedroom, back into the communal hallway. Her breathing was fast and erratic but she tried to be quiet, tried not to disturb anything as she walked.
She opened the sash window in the hallway, wincing at the slight sound, and ran quickly down the fire escape. The cold, wet metal was a shock to her feet. She was trying hard not to make noise on the rickety iron staircase; in places the metal had completely eroded, so she had to be careful not to cut herself or put her foot through the steps. She ran down the side alley that was parallel to the back of the building, stopping at a yellow road-gritting salt box. The weather had been mild enough lately that she hadn’t needed to worry about it being disturbed for a while.
Bridget opened the box and reached inside. She dug around, the sound of the dirty chunks of rock salt scraping against each other setting her teeth on edge. She felt the leather strap of her backpack between her fingers and tugged hard. The salt displaced with a crunch, making more noise than she’d anticipated. She shot a look behind her to make sure no one was there. She was alone. She opened the bag and checked the contents. A roll of bank notes, a phone, a Leatherman multi-tool, an emergency power pack and a spare phone battery. The battery in the phone was dead so she switched it to the spare. There wasn’t a lot of battery left on the emergency one either. If this didn’t qualify as an emergency, she didn’t know what did. The only number on the phone was Sam’s. She pressed the screen.
Straight to answerphone.
‘Sam? It’s Bridge. Where the hell are you? Are you in trouble? A man came to the house while I was using the shower upstairs, but when I came back down they were all dead.’ She tried to keep the panic out of her voice, whispering furiously so as not to attract any attention. ‘I only saw Dee’s body. I didn’t see the others, but I heard him talking. It was me they were after … I didn’t see who it was though. He had a slight accent, I think, and he didn’t sound young, but that’s all I can tell you for now. I’m going to go to our meeting spot. Please be there.’ She checked over her shoulder, paused and took a deep breath. There was a feeling in the pit of her stomach that told her she wouldn’t be speaking to him for a while. ‘I love you, Sam.’
Bridget hung up, swinging the bag on to her back. She began walking towards the town centre, keeping one eye on a few drunks on the corner of the street. She wondered if they were who they appeared to be. Were they watching her? She surveyed the cars along the road, searching for a model more than twenty years old, as they were easier to get into. It was a long way to her usual meeting place with Sam. She needed a car.
Her eyes landed on a J-reg Vauxhall Cavalier. She dropped behind it and got to work, removing a paracord bow from the bag. Bridget kept one eye on the road as she worked, and ducked further down behind the car as she saw a man, walking in her direction. She didn’t have long. Her heart skipped a beat when she saw another, younger man emerge from the building behind him. The two men paused in the street, a few cars down from where she crouched. She could hear the rumble of raised voices as they began to argue.
Now was her chance.
She made a slipknot in the cord. She leveraged the door a fraction with the Leatherman and slid the string through the space, moving it slowly from side to side with one hand either end of the string until the loop connected with the bobble on the plastic door lock. She pulled each end of the string until the knot was tight around the lock then yanked the ends quickly upwards, unlocking the door.
The men both turned at the clunk, their faces hidden in the darkness. There was a beat of silence. Bridget waited a few seconds until they turned back to face one another, then carefully opened the car door. She reached under the steering column and unscrewed the cover, telling herself to keep calm. You’ve done this a million times before. She pulled out the wire bundle and stripped the two red battery wires of their casing, exposing an inch of copper with the knife on her Leatherman, then twisted them together. She stripped the brown ignition wire before getting in the car to crank the starter over. The moment that exposed ignition wire hit the battery the two men would know where she was; she had only seconds to get away. She took a deep breath and touched the wires together. As soon as the engine started, Bridget glanced through the window to see the two men moving, running to get to the car before she could drive away. She threw the backpack on to the seat beside her and pulled out into the road, turning the wheel so hard her hands hurt. If they had any doubts before they heard the wheelspin, they certainly didn’t now. Looking through the rear-view mirror, she was just in time to see the pair jumping into a car, ready to follow her.
The present
Bridget took the road to St David’s station, wishing she had told Sam that she would meet him there, where there were people and places to hide in plain sight. She carried on driving, aware that the men were not far behind her. She saw them turn each corner as she reached the other end of the street, their car jolting on to the kerbs as they chased her. Bridget thought briefly about Estelle, and what must have happened to her. I should have called an ambulance. She couldn’t think about what she should have done, all she could think about was getting away from these men. Her eyes flitted between the rear-view mirror and the road ahead. As she drove down Bonhay Road she felt so exposed; there wasn’t enough traffic to get lost in.
They were gaining on her. She drove across the bridge towards Cowick. She would have to get rid of the car. It was good for distance but they were past that now. She just needed to make sure they didn’t get hold of her and she stood a better chance of that on foot. There were some smaller streets coming up, with lots of red brick housing set back from the main road. Glancing behind, she couldn’t see their car, and she quickly turned the steering wheel and drove through an entrance into a private car park behind a small row of houses, immediately killing the engine. They wouldn’t be able to see the car from the road – not yet, anyway. Bridget jumped out and ran as fast as she could towards the river. As she sprinted, she heard the sound of a car coming. It was them. She ducked behind a large council wheelie bin and waited for them to pass her. They had slowed right down, obviously searching for her. Her breathing felt as though it had stopped as she crouched on the ground next to the bin. She waited for the sound of the car to die, and when she was sure they had gone, she emerged, keeping close to the buildings as she ran down to the river, taking the underpass to the lower walkway that ran alongside the bank. Hopefully they wouldn’t see her down here from the road. She had completely forgotten that she wasn’t wearing anything on her feet; ignoring the pain of the tarmac, she made her way towards the Cricklepit Bridge. Everything was lit up, but she stuck to the shadows when she could