Something about being in the Majestic’s corridor after the last film had finished set Lizzie’s nerves on edge.
A quick trip to the loo on her way out had turned into ten minutes of holding her shirt under the dryer when the tap exploded. She’d managed to get it twisted back enough just to be drizzling into the bowl and the plan was to tell the guy on the desk about it before she left. But when she got back into the foyer there wasn’t anyone around.
She stopped and glanced across at the doors into the theatre, the ones she’d trudged out of with everybody else who’d had the bad luck to watch that crappy thriller tonight. It sounded like there was music playing from inside, though it was a bit late and there weren’t any other films supposed to be on at this time of night as far as she knew.
She was curious enough to take a couple of steps towards the doors then she hesitated. Years of keeping her nose out of other people’s business said it was a better idea to just walk out of here like she was planning to, never mind the fact that the sink in the ladies’ was playing up or that someone was watching a film after hours. It was nothing to do with her.
Then the music reached some sort of peak and she couldn’t resist. She crept to the door and pushed it open a crack, just enough to see the credits of a black and white film flickering while eerie music rang out from the speakers. It was like she’d stepped into another world, back into the past. Thanks to the light from the screen she could see a dozen or so people in the front rows then one woman sat further back. None of them had noticed the door opening, giving Lizzie the chance to slip inside and let it drift closed behind her.
She didn’t go as far as sitting down; that was too much like intruding. Instead, she took a couple of steps forward and squinted at the names on the screen just before they faded away. Then she was left looking at a gate while the music melted into a narrator’s voice, calm and crisp. The camera took them slowly down a long drive, but Lizzie abruptly realised that the woman who was sat closest to the door had noticed she was there. Her head had tilted to the side, silhouetted against the screen, and Lizzie’s instinct was to get away before she was challenged. It was somewhere she wasn’t meant to be obviously, something that -
The screen suddenly flashed once and died, taking the aisle strip lights with it. All that was left in the concrete darkness were the green Emergency Exit signs, floating like disembodied ghouls on either side of the huge room.
For a few seconds, Lizzie couldn’t adjust. She heard voices muttering in front of her but it was disorientating, as if they were coming from above, below and everywhere else. It occurred to her that the foyer might still have power, so she turned around and grappled for the door but it swung open and a torch dazzled her.
‘Get back,’ a voice spat. ‘Get back from the door now.’
Even though she couldn’t see anything except the torchlight, she knew it wasn’t the young guy who’d been on the desk earlier. This one had a harsher voice and, anyway, why would someone who worked here be acting like that? They wouldn’t, she realised, stumbling backwards along the aisle. She was grateful there weren’t any steps along here, otherwise she might’ve cracked her head open.
‘What’s that over there?’ an elderly woman called out from the front. ‘Jamie, is that you? What’s happened to the film?’
Lizzie stretched a hand to the top of the nearest seat, trying to keep herself upright. The torch was still burning into her eyes then there was a whirring and white light flooded the theatre as the screen came back on and the side lights burst back into life. It gave her a chance to see who she was looking at, for all the good it did her.
They both had black scarves over their faces and their hoods up. Both of them had huge bin bags in their hands, straining under the weight of whatever was inside. She was working on the assumption they were men from the way they moved, especially when the one closest to her swung his torch in her direction.
‘Sit down and shut up,’ he instructed.
Lizzie didn’t argue, slipping into the nearest seat and hoping no one had seen how much her legs were shaking.
Now the lights were on, it was easier to see the rest of the cinema. Everyone near the front was elderly, with one woman stood in front of the others holding her walking stick up as if she was planning on using it. The younger woman a couple of rows up, in her forties maybe, was watching everything carefully, her eyes darting around. They landed on Lizzie briefly and she tried to smile. Maybe it was too much to expect a smile back under the circumstances, that’s what she told herself when the other woman looked away.
‘Get out your money,’ the man said. ‘And jewellery and - and phones, anything like that you’ve got.’
‘Not on your life,’ the elderly woman snapped.
‘You’ve not got long left of yours,’ he growled.
Out of sight, Lizzie pressed her knees together. She knew the voice, even if she was wishing she didn’t. And if that was who she thought it was then the other guy . . . Keeping her attention away from him, she focused on what the old woman was saying.
‘You think you’re going to do over all of us, do you? With your little torch. You know what they say about men who need something to wave around -’
‘Beryl,’ the man beside her hissed as he unfastened his watch. ‘Just do as they say.’
‘Not until they tell me where my Jamie is. That’s what I want to know. They’ll have to get through me otherwise, I’ll not be letting them past to the lot of you.’
Lizzie watched as the second man leaned towards his mate to whisper, ‘We haven’t got time for this. If the lights are back on, that probably means someone’s called the coppers.’
Her stomach coiled at the voice, but she damped that down and focused on whether his mate was going to listen to what he was saying. It looked like Beryl had riled him up though. He stamped down the aisle, raising up his torch past his shoulder. Before he got near the front, though, the younger woman jumped out of her seat and glided between him and the pensioners.
The robber snickered. ‘Yeah, and what are you doing?’
‘You’re not taking anything from them,’ the woman said.
‘Whatever. I’ll have that necklace for a start. Come here, I’ll get it off you myself.’
‘You just try,’ she retorted.
From the way he was holding himself, he wasn’t just going to try. He’d probably do it and knock her out for the hell of it. Lizzie clutched at the armrests and wondered if this was her moment. Maybe she could rush past the other - the other one and make it to the foyer.
But then what? Staying out of other people’s business went out the window when one of those other people was about to get her head battered with the end of a torch. Even though Lizzie was willing her to stay quiet, the woman didn’t seem to want to.
‘I tell you, you’re not going near them,’ she insisted.
‘I’ll break your neck, love,’ the man shot back. ‘No fella’d want you after that.’
‘Well, it’s lucky I’m a lesbian then, isn’t it? Come on, I dare you. Stop being a coward. Hit me - you know you want to.’
Lizzie clenched her jaw. She knew this guy’s reputation; she knew he didn’t give a toss who he hurt. All this woman was doing by goading him was gearing up to have her head smashed in. As much as it wasn’t Lizzie’s problem, she didn’t want to see it happen and she didn’t want the dozen horrified pensioners to go through it either.
The man raised the torch again and Lizzie darted forward, charging down the aisle. He must’ve heard her coming because he spun around and caught her a glancing blow. Everything lit up in her brain then dimmed, even as she tried to keep her eyes open. The second man was holding her attacker back from doing any more damage, but then a siren echoed through the building and the pair of them legged it through one of the emergency exits with the bin bags of whatever they’d nicked.
Lizzie groaned and tried to manoeuvre her body into a position that didn’t hurt. Suddenly, she was surrounded by elderly men and women, all trying to drag her up. She managed to make it so she was leaning against the seats, not exactly on her feet but not on the grungy floor at least.
‘That was marvellous,’ one of the men said.
‘You’ve got guts, pet, I’ll give you that,’ Beryl said then she looked sideways. ‘You an’ all, Miss Thomas. Thank you.’
Lizzie followed her gaze and found herself staring into the face of someone who looked like she’d been folded into neat squares. Her voice had made her sound posh - as if she didn’t belong in the Majestic any day of the week - and the beige clothes backed that up, but there was something else, something missing.
Blinking away some of the spots in her vision, Lizzie tried to nail down what it was then two police officers burst through the double doors and put paid to that.
‘We’ve had a report of a robbery?’
Eve watched through narrow eyes as the police spoke to the pensioners at the front of the theatre.
Of course, they’d sat them down in a row as if they were a series of suspects with walking sticks and they were working their way along, shouting in the direction of hearing aids when asked to repeat themselves. They’d lost Beryl almost immediately, with her rushing off to find her grandson, something that didn’t seem to be a priority for these officers who though interrogating a collection of senior citizens was more pressing.
It took Eve several minutes to realise that no one was forcing her to stay rooted to the floor beside the white screen. She had the use of her legs; she was within her rights to move. However, as she took a few steps along the aisle, PC Stoke shifted in front of her.
‘Hold on, where are you going?’
Eve straightened her spine. ‘I’m going to find the manager who, presumably, had some sort of run-in with the robbers.’
‘That’s one theory,’ Stoke replied. ‘I’m going to need you to stay here until I’ve interviewed you.’
‘Am I under arrest?’ she queried.
‘You need to give a witness statement.’
‘And how long will that take, hmm? Are you going to take lengthy witness statements from all these people who’ve had a nasty shock and need to be left alone by you people?’
Once again, she was startling herself. She hadn’t recognised the woman who had blithely put herself in harm’s way ten minutes ago and she didn’t recognise the woman talking back to a so-called authority figure now. There was an image flickering at the back of her mind like a mangled reel of film showing the Majestic shuttered and dark. Perhaps it was the threat of her sanctuary being snatched away from her that had sparked all this, yet PC Stoke would simply see a belligerent woman making a nuisance of herself.
Before he could say what was evidently on his mind, his colleague broke away from speaking to one of the pensioners and strode up the aisle. He wore a more conciliatory expression on his face, but he was still a police officer for all that and Eve was inclined to mistrust them as a matter of principle.
‘I understand this is difficult,’ PC Kapoor said carefully. ‘We need to get brief statements while we can, just in case we need to follow up on anything straight away. If you can stay where you are for a bit longer, it’ll all be over soon.’
Michael edged towards them, tapping his cane on the carpet. ‘If I may, gentlemen, Miss Thomas is quite right to be worried about Beryl and young Jamie. If he was all right, he’d be in here with us.’
‘Or he might’ve been out that door with the other fella,’ Stoke suggested.
Eve clenched her fists. ‘Now, hang on a moment, neither of those men were anything like Jamie.’
‘I’ll get to your statement in a minute, okay?’ Stoke said. ‘Go sit down.’
Eve glanced at Michael who seemed as unhappy about this as she was. Yet he shuffled back to the front row to take his place among the pensioners and her appetite for rebellion drained away again, if only because she didn’t want the ignominy of being tackled to the floor by an overzealous constable.
So, instead, she tucked herself into one of the aisle seats and watched as PC Stoke returned to his little interrogations, although she knew he was keeping half an eye on her.
To occupy her mind, she looked across at where that young woman was slumped with her head tilted back to keep her nosebleed at bay. While she’d rejected the idea of an ambulance, she was obviously in pain and Eve winced at the role she’d played in her injuries. The woman had only intervened because Eve had been determined to push that man to some sort of precipice for reasons she didn’t fully understand. It was one thing to encourage violence on your own head, quite another to see it meted out to an innocent bystander - it was understandable that she felt some degree of guilt on that score.
Then again, the young woman was a complete newcomer to the film club, someone none of them had ever seen before. On the same night as a robbery . . . Eve couldn’t help but wonder if that was a coincidence and she scrutinised the woman’s face as best she could under the Majestic’s shabby lights. There was something amiss, certainly, but she supposed that could have been the shock playing out. Years of routine had dulled her ability to read emotions as effectively as she once could, something that frustrated her all of a sudden. The same sharp sensation in her stomach that had prompted her to stand up to that thug and then PC Stoke urged her to slip out of her seat and cross the aisle. After a few minutes of internal debate, she succumbed to it.
The woman stiffened as she saw her stand, belying the attempts to suggest she was more interested in the ceiling than what was going on around her. Eve didn’t expect her to move in her state, so she entered the row behind and sat three seats in, just close enough to have a conversation but far enough away that she still felt separate from it. Although she angled her head towards her, the woman didn’t fully turn around and still kept her attention fixed on the high ceiling.
‘Thank you for what you did,’ Eve said quietly. ‘I hope you weren’t too badly hurt.’
‘No, I’m okay, honestly,’ she replied.
‘Good, I’m glad.’ Eve paused. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Liz - Lizzie. I mean, call me whatever you want -’
‘You prefer Lizzie?’
‘Yeah,’ she admitted in a low voice.
‘I prefer Eve. My brother insists on calling me Evelyn and I detest it.’
Lizzie managed a smile, although it seemed strained. ‘I’d say nice to meet you but . . .’
As she trailed off, her gaze drifted towards the police officers. Eve suspected the obstinate focus on the ceiling had been nothing more than a self-deception to avoid giving way to wariness and fear. Now her attention was fixed on the police, she couldn’t conceal that any longer and Eve recognised a kindred spirit - on that score, at any rate.
‘You look as if you trust the police as much as I do,’ she said.
Lizzie chewed on her lower lip. ‘They’re doing their jobs.’
‘Yes, well, you couldn’t pay me all the money in the world to do the sort of work they do.’
‘Me neither.’ Lizzie swallowed then twisted her body around in the seat, looking at her properly for the first time. ‘Why were you so set on getting your skull caved in? If you’d have let them do what they wanted to, they would’ve just gone.’
‘Would they? Beryl would never have given them anything of hers, I can tell you that.’
‘You’re close to her?’
Eve shook her head. ‘No, but you saw what kind of person she is. She would rather have got herself hurt than give in.’
‘So, you decided it’d be better if it was you instead.’
‘I suppose, yes.’
‘Why?’ Lizzie asked.
Although she met her gaze for a moment, Eve looked away almost immediately. She couldn’t countenance responding to such a question from this young woman with blood on her chin and Lizzie finally settled back into her seat, focusing her attention on the ceiling again.
The two of them remained locked in silence until PC Stoke approached them several minutes later. He didn’t seem happy they were now sat together, even if he didn’t mention it outright. After taking one long look at Lizzie, he turned to Eve.
‘I’ll get your details now. Name and address.’
‘Evelyn Thomas, 12 Blackberry Crescent.’
‘Nice area,’ Stoke commented as he wrote that down in his little book. ‘And what were you doing here tonight?’
‘I come every week for the classic film club, every Thursday.’
‘How long have you been coming to that?’
‘Three months or so.’
He glanced to Lizzie. ‘What about you? How long have you been coming to the film club?’
‘This was my first time,’ she muttered.
A sneer settled on his face as he pivoted his body entirely towards Lizzie. Eve could have gladly slapped the disdain away, despite her earlier misgivings about Lizzie turning up on the same night as a robbery took place. No matter what she may or may not know about it, she’d still put herself in harm’s way to protect them. That counted for something in her mind, even if PC Stoke evidently didn’t agree with her analysis.
‘The film that was on tonight - what was it meant to be?’
Lizzie flushed. ‘I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know?’ Stoke repeated.
‘I wasn’t planning on coming to it. I was here for the last film then I went to the loo. It took ages because the tap . . . Anyway, when I got back into the lobby there was music playing from in here. I put my head around the door, that’s all. I wanted to see what was going on.’
‘It was just an old film,’ he pointed out.
‘I didn’t know what it was until I got inside.’
‘Right, but you saw it was old and you stayed?’
‘I wanted to see what it was, what film it was.’
‘Why?’ Stoke pressed. ‘Do you like old films?’
‘I’ve not seen many.’
‘So, why bother hanging around? Most girls your age would’ve been right back out the door, am I right? Unless you had another reason for being here. I’m not putting words into your mouth -’
‘Of course you are,’ Eve interjected. ‘You’re suggesting she was involved in what happened. I’m telling you she wasn’t.’
‘With respect, Miss Thomas, I’m speaking to . . .’ He clicked his tongue when he realised he hadn’t asked that question yet. ‘What’s your name, love?’
Lizzie was visibly trembling now. ‘Liz Carlyle.’
‘Where do you live?’
‘Sprinter Street. 3a.’
‘Right,’ Stoke said with another smirk. ‘Well, Liz, you must’ve walked past someone on the desk before you came back in here. Why didn’t you just ask them what the film was and why it was on? If you were that interested.’
‘There wasn’t anyone there,’ Lizzie admitted.
Eve recognised the implications of that. It would give Stoke further ammunition to assume young Jamie was involved in the robbery, although he plainly hadn’t finished with Lizzie yet either. He leaned forward, almost towering over her.
‘Were you an accomplice to whatever happened here tonight?’ he asked. ‘Simple yes or no.’
‘No,’ Lizzie said firmly.
‘What about the robbers? Do you know them?’
‘No,’ Lizzie repeated.
The words were uttered in the same tone of voice, yet Eve detected a tremor. She wasn’t certain Stoke had, since his line of questioning switched abruptly.
‘Have you got a job, Liz?’
Eve frowned. ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’
‘He wants to know if I’m going to do a runner,’ Lizzie explained, knotting her hands together. ‘Less likely if I’m employed.’
‘And are you?’ Stoke demanded.
‘I’m a supervisor at Gordon’s.’
‘In the call centre?’
‘Yeah. So, I’m not going anywhere. Happy?’
‘Ecstatic,’ he retorted, snapping his notebook shut. ‘I’ve got all I need for now. You two can go.’
Eve stood up. ‘What about everyone else? What about Beryl and Jamie?’
‘All that’s under control, no need to worry about them.’
In another life, perhaps she would’ve believed him. Yet she sensed it was better to leave before he questioned Lizzie further and realised she’d been lying to him.
‘Come on,’ she said to Lizzie, surprising herself once again. ‘I’ll walk you out.’
However much her ribs ached, Lizzie wasn’t about to tell either that nosy copper or the woman who was helping her walk down the aisle. She didn’t want to end up in A&E if she could help it, but Eve Thomas might be the type who’d insist on her getting checked out if she let slip how much everything was hurting. Lizzie wasn’t completely sure though; she still couldn’t get a handle on her, even if she was grateful for the way she’d defended her in front of that smarmy PC Stoke. Maybe it was just payback for getting in the way of a thump meant for her, but it was nice not to be chucked to the wolves when she’d been expecting it.
They made it through into the foyer then Eve pulled them both to a stop rather than turning left to the entrance. Beryl was leaning against the frame of a door across the other side of the desk, looking more like an old lady than she had when she was squaring up to the robbers.
‘Beryl?’ Eve said.
She glanced over. ‘Are they still in there making their accusations?’
‘I’m afraid so. Is Jamie all right?’
‘No, he’s . . .’ Beryl peered into the doorway. ‘It’s okay, pet. You weren’t to blame, Miss Thomas knows that.’
Lizzie risked a quick look at Eve, though she couldn’t work out what was going through her head. Then a rustling brought her attention back to where Beryl was standing. The guy who’d sold her a ticket edged out of the doorway, hair plastered to his forehead and nose bust. From the way he was moving, Lizzie reckoned he’d either been kicked somewhere delicate or he’d had an accident, not that she was judging. All that cockiness she remembered from earlier had been sapped right out of him and it was like looking in a mirror.
‘I didn’t do anything to stop it,’ he whispered.
‘What happened?’ Eve asked. ‘It might help to tell me first rather than speaking to the police.’
Jamie blinked rapidly. ‘I - I can’t even figure it out. I was walking to lock the doors up like I normally do when you’re all inside then they were there, two of them. They came at me and they - they dragged me into here. Gave me a kicking and tied me up.’
‘Did they say what they wanted?’
‘The keys for upstairs. I think they thought I was here on my own then they heard the film and I knew they’d - I couldn’t move - I couldn’t stop it.’
‘Course you couldn’t,’ Beryl said, clutching his arm.
‘But the coppers won’t believe that, Nan!’
Lizzie winced at how distraught he was. In his place, she’d want someone to say something that didn’t sound hollow and she couldn’t think of anything off the top of her head, probably because he was right with how bad he thought it was. A moment later, Eve started talking in a quiet voice that didn’t match the force of her words.
‘Listen to me, Jamie. They can’t prove you were involved because you weren’t, but they’ll do their damndest to trip you up. Keep telling them the truth, don’t deviate from that for a second. Any opportunity you give them to make you feel like the criminal, they’ll take it because they’re useless at doing their jobs and they want an easy solution. Do not show them this weakness, get it out of your system with us. Do you understand?’
Jamie opened his mouth then closed it again. He took a couple of seconds to straighten up his shoulders, putting his height back above his nan’s, before looking at Eve properly.
‘Yes, Miss Thomas, I understand. Thank you.’
Eve just nodded and turned away, taking Lizzie with her since their arms were somehow still linked. It was only when they got outside that Lizzie pulled away to test whether she could stand on her own two feet without help and Eve seemed to remember who they were to each other - or, more accurately, who they weren’t. She stiffened and pushed her hands deep into her pockets, glancing along the quiet street.
‘Which way do you walk?’ she questioned.
Lizzie gestured to the right. ‘Down here.’
‘Fine,’ Eve murmured.
It wasn’t fine, Lizzie could tell that from the moment they started walking. Coming out of the doors from the Majestic seemed to have had the same effect on Eve as the robbers running out into the alley. Something had switched over in her head, as if the TV channel had suddenly changed and she wasn’t sure what she was watching anymore.
For a couple of minutes, the silence between them wasn’t too bad. There were other people around near the kebab shops and smoking outside pubs, so at least it wasn’t completely awkward. It was only when they got to the end of the main road and both turned right towards the park that Lizzie started to feel suffocated.
‘What do you think’s going to happen?’ she asked abruptly.
Eve didn’t look over. ‘I expect the police will try to prove their theory about Jamie.’
‘And after that?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘They’ll want to interview us properly, won’t they?’
‘I expect so.’
‘Okay.’ Lizzie pressed her lips together. ‘Okay.’
‘I’d work on your poker face if I were you,’ Eve said after a moment. ‘And don’t contradict yourself when you speak to them otherwise they might realise you were lying when you said you didn’t know anything.’
Lizzie nearly tripped over her own feet, almost reaching for Eve’s shoulder to steady herself but thinking better of it. She kept herself upright somehow then tried to level her voice off as well.
‘I didn’t know that was going to happen tonight,’ she said.
‘No, you didn’t, I believe you on that. But you lied when you said you didn’t know who those men were. If you want to continue that lie, you’ll need to be more convincing.’
Maybe this was what having concussion felt like. Here was this woman from one of the poshest bits of town telling her to get her story straight when she talked to the police. Since she didn’t want to incriminate herself, Lizzie kept quiet until they reached the junction of Warecross Street then she realised they were heading in different directions if Eve lived on Blackberry Crescent.
‘I’m going this way,’ she muttered.
Eve stopped walking. ‘Will you be safe on your own? Is there someone to look after you?’
‘I’ve got roommates, I’ll be fine.’
‘Good. I hope you recover.’ Eve paused and met her eye. ‘I hope the Majestic does too.’
Before Lizzie could think of a response to that, Eve was already striding away in the opposite direction. She watched her progress from streetlamp to streetlamp then a gust of wind set her teeth chattering and she set off towards Sprinter Street.