Freddie’s skin was alive, as if it were crawling with a thousand ants: they were in her hair, her nose, her mouth, she couldn’t breathe. A panic attack. Try to remain calm. What had her counsellor said? Acknowledge your feelings. Allow them to pass through you. Fuck that! Her hands groped for the switch to open the window. The car filled with the air and rush and noise of the motorway.
‘Freddie?’
It was the same voice that called to her that night. As her blood sprayed against the wall. She could see him: his face misted with her blood. He swung again. Again. She was going to die.
‘Freddie, you’re having a panic attack.’ Nas’s hair flew in the wind. Cars screamed past, shunting her from the past to now. To terror. Her ears would explode. Her head would explode.
Try to focus on Nas. Her smell. Clean. Soap. She grasped at the hand on her knee. Her prescription was on the bedside table. Had she taken it this morning?
‘Shall I pull over, ma’am?’ She’d forgotten Green.
What had happened? She must have fallen asleep. Did she dream, did she cry out? A jagged breath clawed its way into her lungs.
‘Do you want to stop, Freddie?’
She could see nothing but Nas now. Her head was tilted so the air from the open window pushed her dark hair streaming away from her face. Like she was standing on a beach. They’d been to the beach as kids. Staying in the Cudmores’ caravan. Huddled together in a single bed. Salt in the air. Her shoulders relaxed.
‘Freddie?’
The wind dropped: they were turning off the motorway. In her peripheral vision she saw three-storey Victorian terraces; trees, almost as old as the houses, thrusting up out of the pavement. They hadn’t even reached proper London yet. They were in the suburbs and she’d already freaked out. Weakening her grip on Nas’s hand, she felt a little squeeze in return. The frenzied gulps subsided.
‘Sorry.’ The words bruised. Her throat ached from the tension.
‘It’s okay.’ Nas’s professional voice was back, but she still looked worried.
Freddie nodded. Swallowed, trying to lubricate her throat. ‘I fell asleep. I think.’ Typical. She’d barely slept for weeks and now here, when she needed to be awake, alert, she’d managed to doze off. ‘Good timing, huh?’
‘Impeccable.’ Nas lifted her hand away from her knee, and with it any final lingering hints of the closeness of the past. ‘You sure you’re okay?’
Freddie remembered Green was in the car and felt her neck grow hot. How to make yourself look like a tool in front of the fuzz. ‘Fine. Sit down. Show’s over.’
Nas looked like she was going to say something, but thought better of it. She turned, sat back in her seat. She heard her exhale.
‘Not long now – ten minutes. Unless we need to stop? My partner gets panic attacks,’ said Green, twisting to look at her. Instead of the patronising look of victory Freddie had expected, she looked concerned.
‘I’m sorry to hear that, Green,’ Nas said.
‘Yeah, well, she’s got a stressful job,’ Green said.
Freddie tried to imagine Green consoling someone, comforting them like Nas had her. ‘She a cop as well?’
‘No, social worker,’ Green said.
‘Tough gig.’ It was weird to think of Green as a person outside of this nightmare, with a life, a home, a lover. Silence descended on the car, as if they were all trying to reposition after the fabric of reality had been torn with Freddie’s panic attack. It was too visceral. Tangible. It betrayed how fragile they all were. Reminded them of Lottie. Of her terror.
‘Do you believe Melisha didn’t know she was the cover story the night Chloe disappeared?’ she asked.
Nas stared ahead. She must have felt sick turning round to talk. ‘I can’t see why she’d lie about that.’
‘To keep out of trouble?’ Green suggested.
‘Chloe definitely lied about where she was going,’ Freddie said. ‘She planned it.’
‘Or she planned to stay somewhere else,’ Nas said.
The traffic was bunching up, vehicles pulling slowly, labouredly aside to let them and their blue flashing lights through. The buildings were growing bigger, the sky disappearing as they stretched upwards, flexing. ‘What did she take with her? Did she have overnight stuff?’
‘Nothing was found on her apart from her school bag,’ Nas said. ‘Her parents reported nothing was missing. Her toothbrush, her pyjamas, it was all still at home.’
‘She said she was staying at Melisha’s, but she didn’t take any things? And they didn’t notice?’ Her belt tightened across her as she leant forward to see Nas’s face.
Green muttered at the van in front of them that hadn’t pulled far enough over.
‘They’re good parents,’ Nas said too quickly. Her fingers were still drumming against her knee, as if she were counting the beat.
Were they? They hadn’t noticed Gemma was distressed eight years ago. Perhaps they didn’t pay enough attention to their children.
‘Both her mum and dad left for work before she left for school, according to their statement.’
Nas’s phone sounded and Freddie felt hers vibrate in her hand.
‘It’s a Snapchat notification,’ said Nas, pulling her phone from her pocket and catching her eye.
‘Is it another message?’ Green didn’t take her eyes from the road. ‘What is it?’
Freddie’s mouth was stripped dry; her ribs tightened around her, threatening to drag her back under. She wanted to get out the car. To get away. To run. Not to look, not to see. It was a video clip. Across it was a banner message: Watch me. She fought to keep control of her breathing, her whole body shaking as she stared at the screen. The camera adjusted to the same dark room as before, focusing on Lottie’s flash-lit face. Bleached white. Terrified. Gagged. She was frantically struggling, twisting from side to side. Freddie felt the floor fall away as a gloved hand appeared in the shot, a long silver knife glinting in the light. No!
‘Oh my god!’ Nas cried.
‘What is it? Shit – there’s nowhere to pull over,’ Green said.
Freddie’s heart was in her mouth, battering against her teeth as the knife moved towards Lottie. This couldn’t be happening. She couldn’t be watching this. Lottie was screaming under the tape. Her face stretched in anguish. Freddie wanted to look away as a second gloved hand grabbed Lottie by her hair, yanking her towards the camera. No. The knife blazed like lightning as it swung down towards the captive girl. And the feed cut out. Freddie’s mind fought to process what it was seeing. Lottie bleached, terrified, gagged, desperate, trying to escape, the knife flashing through the air – cut. Terror. Desperate. Knife. Cut.
‘Jack can’t see this!’ Nas was saying.
‘Can we copy the video?’ Green shouted.
‘There’s an app – I don’t have it!’ Nas was screenshotting the video again and again, as the counter wound down. ‘We need to get back to the office now. The tech lads might be able to retrieve this.’
Freddie was aware of the car lurching forward, that she was being thrown from side to side, that they were powering through the streets. Someone was speaking, their voice trembling, jerky, the words difficult to make out. It was her. She was talking. As the buildings of Westminster rose either side of them, the same question fell from her like tears: What happened after the camera cut?