I don’t know how long I was gone. It could have been hours or just a few minutes. My watch was on the table, across the other side of the room, and I couldn’t reach it. I wasn’t by the massage table any more, though I was still on the floor. I was lying on my side beneath the window. My hands were bound behind my back with what felt like washing-line cord. I couldn’t move them. I thought of my wish, the day before, to have the answer massaged out from inside me.
It had happened.
Deep, booming detonations crumped inside my head. The pain there played tag with the pain in my ribs, where her thumbs had gouged into me. My groin hurt constantly, a sickly sweet nausea rising every time I tried to move. Unconsciousness rose too, calling me back, but I managed to squeeze my eyes against it and stay in the room. I could see my jacket on the back of a chair near the massage bench.
Pulling at my hands, I realized that the line my hands were tied with had been attached to something behind me. The foot of the radiator. I was bound tight. I scrabbled madly at the knots at my wrists, trying to get free, swearing at myself for not seeing this. I tried some more before realizing that I wouldn’t have a chance, not without seeing what I was doing. Instead I called out. I screamed for help. I could hear a stereo somewhere, giving out drum and bass. When I screamed again the music just got louder.
The pain in my head was matched only by the panic inside me. I thrashed again and called out again but neither was any use. Nor was trying to untangle the tightened twists of cord behind me. Instead I shuffled and pushed until I’d managed to get myself into a squatting position. Then I moved myself up, like a weightlifter. There was a little give in the radiator but it was nowhere near enough. My hands felt like they were being sliced off at the wrists. I had to try again. The radiator creaked once more and it might have worked, but slow pressure like that would take ages. Instead I closed my eyes. In a frenzy I piled myself forward and upward, rocking hard, screaming against the pain, until I could feel the radiator beginning to rise out of the floor, out of the pipes leading into it. I didn’t stop until I found myself careening forwards into the massage table, my head connecting with one of its corners, sending it sideways. I was on the floor, my hands still tied to the radiator that I’d pulled from the wall. A flood of brackish, stinking hot water gushed out of the pipes behind me.
I managed to get my hands free of the radiator and I stood. Too quickly. I had to kneel again to stop myself blacking out, swallow to keep back the rise of vomit from my guts.
I still didn’t know how long I’d been lying there. I had to wait for my eyes to clear and then I crawled over to my phone, lying on the floor near my jacket. Without waiting to get my hands free I found Sharon’s number in the phone book and hit ‘call’. Holding both hands up to my face I listened to the ring tone. As weakened as I was physically, the fear I felt made the phone in my hands practically impossible to hold. How long did the phone ring? Longer than anything, longer than the rest of my life had taken to live up to that moment.
‘Hello.’
‘Sharon?’ I closed my eyes. ‘Thank God. Sharon, is that you?’
‘Billy, what the hell’s going on? First you don’t phone me or come round, then, after I’ve swallowed my pride and called you, you just hang up on me. Now you phone me back.’
‘Sharon, listen.’
‘No. You listen. I’m bloody sorry about what’s going on and I’m sorry I added to your worries but I haven’t put any pressure on you. We had a great time before I went away but if you don’t want to base the rest of your life on that, I’m not going to make you. No pressure.’
‘Sharon, please. You have to hear me out.’
‘I will, but it really pissed me off yesterday. I cooked for you and waited. You said you’d come. You said some really lovely things to me too. And then you just vanished. Listen, I’m overreacting, I know I am. I just want you here. You were probably with Andy Gold all night. I’m all over the place – my hormones, I guess. Hey, I’ve got that excuse now. I know you’re stressed at the moment and God, what happened to Ally. But it’s not my fault. So call me, in future.’
‘I will. Just listen to me a second. Sharon—’
‘Hold on, Billy.’
‘What is it? Sharon?’
‘Calm down. It’s just someone at the door.’
‘Sharon. Listen. Sharon? Sharon?!’
I heard a heavy clunk as Sharon set the phone down on the table. Then I heard footsteps moving away. I screamed Sharon’s name but I knew she wouldn’t hear me. Even if she did it wouldn’t register as important, not from the hall in her flat. I didn’t know what to do. Should I hang up and call her again? It wouldn’t work, she hadn’t set the phone back on the cradle. I screamed again.
‘Don’t open it. Don’t open the door!’
But I couldn’t hear anything on the other end. Making the decision, I hung up. I dialled Andy’s mobile. When he didn’t answer I dialled his desk phone, hoping he’d detailed someone to monitor it.
‘DI Gold’s phone.’
It was the kid, the kid who’d told Andy about forensics’ findings in Brixton. I fumbled for his name.
‘Chamberlain?’
‘DC Chamberlain speaking.’
‘Chamberlain, it’s Rucker. Billy Rucker. I was just with you.’
‘Yes, I remember. Of course.’
‘Chamberlain, listen to me. Carefully.’
‘OK. What is it, sir?’
‘My girlfriend is in danger. Serious danger. You have to get as many feet round to 62A Wharf Place as you can, understand? Right now. It’s Hackney, opposite Broadway Market. The killer’s there, there right now.’
‘I don’t think so, sir. DI Gold’s pretty confident we have him right here.’
‘Well, you haven’t. You have to believe me. Please do it. 62A Wharf Place. Make a priority, all units call and get the nearest three units there. Please. Please, please trust me and do this.’
I’d put everything into it. There was silence for a second.
‘As soon as I’m off the phone to you, sir.’
I hit ‘end’ as quickly as I could and took three deep breaths. I don’t know how I got my hands free. I just pulled them out of the cord, tearing with my teeth then pushing down with my feet. When I was clear I called Sharon again but I only got an engaged tone. I pulled on my clothes and made it outside to my car. My car. Where the hell was my car? I felt for my keys but they were gone. She’d taken it. As I ran down the Pancras Road to King’s Cross I dialled Andy’s number again and once again Chamberlain picked up.
‘A Mazda,’ I said. ‘An old brown Mazda. DTL 108M. She took it, the perp. Tell all units to look for it.’
‘She?’
•She!
‘OK, sir. I will. I’ve put the call out. Try not to panic. I’ve informed DI Gold and he’s heading there too. There should be a patrol car at the address any time now.’
Any time now. The words clanged through my head as I burst to the front of the queue at the cab rank. The driver was old, practically moulded into his vehicle. I told him where to go and he responded to my urgency at once, ignoring the outraged protestations of the people behind me. We shot up the Pentonville Road and down towards Old Street. The driver swapped lanes and cut people up, he made it through amber lights and put his foot down whenever there was space in front of us. The streets flashed by and in my mind images of Sharon flashed too. Sharon in her flat, just like Ally had been. A scream made flesh. The helplessness I felt made me want to tear the cab driver out of his seat and drive myself, on pavements, the wrong side of the street, anything. I couldn’t do anything, anything but wonder: was I going to be like Mike? A ghost walking the streets, everything taken away from me before I’d even had a chance to touch it?
The driver swung the cab round past Shoreditch Town Hall. He couldn’t have gone any faster but I couldn’t stop myself urging him too. The binding connection I felt to Sharon was almost physical, a bungee cord picking up speed as it pulled me back towards her. And not just to her. Our child. In a flash, from nowhere, an immense bond of love had materialized between us. Even though it was barely formed. Even though I’d only known about its existence for forty-eight hours. I’d always wondered how fathers could love babies, how they could feel that they had anything to do with them. But now I knew. I’d never envied Mike for his upcoming fatherhood. I didn’t want to be that old. Now I would have given anything to still be on course for that. It was a part of myself that I was hurtling towards and it was the best part. It was my own life I was trying to save.
‘Here. Pull over here.’
I had the money ready, everything in my wallet. I was on the bridge, the place I’d stopped at the night before. I sprinted across and then round the back of the building, towards the door of Sharon’s flat. But as soon as I turned the corner my legs began to slow down. There were two patrol cars parked outside the entrance door. Next to them were three unmarked vehicles. My arms clenched into my sides as the speed went out of my limbs. The wind out of my stomach. The blood out of my veins.
It had happened. One way or another. It had happened. There was nothing I could do.
Two uniformed officers were standing guard at the door to Sharon’s apartment block. I walked towards them, each step like a marathon. I’d rushed there so fast and now I didn’t want to ever cross the next twenty yards. The two policeman saw me walking towards them. They turned in my direction and straightened. Their faces were closed. I couldn’t tell if they knew who I was. Or what they’d have to tell me if they did know. My feet continued to take me towards them. As they did so I began to feel oddly calm. Even though the whole world was using my heart to beat through. I was walking to the guillotine, oblivious to the roar of the crowd. I passed two women, onlookers, pointing towards the door and talking. At my approach they stopped talking and just looked at me. One of them put a hand up to her mouth.
Before I could reach the two uniforms, Andy Gold emerged from the doorway, stopping when he saw me. Andy’s face was pale. Somehow I pushed my feet on. Shallow breaths ducked in and out of me like children playing a parlour game, none of them wanting to be found there when the music ended. When I was two yards away from Andy I stopped. I wanted to ask him. But I was too afraid. I just couldn’t speak.
‘You should have told me,’ Andy said. His voice was quiet, and measured. ‘You should have told me about Sharon. That she was pregnant.’
I nodded. Again I tried to force myself to speak, but I couldn’t.
‘I could have put some men on the door. Looked after her.’
‘I know.’
‘What were you thinking?’
I shook my head. ‘That if no one knew, then she’d be all right.’
Andy pursed his lips, ‘I see. But it was stupid. Really stupid. Now, you have to tell me what’s been going on. What just happened to you?’
‘I know who it is,’ I said. ‘A girl I found, years ago. Her father was abusing her, only I didn’t know. He seemed genuine. I took him down to the squat I’d found her in and he beat her. When he got her home. She was pregnant and he beat the baby out of her. She couldn’t have any more. She’s been doing all this because she hates me. And the sight of pregnant women, I guess. Andy. What has happened? Please tell me.’
‘They found your car. They just found it.’
‘Where?’
‘In Clapham,’ Andy said. ‘It was found outside a house in Clapham.’
‘So…?’
‘So Sharon’s OK. She’s upstairs. She’s all right.’
‘Oh. Oh, God.’
‘It’s OK. You can go up. But first I need to ask you something.’
‘All right.’
‘Who’s Jenny Tyler?’
‘Who?’
‘Mrs Jennifer Tyler? Who is she?’
‘I don’t know. Why? Why? Why are you asking me?’