Josephine Thomas tries to stand. It’s the second time she’s tried but again she can’t make it. Instead she starts to drag herself along the cement floor towards the street end of the alley, the way she’d come. The alley is dark, the stained concrete walls seeming to close in on her. Jo is scared. She calls out but her voice doesn’t make it to the top of the alley walls let alone through or over them. No one responds and she begins to feel cold, colder than she ever has. Her fear grows but she knows that if she can get back out to the street she’ll be fine. Someone will see her, even though it’s after midnight. She thinks about her mother. She has to get out of there, for her. This wouldn’t be fair, not after Dad. She pictures her mother, at home, early in the morning. Next morning. She’s standing on the step outside, chatting to Blonnie Watkins.
Jo didn’t even know she’d been stabbed. Not at first. When the guy grabbed her and wrapped a hand over her mouth all she wondered was why he’d sprayed liquid ice into her side. It was only when her assailant dropped her and fled up towards the mouth of the alley that she realized. She felt: her hand came back warm and sticky. Blood. She didn’t even see him. Just a dark shape waiting in the bend. Then a flurry and pain and footsteps running away.
Jo drags herself along, stops, and does it all again. That alley, it usually stank of piss but there’s something else now. It’s her, her blood. She starts to cry but stops herself. She curls up and pushes forward, like a caterpillar. Moving hurts more than anything she’s ever known but she’s close now, only thirty feet from the street. She feels a flood of relief. Not far and actually, if she’s still, the pain slackens. In spite of the blood it can’t have been anything much after all. Jo feels fine except for the tiredness. Tiredness drags at every cell in her body. She can’t help it. She closes her eyes and then wakes, suddenly. It’s later, she can tell. No. She shouldn’t do that. She has to keep going. She curls her fingers into a drain grille and pulls, groaning at the effort. She gains another foot.
She sees her mother again, on the step, still chatting to Blonnie, shaking her head at the latest mess her boys have got into. Then she sees him. Her mother sees him: PC Evans, cycling along the top lane. Blonnie is in full flow and Gwen has to nudge her.
‘Oh, Jesus,’ Blonnie says. ‘What the hell have they done now? Well they’re not here, I can tell him that. I don’t know where they stayed last night.’
Jo’s mother doesn’t respond because she’s frowning. The PC, young Rhodri, his face is deathly pale. She wonders what’s up and swallows, before laughing to herself. Poor Rhod, only twenty-two. It’s not the boys, it’s Blonnie’s big Dave he’s come for. Blonnie sees it too and braces herself, looking up towards the muffled snoring above their heads. But once the PC has propped up his bike he ignores Blonnie. He asks Mrs Thomas if she will go inside.
Jo wills herself on. She can’t let this happen. Rhod Evans, he kissed her once. His dad came, on the same bike, to tell her and Mum what the swing bucket had done. Jo gains another few feet. Her mother had gone mad, wrecking the kitchen before running down the street. Jo tells herself again that she has to get out of there. But she feels a bit dizzy. She just needs a second, only a second, then she’ll make it. Right to the end. It’s late, that’s why she’s tired, but she’ll be OK when she wakes. She woke last time, didn’t she? Her eyes close. She’s moving faster now. She can see Blonnie, standing next to the bicycle with its worn, sprung leather seat.
Blonnie’s arms are folded. She’s thinking no, it can’t be, not again the poor woman. Jo sees Blonnie gasp. From inside the cottage comes a sound, like a table being pushed over. It’s followed by a scream.
A shrill, loud and horrible scream.