One wrong turn, p.11
One Wrong Turn, page 11
‘Ben.’ It hurt to speak. I felt as if I’d swallowed a mouthful of broken glass. ‘Ben, just do what he says, please.’
‘No, Abi. We’re not going to do that.’
The gun drilled even deeper into me, so hard that I cried out and suddenly said more than I’d meant to.
‘He killed Gary, Ben. He just killed him.’
Two things happened very fast.
First, I felt the pressure ease in my side. I felt Paul’s gun arm begin to swing away from me and point towards Ben.
And second, I started shouting, louder than I’d ever shouted in my life.
‘RUN, BEN! RUN! HE HAS A GUN!’
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Ben didn’t react right away. There was a split second of hesitation and confusion. A terrible delay.
Then he saw the gun for himself.
Or maybe he just saw the bright canopy lights glint off something metal, followed by the way Paul was beginning to point his arm at him.
And by then, my words must have penetrated whatever slow disbelief Ben had been gripped by. They must have started to make a horrible sense.
He . . . has . . . a . . . gun.
Not something you’d expect to have your girlfriend shout at you.
Not in England, in Cornwall, in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night.
And then there was the way I shouted it, the terror in my voice, the nerves and the fear I was venting in one rapid, shrill, shriek.
He’d heard me shout run.
A simple instruction.
So that’s what he did.
He swivelled and transferred his weight to his back foot, twisting his shoe, then he pushed off from the ground, driving up from his knees and thighs, pumping his arms, beginning to shift.
Ben wasn’t a fighter, but he was a jogger. He knew how to run because he ran most days. He was shockingly fast.
He tore away from us, sprinting by my car, bursting for the edge of the forecourt and the misty wasteland beyond. His head was tilted back, his chest pumped out, his arms going like pistons.
‘Come back,’ Paul yelled, darting after him.
I caught hold of Paul’s coat, pulling him back, but Paul twisted around and shoved me clear.
‘Don’t!’ I shouted.
My chest heaved. My heart ached.
Paul raised his arm further, straightening it at the elbow, breaking into a jog of his own.
He had to jog because Ben was getting further away, bolting for the fog, perhaps fifty or sixty metres distant from us. The fog was starting to conceal him, curling around him, as if he was being swiftly erased.
‘Ben!’ I screamed.
He seemed to look back briefly.
It was difficult to tell in the fog and the dark, but I thought I caught the greyish smear of Ben’s face. The alarm in his eyes. Maybe a slight squint of regret.
BANG.
The noise was enormous, shattering, incomprehensible. Paul’s hand leapt into the air. I bent at the knees and clapped both palms to my ears.
And Ben fell.
I saw him fall.
His head whipped backwards, his back arched unnaturally and his arms rag-dolled towards the sky.
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I couldn’t see Ben after he fell. He was on the ground, in the dark, the fog curling in around him.
‘Ben!’
He didn’t reply.
He didn’t move or make a sound.
Everything blurred. My breathing stopped. I felt as if someone had reached into my chest and ripped out my heart.
Then I bolted after him. My eyes were fixed on the exact spot where Ben had fallen. I was staring into the precise pocket of darkness where I’d last seen him.
Ben.
Please be OK. Please.
But there was no movement.
Nothing.
Only the silent fog.
‘Hey.’
I reared back as Paul grabbed for my sweater, yanking hard, the material cutting into my windpipe as I flailed my arms. I gagged and tried running on, terror and adrenaline flooding my veins. I felt my jumper stretch and begin to rip. An awful hollowness opened up inside me, icy fear gushing in.
‘Let me go.’
He didn’t.
I twisted and punched and kicked.
‘I have to see Ben.’
Paul got his arm around me, restraining me, but he seemed only half aware of what I was doing. He was distracted by something. When I looked up, scrambling to get free, I saw that he was staring wild-eyed into the same pocket of darkness I’d been fixed on, his breath hitching in his throat, his face collapsing as if he couldn’t quite believe what he’d done.
‘You shot him. You just shot him.’
‘He shouldn’t have run.’
I thrashed and surged and dug my elbows into Paul’s waist. I drove my heel into his shin, but he tightened his hold on me and bundled me forwards.
‘No. What are you doing? Let me go. Ben!’
Paul manhandled me off the forecourt and into the wet grass. I stretched for his gun, but he moved it away from me and clasped hold of my grasping arm, pinning it against my side, clutching me to him in a bear hug. He then extended the gun at the end of his reach and swayed it left to right in small shaky arcs, as he forced me on.
He’s hunting Ben.
The image of Ben falling kept repeating in my mind. The way his back had arched and his head had been flung backwards. He must have been hit in the back.
Run.
Please get up and run.
I desperately wanted to see him roll over and start moving again, but all I could see was the fog and the dark and the sodden grass and—
Paul stiffened, then jerked his head to the right, a murmured curse escaping his lips.
I followed his gaze and that’s when I saw it.
A set of headlights were approaching from the fog way off to the right.
Saturday Night
10.19 p.m.
Samantha watched in slow disbelief as her mother stepped down off the porch and advanced towards Paul.
‘Mum?’
‘I just want to say hello to Lila, dear.’
‘Mum, now’s not a good time.’
‘Oh, I’ll be quiet,’ she said, continuing on across the driveway, a series of low garden lights illuminating her path. ‘I won’t wake her.’
She was almost at the car when Paul stepped in front of her, spreading his arms, blocking her way.
‘No, Diane, I don’t think so.’
Samantha’s mother paused and looked at the car for a long moment before she slowly turned her head and assessed Paul. She was only small. Slight, verging on frail. But until that moment, Samantha had never seen such determination in her mother’s eyes.
‘You look tired, Paul. Almost as tired as my daughter.’
‘Diane . . .’
‘Lila is my granddaughter and I wish to see her. Considering why you’re both here tonight, I think I have that right. Now, get out of my way.’
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The headlights seemed to be floating all alone in the shrouded darkness. They were so far away that I couldn’t hear any engine noise. But they were moving steadily closer, wobbling and bouncing in the night, two milky white orbs that dipped and weaved and swayed and swooped.
‘Back to the car,’ Paul said quickly.
‘What?’
‘The car. Now.’
He tugged on me, pulling me backwards, wrenching me around.
‘No. I’m not leaving Ben. I’m—’
The gun was at my spine, pressed in hard, drilling a bolt of panic deep inside me.
‘Move.’
‘Please, no. Don’t make me.’
‘Hurry.’
He gripped hold of my sweater near the back of my neck and pushed me on, grunting with the effort. My soaked canvas shoes slipped as I stepped off the grass onto the forecourt again. All I wanted was to turn around and go back.
‘Keep going.’
I turned my head, searching for Ben, but Paul was holding me so close I couldn’t see past his body.
‘I have to get to Ben,’ I told him.
‘No.’
‘You can have my car. You can take it. Please.’
He ignored me, thrusting me forwards, refusing to let go.
We were getting very close to my car now, approaching at an angle from behind the petrol pumps. I ducked my head and searched for Samantha inside, desperate to get a read from her, some indication of what to do, but she wasn’t looking our way. She was huddled up in the back seat with her knees to her chest and her hands curled into fists and pressed to her mouth, as if she was cowering and trying to block the horror out.
‘Please, don’t do this.’
Paul shoved me clear of him towards the front of my car. When I spun back to him, he was pointing his gun at my chest, holding it in both hands, his legs bent in a slight crouch.
My lungs pinched and ached as I looked out into the field, but no matter how hard I searched, there was still no sign of Ben.
It felt impossible, unreal.
‘Look at me.’ Paul wet his lip with his tongue and glanced over his shoulder briefly. The lights of the approaching vehicle were following the curve of the slip road, but they were moving painfully slowly. The driver seemed to be matching their speed to the treacherous conditions. ‘You have to get in.’
‘I can’t. I need to help Ben.’
He took a step closer to me, blinking against the sweat that was running down his forehead.
‘Get in or I’ll kill you, too.’
I swallowed down a sob. I couldn’t stop shaking.
‘I can’t, I just really—’
But I didn’t get to finish what I was saying because Paul advanced on me fast, grabbing hold of my arm, shoving me against my car, then snatching open the driver’s door. I shrieked as he clasped my head and pressed down with one hand, forcing me inside at gunpoint. He then slammed the door on me and sprinted around the front, aiming the gun at me the entire time as I flattened my hands on my window and looked out, searching for Ben, but still not seeing him.
‘I’m sorry,’ Samantha whispered.
Sorry.
It wasn’t nearly enough. I think she knew that.
Because she’d pulled us into this. She could have warned us.
For a fast second, I thought of her behaviour when we’d first approached her in the lay-by. She’d seemed flighty and scared but not, I thought now, because she’d been afraid of us. No, she’d been afraid of what might happen to us.
My heart jolted as Paul opened the front passenger door and dropped inside next to me, yanking the door closed behind him. He then spun and pointed his gun at me, unfurling the fingers of his spare hand.
‘Take them.’
My keys.
I shook my head and turned to look hopelessly out the window for Ben again, but I still couldn’t see him. I wanted so badly to see him.
Then I swivelled back and stared at Samantha, pleading with her with my eyes, but she immediately looked downwards, offering me no help or support. Finally, my gaze strayed to the empty car seat next to her and a hollowness opened up inside me.
‘Where’s your baby?’
Samantha shook her head, refusing to answer.
‘Tell me. Where is she?’
Silence.
‘Did you see what he did? Did you watch him shoot my boyfriend?’
‘Take these keys and drive, Abi,’ Paul demanded.
‘He killed Gary. Did you know that?’
But Samantha kept her head down, her shoulders rounded. She was doing everything she could to hide from me.
Which is when Paul pressed my keys into my hand and closed my fingers around them, not letting go as he aimed his gun at my chest.
A quake passed through me. My breath snagged in my throat. I shook my head and felt myself shrink.
‘Last chance.’
‘Say something,’ I begged Samantha.
My voice was hot and choked. Tears spilled from my eyes. But it was futile. Samantha still wouldn’t speak up.
‘Hurry,’ Paul said. ‘Stop delaying.’
My hands shook as I turned and glanced out of the windscreen, shocked by how stark and ordinary the forecourt appeared, how empty I felt inside.
I didn’t want to leave Ben here. I didn’t want to go with Paul and Samantha. I wished none of this had ever happened to me.
But then my eyes dipped, and I looked down at my stomach, and I thought of the fragile new life inside me, under my skin.
I’ll kill you, too.
‘OK,’ I whispered, shaking. ‘Just . . . give me a second.’
My fingers were fat and clumsy, and I wasn’t faking when it took me several attempts to fit my key in the ignition and turn the engine on.
The satnav beeped and began reconnecting to satellites. I watched as it flashed, then whirred and chattered, before the screen redrew itself, displaying an icon for my car in the middle of a zoomed-in network of local roads. Before it could issue its first instruction, Paul reached out and jabbed at the screen, cancelling our route, but keeping the map open.
Was he taking us somewhere else now?
‘What are you waiting for?’ he snapped. ‘Drive.’
I released a trembling breath, my hand hovering over the gear lever, but just as I touched it I caught sight of something in the wing mirror on Paul’s side of the car.
Two headlamps.
The approaching vehicle had stopped at the petrol pump furthest away from us on our left.
Saturday Night
10.22 p.m.
Paul didn’t lower his arms or move out of the way, but he did hang his head like a man who knew he was beaten.
‘Mum?’ Samantha whispered.
But her mother ignored her, stepping around Paul, approaching the rear of the car.
‘Mum, please don’t.’
It shouldn’t have happened like this. It shouldn’t have ended this way.
Her mother, bracing one withered hand on the window glass, knuckling the door handle with the other.
A clunk, and the door slowly opened, the glow of the interior light spilling out just as Samantha’s guts seemed to spill onto the floor in the same moment.
The rear of the car was instantly visible.
Lila’s empty car seat was clear to see.
‘Oh,’ was all her mother said, raising a hand to her mouth with a slight tremor. ‘Oh.’
And then she backed away and turned, looking at them both with a terrible awareness dawning in her eyes, before jogging away towards the house as fast as her age and arthritis would allow.
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‘What is it?’ Paul asked. ‘What are you looking at?’
He then followed my gaze and swore, sliding down in his seat, angling his body to stare into the same side mirror as me.
The engine of my car shook and rumbled. We were separated from the other vehicle by thirty metres or so of asphalt. The driver had stopped at the petrol pump nearest to the entrance of the shop. At least three other petrol pumps separated us.
Then the vehicle’s headlamps were doused, and my heart thudded once, very hard.
The dimensions of the vehicle were distorted and flattened by the curvature of the mirror, but I could see that it was a boxy Volvo estate, maybe even older than my Polo. The paintwork was brown, though it shone almost beige under the bluish sheen of the forecourt lights. The car’s outline seemed to swim in my mirror.
I didn’t pull forwards. I didn’t slip my car into gear. I didn’t move at all.
I needed help.
I wanted so desperately for the driver of the Volvo to help me.
Then a door opened; the Volvo rocked on its chassis and a man got out. He moved painfully slowly, and with some stiffness, until he straightened enough so that I could see he was old and frail.
Not good.
His flyaway hair was white. He was bundled up in a heavy overcoat and scarf.
I shot a terrified glance at Paul, then watched in silent horror as the man laboured to the back of his car and flipped open the petrol filler cap. Seconds passed with none of us speaking as the man inserted a bank card into the machine before lifting a nozzle and plugging it into the fuel tank of his car.
I felt a pang as my mind flashed on Ben doing the same thing not very long ago. It should have been a harmless task, but it hadn’t ended up that way. Ben had seen the empty car seat because of it, and then he’d come inside the shop to tell me, and he’d seen Paul follow Gary into the back room because of that.
Would things have been different if Ben hadn’t noticed that the car seat was empty? Would we have driven away unawares with Paul and Samantha?
Please be OK. Please don’t be dead. You have to still be alive.
The old man moved slightly, rubbing his back, his breath pluming in the brittle air.
A number of thoughts streaked through my mind all at once.
I could blast my horn or switch on my hazard lights.
I could scream for help or get out of my car and run towards him.
But Paul had the gun and we were alone out here. If I did any of those things, I’d be placing myself and the old man in danger. Paul would kill us. I was sure of it.
‘Start driving,’ Paul told me.
‘What about Ben?’
‘Forget about Ben.’ He jabbed the gun at me. ‘Drive.’
A sob escaped my lips, threatening to break me. I whirled around and looked out my window again, holding my breath, willing Ben to be OK even as I understood how unlikely that was. The fog drifted and curled, undisturbed by any movement. A terrible ache spread through my insides, sending numbing chills through my arms and into my hands. I didn’t want to go.
‘Last chance,’ Paul told me.
I sobbed again, almost choking, then slowly, very slowly, my hand strayed towards the gearstick.
‘No, wait,’ Paul barked.
My eyes darted to the side mirror and I saw that the old man was looking our way with a vaguely puzzled look on his face.
No.
He released the trigger on the petrol pump and began walking towards us.
