‘She went down the river.’
‘What’s she gone down there for?’
‘Swim.’
‘Why din’t she take you?’
Chloe starts to well up again.
‘All right. All right. We’ll take you down the river,’ says Jade, rolling her eyes. ‘I’ll kill Darren. I’ll bloody kill him.’
‘You’re kidding,’ says Bel.
‘What?’
‘It’s got to be three miles.’
‘All right then. Have you got any better ideas?’
‘I…’ Bel looks hopelessly round the deserted close. ‘When’s your mum coming home?’
Chloe shrugs. She has no idea; has very little concept of time. ‘Hours and hours and hours,’ she says. Her mother is, in fact, standing at the bus stop in Chipping Norton right now and will be home in thirty-five minutes. But Chloe has no idea what the time is; couldn’t read a clock even if they passed one. All she knows is that, when her mum comes home on the bus, it’s always long gone lunchtime. And as she’s not had her lunch yet, it must be hours and hours. And the river is calling: its plashy depths and weedy paddling, and the picnics and the lollies and the drinks people bring down in cool-boxes and sometimes share. She’s only ever gone by car. Has no more idea how far three miles is by foot than how long it is till lunchtime. ‘Hours,’ she repeats, and waits.
‘And your sister’s definitely down there?’
‘Yeah,’ says Chloe confidently.
‘We’ll go over the fields,’ says Jade decisively.
‘The fields?’ asks Bel. ‘But there isn’t a footpath, is there?’
‘Oh, it’ll be fine,’ says Jade. ‘Get a life.’
Chapter Thirty-nine
The last barrier before Coleridge Close is a yellow-brick wall topped by a trellis through which climbing roses twine. Amber is panting with the effort of her flight, of climbing and running and stooping to stay out of the light; of throwing herself backwards as number seventeen’s Rottweiler bellowed and hurled itself against its chain as she passed. The dog has alerted her pursuers to the path of her flight. As she stares at the obstacle before her, she hears a crack and a stream of swearing as a fence gives way beneath a muscled body, and the lights four doors down blaze into life.
‘Where’s she gone?’ A voice drifts over the night air, alarmingly close. She’d thought she’d put the best part of a road’s distance between herself and them, but this one’s nearer than that. Maybe two plots away. ‘Where the fuck is she?’
‘Coleridge,’ shouts another. ‘She must be heading for Coleridge.’
‘Fuck,’ says the first voice. Takes two deep breaths. ‘Come on. Fuck.’
He raises his voice to a theatrical bellow. Lights are coming on in every house now. The people in this one must be away, or she’d be a sitting duck. ‘Oi! She’s heading for Coleridge!’
In the distance, in her own garden, a yell of understanding.
Shit. Her pulse hammers in her ears. Amber takes a run-up at the wall and vaults, throwing herself bodily into the mat of thorns. It’ll take them no time at all, if they come by the road. She can’t afford to be careful. Needs to be out of sight by the time they turn the corner. She hears the trellis crack beneath her weight and draws blood on an exposed wrist. Feels her shirt snag and catch. Doesn’t stop to think; just forces her way through the debris and hurls herself at the other side.
The shirt holds for a moment, leaving her dangling in dark air, face in the foliage, then it rips and lets go, dropping her on an awkward foot-arch. She feels a sharp pain, something ripping deep within, and stifles a cry as the bones grind together. Then she’s free, and hop-running, adrenalin killing the hurt as it propels her forward.
She glances over her shoulder as she runs, losing precious moments as she slips on the scrappy verge. They’ll be halfway up Tennyson by now. She needs to get off this road; needs to drop out of sight. She limps to the corner of Marvell Street and dives into its temporary sanctuary.
She knows this road well. It’s the route she walks to Blessed’s flat; an empty stretch of garages and feeder roads. Halfway up, a kids’ playground, between the turns leading back to Browning and Tennyson, long since abandoned by families as the tidal wave of crack washed over the south-east. The junkies have moved on, but the playground – and what remains of its slides and swings and its crumbling jungle gym – has never been reclaimed.
The slap-slap-slap of boots on tarmac back in Coleridge, chillingly close behind. She can’t go on much longer on this foot. She hesitates for a second, then dives through the playground gate and ducks below the hedge.
Litter, blown in and dropped; she crawls gingerly among the bricks and ragwort. She hears the footsteps turn the corner, hears them slow as their owners find an empty road. Amber inches forward. Over beyond the sandpit there’s an old plywood climbing frame in the shape of a train, water-warped and splintered and four feet high, buried in a clump of smutty nettles. She knows they’ll look over the hedge, that they might even venture into the park. But they’d never think her fool enough to trap herself like that. She hopes. Has to hope. She has nowhere else to go.
She reaches the train and squeezes through a circular hole designed for a six-year old. Snags, sticks, heaves herself through and into the dark. Portholes throw light on the wall above her head, but down here on the floor, as she closes her mind to the objects she’s sharing the space with, is reassuring darkness.
They come along the road with the swaggering stride of numbers, swipe at foliage as they pass. She hears them pause by the gate, hears the click of a lighter igniting, smells the drift of cigarette smoke across the night air.
‘Fuck,’ says a voice. The man who tried the gate. ‘Where’s she gone? She can’t have doubled back, can she?’
A woman replies, the sound of the feminine more frightening because so unexpected. It’s Janelle Boxer, Shaunagh’s friend from a few doors up. Amber can see her in her mind’s eye: squat, thick-set, a face to match her surname. ‘No time. She’s gone down here. Down one of them two, there. She won’t have had time to get to the end.’
Someone swings the gate. The crunch of boots on gravel. She knows that eyes are scanning her hiding place, holds her breath as though it will cloud the midsummer air. The concrete on which she lies is damp and piled with musty earth and leaves. It smells of body fluids.
‘We could get the dog.’
‘Naah. She’ll be well gone by the time we do that.’
A swish of some long object – baseball bat? Scaffolding pole? – across the undergrowth an arm’s length from her head. Amber stiffens, presses herself deeper into the dark.
‘Fuck,’ says the first man, and something hits the wooden wall. She shrinks away, bites her lip.
‘You think she’s gone home?’ His voice slightly quieter now; he’s moving away. ‘It’s up this way, innit?’
The others fall into step. She hears the gate drag across the gravel, the clang of the broken latch. ‘Naah,’ replies someone. ‘You know where she’s gone? Pig farm.’
‘Well, let’s hope they keep her.’
Someone raises his voice. ‘Annabel!’ A chorus of laughs. ‘Come out, come out, wherever you are!’
They laugh again, their voices fading as they walk away. ‘Can’t believe it. Can you believe it? Fucking right in the middle of us all this time. I remember it. Poor little kid. D’you remember? All cut up. Covered in bruises. Broken bones. Fucking little sadist.’
‘Someone should show her what it’s like.’