‘Can you believe it? It’s Rose bloody West all over again. I’ve got kids, for fuck’s sake. She could’ve…’
‘Let’s go down the police. She mightn’t’ve got there yet… maybe if we split up…’
‘C’mon then. If we get the cars we can beat her down there.’
‘Don’t be a div. There’ll be Plod all over the shop.’
A laugh. ‘I wouldn’t be so sure about that. My cousin Ray’s on duty tonight. They’re fucking furious. Trust me. If anyone’s going to turn a blind eye…’
The voices fade into the distance. Amber sits up, leans against the spongy wall, feels the shriek of pain in her foot. In the darkness the image of Mary-Kate and Ashley, her darlings, her sweet friends, swims back into her mind and winds her. She wraps her arms round her body and weeps.
She doesn’t know what to do. She can’t let daylight overtake her. The darkness is her only protection. She waits for what feels like an interminable time before she dares to use her phone, afraid that someone will hear her voice, that the light from the display will give away her location. Then she calls Blessed, because it’s the only thing she can think to do.
She counts the rings. Six, then Blessed’s voice, blurred with sleep, answers. She must have fallen asleep over the order books. It happens to Amber all the time.
‘Blessed, it’s me.’
‘Who?’
‘Me. It’s Amber. It’s Amber, Blessed.’
‘No,’ says Blessed. The line goes dead, and she is alone in the dark.
She can’t stay here. She wipes her eyes, crawls out into the night. The road is empty. In the distance she can hear the monotonous thump-thump-thump of the nightclub strip, hear the shrieks of Whitmouth’s holidaymakers, unaware of the fear in their midst, celebrating their liberation from the threat of death. Her foot throbs, but takes her weight. She starts down the road towards town, dodging round the pools of light beneath streetlamps, pausing at corners to scope the road ahead. There’s only one place she can think of to go.
It takes her an hour. In daylight, in safety, without injury, it takes half that, though the walk along the A-road is so unappealing that she only normally does it when the buses aren’t running. She pulls up her hoodie and dips her head, looks at her feet as she limps and hopes that passing headlights will not illuminate her features for long enough to make her recognisable. On the seafront, her progress slows to a crawl. She shelters in doorways whenever a figure approaches, feigns fascination with window displays and advertising cards. The town is crowded, but she feels naked, exposed: the only person fully dressed, the only one sober, the only one alone. A group of lads surrounds her, drunk and laughing, gurning with slack lips into her shrinking face.
‘ALLLL RIIIGHT, Grandma!’
She recoils, heart thudding, but they don’t recognise her. Of course they don’t. They’re not locals; come from Yorkshire or Lancashire if their accents are anything to go by, and they’ve been drinking all night, not scouring the internet for breaking news. She’s probably as safe here as she would be anywhere, among the young and careless. And yet…
They must be somewhere. Her neighbours have not gone home, she knows it. Too worked up, too excited, too full of righteous anger. They’re stalking the town, staking out the police station, waiting for her to make her move. Nowhere is safe; not really. But at least she knows somewhere with gates, and locks, and security, even though they are designed to protect valuable assets and safeguard ticket sales, rather than people.
She sees the sign ahead: the garish lights turned off for the night, but the staff entrance still bright and welcoming. Funnland. The closest thing to a home she has left. The turnstiles are long since locked down, the ticket offices plunged in darkness. She feels as though the waters have closed over her head. She’s been off sick for a week and the only one who’s shown any interest in her welfare is Blessed, but even though Blessed is clearly done with her now, it’s the only sanctuary she can think of. Surely Blessed can’t turn her away if she’s actually there.
A hundred yards to cover. The crowds on the pavement have thinned, for there’s little to entertain a teenager on this strip once the park is closed. Amber instinctively tugs at the string of her hood, pulls it up over her chin. Shows nothing to the world but huge, frightened eyes.
She reaches the staff gate. Feels in her pocket for her swipe card, feels a rush of relief as her fingers close easily over it. Jason Murphy sits in the security-office window, reading. Not looking up. Good.
She runs the card through the reader. It emits a hollow, dead boop. She pushes the gate and finds it still locked. She swears under her breath, and tries the card again. Same sound. No cheery beep of ingress, no comforting clunk of lock, no grind of opening hinges. The card has been disabled. She is locked out.
She feels eyes burning her back, and looks up. She’s got Jason’s attention now all right. He sits with his chin in his hand, a faint smile twisting his mouth, and watches her discomfort. She raises a hand, points at the gate. Jason doesn’t move. Just watches. Amber shows him her card, shrugs out a signal of confusion and mimes pressing a button to get him to let her in.
Jason’s smile turns into a nasty grin; triumphant, gleeful. He shakes his head. Then she sees him reach over and pick up the telephone. Their eyes meet.
Still looking at her, he begins to speak. She sees his lips form the syllables of her name. Amber Gordon. Annabel Oldacre.
She turns away and hobbles down the road, towards the beach.
Chapter Forty
Jim falls asleep quickly – wine and tiredness and the stress that comes with hope – and Kirsty lies awake, staring dry-eyed at the streetlight on the ceiling. Somewhere out there in the night, the drama is playing out and she has no idea how it is unfolding. Knows only that she is afraid, that she wants to pack up and run, to distance herself from any evidence that she has ever been to Whitmouth.
I am such a fool, she thinks. Such a fool. The first time I saw her, I should have run. Should have called the probation people and got what had happened on record: put myself in the clear, established myself as a victim of extraordinary coincidence. If they ever find out now, if anyone ever puts the two of us together in that café, I’m screwed. And Jim’s screwed and Sophie’s screwed, and Luke, and their worlds will crash to the ground and they will never, ever trust anything – no situation, no story, no appeal to kindness – again. Everything I have done, every attempt at reparation, every moment of following rules and obeying instructions and being good and penitent and kind, wiped out in an instant by one stupid, crazy impulse of curiosity.
Tomorrow, she thinks. When we go up to Jim’s mum. I’ll call in to work and sign off till it’s over, whatever ‘over’ will mean. Bird flu. Typhoid. Hepatitis B, meningitis, doesn’t matter what, as long as it’s catching and no one will want me near them. I’ll keep away from Whitmouth, pretend I’ve never seen the place. I’m good at that: at dissembling. I’ve been doing it all my life.
On the bedside table, the phone springs to life. Bright light and the rattle as it starts to dance across the polished surface. Jim stirs, grumbles, turns over. Kirsty seizes hold of it, looks at the display. A number, no name. She doesn’t need a name. It’s Amber.
She sends her to voicemail. Seconds later, the phone rings again. She’s not even paused to leave a message. Oh God, thinks Kirsty, how do I get that number off my call history? They’ll check her phone records; they’re bound to, aren’t they? No, why should they? She’s not done anything wrong in twenty years. Apart from telephoning me. She presses the Reject button again, goes hot as, without delay, the ringtone restarts.
‘God’s sake answer that,’ mutters Jim. ‘Trying to sleep.’