Christopher Brookmyre (22 page)

She removed a couple of hankies from the packet and then began emptying some bottles of food colouring on to them. She surveyed the results. It had been a veritable cochineal-beetle bloodbath, but not bloody enough for her satisfaction. The stuff just didn't run properly, and looked too damn pink as soon as it hit any kind of material, even under the artificial light of the terminus' floodlamps. Worse, on the flesh of her hand, it looked like nothing other than dye. She'd thought about beetroot back at the store, but the smell was potentially too much of a giveaway.

The Audi two places in front moved on, taking her one car length closer to the booth.

There was only one way to do this properly, and it wasn't going to be pleasant. She bent down out of sight, balled her right hand into a fist and drove it against her nose.

Ow.

It hurt like buggery, bringing tears to her eyes but no blood to her nostrils. Shit. She tried again. Sorer, cumulatively, but probably more tentative than the first attempt and thus no more successful. She looked up. The car in front was being waved forward to the window.

Jane bent forward again with renewed determination. She'd been through a sight more pain than this for Ross: thirteen hours' labour to deliver just over eight pounds of baby, most of it head. This was nothing. She remembered accidentally bursting Margaret Heron's nose at netball in third year, her horrified insistence to the victim and the teacher that she hadn't thrown the ball hard. Don't worry, Miss Kane had said. It wasn't the force, it was the angle.

Jane turned the heel of her right palm towards her and brought it upwards on to the bridge. The running sensation commenced almost immediately. Her nose began streaming blood from her left nostril, dripping messily on to her hands and the bunched-up hankies. She lifted the passport and tickets and let it trickle on to those too, then looked up to see her car being waved forward by the man in the booth, an older bloke with white hair and a matching moustache.

Jane brought the Beetle in line with the window, holding the hankies up to her nose with her left hand, gripping the steering wheel with her right. She gestured with a single finger - give me a minute - then held her head back against the seat. The man in the booth was mouthing 'Are you all right?', which reminded her that her window wasn't wound down. Instead of reaching for the button, she undid her seat belt and climbed right out of the car, holding the passport, tickets and hankies together against her face with her left hand as her right worked the handle. Blood continued to drip from her face and hands as she stood next to the Beetle.

'Are you hurt, madam?'

She shook her head.

'It's okay. It just came on like that. Usually an early warning sign of a bad cold, with me. Typical timing.'

She offered him the ticket and passport, blood still running among her fingers and on to the documents as she held them out. His hand hesitated visibly, signalling his queasy reluctance to even touch them, never mind take hold. He delicately pinched the passport at a blood-free corner, the ticket falling to the ground. They both went to lift it, but he got there first.

'No, no, keep your head back,' he advised.

She did, but tilted it slightly to look down as the inspector bent to retrieve the ticket. He pulled it partially out of its paper wallet as he stood up again, gripping both parts where there were no smears. The passport remained pinched between his left forefinger and thumb.

'Maybe I should get someone to take a look at you.'

'I'll be fine in a minute, honestly,' Jane assured him. 'Besides, I don't want to hold everybody up.' She glanced back along the queue, as did the passport inspector, still holding both documents extremely gingerly.

'All right, well, just take your time, dear,' he said. 'If any of 'em toots their horns, I'll sign 'em up for full body-cavity searches.'

Jane laughed through the hankies, eyeing the passport. He still hadn't checked it.

'I think it's easing up,' she said, pinching her nose with her right hand. She offered her left to take the documents. 'Sorry about the mess.'

'Just you look after yourself,' he told her. He seemed about to hand her the documents, then pulled back. A well-practised flick of the wrist opened the passport at the photo page, at which he grimaced, blood having been splattered across both sides of the hinge like a Rorschach test. He let it close on itself and placed it into her waiting hand with another queasy grimace.

'Thank you,' she told him, and took a step back towards the car.

'Have you got your vehicle papers, madam?' he asked.

Jane felt her eyes widen before she could do anything to compose herself.

'In . . . in the glove compartment,' she recovered enough to suggest, though she had no idea what, if anything, lay in there, only that none of it would be in the right name.

'Okay. It's just a reminder in case people have forgotten. Going to the continent and all.'

'No, I'm all present and correct.'

'All right, then. I'd say mind how you go, but it looks like I'm too late,' he added with a little laugh.

Jane got back into the Beetle and dropped the documents on to the passenger seat. Her instinct was to put the foot down and drive away immediately, but she had to quell it. Instead, she sat with the hanky at her nose for another few seconds, offering the man a smile and a thumb-up gesture, then pulled slowly forwards, one hand still pinching her snib, towards where a girl in a brightly coloured jumpsuit was waving cars into slots aboard the train. In her rear-view she could see the passport man, back in his booth, leaning out to greet the next driver. Sigh was too short a word for the exhalation that followed.

Jane opted to stay in the Beetle rather than take a seat on the train. She could have seriously done with a coffee right then, but considered it more circumspect to remain out of view. A sudden, in-progress nosebleed explained her condition to the passport officer, but her appearance might prove disturbing -

memorably, remarkably disturbing - to her fellow passengers. Weird. There'd been clothes at the all-night supermarket, but it hadn't occurred to her to lift any, just the spare undies. All her thinking was pared down to essentials. She didn't know how much money she might need, and was even less sure how much she actually had, liquid or credit, so spending any of it on even cheap jeans and a T-shirt seemed an unaffordable luxury and possibly a reckless financial gamble.

She had a look at herself in the sun-visor mirror. Blood still rimmed her nostrils and smeared her top lip. Her hands were sticky with it, her clothes dotted by it. She definitely, definitely wouldn't be getting those trousers repaired. Yes. Best to remain hidden right enough.

Some chamber in her mind echoed with a recall of the last time she looked in a mirror. Was it really that morning? It already felt like years ago, some memory of an earlier time in her life.

Even in the insulated and suspension-cushioned capsule of the VW, she felt the train begin to decelerate, prompting another quickening of the pulse and tightness in the gut. She hoped to hell the website had been right about clearing all officialdom at the English end and simply driving clear at Calais. An announcement over the PA announced their imminent arrival and informed her that the local time was an hour ahead of GMT. She looked at the dashboard's digital clock, which read 11:05: only eight hours since she'd been watching the weans play at Kaos Kottage in East Kilbride. The train stopped and only a few seconds later the huge side doors slid back, allowing cars to begin filing out. She started the engine and pulled away slowly. There were no booths, no officials, no customs checks: just an overhead sign reminding her to drive on the right, and, beyond it, open French road. She put her foot down and enjoyed a moment of blessed relief, which turned very soon into fatigue. With the pressure off - for the time being, at least - her aching body was able to get a word of protest heard above the rest of the voices clamouring in her head.

She had already decided to drive all the way rather than flying to Nice. A look at the road atlas she'd bought at the supermarket told her she could probably manage it in about ten hours. A flight would be far quicker, but not if it turned out that the first one out of Charles De Gaulle wasn't until three in the afternoon. Plus, she'd still need a car when she got there, and saw no point in taking on the risk of stealing another one.

A neon sign in the middle distance advertised a roadside motel. It was a chain name, a modest, low-rise and low-frills kind of place, conveniently anonymous. She came off at the next exit and drove into the car park, where she spent a few minutes cleaning herself up, employing the practised-mother's hanky-and-saliva method every daughter naively swears she'll never use herself. She checked her reflection again. It wasn't a pretty sight, but at least only for the usual reasons. It would do. She didn't want to attract anyone's interest or solicitations, and a lone female looking bashed-up would do precisely that. They'd think she must be on the run from someone scary and dangerous, but the truth was worse. She was on the run
to
someone scary and dangerous, and she couldn't afford to have anyone prevent her from doing so. The room was clean and basic, though it did have a phone, which prompted a reminder that there were people back home who'd be very worried and not a little confused by now. She lifted the receiver, then placed it back down again without dialling any digits, before pulling the mobile phone from her jacket. No point in having the charge go on to her room bill; she'd let the mystery caller pay for it. In fact, she'd half a mind to dial her cousin Grace in New Zealand and leave it connected until the batteries ran out. Instead, she called Michelle, finding it engaged. She tried her mobile in-stead, but it was switched off, probably for recharging given the hour. Jane remembered hearing Donald chide Michelle over this unnecessary practice, but she had retorted with something about not actually wanting to be phoned at that time of night, especially as the chances were it would be a confused Junior House Officer who'd misread the rota and phoned the wrong pharmacist. Jane waited five minutes and tried again. Still engaged. Reluctantly, she dialled her own number. She'd hoped to have Michelle pass on the news to Tom, but she couldn't wait all night. She'd just give him a few bullet points and get off before he could start the histrionics.

That line was busy too. Reason told her they were most probably on the phone to each other. She could get through on Tom's mobile, she knew, which was when she was forced to admit to herself that she really didn't want to talk to him right then; only Michelle. She looked at the clock, calculating how much sleep she could hope to get before she'd need to be on the road again. It wasn't a lot, and it was ticking away against the pulsating sound of engaged tones.

Forget it, she thought. They'd be worried, sure, but she had to focus, prioritise. Their worries weren't her biggest concern. Sleep was more important. She got undressed and climbed into bed. Twenty minutes later, she knew she had no chance of sleep without letting them know she was okay. That, whatever else she told herself, was immediate priority number one. She gave Michelle's number one more try.

'Mum! Where the hell are you? What's happened?'

'I'm okay.'

'The police have been round. They said you just disappeared. Dad's up to high doh. Where are you calling from?'

'Never mind about me. Is Rachel okay?'

'Never mind? Rachel's fine, but the rest of us are worried sick. Nobody could find you, and we didn't know what to think, after what happened today, and then . . . it was on TV about two burned bodies being discovered out by Calder Glen, and we were terrified that . . . '

'I'm sorry. I should have called sooner, but I never had the chance.'

'Why? Where are you?'

'I can't say. Look, I can't talk long. I just wanted you to know--'

'You can't talk . . . Mum, what's happened? Oh God. Are you . . . Is someone else there? Are you under some kind of duress? Just say "I'm fine" if that's the case.'

'There's no one else here, honey. Keep the heid. There's just something I have to do.'

'Like what? Why can't you tell me? What's going on?'

'I have to go now, honey. I'll be in touch. Call your dad for me, would you, please?'

'Me? Why aren't you calling him? What the hell do you want me to tell him?'

'Tell him . . . ' Jane took a breath. 'Not to wait up.'

The sensation of coming around to the sound of the telephone's automated alarm call was the only evidence Jane had of actually having been asleep. It seemed like she'd just lain there all night feeling sore and beat, her head whirring as it processed memory and prepared for what was to come. There was no moment of bleary disorientation, no waves of reality crashing in to wash away the merciful oblivion of her dream-state. The second she was conscious, at exactly five a.m., she knew exactly where she was and what she had to do. She got up, pulled her clothes back on and checked out, before grabbing breakfast from a vending machine in the lobby: a styrofoam cup of bad coffee and a cellophane-wrapped
pain au chocolat
. She placed the coffee in the Beetle's cup holder and the pastry on the dashboard, beginning to consume both only once she was on the autoroute south. Dawn broke some time after six. A crisp blue sky was revealed above, spring sunshine lighting the fields and bringing up the temperature on her instrument panel. Jane had always wanted to drive through France, and had, in her fantasies, imagined a sunny day just like the one that was shaping up, but she wasn't going to be stopping to take the air and see the sights. She just drove, eyes on the tarmac and the traffic, singularly and tirelessly mowing down the miles towards her destination, though it seldom left her thoughts that she had no idea what awaited her there.

I don't want money, Mrs Fleming. I want you.

What on earth did she have that this person could possibly want?

She tossed their brief conversation around and around in her head, trying to assess what could be inferred, what differences there might be between what he was saying and what she had interpreted him to mean.
I'm not offering an exchange.