Tania Carver: The Surrogate

Phil sat down next to her.

‘Hey,’ he said.

She nodded, kept staring straight ahead.

‘Well done in there,’ he said.

She sighed. ‘I lied.’

‘You did what you had to do. What was best.’

She shook her head. ‘I lied to a vulnerable, damaged human being. I just made someone who’s lonely and fucked in the head feel even worse about themselves.’

‘You did your job, Anni.’

She didn’t reply, just continued to stare.

‘You coming back inside?’

She didn’t reply at first. ‘I think I’ll stay here a bit longer. If you don’t mind, boss.’

‘Okay.’ Phil stood up, looked round. Took in the desolation of the place once again. He looked across the field the way they had come, passing his eyes over the caravan site. Who would want to come here for their holidays? he thought, not for the first time.

Something jarred within him.

The caravan site.

‘Anni…’

She looked up.

‘When you checked the details on the Croft family, didn’t it say something about owning a caravan site?’

Anni looked up, startled out of her reflective mood. ‘Yeah, yes it did…’ She stood up, joined him in looking. ‘D’you think…’

‘Worth a try,’ he said. ‘Tell the rest of them where I’m going. If I find anything I’ll come back, let you know.’

He picked up his torch, started hurrying across the field.

Marina started to back away from the man. She held the screwdriver out in front of her.

‘Don’t…’ Her throat felt dry, parched. Her voice small, croaking. ‘Don’t come any nearer… I’ll… I’ll stab you…’ The words sounded unconvincing, even to her.

The man smiled again. Shook his head. ‘No you won’t.’ His voice sounded like he looked: rough, callused, feral and powerful. He was tall, his body thick-limbed and bulky. Dressed in old suit trousers, braces and a once-white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, he was sweating and dirty. Work boots on his feet, an old, festering overcoat on the floor beside him. He was bald, but his thick, powerful arms were covered in hair. He had a large stomach protruding over his trousers and straining his shirt buttons, but it looked as solid as granite. He turned, giving Marina his full attention. His eyes looked like dark, stagnant, treacherous pools, his unshaven face red like bad blood. He smiled, his teeth yellow and stained.

‘It’s… it’s you, isn’t it? You’re the one who’s been taking all the… all the babies…’

‘That idiot bitch of mine. She wanted them. Wouldn’t fuckin’ shut up about it. On an’ on… so I had to. Kept her quiet.’ He smiled again. It reached those stagnant eyes. ‘Can’t say I didn’t enjoy it, though.’

‘So…’ She kept backing away as she spoke. ‘Why… why am I here?’

He pointed to her stomach. ‘What’s that you got growin’ inside you? Eh?’

Marina felt her legs weaken.

He laughed. Deep and rough, it sounded like the prelude to an animal roar. ‘Can’t keep goin’ with her any more, can I? Not when your lot are on to me.’ His voice dropped, became cold and sharp. ‘An’ I’m not givin’ up. I might have to hide for a bit. Go underground. Keep out of their way.’ Another smile. ‘An’ I’ll need some company down here. Then when the kid’s born we’ll go up again. Find somewhere else.You an’ me an’ the kid. Bring it up properly.’

Marina shook her head. She could barely comprehend what she was hearing. It seemed so unreal. A nightmare. ‘But… but why me?’

‘’Cause I saw you.’

‘On TV?’

‘Yeah. An’ outside the leisure centre. Filed you away. I’ve had my eye on you. Knew you’d come in handy.’

‘They’ll… they’ll be looking for me…’

‘Look all they want, they’ll never find you.’

Marina stopped moving, stared.

‘An’ you won’t escape neither. There’s no way out for you. Not down here. So get used to it.You’re gonna be here for a long time.’ He picked up the hammer. ‘I’m gonna get this done. Your new cage. Then you an’ me are gonna get to know each other properly.’

And with that he turned his back to her, knelt before the frame, started hammering.

Marina’s heart was beating so fast she felt it could grow wings and escape her body. That was it, she thought. That was it. No Hollywood rescue. No escape. And Phil. No Phil. Despite his promises, despite what he’d told her. How he would never let her down again, always be there for her. He wouldn’t be. This was it. For the rest of her life.

She crumpled into a heap.

Started sobbing.

Phil reached the brick wall, shone his torch past it into the caravan site. He stepped off the dirt track, on to the grass. Looked round.

There weren’t many vans. And each of them was in darkness. He stood still, listening. He could hear distant movement from his team in Hillfield, but there was no movement from the site. He shone the torch round again, settling on the caravan tucked in behind the gate nearest the wall. It was the one he had looked at on the way down. Filthy, old, rusted and mildewed. The others didn’t look like anything special, but this one was completely uninviting.

Phil stepped nearer to it. And tripped over something.

He dropped the torch, beam shining back at him, bent down to pick it up. As he did so, he tried to see what had caused him to trip. He ran the beam along the ground, found a raised edge that he traced back to the brick wall. He knelt down, examining it. It was the remains of another wall, knocked down but not completely.

He turned in the other direction, followed the raised line with the torch. It led to the middle of the site, turned left. He walked along it, following. There were raised areas all the way up the field. Like the grass had grown over foundations of houses that were once there.

Phil thought. Something about owning houses… He remembered. Laurence Croft had owned a row of houses that had been knocked down and the land turned into the caravan site. It figured, he thought. Judging from Croft’s DIY legacy in the house, he would have expected a job like this.

He turned back to the mildewed caravan. Something wasn’t right about it. The others had their Calor Gas bottles hooked up outside; this one didn’t. The others had their curtains open; this one had them closed. And he really couldn’t imagine anyone coming to stay in it. So why was it there?

He moved in closer, shone the torch over it. He bent down to look at the step beneath the door. There were tracks in the grass, muddy tracks, like someone had been dragging something. Or someone. The tracks led up the step and into the caravan. Heart thumping, Phil turned the handle. It opened.

He pulled the door open slowly, kept his head back, his body out of the way, not knowing what might jump out at him. He shone the torch in. Held himself ready to fight.

Nothing. He swung the torch round. Dirt everywhere, seating with rotting covers, work surfaces with chipped and peeling Formica, a table with a broken leg, filthy curtains. But nothing else. No one else. The caravan was empty.

Phil stepped inside. It wasn’t just the dirt, it was the smell. Like something that had been closed up too long. A tomb. He looked round, swinging the torch, taking it in. It definitely wasn’t a holiday home. But it had some purpose, he was sure of that. He just had to find out what it was.

He shone the torch round the cupboards, under the table, on the chairs, on the floor. And found it.

The muddy track marks led to a square in the centre of the floor. It was of matching carpet to the rest of the van, but had been cut out. Phil knelt down, rolled it back. A square had been cut out of the floor, hinged, then replaced. A trapdoor.