M. Arlidge - Eeny Meeny

I got all the bad press, got a stretch, was spat at and vilified. But she committed the real crime and she knew it.

I could see it in her eyes as they drove me away. She was a Judas, no, she was worse than Judas. He only betrayed his friend. She betrayed her sister.

Do it quickly now. Get it over with.

Mark urged himself to move, to summon his last reserves of strength and do the deed. But his fever raged, his body ached and he found it hard to move his legs. But needs must – he willed himself into action.

Charlie lay across the room. She was crying and shouting now. Was she losing her mind? Normally so calm, so warm, now she was full of fury and violence, a hissing harpy on the road to madness. Who knew what was going through her mind?

The gun was equidistant between them. Mark couldn’t keep his eyes off it. Now that they had exhausted all attempts to escape, the gun was the only solution for them.

He pulled himself up on to his elbows. Immediately, they collapsed beneath him and he fell to the floor, his chin connecting sharply with the cold stone. Furious, he tried again, straining every muscle to raise his skeletal frame from the ground. This time he managed it, pressing home the advantage by bringing his knees up and tucking them underneath his chest. Sharp pains arrowed around his chest, his legs, his arms – his body was rebelling against him, but he wouldn’t let it win.

He stole another glance at the gun. Easy does it now, no sudden movements. He moved slowly up on to his bum, so he was sitting up again. Suddenly being upright made his head pound and unbidden a memory shot forth – of Elsie laying a cold flannel on his head to soothe away a New Year hangover. She always was a little angel. His little angel.

The gun was five feet away. How quickly could he cover the ground? Once he had committed to doing it there must be no turning back. A moment’s delay and his resolve would fail him. A moment’s indecision and his body might fail him. He had made his decision now and mustn’t let any last-minute doubts stop him.

He scrambled across the floor on his hands and knees. The pain was excruciating but he managed to keep moving forward. Charlie heard him and turned quickly, but it was too late, Mark had got there. He snatched up the gun and cocked it. It was time to kill.

It was raining hard now – a storm had broken and the falling water lashed Helen as she raced towards the tower. It was as if the weather was filled with the same fury that drove Helen onwards.

The water running off her visor blurred the view, so when Helen first saw her, she appeared ghostly, like a vision of some kind. At first she thought it was the Arrow rep coming to meet her – but then she realized it was a woman. Immediately she tensed, slowing the bike and reaching for her gun.

Then suddenly she couldn’t breathe. She clamped her eyes shut, then opened them again, willing herself to be wrong. But she wasn’t wrong. She skidded to a halt, jumped off and ran over to the drenched and semi-naked figure.

Charlie lurched past as if she didn’t recognize her. Helen grabbed hold of her arm, hauling her back towards her. Charlie turned and with savage anger in her eyes tried to bite Helen on the face. Helen pushed her off, slapping her hard. The blow seemed to stun Charlie, who now sank to her knees. Bedraggled and unclothed, she was a nightmare version of the perky officer Helen had once known.

‘Where?’ Helen’s question was blunt and uncaring.

Charlie couldn’t look at her.

‘He did it. It wasn’t me. He did it to save me…’

‘WHERE?’ Helen roared.

Tears were now pouring down Charlie’s face. She lifted her right arm and pointed to Chatham Tower.

‘The basement,’ she said, her voice cracked and feeble.

Helen left her where she knelt, sprinting towards the tower. She released the safety catch on her gun as she ran through the unlocked site entrance. There was no place for strategy or caution here. She had to find Mark.

She pushed the possibility that he was already dead to the back of her mind – surely there was time to save him? There had to be. In an instant, Helen realized that she had had feelings for Mark. Not love yet, but something warm and good that could have grown. Maybe they’d been brought together for a reason. Maybe they were supposed to save each other and repair the damage of the past.

She burst through the entrance and scanned wildly about her. Then she was sprinting across the atrium, kicking open the door next to the lifts. Down, down, down she went, taking the stairs three at a time.

Now she was in the basement. She kicked open the first door to find… an empty cupboard. No, that wouldn’t be right, the door wasn’t strong enough to hold anyone inside, she would have needed… Then Helen saw it – the reinforced metal door that swung on its hinges. Helen raced down the corridor and hared inside.

As she entered her knees gave way and she collapsed to the ground. She had seen Mark. And she had seen the worst. Slowly she raised her head, but it was no better on second sight. Mark lay in a pool of his own blood. Mark was dead, the gun that killed him still clutched in his hand. Helen scrambled across the filthy floor to him, cradling his head in her arms. But he was cold and still.

A loud bang and Helen looked up. Who had she been expecting? Charlie? Bridges? It was Marianne, as she knew it must be.

‘Hello, Jodie.’

She smiled as she locked the door behind her.

‘Long time no see.’

There was no victory. No happiness. There wasn’t even a sense of relief. Charlie had survived. She would live. Her baby would live. But the old Charlie was dead and buried. There was no coming back from this.

She lay on the tarmac, the rain pouring down on her. Her brain was reeling. Shock mingled with loathing. Slowly exhaustion took hold. She closed her eyes and opened her mouth. The rain tumbled into her parched, bleeding mouth. A momentary sense of relief, of life flooding through her and then oblivion. Her eyes closed, her brain drifting, she felt herself being sucked underwater, pulled into a darkness that was comforting as well as debilitating.

Then a voice. A weird, distant mechanical voice. Charlie tried to pull herself out of the abyss, but exhaustion gripped her. There it was again. The voice, urgent and insistent. She managed to open one eye. But there was no one there.

‘Where are you? Please respond.’ The desperate voice was becoming clear now.

Charlie opened the other eye, managing to lift her head off the ground.

Helen’s police radio, lying on the floor by her discarded bike. And the voice… the voice was DC Bridges. Searching for her.

Perhaps it wasn’t all over. Perhaps Charlie did have a shot at redemption after all. She knew she had to try. She hauled herself up, then collapsed to her knees. Her body was shaking, her teeth chattering. She was seeing double. But she had to make it to the radio somehow.

‘How could you?’

Marianne laughed. There was a beautiful irony to Jodie’s question. It was exactly what Marianne had said to her all those years ago. A broad grin spread across Marianne’s face – who could have predicted it would all work out so perfectly?

‘It was simpler than you might think. The men were easy – you know what they’re like with a pretty face. And the girls, well they were very… trusting. I’d like to say it was hard work, but as you can see I got others to do the heavy lifting.’

She shot a glance towards Mark’s body.

‘Did you see Charlie by the way?’ she continued. ‘How is she doing? She ran straight past me when I opened the door, so I didn’t really get a proper look at her.’