Alex Gray - The Riverman

Once more he edged into the opening and began his search. Then his fingers closed on a cold familiar shape. Almost weeping with relief, Michael clasped it tightly. The telephone was inside a plastic carrier bag and as he tried to draw it out, the handset jangled as it hit the door. There was barely enough room to manoeuvre it through the gap but at last it was out.

Speed was important now and Michael set about heaving the refrigerator a few inches from the wall so he could insert the jack into the empty socket. His hands trembled as the plastic plug refused to go in. He couldn’t see what he was doing, trusting to touch alone, feeling around the socket’s shape. There seemed to be a flap covering the entrance to the socket. Carefully Michael pushed this up with his thumbnail. He held his breath then let out a sigh as the jack plug slid sweetly into the socket.

Trembling, he took the handset and hesitated before he pressed out a number. Should he telephone the police? JJ had warned that they were hunting for him. A body had been found in the woods: his passport and other ID with it. They’d sling him into a penitentiary soon as look at him, his captor had crowed. It had to be someone he could trust, he told himself; someone whose name hadn’t come up in those documents he’d shown to Duncan Forbes.

Michael dialled a long string of numbers quickly. The events of the past days hadn’t dulled his memory, he thought with something approaching triumph as he listened to the ringtone. Numbers had always been his thing. Jenny had teased him about his ability to recall so many at the drop of a hat.

Michael gave a sigh of relief as the voice came over the line. ‘Yes, it’s really me. It’s a long story, Malcolm, but there are things I need you to do for me. I don’t have a lot of time and I might have to hang up fast so listen, will you?’

The radio was playing his favourite country tunes as JJ drove along the narrow ribbon of road. All it had taken was a couple of signatures to authorize the account. The money would be there in a matter of hours, and tomorrow he would be well on his way from this God-forsaken place with all his childhood memories. It wouldn’t do to hang around these parts too long, he thought, else the nightmares that had driven him away would begin to surface once again. He glanced sideways at the red canvas bag that held his shotgun. If he was stopped on this lonely stretch of road, nobody would bat an eyelid at his carrying such a weapon. Every dirt farmer in the district used to have one when he was a kid. For an instant the smile left the man’s face and his mouth became a thin, hard line. Don’t go down that road, a voice told him.

‘It’s okay, JJ. Everythin’s fine and dandy,’ he hollered, a grin spreading over his face. Sure it was. He wiped the back of his hand across his eyes to obliterate a remembered image: his father lying in a pool of blood, his mother screaming at him as he lowered the shotgun. He shook his head as if to be free of the scene. Concentrate on what’s goin’ on right now, his grown-up voice scolded. With a sigh JJ focused on the road ahead. Soon he could put all the rest of his plans into motion. And they were plans that didn’t include taking a passenger along this time around.

Michael put down the phone with a sigh. Whatever happened to him now, he could trust Malcolm to do what was right. Tears pricked the back of his eyelids as he thought of the terrible things Malcolm had told him. Duncan Forbes had been like a father to him. Now he was dead and the same hands that had effected his execution had undoubtedly authorized his own demise. The thought galvanized the young man into action.

JJ had locked the front door, and the windows in the main rooms were all fixed with inside locks. To escape from this place, Michael would have to do some real damage. He prowled round the house, testing the glass of the windows, one ear always listening for that returning vehicle.

In the end it was the bathroom that provided his means of escape. The frosted window gave slightly under his fingers, its ancient putty cracked round the edges. What to use as a missile to burst through the glass? Michael’s eyes lit on the metal stand that held the rolls of toilet tissue. Snatching it up and pulling off the paper, he weighed it in his hands. It seemed heavy enough.

With a roar Michael ran at the bathroom window. The base of the holder slammed against the frosted glass, causing it to quiver under his grasp. Three times he repeated the action then, in a burst of angry despair, hurled his whole weight against the window. To his amazement the glass gave way under the impact, swaying outwards from the now-damaged frame.

‘Got you, you bastard!’

Michael seized a towel from the rail and pushed hard against the glass until at last it fell with a satisfying tinkle onto the sun-baked earth below.

He put his head out, breathing in the hot air with relish but also alert for the sound of a distant motor. The ground was covered in bits of the windowpane and he’d have to be careful as he climbed out, he realized. There was no room to do anything other than drop down head first. Balling his fists into the sleeves of his shirt he pushed himself outwards. His shoulder snagged against the rough edge of the window frame but if he forced his upper body out then simple physics dictated that his weight would take him forwards.

Instinctively covering his face with both sleeves, he dropped to the ground, rolling himself clear of most of the broken glass.

A swift look to left and right showed him an empty road. Beyond the house lay fields of long grass. Glancing upwards, Michael noticed that the telephone wires led away from the road and over the fields. Somewhere there had to be another house with a telephone. Not stopping to look back, Michael ducked under the perimeter wire that separated JJ’s house from the fields and began to run.

‘What’s wrong, love?’ Lesley sank down beside him. Malcolm glanced from his wife to their older daughter. Gayle was watching her favourite cartoon, a bowl of cereal on her lap. Brownies always made her hungry.

There was so much to tell but he could only remain silent. To begin to speak would open the floodgates and he doubted if he could trust himself to stop.

He had made that telephone call for Michael and now he wondered what was happening with the young accountant. Would he manage to evade his captor? The news about Duncan had obviously been a shock. He was glad that he had managed to avoid any mention of Jennifer.

‘Malcolm?’ Lesley’s eyes showed her concern.

‘It’s okay, love, just feeling a bit peaky this evening.’ He patted her hand.

‘Ulcer playing up again? You really must go back and see Dr Leckie. Promise me you will?’ Her head rested on his shoulder and he felt the warmth of her like a balm.

‘I promise,’ he replied, but even as his words were uttered he felt he was betraying the woman he so desperately loved.

The noise of the garden gate banging in a gust of wind made her sit up with a start. Ever since Tony’s funeral she’d been jumpy. Shelley Jacobs had been lying on the settee, watching the TV screen’s flickering light, until that noise set her heart thudding. Slowly she moved across the room, edging against the wall so nobody outside could see her. She listened for a few minutes, waiting for another sound that might tell her it was only the wind outside and her over-active imagination that held her there, trembling in her silk nightdress.

The place was in darkness but Shelley could make out the sweep of lawn and the path that led to the gate. Just as she was about to move away from that corner by the window the security light flooded her garden with a brightness that made her gasp. And against that light was cast the shadow of a man.