Tania Carver - Choked

He turned back to the laptop. Dee felt she should give it her attention too. She looked at the screen. And in that shiny surface she saw not what she was supposed to see, but her own reflection.

Not her usual reflection, the face she had now, but the old one. The way she once was. It had broken through. She felt her heart sink like a stone lost in a lake. The tingling stopped. Shame took over. She couldn’t keep looking. She couldn’t look away. So horrible.

‘Dee.’

Michael’s voice again. He knew what was happening.

‘Look at me, Dee.’

She tore her eyes away from the screen, looked at him. He placed his hands on her arms. Gripped her tight.

‘It’s not real,’ he said. ‘It’s not you.’

She heard his words but she didn’t believe them. She never did. Not at first.

‘What is it?’ he said.

‘It’s not real. It’s not me.’ Her voice dry and dead.

‘You’re Dee Sloane. Who are you?’

‘Dee. Sloane.’

‘Good. Remember that.’

He let go of her. She stood silent, head down. As motionless as the Golem.

‘It’s hidden,’ he said, pointing at the laptop. ‘But it’s here. Only a matter of time. Then we’ll have them.’

She knew she was expected to say something here. ‘Good.’

‘That’s the spirit.’

He went back to working on the laptop.

Dee just stood there, lost in her own world.

Tyrell had found sleep difficult to come by. The dogs had barked intermittently all night. He couldn’t shake the image of them tearing apart the little girl in the house, and rose regularly to look out of the window and check they weren’t doing that. There wasn’t a full view of the dogs’ enclosure from his window so he couldn’t be entirely sure, but he thought if the girl had been there he would have heard her. Or he hoped he would. Since dawn broke, he had kept vigil from the window. It was fully light when Jiminy Cricket arrived.

‘Hands off cocks and on with socks, as my mother used to say.’ Jiminy Cricket laughed. Tyrell didn’t join him.

‘I’ve brought you breakfast.’ Jiminy Cricket placed an old, cheap laminate tray down on the table. Tyrell looked at it. A mug of something brown. Some toast and a mound of scrambled egg that had hardened into a mini yellow Ayers Rock on the walk over.

Just like being in prison, Tyrell thought.

‘Eat up,’ Jiminy Cricket said.

Tyrell stayed standing. ‘Where’s the girl?’

‘In the house. She’s fine.’

Tyrell stared at him. Levelly, unblinkingly. The other man’s eyes darted all about, zinged and ricocheted off surfaces like a speeding bullet in a metal bank vault. He finally brought them to rest on the scrambled eggs.

‘Eat up. You’ll need your strength. Big day.’

‘Where’s the girl?’

‘She’s all right.’ Almost shouting, voice coming out of his body like steam erupting from a poorly closed pressure cooker. ‘You … you don’t need to concern yourself with her. She’s fine. Just fine.’

‘What about the dogs?’

‘What about the dogs?’ Tetchy, irritable.

‘You were going to feed her to them.’

He sighed in exasperation. ‘I wasn’t going to feed her to them.’

‘Yes you were. The woman in the kitchen said so. I heard her.’

‘No one’s feeding the girl to the dogs.’

‘I don’t want the little girl fed to the dogs.’

‘She’s not going to be fed to the dogs!’

‘I won’t help you if you do.’

Jiminy Cricket stopped talking then, stared. This time he did make eye contact. Moved up close, face to face. ‘The girl is fine,’ he said, struggling to keep his voice low, controlled. ‘You don’t need to worry about her.’

Tyrell stared.

‘Look, last night I was … angry. But we’re fine now, OK? Right?’

He wanted to be believed, but Tyrell wasn’t sure he was ready to do that yet. He didn’t think letting him know was the best thing to do, though, so he said nothing. His silence was taken for assent.

‘Good. Right. Let’s keep it that way.’ Jiminy Cricket sighed, looked relieved to have headed off Tyrell’s revolt, handled it so well. He smiled, pointed at the eggs.

‘Eat up. Big day.’

‘Why?’

Another sigh, a roll of the eyes, but hidden. Like he thought Tyrell was an idiot but didn’t want him to know it. ‘Like I said. This is the day all your questions are answered. Today’s the day you find out who you are.’

‘I know who I am. You told me. Tyrell.’

‘Yes,’ he said, moving close, putting his arm round Tyrell’s shoulder like a friend or an overfamiliar used-car salesman. ‘That’s right. Tyrell. But that’s just a name. Today you get your identity. Your legacy. Who you are, who you were, and most importantly, who you forever shall be.’

Tyrell said nothing. He was still thinking of the girl and the dogs.

‘That’s the spirit.’ The other man laughed, squeezed Tyrell’s shoulder, put on a cockney accent. ‘Stick with me, mate, and this time next year we’ll be millionaires.’ He looked at his watch, laughed. ‘This time tomorrow, even.’

Tyrell didn’t know whether he wanted to go along with it. He wished he had gone straight to the hostel when he got out, not got into the car. He wished …

He wished he were back inside.

His friend took his arm away. Made for the door, pointed to the table. ‘Eat your eggs.’ And was gone. Locking the door behind him.

Tyrell looked at the plate of food, the rapidly cooling tea. He sat down at the table. Picked up the fork. He didn’t want to do it, but he had no choice.

He ate. It tasted exactly as it looked.

Marina was just about to set foot in the hotel lobby when she realised something was wrong.

There were two uniformed police officers at the reception desk.

Usually she wouldn’t have given that a second thought. After all, she was on the payroll as a police psychologist. But where she would once have seen officers as no threat, as allies even, she could no longer afford to think that way. Not when her daughter’s life was at stake.

They’re here for me, she thought. They know I’m here and they’ve come for me. It was the phone call last night, she thought, or my credit card when I checked in. They’ve traced me.

Her heart began to pound heavily. She had to get out. Get past them and into the car. Drive away. Do what was required of her and get her daughter back. Not get hauled in by the police.

Another thought struck her. They’re not here for me. They’re here about something completely unconnected. There’s no way they could have found me yet. In that case, her reasoning continued, just keep going. Right past them. To the car and away.

But something stopped her from doing that. Paranoia. A sixth sense. A desire to not take unnecessary risks. Something like that.

Instead, she ducked back behind the corner, looking out to check they hadn’t seen her. They hadn’t. Good. She turned round, walked back the way she had come, glancing over her shoulder. She wished she hadn’t. The receptionist was gesturing towards her, or at least towards the corridor she was in.

Heart rate increasing, she moved quickly towards the lift, punched the button. The lift was still there from her coming down in it. The doors opened. Slowly. Marina heard footsteps coming towards her.

She jumped inside, pressed the buttons for the first and top floors. The footsteps got louder, voices with them. The doors took millennia to close.

But eventually they did.

She was alone. The lift made its way slowly to the first floor. She jumped out, pressing the button to close the doors as she did so. The lift continued its ascent to the top floor.