Chris Ryan - Osama

And he saw her eyes suddenly open wide to stare up at him.

Her mouth opened to scream.

Joe moved like lightning. He slapped his left hand over her open mouth just in time to turn her scream into a mumble. He held the scalpel three inches from her eyes.

‘You see this?’ he whispered.

She nodded frantically, her eyes huge with terror.

‘It’s sharp enough to slit your throat with one cut. And that’s what’s going to happen if you make a sound, and unless you tell me who sent you to visit me in prison. Understood?’

Eva nodded again.

Slowly Joe loosened the grip on her mouth, but he kept his hand two inches above it and the scalpel just where it was. ‘Talk,’ he said.

‘How did you… ’

‘ Who sent you? ’

Her eyes were brimming with tears. That told Joe nothing. People cry when they’re falsely accused, but they also cry when they’re scared.

‘ Nobody sent me. I told you. Joe… how did you get out?’

‘I’m asking the questions, Eva.’

‘I know you’re not going to hurt me, Joe.’ She was whispering. ‘And I know you didn’t hurt Caitlin. Let me sit up. Let me talk to you.’

Joe didn’t move. There was ten seconds of silence. And then: ‘I swear to God, Eva. You make a fucking sound, you’ll regret it.’

She swallowed hard, but nodded. Joe moved his hands back and she shuffled up to a sitting position.

‘Can we turn the light on?’

‘Absolutely not.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I don’t know who’s watching.’

‘How did you get out?’ Eva pressed. ‘Did they give you bail?’

‘Not exactly.’

‘But you’re all wet… you smell like… Joe, I’m scared. What’s going on?’

She was scared. He could tell. But was she scared of him, or scared of someone else? And Joe had interrogated enough people to realize that if they didn’t want to tell you the truth, there was only one way to make them. Eva might not be lying to him. But equally, she might.

Moving fast, he put the scalpel on her beside table, grabbed her body and spun her round onto her front. He pressed her, face down, into the pillow and yanked her right arm up behind her back until he could feel the tendons reach straining point. He kept her in that position for a full ten seconds before speaking.

‘Who sent you? You’ve got five seconds to tell me before I break your arm.’

He yanked her head up by her hair and she gasped.

‘One,’ said Joe.

She inhaled again: half breath, half sob.

‘Two.’

‘Oh, God, please…’

‘Three.’

‘Nobody sent me…’

‘Four.’

‘What’s happened to you, Joe?’ Her voice was weak. Almost inaudible. ‘It’s me. It’s me !’

He didn’t reach five. Suddenly he saw himself, as though from outside his own body, torturing his oldest friend. Was this really him?

‘Joe… please …’

Slowly he released the pressure on her arm. She scrambled away from him to the other side of the bed. And the way she looked at him was like a knife twisting inside him. He felt himself screwing up his face as the agony in his mind became acute. Looking away, he caught sight of himself in a full-length mirror on a wardrobe beside the bed. The knife twisted further. He looked fucking demented. No wonder Eva was terrified.

Her breath was coming in short, shaky gasps, like a child unable to stop sobbing.

‘How… how did you get into my house?’

‘We can’t stay here,’ Joe interrupted. ‘They’ll know you visited me. It won’t take them long to come knocking.’

‘Who? Who’s “they”?’

It was a good question. Joe couldn’t answer it.

‘Joe, if you’re in trouble, maybe I can help?’ Her voice was very small.

‘Maybe.’ He stood up and walked to the other side of the room, where he peered out into the back garden between the gap in the curtains. A cat was drinking at the edge of the water feature. Other than that, nothing. He turned to look back at her. A thought had crystallized in his mind. What mattered now wasn’t whether he trusted Eva. It was whether she trusted him.

‘Get dressed,’ he said. ‘Quickly. Is there any money in the house?’

‘Next door… in the cash box on the table… It’s open…’

‘Do you have a weapon?’

She blinked in the darkness. ‘Of course not.’

Joe nodded and quickly left her to get dressed. He found the money – four £50 notes. Next to the box was a copy of The Times ; it was the same one the lawyer had showed him in prison, open at the article about him.

Something else caught his attention. Through the thin curtains he could see the headlights of a vehicle parked outside. He pulled the curtains a centimetre apart, just enough to scope it out.

A black van. Registration: KT04 CDE.

“They” were here…

He sprinted back to Eva’s room. ‘We’ve got company,’ he said.

‘Who?’ She was dressed – jeans, jumper – and had just pulled on her trainers. She picked up a small bag from the table beside the bed.

‘ Just move! ’ Joe hissed.

He grabbed her arm and pulled her down the stairs. No time for stealth – their footsteps seemed to shake the whole house. The van’s lights were illuminating the frosted glass in the front door, and he could see silhouettes approaching. ‘Who is it?’ Eva shrieked.

‘This time of night, it’s not the fucking milkman. Get out the back!’

Eva groaned as she saw the glass missing from her French windows, but she clambered through the hole with Joe following close behind. He helped her over the low fence into the neighbours’ property. They sprinted across the half-dozen gardens, giving no thought to secrecy or silence. Joe saw the upstairs lights come on in two of the houses. Clearly they were disturbing people with their noise.

They reached the end of the terrace in a little under a minute. From the last garden they could open the gate over which Joe had had to scramble. The moment they were on the street he grabbed Eva’s hand and pulled her in the opposite direction to her own house. He looked over his shoulder. Two figures were running towards them, unrecognizable in the pale yellow lamplight, but Joe instantly spotted the handguns they were clutching. The two men were thirty metres away and closing.

‘Run!’ Joe hissed.

They turned out of Dawson Street and into Halfway Parade. On the other side of the street, the Hand and Flower, where Joe and Eva used to drink when they were teenagers, was turfing out its customers. The road was busy – buses, minicabs, even a couple of cyclists with flashing head-torches and hi-vis jackets. Twenty metres ahead, two passengers were stepping into a bus. Still clutching Eva’s hand, Joe ran towards it, just managing to jump on board before the doors hissed shut. It pulled away almost immediately as Eva, breathless, waved her police ID at the driver.

Joe’s attention was elsewhere. He was staring through the window at the two figures that had just arrived alongside the moving bus. They both wore jeans, trainers and hoodies. The face of one of them was obscured, but Joe just caught a glimpse of the other. Dark skin. Yellow teeth. The same kid who had been loitering outside his house in what seemed like another lifetime.

Weapon or no weapon, he wanted to burst out and get his hands on the fucker. Eva would be safe on the bus. Now it was accelerating, and the kid had disappeared. All twenty or so other passengers were staring at the two of them with suspicion.

Joe turned to Eva. ‘We can’t stay on here,’ he breathed. ‘Too many people. Where can we talk?’

Her face was deathly white. She looked almost too petrified to respond. ‘Next stop,’ she whispered.