Sara Foster - Come Back to Me

When the weight lifted she automatically opened her eyes a fraction. Another man was striding over. This one wore a sleeveless lumberjack’s shirt, his arms muscular and strong and patched with tattoos, his face grim and determined, his eyes black holes like the others’, but his right cheek scythed vertically with a puckering scar.

She quickly closed her eyes again as he fell on to her roughly, the rancid stench of alcohol mixed with sweat washing over her. She didn’t make a sound; pain annihilated any thought she tried to form. She still had her eyes closed when she heard a spitting noise and felt something wet land on her cheek. As the weight lifted off her, the man uttered the word ‘Bitch’ in a rasping whisper as he moved away.

She heard sounds of movement coming closer once more, but there was another noise now, a whirring getting louder.

‘Shit,’ a voice said close to her ear. ‘What do we do now?’

‘Back in the fucking van,’ shouted another voice. ‘Get rid of her, quickly.’

Cold metal was back against her throat, pressing hard. Her eyes closed in preparation for the end, and she dipped into an endless black void.

Alex didn’t know how long he’d been sitting there, but at least three cups of tea were in front of him, all now cold. The room was bright and freshly painted, bare except for a chair and a beech-coloured table.

His mind was a blurry carousel of thoughts.

She was next to me.

She was taken right out of my arms.

And I didn’t stop it.

I was too slow.

I just let them take her.

What if I never see her again?

What if…

What if…

His throat felt constricted. His stomach burned. His chest was on fire.

He looked up each time someone walked past the small window set into the door, willing them to come in and tell him something. Faces had peered in when he had first arrived, but now he had finished his witness statement they obviously had other things to attend to. He felt so impotent, sitting on his hands, waiting. He was ashamed of his inaction.

He rocked on the chair, looking down at his clenched fists, his tight knuckles. He still didn’t understand it. How could he have just let them take her like that? He banged one fist on the table, feeling the tears threaten to unman him again. If only she’d been on the other side of him. If only he had caught hold of her hand for just that one moment he would have stood more of a chance.

He could still hear the thud and scrape of her body against the van as she was pulled inside. He could see the thick hand grasping her arm, the face with vacant eyes. Passers-by had provided pieces of the number plate but when the police had looked it up nothing had registered. Number plates were easy to disguise, the sergeant had told Alex. Apart from that, all the witnesses could describe was a white van and a scruffy man inside. Hardly a great starting point for a lead to follow.

He debated whether to call his parents for some support; but was stopped by the thought of how worried they would be. He still remembered the unbearable atmosphere in his home when Jamie had gone missing – his dad retreating into a stoic silence belied only by fingers that fumbled over every thing, while his mother repeatedly collapsed in tears. He couldn’t bear the thought of putting them through anything like that again. He knew he should call Amy’s parents, but he kept picturing her father’s expression at the airport as he entrusted Amy into Alex’s care, and he couldn’t face the conversation. In the first hour he had been hoping there would quickly be news; that they would find Amy fast. Then he could call once the crisis had passed, and relay the story in the past tense, assuring them that she was just shaken, but other wise fine. That they’d be home soon. But now, with each minute that ticked by, he lost a little bit more self-possession, and a little bit more hope.

Amy heard screaming as she came to. It sounded dislocated. She could feel the grass, wet and slimy, against her back, cool air on her face, and her tongue bone-dry and swollen against the oily cloth in her mouth.

‘Chris,’ a voice was shrieking above her head. ‘Chris, quickly. Oh my god, QUICKLY.’

Then there was another voice, a deeper one. ‘Oh Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,’ it said over and over.

Amy tried to turn onto her side to curl up, but she couldn’t move. It felt as though there were a slab of concrete on top of her, pinning her down.

‘Fuck, she’s moving. She’s alive.’ It was the deep voice.

‘Chris, give me the picnic blanket now. NOW!’ the female one shouted shakily. ‘AND GO AND PHONE THE FUCKING POLICE.’

Amy felt coarse material covering her, rubbing painfully against her leg. The woman’s voice kept repeating words: ‘You’re all right, love, you’re all right, you’ll be all right now, you’re all right.’ Amy could hear the woman crying over her as she spoke. A warm hand stroked her brow and hair, and she tried to pull away but couldn’t move. She felt some tugs as the woman attempted to break the thick black tape wound around her head, pulling her hair, and then she stopped and left it alone.

Amy kept her eyes closed.

More voices.

‘Grab the stretcher, Brett,’ someone said.

A radio crackled.

‘Caucasian female, young,’ someone else said.

The radio crackled again.

‘Could well be,’ the voice replied.

‘Hello there, hello?’ A finger pressed against Amy’s eyelid and lifted it up, shining a bright light into it. She winced involuntarily. ‘We’ve got you, you’re safe now.’

‘She’s conscious,’ someone called, and it seemed as though more people crowded around her.

Something soft was pressed gently against her neck. Then she heard the snip snip of scissors next to each ear, and the cloth was pulled from her mouth. She gasped one, two great lungfuls of air, her whole body contorting upwards at the sudden freedom, vomit coming from her mouth and running over her chin, and then she heard an almighty wailing begin. This time she knew it came from her own body, because she felt the quaking tremor of it as it filled her ears.

Her eyes flicked open and there was a snapshot of shocked and stricken faces. A uniformed policeman gaping at her with his mouth a slack O. A middle-aged woman’s back heaving as she sobbed into the chest of a man in shorts and T-shirt, who had his arms round the lady and was looking away from the scene and into the distance, his face grim. And then a green uniform, a face close to Amy’s, leaning in, saying ‘for the pain’, which she heard, although it sounded like one of the records her dad used to play where he would slow the speed right down to make her laugh at the sound of deep, treacly voices. She stared upwards, beyond the few trees that peered over the scene, up into the clear void that still beckoned her, where a part of her already lurked, looking down. She felt the inconsequential stab of a needle and her mind moved off again and up into the air towards the endless blue of the sky.

Alex looked up at the sound of the door opening. The detective in charge – Thompson, he thought his name was – came in, grim-faced.

Alex clenched his fists hard under the table as the policeman began to speak.

‘We’ve found the van. It was abandoned in a remote parking spot – and originally stolen. We think they switched to another car, as there are tyre tracks leading away from the scene.’

His heart skittered. ‘Amy?’

‘No sign, I’m afraid… We’re searching the area now.’ The man paused. ‘You know, you don’t have to be here if you don’t want to, Mr Markham.’