Kate Atkinson - Started Early, Took My Dog

‘Do they?’

Tracy went back to the hospital the next day. Kiddy’s bed was empty, she thought, oh no, not dead, please God. She found the nurse who had been on Ian Winfield’s round with him yesterday. ‘Michael Braithwaite,’ Tracy said, fear wringing her insides. ‘What’s happened to him?’

‘Who?’

Friday

She woke with a jerk. Something unnatural had disturbed her sleep. Not birdsong, not an alarm clock, not the first bus grumbling its way past the top of the street. Tracy shot out of bed and hurried to the landing window from where you could get a good view of the street. A street crawling with police. Two uniforms knocking on the door opposite. A couple of squad cars parked further up the street. A plainclothes she recognized, Gavin Archer. More uniforms. They were doing door-to-door in Tracy’s street. Could only mean one thing, they knew she’d been at Kelly’s house last night. They knew about the kid. They’d probably seen the security tapes in the Merrion Centre, seen Kelly Cross swapping the kid for cash like a street corner drug deal.

Two uniforms coming this way.

Tracy went into mental overdrive. Made a dash for the bedroom, pulled on her old tracksuit and ran along the hall to Courtney’s room. The kid woke up quickly as if she was used to having to exit houses with little warning. Tracy put her finger to her lips and whispered, ‘Shush.’ Something else the kid seemed to understand. The kid jumped into action and seized the precious pink rucksack and the even more precious silver wand.

They padded quickly downstairs. Just as they reached the hallway, the doorbell rang, loud and insistent. A wave of adrenalin cascaded through Tracy’s body. She snatched up her bag, pushed the kid into the red duffel coat and hustled her to the back door. Tracy fumbled with the lock, her hands shaking. When she finally got the door open she hefted Courtney under one arm – it was like trying to run with a small sheep – and made a dash for the back gate. No one in the lane. Tracy pulled open the door to the lock-up, bustled the kid into the back of the car and said, ‘Buckle up.’

Tracy’s heart was knocking so hard it was making her chest feel sore. She came out of the lane, turned left, drove away sedately. Passed an empty police car and a uniform on a doorstep speaking to a sleepy woman. A dog van coming the other way ignored her. Tracy made her getaway, moving through them all like a ghost.

Behind her, a grey Avensis with a pink rabbit hanging from its rear-view mirror glided stealthily away from the kerb, like a big fish. It was cut off by one of the uniforms, asking questions.

Tracy decided it would be safer on the deserted back roads. They could hang around in the vicinity of the National Trust holiday cottage she had booked. She could get the keys to the cottage at two in the afternoon. Not keys exactly, just a code for a keypad on the door that a housekeeper activated ahead of their arrival. They wouldn’t have to see anyone, talk to anyone. Then they could be invisible, off the radar, like stealth fighters. She only needed a day or so.

The kid fell asleep. It was foggy on the back roads. The fog felt good, like a friend. What had she done? One minute she was buying a sausage roll in Greggs, the next she was on the run from murder and kidnapping. Not that she’d murdered Kelly Cross, she just felt as if she had. Next time she was tempted to buy a kid, Tracy thought, she would take out some kind of warranty against buyer’s remorse. A twenty-four-hour test run to make sure that she hadn’t picked one that came trailing clouds of gory baggage. As if. As if she was going to go and buy another kid. No chance, she was sticking to this one like glue. Thick and thin, hell and high – oh, bugger and blast – suddenly there in front of them a deer stepped delicately out of the fog and into the road, and stood there, surprised, like someone who finds herself unexpectedly on a brightly lit stage in front of an audience.

Tracy heard someone scream, thought it might be herself, wasn’t sure she’d ever screamed before. She slammed on the brakes, yelled, ‘Hold on!’ to Courtney, remembering all the things she’d heard about people running into cows, horses, deer, kangaroos, even sheep, and not walking away alive. She prayed to the particular god who kept kidnapped kids from being killed by wildlife. Tracy closed her eyes.

There was a thud, like driving at full speed into a wall of sand. Tracy was socked in the face by an airbag. It hurt like hell. She was going to have some great bruises. She spun round to check on Courtney. No rear-side airbags, that was a good thing, kids got injured by them. Courtney wasn’t hurt, didn’t even look surprised. ‘OK?’ Tracy said. Kid gave her a thumbs-up. You had to love her.

The windscreen looked as if someone had thrown a rock into the centre of it. A starburst clock. Thank God, the deer hadn’t come through the windscreen and into the car. That would have been too much.

‘Stay here,’ she said to Courtney and clambered out of the car. The deer was lying on the road, illuminated by the headlights. A female, a hind. It was panting, making nasty tubercular sounds. Tracy knelt down next to it and its eyes rolled wildly. There was a huge gash across its neck and blood was pumping out from somewhere beneath its body. It made a frantic effort to struggle to its feet but this was a deer that was going nowhere, today or any other day. It was horrible to see an animal so wounded. Tracy felt more for the deer than she had for Kelly Cross. She had to put it out of its suffering but she could hardly whack it with a jack in front of the kid.

Courtney appeared at her side. ‘Bambi,’ she whispered.

‘Yeah,’ Tracy said. ‘Bambi.’ More like Bambi’s mother. Disney had a lot to answer for. No intention of getting that DVD for the kid. Dead Disney mothers (murdered mothers, in fact) leaving their kids to face the world alone, that was a story the kid could do without. Story Tracy could do without.

To Tracy’s relief, the animal grew quieter, no longer trying to lift its head. Tracy welled up. Poor bloody thing. Courtney patted her hand. The deer’s eyes grew dull and it gave a great shuddering breath and lay still.

‘Is he dead?’ Courtney whispered.

‘Yes,’Tracy said, swallowing hard. ‘She. She’s dead. Gone to join all her friends in deer heaven.’ Sacrifices, to save the kid. Save the kid, save the world. Tracy put out a hand and stroked the deer’s flank. The kid passed the wand over its body.

The Audi was as mortally wounded as the deer. ‘I guess we’ll have to walk,’ Tracy said. ‘Find a garage.’ She heard the sound of another car approaching, the noise baffled by the fog. The fog didn’t feel like a friend any more.

They were going to have to take their chances. Tracy just hoped the car wasn’t being driven by the police. A grey car materialized out of the grey mist. An Avensis. ‘Shit,’ Tracy muttered as the driver climbed out of the car and approached through the gloom.

Tracy grabbed the kid by the hand and hissed, ‘Run.’ She could hear him shouting behind her as they crashed through the undergrowth. ‘Tracy? Tracy Waterhouse? I just want to talk.’

‘Yeah,’ she muttered to the kid, ‘that’s what they all say.’

She stopped and sat on the ground, exhausted, at the foot of a big tree. ‘Get our breath back,’ she muttered to Courtney. Had life with Kelly Cross been so bad, compared to this? Would Kelly still be alive if Tracy hadn’t bought the kid off her? The kid knelt next to her, picked up a skeletal leaf left over from autumn and tucked it into her backpack. Her priorities were different from Tracy’s.

The wood seemed to enfold itself around them. Tracy thought of Sleeping Beauty. They could die here and turn into leaf mould before they were found. A crack broke the silence, startling them both, and Tracy wrapped her arms round Courtney and clung on to her. Nerves screwed tight as piano wires.