Final Cut(79)

I’m falling; it feels like vertigo. My legs collapse beneath me as if I’ve tripped, or slipped on the soft grass, though the next second I realise I must’ve been shoved from behind. My hands fly out and partially break my fall, but still I hit the rocky ground with a painful thwack, barely cushioned by the thin topsoil. My teeth crack, my ears ring. I can’t breathe; my mouth is stoppered. I see only blackness, and for a second it looks like a tunnel, but not of light. A tunnel that leads down, down into the cold black heart of the earth.

I spit out the soil from my mouth and breathe. If I was pushed, then whoever did it will be standing over me right now. I force open my eyes. I try to twist my head, but it’s painful. Something warm is trickling down my cheek.

Déjà fucking vu.

Breathe, I tell myself. I must remember to breathe. I lift my head. The ringing tinnitus intensifies, swells to a crescendo, then disappears.

‘Daisy?’ I say, or I think I do at least. It comes out as a croak. I try to lift myself up, to work out what’s going on, but I hear nothing except the sound of my own breath, heavy now. I’m not even certain she’s there, or that she ever was.

But perhaps this is how she wants me. Helpless and begging. She wants to make me pay, for whatever it is I did.

There’s a scraping sound, but it doesn’t seem real. It’s in my head, pure imagination. My mouth is full of blood; I must’ve bitten my cheek. I spit a bubbly pearl of pink saliva on to the grass and try to force myself on to my side. I want to see you, I plead. If this is what it’s come to, then at least let me see your face, one last time before the end.

I don’t get the chance. Something flashes in the moonlight – too fast for me even to guess at what it might be – and connects painfully with the side of my head.

I register what’s happened for less than a second, then everything goes black.





46


I wake to darkness. My head pounds like a drum stretched too tight, my eyes blur in and out of focus and, when they finally resolve to sharpness, I see only the edge of a discarded mattress upon which I must be lying. It’s dark otherwise; the air is sharply sulphuric with the smell of public toilets and the piercing sting of ammonia.

It’s the stink I recognise. I’m in Daisy’s caravan. The bedroom. I have to get out.

My heart cannons in my chest. When I try to get to my feet the room spins and I fall painfully, cracking my elbow on the bedframe. I put my hand to my head and feel something encrusted there. Blood, I suppose, though at least it’s dry. I try once more and this time manage to remain upright. My eyes adjust to the dim moonlight, but still I can only just see what I’m doing. I try the flimsy concertina door. It’s locked somehow; either that or something’s tying it closed. I pull as hard as I can but, though it buckles, it gives only an inch.

I spin round. There’s a window next to me, plastic with a metal frame. I try it, but it’s rusted shut. I’m going to die. I see it clearly. She’ll come in, with a gun or a knife or a crowbar, and finish it.

I have to get out. I hammer on the window, but nothing gives. I wonder dimly whether it’s shatterproof, but my overdriven mind has gone into panic mode. I look around for anything that might help, but there’s nothing. My mind slips a little but I fight to stay in control, to stay present. I hammer on the door, eyes darting wildly. The curtains are mouldy and torn, but they hang off a metal curtain pole. It might be enough.

I jump up and grab hold of it with both hands, my weight pulling it off the wall. I swing it at the window as hard as I can, but it’s no good. It judders, sending shockwaves up my arm and into my shoulder, but the plastic window remains resolutely unbroken. Not even a crack. I try again – three, four, five times – but with the same result. The door is my only chance. I shoehorn the curtain pole through the gap between the door and its frame and pull on it, using all my weight. It levers the door open a little more, and I edge the pole further in and try again. Eventually, the gap is big enough for me to see through; Daisy has tied something to the handle – a tie, it looks like, dark brown, from David’s house, perhaps – and secured it somehow. It won’t budge.

I grab hold of the tie, but my hands are numb. I might as well be watching one of the clips for my film. I dig my nails into my palms, as hard as I can, so hard it hurts.

Suddenly, an idea comes. I take out my cigarettes from my jacket pocket and remove the lighter from the packet. I flick the wheel once, twice, until the flame leaps in the darkness. I hold it under the tie, willing it to catch, and when it does the cheap fabric burns quickly and with the peculiar smell of burning rubber. I pull on the door as it chars and blackens, and then, with a final flare, it burns through and the door crashes open. I’m free, I think, then realise I’ve only broken into the main room of the van and there’s still a door between me and outside.

It’s locked, of course. I weigh the curtain pole in my hand and scan the room. The front window is cracked, a point of weakness, perhaps. I hammer on it with the pole first, then with my booted foot. It doesn’t give, but the crack splinters some more with each impact. I take off my boot and use it to batter the plastic until, finally, with a sound like a ruler shattering, it fractures. I pull at the shards until there’s a gap wide enough for me to wriggle through.

I crash to the ground but then drag myself to my feet. David’s windows shine silver in the light. Is she in there, watching me? I should have done this weeks ago, I know that now. I should’ve barged my way in, pushed open the door, snapped the chain and had it out with David. I should have sat him down and made him tell me everything he knew, demanded to know where Daisy was. If I hadn’t been so determined to be Alex, maybe I would have. Perhaps that’s been the problem all along. Knowing who I am. A febrile excitement dances over my body, light as a moth.