The Other People: A Novel(10)

The van should not be there. Of course, there were probably any number of reasons why it could be. Rational, simple, normal explanations. But she dismissed them.

The van should not be there.

The van had come for them.

As she watched, the driver-side door opened. A man climbed out. Stocky, wearing a baseball cap, a green sweatshirt and jeans. He carried a parcel. Of course. People were always ordering things online now. A delivery driver wouldn’t arouse suspicion. Except Fran didn’t order anything online for that exact reason.

She didn’t have much time. She ran upstairs and threw open her wardrobe. Everything she needed was packed into a small rucksack at the bottom. The house was rented fully furnished. They had no keepsakes or mementoes.

She knocked on Alice’s door and eased it open. Alice lay on her bed, reading, long legs bent up behind her. She was growing fast, Fran thought. There would come a time when there would be questions; when she would no longer acquiesce to this life. Fran pushed that terrifying thought to one side.

“Sweetheart?”

“Yes?” Alice looked up. A few strands of dark hair fell over her face.

“We have to go. Now.”

Fran ran to the wardrobe, grabbed the rucksack and chucked her a hoodie. Alice pulled it over her head and got to her feet, stuffing them into her fake Uggs. Then she hesitated, looking around. Fran fought the urge to grab her, hurry her along.

“Alice. C’mon,” she hissed.

Alice spotted what she was missing. The small bag of pebbles, sitting on the bedside table. She snatched it up and slung it over her shoulder.

They crept out onto the landing and padded softly down the stairs. Just before the bottom, Fran paused, Alice’s small, warm body pressed closely behind. She peered around the corner of the wall. The front door had opaque glass at the top so she could see people approach. She had attached a sign to the door. Casual, handwritten:

Parcels and deliveries, please use the side door. Thanks.



Fran saw a shadow at the frosted glass, waited as the man read the note, then saw the shadow move again, around to the side of the house. Now. She grabbed Alice’s hand and they ran down the hallway. She quickly unlocked the front door. She heard a knock on the side door. They bolted down the short pathway to the car. Beeped it unlocked. Chucked the rucksacks into the back. Alice climbed in the front; Fran threw herself into the driver’s seat. She started the engine.

She was already accelerating away when she saw the man run down the side path of the house, looking confused and annoyed. Fleetingly, she wondered whether he really was making a delivery. Perhaps he had just got the wrong house. Then she saw the flash of metal in his hand. No. She wasn’t being paranoid. He had come for them. She knew.

Within ten minutes, they had been on the motorway, their old lives abandoned behind them, again.

Apart from the brief stop at the services, they had been driving ever since. They hadn’t made bad time to start with, but then they had hit a massive traffic jam on the M5 and, even at such a late hour, been hindered by an endless procession of trucks blocking both lanes on the M42. They were heading up the M1 toward Yorkshire now.

Making time, Fran thought, a line from an old film popping into her mind. I’m making time. What was it? Then she remembered. Withnail and I, the perennial student favorite. We’ve gone on holiday by mistake. We appear to be running for our lives by mistake.

“Where are we going?” Alice asked.

“I don’t know. Scotland, maybe? Somewhere safe, sweetheart. I promise.”

“You promised before.”

And she shouldn’t have. She shouldn’t now. But what else could she say? We’ll never be safe. We’ll never stop running. She couldn’t admit that to herself, let alone to a not-quite-eight-year-old.

“We’ll have a nice new house.”

“Can I go back to school?”

“Maybe. We’ll see.”

Alice didn’t reply.

She was getting used to being let down. To being disappointed and feeling distrustful. Shadows shouldn’t darken her eyes, Fran thought. They should be fresh and bright with hope and expectation. Not fear. Her mind flashed back to Alice on the toilet floor, waking from her sleep.

“Are you feeling okay?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“You didn’t hurt yourself earlier when you fell?”

“No.”

“You broke the mirror.”

Alice frowned. “I don’t remember.”

“D’you remember anything?”

She risked a quick sideways glance. Alice had stopped frowning. Her face looked calm again, serene. She was thinking about the dream.

“I saw the girl.”

The girl. Alice had mentioned a girl before but, when pressed, she had clammed up.

“D’you know who she is?”

Alice shook her head.

“Did she speak to you?”

A nod.

“What did she say?”

“She said…she’s afraid.”

Fran swallowed. Tread carefully. Don’t let her slip away from you.

“Did she say why?”

A pause. A longer one. A car flashed them then darted out and overtook in the inside lane. Fran realized she was dawdling in the middle lane. An annoyance to other motorists and a way to draw attention. She signaled and pulled over.