Hide and Seek (16 page)

CHAPTER 33

19:19pm

Peter awoke with a start
. He was sprawled on the floor of the storage cupboard. The muffled ring of the mobile phone grew louder and more insistent as his hearing ebbed back to normality. The storage cupboard was now fully illuminated; an orange neon light pierced his eyes as he opened them. He winced and tried to sit up. His head was swimming. He felt the same as he did when he woke that morning, as if drugged again. He took deep breaths. The mobile phone stopped ringing. He whispered into the silence.

‘Cas?’

He looked around but could see no sign of Cas. He rubbed his face with his hands and felt them lather his face with a warm sticky substance. He withdrew his hands to look at them. As well as the remnants of the burglar grease he saw that his hands were also coated in fresh blood. He glanced down at himself and could see more blood soaking through his shirt. He jumped up to his feet and pulled off his jacket catching one arm in the sleeve then clumsily wrestling it free. He pulled up his shirt to see where the blood was coming from. A quick inspection showed that the blood had not come from him. He massaged his left forearm, where he had been hit by the bar, and sucked air through his teeth in pain as a dull ache filtered through his body. He rolled up the sleeve and inspected the wound. A bright purple rectangular strip was burned across his forearm where the bar had connected. The skin was prickled with burst blood vessels which had risen to the surface of his skin. He clenched his fist and rotated his arm cautiously, testing it. It hurt but he was pretty sure that nothing was broken.

The mobile phone started to ring again. It was not in his pocket, it was perched a few feet away on the wooden shelving unit amongst the sports paraphernalia. He stumbled forward to retrieve it, still feeling slightly groggy. Next to the phone he could see a Bowie knife, like the one used by Rambo, its jagged edged top gleaming with blood. He grabbed the phone and answered it.

‘Go to Keithland’s Pet Store, hurry Peter.’

Although Celo’s voice was distorted, beneath the metallic tones Peter picked up a noticeable concern in his voice.

‘Where’s Cas? What have you done with him?’

‘He’s dead Peter. I don’t know how he escaped but he was going to kill you. I had to step in.’

Peter’s senses sharpened. Celo was different; this had obviously not been part of his plan. He was rattled.

‘He wouldn’t have killed me.’ Peter replied.

‘He would have. He clearly thought that you were me. You’re lucky I was close by to take over.’

‘Where is he?’ Peter shouted.

‘We don’t have time for this. You’ve been asleep for nearly an hour. It’s twenty past seven; you only have ten minutes to save Laura.’

All the questions flying through Peter’s mind concerning Cas vanished as soon as he
heard her name.

‘Where is she?’

Celo repeated what he’d said earlier. He was being direct, no cryptic clue this time.

‘She’s at Keithland’s Pet Store, you have to go
now
.’

Peter pleaded with him.

‘I can’t get there in ten minutes. You have to give me more time.’

Celo sounded genuinely apologetic.

‘I’m sorry Peter. I’ve been ringing you constantly for the last half an hour trying to wake you. I told you before, I can’t amend the schedule.’

Peter shouted back at him, ‘This isn’t fair. I was knocked out for fuck’s sake.’

‘Argue with me later Peter, you have to go now.’

‘If she dies, I
will
kill you.’

The phone line went dead as he hung up. His gaze left the phone and rested upon the Bowie knife, the silver metal gleaming with reflections from the neon lights above. He grabbed the knife and slid it
into his waistband. Putting the phone in his pocket, he ran out of the storage cupboard.

Peter’s feet squeaked again across the sports hall floor. Nearly slipping, he burst through the door to the changing rooms which knocked heavily against the wall and almost swung back in his face. He held his arm up to stop it and it clattered against his left forearm sending a shudder of pain through his body. He didn’t stop and ploughed through the other door and out into the
courtyard. He stopped for a moment to try and work out the best escape route.

The temperature outside had noticeably dropped,
more noticeable as he’d left his jacket behind. He remembered the bars on the gate to the bear pit. He sprinted towards it as the bitter wind whistled through his shirt blowing it up like a parachute as he ran. He reached the gate and in one bound jumped up and grabbed onto the top edge of the gate and scrambled up it using the bars as footholds. He swung his body over and dropped down to the ground heavily. Pain sliced through his feet upon impact and shuddered all the way up his legs. The knife in his waistband dug into his thigh. He cried out in pain. He gritted his teeth, picked himself up and carried on - determined - as he sprinted across the field.

‘Please, please God. Let me get there in time.’

The security lights picked him up, their beams illuminating the way as he ran towards the perimeter fences. He jumped at the fence but because he’d been running uphill the jump wasn’t high enough and he clattered face first into the wall of metal and slipped down it.

‘Fuck!’ He screamed in frustration.

He composed himself and attempted to climb it again. He jumped from a standing position, grabbing the steel posts, using his feet on the vertical bars to get to the top of the fence. The spike tops which curled outwards were like a mini ledge from this side of the fence. He clambered up onto them and as he did the knife scratched at his thigh again. He took it out and, holding it in one hand, jumped off the fence and landed heavily again.

As he ran down Beamish Road, towards Low Grange Avenue, his hand gripped the knife tighter as anger and hatred filled
him.

‘I’m going to kill him, I’m going to fucking kill him,’ he shouted to himself as he reached the junction of Low Grange Avenue.

He stopped and thought about the distance to the pet store. It was too far away to run there. Now more than ever he needed a car. On the other side of the road a burly man wearing a flat cap was walking a dog. He stood - rooted to the spot now - staring at the knife Peter was brandishing, as the golden Labrador pulled agitatedly on his lead. To his right headlights illuminated the road as a car came around the corner. All the debates and reservations he’d had earlier about stealing a car were now redundant.

He stepped out into the middle of the road, hiding the knife behind his back and held his left hand up in a gesture for the car to stop. The black Fiat Punto screeched to a halt in front of him. He ran around to the driver’s side and pulled the door open. The driver was a middle aged woman with stacked permed hair
, the curls bouncing around her shocked face. Peter flashed the knife.

‘Get out of the car now.’

The terrified woman threw her hands up in a submissive gesture and she started whimpering.

‘Get out,’ Peter shouted.

The woman fiddled with the seatbelt, her hands shaking.

Peter heard the burly man behind him exclaiming, ‘Hey’ as he started to approach.

He spun around, pointing the knife at him.

‘Stay back.’

The woman managed to release the seat belt. Peter grabbed her arm and yanked her clumsily out of the car, the heels of her shoes clattering against the doorframe, and pushed her away from the vehicle.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said as he bundled himself into the car and slammed the door shut.

His legs were pressed up against the steering wheel and he fiddled under the seat for the lever to pull the seat back. Outside the car the burly man rushed over to assist the woman, helping her up from the ground as Peter drove away.

The car veered around the corner by Low Grange shops. Peter looked to his right and could see the shops
now stood in darkness. The only clue to the horrible incident that occurred there earlier were thin strips of police cordon tape crisscrossed over the door to the bakery shop. He returned his gaze to the road ahead and realised he was going headlong into a police car parked on the corner of the loop in the road. In a panic he veered quickly to his right. The tyres screeched as the car slid sideways across the road. He frantically wrestled with the steering wheel trying to correct the vehicle. The car juddered violently as he crashed into the side of a parked car in a cacophony of noise. And then there was silence.

CHAPTER 34

19:27pm

Peter lifted his head up, dazed and confused. He looked over at the stationary police car on the other side of the road. A police officer came running out of a driveway towards him. Peter snapped back to life and started fiddling frantically with the keys in the ignition as the policeman came towards the vehicle.

‘Come on,’ he shouted impatiently.

The car shuddered and sparked into life. He crunched the gear stick into gear. The vehicle strained against the resistance and there was the whining sound of metal scraping upon metal as the car lurched away from the accident. He pulled away just as the policeman reached the passenger side, thumping his fist against the window and shouting as Peter drove away.

He looked in his wing mirror and watched as the police officer turned and ran back to his own car. He was in trouble now. The officer would soon be
in pursuit and he’d radio the station to tell them he was following the suspect. Or perhaps he wouldn’t make the connection. He might just think he was some joy rider. It relieved him slightly, but then he found his anger again.

‘They shouldn’t even be fucking looking for me anyway. It’s not me. I’m trying to save them,’ he shouted to himself as he sped down the street towards Hyde Avenue.

As he looked at the speedometer the time display changed to 7:30pm. His heart sank, he hoped that the clock was wrong - ten minutes fast perhaps - that’d be enough, but he knew at best it would only be one or two minutes adrift. As he turned towards Hyde Avenue he could see it was crowded with vehicles travelling in both directions. He had no time to weave in and out of the traffic and so he veered to the left and mounted the curb with a rattling thud. The Fiat Punto bumped along the uneven grass verge which bordered the road, churning up turf and mud. The other drivers did double takes as he drove past them, some of them beeping their horns as if to alert him that he was driving over the grass.

Peter kept glancing at the time display and thumping on the steering wheel begging the vehicle to go faster. He wasn’t going to make it, Laura was going to die.
What trap might Celo have set up for her? The maniac hadn’t given him a clue and had seemed genuinely sorry that he couldn’t give him more time to save her. But that did little to help Peter; he had still set up the traps and started this awful game. The importance of Keithland’s Pet Store to Laura was obvious, but he couldn’t recall any major incident there.

Laura
loved visiting the shop and often volunteered to help out so she could spend time admiring the fish in the aquariums that took up an entire wall of the shop. When Peter and Laura were dating he had gone with her sometimes. The owner was Robert Keithland, a spritely man in his mid 60’s with a gentle face. He owned and ran the store with his wife, a chatty lady who always spoke excitedly with exaggerated hand movements. The couple knew Laura so well that they let her feed the fish. She’d also help out when they had to transport them to temporary accommodation so the tanks could be cleaned.

Laura was from an affluent family and the other members of the Excellent Eight would sometimes make fun of her for being spoilt. However, for some reason her parents would not let her get her own little aquarium and so she had to make do looking at them in the store. Peter liked them as well; there was something calming about
the two of them holding hands whilst sitting on the bench in front of a huge row of tanks watching fish of different sizes and colours flitting about in their protective bubble. He would, however, start to get a little bored after half an hour of counting how many fish were in each tank. He’d always be the first to break the silence and suggest they go into town or back to one of their houses, hoping for an amorous kissing session.

He remembered she would almost be startled when he spoke, as if she was in some kind of trance.

It had come as no surprise to him when she mentioned last night that she’d recently bought her daughter an aquarium. He remembered her smiling coyly when he grinned as she mentioned it, obviously realising that he knew she’d bought the aquarium partly for herself.

He
’d thought she might even go on to have a job that involved fish or some kind of sea life. In fact, he recalled asking her once what she wanted to be when she grew up. She had said she wanted to be an ichthyologist. She’d seen the word on the back sleeve of a video for the movie Jaws describing the occupation of Richard Dreyfuss’ character. She told him that ichthyology is the branch of zoology devoted to the study of fish, as if she was quoting it directly from the dictionary. He wondered if it was a dream of hers that had never been realised or simply one that had faded away as she grew older. He remembered one time outside her house, standing nose to nose and hands playfully wrestling, he’d asked her if she was studying him what type of fish would he be. She had paused for a second and then said ‘a clown fish’ before exploding into giggles. He smiled back at her as she laughed, admiring her smile and the way it brightened her entire face and made her blue eyes shine even brighter beneath the blond fringe of hair. The most beautiful smile he had ever seen.

Peter corrected himself. The
second
most beautiful smile he had ever seen. First spot was reserved for his wife Janine. He wondered what she was doing now. He suddenly realised that his train had been due in at 5pm and he should have been back home by half past five. She would be worried about him, but she’d have no idea how worried she should be. No idea of what he was involved in, the things he had done today. Jumping from roofs, stealing cars, being chased by the police and watching old friends die in horrific ways. She’d probably be ringing his mobile phone constantly. But Celo had his mobile. He’d better not have answered it and said anything to her. He’d better not bring her into his sick twisted game.

He could hear a police siren
blaring and, glancing in the rear view mirror, he saw the car coming onto Hyde Avenue behind him. The car joined the road instead of driving along the grass verge as he was doing. Now a turn to his right onto Delview Road would take him out of sight of the police car again, if only for a minute or two. Towards the end of that street, just over the railway crossing, was a small row of shops. Keithland’s Pet Store was one of those. As he approached the junction for the turn onto Delview Road, he could see cars up ahead slowing down cautiously as they observed a little Fiat Punto churning up mud and turf. Without slowing he reached the end of the grass verge and thumped noisily over the curb and back onto the road. He drove quickly, beeping his horn incessantly, navigating through the traffic like a skier on a slalom course.

‘Get out of the fucking way,’ he screamed out every time he had to apply
the brakes.

The mobile started to ring. He rummaged
in his pocket - one hand on the steering wheel - and found it.

‘What?’

‘If you drive fast enough you can get down the alley behind the shops without the police seeing you. The last key you have will open the front door.’

Peter didn’t confirm what he had heard and instead shouted ‘Is she still alive?’

‘I don’t know. There’s a chance.’

Celo
hung up before Peter could respond.