September 2018
Kim sits in her back garden. She can’t be indoors. Ryan is inside with Noah, distracting him.
It’s nearly two o’clock. It’s been four hours since they found the body in the tunnel in the Jacqueses’ house. She stares at her phone, switches the screen on and off, checks and double checks that she has a good connection, a good signal, that there is no impediment to a call from Dom.
And then there it is. The opening note of her ringtone. She swipes to reply before the second note has even begun. ‘Yes.’
‘Kim, listen. We think we’ve traced the current location of the Jacques family. We’re working with Interpol on a maritime search. I didn’t tell you before, but we found other things in the tunnel, Kim. We found the remains of a pastry that had been lacedwith large amounts of Zopiclone. We found some long dark hairs. We found empty water bottles, candles, a blanket, as well as Tallulah’s phone. And records from Manton airport show that the Jacqueses flew their private plane to Guernsey on June the thirtieth last year and on board were Jocelyn, Scarlett and Rex Jacques. And Rex’s girlfriend, Seraphina Goldberg. But Seraphina claims not to have flown to Guernsey at all that summer. So, Kim, we’re looking at the possibility that the Jacques family may have taken Tallulah with them. And that they are now on board a boat, chartered by Jocelyn Jacques from Guernsey Yacht Club in late August. And that Tallulah may still be with them. Meanwhile, detectives in Guernsey are getting a warrant to enter the Jacques property there.’
‘OK,’ says Kim, managing her breathing. ‘OK. So, what do I do now?’
‘Just sit tight, Kim. Just sit tight. We’re moving everything as fast as we possibly can. The wheels are finally turning on this thing. At long bloody last. Just sit tight.’
68
September 2018
Days pass. The quality of the light that reaches through the ocean outside her window changes, from grey to gold to white. It becomes warmer and warmer; at night an air-conditioning unit hums overhead. Scarlett comes and goes. She brings the dog with her sometimes and Tallulah curls around his neck and breathes in the salty scent of him.
‘I’m doing things,’ says Scarlett. ‘I’m doing things, to get us home. To get you home. This will be over soon. This will be over soon.’
Tallulah knows that every meal she eats, every drink she drinks, is laced with something that makes her sleep, but she doesn’t care, she craves the sleep it brings, the sweet lull of it, the painlessness, the dreams. When Scarlett takes too long to bringher what she craves, she feels insane, torn into pieces, her gut sliced from side to side, her head shot through with shards of glass, and she snatches the drinks from Scarlett’s hands, drinks them so fast she almost chokes.
And then one day, as she emerges from another dream made of lead, and forces her eyelids apart, she stares up at the honey-golden veneer of the wood above her head and she hears something she has not heard before. A steady, solid buzz, like an electric saw, like a man with a deep voice roaring, like a lorry revving its engine. It seems to circle her. She feels her eyes turning in circles, dry inside their sockets. She reaches for the water bottle that Scarlett always puts down for her at bedtime and takes a swig. The noise grows louder, more insistent. The boat starts to roil and rock, water slops over the neck of the bottle as she tries to screw the lid back into place. She hears something that sounds like a human voice, but strangely disembodied, as though it’s shouting under water.
‘Scarlett!’ she calls out, although she knows she cannot be heard down here in her little wood-lined casket. ‘Scarlett!’
She hears the painful metallic screech of the engine grinding to a halt. The boat falls silent and now she can hear what the voices outside are saying.
They’re saying: ‘This is the RAF. We are coming aboard your vessel. Please stand on the deck with your arms raised in the air.’
And then she hears the stamp of many feet overhead, the rush of voices, of shouting, the door to her cabin being kicked open and there are men in navy, in hats, with guns, adrenaline-pumpedbodies, like mannequins that cannot be real. And they come to her and she recoils and they say, ‘Are you Tallulah Murray?’
She nods.
Tallulah imagines that she will be able to walk after the police release her from her bindings. She imagines that the legs she hasn’t used for days and days will somehow support her as she finally leaves this tiny wooden room. But they don’t, of course. They buckle and flop like one of those little string-legged wooden puppets with a button at the base, and the policeman carries her in his arms.
‘Where are we going?’ she asks in a reedy voice.
‘We’re taking you to safety, Tallulah.’
He has an accent. She doesn’t know what it is.
‘Where are we?’ she asks.
‘We’re in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.’
‘Am I going home?’
‘Yes. Yes, you’re going home. But first we need to get you to a hospital to be checked over. You’re in a bad state.’
On the deck of the boat, Tallulah sees the detritus of a meal. A bowl of salad, wine glasses, paper napkins being blown about in the violent wind of the helicopter blades. The idea that while she has been kept tied up in that tiny, dark wooden room, other people have been up here eating salad and drinking wine in the sunshine is unimaginable. She sees a huddle of people at the other side of the boat. It’s Scarlett, Joss and Rex. They turn and glance at her, then look away again quickly.
She sees another policeman approaching the Jacqueses, pushing their arms roughly behind their backs, clamping their wrists togetherwith metal cuffs that glint in the bright sunlight. The dog sits at their feet, his thick fur being buffeted in every direction.
‘What’s going to happen to the dog?’ she asks, suddenly overcome with concern that he might be left behind.
‘He’ll come too, don’t worry about the dog.’