Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-One

I saw the grey concrete spread out before me, it seemed an endless mass, as if someone had paved over the ocean. I forgot where I was and panicked for a moment, I wondered what had happened to my flat and my comfortable life.

It wasn’t until I started to struggle that my chest pushed into the ground. I wasn’t looking at a world of grey, I was just facing the floor. I heard heavy voices speaking near me and remembered everything, Lisa, being chased, the blow to the head and blacking out. I stayed very still even though the angle I was laying in made it painful to breath quietly.

The people I heard spoke in French, in thick guttural accents. I turned my head as much as I dared and I saw the wheels of an old van resting against the pavement. I saw smart shoes coming from a grey suit, almost the same colour as the ground. Then I heard a scream.

I recognised the scream the instant it began, though it was soon muffled out by the French voices. What I had witnessed in that small apartment would stay with me for a long time, and Maria’s desperate, pained cry was all too familiar. I almost tried to get onto my feet when I heard it, but I held the illusion that I was still knocked out. I didn’t know who these people were or what they wanted, it was safer to let them pass by if they were going to do so.

It didn’t last for long, I was pushing my face into the concrete to make my breathing less obvious and trying to keep still but maybe something twitched or maybe my act had worked but I was just in the wrong place.

Rough hands grabbed my forearms and hoisted me upwards. The monk statue was still glaring at me, the steel pushing into view with my rude awakening. I couldn’t understand anything the men were saying, were they asking me questions? My head still throbbed painfully and their frustrating, rapid speech wasn’t helping.

Heavy fingers dug into me as I was pulled onto my feet. When they let go I felt myself stumbling forwards again. The black spots refused to leave my eyes and I was shaking and wobbling on my. They were still talking, either at me or at each other, but their faces were so blurred I had no idea. One thing that was clear was the emblem on their grey suits, a simple glove of garlic embroidered with silver thread.

I was pushed roughly, all the time with the hoarse French voices barking at me. I tried to tell them that I didn’t understand, but my weak voice was drowned out, my head was throbbing so badly that I thought I was going to pass out again. I closed my eyes for just a second and my head rolled onto my chest, I collapsed forward but was bought crashing back to consciousness by being yanked up again.

The doors of a white van slid open in front of me, the same van I had seen from my waking view of the pavement. I should’ve fought back, but I could still barely stand, and my vision was only just getting back to normal, the black spots were still invading. Before I could do anything, or say anything that might be heard, I was pushed head first into the van. The door crashed loudly behind me and I was locked inside. I tried weakly beating my fists on the doors but they made no impression. Any type of physical activity made me feel dizzy.

Behind me there was a stretcher, it was bolted to the floor, and there was someone lying in it, I could hear their breathing. A drip was feeding blood through a narrow tube, and I realised how much the van stank of raw sewage and rotting food. I pressed my hand to my mouth.

Maria was tied to the bed with leather straps, but she looked serene and comfortable at the moment. Her face was so pale it was hard to make out any features I looked at the drip and then at her calm face, it was the same look she had in the cramped apartment after drinking from that cup. Somehow this was worse than the screaming.

I approached her carefully, moving along the floor on my knees, the van shook a little with me. I imagined she must’ve been pretty before all of this, her eyes were hollow and staring, her cheekbones corpse like. While I was revisiting my memories I made a connection, like it was always waiting in my mind and I had been too stupid to see it before.

‘Do you speak English?’ I asked. I wasn’t sure how much sense I would get out of her but I had to try.

She nodded, it was hard to see in the half light provided only by the crack in the van’s doors. ‘Little,’ she said in a voice that was so soft I wasn’t sure if it was just a breath that sounded like words.

‘You have to help me,’ she looked back blankly. I tried another tactic, ‘Alex,’ I said, and her eyes widened. I pointed to the bump on my head, hopefully she could see it, ‘I think Alex did this.’ I think she understood me this time, there was a brief rationality on her wasted face.

‘Did Alex touch you?’ I asked, she stared at me with glazed eyes. ‘Alex,’ I repeated, and I touch her arm. She screamed and I snatched my hand away. I made a sympathetic face while I waited for her to stop screaming, I hoped the shushing noise was universal.

‘When Alex,’ I made the motion of touching her again but I was wiser this time. ‘Did it feel like, everything was okay? There was no pain?’ I was really clutching at straws, she didn’t understand a word of what I’d said. I only saw Teresa in my mind, and I remembered what I had felt lying in the pavement.

‘Do you know where Alex is?’ I asked hopefully, I felt that she was overestimating when she said she knew a little English. I did what any Brit on holiday does, I shouted. ‘WHERE IS ALEX?’

That didn’t help at all, I frightened her as she flinched at my voice. ‘Alex,’ she said softly, pleadingly, at least she understood that word. I put my head in my hands. I almost wished Lisa was with me, then I remembered, I needed to warn Maria about Lisa. She would stop at nothing to get what she wanted, I knew that now, and Maria’s knowledge about Alex put her at risk. That’s if the poor girl made it through the night, every time she spoke a hollow rasping sound followed her words.

‘No baby,’ she said. This time I was the one who stared at her in blank incomprehension.

‘No baby,’ she said again. She pointed with her withered hand at her stomach. ‘No baby.’

‘You’re not pregnant,’ I clicked, ‘but why did you tell your family you were?’

It was useless, of course, why did I keep talking? ‘No baby,’ she repeated one more time.

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ I snapped angrily.

‘I being born.’ She whispered. I didn’t get a chance to respond to this because I heard something from outside that bought relief crashing through me. An English accent, only an Englishman could butcher the French language like that.

I moved as quickly as I could in my crouched position to the van’s doors and banged loudly. ‘I need to speak to you!’ I shouted hoarsely through the gap. I had moved too fast though, and my head started swimming again. I fell forward and bashed against the metal with a harsh scrape, the black spots returned to my eyes as I tumbled over.