Page 73 of The Cut
‘I dare you.’
His foot found the accelerator and he plunged the car forward into the deep water of the ford. The vehicle juddered and the emergency brakes locked. The car aquaplaned for a second like a boat, then stopped as the edge of the tarmac road, under the water, slammed against the chassis. The car span in the flow and then water began to seep in through the door.
‘Shit … shit.’ Ben slammed his hands against the steering wheel.
He opened the car door and stepped out into the cold, waist-deep284water. Slowly, he waded across to the other side. Soaked to the skin, he staggered out on to the road and began to run, his clothes clinging to his body, weighing him down. It was about half a mile from here. Moving uphill, he was drawn towards the stone chimney of the mill in the distance. There were bright lights glowing from behind the building, silhouetting the mill in the foreground. She was waiting for him.
With each step, he could feel something sinking inside him; the incline was steep, but he imagined himself descending into the darkness again. His legs felt heavy, as if they were filled with lead. He knew this path; he’d walked this road so many times before. As a child, at school on that terrible night, yes, but also on many other night-time pilgrimages to the place where it had happened. Tonight was different. He could sense her waiting. He could already feel his fingers around her throat. He wanted so badly to silence her. He wanted to punish her for what she was doing.
The kissing gate at the start of Cheney End was barely visible and the water from the breached brook lapped over the top. By the time Ben reached it, the flood was up to his knees. He stepped up on to the wooden stile and swung a leg over, splashing back down on to the concrete pavement that led to Doggers Dive. If there were cars there tonight, they would surely be underwater. As the path wound gently upwards towards the car park, the water receded.
Ben stood looking across the field towards the willow tree with the rope swing, where Annabel Maddock had made daisy chain crowns. The chimney stack of the mill thrust ominously into the sky. Ben squinted into the distance towards the very top of the Crow’s Nest. High in the tower, a bead of light, no brighter than a candle, guttered in the shadows. Someone was up there. He plunged forward across the soggy marsh of the waterlogged meadow towards Blackstone Mill.
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JULY 1994
‘Let me help you.’ Dave kneels down in front of Annie. His gentle voice makes her tears flow more freely.
‘It’s OK, Dave, I can call my dad. Have you got any change for the phone?’
Patel fishes out a 10p piece from his pocket. ‘Here.’ He offers her the coin. ‘Take my hand.’
Dave puts his arm around her waist and they limp across the empty school hall floor, littered with streamers and sticky with spilled fizzy pop. As she dials the number, Dave pushes the coin into the slot and gently lifts Annie on to a table full of football trophies. He carefully draws her foot up on to his knee and pulls back the torn ballet tights.
‘Hi, Mum, it’s me. Can you ask Dad to come and pick me up? Yeah, from the party at school. Oh, OK, well, I can wait … no, no, I’m fine.’ Annie hangs up the receiver and turns to Dave. ‘Mum says he’ll be about twenty minutes.’
‘It’s actually not that bad.’ He gently pulls out a piece of glass, lodged in her big toe. She flinches at his touch. ‘Sorry. Small cut and a bucket of blood … You look like Carrie.’ He smiles at her and wipes his hands on his Obi-Wan dressing gown.
‘Who’s Carrie?’ Annie sniffs and dabs her eyes with her sleeve.
‘Stephen King … she gets a bucket of pigs’ blood tipped over her at the high school prom.’ Dave takes a Swiss Army knife from his pocket, strips a length of cloth from Annie’s gown and gently bandages her injured foot. ‘I think it’s stopped bleeding.’286
‘What happens to Carrie?’ Annie smiles at him.
‘Oh, nothing much. She just sets fire to the school and incinerates everyone with her laser eyes.’
They both burst out laughing. ‘Thanks for helping me.’
‘Well, my dad is a doctor, so …’ Patel flushes.
‘Is that what you want to be?’ Annie draws up her knees and looks at her toe. ‘When you leave school?’
‘Yeah, I want to try and get a place at Bamford for sixth form and then hopefully go to med school, specialise in cardiology.’
‘You’re going to be a heart surgeon?’ Her fingers brush his as he withdraws his hand.
‘That’s the dream.’
‘I think I want to study fashion at Saint Martins.’ Annie’s face glows as Dave smiles back at her.
‘You’ll be famous.’
‘Oh, I don’t want to be famous. I just want to do something … creative with my life.’
Dave smiles. ‘Don’t want to be a farmer then, or a shepherdess?’ He chuckles.
