and decay. Stacks of plastic chairs, abandoned. Open doors to offices still full of furniture like a Marie Celeste beached on land, an oversized relic of an earlier age, waiting too long for new tenants who will never arrive.
With the baby swaddled loosely in a blanket against my right shoulder, I hurry down corridors, deeper into the complex, following faded signs to studio seven. Turning first left, then right, then left again. I’m greeted by a hint of smoke in the air from the fire set by Dominic Church the last time I was here. Finally I reach a heavy double door with the number seven stencilled on it in faded grey type. I pull the door open, heaving against its weight, and peer inside.
Darkness. I wait for my eyes to adjust, slowly making out shapes on the far side of the big room. A stage set, maybe? A man? Noah? I step into the room and the big door swings shut behind me with a thump as almost total darkness returns.
The air is cooler in here but it’s stale, fetid, as if it has been trapped in here for years. A coldness creeps over my skin, sweat clammy against the fabric of my top.
‘Hello?’
The word echoes up and away from me, bouncing off a high ceiling before fading to nothing. I use the torch on my phone to cut into the dark. The studio is huge, at least a hundred feet square, everything painted black. A low catwalk runs into the centre, linking to a stage on the far side. I walk slowly towards it, my shoes clicking on the hard black floor.
‘It’s Ellen Devlin,’ I say, my left hand going protectively over the blanket. ‘With Mia, just like you wanted.’
There is no answer. I keep walking, up the three steps onto the stage where long black curtains fall from ceiling to floor.
‘Where’s Noah?’ I say. I’m desperate to see him, to be sure he’s still OK. ‘Where is he?’
No answer, and then—
Light. In a split second the room is flooded with a hundred blinding lights, filling every corner with dazzling brilliance, a hundred bulbs at once, a thousand, filling the room with brightness that forces me to screw my eyes shut and cover my face with a hand. As my eyes slowly adjust, white flashes still dancing across my pupils, I make out a high ceiling filled with metal tracks and gantries for stage lighting, all of it trained on the stage. I squint, and a figure emerges from the dazzling glare on the other side of the studio.
A shape, an outline. A man.
‘Hello Ellen,’ he says. ‘Good to see you again.’
66
Kathryn Clifton
- BEFORE -
The woman’s name was Ellen.
She looked kind. Capable. Like she knew what she was doing, where she was going in life. Kathryn studied her across the little train table, this tall woman in the seat opposite, gazing down at Mia as if she was the most amazing thing in the world. Which she was, of course. Her niece, the miracle baby, all she had left of her big sister, like Zoe had been reborn and given another chance.
Kathryn’s phone buzzed with another text.
He must be tracking you, following in a car
She looked at Mia again and felt another lurch of panic, shivery and cold right down to her feet. She knew the stakes: if he caught Mia, he would kill her and her body would never be found. That was why Kathryn had taken her, why she had run. If he’s tracking me, she thought, maybe I need to give him a trail to follow. A trail that leads him away from Mia.
She couldn’t leave Mia with just anyone. But maybe she could leave her with this woman. Ellen. She looked smart, sensible, normal, as if she would do the right thing. Mia would be safe with her, just for a little while. Not even half an hour. It was either that or get caught – both of them – and that was not going to happen. Kathryn could not allow it to happen. She would be a decoy instead.
Time was running out.
Stay on the train or get off.
Stay on or get off.
On or off.
Now or never.
Kathryn could feel her heart tear a little at the thought of what she was about to do. She made her decision and fired off another text, the replies dropping in seconds later.
Do it
I should get to Marylebone in time to intercept
Be careful
Kathryn found a biro in her