By Any Other Name (27 page)

I take a deep breath because the next part is something I see over and over again in nightmares.

‘I got a call from Mum at about nine to check I was OK and she asked me about Katya. I could see the light in her little window through the twilight, and the shadow of her at the easel, so
I said she was OK too. Katie was being awkward about going to bed so I let her have the end of the film on again because she wanted to sing along. It was about half nine before I managed to get her
upstairs to her bedroom.’

I can feel my heart starting to beat faster, as if I’m there again.

‘As I went to draw Katie’s curtains, I noticed a pale-coloured car coming down the lane. Maybe if Katie hadn’t noticed that white car, I wouldn’t have lingered at the
window to look, but I did and I saw that this car pulled up for a moment, then it slowly and quietly drove through the five-bar gate into the drive. I knew there was something odd, but I
couldn’t work out what. I could hardly see because it had got so dark by then, but I knew it wasn’t our car. I thought it might be the one Katie kept seeing, but I also wondered if it
could be Katya’s dad at last.

‘But then I realised what was weird – it was nearly fully dark outside and this car was driving with no lights on.’

Joe’s frowning and chewing his lip. He would have been suspicious, I can tell. If only I’d been more suspicious. If only I’d rung Mum instead of standing and watching.

‘I squinted through the window, and Katie was nagging me and pulling at my sleeve to know what was going on. Four men got out of the car – three with balaclavas on and one with his
still in his hand. The security light at the side of Katya’s cottage was on and I got a good look at him before he pulled his balaclava on like the rest. They stood talking for a moment and
looking up at the light – I think they were trying to decide whether to break it or not.

‘I froze. I didn’t know what to do and I didn’t have a clue what was going to happen. The awful thing is, even if I had known I think I’d still have stood there rooted to
the spot like a fool.’

He rubs my arm slowly. ‘What did happen next?’

‘The one who put his balaclava on last went to knock on the door while the others hid at either side of the porch. I just stood there watching. Katya’s shadow disappeared from the
bedroom and then just after, the light came on in the hall and the front door opened. I guess she thought it was probably me.

‘As I watched, the guy grabbed her and I saw him shoot something from a syringe into her arm. The police told me it was a knock-out drug. She didn’t have a chance to fight. I saw her
pull back, but the man stepped inside and pushed her against the door, and the other men followed him to get hold of her and she went limp. I saw her head lolling as they lifted her out of the
porch and bundled her into the car.’

‘You saw that guy’s face before he put his balaclava on – you can identify him!’

‘Yes.’

His face appears in my dreams all the time. The short brown hair, the wide, fleshy face with its slightly pitted skin, almost good-looking in a rough way, but not quite because the expression is
too hard and cold for that.

‘So that’s why you’re here. You saw them and you’re in danger,’ he says grimly. ‘So what happened next?’

‘They carried her to the car. One of them turned off the hall light and closed the door. It was so fast, Joe, and nobody made a sound.’

‘You couldn’t have done anything. Those guys were professionals, weren’t they?’

‘Yes. The police said they were hired by enemies of her dad and they kidnapped her to hold her to ransom. I don’t properly understand what he was involved in, but he made some bad
enemies because of some business deal and they were after money and revenge. I don’t think what he did was illegal, but he upset the wrong kind of people. People he should never have messed
with, one of the detectives told me.’

‘You see, you couldn’t have done anything.’ He puts his arm round me consolingly.

I pull back a little to look at his face, all worried and upset for me. ‘Oh, but I did. I did do something.’

J
oe’s taken aback. ‘What did you do?’

‘I stopped them.’

His mouth drops open. ‘You did what?’

‘When I saw them bundling her into the car, I kind of unfroze. Suddenly I got really mad. I ran downstairs and grabbed the first weapon I could see – my dad’s big metal torch.
Then I ran outside. The strange thing is I was mad, but somehow mad
and
logical like a part of my brain I didn’t know existed took over and acted for me.’

He looks thoughtful. ‘Hmm, I think I know what you mean. Go on.’

‘So I ran towards the car, squinting to see the number plate – and I could only just make it out in the darkness, but I’ve never forgotten it. One of the men saw me and
shouted, and the one getting into the car with him pulled something out of his pocket. I knew it was a gun even though I couldn’t see. It didn’t stop me though. He fired into the grass
near me, to scare me, I guess.’

‘Shit, Holly!’

‘Yes, I don’t know what came over me. I just kept going. As the car whizzed around, I smashed the torch through their windscreen. The back door flew open and I could hear them
yelling inside and I knew they’d shoot again so I ran for the road. I don’t know what I thought I was going to do. I remember thinking,
Please let Katie stay indoors, please!
and
hoping the noise would keep her away.’

‘Where was she? Still in her bedroom.’

‘No, she’d followed me downstairs. I’d left my mobile on the table and Katie picked it up when she heard the yelling and the shot. She rang Mum on speed dial and said,
“There are bad men here, Mummy, and Boo-Boo needs help.”

‘That was all Mum needed. They ran for the car and Dad phoned the police en route. Because Katie would never say anything like that normally. She mightn’t understand everything, but
she knows that guns are very bad.’

‘So you ran for the road?’

‘Like I said, I didn’t know what I was doing. But you know how sometimes you just come up lucky? My guardian angel must have been working overtime that night because I hurtled out on
to the road as all the commotion was going on and there was a row of tractor things coming down it – those big harvesty-type machines – you would know what they are – four in a
convoy. The first one stopped when I ran into the beam of its headlights and the man was leaning out to yell at me when the gun went off again behind me. I must have looked pretty
freaked.’

‘Hell, yes, Holly! Who wouldn’t?’

‘He waved and yelled at me to get into the cab with him so I ran up, scrambled in and screamed, “Block the gate!” He slewed the tractor thing round in the lane and drove it at
the gate.’

Joe punched the air. ‘The lights of course! Clever girl!’

‘Yes.’ I allowed myself a smile. ‘They dazzled the guys in the car.’

‘They would. If you put a harvester on full beam it’ll blind anyone in front of it. They have to be bright so you can see in the fields at night.’

‘The guy with the gun started shooting at the tractor. I yelled to the man in the cab that they had my friend and he drove the tractor straight at the gateway and wedged them in. Then he
pulled me out of the cab with him and told me to run. The men behind were bailing out of their machines and running too. I could hear the kidnappers shouting from behind the hedge and I was praying
Katie didn’t come out of the house. One of the farmers was calling the police as we ran down the lane.’

‘Holly, that’s . . . it’s . . . you must have been terrified.’

‘I just kept going without thinking.’

‘They’d obviously had Katya under surveillance – that’s what the white car was about, right?’

‘Yes. He’d been watching and waiting and feeding information back to them. Anyway, once we got halfway down the lane I realised I had to go back for Katie. I couldn’t leave her
there. And then I heard one of them shouting, “I’m going to blow her brains out in front of you, bitch, and then I’m going to finish you.” He meant Katya, but of course at
the time I thought he meant Katie so I started to run back. One of the farmers tried to stop me but I dodged him – I was desperate to get back to her even though I didn’t know what I
was going to do.’

‘Aw, babe.’ Joe pulls me into a tight hug and I realise I’m close to tears again, but this is the first time I’ve talked about it since I told the police and I remember
it so well. The noise and the terror that they had Katie and how scared Katie would be and what they were doing to her . . .

I lean against Joe’s shoulder and despite what I’m feeling I find myself breathing
him
in again and it slows my racing heart down a little.

‘I ran back down the side of the hedge until I could see the car. All the men were out of it – I could see them really clearly in the tractor lights but they couldn’t see me.
Two of the men had jumped into the tractor to try to get it started while the one with the gun was standing on the drive screaming at them to move faster. He was waving the gun about, threatening
to shoot them if they didn’t get it started in the next five seconds.’

‘They didn’t have Katie though?’

‘No.’ I snuggled my head round out of his shoulder so I could speak better. ‘No, and when I looked, the front door of our cottage was closed and I’d definitely left it
open when I ran out, so she’d hidden inside. That’s when I realised it was Katya he’d been yelling about and she was still in the car.’

He hugs me again. ‘No wonder you have nightmares.’

‘Everything went even more insane then. There was this massive noise from above and lights in the sky and the men were yelling even more, but I couldn’t make out what they were
saying over all the racket.’

‘What was it?’

‘A police helicopter looking for a stolen car when the call came about us. It got scrambled to assess the scene before any other officers got there. The kidnappers finally got the tractor
started and backed it up enough to get their car out, then they all piled in again and shot off down the road with the helicopter in pursuit. Mum and Dad got back a few minutes later. I’d run
into the house to find Katie – she was hiding behind the sofa with the mobile phone and was totally hysterical. The tractors were still blocking the lane so Mum and Dad had to abandon their
car to get to us. It took forever for a police car to reach us, and then even longer for news to come about what had happened.’

‘About Katya? She was still in the car when they took off, right?’

‘Yes. The police officers who got there first stayed with us. They got the news from the helicopter radioed through as it happened. It followed the car into Devon and the kidnappers went
up on Dartmoor. When they got right out on to the moors, they stopped the car and threw Katya out, then drove off again. The helicopter couldn’t follow because they had to stay to help her.
They couldn’t leave or the cars on the ground might never have found her in time.’

‘I suppose the kidnappers knew that.’

‘Totally. The police said that’s why they went up there with her. By the time the helicopter guided in someone to help her, they’d got away and abandoned the car. The police
said they got picked up in another car. Perhaps it was prearranged, or perhaps they phoned for help.’

‘So was Katya OK when she came round from the drug they gave her?’

I can see her face again in the police photos. Eyes closed, face white, the trickle of blood by her ear, all captured in the lights they shone on her while she lay unconscious on the moorland
grass. ‘No, she wasn’t OK. She never came round.’

I see the shock on his face. ‘She’s dead?’

‘No, not dead.’ I hate saying the words. I hate it because it makes it true all over again. ‘She’s in a coma. She has brain damage. She was pistol-whipped before the
kidnappers threw her out of the car. They say she might never come out of it. Maybe it was revenge because they got interrupted. Maybe they did it because of what I did.’ I bury my head in
his shoulder again to see if having him so close can make it better a second time.

‘You think they hurt her like that because you stepped in?’

‘Yes.’

‘Babe, they would probably have done it anyway if they wanted to get back at her dad. They don’t care what they do to anyone. It means nothing to them. They’ve lost what made
them human. So did the police catch them?’

‘Not the guy whose face I saw, but the police did link him to two of his accomplices and they got arrested. They squealed on their bosses when they knew how long they were facing in
prison. I think they get a reduced sentence and witness protection too when they get out. But the police said they still need me to testify because my statement’s more reliable than a
criminal’s.’

I’m exhausted by going through the story. I feel drained and empty and I want to feel something else.

I don’t want the past.

I want the now. And I know who I want.

I reach across and tilt Joe’s chin around. His eyes widen as he realises what I’m about to do. But he doesn’t pull away. That’s the important thing.

He leans in. My lips brush his. I’ve never kissed a boy first before. I hear his intake of breath when our mouths make contact. His fingers touch my face softly, like I’m
precious.