Joona Linna: Stalker Part 77

He manages to get his glove off and pulls his pistol from its holster as the woman in the yellow raincoat comes out into the hall. She raises the axe above her head, striking the lamp and bringing the coil of flypaper down. The heavy blade hits his chest with terrible force, cutting straight through the thin protective vest and his ribcage, down into his heart.

133.

Erik stretches out through the mesh of the cage to reach Jackie, but she's too far away from him, his fingertips flail at the air behind her back. Without knowing if she can hear him, he keeps talking to her the whole time, saying she needs to get up and make her way out through the tunnel.

Nelly has already been gone several minutes.

At first he didn't even know if Jackie was alive, she just lay slumped on the floor without moving, but when he lay on the floor against the mesh of the cage he could hear her breathing.

'Jackie?' he says again.

He knows she'd be dead now if the doorbell hadn't rung. In spite of the silence, he knows it's the police, it must be the police, they did hear his phone call.

As long as they realise how serious it is, he thinks. As long as they've sent enough officers.

He picks the stick up from the ground, reaches out with it and gently pokes Jackie with the blunt end.

'Jackie?'

She slowly moves one leg, turns her face and coughs weakly.

Once again Erik explains what's happened, what Nelly has done, how he got the blame, but that Joona knows the truth.

She lifts one hand tiredly to the superficial wound on her neck.

Erik has no idea how much she understands of what he's saying, but he repeats that she needs to get away, that she needs to hurry.

'You need to fight now, you won't survive otherwise,' he says.

She doesn't have long, he's been listening for pistol shots, for voices, but can't hear anything.

'Jackie, try to stand up now,' he pleads.

Finally she sits up. Blood is running from her eyebrow, down over her cheek, and she's gasping for breath.

'Can you hear me?' he says again. 'Do you understand what I'm saying? You need to run, Jackie. Can you stand up?'

He says nothing about calling the police, doesn't want to give her false hope. She needs to get away, because he doesn't trust the police not to fall for Nelly's lies.

Jackie stands up, groans and spits blood on the floor. She lurches forward but stays on her feet.

'You need to get away from here before she comes back,' he repeats.

Jackie stumbles towards his voice, breathing heavily, with her arms outstretched.

'Go in the other direction,' he says. 'You have to get out of the ruins and away across the fields.'

She makes her way carefully past the tins on the floor and reaches the cage with her hands.

'I'm locked in a cage,' he says.

'Everyone's saying you killed four women,' she whispers.

'It was Nelly ... You don't have to believe me, as long as you get away from here ...'

'I knew you didn't do it,' she says.

He strokes the fingers clinging to the cage, she leans forward and rests her forehead on the rusty metal.

'You've got to keep going a bit longer,' he says, stroking her cheek. 'Turn round, so that I can take a look. You've been wounded ... Jackie, you're seriously hurt, you need to get to a hospital. Hurry up and-'

'Maddy's still at home,' she whimpers. 'Thank G.o.d, she was hiding in her wardrobe when-'

'She'll be fine,' Erik says. 'She'll be fine.'

'I don't understand any of this,' Jackie whispers, and her face crumples with anxiety.

'How does it feel when you breathe?' Erik asks. 'Try to cough ... You'll be OK, your pleural cavity is probably damaged, but you were lucky, Jackie. Listen, there's a little torch on the table, you can feel its warmth, you'll know where it is.'

She wipes her mouth, nods and tries to pull herself together.

'Can you fetch it? There's nothing between you and-'

He breaks off when he hears a loud thud from upstairs. It's the kitchen door slamming shut, thanks to the powerful spring.

'What was that?' she whispers, her lips quivering.

'Hurry up, you can walk straight towards the torch, there's nothing on the floor between you and the table.'

She turns and walks towards the tiny source of heat, feels across the tabletop, picks up the torch and returns to Erik with it.

'Do you know where the opening to the tunnel is?' he asks.

'More or less,' she whispers.

'It's fairly narrow, it's a small brick opening, no door,' he explains as he hears someone scream up above. 'You need to run away, get as far away as you possibly can ... Take this stick, you can use it to feel your way.'

She looks as if she's about to break down. Her face is drained of colour, her lips already white with the shock to her circulation.

'Erik, it won't work-'

'Nelly will kill you when she comes back ... Listen, there's a pa.s.sageway ... I don't know what it looks like further along, it could be blocked, but you have to try to get out ... the whole area is surrounded by ruins, and you'll ... you'll be able to-'

'I can't,' she whimpers, twisting her head back and forth in an anxious, repet.i.tive pattern.

'Please, just listen to me ... When you reach the cellar with no ceiling, you'll have to climb up to reach ground level ...'

'What are you going to do?' she whispers.

'I can't get out, Nelly's got the key round her neck.'

'But ... how am I going to find my way?'

'In the darkness, the blind man is king,' he says simply.

Her faces trembles as she turns round and starts to walk, feeling the ground in front of her with the stick.

He holds the torch up and tries to guide her. The angled light makes the shadows stretch and shrink.

'There's a load of roof tiles on the floor ahead of you,' he says. 'Move a little to your right and you'll be heading straight for the opening.'

Then the pair of them hear the bar being lifted from the cellar door, as it jolts and sc.r.a.pes back against the wall.

'Hold your hand out now,' Erik whispers. 'You'll be able to feel the wall on your left ... just follow that ...'

Jackie walks into something that clatters, a tin of paint rolls away, and Erik sees her shrink with fear.

'Don't stop,' he hisses. 'You have to get home to Maddy.'

The door above them opens, closes, and clicks, but there's no sound of footsteps on the stairs.

Jackie has reached the opening now, and Erik watches her carry on into the pa.s.sage, holding one hand against the wall and sweeping the ground ahead of her with the stick.

Erik points the torch at the floor and sees Nelly come down the stairs and step out into the middle of the cellar. Her yellow oilskin is smeared with blood and she's clutching a smaller kitchen knife in her hand.

Her eyes are staring straight at him.

He doesn't know how much she has time to see before he switches the torch off. Everything goes completely dark, as if someone had swept the whole world away from them.

'Nelly, they'll send more police officers,' he says, holding his injured arm with his hand. 'Do you understand? It's over now ...'

'It's never over,' she replies, and stands quite still a metre or so away from him, just breathing.

There's a clattering sound from the tunnel. Nelly giggles and walks across the floor. Erik hears her hit the stack of tiles, go round them and carry on through the darkness towards the tunnel.

134.

Jackie is heading along a narrow pa.s.sageway as fast as she can. Her right hand is feeling its way along the wall, and she's moving the stick to and fro in front of her.

She needs to get as far away as she can, try to find a way out and then keep going until she finds help.

Fear is washing over her, it's almost like being burned, and she manages to kick a bottle lying on the floor that she missed with her stick. It tinkles as it rolls away across the rough floor.

Her fingertips slip across the bricks and crumbling mortar, she notes that she's pa.s.sing a seventh vertical indentation in the wall. She keeps count automatically because it makes things easier if she has to find her way back.

Jackie is having difficulty breathing, the pain in her back flares up like a beacon with every step she takes. Warm blood is still trickling from the wound, down between her b.u.t.tocks and along her legs.

She isn't sure if Erik was telling the truth when he said she wasn't seriously hurt, or if he was only trying to calm her down so that she would dare to escape.

She coughs and feels a cramping pain from her injured lung, just below her shoulder-blade.

Her stick isn't quite quick enough.

Her shin hits some sort of apparatus with sharp tin corners and dangling cables. She has to clamber over the machine and her legs are trembling with effort and fear. She has no way of knowing how long the pa.s.sageway is, but she has a feeling that she's inside a system of tunnels and cellars.

She's walking a little too fast the whole time, and knows there's a serious risk that she's going to trip over.

She pa.s.ses a room on her left, it's there as a gap in the acoustics.

Jackie decided to stop counting the indentations, she needs to concentrate on finding a way out.

'Nelly's coming!' Erik calls from the bas.e.m.e.nt room behind her. 'She's on her way now!'

His voice sounds frightened, weakened by the long tunnel, but she hears him and understands his warning.

Nelly's coming after her.

Jackie tries to move faster, makes her way round an armchair and carries on along the wall, her fingers brushing a number of shelves. Something rattles behind her and she almost cries out in fear.

It's getting harder and harder to breathe. Jackie holds her hand over her mouth and tries to cough quietly as she presses ahead. Mid-stride, her face hits something. An open cupboard door. It slams shut, and there's a tinkling sound of gla.s.s objects rattling on shelves.

Memories of the violence she has been subjected to flash past: the feeling of a sharp knife-blade being yanked out with a sigh, and the constricting pain in her back.

Her breathlessness feels like a weight, she knows she's breathing too hard, but it still doesn't feel like she's getting enough oxygen.

She moves the stick quickly and lets the other hand brush over bricks and joints, past a thick cable, along bare brick again, then some old window frames that are stacked against the wall.

She's trying to read the s.p.a.ce the whole time.

Whenever she hears an opening, she stops for a few seconds and listens, to check if it's another pa.s.sageway or just an enclosed room.

She keeps moving along the main pa.s.sageway, seeing as the weak draught across the floor seems to be coming from up ahead.