Before We Met(116)

Mark lunged forward and grabbed him by the neck of his coat. He drew his arm back and Hannah saw the knife, a long, mean razor of a thing. ‘When are you going to learn?’ he said, shoving it forward again. ‘You should know! You should know not to try to screw with me.’

Nick leaned forward and for a split second Hannah thought he was falling. Then, though, he reared back again, looked Mark in the eye, and head-butted him in the face. Mark gave a cry of pain as blood poured from his nose and Nick grabbed him by the collar and spun him sideways into the table, sending chairs flying.

The knife lay on the floor. Hannah saw Nick look at it and then at her. Hand pressed to his stomach, he stooped, picked it up and came towards her, holding it out. He bent at her feet, and with two quick strokes cut the plastic ties.

‘Get out of here!’

Light-headed, holding on to the arms of the chair, she stood. Mark was on his feet again, too, holding his wrist under his nose, blotting the blood with his cuff. With a shout, he lurched across the kitchen and fell on Nick, bringing him to the ground. Nick fought but the wounds were already making him weaker and Mark quickly pinned him to the floor and smashed his face into the tiles.

‘Run, Hannah,’ Nick said, voice thick with blood. He brought his knee up and smashed it into the small of Mark’s back, making him grunt with pain. ‘Go.’

Mark swiped at her, grabbing the leg of her jeans, but she pulled free of him and ran. Down the corridor and back to the front door, their grunts and cries loud even there. It was a fight to the death: one of them was going to kill the other.

The door was unlocked, Nick had unlocked it for Mark, and she yanked it open and lurched out on to the path. In the dim light, the white van seemed almost to glow. She ran to it and pulled the driver’s door open. Without much hope, she checked the ignition but of course Nick hadn’t left the key. She went to the back door in case he’d left it there by mistake when he’d pulled her out, but it wasn’t there, either. He must have it – it must be in his pocket.

Mark’s Mercedes was parked at the mouth of the drive, facing out, ready to go. With a glance back at the house, she ran to it. She tried the door but it was locked.

She felt a burst of panic that she quickly suppressed: there was no time; she had to concentrate, think clearly. Come on, Hannah.

Her phone: it was in her bag. She ran back across the drive and climbed into the van’s front seat. At first she thought the bag was gone but then she saw that it had fallen forward into the footwell. She snatched it up and scrabbled through it, cursing the clutter of old receipts and tissues. Come on, come on. Glancing through the windscreen she saw the front of the house, the door gaping blackly open. What was happening? Who was winning?

At last she found the phone. She pressed the button to unlock it but nothing happened. For a moment, she panicked again – it had run out of battery; it was useless – but then she remembered: Nick had turned it off. Almost laughing with relief, she turned it on and dialled 999, fingers fumbling. Nothing. She tried again: still nothing. Looking at the screen, she saw the signal icon: there was no reception. They were too far out in the country.

With a cry of despair, she threw the phone down on the seat. It bounced and fell into the gap by the handbrake. Almost in tears, she stuck her hand down and groped for it, getting her fingers on it but then feeling it slip farther away.

In the doorway of the house now, a man appeared, visible only in outline. She froze. Which one – Nick or Mark? Who had won?

‘Hannah.’ The shout seemed to fill the whole sky.

Mark.

He stepped free from the shadow of the house and started down the path towards the van. For a moment she was immobilised by fear but then she yanked the passenger door open and got out. Her feet sounded deafening on the gravel.

‘Hannah!’ He came after her and she heard herself give a cry of alarm. ‘Hannah, get back here.’

A wall ran from the side of the house, and in the dim light, she made out a wooden gate partly hidden by overhanging foliage. Shoving it open, she found herself in some kind of formal garden, raised beds divided by paths paved with stone. Mark was ten feet behind her, she could hear him breathing, and without thinking about where she was going, she plunged down the central path.

‘Hannah!’

At the back of the garden there was a long brick wall and what looked like a greenhouse. Next to it was another gate. She headed straight for it, trying to find the quickest route through beds full of fruit canes and the moon faces of leeks gone to seed, but Mark saw where she was going and climbed over one of the beds to cut her off. He snatched at her coat, just missing, and she screamed. ‘Get off me!’