The Other People: A Novel(9)

He stared at the Samaritan. “You almost gave me a heart attack.”

“Sorry.”

The Samaritan grinned. He didn’t look sorry. Gabe did not pull him up on it. Just like he didn’t ask the Samaritan what he was doing here, by a lake, in the dead of night.

“Is it the car?” the Samaritan asked.

Most of the stickers had faded or peeled off. Half of the vehicle was submerged in water and the number plate was completely gone. But Gabe knew.

He nodded. “It’s the car.”

A wave of weakness swept over him. He felt himself sway. For a moment, he thought he was going to throw up. It’s the car. Saying the words. After all this time. He hadn’t imagined it. The car was real. It existed. It was right here in front of him. And if the car was real…

“She’s not inside,” the Samaritan said.

The nausea subsided. Izzy hadn’t died in a stinking swamp, her last breath stolen from her by the stagnant water as she clawed at the windows, unable…

Stop it, he told himself. Fucking stop it. He dragged his hands through his hair, rubbed viciously at his eyes. Like he could somehow scrub the bad thoughts away with his hands. The Samaritan simply watched and waited for him to gather himself.

“There’s something else you need to see.”

He walked past Gabe and waded straight into the water. In a way, Gabe wouldn’t have been surprised if he had just glided on top of it. Or maybe that was the wrong brother.

He reached the car and looked back at Gabe.

“I said you need to see this.”

Gabe didn’t wait to be asked again. He waded into the water after the Samaritan. The water wasn’t as cold as he expected but his skin still shuddered with goosebumps and his breath caught in his throat. He gritted his teeth and pushed through the rotting algae, the murky water lapping at his crotch, the smell slithering up his nostrils and making his stomach roll.

He reached the car. The smell was even worse here.

“What the—?”

The Samaritan replied by stretching out one long arm and popping the trunk. It gave with a rusty squeal. He hauled it all the way open.

Gabe looked in the trunk.

He looked back at the Samaritan.

He threw up.





Fran gripped the steering wheel tightly. Beside her, Alice slumped in her seat, staring out of the window. Her iPad rested in her lap, but she didn’t seem inclined to turn it on. She only had limited internet access anyway. Just like she only had a basic pay-as-you-go mobile for emergencies. Fortunately, Alice was still too young to complain about these restrictions. In truth, she was often happier reading than using her tablet or phone. But Fran still felt the familiar ache of guilt.

She was denying Alice so many things, internet access being the least of them. And it was only going to get harder as she edged toward her teens. But Fran had no choice: it was what she had to do, to keep her safe.

After they ran the first time, Fran home-schooled her. It stopped the authorities from knocking on their door, asking too many questions, and it meant that Alice was always within her sight. She was still vulnerable, traumatized. She needed time to adjust. They both did.

But as Alice grew older, Fran knew she needed more normality, to mix with children of her own age, so she had buckled and enrolled her at the local junior school.

That had been a mistake. Alice was smart but she was also young, and it was so easy to forget a lie. Plus, people talked—at the school gates, in the staff room. A misplaced word repeated to a stranger. A slip of the tongue to a teacher or parent. A friend of a friend who posted a picture on social media.

Really, it was only a matter of time.

They had escaped. But at a price.

This time around, Fran had tried to be even more careful. No more school. A nondescript house in a small town. She found work at a local café and the owner didn’t mind if Alice studied quietly in the back. They tried, as far as possible, to live under the radar.

They had lasted a year.

She had known something was wrong as soon as they got home yesterday evening. Fran didn’t really believe in a sixth sense. But she did believe in some kind of primeval alarm, wired into our DNA, that warns us about danger; danger even our brains haven’t consciously registered.

She had stood in the kitchen and listened to the house, every sense twitching. Alice had already gone upstairs to her room. Fran heard the clump of her footsteps, the creak of her bed. Then silence. Not even the usual faint murmur of the television from next door. The house rested. Fran’s nerves thrummed.

She had walked across to the window. At six o’clock on a February evening the light was getting thin. The streetlights were just starting to stutter on. She looked up and down the street.

Her battered Fiat Punto sat outside, half propped on the curb. Her neighbor’s blue Escort was parked next to it, almost bumper to bumper. She knew every one of the cars on this street, as well as the cars of all the people who visited. That way, she could spot anyone unfamiliar. Out of place.

Yesterday, she had. Parked a few houses down, on the corner, behind the yellow Toyota that belonged to the Patels at number 14. A small white van. Innocuous. The sort of van people hired if they wanted to do their own removals; and it was true that the Patels had sold their house a while ago. But they were a family of six. She was pretty sure one small white van would not carry all of their possessions.