Ignoring the tearing noise from my coat, I swung one leg over, then the other, and landed on all fours in the back alleyway.
From here, I ducked down below the shelter of the garden wall, so the officer on the roof couldn’t see me, and ran in the wrong direction—not towards the open end of the alley, but the other way, towards the blind end. At last, when the sound of the police radio had faded into the distance and I had reached a promising-looking gate on the opposite side of the alley, one with a bright shiny padlock. These gardens belonged to the houses on Lancaster Lane—a terrace that backed onto Salisbury Lane, and shared our back alley. If I could just get access to one of those houses…
I pulled out my picks and, with trembling fingers, set to work as fast as I could, praying that I could get it open before Officer Wheezy made it over the garden wall. Luckily it wasn’t anything fancy, just a regular off-the-peg lock from Halfords, and it was only a few moments until it opened with a reassuring click, and I slipped through into the neat little garden inside.
There, I stood up, smoothed my hair, and tried to calm my trembling breathing. This bit was going to be the hardest in some ways. I just had to hope my cheerful girl-next-door demeanor would see me through.
With my best confident smile, I rapped on the door, and stood back and waited.
For what felt like a long time, no one came, and I looked over my shoulder, feeling my anxiety rising. But just as I was considering trying another garden—or getting out my picks again—I saw a shadow behind the glass, heard the sound of a key in the lock, and saw a woman’s astonished face peering out at me.
“What the hell are you doing in my garden?” She had a baby on her hip. I made my smile a little wider, and a lot more rueful.
“I’m so sorry. The gate was open.” A lie, of course, but I just had to hope she’d blame her partner. “I’m your neighbor from number…” I paused infinitesimally, not wanting to give my own house number in case the police came knocking. “Forty-five. My name’s Ella. This is so stupid, but I locked myself out. I thought I could get out of the gate at the end, but I couldn’t remember the code. Do you know it?”
“I’ve got no idea.” She looked me up and down, apparently reassessing her initial hostility. I smiled at the baby and it smiled back. From far up the alley I heard a crash and the faint sound of swearing. It sounded like the police officer was over the wall. I willed the woman to make up her mind—but I couldn’t ask. She had to offer. And then, thank God, she did. “You want to come through the house?”
“Would you mind? I’m so sorry.” She stood back and I followed her, into a tiny kitchen that was a messier, more kid-friendly version of ours, cupboards fastened with child locks and a fridge spattered with magnetized letters. “Thank you—you’re a lifesaver.” I was chattering now as the back door closed behind us, almost giddy with relief. “I feel like such a plonker—turns out the key doesn’t work in the back door.”
“Ours is like that.” She was thawing a bit as she led me through the narrow hallway to the front door. “Only locks from the inside. No worries. What number did you say you were?”
“Forty-five.” I had to pray she didn’t know her neighbors too well, but this was London, and we were far enough down the road I thought the odds were good. “Really nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you too.” We were at the front door now, and I opened it and stepped through, barely trying to disguise my relief at the empty, patrol-car-free road outside.
“Thanks again,” I said. “Take care.”
“Take care,” she echoed, and then the door closed behind me.
As I turned out of Lancaster Lane onto the main road, I shoved my hands into the pockets of my coat to stop them shaking. The relief I had felt at getting away from Officer Wheezy was fading, and I could feel a growing pain in my side where I had landed on top of the wall. There was no time to stop and investigate. The most important thing was to put some distance between myself and Salisbury Lane, where the police cars were probably already amassing. After that… God. What should I do? I needed money. And a plan.
Hel. I needed to contact Hel and explain what had happened. But I couldn’t go to her house—that would be the first place Miles and Malik would go. I tried to still my racing brain enough to think through the next few steps. Could I call? They probably hadn’t tapped Hel’s phone yet—I was hazy on the logistics surrounding this, but I was pretty sure that monitoring phones needed a warrant, and that took time. So Hel’s end was probably fairly safe right now.
But they would seize her phone records eventually—so whatever I did now, they would discover it when they came to comb through her texts and call logs. Did that matter? I tried to think it through. This phone, the pink unicorn-stickered phone Hel had handed me that morning, was a goner as far as traceability went. I had used it to call too many people connected to me and Gabe, and besides, the SIM card was almost certainly registered to Roland’s account. It was useless to me from today. Which meant that I might as well burn it one last time.
I turned it back on and dialed Hel’s number.
“Jack!” Her voice when she answered was pleasant, cheerful, no hint of concern beyond what she was already feeling about having her baby sister interviewed by the police. “Are you done? Shall I come and collect you?”
“Listen,” I said abruptly. “Hel, I’ve done something really stupid. No”—as she broke in, trying to ask questions—“I don’t have time to explain now, but I’m in deep shit. You were right, I am a suspect.”
“Okay,” Hel said. There was a slight tremor in her voice, but I could tell she was trying to keep calm. “Okay. But… they haven’t arrested you?”
“I didn’t give them the chance. I walked out of the interview.”
“And they let you go?”
“They didn’t exactly… know. But they do now. And I’m pretty sure there’ll be a warrant out for me.”
There was a silence at the other end of the phone. I could hear Hel’s breathing, and I could tell she was trying very hard to keep hold of herself, not to shout What have you done? down the phone at me, much as she probably wanted to.
“I need cash,” I said into the charged silence. “As much as you can spare. But don’t go to the bank, just whatever you can get out of an ATM.” If she was being followed, a trip to the bank would be a huge red flag. “And… warm clothes. A sleeping bag.” Shit. What else? A plan was what I really needed, but right now I didn’t have one, beyond getting out of London before I was arrested. “Oh, and one more thing. Bleach. For my hair, I mean. I need to get rid of the red.”
“Okay,” Hel said tightly. “What time and where?”
“I don’t know.” I tried to think. “How long do you reckon you’ll need to get everything together? We probably shouldn’t leave it too late. The more time we give the police to get warrants and put you under surveillance, the harder this is going to be.”
“It’s…” I could hear her voice go faint as she took the phone away from her ear to look at the time. “It’s just gone half one now. Say an hour to get everything ready, then half an hour to make sure I’m not being followed. But I’ll have to pick the girls up at three. Fuck. That doesn’t leave much time.”
“What time does Rols finish work? Or could you slip out after supper?” The thought of finding somewhere inconspicuous to hang out, shivering, until after dark wasn’t very enticing, but it didn’t sound like I had much choice.
“No, wait,” Hel said slowly. “The girls… that could work.”
“What do you mean? I meet you at the school? I really don’t think—”
“Not the school, but… maybe the shopping center? The one on the main road, where the cinema is. We quite often stop in there to go to the loo on the way home or get a snack, and there are loads of entrances and exits.”
“I don’t know, Hel.” I tried to keep the worry out of my voice, but it crept in anyway. “I don’t like the idea of the girls being mixed up in this. What if something goes wrong? How are you going to make sure you’re not being followed if you’ve got two four-year-olds in tow?”
“None of us have a playbook for this, Jack.” Hel sounded testy, but below it I could hear her concern. “This is the first time I’ve done this too. But I feel like sticking to my routine is probably the safest, don’t you? If I am under surveillance, then the police will be on red alert for anything out of character. Whereas picking up the girls, walking them home, going to the toilet… all of that is what I do every day.”
“Okay,” I said slowly. “So… what’s the plan, then?”
“There’s a public toilet on the ground floor, next to Urban Outfitters. It’s got two entrances, one into the cinema and one into the main shopping center.”
“Okay. We’ll meet in there. What time?”