The Mother Superior leans forward, the desk creaking as it takes her weight through her forearms, her hands clasped together.
‘We’ve had talks about you, Daniel. Myself and the other nuns. We were all of the view that your continued bad behaviour cannot be tolerated. You have no idea – no idea – of the sacrifices we have made and continue to make in order to ensure that you’re safe in the eyes of God.’ As she speaks, Daniel notices her voice becoming firmer and angrier. She’s trying to hold it back, trying to keep a lid on it, but the pressure is building. ‘I’m afraid we’re going to have to move on to the next stage of punishment,’ she says, having taken a moment or two to calm herself down.
She stands and walks around to his side of the desk.
‘Stand, Daniel,’ she says calmly. ‘Undo your trousers, pull them to your knees and lean over the desk.’ Daniel does as he’s told. The first time he was in this situation he had the nerve to ask why she wanted him to do this. That’s not a mistake he’s going to repeat again. Behind him, he can hear the Mother Superior rummaging through a drawer. She finds what she’s looking for, exhales and then shuts the drawer. ‘It gives me absolutely no pleasure to do this, Daniel,’ she says, the pleasure clear and evident in her voice.
Daniel clamps his eyes shut and clenches his buttocks as he hears the air whistle and feels the sharp pain searing through his flesh.
9
It seems like I’m waiting forever, sat in the car while Jessica goes into the nearby branch of HSBC.
I look at the people walking past the car, milling around as they casually get on with their shopping. It seems like a bizarre antithesis to what’s going on in my life right now. Will I ever wander around the high street and do my shopping again? It sounds like an odd thing to say, but I really don’t know. I don’t even know what’s going on now, never mind what’s going to happen in weeks, months, years from now.
I must look like shit. I can’t be anything but, and an elderly gentleman peers into my car for longer than I’d like him to as he slowly saunters past, his walking stick wobbling as he balances far too much of his weight on it. I want to scream Fuck off, you daft old bugger! but I think better of it. If the idea is to remain inconspicuous, that’s not likely to do the trick.
There are kids running around and screaming, having a great time. The whole outside world just seems so weird – a mix of people going about their daily business and completely unaware of what’s just happened only a few hundred yards from here. There’s an ever-increasing feeling that people are watching me, judging me, remembering me. I feel like I’m seven years old again, just waiting to be caught for something else I’ve done wrong, waiting with my pants round my ankles, ready to feel the searing pain.
I try to tell myself that this is one of the tricks the brain plays on you when you’ve gone through a trauma. I need to remain calm, keep a level head. But right now that’s the hardest thing in the world, because my entire life has just been turned upside down in the space of a few minutes, and I don’t know why.
Christ, where is she? It feels like she’s been in there for hours. The clock in my car tells me it’s barely four minutes, though, before she’s back out and walking towards the car with a big smile on her face. She opens the passenger-side door and dumps a white padded envelope on my lap.
‘Three grand,’ she says. Just like that. As if it’s the most normal thing in the world and nothing that went on earlier today has actually happened.
‘What? Is that all? Where’s the other seven?’ I say, at a complete loss for any other words.
‘Relax, Dan. It’s to do with some sort of fraud prevention thing. They said I can get the rest tomorrow.’
‘But we won’t be here tomorrow,’ I reply.
‘So what? We’ve got four grand. It’ll have to do. I couldn’t exactly go kicking up a fuss, could I? I told them a story about selling a car and needing some cash to buy a new one.’
‘And they wouldn’t let you?’ I ask.
‘They would, but only if I did it over two days. On the plus side, it backs up your story if the banks decide to speak to each other. They probably do, you know. Money-laundering checks and all that.’
I can’t help but laugh. It just seems so stupid and irrelevant right now. ‘Oh yeah, that’s a great relief. At least when we’re being hunted by undercover police for the murder of my wife we’ll be safe in the knowledge that at least we won’t be getting a stern letter from our banks.’
‘How much fuel have you got?’ she says, ignoring my sarcasm.
‘Practically a full tank. I filled up yesterday.’ I look at the instrument panel, which tells me I’ve got 420 miles to go until my next fill-up. I have no idea where we’re going, but I know I want to eat up those 420 miles as quickly as possible and get as far away from here as I can.
‘Good. In that case, we’d better get going.’ Jessica puts on her seatbelt and settles back in her seat as if this is the most natural thing in the world. It’s both scary and oddly reassuring to know that at least one of us is staying calm. I wonder what sort of traumas she’s had to endure in the past to retain this level of calm.
‘Where?’ I ask.
‘Folkestone. It’s only thirty or forty miles. We’ll be there within the hour.’
‘Folkestone?’ I know exactly what this means.
‘Yeah. The Eurotunnel leaves every half an hour. It’ll cost us a packet at such short notice, but we can’t do much about that. We couldn’t exactly book in advance. Come on. We need to get going.’
‘And after that?’ I say, ignoring her efforts to gee me up.
‘I know a place in France. My family had a holiday cottage there.’
I can’t quite believe what I’m hearing. ‘Isn’t that a bit risky? Surely that’s the first place they’ll look, if they know you have ties there.’
‘We’re not staying there, doofus,’ she says. I’m intrigued by the Americanism. ‘I know someone in the area who can help us out. We’ll need to dump the car, for starters. They’ll be all over the place looking for this one by the morning. Now come on. We need to get out of the country while we still can.’
‘Shit. My passport.’
‘What? Don’t you have it?’ she asks, as if I’m mad.
‘Well no, I didn’t see the need in bringing my passport seventy miles up the road to Herne Bay. I suppose you just carry yours around everywhere with you in case you need to skip the country, do you?’ As I say this, she pulls the small burgundy booklet from her inside jacket pocket. ‘Yes. Of course you do.’
‘Where’s yours? At home?’
‘Yeah. But I can’t risk going back there.’
‘Why not? It’s not as if Lisa’s going to be there, is it?’