Public Property (43 page)

‘
What sort of person are you? Don’t you care about anything except this ridic
ulous obsession with my fiancé?’
Freya wanted to know.

Sasha
slapped Freya’s face
. The force of the blow had Freya reeling back into the seat.

‘
He is
not
your fiancé
.
N
ot anymore. Now
,
I don’t want to hear another word from you or I
’
ll end
this right here…
right now
.’

Freya
sat
still on the seat, unable to move with her hands tied behind her back. She watched
,
helpless
,
as
Sasha
got into the driver’s seat of the SUV and restarted the engine.

‘
We’re here
,’ Sasha
announced, turning to face Freya and smiling at her.

They’d driven a little more than fifteen minutes, according to the clock on the dashboard. There had come off the main road and headed
up
what felt like a dirt track. Freya’s hands were aching and the wire was cutting into the skin. She’d had to lie on her side to relieve the pressure but now she was stuck there.

Sasha
got down out of the car and opened the back door. She grabbed Freya’s arms and pulled her up into a sitting position.

‘
Get up
,
b
itch
.
I said we’re here
.’ Sasha pulled Freya down and out of the car.

She
managed to land on her feet but smarted as the twine
tightened on her
wrists.
She looked at her surroundings. They were next to a patch of wasteland that was instantly familiar.

‘
We’re at County Bridge
.’

She could see the black bridge just a hundred yards or so away. It was so cold. The wind was whipping underneath her jacket and her fingers were starting to numb.

‘
Yes, don’t sound so surprised
.
I know how much you love this place
.
Y
ou’ve spent hours here taking photographs, all of them dull and boring
by the way
. But, it seemed a
fitting place for it all to end.
A
last tribute if you like
.’

‘
Look,
Sasha
, this is stupid
.
Y
ou don’t hate me
. Y
ou certainly don’t want to kill me
.
W
hy don’t we
just talk about this like grown-
ups
?’

‘
You
are
kidding right? You think talking can resolve anything? Did I not make myself clear enough earlier? You have my man
.
Y
ou are standing in th
e way of our happiness together.
T
he only resolutio
n to this is for you to be gone...
completely gone
.’

Sasha was becoming more and more unstable from what Freya could remember about captor
behaviour
. She only had her vast Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger DVD collection to reference from but it wasn’t looking good. She was really scared. What if Sasha was really going to try and kill her? It sounded completely far-fetched but the look in the woman’s eyes told Freya this wasn’t some sort of prank. Sasha was serious.

Sasha reached into her bag and drew out a white piece of cloth. She started to toy with it in her hands.

‘
What are you going to do?
’
Freya asked
.

‘
You’ll see. Come on, there’s not much time
.’

Sasha pushed Freya forward and jabbed the gun into the small of her back, urging her on towards the bridge.

Freya looked at the landscape in front of her
.
I
t was just grassland, the old ruined church and nothing else.
Just wild open space and not another soul in sight.
She had a thought.
The fisherm
en! T
here must be some fisherme
n a little further up the river
.
S
he could shout or make a run for it or something. She had to do
something
.

‘
In case you
’re
thinking
about making a
run for it, let me tell you…
there
’
s no one round here
.
Y
ou told me exactly what time the fisherm
e
n arrive and leave
,
remember?
Anyway,
I have no doubt I could out run you and
we all know
a bullet
can
travel a
h
ell of a lot faster than both of us
.’

‘
Sasha
,
this is insane
.
Y
ou can’t possibly think you can kill me and get away with it
.’

‘
Yoo
hoo
!
I’m the one holding all the cards here
!
O
h
and
the gun
.
I think I have the upper hand. I think I
’
m more likely to get away with doing it than you
’
re likely to get away from me
.’

‘
And when I’m dead
?
W
hen Nick’s baby is dead
.
W
hat then?
’

‘I told you.
H
e
’
ll be a little saddened, for a while
. Then
I will be there to pick up the pieces
and
step i
nto your shoes.’

‘
You sad bitch
.
Y
ou really believe that
,
don’t you?! You’re warped!
’

Bang! T
he gun went off and Freya screamed out loud, closing her eyes in anticipation of pain. Pain didn’t come and she turned around to face
Sasha
. The woman
was stood, looking furious, the gun pointed to the sky.

‘
If you make one more comment like that
…one more…
I swear to God I
’l
l blow you away
.’

Sasha’s
teeth were
bared,
her expression wild and Freya’s heart sank to the floor. How was she going to get out of this one?

‘
Get on the bridge
,’
Sasha
ordered, turning Freya back around and pushing her shoulder roughly.

T
ears running down her face
, Freya
reluctantly stepped onto the bridge and began to walk along it. She had never felt so terrified and all she could think of was Nicholas and their baby. The baby she hadn’t really
w
anted,
hadn’t been planning for.
T
he baby she now so desperately
longed
to protect.

‘
So
,
what do you really know about these bridges
, Freya?’
Sasha
asked as she followed her across the wooden slats.

‘
I
…
they were built b
y the Christian Fathers so
people could get across the river to the churches in the area
,’
Freya spoke quickly, trying to compose herself.

‘
That’s right, they were. You see, since you seem to have made these bridges something of a muse
, I thought
I would look into what fascinated you about them
.’

‘
I just think the design
s are wonderful
and the rural location makes them even more spectacular
.’

Her lips were dry and the cold, winter wind was sucking the moisture from them as they walked. The clouds were even darker out here than in
Mayleaf
. There was a storm brewing.

‘
Hmm, as I thought
.
Y
ou don’t really know anything about what happened here
.’

‘
Something happened here?
What,
like an important event?
’
Freya inquired.

‘
It was important to a lot of people at the time, yes.
S
top
!
’
Sasha
ordered
.

Freya shivered and did as she was told, coming to rest at the middle of the bridge.

‘
Glory to the Father, leave sorrow behind and take hope from the past
,’
Sasha
spoke as she came up beside Freya and ran her fingers across the inscription on the side of the bridge.

‘
You know what that means?
’
Freya
asked through chattering teeth
.

‘
Oh yes, I know what it means
.
A
nd you
’
re going to find out exactly what it means
.’

Sasha
produced the white cloth she
’
d been holding earlier
. Before Freya had a chance to react
, she pu
lled
it across Freya’s face as a blindfold. She tied it tightly around the back of her head and Freya was then unable to see.

‘Sasha, please. Don’t do this. There’s still a chance to stop all this. We’ll forget about everything, no charges for anything. Just let me go,’ Freya pleaded.

She was completely disorientated. She couldn’t see anything through the cloth at all. She felt sick and dizzy and her heart gallop
ed
.

‘L
et’s duck underneath these railings
and see if
we can smell the water
,’
Sasha
suggested
.

S
he pushed
Freya underneath the rails, holding her by her bound wrists.

Freya
let out a cry and
held her breath, unable to get h
er bearings
.
She felt off-kilter, unable to balance.

‘
The Christian Fathers were all a bit mad
, Freya. O
h they were all very charity driven
, a bit like you
.
B
ut they didn’t like change. They didn’t like revolution, or growth of knowledge, or advances in the world.
They built themselves a commune.
A
town within a town
.
They b
arr
ed
themselves from the outside world. But
,
one day
, after months of meetings and deliberations,
the authorities
took it upon themselves to break into the commune and threaten its existence. The law couldn’t allow people to live against their rules, creating different values from the ones everyone else adhered to
.
T
hey were warned, they
were told they
had to
integrate
,’ Sasha explained.

‘
What happened?
’

If she kept her talking it would buy time and she could get a feel for her position on the bridge. She had to try and stay calm.

‘
What happened? Well,
t
he Christian Fathers just couldn’t live the way the rest of us do
.
A
fter all, they belie
ved we were all on the path to h
ell and
d
amnation. So
,
they all congregated
.
A
ll
nine hundred
of them, on t
his very bridge.
They
all dressed in black, all wearing white blindfolds
.
A
nd, holding hands
and
muttering prayers under their breath, they all just
…
jumped. Just like that
.
A whole line of nine hundred
people just jumped into the water
.’ She loosened her grip of Freya, making her fall forward.