What Lies Beneath

Chapter One

At six in the evening, the light has already faded from the sky above Newcastle University, as autumn succumbs to winter. Jayne, absorbed in work, has been oblivious to the growing darkness outside her office window and now her eyes feel tired and strained as she shuts down her work computer and uncurls her hunched shoulders. She stares at the small wheel whirling in the centre of the screen, as the aged technology struggles with its final command of the day. She’s been fighting against the machine since mid-afternoon, battling software systems that don’t talk to each other and making the simplest task of putting student grades into a centralised marking system seem harder than sending a rocket to the moon.

But Jayne doesn’t mind. It delays her going home; expands the day, shortens the night. Night is when she has time to think and she is happier without that time.

Jayne gathers together a stack of assignments still to mark and slides them into her favoured Jute bag. The bag she bought when she went with Alice to The Eden Project in Devon on their last holiday together. She didn’t know it was their last at the time, but then again you rarely know it’s your last anything until you look back. Firsts are easier to pinpoint. Those you do know.

The door to Jayne’s office is slightly ajar, letting in a sliver of light from the silent library beyond. She knows the last students and tutors will have vacated the university at least an hour earlier, leaving her in peace to enjoy what has become her favourite part of the day.

She exits her office and locks the door, sliding the little cover on the “Head of Psychology and Sociological Science” nameplate from “Available” to “Away”. She always says she has the best office in the building, with just one door between her and the thousands of books that fill the shelves of this vast, impressive room.

Jayne makes her way down the left-hand side of the library. She passes rows of cubbyholes that line the wall; all harbouring small desks and chairs that entice frazzled students into their haven for some quiet time, some study time, some restoration time.

In the third cubbyhole, Jayne encounters the first discarded book; open on the table as if waiting for her, knowing she will come. She closes it and hugs it tightly. A reward. After hours, when it’s quiet like this, Jayne takes her time rescuing each abandoned collection of words and returns it to its rightful place. Sometimes she reads the page where the book has been left open, making a short duty into a prolonged exercise. She knows this is yet another delay tactic to going home, but does it matter?

So tonight, like most nights for the past twelve months, Jayne wanders the library replacing books, like a jigsaw with a new pattern every time. If only the broken pieces of life could be reassembled in this way, she thought, but this would have to do for now.

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Mission accomplished, Jayne leaves the third-floor library and heads down the echoing stairwell, pulling on her outer attire as she descends. Pushing through the double doors into the large ground-floor entrance hall, she spots Ron, the janitor, wielding his rotating floor polisher at the far end. Ron, a staple of the place long before Jayne joined, had often mistaken her for a student with her Doc Martins and vibrant scarves. Nothing has changed in that regard, he just knows who she is now.

“Night Ron.”

Jayne gives Ron a wave as she heads for the exit, feeling guilty as he props his machine against the nearest wall and ambles after her as quickly as his arthritic knees will allow him.

Jayne leaves the darkened university and heads to her car, which stands alone in the expanse of parking bays. She’ll be forever grateful that Ron patiently waits till she starts the engine and drives away before he turns the last lock in the final door and returns to his duties.

Jayne exits the car park and pulls onto the main road, clicking on the radio and fiddling till it locks to a station. One day she will buy a newer car with a Bluetooth connection so she can play a podcast from her phone, but then she will also need a new phone. Her friends have tried to drag her into the twenty-first century, but she feels much more relaxed in the nostalgic era before technology ruled the world. It was one of many things she and Alice had agreed on; a simple life. Until the accident…the brain injury…her painful decline. Nothing had been simple then.

Needing a distraction, Jayne clicks on the radio. She surfs past the stations churning out a racket of modern music till she hits the informative chatter of Radio Four. As her journeys home are just muscle memory now, it allows her mind to drift to things she doesn’t want to think about, so the spoken word somehow offers sanctuary. Every now and again the subject for discussion will hold her attention, other times it’s just noise and she welcomes that.

Jayne scrabbles in the front ducket for a sweet, irritated at herself for continually putting the empty wrappers back in the packet, but feels a stab of elation when she uncovers the last remaining toffee. As she untwists the plastic, clenching one end between her teeth, her attention is drawn to something happening on the pavement up ahead. Returning the half-opened sweet to the packet, Jayne kills the radio, slows, and leans forward over the steering wheel to get a better look.

A young woman, in her early twenties, hurries along the pathway in front. Jayne knows there isn’t a bus stop for at least a mile and this road is industrial without any housing for a good half mile.

The pace of the young woman, and the matched pace of the two men following her, is what really hones Jayne’s attention. The men are thirty yards or so behind and closing the distance. Jayne assesses what she sees. Maybe they all know each other…maybe they are hurrying for different reasons…or are these men preying on the female ahead?

Within a few seconds, Jayne’s car passes all three. Her eyes immediately flick to the rear-view mirror. Now she can see the woman’s face and she is terrified.

Jayne clocks the men checking behind them. Are they checking Jayne’s car is the only one, checking the coast is clear?

Jayne is not going to take that chance, her decision is instant. She swerves over to the kerb, ahead of them all.

The men slow and so does the young woman. How does she know Jayne’s car isn’t part of the chase, the final sting?

Jayne glances at the shrubland that edges the path, panicking the woman will see it as an escape route and seal her fate.

This has to be quick.

Jayne rams the gearstick into reverse and draws level with the woman, window down.

“Get in.”

The hunted woman’s eyes are like saucers, wide with fear. Jayne gestures with her hand.

“You need to get in.”

The young woman backs away from the car and looks towards the bushes. Worried she is about to run, Jayne scrabbles in her bag for her uni credentials. Finding the lanyard she yanks it out and shows it.

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

The men have stopped in their tracks, talking, nonchalant but watching, no more than ten yards away. The woman looks from them to Jayne and back again. The men smile. The taller one speaks.

“Everything okay, sweetheart?”

The men advance towards the woman, towards the car.

Jayne leans over and forcefully pushes open the passenger door. Her eyes lock into those of the woman she is desperately trying to rescue.

”Get in the bloody car!”

Chapter Two

Sam exits the hubbub of Newcastle’s city centre streets and enters the contrasting quiet of the old Edwardian Central Arcade. She’s been here once before, just over a week ago, and feels equally captivated by the nostalgia of the arched ceilings and mosaic floor that somehow romanticise the small collection of shops within.

Sam pauses in front of the traditional music shop, its ornate wooden windows as freshly varnished as the day it opened over a century ago. She stares at her reflected image in the glass. It was definitely her, but she looks so different to the self-image she still holds in her head. She misses her long brunette curls, the make-up that enhanced her dark eyes and the dresses that clung to her figure; she misses who she had been. Now, forced to meet herself in the eye, she feels nondescript with her short-cropped hair, clean face and black cargo pants. They need her to be invisible, unnoticeably bland and she makes herself so.

Sam turns her attention to the shop interior that lies beyond her reflection. Enough regret, she has a job to do.

The mustiness of the music shop catches in her lungs as she enters, as if it still holds air from days gone by. The heavy aroma of polished pianos, violin wax and brass cleaner creates a heady, old-fashioned scent which makes her wish she could retreat back to the comfort and safety of childhood, long before life took its adult twists and turns. Sam digs her fingernails into her palms, she needs to stay focused, stay in the moment.

Sam moves past the racks of sheet music and stands of CDs that seem so out of step with the modern world, but that’s why she chose here. Somewhere that lays itself open to be manipulated with its old-fashioned simplicity.

Sam checks her watch and scans the shop.

A female assistant restocks guitar strings on rotating racks by the far wall and an older male assistant pays undiluted attention to a mother buying her child’s first recorder. The restless young boy is pulling his mother towards a set of drums and Sam is pleased there is distraction. Unnoticed, she approaches the rear of the shop where a small CD player sits on an unmanned counter, outputting low-level music to ceiling-mounted speakers. With a deftness of hand, Sam smoothly lowers the volume and switches the playing disc with one from her pocket. Returning the volume to its previous level, Sam checks no one is any the wiser to the change of audio; now an easy-listening country song.

It’s 6.30 pm exactly.

Sam’s phone vibrates with the text she’s been expecting and, as she pretends to leaf her way through a nearby rack of 12-inch vinyls, she is only looking at the doorway.

Mark Adams enters the shop and makes his way straight to the sheet music, sifting through the guitar section. This is his routine every Friday. After his last university lecture, he walks to the Crows Nest for one pint and the first live band of the evening, before heading to buy one piece of music to add to the collection he’s been growing since resurrecting his guitar from the loft last year. Sam knows this from a Facebook update the thirty-year-old mature student posted a few weeks ago. The rest of his weekly habits haven’t taken much more research; he is a man of regular, unspontaneous normality. That’s why they chose him.

Sam is locked onto Mark, checking he isn’t wearing headphones and will hear what she needs him to hear from the CD she is playing just for him. The lyrics to the song filter through the air; she doesn’t need him to be aware of them, as long as they weave a direct path into his subconscious.

Sam feels a coldness snake its way down her spine. She feels wretched for her part in this, for what she is doing. How could she not; she knows what is coming.

As Sam watches, Mark seems to be looking for something specific and can’t find it.

Mark smiles over at the female assistant, needing her help. The assistant makes her way towards Mark, about to disturb, about to save him from his fate.

Sam swiftly takes her mobile from her pocket and hits the top contact, dialling. The shop phone rings, old-fashioned, shrill. The assistant raises an apologetic hand to Mark and returns to the counter to answer.

Sam keeps her talking from less than twenty feet away.

Mark continues to leaf through the racks of sheet music. The lyrics from the CD continue to play, continue to worm their way deep into Mark’s brain, creating a neural pathway that will later lead him where they need him to go.

The song ends.

Sam thanks the female shop assistant for her unnecessary advice and cancels the call. She replaces her CD with the original, as seamlessly and undetectably as the first switch.

The assistant hurries back across the shop to Mark.

Sam passes them both as she exits. She hears Mark mention his wife, the song she loves and the sheet music he is determined to find.

Sam’s stomach churns. She checks her watch.

6.40 pm.

Mark needs to hurry up, he has a bus to catch. He has never missed it on any previous Friday and today is not the day to break from the norm. That, however, was not her problem; her job, for the moment, was done.

Leaving the shop, the arcade and the busy high street behind, Sam weaves her way through the narrow side streets that lead away from the commercial part of the city and into the quarter hosting real ale pubs and artisan shops. Her pace is quick, but not enough to prevent her from observing the people she passes. She yearns for the lives they appear to have, a life you could call normal, a life with friends and love and things to look forward to.

Sam tunnels her vision, moving past them, leaving them behind. She knows if she pauses too long to look, to absorb, to connect, she will taste the bitter resentment for the life she lost, the life her husband took away from her.

The hubbub of laughter and chatter fades as Sam heads into quieter alleyways. Her breathing slackens and she realises she’s been holding her breath, frightened to smell the freedom for fear she might try and grab it back. Run, hide, escape. There would be no point. It had been made clear to her the day she was recruited that there could be no return and, though she thought she had made her peace with that, she now realises that is far from the truth.

Sam’s hand rises to the small healed scar on the back of her neck and, even in the cool evening air, she feels the tightening bands of claustrophobia envelop her body.

The scuff of a shoe behind jolts her back into the moment. The rattle of a loose stone confirms someone is in her vicinity in these remote and empty back lanes.

Sam glances over her shoulder.

They’re at the end of the lane she is in, maybe a hundred feet away. Two men determined to hunt prey tonight. Their pursuit this time is hazy and staggering; several pints now dumbing their senses following their thwarted attempt earlier in the evening. A true threat nonetheless.

Sam lays the test, quickening her pace; they match. Sam slows; they match. Game on.

Sam weaves her way deeper and deeper into the structure of back lanes, deeper into the more industrialised part of town. To an outsider, it may look like she was handing her fate to her male pursuers, but an outsider wouldn’t know who she was…and neither did they.

The men start to taunt, derogatory comments spat in the direction of their hunted female. They know she is coming to a dead end if she turns left at the next juncture.

Sam turns left.

The men jeer. They think she’s made a mistake. Think they’ve got her cornered. The men reach the juncture, slowing to a saunter, the chase is over. They turn left into the dead end.

An empty dead end.

Incomprehension stops them in their tracks.

The vacant alleyway is brick upon brick of solid high walls. No windows, no doors, no exit.

“What the…?”

Bewildered, the men walk towards the fifteen-foot end wall. They don’t notice the small security camera positioned high above them. They don’t see the minuscule movement as it pans and follows, capturing their existence, their image, their identity.