The Truth About Celia Frost Page 21

  Janice’s voice trembled. “But I know where we’re heading. She’s taken her back to that place. She’s got her at the clinic.”

  “Why haven’t the police phoned to let us know what’s going on? Maybe you should phone them back, Frankie?” Sol said.

  “No. We’re best to leave them alone and let them get on with the job,” Frankie said with authority. “Anyway, we’re almost there.”

  They drove on, in oppressive silence, the car rocketing along the moor road; Frankie hunched over the steering wheel, his brow furrowed, Sol sat in the back, his stomach in knots, and Janice dragging on a cigarette held between her shaking fingers.

  Frankie took the corner so fast that the car swerved off the driveway and onto the moor, leaving skid marks in the peaty earth. He fought with the steering wheel to get the car back on track and came to a halt halfway up the drive; the clinic hidden over the brow of a hill.

  “We’ll park here,” he said to his passengers. “We don’t want her to hear the car and give her time to do something stupid. We need to surprise her. Catch her unaware. Come on, we’ll run the rest of the way.”

  “But the police must already be there,” Janice said.

  Frankie didn’t reply. He pulled himself out of the car and started pounding up the driveway. Sol shot out of the passenger door and sprinted after him.

  Sol reached the building first, Frankie panting behind him and Janice out of sight, still struggling up the incline.

  “Why aren’t the police here?” Sol said, seeing the lone car parked next to the prefab building.

  “Because I didn’t call them,” Frankie said breathlessly.

  “What?!”

  “If I got the police involved, I’d end up spending the next fifteen years in prison, and I’m not ready to do that. They’d only mess this up anyway, put Celia in more danger. It’s better that I sort this out. I know what I’m doing. Trust me.”

  But trusting him was the last thing Sol felt like doing.

  Celia felt the professor’s fingers tapping on her arm. She looked down as the blue vein rose towards the surface, offering itself to the needle. Celia was suddenly struck by the healthy glow of her skin. She was so used to it being deathly pale that she’d forgotten how it had been transformed by the sun over the past weeks, while she ran wild in the flooded quarry. Her mind turned to Sol. How different she felt since meeting him. How brilliant life was with him. And what about Janice? She’d sacrificed everything for a child who’d been a stranger to her, who she owed nothing to. Celia wouldn’t let herself believe that Janice was dead. She needed to let her know how much she loved her; how she now understood all that Janice had done for her. She couldn’t give up on Janice, on Sol. She had to find them, make sure they were all right.

  Celia raised her eyes and saw the bowed head of the professor with the needle, poised to insert it into her vein. Rage gripped her body, sparking it into life once more. How dare this woman expect her to sacrifice herself, expect her to accept this as her fate? She was not an escaped lab rat! She was Celia Frost, daughter of Janice Frost, best friend of Solomon Giran!

  The roar of her battle cry tore through the walls of the building as Celia butted her head into the professor’s. Hudson staggered backwards, the syringe flying out from between her fingers. She fell to the floor, her leg twisted under her body.

  Celia’s cry sent Frankie and Sol sprinting to the clinic door. Frankie kicked at it, but it held firm. He rammed his shoulder against it again and again, but it was unyielding. “It’s reinforced,” he panted to Sol. “There’s no way I can break it down. We need to find another door, a window, anything to let us in there.”

  Sol ran frantically around the building, clawing at the ivy to see if it was concealing any windows. Janice staggered over the brow of the hill, bent double, her nicotine-filled lungs fit to burst.

  “We can’t get in!” Sol shouted to her. “There’s no windows.”

  “On the roof,” Janice wheezed, getting out her phone. “Get on the roof...there’s skylights.”

  Sol called to Frankie. “We need to get on the roof. Give me a hand.”

  “I should be doing this,” Frankie said guiltily.

  “You can’t. It’s too high for you to reach and I can’t take your weight to push you up there. It’s got to be me.”

  “Okay,” Frankie said, bending down to let the boy climb onto his shoulders. “But no heroics, do you hear? Just get in there and open the door for me.”

  “Fine,” Sol said, wobbling as he stood upright on the big man’s shoulders and pulled himself onto the flat roof.

  The dazed professor was clutching her forehead, her face twisted with anger and pain. “No, Celia,” she scolded. “This isn’t the way to behave. You have a duty to all those suffering people.”

  Her eyes scoured the room, looking for the syringe. Celia jolted the wheelchair, struggling futilely to break her bonds, knowing that she’d only managed to delay her fate.

  But they were both stopped in their tracks by the sound of footsteps thudding across the roof. They looked up in bewilderment as the soles of two trainers started pounding against a skylight above them.

  Sol grunted as he sat on the roof, slamming his feet down on the glass until the pane cracked, then shattered, glass spraying the floor below. He kicked out the jagged shards left around the edges and jumped down into the room like a cat from a tree. The aghast professor began to scramble across the floor towards the syringe.

  Celia screamed at her friend. “Sol, the syringe! Get the syringe!”

  Sol dived across the floor like a goalie trying to save a penalty; his fingertips made contact with the syringe, sending it spinning out of Hudson’s reach. He tumbled after it, grasping it as the woman hauled herself to her feet and limped towards him.

  “Stay where you are,” Sol said, his heart beating out of his chest.

  She held her hand out, speaking to him like a reprimanding headmistress. “Give that to me. I’ll put it away safely. We both know that you wouldn’t use it. It would send me into a coma. I wouldn’t wake up. It would be like murder and you, young man, don’t look like a murderer to me.”

  Sol looked at Celia. She saw the panic in his eyes. She knew that she had to intervene.

  “Hey, professor,” she snarled. “You’re right. He doesn’t look like a murderer, but looks can be deceptive, can’t they? Just look at you!”

  Hudson glared at her.

  “He may have a baby face, but this boy would stick that needle in you and wouldn’t care less. Isn’t that right, Sol?”

  Sol nodded his head, swallowing hard.

  “Sol the Psycho, that’s what they call him on the estate. And it’s not just the kids that are scared of him. I’ve seen adults terrified as well. He’s unpredictable you see: one minute calm, angelic; the next, out of control, raging, tearing the place up. They’ve had him in and out of secure units. They don’t know what to do with him.”

  Hudson scrutinized the nervous boy in front of her as he wiped the cold sweat out of his eyes.

  “It’s not his fault, the violence,” Celia said sombrely. “When he was little, his mum used to disappear for nights on end, leave him locked up in the bathroom.”

  “I don’t believe you,” the professor said arrogantly. She moved closer to him, bawling, “Give me that now!”

  Sol tightened his grip on the syringe, stepping back from her.

  “You can believe what you want,” Celia continued earnestly. “It doesn’t change the truth. Just look at him; making his way out here, to the middle of nowhere, jumping through windows – it’s all nothing to him. He does crazy things all the time, especially for me. For some reason, he really likes me. He’d do anything for me. He’s very protective – a bit too protective. He broke a boy’s leg once for swearing at me, so I don’t think he’ll be too happy to know that you were going to put that needle in me.”

  Sol seemed to suddenly transform. His eyes turned wild. He began swaying from side to
side, throwing the syringe from one hand to the other. Hudson watched him with growing alarm as he started jabbering at her.

  “I’m a good boy. I try and be a good boy. But if people are bad to Celia then I have to hurt them. Do you understand? I don’t want to, but I have to.” He jabbed the needle towards Hudson, who let out a gasp.

  “It’s okay, Sol. Stay calm!” Celia said.

  Sol took deep breaths, waving the syringe at Hudson. “Should I hurt her for you, Celia?” He stared manically at Hudson.

  “Sol,” Celia said sweetly, “she’ll be good. There’s no need to hurt her.”

  “But I don’t like it when people are bad to you. I don’t think I can stop myself.” He looked pleadingly at Celia.

  “Don’t let him!” Hudson panicked.

  “No, Sol!” Celia said firmly. “I’ll be upset with you if you hurt her. Now, just tell her what you want her to do and she’ll do it.”

  He started bouncing up at Hudson, chanting, “Open the door! Open the door! Open the door!” Hudson hurriedly obeyed.

  As soon as the front door was unlocked, Janice flew into the building, Frankie behind her. Professor Hudson flinched with shock at the sight of them.

  “Where’s Celia? Is she okay?” Janice asked Sol.

  “She’s through there.” Sol pointed down the corridor. “She seems fine. Tied up, but fine.”

  Janice walked past the professor, giving her a look that could have turned her to stone, but Hudson grabbed hold of Janice’s arm, drawing her in, whispering in her ear.

  “You’ll never be able to protect Celia now. Everyone will want the Saviour Virus and they need her to get it.”

  Janice prised her fingers off, confused and furious. “Get your hands off me! I’m going to see my daughter.”

  Sol, still clutching the syringe, ushered the professor towards Frankie.

  “You’d better give me that,” Frankie said, pointing nervously at the syringe.

  “God, yes! Please take it off me,” Sol said with relief.

  Frankie grinned at Sol, slapping him on the back. “I knew you’d come in handy.”

  Frankie led the professor down the corridor and into the nearest room, where a metal stand bolted to the middle of the floor was the only remaining evidence that an operating table had once occupied this space. “After you, Nemo,” he said. “And I don’t want to hear a word out of you. Don’t go trying to freak out Janice with any more of your poisoned remarks.”

  “You’re a great disappointment, Mr. Byrne,” she said scornfully. “You’re obviously not the man I thought you were.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment,” he replied. “Now you just make yourself at home, you could be here some time.”

  As Janice ran into the room she was gripped by the sights and sounds of thirteen years ago. Her skin erupted in goose bumps as she heard the pitiful cries of the babies, saw them enclosed in their cots with their pinpricked arms and hollow eyes, staring blankly at the ceiling. The memories seemed to paralyse Janice, until Celia’s cries broke through them.

  “Mum! Mum!”

  “Celia! Are you okay?” Janice gathered herself.

  “She said you were dead.”

  “Well, running up that driveway did nearly kill me, but I’m definitely not dead,” she joked, determined not to let Celia pick up on her distress. “How about you, love? She didn’t hurt you, did she?”

  “No. I’m fine. I just want to get out of here.”

  Janice looked around at the smashed glass covering the floor.

  “That was my friend, Sol. I couldn’t believe it! He jumped through the skylight! He was brilliant,” Celia said with pride.

  “He seems like a great boy.” Janice smiled, picking up a shard of pointed glass. “Now hold very still, Celia. I’m going to cut through the tape with this. I don’t want to catch you.”

  “Mum, you don’t need to worry about my blood any more. Hudson took a sample, examined it. She said that the virus in me doesn’t kill – it cures! It’s mind-blowing, Mum. She said it’s the Saviour Virus and I’m the only one with it. She wanted to pick me apart to see why it works in me. She said I had a duty to sacrifice myself, to save millions of people.” Celia hesitated, looking anxiously at Janice. “I don’t, do I, Mum? I don’t have to let them pick me apart?”

  “Now, you listen to me, young lady,” Janice said, incandescent with rage. “That...that...WOMAN is warped and twisted. She’s tried to mess with your mind. No one would expect you to sacrifice yourself. No one will be allowed to touch you. Let them get their cure another way. Do you hear me, Celia? You’re my beautiful girl, not some lab rat to be experimented on. All that’s important is that you’re safe and well. We’re going to forget you’ve even got this Saviour Virus and we’re going to start living at last, okay.”

  Celia nodded, flooded with relief and remorse, no longer able to hold back the tears.

  Janice peeled off the tape from Celia’s wrists and ankles, massaging the deep welts left in her skin. “Don’t cry. You’re safe now, baby. I promise I won’t let anyone touch you.”

  “I’ve been such a cow to you, Mum. All you’ve done for me...but I didn’t know, I didn’t understand,” Celia garbled through sobs.

  “Shush, love. You don’t need to say anything. It’s okay.”

  “But I need to tell you, Mum. When she said you were dead, I thought that I’d never get a chance to say sorry, tell you how much I love you, to thank you for saving me from this place, from her. You looked after me all these years, living with all that unbearable stress. You gave up the chance of a normal life, a better life, risking everything for me, and I’ve given you such a hard time. I wanted to make you suffer and you just took it, always putting me first.”

  “You daft girl, don’t you understand? I wouldn’t have wanted any other kind of life if it meant not having you!” Janice laughed, tears rolling down her face. “We’ve both had a rough time. You’ve been through so much, Celia, and I kept messing up. I wasn’t sure how to protect you, so I ended up suffocating you your whole life. No wonder you hated me, when you thought I was some mad woman who’d made everything up. Now, come on. We can’t just sit here all day blubbing. We need to get you up and get your circulation going.”

  Janice kissed Celia’s wet cheeks, helping her up. Celia quivered as she rose unsteadily from the wheelchair.

  Celia hobbled around, supported by Janice, her whole body feeling like it had been run over by a bus. As they circled the room, Celia could sense Janice’s unease. “Is being back here freaking you out?” she asked.

  Janice nodded. “It’s not my favourite place on earth.”

  “Then you should think about it like this, Mum. Terrible things happened here, but this is where we met, so I reckon something great happened here too.”

  Janice smiled. “Yeah, you’re right. It’s obvious you didn’t get your brains from me, saying clever, deep stuff like that.” Suddenly Janice’s own words made her smart, reminding her of a question she dreaded, but knew she had a duty to ask.

  “By the way, Celia.” She tried to sound casual. “Did she tell you anything about your parents? Anything that would help us trace them?” Janice held her breath.

  “Only that they don’t even know I exist. I’m not interested in finding them anyway,” Celia said dismissively. “You’re my mum. You’re the best mum. Why would I want anyone else?”

  “Okay, love,” Janice said, throwing her arms around Celia and practically squeezing the life out of her. “We can always talk about this some other time.”

  “There’s no need. I’m not going to change my mind and I am going to make it up to you,” Celia announced. “I’m going to be the best daughter ever. I’ll do anything you say – first time, no arguments.”

  Janice laughed, stroking her child’s hair. “We’ll see how long that lasts.”

  “How did you get here anyway? How did you know where I was?” Celia asked.

  “Frankie Byrne, the man who brought
you here, he drove me and Sol to get you.”

  “Why would he do that?” Celia was puzzled.

  “I think he was trying to do the right thing, as far as a man like Frankie can do the right thing. In fact...” She called out to Sol who’d been loitering in the corridor. “Sol, can you come in and take over from me?” She draped Celia’s arm round her friend. “Keep walking her around and don’t listen to her if she begs to sit down. We can’t have her seizing up. I’ll be back in a minute. I just have something to deal with.”

  Janice stepped out of the old clinic and filled her lungs with the crisp, moor air. She studied the wild, sweeping landscape, just beginning to stir in the dawning light.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” Frankie appeared next to her.

  “It’s different from how I remember. I’d always pictured it as a bleak, godforsaken place, but you’re right, it really is quite beautiful.”

  “Well, you can relax now, Janice. Everything’s under control. I’ve tied up Nemo, put tape over her big mouth so she can’t spout any more rubbish. And Celia’s fine, isn’t she? So all in all, job done!” he said with a satisfied smile.

  “You’re a real hero, aren’t you, Frankie?” Her words dripped with sarcasm.

  Frankie looked hurt. “What do you mean?”

  “I came out to find you, but, to be honest, I didn’t expect you to still be here. The police are on their way you know. I phoned them when we got here and I realized that you’d been lying to us.”

  Frankie couldn’t look at her.

  “You put Celia’s life at risk just to save your own skin,” she said in disgust.

  “Please hear me out, Janice,” he said, desperate to defend himself. “I admit there was some self-interest – I didn’t want to end up in prison. But you’ve got to believe me, I knew I stood a better chance of saving her by keeping the police out of it.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Janice said, bristling. “And what made you think that?”