24 Hours

by Claire Seeber

Genres: General Fiction; Thrillers

Synopsis

“Here today. Dead tomorrow? Last night, I almost died. A fire consumed the hotel room where my best friend, Emily, and I slept. Emily was killed. But I can't afford to cry, to grieve. It was meant to be me. And he'll be coming for my daughter next. The press thinks it was me that died. At best, that gives me 24 hours. 24 hours to find Polly and disappear. 24 hours to stay alive.” 24 Hours is a fast-paced, intelligent psychological thriller that will leave you breathless.

Release date: October 9, 2015

Publisher: Bookouture

Print pages: 350

Sample

Light is breaking on the horizon behind the hills as we pull into the hospital grounds, but the day already looks grey.

There cannot be any hope for this day.

My eyes are hot and gritty: they sting with exhaustion and smoke. I rub them, but it only makes them worse.

The woman next to me in the ambulance says something, but it doesn’t seem to make any sense. I can’t understand the words she speaks. I would answer, but I can hardly even swallow. My head throbs; my throat is like sandpaper; my mouth tastes of ash and guilt.

The woman is still wearing a dressing-gown; it is pink velour, although hardly pink any more. She is pale and bewildered; tear-stained, soot-marked. I imagine I look similar.

I don’t care what I look like.

I just want to know where Emily is.

No one has been able to tell me anything. There has been nothing but chaos; no one to ask, or explain – just confusion and panic. The police who eventually arrived at the scene were too busy, trying to corral everyone into the lane outside the grounds. We watched with mounting desperation as the flames grew, so high they were visible above the fences, thick black smoke billowing across the tree-tops, burning debris flying on the breeze. We watched until they forced us down the road into some kind of village hall where we waited for the ambulances to arrive.

The paramedics assure us that all will become clear soon; that, at the hospital, news of our friends and family will be available; that we should just ‘hang on. Keep hanging on, there’s a good girl.’

I am terrified. I have a nagging pain in my stomach that gnaws at me. I need to find Emily, and then I need to go. To get the hell out before I am found.

I am more terrified that I will not find Emily.

Last night reels through my head again and then stops; freezes; rewinds. Plays again. And again. Flames lick against a wall; smoke seeps under doors. The heat; the lack of air.

I hold my pounding head in my hands to stop the images that flicker remorselessly – but it’s impossible.

‘All right, love?’ the balding paramedic holds his hand out, gently pushes my face up so he can look at me.

‘Yes,’ I croak. It’s not the truth. ‘Thank you.’

‘Hand hurting?’ he indicates my bandaged hand.

‘A bit. My throat hurts and my shoulder’s really sore.’

Talking makes me cough. He studies my face. He has short stubby eyelashes I stare at, like toothbrush bristles.

‘Anything else? Feeling odd? Light-headed? Headache?’

I want to grab his hand and keep holding it. I might float away if I don’t. ‘I’m fine, really.’

I have never been less fine in my life.

‘Well,’ he releases my face. ‘Go slow, okay? You’re in the right place now. They’ll check you out for smoke inhalation.’

But I am in entirely the wrong place.

The fluorescent lights of the hospital A & E are blinding as they open the back of the ambulance to let us out. I screw my eyes up and clamber down, disoriented.

I am reminded of sheep in a truck, blindly following on, tumbling clumsily forwards. A solitary bird sings and then stops. It is not a day to celebrate.

There is a news crew already at the doors of the hospital. I walk inside, following the herd. In my mouth, an acrid taste; the taste of smoke.

At the foot of a stairwell that everyone now starts to climb, I stop a nurse in blue uniform, hurrying down. She looks fraught.

‘I’m looking for Emily Southern,’ I say. ‘Can you help me?’

‘Who?’ she frowns.

‘My friend. The fire.’

‘I’m not sure,’ she shakes her blonde ponytail. ‘Sorry. You need to stay with your party. Someone will come and talk to you soon I expect.’ She hurries on.

I sit in the room with the others for a while until I can bear it no longer. My hand hurts and no one has come yet; one young, bemused-looking healthcare assistant keeps us company. Keeps us captive.

‘The police will be here in a moment,’ he keeps saying, looking increasingly harassed. The woman from the ambulance is crying now. A big man is hissing into his mobile. ‘Just come and get me,’ he is saying.

The healthcare assistant tries to ring someone; no one can help him apparently.

‘Please,’ I say to the weeping lady. ‘Don’t cry. It’ll be all right.’

But I have a feeling it won’t be. Someone brings us tea, but I don’t want it. Fear sits in my chest; I’m on the verge of hysteria myself. I imagine flames licking at the door. I stand and then sit again a few times, until eventually I know I have to get out of this room.

I have the clothes I stand up in, which include Emily’s hoodie and my pyjamas. I have my mobile phone, which has long since run out of battery. I have nothing else.

I open the door.

‘Please, stay here, miss,’ the young man says. ‘Someone will be along in a minute to talk to you.’

‘I just need the loo,’ I lie.

‘Okay,’ he shrugs. ‘It’s just down the hall.’

Outside the room, I turn a corner: two policemen are talking to a white-coated woman further down the corridor. Their business is private; my instinct is to hide. I move backwards, holding my breath.

I wait a beat, then peer cautiously round the wall.

One of them holds a list.

‘Right. So that’s Peter Graves. Poor sod.’ He marks something down. ‘And Laurie Smith, you said?’ he says now.

‘Here,’ I am about to shout. I step forward—

‘Laurie Smith is dead?’ he says, looking up from his list at the woman. ‘You’re sure?’

I freeze.

‘I’m afraid so,’ the woman nods, her neat bob swinging. ‘DOA. Not pretty.’

The policeman writes again.

‘And her room-mate?’ The other squints at his list. ‘Emily South-something, I think. If this bloody list is right, anyway. That hotel was unbelievably slack.’

‘Only one female,’ the doctor swigs from her coffee, wipes her mouth. ‘And the two men we’ve already discussed. Plus the housekeeper is still up in the ICU. We’ll know one way or the other in the next few hours, I would think.’ She is perfunctory. Scarily so. ‘It’s quite quick, normally.’

From my vantage point, I see the ginger-haired policeman writing. ‘It could have been worse, I guess,’ he says. ‘A fire that size.’

‘Yes, thank God,’ the doctor agrees. ‘A few walking wounded, but really. Could have been a lot worse.’

My heart races so fast I think it might explode. I press myself against the wall before I fall.

Laurie Smith is dead.

But I am not dead. I am standing here, in this hospital corridor. So that means, that means …

It’s Emily. It must be Emily.

‘Have you contacted the families?’

‘Not our job, thank Christ,’ the policeman says. ‘We’ve been waiting for some kind of confirmation. It’s a total bloody mess at the moment to be honest. Guv doesn’t know his arse from his elbow.’

‘We shouldn’t even be involved,’ the other man sticks a little finger in his ear and wiggles it. ‘We’re traffic.’

‘Going to have to move fast now.’ There is a modicum of excitement in the man’s voice. ‘The press have got hold of it already.’

‘The help-line’s up and running, at least,’ the small one says, as if it is a huge consolation. He checks the finger he’s just withdrawn from his ear for goodies.

‘Don’t envy you the families.’ The doctor’s pager begins to beep. ‘Hardest part of the job, I find.’

‘I don’t know,’ the ginger policeman takes off his hat and rubs his forehead. ‘It’s the kiddies in car-smashes I can’t bear.’

The doctor checks the pager at her waist, begins to hurry away. ‘I’m needed upstairs. It might be four after all, I’m afraid.’

So painful; so routine. The policemen look rueful, pondering life and death.

Then they move off, taking their list with them.

I walk round the corner and into the ladies’ loo.

I lean on the washbasin. The tears do not come yet; my eyes are so dry and sore it seems impossible. Instead, I splash my face with water; sink to the ground, back against the wall.

My best friend is dead. Emily is dead; and yet they think it is me.

I took her jacket. It was the nearest, hanging on the back of the hotel door. She’d woken me, almost crying; she had such a bad headache, she said, apologising, one of her migraines, could I bear to fetch her Migraleve from the car? Disoriented, half-asleep, I’d stumbled around, lost in the unfamiliar half-lit corridors, fumbling around in the dark car, not finding the blessed painkillers anyway – and then as I made my way back, to ask reception if they could help, the fire alarms went off. Shrill and brain-piercing.

The alarms went off – and I couldn’t get back into the room.

The door wouldn’t open.

I think the door was wedged shut. I banged my weight against it, but it would not give.

Perhaps they are wrong? Perhaps they have got her mixed up with someone else.

But I know they are right. She was wearing my necklace; the locket with ‘Laurie’ engraved on the back; it went with the peacock blue dress she wore at dinner. We have swapped jewellery and clothes since we met during our A levels. Last night we laughed about how the locket drew eyes downwards. Not that she needed any help.

‘You are bad, Laurie Smith,’ she said, as I prodded her bosom gently after fastening the necklace.

‘Not bad. Jealous,’ I said. ‘Polly did for me.’

And I know the bedroom door did not open. I was trying to open the bloody thing from outside and it was stuck. I was there, smashing my shoulder against it, until the heat forced me to run, to find someone to help.

But no one could help; no one came. The smoke was indefensible.

I stand again; I wash my face of the soot. My eyes look enormous in my pale face. Fragments of the terrible night are still filtering back to me.

Emily. My beloved Emily.

And the worst thing is, I know it shouldn’t have been her.

It was me they were after.

Everything adds up: the fear and stress of the past few months have led to this.

Staring in the mirror, I have a moment of clarity. She is giving me a chance. In death, as in life, my best friend is trying to protect me.

I have to go. Before they realise they are wrong. Before they realise I am still alive, and whoever wants me dead knows too.

I walk out, down the stairs, towards the daylight.

It was so hot. I don’t know what I was expecting but it wasn’t the intense sunshine that knocked us backwards as we stepped out of the airport building. Brightness that made us both scrunch our eyes against the glare.

‘Wow.’ Beneath the spike-topped palm trees I squeezed Polly’s hand tighter. ‘We’re going to get a brilliant sun-tan in this, aren’t we, Pol?’

The look she gave me was impressively disdainful for a six-year-old.

‘Sun-tanning isn’t good for you, Mummy. Just like cigarette-ing.’

‘Wow!’ I repeated, stumped. When did my daughter join the moral majority? My mother must have got to her.

Sid would be horrified.

Polly was fumbling around in her rucksack as I unlocked the tiny hire car and slung the bags in the boot.

‘All right?’

‘I am now,’ she agreed solemnly, placing pink heart-shaped sunglasses on the end of her snub nose. I hadn’t taken my own shades off for most of the flight in case anyone noticed my puffy eyes; mere slits in a pale and horribly woebegone face. I told Polly I was pretending to be a big star. She pondered this information for a moment.

‘Like Taylor Swift?’ she asked.

I had no idea who that was. ‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘Exactly like him.’

‘Her,’ she corrected.

‘Fabulous,’ I said now. I felt very far from fabulous; very far indeed. I put the car into gear; it took a massive bunny-hop forward. ‘Whoops! Sorry, Pol.’

‘That’s okay,’ she said kindly. ‘You can’t help being a rubbish driver.’

Shades of her father.

‘No, well,’ I wasn’t going to argue. I was all done with arguing. This was our new beginning. Tentatively I put the car into the correct gear. ‘Let’s go and have an adventure.’

The adventure would have started a lot earlier if it hadn’t taken me three laps to find the exit from the airport, and four attempts to find the right junction off the motorway, trying simultaneously to map read whilst also driving a left-handed Hyundai. But eventually, sometime around dusk, we wound our way up to the small white-washed town perched on the very top of the hill.

After a hair-raising episode squeezing the car through tiny Moorish streets so I could unload near the house I’d rented from my colleague Robert, during which time various Spanish men shouted at me a lot about things I chose not to understand, we finally reached our destination.

Unpacking, we marvelled at the pretty little house; at the lemons growing in the courtyard, the tiny marble pool just big enough to dunk yourself in. We bought eggs and bread and water from the shop at the end of the street and after supper, when it was cooler and I could breathe again, I bought Polly ice-cream at the bar in the square whilst I drank a cold beer. I clasped her solid little body against mine and thanked God she was here with me.

But when she went to bed that night, I sat beneath the lemon tree and opened a bottle of white Rioja and tried desperately not to succumb to the overwhelming sadness that I had felt for the past three and a half days; the past three and a half months. The past three and a half years.

I failed.

Lying on a sun-lounger in the dark, the sky a canopy of speckled silver above me, the sadness won.

The tears slid noiselessly down my face and collected in pools in my ears.

I had spent every last penny I had coming here; my refuge from him. I had saved Polly and myself – temporarily at least – so why did it feel so horrible and sad?

Because a great crack had been riven in me, one that could not be fixed or filled; not now, maybe never. I could pour the wine in, I could fill it with cigarette smoke – but the gap would still be there.

Desperately I searched the heavens for a shooting star to wish on. But that night, there were none.

9.00 AM

As I reach the ground floor, two nurses walk past.

‘Did you see the news crew outside earlier?’ one sniffs. ‘And the photographers. Bloody vultures.’

‘They offered Lisa McCormack fifty quid to tell them what state the bodies were in.’

Trying desperately not to imagine Emily now, or the condition she may well be in, I follow them through the swing doors, towards signs to the exit.

As the dawn predicted, it is a bland, colourless day here.

I don’t even know where here really is. Only the tiny sliver of sea I glimpsed from the windows upstairs says we are probably still in Devon.

‘Did she take it? The money?’

‘Joanne!’ The other nurse laughs, digs her friend hard in the ribs. ‘What do you think?’

‘What? She might have been tempted! We can’t all be angels.’

‘I think they’re bloody bastards.’ The nurse shudders. ‘Probably hacking everyone anyway. That’s what they do these days.’ Turning towards a ward, she offers Joanne something. ‘Polo?’

I need to catch my breath.

I sit on a chair in the corridor and try to think, but I am so tired and shocked, I can’t get my thoughts straight. I squeeze my head between my hands, attempting to force back memories.

Fear. I remember fear. Pure and unadulterated: believing I was about to die. About to suffocate in the smoke.

I stand and head towards the exit.

I am not meant to be here. I am meant to be dead. I know without any doubt that my life is in danger.

And crucially, most vitally: I have to reach Polly before hers is too.

I have to get somewhere safe before Sid arrives here. He has been so angry since I stopped him seeing Polly. I am sure this is to do with him somehow.

Because they will call Sid, undoubtedly. If they realise that I am not dead. That the body in the mortuary is Emily’s, not mine.

How long do I have?

I am not dressed for the cold outside, and I have no money.

At the end of the corridor a door swings open; in the main reception waiting-area, a television talks to itself in the corner.

The morning papers adorn the news-stand outside the little shop. I read a headline.

Blaze At Forest Lodge Spa Kills Three

My scalp prickles. I pick up the paper, my hand shaking almost uncontrollably. I scan the article.

Two victims of the Forest Lodge fire have been named as businessman Peter Graves and night porter Jeff Leigh. Two as-yet unnamed women are thought to have been the third and fourth victims; police are hoping to identify them today.

‘All right, love?’ the fat girl behind the counter looks worried. She is taking money from a man for a Kit-Kat; ringing it up in her till. ‘You look a bit wobbly.’

My mind is working furiously. The man thanks her and leaves. The till must be full of money. Her coat is over the back of the chair.

‘Actually, I don’t feel too good.’ I hold a hand to my head. I am not lying. ‘Could you fetch someone for me?’

She puffs up like a great robin redbreast in her scarlet jumper, validated by the task in hand. ‘Of course, my love, don’t you worry. You just sit there and rest.’

‘Thank you.’ I am treacherous.

She bustles off down the corridor. I glance around. At the information desk fifty feet away the receptionist is on the phone, oblivious to me. Otherwise it is eerily quiet.

Quickly I stand and press a few buttons. To my infinite relief the till opens immediately. I help myself to the notes: I wish my hand would stop shaking. I take the voluminous navy coat off the chair and wrap it round me. ‘Sorry,’ I mutter to no one. I hurry to the sliding doors, then outside, where the cold hits me.

At the tea-stall across the road, a small gaggle of photographers are gathered, cameras slung round their necks as they smoke and banter. I walk very fast to the taxi rank; I throw myself into the back of the first cab. At least my pyjama bottoms could almost pass for the latest trend of baggy trousers. Nevertheless, I pull the coat closer.

‘Can you take me to the nearest town please?’ It’s such an effort to speak, my voice is still barely more than a whisper.

They explained the pain in my throat was caused by smoke inhalation; they promised it would wear off gradually. But it hurts.

‘You’re in town, love.’ The driver glances at me as if I am mad. I probably do look like I’ve escaped the asylum.

‘Oh,’ I say, looking behind me. A multi-pierced teenager in a wheelchair and spotted dressing-gown smokes furiously beside the doors, but no one else goes in or out. ‘Of course. Can you take me to the nearest shopping centre then please?’

The driver sighs as if I’ve just asked him to take me to Timbuktu.

‘My bag got stolen,’ I offer.

He turns the radio up, pulls away, uninterested.

I have a sudden thought. ‘Actually, can you wait one minute?’

I get out and run to the photographers at the tea-stand. They look faintly amused at my dishevelled appearance; my hair all sticking up on end. One of them offers me a cigarette. ‘No,’ I shake my head. ‘I’d rather have a cup of tea. Did you hear the news?’

‘What news?’ the one with psoriasis perks up. Someone orders me a tea.

‘That artist’s wife. The famous one. Sid Smith.’

‘The one that did all that religious porn? Won the Booker prize?’

‘Turner Prize,’ I correct him absently.

‘Whatever,’ he scratches at his inflamed cheek. ‘So?’

‘His wife’s dead. Laurie Smith. In that fire.’ I turn to go.

‘Is she? In the Spa? Poor cow,’ he says. ‘He gave her the right old run-around, didn’t he?’

‘Did he?’ I feel shaky again.

‘Ran off with that singer.’ Someone hands me a cup of tea. ‘The young half-caste. Dead fit.’

‘Well, she’s dead and gone now.’ I take the tea. ‘Laurie Smith. Poor cow,’ I agree sadly.

But they have lost interest in me; already reaching for their phones, calling news-desks and editors.

I get into the car and, warming my cold hands on the cardboard cup, sit back for a moment. There are so many things I need to do, I don’t know which to do first. I need to speak to my mother, to make sure Polly is safe; I need to get clothes; I need to speak to Emily. She’ll know what to do.

I can’t speak to Emily.

Horror crawls through my head as realisation hits me afresh.

I can’t speak to Emily ever again.

My best friend is dead and I killed her: I might as well have done.

Inadvertent or not, I killed her: because it was meant to be me in that mortuary.

No one gets married thinking it’s going to fail.

Do they?

My wedding day was a start, I thought; the seal on something precious, a beginning, and the best day of my life, before Polly was born. On a hilltop on the south-eastern tip of Cornwall, overlooking a becalmed turquoise sea, I married the man I had fallen so deeply for the year before. We ate local lobster and chips off long trestle tables in the sun, and afterwards we had a party in Sid’s studio. We had no money but it didn’t matter: we decked it out with wild flowers, pinks and yellows and blues, and Emily twisted the same blooms through my loose hair. I wore a simple flowing silk dress, all bare feet and obvious euphoria, utterly lost to love.

‘You are beautiful,’ Sid whispered as we stood before the registrar but when I met his eyes – eyes the colour of the sea – he seemed distant, almost as if it hurt him to say as much.

I just held his hand tighter, my poor lost boy. I knew he was scared.

How scared, I didn’t realise yet.

‘I’ve never seen you so happy,’ Emily said. It was gallant, because I knew what she really felt. ‘Shame for the poor lobsters though. Pair for life, they do.’ She pulled a face at me, puffing out already-round cheeks. ‘Till you served them up as lunch.’

Typical Em. My mother, on the other hand, didn’t say anything. She just cast her eyes to heaven at my inappropriate hair and lack of shoes, but she too was high on adrenaline. Sid was most charming when he chose to be, and despite his lack of income, she’d decided eventually, and of her own accord, that his potential might be huge.

And the best thing was, everyone we loved was in that place. Apart from my father, who had refused to come. It was no surprise; I’d only asked him out of duty in the end.

On our wedding night, whilst people still danced to the local skiffle band and drank cheap rosé under a crescent moon, Sid took me out to the tumbledown old barn where he kept his motorbike and the sit-down lawnmower that had packed up the first time he’d used it. He pulled the tarpaulin off a painting that leant against the wall; a small oil I’d had no idea he’d been working on. I stood, speechless, staring at it.

It was a nude of me sleeping, curled safely in the middle of a bed.

‘Sid’s Bed’, he’d called the picture.

It turned out to be the one truly loving gesture of the entire relationship. That, and my eternity ring.

But I didn’t know that yet.

I loved that painting. Not through any kind of vanity but because, fool that I was, I thought it symbolised what I meant to him. Because I thought he saw me differently than anyone else had ever done. Truly, I couldn’t believe my luck. I’d married a man I believed was a true genius – and he loved me beyond all else.

I had lost myself entirely.

In the early hours, when everyone had finally left, Sid stood me in the middle of the darkened studio and studied me.

I had felt something building in him as the night had darkened; something I did not understand, but something that I was aware existed in him. Something I had glimpsed only once or twice before.

He reached forward and pulled the straps of my dress roughly from my shoulders until the dress fell in a puddle of silk r. . .