Page 51 of Runner 13

Adrienne

‘Stop!’ I scream, launching myself forward.

‘What?’ Matt uses the knife in his hands to slice through the bandage I’d tied round Mariam’s ankle, which is now in tatters. ‘This is crap. She needs to keep it as compressed as possible.’

‘Oh God – I, I saw the knife and …’

He frowns, folding the blade into its handle and tucking it back into his backpack. He pulls a roll of bandage from his pocket and rewraps Mariam’s ankle with care.

The wind howls through the open roof and I cover my face for a moment to protect it from the blast of sand. When it dies down, I rush to Mariam’s side. She’s staring at Matt, her eyes watery with pain. I wish I had something stronger to give her.

‘I know you,’ Mariam says to him.

‘Yeah. I’m the one Boones promoted. Some promotion, right? Now I’m stuck here in the middle of a storm.’

Mariam shakes her head. ‘No. I know you. You … I thought you were in prison.’

Matt’s face drains of colour and he snaps his hands away from her ankle as if burned.

‘Prison?’ I stare at him.

He doesn’t deny it, but calmly packs away his things. Then he shifts so he’s sitting next to Mariam, leaning back against the stone wall and closing his eyes. Now the edginess I felt is back with a vengeance. I subtly move my body so my hand is on my backpack. It’s up to me to keep us safe.

‘You don’t recognize me, do you?’ he asks me, opening his eyes again.

‘Should I?’ I gaze at his face. That’s when it hits me.

It’s not just the way he runs that is familiar.

There’s something about his mannerisms and in the amber flecks of his brown eyes, almost a reflection of the desert outside.

I’ve only known one person with eyes like that.

‘It’s not possible,’ I whisper. ‘Coach Glenn?’

‘It’s his son,’ says Mariam.

‘In the flesh,’ he says.

‘But …’

‘But he never told you he had a son? I know. His runners were his children. Forget about the real family he abandoned.’

I still can’t believe it. ‘So why were you in prison?’ I ask, wondering if I even want to know the answer.

He closes his eyes. ‘I killed someone.’

I swallow. The casual way he says it sends a shudder down my spine. I’ve never felt so small.

Matt sees the fear in my eyes and sighs.

‘You know what my mama said when your social media post came out? “Finally.” Finally. As if she had expected it. But my dad was my hero. I couldn’t believe it.

So when the Spanish police let him go with no charges, I felt vindicated.

You had lied. Mama flew into a rage. She couldn’t believe he’d got away with it again, and she wouldn’t listen to me when I said that the police had no proof.

Innocent until proven guilty, right? I couldn’t stay in the house with her.

I flew back to the UK to be with my dad.

I had to tell him I believed him. Except when I showed up at his house, he was already dead.

I went out of my mind. I blamed you. I knew you were running in that local race, so I went to the finishing line.

I shouted at you. I wanted to hurt you.’

‘I heard,’ I say, my mouth dry. The anger in his voice is still there, seven years later. ‘So then you panicked and stole some guy’s car and –’

‘Then I went to the pub. Got absolutely bladdered, got aggy with the wrong crowd, punched a guy. Guess I hit him in the wrong place, because he died. One wrong punch and that was it. Got fourteen years for manslaughter.’

Every muscle in my body is still. He’s still got the knife in his hand. He’s playing with it, opening and closing the blade, like a nervous twitch. I tighten my grip on my backpack.

‘Fourteen years. You should still be inside. How did you get out?’ Mariam’s breathing is heavy, laboured, her voice raspy.

‘I served half my sentence, then was released on licence. Broke the conditions by coming to Morocco, of course, and I had to ask some dodgy people for help getting here. But I had to come. God, Dad was obsessed with these races, wasn’t he? I mean, you know better than me.’

‘I guess …’

‘He always wanted to coach a winner. You were supposed to be it, Adri. He loved you far more than me.’

I glance down at my watch. We activated Mariam’s beacon over an hour ago. It can’t be much longer until help arrives. Even with the storm. I need to keep him talking. ‘That can’t be true.’

‘How many times did he mention me then?’

Never. He never mentioned a son. ‘Well, we didn’t talk much about our personal lives. He was focused on the training …’

‘And other things,’ mutters Mariam.

I glance at Mariam. I catch the edge in her tone. Seems like Matt does too.

Matt jumps on it. ‘That. That . People worshipped my dad. But then you came out and accused him –’ He points at me. ‘But he didn’t assault you, did he?’

I don’t know where to look, what to say. It feels like I’ve got my foot on a trigger point and that if I say the wrong thing, it all has the potential to explode. But I’m done with lying. ‘No, he didn’t.’

The air is completely still. ‘In fact, he dropped you from his team. So why lie? To get back at him?’

I shake my head. Behind my eyes, I can still hear the sound of her scream. See her distraught face. Feel her tears on my cheek. ‘He didn’t assault me . But he was not innocent,’ I say.

‘Then tell me: what really happened out there? I’ve come all this way, run this hard, just to find out. I have to know the truth.’ His voice drops to a whisper. ‘I have to.’

I think back to that night. Yasmin ended her life because of what happened. My heart is broken all over again. I look into Matt’s eyes and I can see that he is searching for answers. I know that feeling.

I take a deep breath. I’ve never told the whole story. But Matt needs to know who his father was.

‘Glenn had been my coach for two years. I’d known about him for a long time – he was local to me.

You couldn’t be a runner in Yorkshire and not know about the Knight Academy, and we’d often train on the same fells.

When he asked me to join his roster, it felt like the invitation of a lifetime.

And honestly, I trusted him completely. He honed my natural running style and made me a champion.

Racing goals I’d thought were out of reach, suddenly became possible.

I was standing on more podiums, breaking more records, feeling fitter and stronger than ever.

He organized my whole life – my training schedule, my sleep, my nutrition.

He even made his own special blends of recovery formula. ’

‘I remember that! He wanted to market them.’

Mariam shudders.

I catch her eye. She knows. How? But that’s a question for later.

‘Other runners were begging to join him, but he was so selective. Exclusive even. In the winter he’d station himself at this gorgeous luxury sports hotel in Ibiza and run a training camp.

Yet that one – the one where it all went wrong – was special.

My week there was meant to elevate me to the next level.

My goal was the course record of the Yorkshire 100, but Glenn was hyper focused on getting a female runner to win an Ampersand race.

It was like the missing trophy on his cabinet.

There were five of us – all women – all training with that goal.

’ I swallow. ‘One of the runners was Yasmin El Mehdi. She was nineteen, driven, strong, just absolutely loved running – bursting with raw talent. Her strength was her determination. Nothing could put her off. I noticed Glenn’s extra attention on her, but I didn’t think much about it.

I didn’t think he would act inappropriately.

His whole professional reputation was at stake.

‘But towards the end of the camp, I knew I wasn’t interested in an Ampersand race.

He got so angry. I’d never seen him like that before.

Told me I’d wasted his time. Called me useless, talentless, nothing without him …

So you’re right: Glenn dropped me – and he was mean about it.

But weirdly, I didn’t blame him. In his eyes I was quitting and he didn’t coach quitters.

I was wracked with guilt and shame, begged him to let me stay on. But he refused.

‘Then he turned his attention to Yasmin. She was his new golden girl. He’d asked her to stay for private coaching.

Everyone else left. Even her sister. I had a bad feeling.

Maybe part of me knew something was wrong with him, but I’d never had the guts to admit it to myself.

I got to the airport but I couldn’t do it.

I turned round, went back to the hotel and got my old room back.

I stayed out of Glenn’s way. I didn’t want him to know I was still on the island.

‘I spent the whole of the next day berating myself for being paranoid. But the next night, I heard a scream from the room next to mine. I was frantic. At first I thought I’d imagined it.

I opened my door, listening. I didn’t hear anything more, but I couldn’t let it go.

I banged on her door until she answered.

‘As soon as I saw her, I knew. I wanted to confront Glenn right then and there. But she begged me not to. I told her we should go to the hospital. She didn’t want that either.

All she wanted was someone to hear her. To listen.

She told me what happened: how Glenn had come in in the middle of the night – their rooms had connecting doors.

He thought she was passed out – it turns out, he’d been drugging her with his recovery formula.

But it had made her feel so nauseous that she hadn’t taken it that night. But he raped her anyway.’