‘Will Mum and Dad be cross?’ The whites of Marie’s wide eyes were bright in the silver moonlight that pushed through a gash in the roof.
‘Of course not,’ Carly said. ‘They’ll have been horribly worried but this hasn’t been our fault, any of it.’ But even if that was the truth it felt like a lie. She blamed herself endlessly. If only she hadn’t let the twins play with the ball in the garden, if only she had been the one to shut the gate.
If only, if only, if only.
‘Come now.’ Marie and Leah both slipped a hand inside hers, their palms slick with fear. They padded across the room. The rain slipped inside the building and puddled on the ground, but Carly barely noticed as her socks absorbed the water.
They were going home to dry socks. Dry clothes. Food.
Love.
At the doorway she hesitated. Which way? If she turned left she could lead them out the way they came in, but was that the way the men had gone? Unlike the other buildings Carly hadn’t seen any windows that they could climb out of, which was a shame. But they could fit through spaces the men couldn’t. Carly didn’t know if there was another exit and she didn’t want to waste time searching. She retraced their steps, all the while her chest painfully tight, her throat clogged with the scream she kept trying to swallow back down, but her mouth was so dry. They were tantalizingly close to freedom but still light years away.
‘We’re nearly outside,’ she whispered and the thought was both terrifying and reassuring. Fingers tightened around hers as they passed through the corridor where the roof was intact – the blackness swallowing them – and then they were in the shower block. The shower heads bent towards them cackling – you’ll never escape-you’ll never escape. For a split second the room was bright with fluorescent light. Soldiers in the showers rinsing off blood, stumps where their arms should be, crimson water trickling towards the drain…
Carly whimpered.
‘Are you okay?’ Marie’s whisper yanked Carly back to the now where there were no wounded soldiers, no blood, but the fear – the threat of death – was just as real as though it had hung suspended in the air for years, waiting to be reignited.
Waiting for them.
‘Move.’ Carly’s panic lent her feet a sense of urgency. If she had to spend another minute in this place the strands of the past would reach out and wrap around her neck, slip down her throat, trapping her here for eternity. She wouldn’t become a ghost.
A full stop.
She was a comma.
This wasn’t the end, although in that moment it felt like it.
Abandon hope all ye who enter here.
They were almost at the exit. She could make out the door.
And that’s when it happened.
Her shoeless foot landed on something sharp and cutting.
The pain sliced through her skin.
She screamed.
The distant shout told her she’d been heard.
They were coming.
Carly sobbed openly now.
Abandon hope all ye who enter here.
Her eyes slid from the graffiti to the hatches – CONTAMINATED SHOES, CONTAMINATED CLOTHES.
They could fit through spaces the men couldn’t.
She released her sisters and sprang forward. Her hands closed over the round metal handle, felt the roughness of the rust as it crumbled. She yanked as hard as she could.
‘Come on.’
Her slippery palm lost its grip.
‘Come on!’ She tugged again. It didn’t move. She tried the next hatch, waited for the feel of hot breath on her neck, a hand to clamp on her shoulder, fingers to squeeze her throat. ‘Open!’
A sudden pop. She fell backwards as the small door opened, shockwaves of pain ricocheting up her spine. She scrambled to her feet. They were almost out of time, she knew.
But Leah had already sensed what she was about to do. Was already offering a leg up to Marie, who was protesting, ‘No. No. We have to stay together.’
‘Fucking move!’ Carly shouted, her fingers gripping Marie’s school jumper and hefting her off the floor, shoving her through the gap. Leah was easier, desperate to follow her twin whose screams were fading. The bear she’d been clutching tumbled to the floor but Carly didn’t stop to pick him up.
‘Oi!’
The men clattered into the room. Arms outstretched to grab her. Without hesitating Carly hurled herself through the hatch head first.
She was plummeting down the chute into darkness.
Into fiery hot pain.
Into nothing.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Leah
Now
I have shed my usual jeans and T-shirt in favour of smart black trousers and a white shirt, wanting to look capable and in control, even if I don’t feel it. Each time my confidence abates, I recall how it felt when I believed Archie had been snatched earlier and my resolve hardens. The second George comes home I am going to the Dog and Duck to see if he is there. If he is I’m going to warn him that he’s gone too far. He ruined my life and I sent him back to prison the last time he was out.
Tit for tat.
I would set him up again if it weren’t for Archie. Now I have too much to lose. Nothing is comparable with what he put me through. We’re not even by a long way but it has to stop. When he was a threat to me I was scared. Now he’s involved my son I’m furious. The teddy had brought it all back. Not only the child I was then, but the child I had been before. The one who laughed and danced and didn’t know what if felt like to feel afraid. I want to be her again. I am stepping out of the quicksand of my past and planting my feet firmly in the present.
George’s car pulls onto the drive. I gather my bravado and my keys. I am out of the door before he is in it.
‘Where are you going?’ he asks.
‘Tash’s.’
Worry pinches the bridge of his nose into a crease.
‘Don’t go to Tash’s, Leah. Stay in and we’ll—’
‘I’ll be fine. I am fine.’ I zap my car open and climb inside. While the engine turns over I retune the radio, searching for a Nineties show but the songs are all unfamiliar to me. Too modern.
Instead I call up Spotify- and Bluetooth-courage into my car.
‘5, 6, 7, 8.’
Carly and Marie are with me. Together we will end this.
The Dog and Duck is on a main road and I have to park around the corner. I hurry to the entrance, my heart racing as I step across the alley next to the pub, remembering the arms that snatched me. My terror as I was dragged away from my twin. My helplessness as I watched Carly being roughly shoved in the back of the van. I am sinking once more. A figure moves in the shadows. I glance down the gloomy walkthrough. Graffitied on the fence is a clown. The clown. His shock of orange hair and menacing grin unsettling me they way it did in that room. I dash into the pub. Throwing open doors that clatter my arrival.
The barman glances at me before turning his attention back to the football on the widescreen TV. It’s gritty underfoot as I walk to the bar. The smell of chips lingers in the air. Now I’m here I don’t quite know what to do. My nerves scream for a vodka but I haven’t brought my own glass. Even if I had, I wouldn’t be able to drink anything here. Despite the overpowering stench of cheap toilet cleaner, the place looks as though it hasn’t been cleaned for years. Still, I can’t stay if I don’t spend some money so I approach the scratched bar, avoiding leaning my forearms against the surface.