A Window Breaks

by C. M. Ewan

  ‘Tom?’

  I looked up and almost fell back.

  Oh God.

  Holly was coated in blood. So much of it. Her pink pyjama top was drenched red and ruffled up on one side, adhered to her skin. Holly touched a hand to her tummy. It came away coated in blood.

  ‘Holly?’ My voice sounded funny.

  She raised her head, bewildered, and Rachel peeled up her pyjama top until we could see blood oozing from the left side of her abdomen. I teetered. Rachel smeared the area with a towel. There was a hole about the size of a penny just below Holly’s ribs. Blood squirmed out of the puckered hole, dark and thick, dribbling down.

  ‘It’s some kind of puncture wound,’ Rachel said.

  She let go of Holly’s top and snatched up her backpack. I rushed forwards and picked up the coat Holly had been wearing. I fed the material through my hands. Looking. Looking. There. The ragged hole I’d seen earlier. The puff of white stuffing. I poked my finger through the hole and showed it to Rachel.

  ‘Do you remember being hit?’ I asked.

  ‘No.’

  I felt a ringing cold in my head. ‘What about when the men shot at us?’

  ‘Is that what this is? Have I been shot, Mum?’

  Rachel gave me a hard look. I could tell she wanted me to back off. She didn’t want me to upset Holly more. But I was scared out of my mind.

  I stared at my finger poking through the hole in the coat and felt my darkest fears sweep inside the room as Rachel used the pair of nail scissors to snip away Holly’s top.

  ‘How’s your breathing?’ she asked.

  Holly stared forwards without answer.

  ‘Holly. Your breathing.’

  ‘Um. OK. I think.’

  ‘Any pain? Any flaring in your lungs?’

  ‘It hurts a bit now. I didn’t notice before. I was kind of numb.’

  Rachel snapped on plastic gloves, tore open a sterile pad and pressed it to the wound. Holly sucked air through her teeth. Blood bubbled out over the pad and trickled over Rachel’s fingers. She increased the pressure. This time Holly whined.

  ‘Lean back against the sink behind you,’ Rachel said. ‘Tom, open me more pads. Those ones. The big one. And wipes.’

  I dropped the coat and did as Rachel told me. My hands were shaking. My ears whistled. I felt faint.

  ‘Holly, listen to me.’ Rachel took hold of her wrist with her spare hand and felt for her pulse. ‘If you start to feel queasy, or different in any way, you tell us, OK?’

  ‘OK.’

  Rachel looked at me. ‘I don’t think she’s been shot,’ she said, in a low voice. ‘A tiny bit of shrapnel, maybe, but I doubt it. Her pulse is fast but I’d expect that right now.’

  I wiped my hand across my mouth and nodded back. I was thinking of the tree trunk that had burst with splinters when we’d dived away from the gate. Had a fragment of wood pierced her side?

  ‘It could be a branch jabbed you when we were in the woods,’ Rachel said to Holly. ‘Or maybe a stone or rock when we were in the water?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I saw the hole in this coat before we went into the sea.’

  ‘So probably a stick then. That’s all. OK?’

  Rachel pulled the bloodied pad away and immediately pressed another to Holly’s side. The bleeding didn’t seem to have let up at all. I didn’t know how much blood she’d lost, but I was starting to wonder if that was why she looked so pale.

  I tried to catch Rachel’s eye for some indication of how serious this really was, but she kept avoiding me and focused on Holly instead.

  ‘You’re going to be fine,’ Rachel told her. ‘I’m going to patch you up for now and we’ll keep an eye on it. OK?’

  Holly nodded vaguely.

  ‘Tom, I’m going to need your help.’

  I did what I could. Mostly I passed Rachel things. The sterile pad she stuck to Holly’s side made her look like she’d been patched up after a shark bite. Fresh blood began to bloom through the gauze dressing, but the plastic coating on the outside held it in.

  Rachel and I worked together to dry Holly and dress her in her clothes from the tumble dryer while she kept pressure on the dressing herself. When we were done, we put on our own clothes. Holly watched us, swaying, gripping hold of the sink with one hand and her side with the other. I got her into her wellington boots and put on her outdoor coat. Then I pulled on my own boots, not bothering to lace them, and shrugged on my coat. Rachel was the last to get her coat on over her sweater and pull on her boots, abandoning her soaked running shoes. She passed me her backpack and I slipped it over my shoulders before wrapping Buster in our last two towels and lifting him again.

  ‘Ready?’ I whispered.

  Holly closed her eyes and nodded, like she might be about to pass out. Rachel locked her gaze on me, her eyes focused and intense. Behind her, the floor was a mess of bloodied medical supplies and saturated clothing.

  ‘We’ll get to the phone,’ I said. ‘We’ll call for help. Then we’ll find somewhere to hide. OK, Holly?’

  ‘OK, Dad.’

  I flashed her a fleeting smile, trying to mask the terror that was weighing me down. All I wanted to do right then was rush her to a hospital, get her to A&E. I thought of the blood trickling out of her side. How much could she lose before she got really ill? How much had she lost already? I wanted to ask Rachel those questions, but not in front of Holly.

  Rachel took the mop from under the handle and cracked open the door.

  Silence on the other side.

  I stuck my head out. The corridor was empty. Cradling Buster to me – like an oversized baby swaddled in towels – I swept out to my right, towards the kitchen and the landline phone and the controls for the main gate.

  I took four, maybe five, steps with Rachel and Holly close behind me, then glanced to my left.

  And froze.

  My heart thumped once, very hard, then tried to thrash its way out of my chest.

  Through the bars of light towards the bottom of the floating staircase I could see a pair of legs in white coveralls. Blue rubber boots.

  Oh no.

  One of the men was inside with us.

  I spun back, shaking my head wildly, my eyes wide with fear. I jutted with my chin back along the corridor and watched as Rachel flinched, then yanked Holly to one side. I darted by them, leading the way, the corridor tilting and lurching in my vision.

  The door with the glass porthole in it was directly ahead. I hoisted Buster onto my shoulder and snatched it open.

  And froze a second time.

  Terror ripped through me.

  The bigger man was at the far side of the pool room. He was stepping through the shattered glass door in his white plastic suit with the handgun in his gloved fist, looking down at the ground and inspecting the drifts of broken glass.

  Something – some strange, cosmic tether – made him look up in that exact moment. He saw me and did a double-take, his eyes widening in surprise above his mask. Then he jerked his head back, straightened his shoulders and bellowed, ‘THEY’RE HERE!’

  I swung around, horror clawing at my heart. Rachel’s face was stiff and strained. Holly’s eyes were two dark pools of nothingness.

  In the light at the end of the corridor, the smaller man skidded to a halt at the threshold of the kitchen. His rubber soles squeaked on the timber flooring. He dropped the torch and raised the shotgun in both hands.

  Rachel whirled around to look at him. Then she swung back and tugged on Holly’s arm, pulling her to her left, knocking into me as she ran.

  ‘This way,’ she screamed.

  I saw the smaller man raise the shotgun as if in slow motion. The muzzle came up past his knees, his thighs, his waist, like it was moving through water, taking a long, long time to be pointed at me.

  I swivelled through air thick with friction and watched as the bigger man swung his gun arm forwards, his other arm back, bearing down on his front leg like a sprinter leaving the blocks, his back
foot slipping on glass.

  I was already leaning to my left. Already shifting my weight. Already pumping my knees and rocking my shoulders with Buster in my arms.

  But the smaller man didn’t shoot and, as I tore along the dog-legged corridor after my wife and daughter, I thought I knew why. He was afraid of hitting his partner. And all that was ahead of us was the library. A dead end. A trap.

  I crashed into the narrow glass panel at the end of the corridor, bounced sideways and stumbled down the stairs into the reading nook.

  And saw something I couldn’t process right away.

  Rachel was bent at the waist, her hands clutching at a central bookshelf, her feet spread shoulder-width apart and digging into the ground like she was trying to pull the shelf down on top of her. Maybe, in desperation, she was thinking of hiding under it.

  But no, the shelf didn’t fall. She heaved and grimaced until it swung out and opened on a tight, controlled arc.

  Because it was a concealed door. And behind it was another door. Glossy white. A soft, metallic gleam. Centred in the middle of the door was an electronic keypad.

  I felt myself teeter again.

  ‘Wine cellar,’ Rachel panted.

  She punched in a fast code. Six digits.

  I heard a muted beep. Then the door buzzed and dropped on its hinges and Rachel threw her weight against it. The door smashed open. Deep gloom on the other side.

  Rachel reached back out for Holly and yanked her in.

  I hesitated a second longer, then stumbled in after them and tripped down a short flight of concrete steps with Buster in my arms. Rachel streaked up past me and slammed the metal door closed behind us.

  The door was many inches thick. At least three bolts slammed home with rapid, percussive clunks.

  I shuddered. There was a sudden hard clang against the door. It sounded like the smaller man was hammering on the metal with the butt of his shotgun.

  All around us, automatic lights twitched on, flicking glare and shadow around the cellar. I flinched and turned with Buster in my arms, taking in the subterranean, oak-lined space and the bottles of wine gleaming in the dazzle. There had to be 500 bottles in here. They were shelved in an elaborate, hexagonal racking system. Like the walls of a beehive.

  Blood pounded in my ears. Hot sweat broke out across my back and scalp.

  Behind me, Rachel groaned and hung her head at the top of the steps, the flat of her hand pressed against the back of the door.

  The smaller man was still battering on it. But now it sounded like the bigger man had joined him and was kicking it too. The door was sturdy and the metal was almost thick enough to muffle the sounds of their attack.

  ‘Mum?’ Holly touched spread fingers to her mouth and took a step backwards, her other hand still clutched to her dressing under her coat. ‘How did you know this was here? Brodie didn’t show us this. How did you know the code?’

  I stared at Rachel. She was holding her head in her hands, tugging at the roots of her hair, groaning more.

  Amid the shock and fear and confusion of the past several seconds, I’d been asking myself the same thing.

  And the answer, when it came, hit me like a punch to the throat.

  Rachel had lied to us.

  This wasn’t her first trip to Lionel’s lodge.

  The haulage truck thunders towards them. The mighty cab is an abrupt wall of steel and glass. The tarpaulin at the side shimmers in the dark.

  The truck’s headlights blare. Its horn moans.

  And still Michael doesn’t move.

  The driver is a big man. Wide shoulders, bull neck, thick arms. The steering wheel sways and chatters in his hands. Like there’s somewhere to go. Anywhere to go. The terror on his face is shocking to see.

  ‘Michael!’

  Fiona’s scream is an ice pick in his ear. She grabs for the wheel and the Audi rocks and sways.

  Michael shoves her away. Harder than he means to.

  Headlamps slam into the truck driver’s eyes. Full beam. Something the driver will remember. Something he definitely won’t forget.

  ‘Michael!’

  He’s played chicken before. On bikes when he was a kid. Once on a train track.

  He knows that to win you have to wait longer . . . longer . . .

  The truck driver brakes and locks his arms for impact.

  And Michael tugs at the wheel, feathering the brake.

  The Audi lurches, the truck horn blares again and then there is the rush and thunder of the truck slamming by. The shimmy of moving air.

  The empty road ahead.

  31

  ‘It’s not what you think, Tom.’

  The men stopped attacking the door. The thick cellar walls seemed to amplify the quiet all around us. The cellar had an airless, muted quality. Like being sealed inside a vault.

  I stared at Rachel. Buster hung heavy in my arms. All my strength seemed to just . . . leave me. Like I was wilting. Fading. Blinking out.

  I shook my head, edging backwards, as Rachel moved down the steps in her big outdoor coat and her hiking boots, pushing her hair out of her face and tucking it behind her ears. Holly was standing to my side but, for the moment at least, Rachel’s attention was fixed only on me. She tipped her head to one side. Her eyes were swollen with tears.

  ‘None of this is going to be easy for you to hear, Tom. I’m really sorry about that.’

  My heart crumbled. My breathing had grown funny. The room didn’t spin or tilt, nothing like that, but I had a sensation like everything had become hyperreal. The colours in the room seemed too bright. The details too sharp. My hearing too acute.

  The situation too real.

  ‘I’m going to tell you everything I can, I promise. But first I want you to know – I want you both to know – that this room is safe. There’s no way those men can get in here.’

  ‘I don’t get it, Mum. How do you know?’

  ‘Because Lionel’s wine collection is worth hundreds of thousands. The security system is state of the art.’

  ‘Great.’ Holly moved over to the wall of wine bottles behind me and slumped to the ground. She pulled the hood of her coat up over her head. ‘Then I guess that means we’re stuck in here.’

  I swallowed and stared at Rachel. I felt like I was looking at a completely different person.

  ‘You’ve been here before?’ I asked her.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘With Lionel?’

  A slight pause. ‘Yes.’

  ‘What about Brodie?’

  ‘He was here too.’

  ‘Mum! I thought you didn’t know him!’

  I felt as if Rachel had cracked open my chest, reached in through my ribs, taken my heart in her hand and squeezed.

  She raised her eyes and watched me, her pupils flicking left to right very fast, like she was trying to gauge my response. I had no idea what my response should be. I felt overwhelmed by what she was telling me. By everything, really.

  ‘When?’

  ‘Just over three weeks ago.’

  I nodded, numbed. Just over three weeks ago was the weekend when Rachel was supposed to have been at the spa hotel that had had no record of her stay. If she’d been here instead, it explained why I hadn’t been able to get hold of her because her phone would have been out of signal.

  But why had she come?

  I shook my head and turned around slowly. The wine bottles shimmered and gleamed in the hard, bright light. The oak shelving was ornate and expertly fitted. Down on the ground, a handful of wooden wine boxes had been stacked on top of one another. The temperature was noticeably chill and much cooler than the rest of the lodge. There were no windows and only the one door. I remembered seeing how some of the earth had been banked up against the fieldstone walls on this side of the property. It made me wonder how deep underground we were.

  Details, you see, can help. Details can be a distraction. But no distraction could last as long as I wanted this one to.

  ‘Tom.’ Rachel
tugged on the sleeve of my coat until I faced her again. Her soft brown eyes were edged with pink. ‘I love you. I’ve always loved you. You might not want to hear that right now but it’s true. And you might not want to hear this, either, but everything that has happened here tonight is because of how much I love you.’

  I shook my head, feeling my throat close up.

  ‘It’s true, Tom.’

  She took a step nearer, peeled back the towels from around Buster and checked his breathing and his pupil response. She was so close I could feel the warmth of her breath on my hand, but I’m not sure we’d ever been so far apart.

  ‘You know me,’ she whispered. ‘Remember that.’

  Did I?

  I honestly didn’t know any more.

  I was just about to tell her so when a faint, shrill, beeping noise made me jump. It had come from behind the metal door. Fear vibrated inside me. I heard Holly catch her breath. It sounded like one of the buttons had been pressed on the electronic keypad on the outside.

  ‘They can’t get in here,’ Rachel said again.

  There was another faint beep. And a third.

  ‘Daddy?’

  Holly looked up at me from inside her hood. Her face was drawn, her skin waxy. I moved towards her and laid Buster down on the ground next to her, resting his head on her lap. Then I pulled a bottle of wine from one of the racks, took up a position in front of Holly and raised the bottle over my shoulder like a club.

  My body quaked.

  The men entered a fourth and a fifth digit.

  Rachel faced the door, her arms out at her sides, fingers flexing.

  A sixth shrill beep.

  Please, no.

  My stomach clenched. I waited for the locking mechanism to release. For the handle to turn and the door to drop on its hinges and crash open. For the men to bundle inside with their guns raised.

  ‘I’m scared,’ Holly whispered.

  I reached back for her hand.

  Then there was a sudden odd, discordant buzzing, followed by muffled swearing and the thud of the door being kicked or punched. A red diode started blinking on a control panel just inside the door.