by C. M. Ewan
‘I don’t know where she is.’ Rachel sagged at my side.
I grabbed for her and held her up, staring into the trees. I felt helpless. Lost. Unsure what to do.
Then a deep, bass woof exploded through the night and Buster broke out from the woods to the south. He bounded, lopsided, towards us, his tongue hanging out.
My heart burst. The moment he saw us, Buster skidded to a halt, his claws scrabbling for grip on the decking. He wheeled around and barked some more, looking back over his shoulder as he raced again for the trees.
We sprinted after him. I didn’t know whether to hope or not. It seemed like too big a risk. Because, maybe, if I prepared myself for the worst. If I braced myself for it . . .
No, there could be no shielding myself from this.
All we could do was run into the inky black. The forest floor was dense and spiky under my stockinged feet. My soaked clothes clung to my skin. I held on to Rachel and dragged her along beside me. Sometimes Buster was visible in faint splashes of moonlight. Mostly we tracked him by sound.
To the pod.
It stood alone and quiet by the raging coast. The trees overhead teetered and groaned. The pod’s silvered surface shone darkly. I shivered in the cold.
Buster was silhouetted on a massive boulder close to the shoreline, standing bow-legged and quivering.
‘All right, boy. All right.’
We scrambled over the rocks towards him, into the streaking wind. The pod wouldn’t give up its secrets to us from the outside. The mirrored surface meant there was no way to see in. The raging sea clawed and pawed at the slipway, and I thought, with a deeper judder, of how Holly had fallen in earlier.
‘If anything has happened to her . . .’ Rachel tugged on the sleeve of my coat, biting her lip. ‘I’ll never forgive myself, Tom. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. For everything. I just want her to be safe.’
I stared at her, feeling my insides contract.
‘It’s OK,’ I told her. ‘We have the gun. It’s going to be OK, Rachel.’
Buster bumped the back of my calf, nudging me on.
‘All right, Buster. We’re going.’
We clambered down onto the flooded slipway. Waves rushed in. The black water rose over our knees and slapped and echoed against the dank concrete foundations of the pod.
‘Look.’
I followed Rachel’s finger to where the timber door was hanging wildly askew. A crater of brickwork had been blown into the wall next to the latch. A splintered chunk of the door was missing.
From a shotgun blast?
My mind raced. We’d only heard one shot. Had this been it?
Light spilled out from beyond the door. I aimed the pistol ahead of me, my arm jolting and drifting. We ventured in.
A sleek timber staircase wound around tightly to the right. I looked up, leading with the gun. The staircase was narrow and steep. There was more light spill from a doorway at the top. No sound. No movement. No sign of Holly. Just the soft yellow light and a creeping fear that whispered in my ear: She’s dead. You’ve lost her.
I climbed. The barrel of the pistol bounced and swayed. Sweat greased my palm. Rachel followed, her hand on my shoulder, her breath on my neck.
Please let her be alive. I’ll do anything if she’s alive. I don’t think I can cope if . . .
One quick step took me in through the doorway. The world opened up overhead. The pod was walled in one-way glass. Mirrored on the outside. Clear on the inside. The effect was disabling, like walking out onto a ledge in the sky. On a starry night it would be spectacular. Like floating through space. Right now, with the storm clouds gathered low overhead, the effect was more oppressive.
‘Don’t move.’
The voice came from behind me.
Rachel bumped into my back.
‘I said, don’t move.’
Fear scattered across my body. The voice was male. Tight with stress.
Something metallic and solid had been rammed under my jaw, forcing my head up at a crunching angle. The muzzle of a shotgun, I thought.
‘Tom?’ Rachel whined.
‘Shut up,’ the voice barked. ‘You. Hold that gun out. Slowly.’
My bones turned to lead. I swallowed awkwardly against the obstruction in my throat and did exactly as the voice told me, but it seemed to take all my strength to lift my arm.
‘And you.’ Rachel stumbled past me, almost falling to the ground. The man must have pushed her. ‘Take it from him. Go over to that window. Throw it outside.’
Rachel hesitated.
‘Mum, please, just do what he says.’
Holly.
Relief quivered through me. I tried to turn to her. But the man used the shotgun muzzle to lever my chin even higher. My neck strained. I went up on my toes in an attempt to ease the pain. It was horrible. I wanted so badly to see that Holly was OK.
‘Listen to your daughter,’ the man said. ‘Open the window. Throw the gun out. Do it now. I won’t tell you again.’
Rachel’s jaw trembled as she reached for the gun. She took it from me with a look of pinched apology and crossed to a slanted, glazed panel with an aluminium bar at the bottom. There was a telescope on a tripod close by. Rachel pressed down on the bar and opened the window. Black sea glittered beneath.
A flick of her hand and the gun was gone. I heard a faint splash. It seemed to ripple inside my stomach.
‘Turn around,’ the voice said.
Rachel swivelled and stared. A shudder passed through her. Then her eyes jinked to her left, my right, and I could tell from the sudden softening of her face and the tears that brimmed over in her eyes that she was looking at Holly.
Then her pupils flickered once more. Her gaze darted on around the room. And something changed. A sudden, dire confusion twisted her brow.
I felt a jolt of panic.
What’s wrong? What’s she seen?
‘Take a seat,’ the man growled.
Rachel didn’t move. She just stared.
‘I said, Take a seat.’
‘Mum, seriously. Listen to him.’
The man drove the shotgun even harder into my throat. I gargled and scrabbled against the glass. Finally, Rachel got the message and edged forwards.
‘Now you,’ he said. ‘Turn around.’
51
The panels of one-way glass shone with a dim lustre as I swivelled, stiff-necked, with my arms up in a position of surrender. The muzzle of the shotgun slid around to nestle at the base of my skull. I wobbled. The horizon see-sawed in front of me.
A new segment of room and sky swung into view. The moonlit sea swamped the coast. The trees thrashed outside. Then I saw Holly and something collapsed inside of me. It was a struggle to stay upright and hold it together. She was sitting on an old velour sofa, hugging her knees to her chest. There were tear tracks on her face.
Rachel lowered herself in stages into the seat next to her. She reached for Holly’s hand but Holly shirked away. I saw Rachel flinch and readjust. Holly’s reaction had stung her.
‘Move.’
The shotgun prodded into me, forcing me to bend at the waist. But not before I’d spied the bank of monitors fitted into the space behind the sofa. My heart flipped over. They looked just like the monitors inside the wine cellar. With one difference. These monitors were working.
Eight bright, flickering screens. Eight fuzzy images from inside and outside the lodge. A slanted desktop was fitted beneath them with a set of controls embedded in it. The controls featured dials and sliders that reminded me of the kind of set-up a film editor might use.
What the hell?
I stared at the monitors, light bouncing back off the glass. One screen showed an angle on the swimming pool shot from above the sauna. I could see the dead man floating in the water and Brodie sitting propped against the wall. Another monitor featured a wide shot of the main living area, empty apart from the plastic sheeting and the sports holdalls. The camera in the kitchen showed the broken window abo
ve the sink and the open door to the pantry. It wasn’t possible to see the bigger man’s corpse. An icy shiver gushed down my spine. Had Rachel made a mistake? Had he survived? Was he holding the shotgun on me now?
My stomach cramped. I tried to keep the fear at bay and focus on what I was seeing but it was difficult to wrap my head around. Other monitors showed the interior of the wine cellar and Rachel’s bedroom. Outside, there was an infrared shot of the gravel yard with Brodie’s abandoned Land Cruiser in it, one door open at the rear, and the carport with our Volvo slumped low. Lastly, there was a shot from among the trees aimed up the driveway towards the closed gates and the fence.
It was unnerving. Chilling.
‘Hello, Tom.’
That voice. A different voice.
A sickening, spiralling confusion swamped my brain.
‘Lionel?’
I whirled sideways, feeling as if the ground was rushing up to meet me.
It couldn’t be.
But it was.
He raised his hand to a nasty bruise by his temple and winced. He was sitting on a single bed at the far side of the room. He had on a rumpled flannel shirt, worn corduroy trousers, thick woollen socks and hiking boots. His grey hair was tufted up at one side, his face glazed in sweat. There was an angry red welt and a wet gash on the cheek below his left eye.
He was supposed to be in London. He wasn’t meant to be . . . How had he . . .?
‘What the hell are you doing here?’
‘I came to help you, Tom. I heard the gunshot. I got here just as Holly—’
‘It’s true, Dad. He did. He tried to sneak in after us.’
‘No talking,’ the voice behind me growled.
I felt the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. When had Lionel arrived at the lodge? How long had he been here?
I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think.
Lionel held my gaze with sorrowful green eyes. He framed a look of pained apology and pressed his palms tight together, like he was begging me for a chance to explain.
My boss. My mentor.
I felt the rage start deep inside me and begin to spread. All the secrets. All the lies. They might have begun with Rachel but Lionel had been a massive part of it. This was his lodge. He was the one who’d approached Rachel offering help without involving me in any of this. He was the one who’d hired Brodie to dig into the circumstances surrounding Michael’s death. Who’d spent a weekend here with Rachel. Who’d lied to me directly or by omission. Who’d talked about saving my family just as he’d set us down this bloody path.
And now this.
I’d dedicated six years of my working life to him. I’d shared my grief about Michael with him, my worries about Rachel. Just how misguided had that been?
On a small side table next to the bed was a silver picture frame. The photograph inside was a replica of the shot of Jennifer that I’d seen on the dais at the charity function.
A fierce whistling started up in my head as I glanced again at the monitors, trying to piece it all together. Then I remembered something Brodie had said about the pod when I’d mentioned it to him on the phone.
On a clear night you can see pretty much everything from in there.
Had it been a sick joke? A taunt? Was Lionel some kind of twisted voyeur who liked watching his guests at the lodge? Was all of this some horribly depraved stunt?
No. One look at Lionel’s slumped pose and the livid welt on his face told me that couldn’t be it.
‘Sit down.’
A sharp jab from the shotgun and I twisted and collapsed onto the sofa next to Holly.
My head pounded like I had a migraine. I felt sick.
The gates. The security fence. The cameras.
What was this place? What had Rachel done? Why was Lionel here now? And who was the man with the shotgun?
Holly leaned into me, sniffing back tears. I slipped my arm around her and then, finally, I looked up at the tall, broad man towering over us.
I saw his blue rubber boots, his white jumpsuit, his bulk. But it wasn’t until I saw his gloved hands that I understood our error. It couldn’t have been the bigger man we’d seen hiking up the driveway towards the gate. The man who’d passed us had been carrying an industrial torch in one hand and the shotgun in the other. How could the bigger man have done that with two broken fingers? And how had he got back to the lodge so soon after Brodie had entered?
The answer was he hadn’t.
Because there were never just two intruders. There were three.
Michael looks at himself in the dim light of the hallway mirror. He’s aware that he’s changing in this moment, transforming into someone other than the person he was before tonight. Someone who will do things the previous Michael wouldn’t contemplate.
Like when this new Michael snatches open the little drawer in the hallway dresser and takes out the keys to his dad’s car. The keys seem to have an added weight to them. An extra burden. Michael’s hand doesn’t shake but the air feels hot and scratchy in his lungs.
He lets the keys dangle from his fingers as he looks up slowly into the glass. For a harrowing second, it’s as if he’s staring at a ghost.
52
The sofa opened up beneath me. I felt like I was tumbling back, sinking down. The man was dressed exactly like the other two, right down to the hood over his head and the paper mask. If anything, he looked even taller now than the bigger man – though perhaps that was just the sensation of him standing over me. I locked on to his angry eyes and held them. I wanted to show courage for Holly and Rachel. But inside I could feel myself shrinking back.
‘Why are you doing this to us? Why target my family this way?’
He snorted from behind his mask.
‘He doesn’t know,’ Lionel told him.
I stilled. ‘Know what?’ I asked, but even as I said it, I felt a slippery unease creep under my skin.
The man peered at me before glancing at Lionel. ‘Show him.’
Lionel didn’t move.
‘Show him now or I’ll hit you again.’
The man feigned a step forwards, raising the shotgun like a club, and I watched as Lionel recoiled, turning his back, then got up slowly, shame-faced, not meeting my stare. He wavered a moment before crossing to the controls for the monitors and punching a button.
‘Take a look for yourself,’ the man told me.
Something in his voice warned me I wouldn’t like what I was about to see. I was aware of Holly and Rachel twisting around beside me, but I waited for Lionel to move back and look at me instead. He shook his head slowly, and when he lifted his face there was a wet glimmer of regret in his eyes.
‘Who is that?’ Holly asked.
My skin prickled. It wasn’t her question so much as the tremor in her voice that finally made me turn and stare.
The images on the monitors had changed. They were screening different angles on different rooms and exterior views, cycling between them on regular intervals. There had to be many more than eight cameras fitted around the lodge.
The image Holly was talking about was on the uppermost monitor at the far right. I squinted at it and felt a chasm open up inside my chest. The infrared picture was rendered in flickering shades of grey. The focus was blurred and the light reflecting off the monitor made it difficult to pick out details. But I could see enough to tell it was an interior view of a room I hadn’t seen before. There was no furniture. The floor appeared to be bare cement. The walls were unadorned.
Like a cell.
I stopped breathing.
The chasm inside me began filling with an icy trickle. In the foreground of the image was a paler blob. Someone was huddled face down on the floor in a dark tracksuit and pale socks.
They appeared to be asleep.
Or drugged.
Or worse.
I squeezed my eyes tight shut. The icy liquid rose up in my lungs. I could feel a terrible chill as I exhaled. And I knew in that moment – right there and then – tha
t we’d crossed an invisible threshold. Whatever this was – whatever it had been – I understood instinctively that it had just become something far worse.
We have to get out of here. We have to get away. Somehow. We have to . . .
‘They weren’t supposed to be here yet!’ Rachel spun towards Lionel and stood up. ‘This wasn’t the plan! I didn’t agree to this.’
The crack in Rachel’s voice lodged like a splinter in my heart. I spun to face her, dread knocking against my ribs. I didn’t agree to this.
Oh God. What had she agreed to?
‘I know that, Rachel,’ Lionel told her. ‘Don’t you think I don’t know that?’
‘You told me you’d wait for my go-ahead. You promised me you’d let me talk with Tom first.’
There’s something I have to talk to you about. Something important.
Oh Christ, no, please, no, not this. She couldn’t have. Could she?
‘Mum? Who is it? You have to tell us!’
But Rachel didn’t answer. She just dug her fingers into her soaked sweater and tugged on the fabric, tears springing from her eyes.
And I didn’t think I needed her to answer now anyway. I had an awful feeling I understood.
There’d been one man in the car with Michael and Fiona. The one with the gun.
There’d been three men following in the car behind.
Four men in total.
Two of the men were dead inside the lodge. One of them was holding a shotgun on us. My guess was the fourth man was inside the secret room.
The fence. The gate. The isolated lodge.
They weren’t supposed to be here yet. This wasn’t the plan.
Oh no, no, no, no . . .
The icy liquid bubbled up into my throat until it felt like I was drowning on the inside. I stared at Rachel, but all she could do was shake her head and drop onto the sofa with her face in her hands. When I turned to Lionel, the truth was plainer to see. He closed his eyes as if in pain and nodded slowly.
They say money can’t buy you happiness. Speaking as a bereaved parent, I can tell you that’s true. All the money in the world could never compensate for the pain of losing Michael. But the time I’d spent in Lionel’s company had taught me something else: a rich man can get most things he wants, any way he wants, any time.