‘Of course. But you do see this gives him a motive.’
‘How would he have known it was you?’
‘He knows somebody had set him up, and who hates him more than me, Carly and Marie? Who fears him more? Still fears him more than us? I’m so frightened, Graham.’
‘Are you sure you’ve seen him?’
‘Yes. I might have had Fregoli before but it’s different this time, don’t you see. The teddy—’
‘It’s not unusual to find a lost toy in the park.’
‘Wearing a cross?’
He doesn’t respond.
‘Please, Graham. You said a minute ago if I had told you back then that he’d approached me you would have believed me – now you’re doubting me too. I just need to know if he’s local? I’m going out of my mind here.’
Neither of us speak. Seconds tick past.
‘Leah, I can’t tell you if he’s local. I can’t tell you where he lives. I can’t tell you not to go to the Dog and Duck for a drink.’
Graham puts the phone down without saying goodbye, before I can say thank you, but he’s told me all I need to know. The minute George is home from work…
The power has shifted in my favour. I know where to find him.
One day.
Fuck tomorrow. This is where it will end.
Today.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Carly
Then
‘Three blind mice, three blind mice.’ Carly shrank away from the words. She could almost picture Moustache’s pale pink lips moving, the thick black hairs above his mouth shifting and settling. ‘See how they run.’ His voice grew louder.
A slam. A palm against metal. Moustache was hitting the lockers. Again a slap, a cracking in her ear. Lying on her side, Carly felt the vibrations rise through her hip, trembling down her spine.
He knew.
She clamped both hands over her mouth now to contain the scream that was building. Tears leaked from her eyes.
Please be quiet. Please be quiet. She sent a silent message to Leah and Marie. She was surprised Leah wasn’t openly sobbing and, despite her fear, her desperation, she felt a sense of pride that neither of her sisters had given their hiding place away. They were all in this together. A team.
A family.
A creak. The rusty hinge on the door of the locker next to hers protested as it was opened. She cowered in her metal coffin, feeling the whispers of all those who had lain here before, almost their final resting place. Please don’t let it be hers. She drew her knees upwards, that comma again. Not a full stop, please not now.
She had tried so hard to get them out of here, but it wasn’t good enough. She wasn’t good enough.
At primary school in assembly the kids had recited the Lord’s Prayer. Carly would parrot the words, not thinking too deeply about Jesus and God. Not caring, if she was honest.
She cared now.
Dear God. Carly began to pray. Her lips moved, but the words solely in her head.
Please.
Please.
She pictured herself in her bedroom, sprawled on her bed, Bruno snoozing next to her, his paws twitching as he dreamed. He must be missing her. Her parents would be fraught. Would she ever see them again?
‘They’re not upstairs.’ Doc spoke now, breathless as though he had been running. ‘Christ, what was this? Some sort of hospital?’ There was a crash as he kicked the trolley.
‘A morgue, I think,’ Moustache said.
‘It’s as creepy as fuck. I’ve had enough of this place—’
‘I don’t give a shit,’ Moustache snapped. ‘We stay until we find them. We don’t get the girls, we don’t get paid. If they’re not here they could have made it out by now and then we’re fucked. The road is only a few metres away.’
Bitter disappointment crawled through Carly’s veins. They’d been so close. If it weren’t for the fog they would have spotted the fence.
‘Let’s have another scout around outside then, but if we don’t find them soon we’ll have to go. They could have flagged down a car, someone could be calling the police right now…’ Doc’s voice grew fainter and Carly slumped with relief. They were gone.
The urge to burst out of her hiding place prickled at her goosebumped skin but Carly forced herself to remain where she was, to make sure they really were alone. As she waited she turned their words over in her mind. We don’t get the girls, we don’t get paid.
She had thought that this was a kidnap and they had demanded a ransom from their parents but perhaps the men were planning on selling them to someone else? Either way there was a plan for them. Carly needed to get her sisters to safety before it was put in place. The road’s only a few metres away.
It was knowing this that gave Carly the strength and courage to gently push open the door to her locker, wincing at the creak. Moustache and Doc believed that she might have flagged down a car and asked for help and so she too must believe that she could. Determinedly, she unfolded herself from the small space, toes wriggling to chase the pins and needles away from her socked feet. As she dropped to the floor she drew a deep breath, fetid and repugnant, but the air still fresher than it had been inside her steel casket. Hurriedly, she released her sisters, shushing them as she helped them out.
‘We’re almost out of here,’ she whispered. ‘We’re right by the road and once we find it we can go home.’
‘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.
‘Excuse me.’
The barman doesn’t acknowledge me.
‘Excuse me!’ My voice echoes around the empty room.
‘Whoever you’re looking for, I haven’t seen them. Don’t know them.’ He meets my eyes with a stare that chills me.
‘Sorry? I don’t know…’ This isn’t going as I planned. How does he know I’m looking for someone? Does he know who I’m looking for?
‘Copper, ain’t you?’
‘No.’
‘You look like one.’
I should have kept my jeans on.
‘I’m not. I’m…’ I think quickly. If I ask if he knows that man, Simon – for the first time in a long time I allow his name to pop into my mind, a testament to how strong I feel right now – then he might text him. Warn him I am here and there’s nothing like the element of surprise.
Let me go. Let Marie go.
There are a row of brass pumps tagged with beers named after wildlife. I order a pint of Badger’s Black Brew, registering the barman’s surprise. He raises his eyebrows again as I count out coins with gloved hands before I drop the money into his open palm, avoiding contact. I choose a rickety chair near the window so I can see anyone approaching. My knee jigs frantically up and down.
Calm yourself.
Three things.
A Who Wants to Be a Millionaire quiz machine.
The green baize covering the pool table.
Stainless steel stools with black leather seat pads guarding the bar.
Calm.
I wait.
The traffic whizzes by. A number of pedestrians. None of them are him. Rather than bringing me down, I find this thought cheery. Last time Fregoli led me to believe that he was everywhere. Now I can count on one hand the number of times I have caught sight of him. It has to be real, doesn’t it?
The football has finished. The pub now half-full. The jukebox plays ‘Bat Out of Hell’. I make a deal with fate. If you play Steps next I know I’m in the right place.
‘Crazy Nights’ plays instead.
I glance at my watch. Archie will be in bed by now. I feel wretched that I haven’t kissed him goodnight. I wonder what I’m doing here. Whether I should go home.
But then I see him.
He’s heading towards the pub, drawing on a cigarette, smoke pluming from his nostrils.
It’s him.
The age doesn’t fit. He looks older. Greyer. But it’s definitely him.
My senses are in overdrive. Conversations roar around me. The smell of hops is nauseating. Adrenaline floods my body. I’m torn between fight and flight. I want to run. I want to run and never look back. I screw up my eyes, the image of Archie is painted on the inside of my eyelids, his arms around the bear.
Be brave, Leah.
I open my eyes, the street is empty. I turn my head. He is standing next to the table, looking at me with an odd expression on his face.
Without thinking what I am going to do, I leap to my feet. He turns and runs. The hunter has become the hunter.
‘Stop!’ I cry. Not knowing what I will do if he does.
The doors crash o
pen as he thunders outside. He is pelting down the street but he’s not as fast as me. Not as fit. All the hours spent running after Archie are paying off. He throws a glance over his shoulder, expression turning to panic when he sees how quickly I am gaining on him.
‘Stop!’ I shout again, stretching out my arm. My fingers brush against his back.
It’s the blast of horn that alerts us both to the car that is hurtling towards him.
Honestly, I cannot say whether I grabbed him to pull him back or to push him forward but somehow he is sprawled on the road in line with the oncoming traffic.
My thoughts skip from horror to fear to a morbid relief that now it really will all be over.
Chapter Thirty-Six
George
Now
George sits at the kitchen table, moonlight pooling through the window as he nurses a nightcap. He can’t believe that tonight an innocent man could have died. Not quite so innocent. He was a drug dealer and thought Leah was a copper chasing him. He was lucky the car didn’t kill him. At least a broken pelvis will keep him off the streets for a while. But still. After the police brought Leah home and told George that she was in shock, he knew he should look after her but he couldn’t help asking what she was thinking.
She couldn’t answer. Couldn’t tell him why she was in the pub when she said she would be with Tash.
She’s lying.
He’s lying.
The thought that the man could have been killed chills George again. He sips his whisky to warm him. Perhaps he should rethink his plan but it’s all in place.
Tomorrow.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Carly
Then
Carly prised open her eyes, squinting as a brilliant white light poured through her.
Was she dead?
Chatter.
Laughter.
Music.
She blinked, once, twice, three times until the blur veiling her sight slipped away. Everything fell into sharp focus.
To her astonishment she was in the ballroom, but not as it had appeared when they’d hidden there earlier, with the soot and the ashes and scattered broken glass, but how it was in Mr Webster’s photos. The vibrant red and cream carpet lying smooth over the floor. The three chandeliers suspended from the ceiling, their light creating rainbows through droplets of crystal, long before they were wrenched down and stamped on until they smashed.
The Stolen Sisters: from the bestselling author of The Date and The Sister comes one of the most thrilling, terrifying and shocking psychological thrillers of 2020 Page 18