As she went to put it on the chest of drawers, she noticed a tiny slip of paper, sticking out of the slot. Becky carefully drew it out. Unfolding it, she moved to the light to read it.
‘Oh God,’ she muttered, tears flooding her eyes. She knew she was going to have to call Tom, but for a moment she had to pause. She didn’t think she could say the words out loud.
To Ollie Joseph
IOU £7.36
Signed: Natasha (your sister)
Sorry x
69
Day Six
It was midday before Tom was able to get home. He couldn’t remember how long it had been since he had last slept, or eaten anything other than the odd chocolate bar or packet of crisps.
Mel had tried to stick to her story that there had been nobody else in her home, but Tom couldn’t go along with that. Jack hadn’t been involved directly in Guy’s death, but there was no point in lying. Paul Green knew who Jack was, and although he had committed no offence – merely acting as an informant and never actually buying the stolen gold – his past crimes were bound to come out. The fact that he had helped the Titan team to catch Guy would go in his favour, and Tom had a feeling that Jack would have happily come back to face the music. But it wasn’t the police Jack was hiding from.
Mel’s words, just before she was driven away, came back to him.
‘Jack loves you, Tom. He always called you White Hat – said you had more honour in your little finger than he had in his whole body. Everything he did six years ago he did for the people he loved, and now that Guy’s dead the only people who know Jack’s alive are a few policemen, you, me and Emma. That’s the way it has to stay. Whatever Finn has in store for me, even from his prison cell, it would be ten times worse for Jack – and possibly anybody close to him. He has to stay dead.’
Tom hadn’t been able to find any words. His throat had closed completely, and it hadn’t been the time to lose control.
He pushed open his front door, for once, the pleasure of his home eluding him. He knew he should make something to eat and then go straight to bed, but he couldn’t. He was restless, and more than anything he wished Leo was here. She must have wondered what was going on, but although it felt like weeks to him since he had seen her, to Leo there would just have been a couple of days’ silence.
He walked into the kitchen and switched on the kettle.
While it was boiling, he plugged his laptop in to charge and turned back to the worktop.
There was a ping. He stood, motionless, his back to the computer. Only one person he knew could do that. He held his breath, not knowing what he was waiting for, then slowly turned round.
In the middle of his screen was a folder – the title was ‘White Hat.’
Tom pulled up a chair, sat down and clicked. The folder contained a single file.
Sorry to have left so abruptly. I’m sure I don’t need to explain.
I’ve let you down – I know that. I let Emma down too, and now she has to deal not only with what I was, but what David is too.
I loved her. Still do.
Don’t ever change, Tom. You’re the hero of the family. I’ll be watching you from afar, but you won’t know I’m there.
The money I left you was all earned legally – so don’t panic. I know you will use it wisely. I hadn’t wanted you to discover the SD card though. I tried to get it back, but I couldn’t find it. Sorry about the mess, little brother – but I had to make it look real. Your cottage in Cheshire is wonderful by the way – especially the kitchen.
My ill-gotten gains will now be distributed appropriately – you don’t need to know the details.
Forget you saw me. My death was my choice.
Black Hat
Tom read the note and reread it until his eyes were blurred, whether with tears or fatigue it was difficult to say. He knew as soon as he touched the keyboard the note would disappear from the screen and from his computer, just as he knew Jack would never contact him again this way. It was his last link to his brother – perhaps the last ever – and he couldn’t let it go.
Did he really have to remain dead? Was there no other choice?
He had found and lost his brother today, and his emotions were too tangled to unravel.
Finally, he sat back, lifted his finger and pressed the space bar. The image disappeared, as he had known it would. He stared at the blank screen for a few moments, then pushed himself up from the chair and moved back to the worktop to reboil the kettle. As he poured the hot water into a mug, he glanced across to the phone. The message light was flashing. He should ring Leo, let her know what was going on, he thought, as he pressed the replay button. He needed her now more than ever. She was the only person who could bring him the comfort and love that he suddenly craved.
As if answering his thoughts, it was Leo’s voice that he heard on the answerphone.
‘Tom, it’s Leo.’ That almost made him smile – as if he wouldn’t recognise her voice. ‘I’m ringing to say that I’m going away for a few days. You’re obviously very busy, so I thought I’d take the opportunity to have some time to myself. I’ll ring you when I’m back.’
Tom leaned against the wall and gazed at the ceiling. Leo’s instinct to withdraw was nothing new to him, but for the first time in months he had to ask himself what he was doing with somebody who couldn’t promise to be there for him when he needed her support.
He remembered the passion, the fun, but most of all the unmistakeable love within Emma and Jack’s relationship, before his brother had been forced to end it. Even today he had seen it flash into Emma’s eyes when she thought Jack had been shot – after everything she had been through.
Had he ever had that with any woman?
Right now, he wanted somebody to hold him tight to ease the pain of his loss. But that wasn’t going to happen.
70
One month later
Looking out of the kitchen window, Emma noticed all the new growth on the plants and trees. So much had been happening that she had failed to realise that spring was now well and truly with them. It was a bright, clear day outside, but she found herself wishing that the sky was dark, and that she would see a pair of eyes reflected in the window from a young girl standing behind her. Each time she turned round, she expected to see a child with straggly blonde hair wearing an oversized duffle coat. She would have welcomed her with open arms.
She should really sell this house and move; she knew that. But she was staying for Natasha. It was the only place that the girl knew, and to leave here would give her stepdaughter nowhere to return to, if ever she wanted to. She couldn’t bear the thought of Natasha’s life ending the way her friend Izzy’s had. Tom had confirmed that the girl found in the woods was Izzy. It seemed fairly certain that she had tried to kill herself with a massive dose of ketamine, stolen from Julie’s house. Apparently the girls regularly used ketamine to anaesthetise themselves a little before the men arrived. Even though Julie’s had been shut down, other places would no doubt open to fill the gap in the market, and the thought of Natasha ending up there sickened Emma to her stomach.
In the first few days after Ollie’s safe return Emma’s emotions had swung between irrepressible joy that her baby was safe and concern – for Tasha and for David. She sat by her husband’s hospital bed for three days, holding his hand, thinking of the happy times they had spent together over the last few years, wondering what the future would bring for them both. But he never spoke to her again. His injuries were too severe, and he died at the end of the third day. She hoped he had known that Ollie was safe; she had whispered it over and over in his ear, praying that David could hear her. She had lied about Tasha too, telling him that she was well and at home.
Emma was a realist, though, and she knew that – had David lived – she would never have spent another night in his bed. The fact that he had even contemplated putting his wife and daughter through a few hours of terrifying hell to get himself out of a hole kept hitting her, like a punch to t
he head. She would never have felt safe with him and would never have allowed Ollie to be left in his care. She was sorry he was dead, but her life with him had been over the minute she learned what he had done.
Emma was finding it really difficult to let Ollie out of her sight. She sat with him while he slept and had to stop herself from moving his cot into her bedroom. Just because fear ran through her each time she heard footsteps on the gravel path, she didn’t have to make her little boy feel like that.
Tom had been a source of strength, although she knew he was struggling with the knowledge that Jack was alive and out there somewhere. Just as she was.
‘I feel I should pack in my job and go and find him, Em,’ he’d said one day, sitting at her dining table. ‘But it’s not what he wants – I know that.’
He had seemed so sad since those dreadful few days. She knew he had a girlfriend; he had mentioned her briefly when she visited his house. But when she asked Tom if he would like to bring her round some time, he said, ‘Not at the moment,’ and she hadn’t been able to get anything more out of him.
Every night Emma went to sleep thinking of Jack and of what might have been. She relived the moment when he’d touched her, the feel of his body as it pressed against hers in the vault. She had been terrified, and yet there was a heat coming from him that communicated with her at some level. Even before she realised who he was, she had felt electricity fire through her. Then she had seen his eyes, and she was lost again.
Her nights were taken care of, checking on Ollie and dreaming of Jack. But there was something else that she and Ollie did, and would continue to do for as long as it took.
Each morning as they came downstairs, Emma had a quiet word with the portrait, still hanging in the hall.
‘I’m not giving up, Caroline,’ she said.
Then, most days of the week, Emma and Ollie took the car and drove into Manchester or Stockport – changing the times and the venues as often as they could.
Emma then found the most crowded place and put an upturned plastic box on the ground next to Ollie’s pushchair and climbed up on it. People always turned to stare, and that’s when she started shouting.
‘Tasha! Natasha Joseph! Come home, Tasha.’ Ollie joined in. ‘Tassa,’ he shouted.
She chose places that were busy with shoppers, thinking that small-time crooks – the kind of people that Tasha might know – would be out and about picking pockets, stealing mobiles. She stopped every child that was on the street when they should have been in school and showed them Natasha’s photograph. She took fresh sandwiches and cakes to give to the homeless – all they had to do in return was take the picture of Natasha and show it to as many people as possible. She printed thousands of posters, and gave handfuls to anybody who looked as if they might be living the same life as Natasha – or whatever she was calling herself now – asking them to find the girl in the photo and give her the poster.
More often than not, the posters would be dumped as soon as Emma had walked on – sometimes in a bin, but usually dropped indifferently onto the pavement. That was okay, because on the poster was more than just a photo of Natasha. There was a picture of a smiling Ollie with a message in a speech bubble, and the more posters floating around the windy alleyways, settling against greasy walls, lying in the dusty streets, the more chance that somehow it would reach its target and she would read the message.
Natasha Joseph – please come home to your family
Your baby brother misses you
***
Tasha’s story is continued in the novella NOWHERE CHILD. Click here to find out more.
Kill Me Again
Rachel Abbott
CONTENTS
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Prologue
It was raining when they came for me. I was staring out of my window watching fat raindrops flow down the glass, streaking across the reflection of my pale face. I was regretting the impetuous decisions I had made – even though at the time they had seemed right – and wondering what was going to happen next in my life.
When the knock came at the door, I didn’t even check who it was. I thought I knew. I thought I had been forgiven. I hurried to the door, pulling it wide, smiling to show my visitor how pleased I was to see him.
I knew instantly it wasn’t the person I had been expecting. I felt a surge of fear travel through my body as I tried to close the door, but it was too late. A second face appeared around the door – a face that matched the first in every detail. Two sets of identical features, their shiny cheeks almost cherubic as they reflected back the light from my hall.
I looked at the matching Chinese masks, and my legs nearly gave way beneath me. The plastic a smooth yellowish flesh tone, the eye sockets diamond-shaped, empty, revealing the glare of human pupils beneath.
I didn’t have time to scream. A gloved hand shot out and grabbed me round the throat, squeezing tighter and tighter until I was sure I would pass out. Why were they here? What could they want with me?
They spoke quietly, without the rough accent of local thugs that I was expecting. Somehow that made it worse. They were here for a purpose, and I had no idea what that was. They didn’t speak to me; they spoke to each other, as if I wasn’t even there. The urgency in their tone was at odds with the smiling faces of the masks, and every inch of my skin rose in prickles of terror.
I could see the first man’s teeth between the red lips of the mask. They were pressed together, the pale shape of his mouth wide and straight, as if the effort of choking me one-handed was too much for him. The two sets of lips – a human flesh pair within a solid plastic pair – made my blood freeze, but still I couldn’t take my eyes from the mask and the glimpse of the person I could see beneath.
The second man grabbed my arms and fixed them tightly behind me with something hard and cold that bit into my skin. And then came the gag - between my teeth, tearing into the corners of my mouth, the rough material chafing my flesh.
The two men spoke again, but their words blurred in my head and became little more than a buzzing sound.
I watc
hed as the first man went into the hall. He was leaving us, pulling off his mask as he reached the front door. He didn’t know I’d seen him, reflected in the hall mirror. I realised that seeing his face, knowing I would recognise him again anywhere, could be the end for me. I looked down quickly, hoping neither man had caught my eyes, watching, recording the chiselled features and the slightly hooked nose, knowing my fear had imprinted every detail into my memory. It was a face I would never forget.
The second man turned to look at me, his mask firmly in place.
‘And now we wait,’ he said.
1
Wednesday
The foyer of the eight-storey office block was flooded with bright light, which only served to emphasise the impenetrable blackness of the car park beyond. The receptionist had left for the night and Maggie Taylor waited inside the glass doors, peering out into the night. She glanced over her shoulder, watching in vain to see if the red light above the lift would change and begin to count down. Maybe the doors would slide open to reveal another late worker, someone who would be happy to walk with Maggie through the deserted car park – a vast empty stretch of dark tarmac leading into the distance, her lone car sitting waiting for her somewhere out of sight.
The weather warnings had provided the perfect excuse for people to leave early, though, and she was sure nobody would be coming to her rescue. She could kick herself for staying so late, knowing there was nothing that made her more anxious than a large empty building that seemed to echo with silence.
A sound behind her sent tiny spikes of fear up Maggie’s arms, and before she could turn she felt a hand low on her back. She spun round and let out a huge breath.
‘Jesus, Frank, don’t creep up on people like that. You scared the life out of me.’
The slight form of Frank Denman stood half a metre behind her, a guilty smile on his thin face.
‘Sorry Maggie,’ he said, looking down at his feet. ‘It’s these brothel creepers. I bought them for comfort, and of course they do make me look a couple of inches taller, but they barely make a sound on a solid floor.’
Tom Douglas Box Set 2 Page 32