‘Ma, what you doing?’ both lads asked when she pushed the door open.
‘Come with me,’ she said, pulling the dressing gown tighter around herself before lurching outside.
Holly had been hiding for what felt like hours in the wardrobe. A man had come into the room and looked around a short time ago, and she’d almost pissed herself in fear when he had slid the wardrobe door open. Her heart had been pounding so hard in her chest she had thought she was going to pass out when he pushed his hand through the clothes on the hangers, but there were so many of them squeezed inside he hadn’t spotted her cowering in the shadows behind.
She’d started breathing again when she heard him go back down the stairs, and when she had heard the kitchen door click shut she’d decided to risk climbing out and taking her phone over to the window to see if she could get a signal. The voices coming up from downstairs had been a lot quieter since the police called round, and she had begun to wonder if she had got it all wrong and they were actually friends of Suzie and Rob, that the screams she’d heard had come from a film they were all watching.
What about that laugh – the one from your nightmare? a voice had piped up inside her head. You didn’t imagine that, did you?
Shuddering again at the memory, she peered out through the window and stared over at the flats. She’d thought her mum must have heard her voicemail when the police came round, but there were no lights on at the flat so she realized someone else must have called them.
A movement below the window caught her eye and a little cry of fear escaped her lips when she looked down and saw two men she’d never seen before staring up at her. Thinking that it must be the men from downstairs, that they had caught her, she was confused when she noticed her nosy neighbour, Carol, standing between them. Was this something to do with her? Had she sent someone round to beat Rob and Suzie up because of the argument she’d had with Suzie?
Carol was gesturing to her, and it took a few seconds before Holly understood that she was telling her to open the window. Terrified that it was a trick and the others were going to come up behind her and push her out, she bit down on her hand and twisted her head to look at the door before glancing back to Carol. The woman gestured again and, at last, Holly moved.
‘Is someone in the house?’ Carol whispered when the window was open. ‘Are you in danger?’
Holly nodded and her eyes darted behind her again.
‘How many?’ Carol asked.
Holly mouthed I don’t know.
‘OK, climb out and drop down,’ Carol hissed. ‘My lads will catch you, I promise.’
Holly shook her head, terror flaring in her eyes at the thought of falling to her death.
‘You can do it,’ Carol cajoled. ‘Come on, love, your mam’s waiting for you and I promised I’d fetch you home to her.’
Holly’s heart lurched in her chest. If her mum was home, why hadn’t she answered her phone? And why were there no lights on?
Down below, one of the lads was showing his phone to Carol, and the woman’s eyes widened when she saw whatever was on the screen. Looking up at Holly again, there was an urgency in her voice when she hissed, ‘You need to jump right now! I’m not messing about love, just do it!’
44
‘What was that?’ Austin hissed, snapping his head round when he heard a noise outside the back door. ‘Someone’s out there.’
‘Go check,’ Dom ordered, still holding the knife to Rob’s throat, his hand on the gun he’d stuffed into his waistband.
Gripping the baseball bat firmly between both hands, Austin edged towards the door. He’d almost reached it when he heard a muted thud, and he cried out in pain when the lock exploded inwards and blood seeped through his jeans.
‘I’ve been shot!’ he yelped, dropping the bat and clutching at his leg. ‘I’ve been fuckin’ shot!’
Three men rushed in, one of them brandishing a Samurai sword, another pointing a gun with a crude silencer attached to its nozzle at Dom.
‘Drop it or I’ll blow your fuckin’ head off!’ Davy said when he saw Dom’s piece.
Dom gave a slow smile and dropped the gun before raising his hands.
‘And the knife,’ Davy barked.
‘We cool,’ Dom drawled, doing as he’d been told. ‘No need to panic.’
‘We ain’t panicking, mate,’ Davy replied coolly, gesturing for him to move away from the chair on which Rob was slumped.
‘It’s just business,’ Dom said, moving slowly back. ‘Nutt’n for anyone to get upset about.’
‘They were going to kill us,’ Suzie cried.
‘It’s over,’ Gee said, eyeing Dom and Austin and praying that they didn’t have any more weapons concealed anywhere as he loosened the rope that was binding her hands together behind her back and her ankles to the chair legs.
Out front, Holly was dangling out of the bedroom window as Carol’s sons held out their arms to catch her.
‘Let go!’ Carol yelled at her, no longer bothering to be quiet in her urgency to get her away from the house since she’d seen the text Steve had sent to one of his brothers telling them that they were going in.
Holly squeezed her eyes shut and let go, squealing with fear as she plummeted towards the ground.
At the exact moment she landed in the arms of one of Carol’s sons, a car turned the corner, its headlights illuminating their faces.
‘Let me do the talking,’ Carol hissed when she saw that it was a police car. ‘Take her to mine. And warn your brothers!’ she added, shoving her keys into Steve’s hand and pushing them out onto the pavement.
‘Stay where you are!’ one of the two coppers who had jumped out of the car yelled as Carol’s sons ran across the road with Holly.
‘It’s not them, they’re my sons!’ Carol hissed, rushing towards them. ‘The ones you want are in there, and they’re armed!’ She pointed back at the house.
In the kitchen, Davy had received a call from his brother Pete. Still aiming the gun at Dom, he said, ‘The pigs are outside and they’re calling for armed backup. We need to get moving.’
Reacting instinctively when Dom lurched forward as if to make for the open door, Davy smashed the gun into the side of his head, sending him sprawling, blood pouring from a cut at his temple.
‘I didn’t mean you, dickhead,’ he spat, grabbing a piece of the rope Gee had taken from around Suzie’s ankles and quickly tying Dom’s hands together behind his back while Ben did the same to Austin, who was crying out in pain.
‘Go!’ Gee urged at the sound of approaching sirens. ‘I’ll tell them it was just me here.’
‘Don’t you wanna come with us?’ Davy asked.
‘No.’ Gee shook his head. ‘I wanna make sure these two don’t escape.’
Nodding, Davy pushed his brother out through the back door and they were quickly swallowed up by the darkness.
‘Let me go, man,’ Austin begged Gee as the sirens grew louder. ‘My missus is due any day. It’s our first kid and I need to be with her.’
‘Should’ve thought about that before you broke in and terrorized this man and his missus,’ Gee said.
‘Don’t do this, brother,’ Dom said quietly, looking up at Gee from the floor. ‘I can pay you nuff money, blood. You’ll never need to work a day in your life.’
‘I ain’t your brother,’ Gee said, staring down at him. ‘And I don’t want your dirty money.’
Dom hawked up phlegm in his throat and spat at Gee’s feet. ‘You is a dead man!’ he snarled. ‘Yuh hear me? You is dead!’
Outside, several vehicles screeched to a halt, their sirens deafening in the confines of the tiny kitchen.
‘ARMED POLICE!’ someone yelled at the front of the house, followed by a boom and the sound of wood splintering.
At the same time, the back gate flew open and the shout of ‘ARMED POLICE!’ went up again as several dark figures rushed across the grass.
‘It wasn’t him!’ Suzie cried when one of the armed men ran in
and aimed a gun at Gee who was standing beside her.
‘On the floor!’ the man ordered. ‘Both of you! Get down!’
The front door crashed into the wall as Gee and Suzie lay down on the floor with their hands raised.
‘In here!’ one of the officers yelled, his gun trained on Dom. ‘Two restrained, one wounded, we need an ambulance ASAP!’
45
Carol’s sons had taken Holly up to their mother’s flat, and Steve had quickly stashed their weapons under her bed before doing a quick sweep of the living room to remove any traces of her weed and rolling paraphernalia.
Sitting on the sofa on either side of Holly, who was shivering despite the jacket one of them had placed around her shoulders, both lads nodded respectfully at the four coppers, two of whom were female, who walked in with their mum a short time later.
‘Has she been seen by the paramedics?’ Spencer asked, noting how pale and disoriented Holly looked. ‘She’s probably in shock.’
‘You’re the first ones who’ve come up since we got here,’ Steve told him, standing up.
As one of the female officers spoke into her radio, requesting medics to come up to the flat, the other sat in Steve’s vacated place, and said, ‘Holly, my name’s Annabel, and I’d like to talk to you about what’s just happened, if that’s all right?’
Holly’s body jerked as if she’d been electrocuted and her eyes widened alarmingly.
‘It’s OK, love,’ Carol said, waving for her other son to move so she could sit next to the girl. ‘I’m here; you’re not on your own.’ Holding Holly’s hand when she started to hyperventilate, she said, ‘Just take a nice deep breath, sweetheart. In . . .’ She inhaled deeply through her own nose to demonstrate. ‘Then out . . .’ she exhaled through her mouth. ‘In . . . out . . .’
‘Where are her parents?’ one of the female officers asked.
‘Her mum’s sleeping,’ Carol said, still demonstrating the breathing technique to Holly. ‘She got attacked a few days back, and she’s in a pretty bad way, so I thought I’d best leave her till we knew what was going on.’
‘She’s home?’ Spencer asked.
‘Yeah, came back last night,’ Carol told him.
‘My mum’s dead!’ Holly gasped, a stricken expression on her deathly white face. ‘That – that man killed her!’
‘No, she’s not, love, she’s safe in her bed,’ Carol reassured her.
‘Not that mum,’ Holly wailed. ‘My real mum. Anna.’
Questioning looks passed between the adults in the room.
‘You’re confused, love,’ Carol said softly, stroking Holly’s face. ‘I promise you your mum’s fine. I was with her not long ago. She’s still poorly, but she’s in bed.’
‘Noooo . . .’ Holly shook her head, tears brimming in her eyes and spilling down her cheeks. ‘He killed her. He – he shot her.’
‘I think someone had best go and get her mum to calm her down,’ Spencer said when Holly started gasping for breath again.
‘It’s OK, we’ve got her,’ Suzie said, walking into the room with Gee and a dazed-looking Josie.
‘She must have woke up after youse came up here,’ Gee explained quietly as they led Josie to an armchair. ‘She was swaying at the top of the stairs when we came in after talking to the pigs. Sorry, police officers,’ he corrected himself, remembering that there were four uniforms in the room.
‘Don’t worry, it’s better than some of the shit we get called,’ Hayes quipped.
‘Ms Evans, are you all right?’ Spencer asked, peering at her and wondering if she, too, had gone into shock after hearing of her daughter’s ordeal.
‘I think she’s had strong meds,’ Carol whispered. ‘Looked proper out of it when me and Gee went to hers earlier.’
Nodding, Spencer squatted down in front of Holly, and said, ‘Your mum’s here now, Holly. Take deep breaths like the lady showed you . . .’
‘She – she’s not my mum!’ Holly squawked, her eyes bulging. ‘She’s not my . . . mum!’
‘OK, love, calm down,’ Carol urged.
‘She’s right,’ Josie said quietly.
‘What?’ All heads turned in her direction.
‘She’s right,’ Josie repeated, the dazed look in her tearful eyes replaced by a look of sheer resignation. ‘I’m not her mum. And her name’s not Holly, it’s Charlotte . . .’
Epilogue
Holly sat stiffly on the couch in the family liaison officer’s office at the station. Suzie was sitting beside her, and they were waiting for Holly’s case worker to arrive.
‘Are you feeling OK, hon?’ Suzie asked, touching her hand.
Holly nodded and forced a tiny smile, but it was a lie. She wasn’t all right, and doubted she ever would be again. Her entire life had been turned upside down in the two months since Dominic Cooper had broken in to Suzie’s house. The nightmares had already formed a crack in the wall she had built to protect herself from the traumatic memories, but the sound of Cooper’s deep voice and sinister laugh had split it wide open – although she hadn’t known why at the time. That was a blessing, because she would have been paralysed with fear and incapable of climbing out of the window if she had known she was listening to the voice of the cold-blooded killer who had murdered her mother. It wasn’t until later, when she’d been taken to Carol’s flat and the policewoman had said that her name was Annabel, that the wall had completely crumbled and she’d remembered everything.
The office door opened and Suzie squeezed Holly’s hand when Vicky, the plump, kindly liaison officer who had been assigned to Holly’s case, walked in.
‘Sorry I took so long,’ she apologized. ‘Jenny will be with us in a sec; she’s just getting coffees.’
No sooner had the words left Vicky’s mouth than the door opened again, and Jenny, Holly’s temporary social worker, came in carrying four lidded disposable cups between her slim hands.
‘OK, let’s get started,’ Vicky said, sitting on one of the two chairs facing the couch while Jenny perched on the other. ‘We’ve already talked you through the process, Charlotte, but we need to make sure you’re ready to do this. We can postpone if you’re not. It’s totally up to you.’
‘Please don’t call me that,’ Holly murmured, unable to get used to the name, even though she knew it was the one her real mother had chosen for her. She also couldn’t get her head around the fact that she was actually seventeen and not fifteen, as she’d believed.
‘Do you need more time?’ Jenny asked, reaching for one of the cups. ‘Or do you have any questions you need us to answer before you make a decision? Any concerns?’
Holly shook her head, but her eyes were downcast and it was obvious to the three women in the room that she was uncertain about something.
Clearing her throat, Suzie said, ‘Can I ask . . . I know Holly’s been staying with me since her mum – Josie – was arrested, but will this mean she has to leave right away? Only I’m happy to let her stay as long as she wants to.’
‘That’s her decision.’ Vicky smiled.
‘Is that what you want?’ Jenny asked Holly.
Holly chewed her lip and gave a tiny shrug. She didn’t know what she wanted yet, and a tiny part of her still longed to go back to how it had been before.
‘Well, we can sort all that out later,’ Vicky said. ‘They’re waiting in the next room, so when you’re ready, let us know.’
Holly took a deep breath, then nodded.
‘Are you sure?’ Suzie asked quietly. ‘This is huge, so you don’t need to rush.’
‘I’m ready,’ Holly said.
Vicky got up and left the room, and Jenny sat forward and peered at Holly across the table.
‘Try not to worry if you don’t feel an instant connection,’ she said. ‘These things take time.’
‘I know,’ Holly said, chewing nervously on her thumbnail.
The door opened and Vicky appeared.
‘Holly, this is Colin,’ she said, holding her hand out to i
ndicate the man who was hovering beside her.
‘Hello, love,’ the man said, taking a hesitant step into the room. ‘It’s so good to see you again. I – I looked for you.’
Holly slowly lifted her eyes and stared at Colin Haywood: the man who DNA tests had proved was Charlotte Hughes’s biological father. He looked nothing like she’d imagined. In her fantasies he had been tall and movie-star handsome, with a thick head of hair and sparkling eyes, but this man looked quite ordinary, with a paunchy belly and receding blond hair. She could tell he was nervous by the way his eyes were swivelling and the tip of his tongue kept darting out from between his thin lips. She wondered if he was looking at her with the same disappointment as she was looking at him. Maybe he’d thought she would be gorgeous and he could proudly show her off to his mates. Look at my stunning daughter . . .
‘Alison, my, um, wife is looking forward to meeting you,’ Colin said. ‘And the kids are, too,’ he added. ‘I know they’re not your biological siblings, but—’
‘How long have you been with her?’ Holly interrupted.
Colin smiled and took another step forward, seeming relieved that she was responding to him after being warned by the liaison officer that it might take a while.
‘Fourteen years this September,’ he said, perching on the chair that Vicky had pulled out from under the desk for him and clasping his hands together between his knees. ‘The kids, Jack and Livvy, are twins.’
‘How old?’ Holly asked.
‘Fifteen.’ Colin grinned. ‘They’re a right pair; always up to some trick or other. You’ll fit in great, and we’ve already arranged to put a bed in Livvy’s room for you.’
Holly continued to stare at him for several more seconds in silence, and Colin carried on grinning as if he thought he’d done a good job of winning her over. Then, snapping her gaze off him, Holly looked at Suzie, and said, ‘Can we go home now?’
‘Of course,’ Suzie said, flicking a concerned look at Vicky.
‘Colin, could I ask you to step out for a moment?’ Vicky said, standing up and waving him towards the door.
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