He pressed down slowly with his hand, and he gave Donia’s hand a squeeze of reassurance. Then he pulled on the door.
It didn’t move. It was stuck in the frame. Charlie pulled on the door again, but it just rattled.
It was locked.
Charlie whirled round. There were voices getting closer.
‘They’re coming back inside,’ he hissed, and grabbed Donia. He pulled her into the shadow of an alcove opposite the locked door, shielded by coats hung from hooks on the wall. His nose filled with the smell of dirty clothes, of cigarettes, wood-smoke and oil. He could hear Donia’s panicky breathing, her hand clasped around his arm. The chain around her other wrist dragged against his leg. He reached round to give her fingers another squeeze, and her head leaned against him.
‘What do we do now?’ she said. ‘They will kill us if they catch us.’
Charlie looked around to find a way out, but he couldn’t see one. The door was locked and too sturdy to kick through. If he tried, it would just give away their position. There was barbed wire draped around the windows and grilles on the other side. It wasn’t impassable, but it would take time. They didn’t have that.
‘I don’t know,’ he said, frustration creeping into his voice.
The sounds of people filled the house. They sounded agitated, excited jabbering.
‘We can’t stay here and hide,’ Donia said. ‘They’ll see that I’m not in the old man’s room and come looking.’
‘We might have to run for it,’ Charlie said. ‘If we just bolt for the door, people might be shocked enough not to stop us. Just go for the front door and hope it’s open. Get out there and run as hard as you can.’
‘And if they do stop us?’
Charlie didn’t respond to that.
Her hand squeezed his arm again. ‘Are you a quick runner?’ she said.
He closed his eyes for a moment. ‘As long as you are, that’s all that matters.’
Charlie tried to stop the tremble in his hand. He realised what he had just said, that he would be the slower prey that would allow the younger one to get away. It was the law of nature, except that he didn’t feel ready for the sacrifice. He wanted to spend time with Donia, but that was selfish talk.
He opened his eyes to peer around the coats. There were shadows in the hallway. They would see at any moment that Donia wasn’t there.
‘Wait until they see that you’re missing,’ he whispered. ‘They’ll split up to look for you. That might be our best chance.’
‘Okay,’ she said, although Charlie heard the tremor in her voice.
Charlie sucked in some air and tried to calm his nerves. ‘I’ll go first. I might be able to knock some of them out of the way. Just tuck right in behind me.’ He looked round, and there was uncertainty in her eyes. He tried a smile. ‘Just run hard and fast and hope they move first.’
She smiled in return, but it didn’t get near her eyes. They were filled with fear, and Charlie felt the sudden weight of responsibility. This wasn’t just about him. He had to get Donia away.
Charlie watched the shadows get closer. It was three young women, heading for the living room, walking past where the old man slept, and lived. They hadn’t looked. They were animated, talking quickly. He heard the word
police.
Then one of them turned to the old man. There was a shout.
Charlie gripped Donia’s hand.
More people came running. Footsteps, shouts. They looked into the room, and then split up, suddenly frantic. People ran upstairs, some outside. And then three came through the living room, heading towards them.
‘Now!’ Charlie hissed at Donia, and then he burst out of their hiding place, heading for the living room, for the people coming towards them. All he thought of was the open door to the field outside.
The women in front of him screamed as he charged. He gritted his teeth, flared his nostrils, and led with his shoulder. He hit the first one hard, who cried out and then fell backwards, taking the other two to the ground with her.
It slowed him down. He stumbled over them, could hear Donia behind him, her hand on his back, the chain around her wrist jangling. There was a man ahead of him now, in a tight vest, with a goatee beard twirled into a tail, muscles taut in his arms. He whirled round as Charlie ran.
Charlie couldn’t stop, he knew that. He could see into the hallway, the open door at the end, artificial light spilling onto the grass. Donia was pushing at him, urging him on, panic in her voice.
He tried to run faster, just hoping that if he could get Donia into the open, her youth and fear would do the rest. He shouted out, his teeth bared in a snarl. The man in the vest spread his arms. Mistake. He was going for the grab, not for strength. Momentum was on Charlie’s side. Hit him hard and pump with the legs, that was the key.
Charlie put his shoulder into the man’s chest, whose head went backwards as he fell, arms flailing, but Charlie was still running, heading for the door. He scrambled over the man on the floor, was able to push away from him with his legs, and then the cold air hit his cheeks. He was outside, no one in front of him, just the dark shapes of the valley ahead, lit by the moon. There was grass under his feet, and shouts from behind him.
Charlie was about to start running when he realised that Donia wasn’t pushing at him anymore. There was a scream, a shout for help.
Charlie turned around and then stopped. Donia was on the floor, and the man in the vest was holding on to her legs. Other people were pulling at her, taking her back inside.
They had her.
Charlie hung his head and sucked in gulps of air.
The group had pulled Donia all the way back inside, so the last Charlie had seen of her was her legs kicking out. There had been too many of them, and so it was always a fight she was going to lose. He could still hear her though, fighting against them, screaming.
A man appeared in the door. It was the small man with dark hair and piercingly bright eyes he had seen in Oulton, in a scruffy denim shirt. Charlie knew him now as Henry.
‘So you didn’t bring it?’ Henry said, and Charlie detected some amusement in his voice, as if this was all part of the game.
‘Let her go,’ Charlie snarled at him.
Henry shook his head. ‘That’s not going to happen, you know that.’
‘If you touch her, I’ll kill you.’
‘Did you think you could outsmart me?’ Henry said. ‘You know I want the original tape, but you haven’t brought it, so you’re just surplus now, a threat to our group.’ He tutted. ‘That isn’t a good thing to be, a threat, because you know how we deal with that,’ and Henry glanced towards the stones.
Charlie followed the gaze. He took in the naked woman first, dumped into a hole in the ground, her skin pale under the moonlight, spoiled by dark streaks that he knew were blood. Then he saw Ted, face down, rolled into a more shallow grave, soil and grass sods piled up next to him.
He was transfixed for a moment, his mind working a few seconds behind his eyes, terrified by the knowledge that the same people who were now holding Donia had killed them both.
Some women appeared behind Henry, watching Charlie, smiling, enjoying the moment.
Henry spoke again.
‘And something else has occurred to me,’ he said. ‘You’ve come a long way to rescue your office girl, but we know that she’s more than just an office girl, because she told us everything on the way up in the van. People do that when they are frightened. So I wonder how she is feeling right now? So off you go, Charlie Barker, I don’t mind. Run as fast as you can, I won’t chase you. I’ll be too busy enjoying myself in there with your beautiful young assistant. She’s very pretty. It’s such a shame.’ Henry began to laugh, although his eyes remained mean, his brow creased. Then he turned to one of the women behind him. ‘Get me a mask.’
Henry didn’t take his gaze from Charlie as a plain white mask was given to him. He just smiled and let the mask dangle from his finger.
Charlie wanted to rush him, to wrap his hands around his throat. He faltered, knowing that going in there wouldn’t guarantee Donia’s safety. It might even condemn her. Both of them. But Charlie knew that he couldn’t leave her, and so he walked towards the house. He held on to some vain hope that he might be able to grab Donia and make another run for it, but when he went into the hallway, Donia was at the other end, each arm splayed out, people holding on to her, the man in the vest holding a knife to her throat.
Adrenaline made his hands shake and his stomach turned cartwheels. There was a push to his back and he stumbled towards Donia, whose eyes had filled with tears.
They were outside the old man’s doorway and he heard a moan, but Charlie ignored it.
‘So what now?’ Charlie said.
‘What do you think, Arni?’ Henry said.
The man in the vest grinned. ‘A bit of fun,’ he said, squeezing Donia’s breast. She squirmed away, but Arni seemed to like that, his grin turning into a laugh.
Henry sidled up behind Charlie and whispered into his ear. ‘What do you think, Daddy?’ His breath was fetid. Poor diet and bad hygiene. ‘Are you going to let Arni enjoy himself with little Donia first, just to buy you some time, or shall we end it now?’
Henry threw the mask at Arni, who caught it with one hand and pressed it against Donia’s face. Her features were gone, rendered expressionless, a shop dummy, except for the whites of her eyes staring through the mask. Arni took the knife from her neck and pressed it against Donia’s forehead, the blade pushing in the skin, ready to make a perfect line along the top of the mask.
Charlie closed his eyes as the image of Amelia came back to him, her face gone. He knew now how it had happened. He couldn’t let it happen again.
Arni started to run the knife across her skin. A red line appeared as small flecks that jumped onto the white of the mask. Donia thrashed against her captors and screamed, but it was no good.
Charlie started towards them, unsure what he intended to do but knowing he had to stop it. Then there was another moan from the old man, louder this time. Charlie looked, just for a second, instinctively. When he saw what the old man was doing, he turned his gaze back to Donia, and saw Arni’s grin filled with spite.
Charlie had seen what the old man was doing. He tried to work out how it would end up, his mind working quickly, driven by panic. It could go really badly, but his chances were running out. Anything unusual was the only chance he had.
The old man had somehow moved himself to the edge of the bed nearest the window, where the petrol bombs were stored. His arm was hanging out of the bed, so that it almost trailed on the floor, limp and useless. Except that it wasn’t wholly useless. There was a cigarette lighter in his hand, and his thumb was flicking weakly at the wheel. Charlie’s eyes had caught a spark, a yellow flash, and it was right underneath one of the petrol-soaked cloths hanging from one of the bottles.
‘Stop now,’ Charlie said, stepping in front of Arni, keeping the focus on him. He had to stop the group looking into the bedroom. ‘If you think that Henry is your hero, then you’ve been smoking too much of what I’ve seen in your ashtrays.’ He raised his voice so that everyone knew that he was addressing the whole group.
‘Don’t think we will make it quicker if you annoy us, to make the pain shorter,’ Henry said.
‘It?’ Charlie said, and then looked at the rest of the group. ‘You mean torture, murder? Congratulations everyone, I hope you enjoy your brave new world, if this is what you want. I prefer the one we’ve got now.’
At the periphery of his vision, he could see the old man’s thumb flicking at the cigarette lighter again, with just the occasional spark as the result. Charlie willed him on, as the red line grew longer along Donia’s forehead.
‘You won’t have your world for much longer,’ Henry whispered in Charlie’s ear. ‘Come with us, Mr Barker. You might enjoy it.’
Charlie didn’t answer, because he knew that if Henry enjoyed their capture, he would prolong it.
Then the old man produced a flame.
His hand shook with the lighter as he held it under the cloth for a few seconds. The flames seemed to just dance around the rag at first, and the old man let out a long moan. Charlie didn’t know if it was from exertion or satisfaction. Then the flame seemed to almost jump from the lighter to the cloth.
Fire shot upwards, streaking towards the neck of the bottle. The sudden brightness made everyone turn towards the room. Someone gasped. The glass bottle exploded, shooting fuel and flames onto the floor.
There was a scream. The fire spread through the room, the petrol on the floor making a churning sea of flames, setting light to the other petrol-soaked rags and then rippling towards the peeling wallpaper, like fingers edging their way forward.
The curtains were soon alight, disintegrating quickly, sending burning embers towards the bed. The view was becoming obscured by smoke, but as Charlie looked, he thought he saw the old man smiling.
Sheldon sat in the back of the marked police car, commandeered from two uniformed officers who were now walking the streets rather than staying warm in their car. Lowther was driving. The blue lights bounced from the windows of the town centre, transforming the quiet streets into a stroboscope. As the shops faded, there were curtain twitches from the houses they passed.
Soon they were into open countryside, and the headlights became a beacon across the open fields.
‘So tell me about this group,’ Tracey said, turning round from the front.
Sheldon leaned forward so that he was perched between the seats. ‘Do you remember how Billy Privett’s friends said they didn’t get invited to the parties anymore?’
Tracey nodded.
‘Billy got involved with this group. Or rather, the group got involved with him. They wanted his money. They were involved in Alice’s death, and it seemed that Billy thought they were going after him, so he recorded a video, like a confession, and they found out. So they killed him. It’s as simple as that, except they didn’t know that the video was only to be made public if Billy died.’