Authors: Tom Bale
R
ob had
no real idea what it would achieve, riling the man like this, but he couldn’t resist. What kept playing on his mind was the image of Kyle last Sunday, observing from a distance, as though the dying man had been sent on a mission to destroy their lives.
Rob recalled that the police had been puzzled by the lack of physical evidence on the common. ‘Did you drive him to Petersfield?’ he asked now. ‘Or are you staying close to our address?’
Kyle sneered. ‘You think I’m going to tell you that?’
‘Might as well. It’s not like we can do anything with the information.’
He pretended to enjoy the young man’s discomfort, though inwardly he was sick with tension. If Kyle refused to say, it implied that the family might pose a threat in future, suggesting that their fates weren’t sealed. But if he answered these questions, it almost certainly meant they were destined to die here.
Rob could sense that Wendy, for the sake of their children, didn’t want him spelling out the hopelessness of their situation. But Rob wasn’t willing to believe it was hopeless. That was why he intended to push and probe, to open up as many cracks as he could, and Kyle seemed like one of the weakest members of the group.
The initiative of a toaster
, as Josh had put it.
‘You were in Petersfield, then?’ he said. Irritated, Kyle turned his back on them for a second as he walked over to the door. Wendy used that moment to shuffle closer to Rob, pressing her foot against his leg. Georgia also moved towards her brothers, all of them seeking the reassurance of physical contact.
Rob went on: ‘The funny thing is, I think I nearly reversed into Milo and Lara on Monday morning.’ He chuckled. ‘If only I’d known, eh? I could have put my foot down.’
Kyle said nothing. He resumed his position by the door, drew up his knees and scowled into the middle distance. After a few more attempts to engage him in conversation, Rob gave up. The family sat in silence, exchanging brave smiles and encouraging nods, but Rob knew these efforts to stay cheerful would falter soon enough. The strain of sitting with their hands tied behind their backs was already painful; eventually it would be unbearable.
Wendy whispered, very quietly, ‘Are you all right?’
‘Yeah. You?’ Both of them watched Kyle for a reaction, but he seemed to have drifted into a reverie of his own.
‘Do you think he can hear us?’ Wendy was barely mouthing the words, so Rob shook his head.
‘I was winding him up for a reason,’ he said. ‘Looking for an angle.’
She shrugged, as if to say:
I understand, but there isn’t an angle
.
Not one that can get us out of here, at least.
S
lowly the minutes dragged by
, taking them past midnight, and into Sunday. There were more loud noises from upstairs, banging and hammering, and a couple of times Rob thought he might have heard the front door closing. It was an enticing thought, that some of their captors had left the house, but what could they possibly make of that opportunity?
The tragic irony, Rob thought, was that Nyman had turned up here with a gun. Without that, the family might have been able to fight back.
As if by telepathy, Wendy whispered. ‘Don’t try anything stupid.’ Then, apologetically: ‘Reckless, I mean.’
‘I won’t.’ He said it to reassure her, though if the chance came to do something – anything – that might get them out of here, Rob thought he would probably take it.
Evan and Josh also began to murmur to each other, both of them focused on supporting Georgia, telling her it was going to be okay. The girl looked grateful but unconvinced; she was far too pragmatic to fall for their attempts.
‘At least this isn’t anything to do with Burroughs,’ Wendy whispered. ‘Or Iain Kelly.’
Rob grimly agreed, though the comment reminded him of Jason Dennehy’s offer of help. What he wouldn’t do to have the big, fearless groundworker here right now – along with a few of his friends.
An hour passed, and Kyle didn’t move an inch. At times his eyes were drooping a little. If the young man dozed off, Rob might be able to creep up on him, perhaps kick him hard enough to knock him out. . .
Yeah, right
.
Kyle’s head dropped, then jerked upright again. He scowled in their direction, waggled the gun in his hand, and settled back.
The second time it happened, Rob made the mistake of shifting position, as if to ready himself, only for Wendy to say: ‘I need the toilet.’
Rob shot her a look, cross that she’d ruined his plan, and she whispered, ‘It’s too dangerous.’
Kyle stifled a yawn. ‘You’ll have to wait.’
‘I need to go, too,’ Evan said, and Georgia said, ‘And me.’
‘Tough.’
‘These cuffs are cutting off our circulation,’ Rob said. ‘Can’t we at least stand up and stretch?’
Kyle lifted the gun and shut one eye, taking aim at Rob. ‘You will stay where you are.’
‘Fine,’ said Josh. ‘We can stink the place out, but my guess is that Gabriel’s likely to make
you
clean it up.’
‘Josh,’ Evan muttered, naturally more cautious than his brother.
‘It’s true. I bet Kyle is given all the menial tasks – aren’t you?’
Kyle reacted, getting up on his knees. But his head was cocked, and then Rob heard the dull thunk of a car door slamming. A moment later the front door opened and the atmosphere in the house abruptly changed: all kinds of noise and bustle that made it apparent to Rob that their best chance of escape had just slipped away.
M
ilo came in
, followed by Ilsa, Lara and, finally, Gabriel. They were carrying large paper bags. The smell of hot food was overpowering.
‘Have you missed us?’ Lara asked, giggling at nothing in a way that suggested she was high on something. Rob guessed the pills they’d swallowed earlier were amphetamines, but he wondered what else they might be taking.
‘It’s quite a night!’ Gabriel said, by way of a greeting. ‘Bodies to move. A car to hide. And then food – courtesy of the money we liberated from your wallet.’
Rob snorted. ‘Happy to treat you. Now why not eat up and go, and we’ll say no more about it?’
Gabriel smiled. ‘I admire your nerve, Rob, genuinely. But no.’ He shook his head, and the smile vanished. ‘We’re not going anywhere.’
N
ow
, with food to eat, Wendy felt that the tension had abated slightly. At Gabriel’s command, their cuffs were removed and they were offered some lukewarm chips and a few limp slices of petrol station pizza. No one felt hungry, but Rob urged them to eat what they could. ‘We might not be given anything else.’
It felt glorious to have their arms free, to be able to stretch and twist their aching limbs and then sit together on the sofa. Meanwhile, the five intruders kept their distance, sitting in a semi-circle in front of the door. Gabriel had taken the gun from Kyle and given it to Ilsa, who ate virtually nothing while the others stuffed their faces. For the most part the two groups ignored each other as they ate, but towards the end of the meal, Lara passed them a two-litre bottle of Coke.
‘Drink plenty,’ Wendy advised, after Georgia took only the tiniest of sips.
‘But I need the loo.’
‘I know. We’ll see—’
‘After the meal,’ Gabriel interrupted, winking at Georgia.
Wendy was desperate to believe that this new, benign atmosphere was a positive sign – that Gabriel and his followers had come to their senses and were now looking for a way out of the horrific situation they’d created.
But that was ridiculous
, an inner voice told her. The family were all witnesses to cold-blooded murder. How could Gabriel possibly leave them alone?
Once the food was consumed they were escorted, one by one, to the toilet on the ground floor. Wendy felt a bloom of hope. There was a small window above the cistern, which she or Georgia might be able to squeeze through.
But Evan went first, and returned with the news that the window had been nailed to the frame. ‘Milo waited outside with the gun. He said that if he heard me breaking the glass, he’d shoot through the door.’
Worse still, they were being cuffed once more, their protests ignored. When Georgia was out of the room, Wendy finally gave in to a sense of helplessness. Leaning close to Rob, she said, ‘We’re not going to get out of here, are we?’
‘Yes, we are. Don’t think like that.’ Rob’s voice was tight with determination and anger. ‘Any chance I get, I’m going for these bastards.’
Wendy, for once, couldn’t admonish him. When it was her turn to be led out, she briefly considered trying to break away, perhaps run upstairs and get out through one of the bedroom windows. But what if they’d secured those, too? Besides, she had Lara holding her by the arm, and Milo following behind with the gun pointing in her direction.
I’m a coward, that’s what it is
. In the toilet there was a blessed minute of privacy. She hunched over, buried her face in her hands and wept until Milo thumped on the door and shouted at her to hurry.
All this for helping someone. That was what she struggled to come to terms with. She kept picturing the man’s terrible wounds – wounds that had been inflicted by a group of young people who’d just casually eaten pizza in her living room. She drew some strength from Rob’s defiant attitude, but knew there was a fine line between courage and recklessness – and the latter could get him killed without achieving a thing.
‘Now, are we all refreshed and comfortable?’ Gabriel asked, when the family were grouped together on the floor.
He had taken one of the sofas, the upholstery groaning beneath him. Milo and Lara were on the other sofa, while Ilsa and Kyle paced each end of the room.
‘Let us go now, please.’ Wendy decided to make her appeal before Rob could say anything. Fighting back those images of the blood-encrusted body in her garden, the stench of infection and decay:
That can’t happen to us, please God don’t let it happen
. . .
When no response came, Rob said, ‘I’ll stay here, if you let the others leave. And then we can come to an arrangement, maybe?’
‘Oh?’ Gabriel was amused.
‘Look, I can lay my hands on a fair bit of cash.’
Wendy tried not to frown: that had to be a lie – unless Rob knew something she didn’t.
‘Very kind of you,’ said Gabriel, with patronising courtesy, ‘but this isn’t about money.’ He gave them another of his bright, messianic smiles, before confirming Wendy’s very worst fears. ‘You see, we’re here to make you suffer.’
J
osh spoke up
: ‘Don’t bother trying to reason with them, Dad. This is just another component of the torture.’
‘He’s right,’ Evan said. ‘It’s like a game to them.’
‘You can learn a lot from games.’ Gabriel went to add something, only to pause, and raise a fluttery hand to his brow.
It was Kyle who stepped into the breach: ‘Challenges, not games. They form an essential part of our preparation. You have to break the boundaries that constrain normal behaviour. Not flinching from cruelty or savagery.’
‘Is this more of your post-apocalyptic crap?’ Rob asked.
‘It isn’t crap,’ Gabriel said, while gently massaging his forehead. ‘It’s about competing for scarce resources and
winning
every time. It’s about taking what you want, when you want it, with no regard for the needs of others.’
‘Sociopath 101,’ Josh murmured, but Gabriel refused to take the bait.
‘Put it any way you want. Deride it, too, if that makes you feel better.’
Rob said, ‘The man on Sunday, did you send him to our house?’
Kyle flinched at the question, just as Rob had hoped, but Gabriel answered candidly: ‘No, he escaped from us. It was. . . unfortunate.’ A glance at Kyle, who squirmed.
‘You killed him, though,’ Wendy said.
‘How could we? Baz was alive when he got to your garden.’
‘He was dying.’ Wendy’s voice rose with emotion. ‘And you inflicted the wounds that led to his death.’
‘We tortured him, that’s true. But he was nowhere near death when he escaped; otherwise he’d never have got away, would he?’
‘So you’re saying someone else did it?’ Rob asked.
‘Why not?’
Rob only grunted, disdainfully, but Wendy said, ‘What on earth could he have done to deserve that kind of treatment?’
‘Who says human beings have to deserve what happens to them? Ask anyone who ever suffered a flood, an earthquake—’
‘Yeah, okay, we get it.’ Rob interrupted to spare Wendy, but she wasn’t finished yet.
‘Who was he?’
‘No one. Some homeless guy we picked up one night. Lara pretended to be a volunteer from a hostel. He went like a lamb to the slaughter.’
Wendy swallowed. Rob had the sense that she was tormenting herself, almost, when she asked, ‘And how long did you. . .?’
‘He was with us about three weeks.’ Gabriel let that sink in, then said, ‘I doubt if you’ll survive for that long, but we’ll see.’
He yawned, as if to show how little the statement meant to him, and closed his eyes. For several long seconds, nobody moved or said a word.
Three weeks. Three weeks of unimaginable pain and fear.
Rob glanced at Wendy, and could tell she was thinking the same thing. It was almost two o’clock in the morning, but still only their first night as prisoners. . .
Then Ilsa, the most reticent of the group, cleared her throat and said, ‘Leader?’
Gabriel’s eyes snapped open and focused on Georgia. A chubby forefinger rose to point. ‘Take her upstairs.’
I
t was
what she’d known would happen. What she’d guessed from the start. It was why she’d barely said a word over the past few hours.
Don’t be noticed
, that was the first rule – a rule she’d learned when Mark Burroughs had begun to look at her in a way that made her stomach curl.
The same way Gabriel was looking at her now.
After he spoke, there was chaos. Rob and Wendy were shouting and pleading, and then the twins joined in, all four of them trying to wriggle into a circle around her, like bodyguards round a pop star. For just a second Wendy’s hands brushed against hers, but with the cuffs it was impossible to get a proper grip.
Milo and Lara pulled Georgia to her feet, lashing out at anyone who got in their way. Josh caught a boot on the side of his face, and Evan was winded from a kick in the stomach.
Georgia felt hot tears on her cheeks but fought back the sobs for fear of making it worse for Mum and Dad. Once out in the hallway she let her body go limp, forcing her captors to bear her weight. Lara grabbed a fistful of her hair. ‘Stop pissing about, bitch! Any more of this and I’ll cut your nipples off.’
She held up her other hand, showing Georgia the glinting blade of a craft knife. Milo saw it and quickly looked away.
‘Come on,’ he urged her. ‘Don’t make it worse than it is.’
‘Why?’ she shot back. ‘You’re gonna kill us whatever we do.’
It was Lara who said, ‘Yes, we are. And before that, we’re going to put you through a living hell.’
Been there
, Georgia thought, and tried to look as though she wasn’t bothered. But she didn’t say a word, because she knew she couldn’t sound brave. Not at the moment.
This was going to be far worse than anything Mark Burroughs might have done.
‘
W
here are you taking her
?’ Wendy asked, as the door shut behind them.
‘The bedroom,’ Gabriel snapped, with an impatient gesture that meant,
Where else?
Yes, it was a stupid question. Wendy knew that, but she was only trying to keep Gabriel down here. Nothing terrible would happen to Georgia until Gabriel joined her in the bedroom, that much was clear.
Gabriel was the leader. The alpha male. He would be first.
At the thought of it, Wendy made an involuntary choking noise. Fearing she was about to vomit, she turned away from Rob and dry-heaved.
‘You bastard,’ Rob growled at Gabriel. ‘All that shit about the collapse of society, and really it’s just an excuse to rape a child.’
‘She’s sixteen—’
‘Fifteen,’ Wendy corrected, but Gabriel was unfazed.
‘Fine. In the world that’s coming, that’ll make her practically middle-aged.’
‘Bullshit,’ said Rob. ‘Why not just have the guts to admit you’re a paedophile?’
Gabriel was staring at Rob, his huge body trembling, eyes glittering with rage. Sensing a violent outburst, Wendy cried, ‘Please don’t do anything to her. Georgia’s had a rough start in life.’
‘Adopted, isn’t she?’ Gabriel jeered. ‘We guessed from the photos – after years of the twins, this girl suddenly pops into existence.’
Wendy nodded; there was little point in denying it. ‘Her birth mother was killed by an abusive partner, a man who also attacked Georgia.’
From Ilsa came a grunt of satisfaction. ‘Didn’t I tell you?’ she said to Gabriel. ‘The girl is different to the rest of them.’
‘Please just bring her back. She’s been through so much trauma—’
‘Oh, boo hoo!’ Gabriel mimed wiping tears with his fists. ‘Don’t you get it yet, Wendy? This is about
suffering
. The more you speak up for her, the worse it’ll be.’
‘Well, I’m warning you,’ Rob said quietly. ‘You’d better not hurt her.’
Wendy expected the threat to provoke Gabriel, but in that moment his eyes lost focus and he turned away. Kyle gave him a worried glance, then hurried out of the room. Wendy listened hard, hoping against hope that there was a good reason for the distraction – someone at the door; someone who could rescue them – but she heard nothing.
Then Gabriel’s body gave a jolt, and he laughed, apparently at nothing, and drawled, ‘We’re not gonna hurt her, we’re gonna fuck her.’
Wendy kept quiet, understanding now that any protest would only fuel his sadism.
‘Milo can be next, if he asks nicely. What about you, Ilsa?’
Wendy saw the tall woman give a shrug. ‘Perhaps.’
‘Yeah, you will.’ The door started to open as Gabriel said, ‘And Kyle may or may not want to. . .’
‘Want to what?’ Kyle was holding a mug from the kitchen.
‘Screw Georgia.’
Thrown off stride, Kyle nodded far too vigorously. ‘Oh, yeah. Yeah, I do.’ He handed the mug to Gabriel, along with something in his other hand: pills. ‘Thought you might. . .’
‘Yeah.’ Gabriel gulped down the pills, drained whatever was in the mug, and said, ‘Lara will, of course. Lara’s hungry for experience.’ He was staring at Kyle as he spoke, enjoying his discomfort and confusion.
‘How will she. . .?’ The young man must have realised how naïve he sounded, and quickly shut up, his face glowing red.
Gabriel let out a booming laugh. ‘Do you need me to draw a diagram? No, better still, we’ll take some photos.’ He turned, leering at Wendy and Rob. ‘Put them on Instagram, what do you think? I know how competitive it is at that age, but four or five partners in a night – that should get her noticed by her friends!’