‘The book deal was years ago,’ I say to Marie. ‘Things are different now. I’ve Archie to think about.’
Archie starts primary school next September and I don’t want to be playground gossip any more than I already will be. The headteacher is the same one Marie and I had when we were abducted. Some of the other parents will be kids I shared classrooms with, but the advantages of having him go to the same school that I went to is knowing the layout, the routines. If I needed to get to Archie quickly, I could.
‘I don’t want to stir up bad feeling,’ Carly says. ‘I don’t want the community to think we’re blaming them for not being vigilant.’
‘I agree with Carly.’ The locals look after their own. I don’t like the thought of them watching me on TV. I won’t make my life a media circus again. I’ve no reason to. ‘Besides, going over what happened again—’
‘It’s not just that,’ Marie pushes on. ‘The network wants to know what long-term effects it’s had on us.’
‘Nothing. We’re fine. Now.’ Carly lightly runs her finger over her tattoo as her voice cracks with emotion. I sit there, palms damp in my gloves.
‘I’m not fine,’ Marie says quietly. ‘My career is… well, I’m resting at the moment and honestly, I could do with the cash. Couldn’t you?’
It’s true my bank account could do with a boost. I hadn’t touched a penny of our advance until I met George. I paid for our house, although he insisted the deeds were in my name. He hadn’t wanted anyone to think he was after me for my money. I remortgaged the first time to start him up in his own architectural firm and then again because his income isn’t what he’d hoped for – no one is building with the economy in the state it’s in.
‘I make a living,’ Carly says. With the publishing advance she could have afforded a small house in our area but she bought a flat instead. It doesn’t have a garden. With the remaining cash she trawled the charity shops looking for bargains that she later sold on eBay. This is how she gets by, that and the small wage I pay her for childminding.
‘Well, good for you. I ploughed everything into funding that tour of the supernatural play.’ Marie had had high hopes but nobody had understood the plot. ‘The TV people have offered us a ridiculous amount of money if we can tell them something that’s not in the book.’
‘We can’t tell them anything they don’t already know.’
‘Yes, we can.’ Marie swallows hard. ‘We can tell them the truth.’
Chapter Five
Carly
Then
Tell me who you are, Carly screamed inside her head, but the man carrying her over his shoulder couldn’t hear her. He strode on, strong and purposeful. She tried to identify her environment from the sound his footsteps were making.
Crunching.
Snapping.
Carly was certain they were walking across dried grass. Twigs. The woods? She could hear the whisper of leaves. The creaking of branches. But not enough for a forest. They were somewhere overgrown, at the very least. The breeze was welcome against her sticky skin but she wished she didn’t have tape around her mouth so she could breathe a little deeper. She couldn’t hear the second man following them and her dread at being separated from the twins, combined with the bumping sensation – each tiny movement causing her head, hanging upside down, to knock against the man’s back – sloshed nausea around her stomach. Carly swallowed hard. She hoped she wouldn’t be sick, she had no way of spitting it out. Fear that she might choke became her overriding emotion. Her skin once again clammy as her heart raced so faced the world spun. If the man abruptly put her down, she would fall.
Calm.
Carly thought of Leah and Marie. She had to keep her wits about her. The first opportunity she got, she needed to be able to run. To locate a house, flag down a car, find an adult who would help them. It was the thought of a grown-up taking charge that made Carly’s eyes burn with tears. She was only a child. Thirteen. She didn’t know what she could do. How she could possibly overpower a grown man, but she must. Right now, she was all the twins had.
She inhaled slower. Deeper. The smell of nicotine infused the man’s coat – and something else? Something earthy.
They still must be in bright sunlight because behind Carly’s blindfold her eyes flooded with red – the colour of staring at the sun too long.
The colour of blood.
The man slowed. Stopped. The hand holding Carly’s calves withdrew but she could still feel the weight of his fingers and it took her a second to realize she could move her legs. She bent her knees, drawing her heels back up to her bottom before driving her feet forward, her toes slamming into his chest. She braced herself to fall. Prepared to spring to her feet, stumble forward. To run whether or not she could see where she was going.
The man barely moved as she repeatedly kicked him.
He didn’t scream with pain, but inside Carly there were enough screams for the both of them fighting to be released.
A jangle.
A click.
A creak.
The hand returned to her calves and they were moving forwards again but this time it felt different. Instead of a crunch there was a clump-clump-clump. The sound of boots on a hard surface. The breeze kissing her skin wafted away.
They were inside. It smelled old. Musty. Unused and unloved.
Carly’s fear increased. She couldn’t pinpoint exactly what she was afraid of but she knew that without the possibility of someone stumbling across them – the potential of someone helping – the man could do whatever he liked.
The air inside felt thick and heavy. Somehow she knew they were alone in this building.
However much noise she made, there was no one to hear her.
Again, the man hesitated. Terror gripped Carly tightly as she imagined the next step forward would take them on a descent into a cellar. She’d had an unnatural dread of underground spaces since she’d watched Psycho with her dad last year, pretending to agree as she laughed along with him at how dated it was.
But Carly’s heart had hammered against her chest. She knew fear was amplified in the grey spaces between the black and the white.
The man’s fingers clutched at the back of Carly’s jumper. She was pulled away from his shoulder, which suddenly, inexplicably, now felt warm and safe and somewhere she wanted to stay. Her legs dangled helplessly until she was set down upon a soft surface. Not a staircase.
A mattress?
Vomit rose once more.
She swallowed, once, twice, unable to dislodge the painful lump in her throat, instead clenching her jaw so tightly that her temples began to pulse.
Don’t touch me-don’t touch me-don’t touch me.
She had seen the news. She knew what sometimes happened to girls.
Her body began to shake and she told herself it was just that. A body. A shell. Not the essence of her real self, which was buried somewhere unreachable. If someone had to be hurt it was better to be her rather than Leah or Marie. They were only eight. Babies really. Still at primary. She was older. She could cope.
Although she knew she couldn’t. Already something inside of her was cracking and breaking apart.
Don’t touch me.
He didn’t.
It took a beat for Carly to distinguish his retreating footsteps from the thump of her heart.