‘Was it?’ Collette arched an eyebrow and returned her focus to Paul again. ‘Because it seems to me you’re the one who hired a car that broke down on us. And you’re the one who let Ben get away. We gave you one job. A test. Kill the cameras. Tidy up when Jason left.’

  ‘I shot Ben.’

  ‘Yes, but see, that’s the problem. You shot Ben, and maybe he’s dead. You didn’t go after him and put a second bullet in him. That was mistake number one.’

  I felt a desperate yearning. Was what Collette was saying about Ben really possible? Might he have survived?

  I wanted to believe it so badly, almost as much as I wanted to get free of my bindings. But part of me wondered if Collette was raising the possibility to throw Paul off balance, and perhaps also to screw with me at the same time.

  ‘Because that other driver came along,’ Paul told her. ‘You know they did.’

  Collette raised a hand in the air. ‘Well, then, let’s suppose you killed him. Let’s give you the benefit of the doubt. You left his body behind. And Ben connects to Abi. Which means the police are going to look for her, eventually. They’ll search for her car. You erased the footage at the petrol station, but chances are we drove past other cameras tonight, don’t you think? Now admittedly, I was sitting in the back, in the shadows. But you, Paul. You were sitting in the front.’

  Paul stammered, ‘Y-y-you don’t know that. You don’t know there were any cameras.’

  ‘Maybe there were, maybe there weren’t. If there were, they would have been on the bigger roads. Nobody will be able to track us all the way out here. But consider this. You never told anyone about Lila being taken, did you, Paul?’

  Did he hesitate?

  I was almost certain he did.

  ‘No. We did what you told us to do.’

  I wasn’t sure I believed him.

  I wasn’t sure Collette did, either.

  ‘Great.’

  My hands were beginning to buzz with pins and needles. I picked up my pace, scratching at the tape even harder.

  Pluck.

  Pluck.

  Pluck.

  ‘Then think of it this way,’ Collette said to Paul. ‘You had some debts. You told your in-laws about it. They knew you’d been threatened. They gave you the money you needed.’

  ‘You know all that.’

  ‘Yes, and then Samantha was killed,’ Collette said, in a tone of exaggerated patience, like she was talking to a toddler. ‘And you and Lila are missing. So what will people think?’

  Paul paused and shook his head in small movements, as if he had no idea what she was getting at.

  ‘Well, look at it this way. Scenario one, Paul, is you try to go back to your old life. Maybe you spin a tale about how the people who were threatening you ambushed your car, killed your wife, abducted you and your daughter and then, what, you paid them and they let you go? That won’t work. Trust me, it won’t. Which leaves you with scenario two.’

  Again, Paul said nothing, but this time he sized up Jason, as if he was asking himself if there was a way he could get out of the cabin past him with Lila.

  ‘What’s scenario two?’ he asked.

  ‘Scenario two is you disappear. We help you to disappear. You start a new life elsewhere with your twenty-five thousand in cash. And either your in-laws and the police conclude that the bad people who were threatening you killed your wife and then took you and Lila and buried you both somewhere. Or they conclude it was all a scam you cooked up, there never were any bad people threatening you, and you murdered Samantha, took Lila and went on the run.’

  Paul swallowed. ‘I-I can’t do that.’

  ‘Thing is, Paul, you don’t have a choice.’

  His head swivelled and he looked for a long beat at the baby changing bag. His fingers curled and flexed. A drop of sweat slid out of his hair and down the side of his neck. He seemed to be turning Collette’s words over, searching for the flaw in what she was saying. Then he looked at Lila and his shoulders fell.

  ‘How would you get the passports?’

  ‘We’ll handle it. It won’t take too long. And meanwhile, you can stay here with Lila and Jason, and when you’re ready, I think you’ll find our location is not very far from a ferry port.’

  I scratched at the duct tape some more, grimacing with the effort, sensing that my time was running low.

  ‘And that’s it?’ Paul asked. ‘That’s everything?’

  ‘Almost.’

  Collette paused, and then she leaned sideways and looked up at me once more, making a point of it this time.

  Our gazes locked. Again, I saw the same disturbing light dance in her eyes.

  I swallowed too fast, my mouth bulging from behind my gag, almost choking on my fear.

  ‘But, first, I think Jason and I are going to need a little more assurance that you won’t get to Spain or Italy or Greece, or wherever you decide to go with Lila, and develop a sudden fit of conscience, maybe decide to email the police an anonymous tip about our involvement in any of this. We’re going to need some proof of compliance, Paul.’

  75

  A splinter of ice ran down my spine.

  ‘What do you mean by compliance?’ Paul asked.

  Collette returned her attention to him. I couldn’t tell if Paul really didn’t get what she was saying or if he was trying to delay the inevitable.

  I started working even faster with the glass shard behind my back, stabbing and probing at the tape that bound my wrists. The shard pierced the tape and plunged into my skin. Ow. My eyes stung and wept as I tugged it out. The shard was slick with my blood, gummed up with glue and tape residue, slippery like a bar of soap. I plunged it into the tape again, knowing I was also cutting and nicking my skin, sawing feverishly away as a wave of horror crashed over me.

  Hurry.

  I changed my grip on the glass shard and sawed and jabbed even harder at the tape, straining against it. Pins and needles were beginning to radiate up my lower arms. My elbows and shoulders ached.

  Pluck.

  Pluck.

  Pluck.

  ‘You’re going to kill Abi, Paul. And you’re going to need to do that for us now. Understand?’

  Shit.

  A bolt of panic.

  This was why Collette had kept me alive until now. This was why she’d brought me here.

  ‘No,’ Paul said, waving both hands in the air. ‘No, I won’t do that. I can’t.’

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Collette asked him. ‘You already shot her boyfriend.’

  ‘That was different.’

  ‘How?’

  He exhaled in frustration and looked at Lila, who was sleeping soundly in the car seat. I wondered if he thought it was different because Lila was here. Perhaps he wanted to kid himself that he was a better man now that he was in her presence again, or perhaps Samantha’s death was weighing on him. I saw his hands open and close. They were dripping with sweat.

  ‘She’s pregnant.’

  Collette pulled a face. ‘So?’

  ‘Shooting Ben was in the heat of the moment,’ Paul went on. ‘I didn’t know what else to do.’

  ‘Well, great news, Paul. Because now I’m telling you what to do.’

  Collette raised her gun and pointed it at him. She held it steady. Then, achingly slowly, she twisted, and angled it downwards at Lila.

  Oh, God.

  I jabbed even harder at the tape.

  Pluck.

  Pluck.

  Pluck.

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ Paul asked her, horrified.

  ‘What does it look like I’m doing?’

  ‘Stop that. Stop pointing the gun at her.’

  ‘Then do as I say. Quickly. I don’t think we should let Abi suffer for any longer than necessary, do you?’

  Paul turned and glanced at me. He looked wretched, desperate. Threads of saliva clung to his lips. I shouted and moaned at him from behind my gag, staring at him wild-eyed.

  Please don’t do this.

  Please don’t make this mistake.

  I was still working at the tape, still plucking away, but it wouldn’t give or stretch or come apart. There was too much of it.

  Paul continued to look at me, but his gaze was also flitting around the cabin. I got the impression he was searching in his mind for another way out, any way out. The look on his face reminded me of how he’d first appeared to me in the glare of my headlamps, when he’d been waving his torch and his jaw had unhinged in the seconds when it seemed certain I was about to run him down.

  Come on, please.

  I stabbed at the tape even harder, asking myself if I could scramble to my feet and rush at them while my hands were still bound. But it wouldn’t work. I wouldn’t get out.

  Paul swallowed, then looked away from me, his focus returning to Lila once more.

  ‘OK.’ I could hear the tightness and resignation in his voice as he nodded very slightly. ‘OK, how do we do this?’

  I moaned again, louder than before.

  It made no difference. He was shutting me out.

  ‘Jason?’ Collette asked.

  Jason nodded to Paul. ‘Let’s get her outside.’

  They moved towards me, the two of them together. Jason to my right. Paul to my left. I had only seconds left.

  Pluck.

  Pluck.

  Plu—

  The tape loosened.

  It snapped.

  My heart jolted.

  It took me a second to understand what had happened.

  Jason stepped in front of me and reached down to grab a fistful of my sweater. As he started to haul me to my feet, I separated my numbing arms and they began to swing free with a clumsy jolt.

  Move.

  Adrenaline flooded my system as my arms flopped around by my sides. Jason noticed and his eyes went wide.

  He seemed confused for a split second as he continued to lift me up, and I turned at the hips, my left arm arcing wildly up towards his face.

  It didn’t get there.

  He was much taller than me. And even though he was surprised, and his responses were fractionally delayed, he reacted just enough to lurch backwards with his lower spine arching over the rim of the cot.

  Which exposed his throat.

  And was where my fist ended up.

  With the glass shard gripped in it.

  I felt the glass puncture the skin at the underside of his jaw. I felt a hot squirt of blood. I heard him grimace and make a gargling, choking noise, and then he released me, reaching up to his throat with both hands, shocked horror in his eyes.

  Which is when I spun the other way, and planted my palms on the flat of Paul’s chest, shoving him backwards over the sofa as hard as I could.

  He tumbled crazily. His legs and feet flew upwards, blocking Collette’s view of me.

  ‘Stop!’ she screamed.

  But by then I’d lunged forward and grabbed for one of the chairs under the kitchen table, and I was lifting it and swinging it desperately fast before she raised her gun.

  The chair was fashioned from sturdy timber. It clattered into the side of her head with an awful crunch. She fell to all fours. A gasping ‘pluh’ escaped her lips. She sprawled forwards and dribbled on the floor.

  Meanwhile, I lurched down to my side, stretching out my good arm and threading it through the handle of Lila’s car seat. I grappled with the door handle with my other hand, flinging the door open, and then I burst outside with Lila, bolting from the deck and running hard for the woods.

  76

  Ben

  Ben sped by an exit on the dual carriageway. He glanced at a road sign and saw that it was the turn-off for Liskeard, then he looked down at the map, noting that it wouldn’t be too much further now before the dual carriageway ended and he’d be getting closer to Plymouth.

  ‘Ben, my wife has just been sick.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Parsons, but we need to talk right now. This is really important. I don’t have much battery left.’

  The battery level on the phone had dwindled to 2 per cent.

  It had taken several minutes for Julian Parsons to even begin to compose himself enough to talk and understand what Ben was saying to him. Ben had really had to stress that he’d already asked the police to send officers and an ambulance out to Samantha. He hadn’t said she was dead, and he knew that was terrible, but he couldn’t afford for Samantha’s dad to hang up on him.

  ‘Mr Parsons?’

  ‘All right, Ben. You say you gave a lift to Paul?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But Lila wasn’t with him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And this woman Paul was with?’

  ‘I don’t know who she is. But they have my girlfriend. I’m terrified they’re going to hurt her. So please, if you have any idea where they might have gone, or where they could be taking her, I really need to hear it.’

  77

  I broke through the treeline, hurtling for the dark. Lila’s car seat banged and crashed against my thigh. It was swinging wildly at my side and Lila was crying and howling as she was jostled and bumped around.

  I tore onwards, crashing through brambles and undergrowth, flitting by tree trunks. The ground was soft and pliable underfoot, marshy in places, undulating unpredictably in others. I was terrified of tripping over a hidden root or bump.

  Lila’s cries intensified. She was wailing, distressed.

  I reached up with my left hand, dug my thumbnail under a corner of the tape that was covering my mouth and ripped it free in one go.

  I gasped. My skin prickled. My lips felt tender and torn.

  ‘It’s OK,’ I told Lila, panting. ‘Just a second, it’s OK.’

  I stopped quickly and set her car seat down on the forest ground, swiping the back of my hand across my tingling mouth. My fingers writhed with nervous energy as I located the buckle that was holding her in place. I then unclipped it, slipped my hands under her armpits and lifted her hot little body out of her seat along with her blanket. She was raging, trembling, her cries sawing at the air. I clasped her to my chest with my good arm hooked under her bottom and my other hand cradling the back of her head as I scanned the terrain behind me.

  ‘Hush, Lila, hush.’

  It didn’t work. She was too upset. She wriggled and fought against me and bawled.

  My heart beat frantically as I peered back through the tree cover towards the cabin. I’d covered a lot of ground, and it was quite some distance behind me, but I could just see Paul and Collette rush outside, pause to listen for a second, then dart in the direction of Lila’s cries. Collette was in front, Paul following her from behind.

  ‘Lila!’ Paul yelled, jumping down off the deck after Collette.

  Fire spurted from Collette’s hand and something zipped past my head with a whine like a fast-moving insect. A millisecond later I heard the BANG.

  Gunshot, screamed a voice in my head.

  My entire body buckled with fear. I instinctively ducked and covered Lila with my body as she wailed even louder.

  ‘No, stop!’

  I could tell from Paul’s panicked shout that he was yelling at Collette, not me. When I raised my head, I saw him launch himself at her from behind, clapping his arms around her and pinning her hands against her sides.

  ‘Are you crazy? You could hit Lila!’

  As he said it, the door to the cabin banged open behind them and Jason emerged. His shoulders and chest were heaving. His footfall was heavy. There were two crossed strips of duct tape covering the bloody wound in his neck. He looked intent and enraged.

  Go.

  I pushed up to my feet, turned away and ran, holding Lila to me, shielding her with my body and arms as much as I could.

  Something slapped my face.

  Tree branch.

  It was there and gone in a second.

  And then I was plunging on through the trees as more branches whipped and slapped at us and I ran, ran, ran.

  My heart jackhammered. Lila cried and howled and shuddered in my arms.

  I couldn’t hide with her while she was making this much noise. I was scared that Jason was taking chunks out of my lead.

  I veered off to my right, into a deeper pocket of darkness, glancing down at Lila as she wriggled and squirmed in my arms.

  She was so tiny, so delicate. I couldn’t allow her to get hurt. It had been too dangerous to leave her back at the cabin with Collette and Jason. Collette had already pointed her gun at her once in there, and now she’d shot at us, too.

  ‘It’s OK,’ I told her. ‘It’s going to be OK.’

  Already my legs were getting heavy. I felt like I was running through sand. An acid cramping seized my chest, sending shockwaves through my torso and limbs.

  I could barely see where I was going. It was too dark, the tree cover too thick.

  But maybe that was a good thing.

  Maybe if I could quieten Lila, they would lose me.

  ‘Shh, Lila. Shh.’

  I glanced behind me again as I ran, but I couldn’t see them. In the very far distance, I could still just about see some of the festoon lights twinkling through gaps in the leaves.

  More branches whipped my face. Thorns and who knew what else scratched my hands and legs.

  Thwack.

  My head flew backwards. Pain bloomed across my brow.

  It took me a humming second to realize I’d run into a branch.

  Sticky wetness crept down my forehead towards my eyes. I swiped at it with my hand.

  Blood.

  The branch must have cut me on my scalp and—

  Crack.

  My ankle.

  I’d turned it.

  When I tried to hop forwards, I yelped.

  An electric current arced up my lower leg and spread its tentacles across my foot. I hobbled for a second, panicking, then set my foot down gently, hissing through my teeth.

  Not now.

  It hurt. I couldn’t bear much weight. But I didn’t think it was broken. I was pretty sure the crack had come from a stray branch I’d stepped on. I must have rolled my ankle joint.

  Shit.

  I limped on quickly, pushing branches aside and holding Lila closer to me, because all that mattered was getting away, finding help, finding someone who could—

 

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