George knows more than he should.
He knows what’s to come.
He shakes away all thoughts of running away.
He doesn’t want to arouse suspicion.
Chapter Thirteen
Carly
Then
What was in the cardboard box?
Carly scratched at the brown parcel tape that sealed it with her nail until the end lifted but still she didn’t dare rip it off. Her heart kicked against her chest. Her stomach spun around faster. She had assumed the smell of decay was from years of neglect, from the rubbish, but what if it was coming from the box? What if it held the remains of something… or someone? It wasn’t large enough for a person, unless they’d been chopped up, but that only happened in movies, didn’t it? She thought again of Psycho. Of Norman Bates’ dead mother rocking in that chair.
‘What are you do—’
‘Stay over there,’ Carly ordered her sisters.
Think.
She needed to be brave and find out what was inside but Carly didn’t feel brave. She felt small and scared and she wanted to go home.
‘Is there something in the box?’ Marie asked.
Something.
Someone.
‘I… I don’t know, Marie.’
‘Why don’t you just—’
‘Shush a minute.’
Think.
The cardboard was stiff and dry. It hadn’t been here for as long as everything else. There was no blood seeping from the bottom of the box. What if it contained, not unimaginable horrors, but something useful? A torch perhaps. The prospect of this excited her not just because it would be dark soon and they’d have light, that was secondary to the desire for a weapon. Carly could picture herself hiding behind the door. Feel the weight of the torch in her hand, the force in her shoulder as she brought it down on Moustache’s head. Hear his screams. Smell his blood. She wasn’t usually one for dark thoughts but then this was not a usual situation. Her mind hopped. If not a torch then maybe tools. Something she could use to slice through the metal bars.
She had to find out.
Carly glanced out of the window and then across to the door. No one was watching except the graffiti clown with his wide staring eyes, but still she felt uneasy.
Her hands shook as she tore off the tape. She quickly shuffled backwards, half expecting a swarm of rats to rush towards her or a plague of insects, but there was nothing. Carly inched forwards again, taking care to avoid kneeling on the shards of glass.
‘Oh.’ Out of all the things she had been expecting, it wasn’t… this.
‘What’s in there, Carly? Can we see?’ asked Marie.
‘In a sec.’ Carly rummaged through the contents, her hope sinking as she interpreted what they meant. The box had been left here for the girls, Carly had no doubt.
What was in store for them she still didn’t know but she did know that they wouldn’t be going home yet.
There were multiple bags of Spicy Tomato Snaps, the green dragon grinning his toothy grin from the front of the packet. Carly normally loved them but she shoved them out of the way, disinterested. Underneath them lay a couple of bags of blackcurrant liquorice sweets and several cans of cherry Coke. There was also a pink blanket, soft and fleecy, still with its tags, and somehow Carly knew that Doc had put that in there, and oddly a small teddy bear, his arms outstretched, red knitted jumper riding over his rounded belly. This kindness seemed at odds with the way they’d been so brutally snatched from their lives that Carly began to cry.
What did they want with them? It was all too much.
The tapping of the tree outside grew louder. The room grew smaller. Carly cried harder, fighting for breath as the ceiling pressed down.
She crouched low. She couldn’t breathe.
‘Don’t cry, Carly.’ Her sisters rushed to her side and each draped a thin arm around her neck, pressing their warm bodies against hers, and this made Carly’s tears flow faster.
‘The bear doesn’t want you to be sad.’ Leah reached for the teddy from the box and waved him in front of Carly’s face.
‘It will be okay.’ Marie stroked her hair. ‘I promise. We’ll be home soon and then we’ll go on holiday.’
‘Where to?’ Leah asked.
‘Disneyland probably,’ Marie said.
Carly knew it was wishful thinking. They were supposed to go to Florida last year but it had been cancelled because Dad was too busy with work and, although he promised they’d go away at half-term instead, they didn’t end up going anywhere.
‘See. Don’t cry, Carly. We’ll be on a plane on the way to meet Mickey Mouse soon,’ said Leah even though she was terrified of flying. This small act of bravery led Carly’s lungs to loosen. Oxygen began to flow around her body. The burn in her chest started to subside. She couldn’t give up. She wouldn’t give up. But while she waited for an idea to hit – the perfect plan to get them home – she could distract her sisters. Distract herself.
‘Let’s play a game while we wait to go home.’ She led her sisters over to the mattress and they settled down. Carly wiped her eyes with her sleeve. ‘We each have to name something in the room alphabetically. You start, Leah.’
‘Animal.’
‘There isn’t an animal!’ Marie said.
‘There’s a bear.’ Leah was cuddling the soft toy from the box.
‘If you can have that, I’ll have A teddy for my A,’ Marie said. ‘Carly? Your turn.’
‘Annoying sisters,’ Carly said but they all knew she didn’t mean it.
‘Now. B. Umm… bed! Kind of.’ Marie patted the mattress.
‘Broken glass,’ Carly offered.
‘Bars,’ Leah said flatly and Carly clapped her hands, drawing her sister’s gaze away from the window.
‘My turn to go first, C.’ Carly looked around the room. ‘This is harder.’
‘Not for me!’ Marie shouted. ‘Carly!’
Carly rolled her eyes. ‘Okay, I’m going for carpet.’
‘There isn’t a carpet!’ Marie shoved Carly.
‘There’s a dust carpet!’
‘That would be D then, silly. Pick something else.’ Marie’s eight-year-old logic was often skewed. How she rationalized things was often a source of amusement at home.
‘Okay then… crisps. Your turn, Leah.’
‘Clown.’ Leah began to cry. ‘I don’t like that clown, Carly. He’s watching us.’
They all stared at the graffiti on the back of the door. The clown’s eyes did seem to be fixed on them, his stretched mouth laughing.
‘I don’t want to play any more.’ The brief moment of lightness was gone.
‘Do you want some crisps?’ Carly remembered she hadn’t given the girls their tea. She rubbed her fingers together, still feeling the paper of the £10 note smooth against her skin, almost tasting chips drenched with salt and vinegar.
‘I’m not hungry.’ Leah lay on her side and began to suck her thumb. She hadn’t done that since she was three.
Time dragged. It felt like days since Carly had sat on her back step after school and felt the heat of the sun on her skin. The room was chilly with its bare walls and floors. Outside the last burst of sun streaked the sky orange as it began to dip, and Carly knew they’d grow even colder. One blanket wasn’t enough for them all.
Leah hugged her knees to her chest. Carly could see the goosebumps on her arms.
Marie sat cross-legged, spine rigid, staring at the door that never opened. Carly shuddered. That clown gave her the creeps too.
‘Come on.’ She stood and stretched out a hand to each sister. ‘Let’s warm up.’
‘How?’ Marie asked but she was already standing.
Carly raised her arm above her head and mimed spinning a lasso – ‘5, 6, 7, 8’ – the way she should have done in the kitchen earlier that day.
Tentative at first, the girls’ singing grew louder, stronger, as their feet shuffled across the concrete, hands on their hips. Momentarily it seemed to
Carly they could have been somewhere else. Back at home with Bruno barking and jumping up, doing his own dog dance. Carly’s voice faltered as she swallowed down a hard lump that rose in her throat as she wondered what might have happened if she hadn’t been such a bitch earlier and had danced with the twins when the song had come on the radio. That four-minute delay might have made all the difference. The men might have given up searching for someone to take. Or it could be different girls trapped here right now. Instantly, Carly felt like a cow for wishing this on somebody else and she pushed away the part of her that whispered better anyone else than you.
She sank onto the mattress, too emotional to carry on. ‘I’m out of breath. You girls take over.’
Marie and Leah exchanged a look before breaking out their best Madonna. Carly had heard them sing ‘True Blue’ a million times before, sometimes with lips coated in Mum’s red lipstick, a beauty spot drawn below their left nostril with an eyebrow pencil, and usually it irritated her but here it sounded sweet and pure, the twins placing their hands dramatically over their hearts as they declared true love. Would they live through this to find their soulmates one day? Carly thought of Dean, she might never see him again. The twins slipped seamlessly between the songs they’d choreographed in their bedroom. Marie’s fingers sought out the cross around her neck, lifting it as she sang ‘Like a Prayer’. Leah’s hand felt around her own throat. ‘My cross! It’s gone!’
‘It must be here somewhere.’ Carly remembered the gold glinting in the light as Leah was carried in.
‘We’ll find it,’ Marie dropped to her knees.
‘Be careful of the broken glass,’ Carly joined in the search but it was fruitless. ‘I’m sorry, Leah. We’ll get you another one.’
Leah nodded. Carly could see she was upset but she didn’t complain. ‘Do you want to sing something else?’
Leah shook her head. ‘I’m hungry now.’
Carly was surprised to find that she was too.
‘Let’s have some Snaps while we wait for Doc and Moustache to bring us some proper dinner.’ There wasn’t nearly enough food in the box to keep all three of them going for more than a few hours and this gave Carly hope that the men would be back soon.
The sisters licked spicy tomato crumbs from their fingers and fizzed open cans of cherry Coke.
And waited.
They waited for dinner. They waited for a light.
But nobody came.
They all felt it, the creeping claustrophobia that built as dusk fell. Gloom casting shadows into the corners of the room, across the ceiling.
‘I want to go home, I want to go home.’ Leah’s voice dripped with hysteria. ‘I want to go home!’
She raced over to the door and began beating against it, screaming, ‘Let us out. Help us.’
Carly and Marie rushed over to Leah’s side but rather than trying to calm her they too began thumping the door.
‘Let us out. Please. Somebody help us.’
The clown laughed and laughed at their panic. The whites of his eyes, his teeth, the last visible thing as darkness swallowed the girls, feeding on their fear.
It was pitch black.
Still they screamed.
Still nobody came.
Chapter Fourteen
Leah
Now
There is somebody in our garden.
I peer anxiously out of the window into the gloom, my fingertips resting on the glass, eyes searching for shadows. Blood whooshes through my ears and rising above that, the steady thump of George’s footfall on the stairs.
‘Archie fell asleep halfway through The Stick Man. I put on my best voices too. I think… Leah? Are you okay?’
‘I thought I heard something,’ my voice wobbles. ‘And when I looked outside there was…’
Movement.
Him.
‘I can’t see anything now, though.’
George stands by my side. ‘Just because they’ve released him doesn’t mean you need to feel—’
‘I know.’ I don’t need to feel unsafe, but I do. That man has ruined my life. When he was contained in a prison cell, guarded by officers, I could almost, almost pretend he didn’t exist. Now he’s back out there somewhere. He could be one hundred miles away.
One mile away.
Staring at me right now.
I have no way of knowing.
‘Are you going out tonight?’ I ask.
‘I did say to a client…’ George begins. I meet his eyes and his gaze flickers to the flowers he had given me, which now sprout from a bright yellow jug on our coffee table. ‘Do you want me to stay here, Leah?’
‘Yes, please,’ I say, adding hurriedly, ‘it isn’t because I’m scared to be alone.’ It’s partly because I’m scared to be alone. ‘It’s… I’m worried about you, George.’
A flicker of surprise passes across his face. It’s horrible it’s such a shock to him that I’ve been thinking of something other than myself, my sisters, the anniversary. Despite everything, I love my husband with all my heart and it seems he has lost sight of that. We have both lost sight of that. I sit on the sofa, patting the space next to me.
He cautiously settles himself. ‘I’m… okay.’
‘I miss you. Archie misses you. We miss our family movie evenings.’ Finding Nemo and buttery popcorn. ‘And our games nights.’ Hungry Hippos while Archie was awake and once he’d gone to bed, cards. Red wine and cheese and crackers. Olives. Folk music streaming through the Bose. Dylan urging ‘Don’t Think Twice’ as I arranged my cards into suits and tried to second-guess what George would be collecting.
‘It’s been… hard.’
I think he means I’ve been hard, but I wait for him to elaborate.
‘The business isn’t doing great,’ he says eventually. ‘I’m doing all I can but… I’m sorry, Leah.’ His eyes are sad, bordered with fine lines that hadn’t been there months before. When was the last time I had really looked at him? There is a groove on the bridge of his nose, wrinkles forming on his forehead. Each one of them telling the story, the story of us.
‘You’ve nothing to be sorry for.’ I know I have a hundred apologies to make to a hundred different people and even then, it won’t be enough. I hate the way I’ve made him cross lately – wearing the gloves, restarting my rituals – and I hate the way he has to fight to keep his feelings in check for fear of upsetting me. I only pick up on his anger from his body language, never his voice. I’ve let him down.
‘I’ve let you down…’ His voice cracks, along with my heart. I can’t let him stagger under the weight of our family alone any more. It is breaking him apart. Emotions flicker in his eyes and I know how conflicted he is. It must be awful to leave your warm house, on cold nights, to schmooze with clients when you’d rather be reading a bedtime story to your child. Snuggled up on the sofa with your wife. Knowing that whatever you are doing, it still isn’t enough. I have it easy, the one who stays home in the evenings. Who works part-time. That’s one thing I can change, right now.
‘Lionel’s offered me extra hours because Carol’s leaving.’
‘I don’t know, Leah. I don’t think you should.’
‘Because you’re the man?’ George is quite traditional sometimes.
‘Because of Archie. Carly’s great helping out but how would you feel if she were always the one picking him up? Do you really want to work full-time?’
‘No. But if I need to, I will. I’ll do everything I can to help, you know, with money,’ I am lying to myself. Lying to him. The TV production company are offering enough to obliterate our debts but I can’t sell myself that way. The thought of it makes me feel sullied. ‘We’ll be okay.’ Another lie, but sometimes we tell ourselves the things we need to hear, don’t we? As though our words can make it so.
‘Yeah.’ He shuffles closer, puts his arm around me. I rest my head on his shoulder. We sit in a silence that is companionable rather than awkward.
I must have dozed off because the slam of a car do
or rouses me. Within seconds I am on my feet, peeping out of the window again.
‘Let’s go to bed,’ George says behind me. His breath hot on my neck.
Upstairs, I stroke George’s face with my fingers, feeling the rough stubble beneath my skin. I never wear gloves in bed. It’s my safe place. The feel of him around me, on me. In me. It’s the one place I forget. His lips are dry as I push mine against his, which are slow to move in response. My thumb dips under the elastic of his boxers. He catches my hands in his. Raises them to his mouth and kisses them. ‘I’m so tired.’ Rejection stings but I understand.
‘It’s been good to talk, though, hasn’t it?’ I ask.
‘Yes. Leah?’ There’s a beat. ‘I miss you too, you know. You have a choice to spiral backwards or to move forwards. To not let your past define your future. You get to decide, no one else.’
Turning this over, I coil my body around his, wishing I could draw in his strength. He is right. Anniversary or not, I can’t, won’t let that man break me. If I did, he’d be breaking us. George. Archie.
Tomorrow, however scared I feel, I will drop Archie off at nursery and go to work. Ask for more hours. Step up to my responsibilities. I am an adult now, not the scared eight-year-old girl I once was, however much I still feel her presence inside me with every decision I make. Everything I do. For me. For my family, it is time to move on. Perhaps there is something in Marie’s words. Twenty years of suffering is twenty years too much. In a few days the anniversary will be over. But I can make it lose its power now. Like throwing water over the wicked witch and watching her shrivel. Forging a normal life will be my bucket of cold water.
Enough.
I can cope now, I can. Even if it is the fear of George slipping away from me, fear of losing something, someone else, that has made me determined to do more. Be more. I won’t let another family fall apart. Not when I can stitch our fraying threads back together.
I fall asleep.
It’s still dark. A noise wakes me. I lie motionless. My body rigid. Fingers gripping the duvet.
The Stolen Sisters: from the bestselling author of The Date and The Sister comes one of the most thrilling, terrifying and shocking psychological thrillers of 2020 Page 8
