by Tom Bale
‘We can’t tell you anything about this man Renshaw because we have no idea who he is. No idea at all. So it’s impossible to give you what you want. Don’t you see that?’
The silence that followed had a different quality to it. Harry wondered if these men had been expecting such a deadlock; hoping for it, even. This felt like silence as a cue to action.
He was right. The gunman darted forward and shoved the muzzle of the gun against Harry’s chest. His other hand came down hard on Harry’s face, forcing his head back on the pillow. Alice tried to scream but Freddy used the baby’s blanket as a gag, shoving a fistful of it into her mouth. Startled by the movement, Evie began to sob again.
Then he pulled the duvet off their bed and flung it in the corner. He turned back, a hungry gleam in his eyes as he studied Alice’s body in her silk pyjamas.
‘Undress.’
The order was emphasised with a casual swipe of the blade, which pierced the skin on Alice’s neck, drawing a few bright beads of blood. Harry writhed in fury but the gunman held him firm, pinning his head to the side to make sure he had a clear view of his wife.
Her face rigid with fear, Alice had started to unbutton the pyjama top when Freddy lost patience and ripped it open. She was wearing a nursing bra, which he cut with savage haste. At the sight of her exposed breasts he made a noise in his throat, an involuntary purring that turned Harry’s stomach.
‘I’ll give you another chance to tell us,’ the gunman said. ‘But not until my friend here has had a taste.’
Freddy sniggered. ‘Taste. Got that right.’
Alice was shivering, arms flat at her side; too scared to try and cover herself. The man crouched by the bed, and Harry saw his wife’s legs twitch, her instinct urging her to move. Fight or flight – but neither was possible.
Harry had to resist the impulse to shut his eyes. Hiding from this would be even more shameful than watching it happen. Freddy was leaning over, his head a few inches from Alice’s stomach. He seemed to be inspecting the effects of childbirth: the loose folds of skin, the silvery stretch marks that were – as Harry kept assuring her – fading a little more each day.
Freddy nudged the mask up over his chin. Harry caught a glimpse of jowly stubble and wet lips; a fat pink tongue lolling over the bottom lip as his mouth opened, then clamped down on one of Alice’s milk-heavy breasts. She cried out again, but it was muffled by the blanket. The sound of the man sucking greedily – feeding on her – was far louder, and it was revolting.
Harry bucked and fought, pushing the other man’s hand away to free his head, not caring in that moment if he was shot. Death seemed a better option than this, to lie helpless while they—
Except that Alice’s gaze was locked on to his, pleading with him not to fight, not to die. Then the gunman rammed a fist into Harry’s stomach and for a second the pain was everything. He groaned and coughed, tasted bile and swallowed it down and finally lay still in shame and surrender.
Freddy pulled his mouth away from Alice’s breast with a loud smacking noise, milk dribbling over his lips as he stood up and put the mask back in place. ‘Weird taste.’
‘You wouldn’t want it in your tea?’ the gunman asked.
‘Nah. But I’d still do her.’ Freddy sniffed, indicating Harry. ‘Tie him up and we can both have a go.’
‘No!’ Harry cried. ‘You’ve got the wrong house. The wrong people. For the sake of my wife and daughter I’ll tell you anything. Anything at all. But it won’t be the truth. Because the truth is that we don’t know the man you’re looking for, and I think you realise that.’
The speech rolled out of him like the last desperate plea of a condemned man. It was accompanied by visions of a funeral procession. Three black hearses, three coffins, one of them so tiny that it looked like a toy …
Harry waited. It was the longest, most agonising wait of his life. He had no idea what their response would be. Perhaps no words at all. Perhaps just a gunshot or the slash of a blade. And all the time Evie was crying, needing to be comforted, and there was nothing he or Alice could do to help her.
Finally the gunman walked round to where his partner was standing, spotted something on the floor and bent to pick it up. As he did, he began to speak.
‘These are the rules. You don’t go to the police. If you do, we’ll know. However you go about it, we’ll find out.’
He was holding a pack of wet wipes. He fumbled with the package, hampered by his gloves, then pulled out several wipes in a thick clump.
‘You won’t see us, but we’ll be watching. You report this, and your baby will die. The police won’t protect you. No matter what they claim, they can’t. Not twenty-four hours a day. Not week in, week out, month after month. Do you understand?’
Harry nodded. Alice didn’t. She seemed too traumatised to move.
The gunman turned to her and first tugged the makeshift gag out of her mouth, then used the wipes to clean her breast. Removing DNA.
‘When we find Renshaw – which we will – he’ll be questioned. If it turns out you knew him, or helped him in any way, the same thing applies. We’ll take your daughter when you least expect it. Then we’ll come for your wife. Then you. Am I clear?’
Harry nodded again.
‘Say it.’
‘Yes. I get you.’
The gun was aimed at Alice. ‘You?’
‘Yes.’ The gun didn’t move, so she said it again. ‘Yes. I understand.’
A snort from Freddy, but Harry had the impression that he wasn’t completely in agreement. Unlike his partner, Freddy was in no hurry to leave.
Harry realised he’d been too quickly seduced by the prospect of release. This man, this psychopath, could so easily reach out and cut Evie, by way of a parting shot, and there would be nothing they could do to stop it happening.
Then the gunman said, ‘Give it back to them,’ and Freddy scooped Evie up with one hand, provoking a fresh howl of anguish from the baby. He dumped her down on Alice, who immediately wrapped her daughter in a protective embrace, pulling the duvet up and turning away from the two men.
‘Stay exactly where you are for ten minutes. And no police.’
‘Yeah, and don’t wake up tomorrow and remember this any different from how it was,’ Freddy snarled. ‘Right now you’re both shitting yourselves at the thought of what we could do to you. Keep that in mind, all right?’
They backed up to the door, the gun still raised, and then they slipped out.
Harry and Alice could barely have moved if they’d wanted to. They listened to the intruders descending the stairs, the rattle of a bolt being drawn back. The front door opened and then shut, firmly, and the men were gone.
It was over.
It was only just beginning.
Four
Harry took a deep breath and rolled out of bed, prompting a cry from Alice. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Ssh.’ Crouching, he hurried out of the bedroom. His legs felt rubbery, unreliable, but they just about got him into the nursery, where a small window offered a better view of the street.
With the room in darkness, he didn’t think they’d notice him peering through the blind. He could see a van waiting in the road outside, without its lights on. A Renault, possibly. The two men clambered aboard, sliding the side door shut as the van pulled away.
He risked a better look, his face pressed against the slats in the blind. The van reached the end of the street, too far away for him to read the number plate. Brake lights flashed. A left turn into Port Hall Road would take it towards Dyke Road, which offered the quickest way out of the city, but the van went right, perhaps intending on a more complicated route over the railway lines and down to Preston Park.
Or maybe it wasn’t going anywhere. Maybe it was just circling the block.
What had the gunman said? We will be watching you.
As Harry moved away from the window he heard Alice coughing and retching. He ran into their bedroom and found her sitting with her he
ad tipped forward, awkwardly holding Evie clear of the vomit which covered the duvet.
‘Are you okay?’ He shook his head: stupid question. ‘Here, let me take—’
‘No!’ The venom in her response made him recoil. Only then did her expression soften. ‘She’s feeding. She’s calm.’
Harry fetched a couple of flannels and a towel, then stripped the bed and put on a new sheet and duvet while Alice stood for a minute, wiping her face as Evie continued to feed.
‘How’s your neck, where he cut you?’
She dabbed the flannel against the wound, then inspected it for blood. ‘Just a scratch. It’s fine.’
Harry grunted, but said nothing. The reluctance to discuss it was like a wall of sandbags piled up between them.
Dumping the dirty bedding in the bath, there was a moment when he had to grip the side of the tub while jagged lights and colours tore at his vision. He realised he had a pounding headache, hardly surprising given the lump coming up where he’d been hit with the gun. Briefly, he fantasised about swallowing half a box of paracetamol and then lying down somewhere dark.
Except that the van might be circling the block.
He checked on Alice again, and only just stopped himself from repeating that dumbest of questions: Are you all right?
Never better, thanks. You?
Instead, he said to her, ‘I need to go downstairs.’
‘Be careful.’
He shrugged off her concern, but at the top of the stairs he hesitated. Double switches controlled the lights on the landing and in the hall. He turned both of them on and hurtled down the stairs, his bare feet sliding over the carpeted treads. At the bottom he came to a sudden halt, perhaps hoping to trick another intruder into revealing himself.
But there was no one to trick. They’d been and gone.
The front door was shut. Harry slid the top bolt back in place and added the security chain. He opened the cupboard under the stairs, where his meagre collection of tools was kept. He might have been a reluctant DIY-er at best, but every home needed a claw hammer, didn’t it?
Right now it seemed like the wisest purchase he’d ever made. Not much use against a gun, but he wouldn’t dwell on that. It felt good and hefty in his grip, and he allowed himself a brief fantasy where he used it to smash the skulls of his tormentors.
Then he checked the downstairs rooms: the modest kitchen and long, narrow lounge-diner. Nothing was broken or ransacked, but he had the impression that some items had been moved since last night, as if during a cursory search. Had the intruders been looking for the parcel? Or for evidence that the mysterious Renshaw lived here?
In the dining room he discovered that the patio doors had been forced. There was no visible damage to the timber frame, and the doors could still be closed, but the latch wouldn’t hold them in place. As a short-term measure he wound some parcel string round the handles, binding the doors together. That wasn’t robust enough, he decided, so he wedged a dining chair under them as well.
The kitchen window was another concern: too easy to break and climb through. His answer was to shut the internal door and stand the ironing board against it: a crude but effective early warning device. Anyone opening the door would tip the ironing board over, and the resulting clatter was bound to wake him.
Huh. As if he’d ever sleep again, after this.
He carried the claw hammer upstairs, unsure whether it represented a show of strength or an admission of weakness.
Alice was lying on her back, eyes shut, so she didn’t see him slip the hammer under his pillow. Evie was nestled against her, awake but sated. The aura of calm struck Harry as absurd. Surely it was better to acknowledge that something fundamental had occurred? Confront the turmoil that lay just beneath the surface?
Easier said than done. The only saving grace was that Evie, at least, would carry no memory of this into her future. He and Alice, on the other hand, were indelibly marked by it. He knew that by the way she opened her eyes, regarded him for a moment then quickly looked down. An image popped into his head – of the man in the Freddy Krueger mask sucking on her breast. He forced it away.
‘Have they gone?’ she asked.
He nodded. ‘Drove off in a van – maybe a Renault. I couldn’t get the number.’
He decided not to mention which way it had turned. Instead he told her about the patio doors, and how he had made them secure. While he was talking Evie began to wriggle, her eyes fluttering.
‘This light’s too bright,’ Alice said.
Harry put his bedside lamp on, then switched off the overhead light. He climbed into bed and lay on his side, gently stroking tufts of Evie’s light brown hair.
‘Is she definitely all right? The way he was holding her …’
‘I checked. I think there’s a bruise on her stomach—’ She choked up. Harry reached over Evie and rested his hand on her shoulder.
‘We’ll be okay,’ he said. But when he heard the tone of his voice he wasn’t completely sure that he believed it.
Alice said nothing, and Harry had no idea what she was thinking. He lay beside her and fretted, afraid that anything he said would make it worse. Then a tiny snore caught his attention; Evie was sound asleep.
‘Shall I put her in the crib?’ he whispered.
‘Not yet.’
Alice’s voice didn’t sound quite right; Harry sat up and saw there were tears streaming down her cheeks. She looked like someone in the grip of an uncontrollable grief, and yet she wasn’t making a sound.
‘Alice—’
‘Ssh! Please, I’m not ready …’ She sniffed. ‘I’ll be fine. This is how I’m dealing with it.’
Harry had no choice but to give her that space, if it was what she thought was best. But it worried him all the more. He wanted to be actively supporting her; not lying here like a mannequin.
Besides, there was one thing they had to talk about – and it had to be now.
Five
‘We haven’t called the police.’
It felt safer, somehow, to phrase it as an observation. Harry was aware that he didn’t want to influence Alice’s opinion in any way. He needed to know what she thought, because he had no idea what to think himself.
She’d stopped crying, and her voice sounded more like normal, though the tone was flat. ‘You heard what they said. We can’t.’
‘I don’t see how they’d know.’
‘They’re going to be watching.’
Still debating whether to tell her which way the van went, Harry said, ‘Do you reckon that’s likely?’
‘I don’t know.’ Alice sniffed again. ‘I hope not.’
‘If they are watching us, that’s more reason to go to the police, because it means they haven’t finished with us. If we believe the threat is real, then we need to report it. Go to a police station and explain it all.’
Alice considered this carefully. A few strands of dark brown hair had adhered to her cheeks. She pulled them away and turned towards him. Her eyes were red and puffy.
‘Yes, but we can’t tell the police anything about them. We didn’t see their faces. And they wore gloves, so there won’t be fingerprints. It’s pointless, isn’t it?’
‘We can describe their voices. The one with the gun, didn’t he sound fairly well-spoken? Middle-class?’
‘What’s that got to do with anything?’
‘Well, it doesn’t really fit the profile for … whatever they are.’ He threw up his hands. ‘Oh, I don’t know. I’m probably not making much sense.’
Alice raised her head to check the clock. ‘Little wonder, at quarter to four in the morning.’
‘So what do you want to do?’
‘This.’ Shifting position to face him, her hand appeared beneath the duvet, seeking his. ‘If we did, we’d need to describe all of it. So I’d have to tell the police exactly what that man did to me.’ She shut her eyes tightly for a moment. ‘And then it’ll be all over the news.’
‘Not necessarily. We ca
n probably insist they keep our identities secret.’
‘In this day and age? Come on, Harry. It’ll be out there eventually, you know that. And the thought of having something so personal plastered across the Argus, or on the local news. I couldn’t bear the idea of walking down the street with people looking at me, knowing all the details …’
‘Okay.’ Harry wasn’t sure if he agreed, exactly, but in her place he knew he’d probably have the same reaction.
‘And for Evie’s sake. The past doesn’t fade away like it used to. Imagine her going online, ten or fifteen years from now, and being able to read all the news reports.’ She sniffed. ‘I don’t see how we can go for that option, when we have the chance to forget it ever happened.’
He nodded sadly. ‘But can we forget?’
‘We can try.’
For a minute or two there was a companionable silence. The real communication was in the physical connection, their fingers gently twisting together.
Harry sighed. ‘I can’t understand how they forced the lock without us hearing. To get upstairs and into our bedroom …’
‘Because we’re exhausted. Think how long it’s been since we had a good night. When we do sleep it’s probably much deeper than we realise.’
‘Hmm. We’d better see about getting an alarm fitted.’
Alice agreed. Then she said, ‘The threat that they’re watching us, would it be a bluff? I mean, they got the wrong address, so what reason do they have to stick around?’
‘They don’t. Unless …’
‘What?’
‘Well, suppose they find this guy, Renshaw or whatever he’s called, and to save his own skin he tells them what they want to hear – the way we might have done. He could claim that we are part of some conspiracy. That we did lie to them.’
Alice tightened her grip on his hand. ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’
‘It’s unlikely, but not impossible. Then again, they got the wrong house, so maybe they’re not as smart as we think.’ He mused on it. ‘What could be in the parcel that’s so important?’
