Ralph’s Children (15 page)

Her eyes were wet, and she loathed him, despised him, but she nodded, had to,
had
to, because if she did not, God only knew what this man might do.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘Fucking right.’

N
ot long now until the next stage.

Till Jack, Simon and Pig left the barn and Turner.

They had discussed at length who would stay with her, had settled on Roger for a number of reasons. First, because two men would be needed for strength. Second, because Simon was, they all
agreed, potentially the softest touch, and there was no knowing what tricks the first Beast might try to play if left alone with her. Lastly, because not only was Roger much tougher than she
looked, but also because if anyone did turn up at Caisleán while the others were gone, Roger would be the best equipped to whip off her mask and act out whatever role seemed right at the
time.

Ralph wanted to phone them now so badly it was making her teeth ache, but if anything were wrong, they would be phoning her.

Their protector. Their Chief.

She found it so hard to contemplate disaster: the kids being stopped, arrested.

‘I’ll always protect you,’ she had once told them.

But as the years had passed and the games had grown rarer and riskier, she had amended that to: ‘I’ll always do my best to protect you.’

The thought of them incarcerated and, worse, unreachable, was unbearable.

Ralph turned her thoughts to Caisleán, pictured the scene.

Turner trussed up and helpless, being forced to listen to her crimes.

Such basic crimes against humanity. Against the unborn and mothers.

Ralph closed her eyes and imagined her children, faces all but invisible beneath their scary masks.

Scary grown-ups now.

She felt such pride.

S
omething was changing.

They were getting ready.

For what?

Kate was trying not to think about that.

But they had stopped haranguing her a long while back, had stopped talking to her altogether.

She could hear and smell someone making coffee in the kitchen, and yes, they were definitely getting themselves prepared for something.

‘Come on,’ she heard Jack say.

‘Plenty of time yet,’ Pig said.

‘Better early,’ said Simon.

‘Not too early,’ said Roger.

O
n her way, at last.

Laurie’s car had started first time, thanks to Dave.

No last-minute reproaches or pleas from her parents. Nothing at all from them, in fact, her mother still dead to the world when she’d left the house, her father already at the stables,
where he loved to be in time for dawn.

It was still dark now, but last night’s fog had already almost gone, and Laurie found herself anticipating the beauty of the sunrise before her arrival, the rosy fringes of the outer rims
of fields and trees and hilltops, and perhaps when she was back home again after the visit and needing to occupy herself, she would try to recreate that loveliness for her next gift to Sam.

‘Good morning, darling,’ she said to him out loud, as if he could hear her. ‘Get up and dressed and have a good brekkie.’

She wasn’t sure where they would go today, since she liked letting Sam choose what he wanted to do, and they were very kind at the Mann about things like that, encouraging the children to
anticipate and enjoy every minute of their outings. If Sam had nothing in mind, Laurie would take him either to Legoland or to the Cotswold Wildlife Park, both great successes in the past, and
wasn’t that the
best
thing about her beautiful son: his infectious joy and enthusiasm, his easily won-over heart.

‘
Never frets after you’ve left him
.’

Laurie doubted she’d ever get the bitch’s words out of her memory.

‘I’m on my way, son,’ she said now, softly.

Driving on into the morning.

B
efore they left, they made her lie on the sofa, face down into the cushions, and for several long minutes Kate believed she was going to die, that
they were going to shoot her
now
or stab her in the back, or maybe smother her, and she fought to keep her nose clear of the soft, suffocating fabric and foam beneath her face.

‘Keep still.’ Roger was crouching, maybe kneeling – Kate couldn’t
see
– beside the sofa, keeping pressure on her, one hand in the centre of her back, the
other on the back of her head, and she was a strong woman, Kate knew that now.

God help me.

There was a tiny cavity between her nose and the cushioning, just enough to allow a little air through her nostrils, but with her wrists and ankles still bound she was helpless and waiting for
worse
, her mind flying through time and space from Rob to Bel to Michael and back to Rob again and, most desolately of all, to their lost, unborn son, and maybe if—

She heard the front door open, felt cold air.

Stopped preparing to die and started listening instead.

Roger’s hand was still on her back, but the one on her head had been lifted, so the intent was not, after all, to kill her now, Kate thought, just to keep her from moving, from turning,
and she realized suddenly that the reason she was face down might be because they had taken off their masks and didn’t want her to see them.

If they don’t want me to see, that means I’m not going to die.

And if they were
going
, then any second now that hand would lift off her back, too, and she would hear the door close and would be alone, still bound and gagged, but alone and
alive
, with a future in which to get over this . . .

They were speaking softly, she couldn’t hear them.

‘Take care.’ Roger’s low voice came from just above her, not moving away.

Why didn’t they
go
?

She heard movement, rubber soles squishing on stone, the faint swishing of material, perhaps their overalls brushing against furniture . . .

The door closed.

But the hand was still there, had moved up a little, was pressing against her shoulder blades, and the suspense was worse now than the pressure.

It lifted, at last.

‘You can sit up,’ Roger’s voice told her.

Kate turned her face first, inhaled air greedily, then tried to get up, but it was hard with her hands behind her, she was rolling clumsily.

‘Wait.’ The other woman pulled her to a sitting position.

Kate looked up at her, realized for the first time how tall and slim she was, almost elegant despite the overalls and mask.

Stocking still in place.

The others gone.

Kate felt torn between gratitude for the scrap of help, for not having been
killed
, and massive disappointment because Roger was still here, still guarding her.

Which meant that it was not over.

Roger stooped again and pulled off the tape.

Kate gulped in more oxygen.

‘Anything to say?’ Roger asked.

‘Thank you.’ The first words into Kate’s head.

The masked woman bent again, stuck the tape straight back over her mouth.

‘Personally, I’d have said something a little more worthwhile.’

The sound Kate made was of pleading, frustration and anger.

‘Yeah,’ said the terrorist named Roger.

E
yes glued to the clock on her wall.

They’d be on their way again by now.

Ralph imagined the tension building in their vehicle as Simon drove.

Positive tension in Jack’s case, she guessed, itching for the next stage. Less conviction and more angst for the other two, though Simon’s head and heart were well into this, she
knew that. And where Simon’s heart went, Pig’s tended to follow.

She thought about Roger.

Alone now with the first Beast.

No calls, unless absolutely necessary – the deal they’d agreed on.

Did her sanity count as a necessity?

Ralph picked up her phone and keyed in Roger’s number.

I
t was the first time a phone had rung since the start of Kate’s ordeal.

Roger took the mobile from her waistband, looked at the display, pressed a button. ‘Anything?’ she asked curtly.

Kate strained to hear a voice from the other end, something that might help when this was over, but though the stocking-masked woman was less than three feet from the sofa, not even the faintest
whisper of sound reached her.

‘All to plan.’ Roger listened for a moment. ‘No problems, Chief.’

Less brisk now, a touch of warmth in her tone, Kate thought, and of respect.

‘
Chief
’ took her back to the novel again. Even if these names were just covers, these people must have had some reason to choose the book, if only because they – or
perhaps their ‘chief’ – liked it. Had been inspired by it, maybe, by the horror of the story, by its violence.

‘Much later,’ Roger said, and ended her call.

Kate made a sound, attempting to communicate, to make the best of this time with only one of the gang present, a woman, strong though she knew she was.

‘Want to talk to me?’ Roger asked.

Kate nodded.

‘Tough.’

Kate made another sound, of appeal.

‘Still want to pee?’ Roger shrugged. ‘Guess I could live without having to smell your stink.’

Instant plans leapt into Kate’s mind: if her ankles were freed, she would
do
something, kick out, and what should she aim for, what would be the most vulnerable, the most
reachable part of this woman’s body? Her legs, she supposed, and they hadn’t taken her Todds, so she could kick hard.

‘You’ll have to shuffle,’ the terrorist told her, wrecking that hope.

God, it hurt getting back on her feet because her legs had stiffened up and the bandages and immobility had restricted her circulation.

Her mind, at least, was still on the move. If Roger did not free her hands, either, then the other woman would have to help pull down her jeans, which meant she’d have to bend down, and
then Kate could—

Nothing, Kate realized. There was not a damn thing she could do with her hands trussed behind her, nothing she could do except pee and be grateful for that.

Like hell.
The only thing she would be grateful for to this bitch was if she untied her and let her go, let her leave.

Let her
live.

And after that, Kate would stop being truly grateful again until the police had locked her and the rest of her scum friends behind bars.

‘M
uch later.’

Ralph knew she ought not to have telephoned.

Anxious parent unable to let go.

Not
their parent.

Not really their
chief
either, not any more. Fit to make plans, but not to join in; more of an encumbrance were she to try.

She wondered again how they were coping with the strain. Not so much Jack, but the others.

Jack, too, perhaps, when it came to the finish.

He was just a burglar, after all, as he had himself pointed out.

A baby dumped in a car park.

Not so hard beneath the tough shell he’d built up over the years. Feeling by now that it was expected of him, probably expecting it of himself too.

Ralph worried about Jack. About them all.

Still her children, after all.

T
here was a lane that curved between the road and the long driveway at the Rudolf Mann estate, a stretch of road with, even at first light, the
sweetest of vistas beyond it. The kind that instantly lifted the heart – before the lane twisted into an always darker, tree-shadowed semicircle where the vista eluded for a while, to be
recaptured again in slivers of light through the surrounding woodland.

Laurie had painted both these views for herself, finding that they rekindled the thump of excitement and tension she always felt just before arrival, just before seeing her son again. Wondering
how he would look, what changes the last fortnight might have brought, if his brown eyes would still brighten when he saw her, or if he might seem as if he’d rather be doing something else
– which had never yet happened, but Laurie knew he was growing up and that it might happen some day, perhaps even today . . .

Not today.

She saw the vehicle blocking the lane: a white van stopped sideways on, taking up the whole of the width of the lane, making it impossible to pass or to see the driver.

Laurie slowed the Polo to a crawl, then halted.

She felt no agitation because she was early, and Sam might not be ready for her, so it was no trouble to sit in the dark green shadows, having a few moments longer to enjoy the anticipation of
seeing her son.

But the van still wasn’t moving, nor was there any sign of life, and no one could possibly be unloading here, in the middle of the woods, which meant that although the bonnet wasn’t
up, it had probably broken down, and so maybe after all she ought to do something. There must be another entrance to the Mann estate, but she didn’t know where, and suddenly she was growing a
little anxious in case Sam was early too, because she’d never kept him waiting, not once in eight years.

She hooted. Just once, politely, to let the driver know she was here.

Nothing.

Perhaps he’d gone for help, in which case . . .

She opened her door, got out of the car.

‘Hello?’

She glanced back down the lane, saw no other cars, but she seldom saw any traffic at this time because visiting started at nine, and her eight o’clock arrangement had been made years ago
because of the restrictions on her visiting.

‘Hello?’ she called again.

‘Round here,’ a woman’s voice called back. ‘Spot of bother with the van, sorry.’

‘Anything I can do,’ Laurie asked.

‘Can’t hear you,’ the woman called. ‘Can you come round?’

‘OK.’ Laurie remembered her phone in the VW. ‘I could call someone for you.’