Ralph’s Children (16 page)

This time the woman didn’t answer, so Laurie walked towards and around the front of the van, glancing in the direction of the estate, estimating that there was only a half mile or so
separating her and Sam now, so if necessary she’d have to walk it.

‘Hello, Laurie.’

Another voice – male – came from behind, startling her.

She began to turn.

The arm around her waist was strong, another grabbed her around her neck and a gloved hand covered her mouth before she could get out a scream as she was pulled off her feet and dragged to the
back of the van.

She saw two figures –
terrifying
figures – and they hauled her up inside the van, into the dark, slammed her down on the hard floor on her back, the sound of her body
colliding with the metal beneath booming. For a second her mouth was free of the hand, and she began screaming, but then something wet and awful-smelling was shoved back over her nose and mouth,
and her head started to spin and she felt the worst sickness, and . . .

Sam would be waiting.

Her last thought.

I
f anyone had ever told Kate that it was possible to be in her present situation and be
bored
, she’d probably have told them to get a
brain.

But this woman, this tall, slim, faceless creature with her surprisingly beautiful voice, had not spoken to her once since half dragging her to the bathroom and allowing her the humiliation of
peeing in front of her. She had sat beside Kate on the sofa, an example of complete composure, bringing her captive close to screaming pitch, ready for
anything
rather than this.

Almost anything.

Then, about fifteen minutes ago, that had changed.

Roger had stood up, gone over to the front window, peered through the still-drawn curtains for a moment into the daylight – and the fog had gone, Kate could see that much, at least –
then returned to the sofa, sitting again.

Composure cracking, just a little.

Expecting someone, Kate realized. Or something.

Her boredom had gone. Fear back in place and building.

She would have given a great deal to have the boredom back.

R
alph had observed both her Beasts for long enough to have some sense of how they might react to their ordeals.

Turner, complacent in her self-belief, incredibly fortunate yet tossing away blessings like a rich woman who thought there would always be more to buy. And little Laurie Moon,
holding up her chicken-heartedness as an excuse, choosing security and parental protection over and above her own needy child.

Turner, she thought, might show backbone, perhaps till the end.

Moon would believe, when she woke from her chloroformed sleep, that she was being held for ransom, and when she found that her daddy was not going to be riding over from his stables to rescue
his little girl, then Laurie would probably dissolve into a tear-sodden mess of cowardice.

Ralph wished she could be there.

Cursed her inadequate body and Rose Miller, who had stopped her forever from
playing
the game.

They could not play without her help, she sometimes comforted herself.

But so much could go wrong this time. One twist of bad luck, one chink in her not quite armoured planning. Nothing about this was truly safe.

She had told them that during the plan’s conception, had cautioned them.

‘This one could be dangerous for you,’ she had said.

They had told her they accepted that, but Ralph knew they hadn’t really believed it. That their faith in the game, in her, their talisman, was still intact.

By then, of course, they’d had no choice
but
to believe, she knew that too. Because without it, and without the ongoing possibility of the
next
game, whatever it might
be, they would again be as they had perceived themselves long ago, before the book, before Wayland’s Smithy, before she had come along and become Ralph.

They would be nothing again.

T
hey brought Laurie into Caisleán, conscious but still dazed, and propelled her to one of the straight-backed dining chairs, which they turned
away from the table, so that it faced the sofa and Kate.

‘All right?’ Roger asked the other three.

‘Perfect,’ answered Jack.

They pulled off the young woman’s leather bomber jacket, left her gloves on, as they had with Kate, then tethered her wrists behind her back, and Kate saw her flinch – drugged, she
thought, her reactions vague – as they pushed her down on to the chair and bandaged her ankles together.

Her own heart was pounding again and she was perspiring.

She knew that something very bad was happening.

She looked at her fellow prisoner. She was young, in her early twenties, pretty, with bobbed fair hair and blue eyes, wearing a poppy red pullover and blue jeans, like her own.

The young woman was clearly in shock, her skin clammy-looking, her whole body trembling as she stared back at Kate.

‘Ready?’ asked the female named Simon.

The man called Pig went to the front door, checked it was locked.

Kate was not certain, but she thought he might be trembling too.

‘Get a move on, Pig.’ Jack was impatient.

For
what
? If Kate’s heart pounded any harder, she thought they would hear it.

They took up positions, their moves appearing almost rehearsed, Roger stepping to the right of the new captive, Pig to her left, Simon sitting on the sofa beside Kate.

Jack took up a central position, standing on the kilim rug.

He nodded at Simon. ‘Right.’

Simon leaned across Kate and pulled the tape off her mouth.

Kate breathed in, smelled body odour.

Fear.

She swallowed hard, tried to moisten her mouth.

No one spoke.

‘What’s happening?’ she asked.

‘The game,’ Roger answered.

Game.

She had learned by now not to waste questions.

‘Who is she?’ She looked at the other young woman.

Her fellow captive.

The answer came from Jack.

‘She’s your punishment,’ he said.

T
he waiting was becoming more agonizing as time went on, the lack of contact vital now. They could not afford any interruptions at this stage, time
being of the essence.

The longer it took, the more chance for something to go wrong.

Ralph’s part played, after all, for the moment.

She knew they’d need her again afterwards to take care of details.

Details were her specialities. Like finding out about Caisleán’s excellent locks, presumably fitted because Rob Turner’s insurers would have been mindful of intruders or
squatters at the mostly unoccupied property. Like learning that Kate Turner – unbeknown to the insurers, perhaps even her husband – kept her spare keys buried beneath the wild primrose
patch twenty-three feet from the front door.

Details, afterwards, would be crucial too.

Like Laurie Moon’s car. Safe for now in the derelict cow byre Ralph had located well ahead of time, but as soon as possible that would need to be dealt with. Jack knew about things like
that, but would probably want Ralph to arrange them; respraying the VW, changing its number plates and serial numbers.

Miss Moon would not be needing it any more, that was one certainty.

As for the rest, they’d all have to see how it played out.

You never knew with the game.

‘Y
ou should know,’ Roger said to Kate and Laurie, ‘why you were both nominated for this game.’

Kate heard the word that ordinarily had desirable connotations – people were ‘nominated’ for awards, weren’t they, or for election – and thought how deadly a ring
the calm-voiced terrorist had bestowed on it.

The second prisoner had been coming to gradually, had been given coffee to drink, before Jack, growing impatient, had thrown a glass of cold water into her face, making her gasp, bringing tears
of new shock and fear into her eyes, and Kate had wanted to comfort her; had wished she could have turned back time, delayed her awakening.

Delayed
this.

‘You’re doubly qualified, Turner,’ Simon addressed her, ‘because not many women get to be cruel to both their children and their mothers.’

Kate bit down a retort, saw the other captive’s eyes dart suspiciously to her. No longer believing, perhaps, that they were in exactly the same boat, hoping therefore that maybe her own
predicament might be less grim than the woman they’d taken prisoner before her.

‘Your qualifications –’ Pig informed Laurie – ‘are simpler.’

‘But your crime –’ Roger took over – ‘is every bit as bad.’

‘Worse,’ Pig said.

Kate saw that shred of hope die in the younger woman’s eyes, felt pity for her.

‘You put your kid in a
home
,’ Jack said, ‘when you didn’t need to.’

‘I—’

‘Shut your mouth,’ he cut her off, took a step closer to Laurie, who cringed.

‘No breast feeding,’ Simon said.

‘No cuddles,’ Pig joined in.

‘No mum when he was ill,’ Roger said.

‘Probably better off without her,’ said Simon.

Kate saw the young woman’s face, saw a different kind of torment in her eyes, hated them more than ever for this new cruelty.

‘No loss for Sam if he loses her now,’ Jack said. ‘That’s for sure.’

The telephone – Caisleán’s landline – began to ring.

Kate’s heart hurtled into double speed. It could be her father or Fireman – she’d told them both she was coming here, after all. Anyone else failing to reach her at home would
surely be ringing her mobile, which was in her bag on the floor near the door.

The landline went on ringing.

‘If I don’t answer,’ she said.

‘Shut up,’ Jack told her.

There was no machine, no 1571 set up, so after a couple more rings, it stopped, and maybe it had been Rob trying to reach her, and maybe her mobile wasn’t working and maybe he
really—

‘Pay attention, Turner,’ Roger snapped.

Kate’s eyes shot daggers into the woman’s stocking-veiled eyes.

‘We’re keeping this nice and simple for you,’ Roger went on, ‘because we like our games to move snappily.’

Speed, Kate thought, couldn’t be good news.

‘Ready?’ Jack looked from one captive to the other. ‘Good.’

Not ready
, Kate wanted to say, saw fresh wild fear in the other woman’s face.

‘The game is,’ Roger said, ‘usually—’

‘We pick a Beast and punish it,’ Jack said.

‘But this time,’ Pig said, ‘we’ve got two Beasts.’

‘Which is a first,’ Simon said.

‘So it took us a while,’ Roger said, ‘to decide how to deal with you.’

‘Simple, in the end,’ Pig said.

‘You’re going to punish each other,’ Jack said.

* * *

The silence in the room seemed to last for minutes, until finally Kate said:

‘No.’ Her voice was clear, firm. ‘We’re not.’

‘Shut it,’ Jack told her.

‘What do you mean by
punish
?’ Laurie asked.

She had been beginning to wonder if she would ever find the strength or courage to speak again, and maybe it was because the stuff they’d knocked her out with was wearing off, or maybe she
had just realized that if she didn’t fight back now,
really
fight for once in her wasted life, she might never see Sam again.

Or anyone else for that matter.

Those thoughts made her want to cry, but she was
not
going to give in to that, because the other woman wasn’t crying, and whatever these
monsters
had been saying about
her, she had been so brave to stand up to them just now.

‘Who
are
you?’ Not knowing seemed almost the worst thing. ‘How do you know anything about me?’

The other prisoner smiled at her, gave her strength.

In the same boat, after all.

‘I’m Jack.’ He answered her first question. ‘All you need to know about me.’

‘Roger,’ said the woman on her right.

‘I’m Pig.’ The second masked man said it as if they were being introduced at a party.

‘Simon.’ The other woman.

Kate was watching Laurie, saw she’d made nothing of the names.

‘Not their real names,’ she said quickly. ‘Picked from a book. And I’m Kate.’

‘I’m Laurie.’ Quick, too. ‘Laurie Moon.’

Jack took three steps towards Kate and whacked her hard across the face.

‘Do not speak again unless you’re asked.’ He turned to Laurie. ‘You too, unless you want the same.’

‘Careful,’ Roger said to Jack.

Through the burning, reverberating after-effects of the slap, Kate remembered Simon saying the same thing after Jack had slapped her the first time, and maybe they didn’t want her marked
– though after that, Simon had hit her, and no one had told her to be careful; in fact Jack had seemed especially pleased.

Laurie stared at the flare marks on Kate’s left cheek and wondered, with a curious mental departure, what time it was, if someone at Rudolf Mann House had phoned her parents, if—

‘My car,’ she said.

‘Tucked up, safe and sound,’ Jack said, ‘just like you.’

Kate saw tears spring again into Laurie’s eyes.

‘It’s OK,’ she said. ‘We’ll be OK.’

‘Depends what you mean by OK,’ Jack said ironically.

‘I don’t
understand
.’ Terrified as she was, Laurie had to know. ‘You said I put Sam in a home when I didn’t need to, but it wasn’t like
that.’

‘Were you too ill to take care of him?’ Simon was swift, sharp.

‘Were you in prison?’ Pig was harsh too.

‘Were you bound and gagged?’ Roger asked.

‘Of course not,’ Laurie protested, ‘but—’

Jack pulled the roll of tape out of his pocket again, ripped off a length and smacked it over her mouth so hard that her head jerked back.

‘You are now,’ he said.

Laurie began to cry, giving in.

‘Bastard.’ The word escaped before Kate had time to think better of it.