Hold Your Breath (19 page)

Faith sucked hard on her cigarette. The end glowed brightly, a warning light in the gloom. ‘Of course he doesn’t!’ snapped Faith. ‘Straight-laced old Leo? Give me a
break. He’s seventeen going on forty, that one.’

Thank God . . .

‘This won’t work,’ said Tara hotly then. ‘You have to let me go. You can’t keep me here. My family will be looking for me.’

Faith rolled her eyes. ‘Well, not straight away they won’t. Lucky I’ve got your phone, eh?’

‘
What?
’

‘I’ve read your messages,’ said Faith. ‘Mummy and Daddy having a lovely lickle weekend away?’ She used a horrible baby voice. ‘So don’t forget to feed
the dog, will you? And lock up? Because you know what your brother’s like, don’t you?’

Tara caught her breath. Faith stood up suddenly and smoothed down her skirt.

‘Don’t worry, I’ve told them everything’s fine,
Tabs
,’ she mocked. ‘So you can be our guest for a little longer, can’t you? Until I decide what
the hell to do with you.’

She got up and walked up the stairs. The door banged closed and Tara heard the sickening click of the key turning in the lock.

Panic washed over her then and she thrashed and rocked, trying to free her hands. But the plastic ties only bit harder into her wrists and ankles. She sobbed wretchedly. Terror was making it
hard to think straight but she knew she must. Surely Faith wouldn’t . . . kill her? But she’d thought Faith wouldn’t hit her over the head and look how that had gone. Judging by
how bad she felt, Tara might have been lucky that blow hadn’t finished her off.

She’d almost forgotten the reason she was here in the first place. With a jolt she looked across at the girl lying immobile on the day bed.

Faith said she’d drugged Melodie. Tara
had
to make her wake up.

‘Melodie!’ Tara hissed. ‘MEL!’

But the other girl didn’t stir.

Tara tried to get to her feet. She quickly discovered how very hard that was when your hands and ankles were tied, not to mention combined with the feeling that your head might split in two. She
made it as far as her knees and then sank back with a frustrated groan. There was no way she was going to be able to walk anywhere.

Lifting her hands to her scalp she tentatively dabbed where it hurt most. There was a lump there, hard and curved like an egg. Vomit rose in her throat and she pulled her fingers away, looking
down at the brown, crusty blood on them.

She tried calling Melodie’s name again, louder, but got no response. Tara wondered how drugged up she was and looked around the dimly lit room, searching for anything she could use to cut
the bindings. But there was nothing in here. It was a plain, gloomy box of a place with unplastered breeze-block walls, containing only the day bed, lamp and chair. Maybe a cellar? There was a
familiar smell that might be coming from the river. But Tara’s senses were muddied still by the blow to her head and she couldn’t be sure of anything.

‘MELODIE!’ she screamed, surprising herself with her own volume.

There was a low moan and then Melodie slowly sat up. She looked at Tara with clouded eyes. Her hair hung over her face in greasy rat tails and she swiped it away with a thin, pale hand.
Melodie’s eyes widened as she seemed to see Tara properly for the first time.

‘Thank God you’re awake! You have to untie me!’

Melodie stared back at her, apparently dumbstruck.

‘Am I dreaming?’ she said in a thin, croaky voice.

‘No, you’re not sodding dreaming!’ said Tara savagely. ‘Now get over here and help me!’ She held up her bound hands, suddenly enraged at Melodie for putting her
into this situation in the first place. Some part of her felt it couldn’t really be happening. Had she really been whacked over the head and tied up? Did that actually happen in real life?
Well, it did, but not to people like Tara, surely?

Melodie swung her legs round slowly and got to her feet, looking about as stable on them as a newborn foal. She wobbled over to Tara, who held her hands higher. Melodie pulled and prodded
uselessly at the ties around Tara’s wrists.

‘I can’t,’ she said, frowning as though trying to work out a complex problem. ‘I don’t really understand . . .’

‘Well, you have to try,’ snapped Tara, breathing heavily. ‘There must be
something
we can use. Have you got scissors or a knife or anything?’

Melodie’s eyes widened at the word ‘knife’. She put her hand over her other upper arm as though it was a reflex. It was only then that Tara realised her arm was bandaged.
Melodie’s hoodie hung over it, the sleeve dangling uselessly. She couldn’t make sense of what had happened here. Was Melodie a victim? Or was she part of the plan? There wasn’t
time to work any of it out. She had to get out of here.

‘Look . . .’ She tried to speak slowly and calmly. ‘You have to help me. Do you understand?’

Melodie shook her head like a child. ‘No, I don’t. I don’t understand. Why are you here?’

Tara could feel every last drop of patience ebbing away.

‘I’ll tell you why I’m here,’ she said. ‘Faith
hit
me. She hit me over the head with a wine bottle. You want to know why?’ Her voice got louder.
‘Yeah? I’ll tell you, shall I? Because I found out the mad bitch ran over Will in her van.
And
I know all about the stupid kidnap scheme.’

Melodie stared at Tara. Her mouth was actually hanging open. She backed towards the cot bed and sat down, as though her legs wouldn’t support her any longer.

‘Will?’ she said breathlessly. ‘My Will? How do you even know
him
? And what do you mean about a van?’

Tara spat out her reply. ‘Like I told you,
she . . .’
she pointed at the stairs, ‘ran him over and put him in a coma. And I found out about all of it. So now I’m
here too. Which is totally unfair!’

She struggled against the ties again with a wretched sob, but it was only then that she saw the effect her words had had on Melodie, and remembered that Will was Melodie’s boyfriend.
Melodie was gripping fistfuls of hair in a way that looked painful. Tears streamed down her cheeks and made shiny trails.

‘Are you lying?’ she squeaked. ‘About Will? Why would you say that to me?’

Tara felt herself soften, guilt creeping in a little at how she’d delivered this news. ‘Because he knew something had happened to you,’ she said more gently. ‘He was
worried. He didn’t believe you’d moved away with your dad.’

Melodie began to shake. ‘I couldn’t tell him!’ she wailed. ‘I wanted to! But I knew he wouldn’t like it. And it was all going to be okay afterwards . . . We could
pick up again and carry on.’ She made a gulping sound. ‘He’s going to be all right though, isn’t he?’ Her face seemed to collapse in on itself, her small features
distorted by grief.

‘Probably,’ said Tara, looking away. She had no idea. She obviously hadn’t been very convincing either. For several minutes Melodie sobbed in a quiet, defeated way. She
didn’t seem like the same person who flicked her hair and made nasty comments and generally swanned around like a queen bee. This Melodie had a gaunt face, greasy hair and shaking hands. She
blinked constantly, like a creature that was used to living in the dark.

Tara stared down at the binding on her wrists, trying to think about how she could free herself. It was the sort of binding Mum and Dad used in the garden. It was strong. And every time she
tried to wrestle it loose, it just bit further into her skin. Melodie was right too – there was nothing she could see down here that could be used to cut the ties.

Panic began to mount as Tara tried to assess her options. Maybe Beck would make an unplanned visit home and be worried? He’d ring Mum and Dad, who’d come back from their weekend away
and call the police . . .

But Tara knew this wasn’t going to happen really. Beck wouldn’t know she wasn’t at home until Sunday night when her parents returned. And if that mad woman upstairs was
responding to Tara’s texts, Mum and Dad would have no reason to worry.

Maybe Leo would realise something was wrong? But he had too much going on. His worries about his sister would be filling his thoughts, not Tara.

A sudden thought made her suck in her breath.
Sammie
. . . The poor dog was still tied up out there. Maybe he would howl and alert help? But even as she pictured it, Tara knew this was
a pointless wish. The dog’s collar wasn’t that tight but even if he managed to get free, there was no reason why anyone would know Tara was here. The disloyal animal would go with
whoever offered him food.

Her spirits were dropping further by the second. No one would know she was gone for two whole days. A lot could happen in that time. Faith seemed capable of anything. She looked over at Melodie,
who lay across from her, silent apart from the odd hiccupping sob.

Tara felt another surge of anger towards her.

‘Hey,’ she said harshly.

Melodie slowly rolled round and sat up, drawing her knees to her chest.

‘That hurt?’ said Tara nodding at her bandaged arm.

Melodie looked down at herself. ‘It’s not too bad,’ she said in a flat tone.

‘As we’re stuck here, you might as well help me understand what you were trying to do,’ said Tara. ‘It seems like we have time to kill.’ Even as she said it, she
winced inside at the word
kill
. ‘So if you agreed to this,’ she continued, ‘how come they cut you?’

Melodie’s lips trembled and she did a wet sniff, drawing her hand across her face. She would never have done anything like that before. It was as though the shell of the shiny, hard girl
had been cracked open and Tara was seeing her raw insides.

‘I didn’t want them to do it . . .’ said Melodie in a tiny voice, ‘but Adam was threatening to go to the police. I don’t even care about the money. Well, I do . .
.’ she said, a bit more firmly. ‘I get an allowance from him but it’s not that much really. He should definitely pay more.’

The little bit of sympathy Tara had been feeling drained away.

‘So it’s all about money,’ she said disgustedly. ‘You could all end up in prison for this, do you understand that? You actually let them
cut
you? Are you
insane?’

Melodie looked away from Tara’s harsh gaze. ‘It had to seem realistic for the photo we sent him,’ she said quietly. ‘I didn’t like being in here at first. I was
scared . . . but I got used to that. And I drank loads of vodka before they . . . did it. I changed my mind when the time came but Faith persuaded me it had to be done . . . and Ross sort of held
me down.’ She sniffed again and drew herself up straighter. ‘It was strictly a one-off anyway.’

‘Oh you think?’ said Tara sarcastically. ‘Then why have they told your dad they’ll do it again on Friday, which is today, FYI?’

Melodie’s large eyes widened. ‘You’re lying,’ she whispered.

‘Okay, let’s see then.’

Tara almost enjoyed saying this, even though it was cruel.

Then something occurred to her. Something so terrible that her guts corkscrewed inside her.

Maybe they wouldn’t cut Melodie again. Maybe they would cut Tara instead . . .

If you couldn’t see her face, one white girl’s skin was going to look much like another’s.

A barely perceptible moan escaped her lips and she dropped her head to her knees, curling into a ball like a small child who thinks they can’t be seen that way. Nothing so far – not
seeing the van, nor Faith coming at her with the bottle, nor waking up in that garage – none of it had scared her more than this. Waves of terror rolled over her and she began to shake so
hard that her feet tapped against the cold stone floor uncontrollably.

Melodie didn’t seem to notice her distress. Either that or she didn’t care.

‘I still don’t understand what the hell any of this has to do with you,’ Melodie said. There was a pause. ‘What possible connection do you have with my family?’ A
beat passed. ‘Oh I get it,’ she said in a harder voice. ‘Are you after Leo or something?’ She laughed a mean, short laugh. The old her had been lurking there all along, it
seemed. ‘Well, I’d forget about that. He’s out of your league, love.’

Tara didn’t bother to answer. She was beyond being hurt by this. Melodie knew nothing about the kisses in the rain, or the way she’d felt when Leo wrapped his arms round her,
enveloping her in his warm boy smell with its hint of chlorine. No one could take any of that away from her. But these precious memories weren’t much use to her now.

She heard the sharp scratch of a match. Smoke wafted towards her in sickly curls.

‘Do you have to smoke?’ Tara said, her head snapping up. ‘It’s horrible in here and that just makes it worse.’ Something occurred to her then. ‘And where are
we, anyway? What is this place?’

Melodie blew smoke out the side of her mouth in exactly the same way that Faith had done it. What did Leo say before? Faith had more or less brought Melodie up. Tara suddenly wondered what it
was like to have been looked after by that horror upstairs. Maybe it partly explained why Melodie was being such a bitch even now.

‘The Bomb House.’

‘
What?
’ Tara thought she must have misheard.

Melodie sighed as though Tara was being particularly thick.

‘That’s what me and Leo called it when we were little. It’s a whatchamacallit, bomb shelter from the Second World War. Faith’s always wanted to turn it into a studio for
her music, but we’ve never had the money.’

‘Where is it?’ said Tara sharply.

‘Bottom of the garden.’

‘I never saw anything there from across the river . . .’

Melodie made an irritated sound and sucked on her cigarette. ‘Well, it’s hidden by the weeping willow, isn’t it? You can’t see it from across the way.’

Melodie seemed quite recovered now as she sucked away on her fag. As though this entire crazy scene was normal. That was a scary thought. She needed Melodie on side.

‘We have to get out of here, Melodie, do you understand that?’

‘I’m not going anywhere,’ said Melodie, gesturing with her cigarette. ‘And I’m sure Faith will let you go once Adam pays up.’

Tara gaped at the other girl. Did she really think Faith would just open the door and say, ‘Bye bye, Tara, you can go home now’ ?