Hold Your Breath (21 page)

‘What?’

‘I hate her,’ said Melodie in a trembling voice. ‘I hate her!’ She burst into more noisy tears.

Tara tried to tune her out. She was thinking about people on telly who picked locks. Was it really possible? It was worth another try. She’d done it with the locker, and this building was
pretty old.

She inserted the knife directly into the keyhole and pressed it sideways as far as she could get it to go. The handle dug painfully into her hand but she pressed harder and wiggled it gently.
Nothing happened. This wasn’t working. But she had to keep trying . . .

Please, please open
. . .

CLICK.

T
ara sucked in her breath as the door gently swung wide. She was looking at the garden. It was twilight and a low mist was hanging over the weedy
mass of the lawn. The cool fresh air on her face was delicious. The greenery of the garden, tangled and overgrown as it was, was more beautiful than anything Tara had ever seen.

It was
freedom.

Almost.

Melodie had turned her head to the side and was watching now through slitted eyes in a puffy, tear-streaked face.

‘C’mon,’ said Tara quietly. ‘We have to get out of here now.’

Melodie scrambled to her feet fast, surprising Tara. She raced up the stairs.

Tara went first, stepping out onto the damp grass. The weeping willow trailed over the raised hump of the shelter and she could understand now why it hadn’t been visible before. Drips of
water from the long green fronds plopped onto her head but she didn’t mind because she was
outside.

‘Can we get to the road through the garden?’ she whispered.

Melodie shook her head hard.

Tara walked to the side of the shelter towards the riverbank. A long fence ran across the length of the garden. It was curled with barbed wire and tangled with viciously thorned blackberry
bushes between the garden and the water. She would be cut to pieces if she tried to climb over it.

She took a deep, quivery breath as she looked around.

The French windows were open a little into the kitchen, and no lights were on inside.

They would have to go through the house.

Tara and Melodie exchanged looks. Tara tipped her head at the doors and Melodie nodded in silent understanding.

Soundlessly, the two girls moved quickly down the garden. It was torture not to run at full pelt but Tara forced herself to be careful, watching out for anything in the long grass that could
trip her up or make a noise.

When they reached the doors, Tara peered into the gloomy kitchen. Some kind of mournful piano music was playing quietly in another room. Slipping inside the kitchen, her heartbeat ratcheted up,
so loud she was sure it echoed in the otherwise silent space. The fridge suddenly hummed and shuddered, sending shock hurtling up Tara’s spine.

‘Come on,’ she mouthed at Melodie and the other girl looked back at her with swollen eyes. Tara could hear her frightened breaths, in and out, like old-fashioned bellows.

Tara took a step forwards.

Her head throbbed with a pounding hum and her mouth was dry and woolly. She longed to be able to walk to the tap and pour herself a glass of cold water but instead forced herself to take
careful, slow steps forward. Melodie followed closely behind.

They passed an open door to the left and Tara glanced in, flinching. Faith was lying on a red velvet sofa. A white throw shot with gold was hanging off and pooling on the floor. Her arm hung
down to the ground, her small fingers curled elegantly inwards. Faith was so still, Tara wondered hopefully if she was dead. Then a loud snore emanated from the doll-like figure and she muttered
something unintelligible. Tara and Melodie froze. But Faith became still once again.

Tara breathed out slowly and her limbs weakened with relief.
Thank God
. . .

And then the tinny sound of dance music exploded through the still air, shockingly loud. Faith’s mobile phone was on a glass coffee table. It was moving slightly as though dancing to the
music.

Faith sat straight up and stared directly at Tara with a confused expression.

Melodie pushed past her, strong suddenly, as she got to the front door. She wrenched it open and was out but then Faith seemed to come from nowhere, slamming the door shut before Tara could get
out too. The phone was still ringing and then it stopped abruptly. The landline began to ring. Tara expected to hear Melodie battering on the door on the other side but the only sound was her own
breathing and the phone, ringing over and over again.

Melodie had gone. She had left Tara here alone.

‘You silly little bitch,’ said Faith, her voice surprisingly clear. If she had been drunk before, she was sober now. ‘You made it all go wrong, coming here,’ she
continued in a hiss. ‘Ross only panicked because of you.’ Her eyes filled with tears.

Tara had never hit anyone properly in her life but now she swung her fist in an instinctive punch. Faith was too quick though and ducked. Tara hit the door instead and pain blasted through her
knuckles.

‘What do you want from me?’ she sobbed. ‘Let me go! It’s all over now. Don’t you know that they’re coming to get you?’

‘Shut up!’ screamed Faith. ‘Shut up, shut up!’ Her mouth was twisted with rage and her lips stained with red wine.

And then Faith moved so fast that Tara didn’t even have time to blink. She was falling backwards onto the wooden floor of the hall and something was over her face, taking her breath away.
Something white and soft. A pillow. Faith was trying to smother her with a pillow.

Tara shoved at the weight on top of her, fighting with every last bit of her strength but she was tired and sore and dizzy and anyway, Faith was gripping like a limpet, stronger than she should
be for her size. Tara’s head thrashed from side to side, trying to clear a space for air, desperately trying to pummel the woman on top of her. But Faith was sitting astride her chest and all
Tara could do was flap and try to make contact with the woman’s back. It wasn’t making any difference. She couldn’t get free. Faith was small but possessed with the strength of a
person who no longer had anything to lose. She’d killed two people already. What difference would another make?

This realisation squeezed the last remaining air from Tara’s lungs. Her chest cramped and ached and lights began to explode inside her mind. She thought about Leo and the lido. She
remembered the cool blue world underwater and wished she’d never, ever wasted air.

She was going to die here. She’d never see her family again.

Mum, Dad, Beck . . . Sammie . . .

Play dead.

She didn’t know where the words came from. But a split second later she forced herself to go limp, her feet flopping to the sides.

It was just enough to make Faith slacken her grip a little. Pulling the last trickle of strength from somewhere deep inside, Tara twisted sideways, gulping air into her screaming lungs and
slamming Faith against the wall of the hallway.

The front door opened with a crash then and people flooded the hallway. Everyone was shouting and bodies seemed to fill the space. Somewhere in the background a dog was barking insistently.
Strong arms were lifting her up and there was a crackle of static and noise that hurt her head.

Someone shouted ‘Tara!’ and someone else yelled, ‘Get away from her, son! She might be injured!’

Tara couldn’t get her eyes to focus properly. Everything was blurred and distorted.

‘Are you all right? Tara, are you all right?
Oh God
. . .’

Leo?

Her vision began to return. Leo was close, looking into her face. He was crying. He touched her cheeks and hair, delicately, checking her.

Tara’s chest hurt so much. Had to breathe. In and out.

‘It’s okay! You’re okay! You’re okay!’ Leo was saying the words over and over again.

Tara closed her eyes.

And let herself breathe.

T
he first day passed in a haze of sleep and painkillers.

Tara was kept in hospital for five days in total. She had concussion, bruised ribs, severe bruising to her knuckles and was mildly dehydrated. Mum, Dad and Beck stayed with her on rotation and
Mum even slept on a camp bed next to her for the first two nights.

Ross survived the stab wound, which turned out to be ‘relatively superficial’ according to a policeman whose name Tara kept forgetting. As soon as she’d been able to sit up and
speak, he and a colleague had made her go over what had happened in so much detail, she’d have screamed if she only had the energy. Faith was in custody, charged with murder and GBH. Tara
told the police as much as she could, but she left out the pictures in her mind. They didn’t need to know that detail. Anyway, the precise order of events was still a muddle to Tara. She knew
that distraught Melodie had run to the next-door neighbour who’d called the police. But Leo was there too. He’d gone to see Faith and found Sammie. He must have guessed that Tara was
inside the house.

She still didn’t know exactly what had happened because Leo didn’t come to the hospital. She kept looking, hopefully, at the doors to the ward when visiting hours began.

But still he didn’t come. A heavy sadness filled the pit of her stomach every time a person appeared that wasn’t him. She tried to concentrate on her few good memories, shuffling the
pack in an attempt to stop the horrible pictures that constantly sneaked into her mind.

That wine bottle coming towards her.

Waking up in the bomb shelter and seeing Faith sitting there, so cold and cruel.

And the pillow over her face as her last breaths ebbed away . . .

Mum said there would be counselling for her as soon as she left the hospital, but all she wanted really was to see Leo.

But maybe what they’d had was too fragile to survive this . . .

She did have one surprising visitor on the fourth day.

It was late afternoon. Mum was thoroughly getting on her nerves. When the pictures of Faith first came into her dreams and Tara jerked awake, crying, she was grateful for the presence at the
side of the bed. But after a couple of days, the events in that house were starting to take on a hazy quality and details were blurring at the edges. And Tara was grateful for that. People kept
saying she was going to need counselling and maybe she would, later. But now she was getting itchy for her own things. For home. Plus, Mum kept looking at Tara as though trying to memorise every
inch of her face. Her eyes filled with tears on a frequent basis and she constantly blew her nose. It was becoming a little wearing.

So it was a relief when Beck turned up. He persuaded Mum he’d keep Tara company while Mum got some chores done at home.

He made himself comfortable in the chair next to Tara’s bed, rummaged in her box of chocolates and checked messages on his phone, evidently untroubled by any need to make conversation.

Tara gave a small grin at her oblivious big brother. He carried an air of the outside world with him that made her deeply envious and grateful at the same time.

The curtain around her bed was half closed on the side nearest the door. When it was yanked suddenly, Tara expected to see yet another nurse or doctor wanting to check her head wound or her
blood pressure or the other million things they did on an almost hourly basis.

But it wasn’t a nurse or doctor. It was Karis, looking at her with wide eyes. She clutched a bunch of flowers and a bag of grapes. She smiled weakly at Tara and then spotted Beck and her
cheeks instantly coloured. Tara was impressed, despite herself, that Karis hadn’t immediately started batting her eyelashes. If anything, she looked uncomfortable and her eyes slid away back
to Tara’s face. She smiled again.

‘Hope you don’t mind that I’ve come to see you,’ she said quietly.

Beck looked up and did that split-second appraising thing that boys didn’t think girls could even see. He smiled.

‘Who’s this then?’ he said and Karis swallowed, glanced at him and then back at Tara.

‘This is Karis, from school,’ said Tara, sitting up. ‘Beck . . . ?’

Beck got up and beamed the full wattage of his smile at Karis. He may even have winked. ‘No problem,’ he said, sauntering off.

Karis looked a bit pained. ‘I don’t want you to think I came here because of him,’ she said.

Tara surprised herself with a small laugh. It felt like the first laugh in a long time.

‘It’s okay, I wasn’t thinking that,’ she said.

Karis seemed to visibly relax. She placed the flowers and grapes on the table at the bottom of Tara’s bed and then perched awkwardly on the chair, as though she might flee at any
second.

‘Have a chocolate,’ said Tara, holding the box Beck had been plundering towards Karis, who shook her head but smiled gratefully. ‘Although I’m not sure my greedy brother
has left many.’

‘How . . . how are you feeling?’ she said tentatively.

‘I’m all right,’ said Tara. ‘Bit bored now.’

A long pause stretched out.

‘I suppose they’re having a field day at school,’ said Tara.

Karis met her eyes and then looked down at her lap. ‘It’s mainly Mel they’re talking about, to be honest.’

‘Oh?’ Tara’s belly gave a little quiver as she imagined running the gamut of faces hungry for gossip back at school. ‘But they know I was there?’

‘Yeah, course,’ said Karis, ‘but everyone knows you got involved because you’re with Leo. And that you were trying to help.’

Tara sank back into her pillows, tired suddenly. She seemed to get so exhausted lately. It was hard to imagine how she would be able to go to school and do normal things again.

‘Why did you come then, Karis?’ she said. Almost being murdered had a very liberating effect, she was finding. She didn’t really care what anyone thought about her at the
moment, although she was aware that might not last. ‘Was it to get the juicy details?’

‘No!’ Karis’s cheeks flushed. ‘It really isn’t anything like that! It’s just . . .’ She swallowed. ‘I could have been nicer, that’s all.
When you started. It must have been hard, you know, starting in Year Ten. When everyone knows each other.’