No Way Out (4 page)

But once, unexpectedly, I’d come home early, and was drawn upstairs by your laughter and Ellie’s reluctant giggles – a hesitant little chuckle that sounded forced yet somehow necessary. You thought I’d gone out until late, but I wasn’t feeling well. I was going to surprise you both, creeping up onto the landing without a sound. The bathroom door was open a crack, but wide enough to tell me everything I needed to know. You were in the bath too, and Ellie, aged five, was beneath you. She caught my eye, begged me with her gaze as I retreated. I hurried quietly away, then banged the door from the garage as if I’d just come home. My call up the stairs had you and Ellie down shortly after – Ellie wrapped in a towel, a lollipop stuck between her lips.

Unable to face the consequences, I never said a word.

I pass Ellie her shoes. She shoves them on. ‘What are you going to do?’ she asks Tom, quite casually as if she’s done it all before anyway. He leers at her, pokes out his tongue just a tiny bit.

‘Depends,’ he replies, filling the kettle again.

‘On what, you bastard? Why don’t you just let us go?’ I stand up, but then sit down again when he takes a step closer.

Tom smiles. ‘OK,’ he says, clasping his hands as if he’s in a business meeting. ‘I sent Daddy a little task. Let’s see how far he’ll go to save one or both of you. His choice.’

‘Save?’ I say, terrified. My heart clenches, struggling to beat. Nervously, I stand up, but Tom lowers me down again, almost gently. Ellie remains silent, staring up at him with empty eyes as if she’s resigned to our fate. It’s the same look she gives you sometimes, though I’m uncertain if it’s an imploring look, or a complicit one. She clutches her bandaged hand under her chin, whimpering.

‘Of course, you can always pick up the tab instead, if you like,’ Tom says. His face is close to mine. His breath smells of tea.

‘What are you talking about?’ I feel dizzy and unreal. I don’t understand.

‘If he won’t do it, you can instead,’ Tom says, remaining cryptic. ‘You can save Ellie.’ He glances at his watch, ripping into a packet of biscuits. He shoves one into his mouth.

‘Anything,’ I mumble. My small nod grows in intensity. ‘I’ll do anything to keep her safe.’

I want to look at my daughter, but I can’t. I want to take her hand, tell her I love her, but the irony of those words screams through my mind. I didn’t keep her safe, did I? Even when you orchestrated alone time with her, I let you have your way, year after year. Denial was the safest place I knew.

Tom grins. ‘Good. Time to get serious then,’ he says, dialling a number. Yours, I assume. He has to stand by the window to get reception. ‘Tell him he’s got three minutes to send me the picture. If he doesn’t, it’s in your hands.’

I nod, grateful to be doing something, yet not daring to ask what it will be. As we wait for you to answer, my mind races, wondering how I can get a secret message to you, using words only you’ll understand. The thing is, I have no clue where we’re holed up, and no clue as to Tom’s real identity. Worst of all is the realisation that there are no secret words between us, no endearing language or anything hush-hush and special from our past that I could use.

Tom thrusts the phone at my mouth, looming over me with the knife in his hand. He’s set it to speaker so we all hear the ringtone.

‘Marcus?’ I say nervously when you pick up. I already know you’ll be cross.

‘Lisa, for fuck’s sake, where are you? What’s going on?’ Your voice is tinny, remote.

I catch sight of the blade in Tom’s hand. ‘I … I don’t know, Marcus. Listen, this is serious.
He’s
serious. He’s already hurt Ellie. Badly.’ I let out a little sob at the thought of it. ‘Please, just do whatever he’s asking. If you don’t…’ I glance at Tom, who makes a revolting gesture at our daughter with his fingers. I can hardly speak as the shiver spreads through me, unable to tell you what he’s going to do to Ellie.

‘The police are on their way,’ Marcus booms. ‘Tell him to give himself up. This call is being traced. The police are with me now.’

Oh thank God, I think, feeling a surge of relief. But it’s short-lived. Tom’s laugh makes me doubt you. It’s as if he knows what you’re like, how easy the lies come out. Suddenly, I see you sitting alone in the library, red faced, drumming your fingers on the desk, fuming at the inconvenience. I wonder if you’ve called Molly yet; asked her to come round, turned down our bed knowing that I’m likely away for the night; likely forever.

‘Marcus, please … Will you just do what he says? For Ellie?’ I don’t want him to know that if he doesn’t, I will have to.

‘I don’t respond to blackmail,’ you say. ‘Who the hell is this joker? Put him on.’

I look up at Tom, his sharp eyes, smooth skin, and jutting cheekbones cutting a stern yet oddly affable face. Then it strikes me. ‘He’s just a lad,’ I say quietly. ‘He says he’s called Tom.’

I feel desperately sad all of a sudden, almost resentful, as if Marcus and his belligerent ways are the intruders in our cosy little scene. Perhaps we could just stay in this cottage forever, with Tom cooking soup and making us tea, while I look after Ellie. We’d be safe from you, at least.

‘Tom who?’ you boom. ‘The police are taking all this down, you know.’

Tom laughs again. ‘You’ve got three minutes,’ he says loudly at the phone, muffling his voice through the check scarf at his neck. Before he hangs up, I hear Marcus’s howl of frustration.

We sit in silence. When the time is up and we don’t hear from you, Tom pulls me to my feet. ‘Looks as if you’re on,’ he says, giving me a little wink. He hands me a large penknife. ‘Your choice,’ he says, touching his eye, his lips, and then his ear. ‘But one of them has got to go.’

*

‘There’s a situation,’ Marcus said down the line.

‘I thought you sounded a bit tense before,’ Roy said. ‘What sort of situation? Is everyone OK?’ He sounded slightly impatient, and Marcus could tell he’d caught him eating, but nonetheless he remained polite and concerned. It was Roy’s quarter decade as a detective, Marcus assumed, forcing him to check on everyone’s well-being.

‘Fine, fine,’ he replied. ‘In fact, it’s not about me. I need some advice for a friend. He’s got himself into a pickle.’

‘Ah,’ Roy said slowly, knowingly. ‘And what might that pickle be?’

‘A long story, but to cut it short, he believes his family may get hurt. His wife and … and his son, to be precise.’

‘This sounds serious,’ Roy replied. ‘Are you certain no one’s in immediate danger?’

‘He’s handling it,’ was Marcus’s evasive response. ‘But he could sure use some advice from someone in the know.’

‘Is someone threatening them, or is it a blackmail situation perhaps?’ Roy’s voice was clipped and urgent, and Marcus wondered how he knew. ‘If so, he should call the police immediately.’

Marcus needed to slow things down. He didn’t want Roy leaping out of retirement and back into action. Besides, he wasn’t even sure what this Tom person’s motive was. ‘Sort of blackmail, I think,’ Marcus replied. ‘Do you have any negotiating tips I can pass on? To stop the bugger harassing my mate further.’

Roy laughed drily. ‘Marcus, if things are that serious, then it’s a job for the police. I strongly suggest you get your friend to call them.’

‘Thanks, Roy, I’ll tell him.’ Marcus’s shoulders dropped. He was about to end the call, but needed to know more. ‘Would the police go to his house?’

‘Without a doubt,’ Roy replied. ‘They’ll need to gather as much information as possible.’ Roy went on to ask if Lisa and Ellie were definitely OK, but Marcus wasn’t listening properly.

‘Yeah, yeah, they’re fine. Lisa’s taking a bath and Ellie’s … doing homework.’ As soon as he hung up, another text came in.

Too late
, it read.

Marcus felt sick again, and his heart thumped out an uneven beat. He strode about the library, shaking his head, not knowing what to do. He couldn’t stand the thought of anyone hurting Ellie any more. He jabbed out a text.

Wait! I’ll do it
.

He chucked back the remaining wine in his glass and poured another, downing that one just as fast. He grabbed the bottle and went into the kitchen. As he was getting the cleaver out of the knife block, his phone buzzed again.

One more minute
, came the reply.

With his hands shaking, he pulled several clean tea towels from the drawer. He grabbed a bottle of disinfectant spray from under the sink and doused the worktop with it, as well as the knife and his left hand. Marcus was already crying – guttural sobs vomiting out of him uncontrollably, hammering home the pain of what he had to do; what he had already done.

If he called an ambulance straight after, they’d alert the police to such a bizarre scene, and then they’d be crawling all over everything. This was so unexpected; there’d been no time to clear it all up. He had seconds to go now, wasting several more by getting his phone ready to take a picture.

Finally, he laid out his left hand on the counter, spreading his fingers, and turning away. He took a deep breath, bit his teeth hard together, and swiftly brought down the cleaver with a hefty swing.

His left hand shot back as he screamed out, but one finger was still trapped under the metal edge – tendons stretching, bone cracking. It wasn’t quite severed. He raised the knife again and chopped a second time, this time hacking right through the four fingers.

They were off. Discarded. Moving the stump of his palm away from them looked surreal, like a trick with mirrors. His thumb stuck up in front of his face as he stared at the damage, as if he was signalling, ridiculously, that everything was OK.

He stared, disbelieving, as the pain lashed up his wrist, his arm, into his brain, burning behind his eyes. But then, as he was photographing the bloody mess, it gradually numbed into a woozy, drunken feeling. Endorphins mixed up with the wine.

Shaking uncontrollably, freezing cold and feeling as if he was going to pass out, he sent the picture to Tom’s number.

A few moments later, a message came back:
Too late
.

*

Tom tosses the flap of my ear from one hand to the other. ‘Not the best job, if I’m honest,’ he says, looking at it.

Trying to suppress my sobs, pressing a rag to the side of my head, squashing the pain and the blood back inside, I’m already wondering if they’ll be able to sew it back on.

‘You didn’t really get it all off properly, did you?’ He screws up his nose.

I shake my head in agreement, anything not to anger him. Ellie is curled up on the sofa, facing away from me, rocking, her hands covering her head. She can’t bear to look at what he forced me to do, but at least I know she’ll be safe now.

‘Hubby will be a bit pissed that he needn’t have bothered,’ Tom says with a nasty grin. He flashes his phone screen at me, and I see your amputated fingers lying on our kitchen counter like leftover sausages. Your wedding ring has dropped off the end of one of them. He laughs, tapping out another text to you.

I imagine you writhing in pain, your anger immense when you find out that I had already deformed myself to save Ellie from being raped. That’s what he said he’d do to her if we didn’t comply – take her upstairs and tie her up. Rip the virginity from her, he told me. I didn’t tell him that you’d already done that. As ever, I kept quiet, screwed up my eyes.

‘Thing is,’ Tom says in a light-hearted voice, which makes him sound even more menacing. ‘Neither of you actually passed the test, so I win.’ He looks Ellie up and down, and smiles.

‘
What
? What are you talking about? My husband has lost all his fingers because of you, and I did that!’ I jab my finger at my remaining ear. My voice sounds clogged and weak through the thickness of the cloth.

‘You didn’t do it properly. And Daddy was nearly a minute late. I mean what I say, you know.’ Tom approaches Ellie. ‘Get up,’ he says, touching her shoulder.

‘
No!
’ I scream. I drop the cloth and lunge at him. Hot blood runs down my neck, but I don’t care. My attack is futile, though, as after I’ve fought and kicked and bitten his arm, I’m tied up again. Tom kicks me in the back, sending a shooting pain through my kidneys. Like a maggot, I writhe across the floor, trying to get to Ellie as he leads her away.

‘Leave her alone!’ I scream, but it’s useless. ‘
Nooo
, Ellie! No, no, no!’

Tom doesn’t listen. The last thing I see is Ellie’s pale, innocent face staring at me from the doorway as she’s taken upstairs. It reminds me of when I saw her in the bath with you.

*

Marcus tightened the tourniquet and bound up his fist. His whole arm throbbed, and he didn’t care if he never saw his hand again. He was disgusted with himself for failing the task, but more than that, and for the first time in a long time, he felt utterly terrified. What if Roy had sussed out why he’d called, that there was no friend? What if he’d alerted the police and they were on their way right now? Once he admitted that his wife and daughter had been kidnapped, they’d be all over the place within minutes looking for clues – marking him as a suspect, too, no doubt. And they’d be all over the computers, he reckoned, his included.

Marcus doubled up in agony as the nerve pain bit through him again. His spine stiffened as he went back to the library, the hammer from the garage in his right hand. He stared at his domain, the place where he’d spent so many evenings holed up, absorbed in the only thing that truly mattered in life. As his shoulders heaved up and down with his laboured breathing, he wondered where to begin.

It could be a break-in, he decided in a moment of clarity. Perhaps he’d gone out for a takeaway after speaking to Roy and, when he’d got back, he’d found the place smashed up. It would fit – some psycho terrorising the entire family as well as trashing their home. But he’d have to delete the CCTV footage, smash down the cameras. A few items stolen from Lisa’s jewellery box would make it look authentic.

Marcus set to work on his computer first, thankful that he was a stickler for backing up important files. The incriminating ones, the ones he’d spent years collecting lovingly, would be destroyed as soon as the hard drive buckled. He’d finish it off on the fire just to make sure. The pain of doing this was almost more than his hand.