LITMIR.BIZ

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to blur. I wiped them and brought myself back to the present. It was time to be proactive.

      I had to breathe, just breathe, that was all I had to do.

      Back in the car, I jumped a red light, not seeing it until it was too late to stop. Luckily there was nothing coming the other way – though I suppose there wouldn’t be in the middle of the night. The last thing I needed was to be pulled over by the police for speeding or running lights. He told me, if I called the police they would be …

      I still hoped it was a sick joke of some kind.

      As I pulled onto their drive my headlights lit up the front door. It was slightly ajar.

      I turned my car engine off, got out and walked towards the house, looking to see if anyone was there as I quietly opened the door wider, flinching as the hinge squeaked. Once inside I reached for the light switch but thought better of it. I didn’t know who might be in the house.

      Quietly moving down the hallway, I stepped into the kitchen. There were some dirty dishes on the side and the fish tank’s light was still on, the fish swimming around calmly, like nothing had happened. Turning, I looked into the living room. Nothing was out of place and my hope lifted slightly.

      I walked up the stairs, stroking the wall with my right hand as it was so dark I couldn’t see, but I was too scared to switch on a light and be confronted with the truth. The only light was coming from a dim lamp somewhere upstairs, creating hard shadows on the wall at the top. Once upstairs I was met with the truth of the situation and it forced the air out of my lungs.

      In the low light I could see the signs of a struggle. The hallway lamp was on its side and bedding from both Thomas’s and Rachael’s rooms were scattered around the landing along with toiletries, some of Thomas’s plastic toys and a small mirror. I could picture them being lifted from their beds, fighting, throwing whatever they could at whoever took them. Rachael screaming, begging. My baby boy crying, terrified. The image forced me to my knees and I cried until my lungs ached. My little boy, my defenceless boy.

      Slowly I made my way into his room and looked inside. His wardrobe door hung off its hinges. His bed was flipped, the mattress cut open. Like they were looking for something; the thing that I was supposed to have.

      His favourite teddy, a giant cuddly toy we had named Barnabus that I had got him for his first birthday, lay decapitated with its innards strewn across the floor. I began to make my way towards Rachael and Sean’s bedroom. Looking through the doorway the first thing I saw was blood on the far wall. A lot of blood. Taking a breath, I stepped in. The television was smashed. The mattress had been torn to shreds, and as I stepped closer, I saw a hand lying on the floor between the bed and window, stained dark crimson. Sidestepping I looked around the end of the bed, the image making me choke on my own voice as I tried to scream. Sean lay there, staring back at me, in a dark, almost black, pool of his own blood. His hands covered in it like he had tried to stop the bleeding. His head was forced backwards unnaturally. His throat was cut and the wound messy and uneven, like it had been hacked at rather than sliced. The wound was deep, so deep that I could see his exposed spine with the knife that had been used to do the unimaginable stuck in.

      There was so much blood, so much violence. His chest was littered with more wounds, black holes through his ribcage. The wounds hadn’t produced much blood, suggesting they were made after he was already dead. I couldn’t count how many, possibly twenty in all. Each one dark and deep. I thought about the effort needed to do such a thing. It wouldn’t have been a quick death. I prayed he passed out before he knew exactly what was happening to him.

      I staggered backwards out of the room, unable to take my eyes from Sean, and I threw up on the landing. Each heave becoming more painful than the last as my stomach emptied onto the carpet.

      I needed to get out, fast. I was shocked the police weren’t already here, but then I thought about it; their house was detached, back from the road. Unless you were passing, which was nearly impossible because of it being set at the end of the close, you’d not hear anything from within. But it wouldn’t be long before someone noticed something and called the police. I couldn’t afford to be caught at the scene of the crime. I didn’t have time. I staggered towards the stairs as my legs gave out from under me and I fell down them, hitting my elbow on the hard wooden edge of one close to the bottom. Pain shot up into my little finger where I had hit the nerve and I shook my hand until it eased. It took me a moment to get to my feet and, as quietly as I could despite the sound of blood rushing in my ears being deafening, I left the house, closing the door behind. As I wrestled my keys from my pocket I dropped them as my hands were shaking so hard.

      I managed, somehow, to get into my car and start the engine, though I stalled it twice as I tried to drive away. I felt hot, on the brink of passing out, so I opened my window to let the cold air in and it slapped me across the face. It helped. I don’t know how long I was driving for, but once I felt far enough away I turned off the main road and found a layby to park in. A few moments later, or maybe an hour, my phone buzzed in my back pocket. I looked at the caller ID, it came up unknown.

      ‘So, now you’ve been to your old house do you believe me?’

      They knew I was there. They knew I had just left Rachael’s house. They had watched me arrive, watched me leave. They were somewhere very close by. I tried to recall if I saw anything or anyone outside when I got back into the car. But nothing came. Only the image of Rachael and Thomas in the van.

      ‘Please, please don’t hurt them.’

      ‘Do as you are told, and we won’t.’

      Staring out of the front windscreen into the black nothingness of night I couldn’t think, I couldn’t focus. I didn’t know what to do. Sean was dead, Rachael was tied up somewhere, and Thomas was unconscious beside her. Because of my past. Because they believed I had something that didn’t belong to me.

      ‘Don’t hurt them, please.’

      ‘You know what I want.’

      I wanted to say to them I didn’t, that I had no idea because of a car accident fourteen, nearly fifteen, years ago, but I stopped myself. If they believed it, and knew I couldn’t give back whatever I took, would it mean Rachael and Thomas would die like Sean had? So I lied, hoping it wasn’t obvious.

      ‘Give me time, I will get it.’

      ‘That’s the spirit. I’ve left something in the glove box of your car.’

      ‘Pardon?’

      ‘Your glove box, look in it.’

      I did as I was told and inside was an iPhone. One that wasn’t mine.

      ‘Take the sim card out of your phone and burn it. Then throw away your mobile, Michael, soon people will be looking for you. I will contact you on the new one.’

      ‘Okay, whatever you say. Just don’t do anything to them.’

      ‘One more thing, Michael. Just so you don’t think about doing anything to try and be smarter than us, we know Katie too.’ He paused, knowing I would wait. When he continued, his tone was harder. ‘We know where she is. We know who she is with, we know everything about her. Get to work. The clock is ticking.’

Chapter 10

      Rachael

      The Garage

      2^nd January 2018, 12.34 a.m.

      With Tom asleep in my arms, the shutter slammed behind us and for around twenty minutes I was paralysed, holding my six-year-old whose weight was making my arms shake. Within minutes I could feel my skin cooling as there was no heat inside. Then Tom stirred again, the drugs like a tide, freeing him momentarily before dragging him back under.

      ‘Mummy?’

      ‘Shhhh, it’s okay, honey.’

      I kept him close, his face buried into my pyjama top and I wrapped him in my arms as tightly as I could to try to

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