All Fall Down: A gripping psychological thriller with a twist that will take your breath away (25 page)

W
endy strained
to hear the discussion on the other side of the wall. Rob and the twins were listening equally hard, and every now and then someone whispered a stray word or phrase that they claimed to have picked out, but for the most part it was guesswork.

What did come through, however, was the
tone
of the conversation. Their captors were very concerned about something – panicked, almost.

‘Perhaps someone’s come to the door,’ Evan suggested, but his brother dismissed that idea.

‘We’d have heard it. The locals knock loudly – and they all have dogs. A whiff of the blood and fear in this house and they’d. . .’ He didn’t bother to complete the sentence, but a shake of the head conveyed his meaning.

Both he and Evan had suffered a terrible ordeal last night; today their faces were an unsightly patchwork of abrasions and yellow and purple bruises. One of Evan’s eyes was half-closed, the flesh around the socket inflated to the size of an apple. Both winced and groaned with every movement, but at least the pall of shame seemed to have cleared. Perhaps it was the fact that they had all survived the night—

They had all survived
. . . Wendy felt guilty even for thinking in such terms, because it wasn’t true – it could not be considered true – until she knew that Georgia was safe.

There was a sudden flurry of movement on the landing. The door opened and Kyle walked in. He was still grimy, and he stank of body odour, but there was a change in his bearing. A little more upright; strutting, almost, while behind him Lara and Ilsa sidled up like reluctant handmaidens.

‘Where’s Georgia? Is she all right? Can we see her, please?’ The questions spilled out, but Kyle ignored them. After examining their bonds, he stepped aside for Ilsa to get past. She was holding a knife.

‘We want to see our daughter,’ Rob insisted.

‘You don’t get to make demands.’ Kyle delved into the pocket of his shorts and brought out the gun. He kept it trained on them as Ilsa cut the rope from their feet and ordered Rob to stand up.

‘What’s happening?’ Wendy asked in alarm. ‘Where are you taking him?’

‘It’s okay,’ Rob told her, but he couldn’t quite keep the uncertainty from his voice.

They were about to lead him out when a question from Josh stopped them in their tracks. ‘Where’s Gabriel?’

Lara let out a sudden sob. Her eyes, Wendy noticed now, were red-rimmed and raw with pain. Wendy had thought last night that the enormity of what they were doing was starting to affect them, but now she wondered if it was something more.

Kyle gave Lara a furious look, then roughly propelled Rob through the doorway. While they were preoccupied, Wendy saw her chance and yelled out: ‘Georgia, darling, are you okay?’

‘
Mum!
’ The answering scream set her heart racing, and for a moment the relief was enough to eclipse the fear that she might never see her husband again.

T
he activity
in the house was increasing; more voices, talking in angry whispers. Georgia tried not to think about what might be going on, just hoped her family were okay. She wondered if they were being kept together, or separate like she was.

A sudden shout from Wendy gave her a jolt: ‘Georgia, darling, are you okay?’

‘
Mum!
’ The cry took so much out of her that she couldn’t manage another word. Then a door slammed, and there were heavy thuds along the hall and on the stairs.

I’ve failed
, Georgia thought.
Time’s run out
.

But still no one came in. Frantic now, she got back to work, pressing the head of the screw deep into the flesh of her thumb and forefinger, pushing and turning, the tendons in her wrist grinding against the handcuff, a burning agony she could only endure for two, three, four seconds—

And the screw came loose. She felt the difference at once, easily rolling it out. She’d done it! She’d only bloody done it!

As the screw came away, the key rattled in the door. Flinching, Georgia’s hand jerked open and lost the screw: she felt it bump against her wrist and pictured it, as if in slow motion, lazily turning end over end; in a mad panic she clawed and snatched and by some miracle managed to catch it in mid-air, yanking her hand out from behind the headboard with the screw clamped in her fist just as the door opened. . .

Milo shuffled in and stopped abruptly, as if he’d sensed the echoes of her movement. Georgia stared straight at him, needing to hold eye contact while she subtly wriggled into a more natural position. But she couldn’t relax her body too much, or it would make the clenched fist more obvious.

‘What are you doing?’ His voice sounded weak, nervous, which made it easier for her to grin at him.

‘What’s it look like, Einstein? I’m chained to the bed. And I had to pee on the floor.’

She said this to shock him, and it seemed to work. He recoiled, wrinkling his nose at the smell. ‘Why didn’t you call?’

‘It was hurting so much, I just had to let go.’ She couldn’t tell him the truth:
I don’t want you or anyone else coming near me
.

‘But I was right outside,’ he grumbled.

‘I didn’t know that, did I?’

‘I hope you got some sleep?’ he asked, with what sounded like genuine concern.

‘A bit.’ Stupidly she tugged on the handcuff as she spoke; his gaze moved that way and stayed there.

He was staring right at her fist.

Panic made her cheeky: ‘So am I getting some breakfast, then? Cranberry juice and toast, please. Marmite or just butter will be fine.’

At first Milo looked more amused than angry. No, scrub that – his smile had a sadness to it that made her guts shrivel like burning paper.
Was this it?
she wondered. Was he coming for the reward she’d promised him last night?

But then he said, ‘You own a boat, yes?’

‘It’s not ours. It’s for anyone who stays here.’

‘Where is it moored?’

She shrugged, playing dumb.

‘You don’t know?’ A nastier look came into his eyes. ‘Don’t play games, Georg—’

‘I know where it is, but there’s no, like, address or anything. It’s on one of the inlets. I could take you there?’ she added, innocently.

‘You might have to,’ he said, just as the door banged open and Ilsa came in, looking furious.

‘What are you doing, Milo?’

‘Nothing!’ He squirmed, as if he’d been caught naked. ‘Why?’

Ilsa’s gaze swept across the bed, but if she noticed Georgia had only the one handcuff, she didn’t say anything. ‘Leave her,’ she ordered. ‘We don’t need her yet.’

R
ob’s legs
nearly buckled as he was taken from the room. He told himself it was a result of the hours he’d spent on the floor, not because of the fear that he was being led to his death.

He couldn’t bear the idea that he might die without knowing his family were safe. His failure to protect them was far more painful than the prospect of his own death.

He didn’t go far: just across the landing to the bathroom. Lara and Ilsa saw him into the room, then moved on towards the stairs. Kyle ordered him to sit on the floor, next to the bath. He shut the door and rested against it, holding the gun at his side. He looked calm enough, but there had been an unmistakable tension between him and his fellow disciples.

If there was some sort of power struggle underway, Rob had to try and use it to his advantage.

‘I’m here to discuss the terms of your release,’ Kyle said. ‘Of course, it will come at a cost.’

‘You want money?’ Rob snorted, unsure if he believed it. ‘How much?’

‘I’m glad you haven’t denied that little nest egg – or, rather, not so little.’ He smirked at Rob’s confusion. ‘We all know how tradesmen operate. And I’ve seen inside your house, remember? There’s a safe, filled with cash.’

‘No, there isn’t—’

‘If you lie to me, Rob, you can go back and sweat for a while, and I’ll have some fun and games with Georgia. Or maybe we’ll go with Lara’s idea, of getting Evan and Josh to fu—’

‘No, all right.’ Rob breathed out slowly. ‘I do have a safe. There’s a couple of grand in cash, along with our passports, birth certificates, but that’s it.’

‘Do you take me for a fool, Robert? A business like yours – the turnover’s got to be, what, in the millions?’

‘Nowhere near. Anyway, turnover isn’t profit – there’s the overheads, wages and vehicles, the cost of renting an office—’

‘That’s crap. You’re a wealthy man. You’ll have tens of thousands salted away, and probably other valuables – gold, for instance.’

‘I wish!’ Rob said sarcastically. ‘The last thing I want is the Revenue breathing down my neck, so I pay my VAT, and I pay my tax. Christ, the business nearly went under a few years ago. First the banking crash, and then my partner robbed me. Iain Kelly, heard of him?’

‘Why would I?’

Rob held his gaze. ‘You tell me.’

Kyle shook his head. The gun came up. ‘What’s the combination?’

‘Let my wife and children go, and I’ll gladly give it to you.’

‘Be serious here, Robert.’

‘I am. Let them go and you can have what’s in the safe. But if I just hand it over, you’re gonna kill me.’ He sat up straight, projecting a confidence he didn’t feel. ‘So fuck off, Kyle – you’re not getting it.’

‘No?’ Kyle tutted. ‘Looks like poor Georgia’s in for a busy day.’

‘And is Gabriel happy with that?’ Rob made a show of cocking his head to listen. ‘Why isn’t he the one talking to me?’

‘He’s downstairs.’ Kyle’s face had flushed; he was rattled.

‘I don’t think so, matey. There’s no disguising a guy of his size walking round an old house. He was next door to us during the night, and I think he’s still in there – the room where you were all whispering earlier.’

Kyle took a step towards him, thought better of it and kicked at the bath panel, hard enough to split the plastic. ‘For fuck’s sake!’ he yelled, then, through gritted teeth, he hissed: ‘Can’t you see that I’m on your side here?’

‘Bullshit.’

‘It’s true.’ He gestured wildly at the floor. ‘You have to give me something to take back to them, otherwise it’ll be so much worse for you.’

‘Bollocks. Do you think I was born yesterday?’

‘Do you think
I
was?’ Something changed in Kyle as he snapped the question back; a smug air of superiority. ‘You don’t recognise me, do you?’

‘What?’ Rob was thrown by the question. ‘Before last Sunday, I’d never set eyes on you in my life.’

‘True. You hadn’t.’ Kyle slowly brought the gun up and took aim at Rob’s head. ‘Get in the bath. If you won’t co-operate, we might as well finish this now.’

W
endy faintly heard shouting
– from both Kyle and Rob – but the impression she had was of a heated argument, rather than a physical battle. For that reason she offered encouraging smiles to Evan and Josh, who had dropped the pretence that they were brave, mature adults and were instead appealing to her for comfort in a way that they hadn’t done since childhood.

After their father had been taken out, Evan groaned, ‘This is my fault. If I hadn’t been playing music in the garden, that guy might not have come our way.’

‘You can’t look at it like that,’ Wendy said. ‘No one has to answer for these actions except the people directly responsible – Gabriel and his horrible little tribe.’

‘I thought the mess
I
landed us in was bad enough,’ Josh said ruefully.

Evan grunted. ‘Except they probably got that gun from Nyman.’

Wendy could have reminded them that lots of innocent people become the victims of horrific crimes – a man glassed while drinking in a busy pub; a woman struck with a hammer as she hurries home on a winter’s night; a child snatched from her bike by a predator in the playground. Such tragedies were both the stuff of our worst nightmares as well as the staple of our everyday headlines. If we get unlucky, we get unlucky: it was a pointless waste of energy to debate the unfairness of it.

But before she could say so, the door opened and Rob stumbled into the room, white-faced and trembling with shock. Behind him, Kyle stood in the doorway, gun in hand.

‘One hour to decide,’ he said.

K
yle wasn’t
proud of what he’d just done, and knew he’d probably made it harder to win the man’s trust. But his overreaction had been provoked by Rob’s own attitude: the man was a blinkered, boorish oaf, obstinate to the point of insanity. No one could have been more reasonable than Kyle was in there, and yet Rob had refused to acknowledge it.

‘Well, fuck him,’ Kyle muttered under his breath. ‘Fuck them all.’

The problem was that they still didn’t realise what he was capable of.
Maybe it’s time to enlighten them
, he thought.

Baz’s death, for example. Kyle had rightly been blamed for the escape, since he’d been left to guard the man while the others were out. It had caused panic among the Brood, because of the possibility that Baz had lived long enough to reveal their location. Kyle had served up a blend of truth, lies and pure fantasy to explain how their prisoner had made it to Petersfield, only to die shortly afterwards, apparently without saying a word.

In fact, Kyle had cloaked the man’s head before driving him there, ensuring that Baz still had no idea where he’d been held over the past few weeks. After kicking him half to death, Kyle had propelled him across the field at the back of the Turners’ property, laying the ground for the selection of their next victims.

The whole operation had been carried off with consummate skill, and yet Kyle, to the others, was an object of derision and contempt. They all believed they were superior to him, when in truth they weren’t fit to lick his boots.

Touching the gun in his pocket for reassurance, he descended the stairs and crept towards the kitchen. He could smell sausages on the grill: even now they were more interested in filling their bellies than saving their lives.

As he reached the doorway he caught Milo saying, ‘. . . don’t see we have any choice’, and Lara added, ‘He’s got the gun. With that and the blackmail. . .’

Stepping into view, Kyle said, ‘It’s a strong position, you’re right.’

They didn’t even have the good sense to look guilty. Ilsa turned on him, asking bluntly, ‘What do you have?’

‘He’s admitted to the safe. He hasn’t yet told me how much cash it holds, or what else is in there. I’ve laid it out for him, what’s going to happen to Georgia if he doesn’t come up with the goods. He’s got an hour to think about it.’

Ilsa wasn’t impressed. ‘You have nothing of value, then?’

‘I have plenty,’ Kyle snapped. He headed to the back door, suddenly desperate for fresh air. ‘Oh, and I want them brought down to the lounge, where we can keep an eye on them.’

‘Georgia as well?’ This was from Milo, who seemed to blush a little.

‘What’s the matter – haven’t got your rocks off yet?’ Kyle sniggered. ‘No, leave her there. Never know when we might want some playtime.’

And with that he left them to it, thanking his excellent judgment that he’d rendered the gun harmless until it was back in his possession. What a perfect twist of fate it had been, that this man Nyman had turned up with such a weapon. Kyle had thought the material on the phone would be sufficient to maintain control, but clearly that had been overly optimistic. A gun was so much better.

A gun solved all his problems.

R
ob felt embarrassed
by Wendy’s concern. It meant that he had revealed too much of the pain he was feeling.

After ordering him to crouch face down in the bath, Kyle had placed a towel over his head and pressed the gun against it. Then he started to count down from five.

A mock execution. In hindsight it was a crude, predictable way of scaring him, but by God it was effective. Even though it had lasted only ten, fifteen seconds, it was an experience Rob was never likely to forget. He had believed utterly that he was about to die.

Afterwards, Kyle had thrown back his head and laughed, then insisted that it had only ever been a joke. ‘You have an hour. I want to know how much you can offer in cash, jewellery and other valuables.’

‘But I’ve told you—’

‘You’re lying.’ Kyle refused to discuss it, and Rob was frankly so relieved to be alive that he didn’t protest any further.

Within minutes of returning to the bedroom, Ilsa came in, along with Milo and Lara, all three of them stony-faced and uncommunicative. The family were allowed to use the toilet, before being moved back downstairs.

‘Some painkillers would be nice,’ Evan had muttered, and Josh said, ‘I’d settle for black coffee.’

No luck there, but once in the living room they were each given a couple of mouthfuls of water from a plastic bottle. The cuffs stayed on their hands, but being bound at the front wasn’t nearly as uncomfortable.

Wendy pleaded with them to bring Georgia down, to no avail. Once they were settled on the floor between the sofas, Ilsa took herself off, leaving Milo and Lara to watch them from the far end of the room.

Now at least Rob had a chance to talk quietly to Wendy. He relayed his conversation with Kyle, omitting only the details of the mock execution, as well as that odd comment:
You don’t recognise me, do you?
That was something he needed to mull over before he mentioned it to anyone.

‘I asked about Gabriel. Kyle tried to claim he was downstairs, but he got really uptight when I challenged him. I wonder if there’s been a coup or something.’

‘Coup?’ Evan asked.

‘A change of management,’ Josh explained, ‘possibly against his will.’

Wendy said, ‘Or perhaps he ran off in the night and left them to it?’

Rob shrugged. ‘Either way, Gabriel was the lynchpin here, so his absence is going to make a big difference.’

Josh agreed. ‘If nothing else, it’s now five of us against four of them.’

‘Exactly.’ Rob glanced at Wendy and knew she was thinking about Georgia. At least the scream this morning had proved their daughter was alive; beyond that, they knew nothing about her condition. ‘It could make things more volatile, but it might also give us an opportunity.’

When Milo wandered over to check on them, it occurred to Rob that whoever was on guard duty usually had the gun, but there was no sign of it. If Kyle was keeping it to himself, that too suggested a shift in the balance of power.

His thoughts drifted back to that question. Should he know Kyle from somewhere? Was there a link to Iain Kelly, after all – or was the connection with Jason Dennehy?

Of course, it might be that Kyle had said it precisely to add to his torment. And hadn’t Rob – hadn’t they all – spent enough time chasing their worries in pointless circles? The same questions, over and over again.

What’s going to happen to us?

How will it end
?