The Make

Chapter 29

Suze and Claude were in the lounge at the front of the house, watching Dickinson’s Real Deal, when they heard the noise begin. It was instant and shattering. It sounded like a high-powered motorbike had just revved up outside the front door.

But it wasn’t a motorbike that was revving . . . was it? They both shot up from their seats, alarmed, and were halfway out into the hall when whoever was out there started attacking the front door with a chainsaw. The noise picked up a gear, becoming deafening. Splinters of wood started coming off the inside of the solid wood door and dropping on to the welcome mat.

‘Jesus!’ screamed Suze.

‘What the f . . .?’

Within a couple of minutes they could see the damned thing, chopping the door into firewood. In not many more minutes, whoever was out there would be in here, with a working chainsaw in his hand.

Suze retreated halfway up the stairs, milk-white with terror. Claude struggled to get past her, out of the hall, knocking her flat in the process. They were both screaming incoherently, both stricken with fear.

Then . . . silence.

Silence broken by loud, vicious swearing from outside the door, which was still bolted, still shut fast. Splintered, yes; wrecked, oh yes, certainly. But still in one piece.

‘Fucking cunting thing,’ they heard loud and clear. ‘Bastard fucking thing, what the . . .’

Suze sat quivering on the stairs. It was going to start up again. She knew it. And once whoever was out there was in here, they were going to be sliced salami.

‘Oh Jesus,’ sobbed Suze, noticing even through her fright and distress that Claude had already legged it upstairs.

Now she could hear other voices outside. Neighbours’ voices . . .?

‘What d’you think you’re doing?’ Frightened voices, but brave too; trying to help.

‘Fuck off.’

Silence.

‘For fuck’s sake, out of petrol? You tosser!’

Suze sat there and listened. Her door was a wreck. They’d break it down now, come and get her. For now, something had saved them. The chainsaw was out of petrol. Some guardian angel; some fluke stroke of luck. But that sort of luck couldn’t last.

She shivered and cried, huddled on the stairs, her hands clapped over her mouth because she was so afraid, so afraid that if she made a noise now, just the slightest squeak, they’d get that door down and, fuck the neighbours, they wouldn’t care, nobody really cared, and before she knew it she was going to be dead meat.

Now there was no sound from outside the door. None at all. She sat there for a full five minutes, too scared to move, while Claude cowered upstairs. When he ventured down at last and touched her shoulder, she was so jumpy that she shrieked.

‘It’s all right,’ he said. He was sheet-white and sweating, his glasses slipping down his nose, his usual aura of perky arrogance a thing of the past. ‘S’me, Suze. What the fuck?’

But she just shook her head and stared at her ruined front door. She knew with a sick certainty that he would have stayed upstairs, would not have defended her, if those bastards had got through the door with that thing.

Chapter 30

23 December

With nothing else to occupy her time after Lorcan’s call, Gracie got on with tidying up the flat. For one moment there she’d almost thought Harry was okay and had just been off on a bender or something. She’d thought, for one blissful moment, that there was going to be some good news among all the bad.

But no.

Now it turned out that this ‘young slim blond boy’ must have been a friend of George’s, nothing more, who had realized the hospital wouldn’t give out details, or allow a visit from anyone except relatives, and had simply claimed to be his brother.

Bugger it.

Gracie worked all morning tidying, cleaning – and by lunchtime she was hot, dusty and tired. She stopped for a shower and a bite of lunch straight from freezer to microwave, then wondered what to do next. She turned on the radio in the lounge – she’d refolded the sofa bed; all was neatness and order.

Yeah, you’re anal, Gracie, and you know it had been one of Lorcan’s angry jibes at her. And he was right. She was buttoned-up, neat, tidy, with a brain that whirred constantly, looking for solutions, answers – she couldn’t help that.

Christmas carols boomed out of the radio. She dis approvingly tweaked down the volume on ‘Hark the Herald Angels Sing’.

She wandered into Harry’s bedroom, stood in the doorway, angelic voices trailing her. It was all immaculate now; he wouldn’t even recognize the place – and would pretty quickly turn it back into a tip, given the chance. Right now, she would welcome Harry coming in here with his gentle grin and his charming good looks, and turning his room back into a pile of shit. He’d always been such a sweet boy . . . and she’d missed him. Now, she just longed for him to be safe and to come home.

She went on to George’s room.

George wasn’t sweet. The George she had grown up with was irritatingly overconfident and endearing in equal measures. She stood there and looked at the computer set up in the corner. She’d dusted around it this morning, carefully. She used computers a lot in the course of a day, and it would be something to pass the time, anyway, if she could get on line. She could email Brynn, catch up. And maybe there might even be some clues to Harry’s whereabouts on there?

She went over and sat down at the computer. Found the plug, switched on. She supposed that George might carry his password around in his brain, like she did, but George was scattier than her and he might have written it down somewhere. She started opening drawers. Lots of crap in there: rubber bands, staplers, old batteries, discarded pizza receipts. She opened the next, looking for a scrap of paper with the password on, a diary, something like that . . . and instead she found a drawer full of money.

At first she just stared, gobsmacked. The drawer was stuffed with money, overflowing with it. Fifties and tens and fivers, all bundled in there. There had to be thousands, just stuffed into a drawer. Why not in a bank?

Gracie sat back, frowning.

Well, why not? Why wouldn’t she put money in a bank?

She always did. But if she didn’t . . . then it would be because it was hooky money. Ill-gotten gains. Something she didn’t want the taxman to get wind of. But George worked for Lorcan, that all went through the books. Lorcan was straight-down-the-line legitimate in his business dealings, she knew that. He wouldn’t pay George cash in hand and, anyway, George’s earnings from Lorcan’s business wouldn’t amount to this in half a year. Keeping your cash in a drawer suggested eccentricity or simple guilt. Knowing George, Gracie was willing to bet on the latter.

She closed the drawer, leaned forward, focused again on the computer screen.

As she expected, the Omnipass box had come up, but she ignored it, closed the box down. A fighter plane logo flicked up, with George beside it. She clicked on George, expecting to get no further without the login password. But the system continued to open up. A full-page screensaver popped up next, a pic of George, Harry and a mate all gurning at the camera. Then she clicked on ‘Start’ and ‘Internet Explorer’, and within a minute she was on the World Wide Web.

He really ought to use a password, she thought. That’s