‘I’ve al-already told you,’ Rob spluttered as blood from his broken nose slid down his throat. ‘I th-thought you were looking for J-Josie and Holly.’
‘And I’ve already told you I don’t know any Josies or Hollys,’ Dom yelled, whacking him on the side of his head with the gun. ‘So, let’s start again . . .’
‘I swear!’ Rob cried. Then, switching his tearful gaze to Suzie, who had been ordered to sit on the other side of the table, he said, ‘Tell him, Suze . . . tell him what Holly told you about – about Josie being on the run!’
Unable to believe what she had heard in the last few minutes, Suzie stared back at him with an unreadable expression in her eyes.
‘Suzie, please,’ he implored. ‘They’re gonna kill me!’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said quietly.
A loud bang and an agonized scream made Holly cover her ears, and she buried her face in her knees to keep from crying out. When it went quiet again, she tried to phone her mum again, but an automated voice informed her that she had insufficient credit. About to try and message her instead, she whimpered, ‘Nooooo . . .’ when the No Signal notification appeared in the top left corner of the screen.
Next door, May Foster was having no such troubles with her phone. She’d been rudely woken by noises she was all too familiar with coming through the wall, and she was furious that her neighbour had let that man back into the house to abuse her all over again. The woman was clearly one of those idiots who thought they could change the men who beat them. The police ought to tell her that women who took their offending partners back time after time invariably ended up dead.
With that in mind, May, who had been sorely tempted to stay out of it this time and let the silly girl learn her lesson the hard way, dialled 999 – praying that the police hadn’t put her name on a ‘Timewaster’ list because of her previous complaints.
41
Gee had fallen asleep on the sofa listening to music after taking a shower. Woken by the sound of a vehicle pulling up outside, and the heavy clunk of two doors opening and closing, he saw blue lights strobing the walls of his still-dark living room when he opened his eyes. A glance at his phone told him that it was 3.45 a.m., and he cursed under his breath when he sat up and saw that the spliff he’d been smoking had burned a hole in his dressing gown. Relieved that it hadn’t done any more damage, he brushed the ash off himself as he wandered over to the window.
Two coppers were walking up Suzie’s path and one of them started banging on the door while the other, shielding his hands with his eyes, peered through the living room window. Curious to know what was going on, because there were no lights on in the house, Gee rested his arms on the window ledge and relit the spliff.
Austin had opened Suzie’s kitchen door a crack when the knocking had started. Quickly closing it again when he saw blue flashing lights through the glass panel of the front door, he hissed, ‘It’s the pigs,’ as another volley of raps echoed around the hall.
Rob lifted his bloodied head at this and opened his mouth.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ Dom warned, grabbing a tea towel off the counter and stuffing it into his mouth. Then, gesturing with the gun for Suzie to get up, he said, ‘Go get rid of them.’
‘Like this?’ Suzie said, indicating her bare legs as she stood up.
‘It’s perfect,’ Dom said. ‘It’ll make them think you just got out of bed. No stunts,’ he warned, holding the gun to Rob’s head.
Shivering, Suzie nodded and opened the kitchen door – almost falling through it when Austin came up behind her and pressed the tip of the knife he’d picked up off the table into her back.
‘I’ll be listening,’ he whispered into her ear. ‘So be very very careful what you say.’
‘OK,’ she gulped.
Austin followed her up the hallway and slipped into the shadows at the side of the door, and Suzie took a deep breath before opening it and peering out. Spencer and an officer who wasn’t his usual colleague were standing on the step. She rubbed her eyes as if they’d woken her and gave them a questioning look.
‘Sorry to get you up,’ Spencer said. ‘We had a report of a disturbance. Is everything OK?’
‘Yeah, it’s fine,’ Suzie said, forcing a sleepy croak into her voice. ‘I was sleeping.’
‘We were told there was a lot of noise coming from in here,’ the other officer said.
‘Oh . . . it must have been the TV,’ Suzie lied. ‘I was watching a DVD when I fell asleep. Die Hard,’ she elaborated, thinking of the loud action movie she and Rob had watched that afternoon. ‘I must have rolled onto the remote and turned the volume up while I was sleeping. I, um, had a couple of drinks and a sleeping tablet,’ she added, feigning sheepishness. ‘Not been sleeping too well lately.’
Spencer was peering closely into her eyes. ‘You sure you’re OK?’ he asked quietly.
Suzie’s throat constricted when she realized he was giving her the opportunity to alert him if something was wrong. All it would have taken was a blink and he’d have understood, she was sure. But she couldn’t risk it. Not only because Rob would get shot, but because Spencer and his colleague would probably get hurt as well. She knew they carried batons, but they weren’t equipped to tackle criminals armed with guns.
‘I’m absolutely fine,’ she said, forcing a natural smile onto her lips. ‘I’m sorry you were dragged over here at this time of night for nothing. You usually work days, don’t you?’
‘I alternate,’ Spencer told her, seeming to buy her assurances. ‘We’ll let you get back to bed, then. Night.’
‘Night,’ Suzie murmured, the smile still on her lips.
The men walked away
