Billy, come back here! she remembered shouting after him, but he’d ignored her.
Had he been playing, or trying to escape?
Beth couldn’t remember.
Don’t, she thought. Just don’t. She wouldn’t allow those black thoughts to cloud her mind. What was done was done. She shook the image away and crept deeper into the belly of the building. Shafts of patchy white moonlight illuminated her path. It felt like a scene from some teen horror flick. And here she was, the stupid girl, heading straight towards the danger.
Now and then she would trip on some bricks. The stench of this place was horrendous. Damp. Mould. And dead things. But beneath the smell of decay, something else.
Something familiar. But Beth couldn’t place it.
She passed the remnants of a campfire. Discarded beer cans and a wine bottle lay strewn around. A used condom beside the charred remains. Obviously a popular hang-out for delinquents. Beth wondered sadly to herself how many girls had lost their virginity in this awful place. She wondered if things had been different, would she have done the same? Perhaps with Kieran?
She had been infatuated with him. Looked up to him. She had often been attracted to the wrong kind of men. Charlie was the first truly good man she had been with. That’s why she had stayed. Against her better judgement.
He was the reason she had broken all of her own rules.
The hotel was eerily quiet. Beth could hear her own breathing, her footsteps crunching across the dirty floor. She glanced around, making sure she wasn’t being followed. She considered texting the number, telling him she had arrived. But she had to imagine that for the time being, she had the element of surprise in her favour.
Unless he had been watching. Waiting for her to arrive.
Mikey’s face flashed into her mind. Grinning his stupid boyish grin on the night they first met, at Chloe’s birthday drinks. Beth wished so much that he was standing in front of her right now, so she could smash him over the head with the hammer. She was surprised by the level of animosity that she felt. The violence. She didn’t simply want to stop him.
She wanted to kill him.
The knife concealed in her sock dug uncomfortably into her ankle, serving as a reassuring reminder that it was there.
She heard a cough close by. She stopped, holding her breath. Silence. She continued around a corner, and the space opened up. She recognised it. The ballroom. Or at least that’s what she had imagined it was when she was little.
This is where they had brought Billy.
She glanced across the floor. Standing in the doorway, she felt afraid to move forwards. Paralysed with fear and sorrow all rolled into one. Another cough, from the direction of the mezzanine.
‘Hello, is somebody there?’ Charlie’s hoarse voice called out from the darkness.
‘Charlie?’ Beth replied in a half whisper.
‘Beth?’
She ran towards the structure. As she grew nearer and her eyes adjusted, she could make out his shape, huddled on the ground. He was tied to one of the corner supports of the balcony. She crouched down in front of him, cradling his head in her hands. He winced.
‘Charlie, my God, are you okay?’
In the dim light, Beth could vaguely distinguish his face, crusted with blood, and bruised.
‘What has he done to you? Are the kids all right?’
‘Don’t worry about me, I’m fine. They’re in another room, I don’t know where, but if you call out Daisy will reply. Peter is… I think he’s… unconscious.’
Beth moved round behind Charlie. Dropping the hammer on the ground, she fumbled with the cord that was tied round his wrists. A shower of dust and loose stones fell down from above.
‘Careful, it’s really unstable. If you move me too much, you’ll bring the whole thing down on top of us. Just leave me. Go make sure the kids are okay. I’m fine.’
‘But–’
‘Go, Beth!’
The sound of a slow clap echoed around the space. Beth stood up quickly, pivoting.
‘How touching!’ a voice called out from the darkness.
A figure walked slowly towards them from the shadows. A beam of light hit his face. Michael Noakes stood before them.
‘If only someone had shown this much compassion to my brother he might still be alive.’
‘Michael, you don’t have to do this. I understand you’re angry, and you want to hurt me, and that’s fine. But please… let my family go. They don’t deserve any of this.’
Mikey frowned, continuing towards Beth.
‘Who the hell is this guy?’ Charlie shouted, his voice full of hatred.
‘Why don’t you ask your wife?’
‘Michael, please… don’t,’ Beth begged.
‘Oh that is beautiful, that right there. You pleading with me for mercy.’ Noakes laughed.
‘I will do whatever you want… I deserve it. But let my family go,’ Beth continued.
‘I don’t want to hurt them. If I’d wanted to do anything to your kids, I’d have done it when I spoke to your daughter in town that day… gave her the lollipop. I simply wanted to mess with you, flirt with you… seduce you. Then tell your husband here what had happened. Destroy your perfect little family like you destroyed mine. And God, you should have seen your face that night when I kissed you. You pathetic old slapper. You actually thought I was interested in you.’
Beth’s eyes shot down towards Charlie. She felt her cheeks flush. The look on his face was heartbreaking.
‘Oh yeah. That’s right. Your pretty little wife here… she threw herself at me. She was gagging for it. I took her out to a gig and she couldn’t get down my throat fast enough.’
‘Shut up!’ Beth hissed at him. But the damage was already done. Charlie sagged, his shoulders dropped, face crumpled. Noakes took a few more steps towards them.
‘And what about Zoe? She didn’t deserve to die. She did nothing to you.’
‘Who the fuck is Zoe?’
‘My son’s girlfriend.’
Noakes frowned again and shrugged.
‘What are you talking about?’ He took a step closer to Beth. She crouched down, retrieving
