“They will want to know we are serious?” the smart brother asked.
“Yes,” Carrie nodded.
The smart brother thought for a second or two and then looked across at his slow brother as if reaching a decision.
“We’ll show them we’re serious … watch her carefully,” he said, looking at the slow brother and nodding towards Carrie.
He moved towards the staircase.
“I’m going to drag the body out and down towards the drive. Then they’ll see how serious we are. And what we will do if they don’t bring Mother back to trade for you. We’ll shoot you, too.”
And with that he was down the stairs.
Carrie sat helplessly, listening to the smart brother creaking the barn door open, imagining him holding his gun up and peering out into the night. Checking. Watching. Waiting.
Then back for Gayther.
She heard the smart brother heave Gayther up, hands under his shoulders, straining for breath as he dragged the body away, the feet trailing on the ground.
And out of the barn.
A silence – ten, fifteen, twenty seconds – Carrie hoping to hear gunshots, knowing that the slow brother, listening intently, would not kill her.
And then the smart brother was back.
“I’ve propped him up against the old tree stump near the top of the drive. They’ll see him there when they come back … they’ll know we’re serious all right.”
He looked at Carrie.
“That we want Mother back in exchange for you.”
Or else, she thought. 29. SUNDAY 18 NOVEMBER. 2.37AM
Time passed slowly. Minutes turned towards the hour. And then more. The brothers kept watch, going back and forward and then finally settling in an uneasy silence.
The three of them now sat in a circle, more like a triangle, on the top floor of the barn.
Moonlight still streaming through, breath like puffs of smoke in the cold air.
“They are not coming,” the slow brother said, lighting up another roll-up cigarette. Carrie noted his gun was on the floor behind him, up against the wall. Unnoticed. Forgotten about. For the moment anyway.
“They will,” the smart brother answered abruptly. He reached for the cigarette tin, laying his gun in his lap as he did so. “It’s only a matter of time. They will bring Mother back. We will then talk to them.”
Carrie knew that the police would arrive soon, at any moment. Most likely, a cordon was already in place around the farm. They were still questioning the mother. Working out where the brothers would be. What they might do. Getting the team in place. Marksmen too. Then it would all unfold – and fast.
She had to try to get away before that.
Once the police arrived anything could happen.
This gun-happy man and his half-witted brother.
Carrie felt the material between her wrists. She had been pulling and tearing at it with the shard of glass at every opportunity. Her hands, her wrists, she knew, were scratched and torn with her cutting. But the material did not seem to have loosened or ripped and she wondered whether she had actually been cutting at the right part of it at all.
She stayed put, her back against the wall opposite where the slow brother sat. If she stood up, she would wobble and stumble and was worried that, if she fell, the shard of glass that she’d been holding so carefully might stab into her wrist, cutting her veins. Or that she might drop the shard and they would see what she had been doing. They’d then gag her and tie her against something so she could not move at all and any chance she had of escaping would be gone.
She kept watch on the two guns. If she could somehow free her hands, and get one of them, she had a chance. The smart brother held his loosely on his lap or by his side. Moving it back and forth as he smoked and stubbed out his cigarette – but always conscious of it and never really letting go. If she grabbed at it, he’d be up and ready to shoot her in an instant.
She looked at the slow brother, who, now and then, would glance shyly back at her and smile his wonky-faced smile; more of a grimace, really. She smiled, too, but did not talk to him the way she had done, as a friend and confidante, because the other brother, with the hard face and staring eyes, would see through her. Would understand what she was doing. Might punish her in some way.
The slow brother seemed to have forgotten about his gun. Carrie hadn’t. She knew she had to go for it.
She wondered, if she got the slow brother’s gun, whether she could hold them both off. Or if she could shoot the smart brother before he shot her. If she had to. Life or death.
She had to try something. To avoid the oncoming slaughter. Pondered a while. Then decided to put a plan she’d worked out into action.
She started by pushing the shard of glass carefully into the straw just behind her, so it would not be seen, and then sat upright.
* * *
“I need to go to the toilet,” she said firmly, almost insistently. The only thing she could think of.
The slow brother looked troubled. She could see from his face that he was embarrassed, felt awkward.
“You’ll have to wait,” the smart brother answered.
“I can’t,” she replied.
“You’ll have to. We don’t have a lavatory here,” he said, taking one last drag on his cigarette.
A second or two’s silence.
The slow brother looked bewildered.
“So, you what?” she asked. “You want me to … just go … as I am … here … now?”
The smart brother shrugged, as if to say, ‘do what you like, I’m not untying you’.
She looked at the slow brother for help, but he would not meet her eye. She sat, waiting.
Then the slow brother spoke. “I can untie her hands. Watch her.”
The smart brother leaned back, blowing the last puff of smoke out of his mouth.
“You’ll have to keep an
