“I assume from your silence that she’s not with you,” continued Mike.
“No,” Julian answered, the word barely audible.
“I also assume you don’t know where she is?”
Julian shook his head. “He wouldn’t do that.” He wasn’t talking to Mike anymore. He was talking to the inner voice that told him Eleanor hadn’t returned home because Mr X had abducted her.
“Who wouldn’t do what?”
“She’s not some bad girl who might overdose or runaway. He wouldn’t dare go near her.”
“What the hell are you on about?” Mike demanded, his voice swaying between confusion, anger and anxiety. “What’s going on? Julian. Julian…”
Julian didn’t answer because he was running for his car. As he screeched away from the house, he kept repeating to himself in a low, quivering voice, “He wouldn’t dare. He wouldn’t dare.” He drove with one hand on the wheel, the other holding his phone to his ear as it called Eleanor’s mobile. It went through to the answering service. He tried again, and still she didn’t answer. His chant grew louder and faster. “He wouldn’t dare…”
At the end of the road, he didn’t turn for the forest. He turned for the town-centre. Jumping red lights, overtaking wildly, narrowly avoiding oncoming rush-hour traffic, he soon came to the antiques shop. He sprang out of the car, sprinted into the shop and grabbed the mantrap.
“Hey!” shouted the shopkeeper, catching hold of his arm.
Julian elbowed him away and returned to his car. He flung the mantrap onto the backseat and sped back the way he’d come. The driver-side mirror clipped another car and was sheared off. Horns blared. He barely noticed. “He wouldn’t dare…”
The suburbs were behind Julian now, trees passed in a blur. He took the turn for The Old Forest Road so fast that he almost skidded out of control. The speed of the car was nothing, though, compared to the speed with which the image of Eleanor bloodied and torn turned over in his mind. Over and over, looping to feed his doubt, his fear, his rage. “He wouldn’t dare…”
He hit the gravel road without slowing. Stones kicked up, cracking the windscreen. His body was bounced around by the bone-jarring impact of potholes. “He wouldn’t dare…” The car ground up the slope, barrelling around the final corner. The gate came into view. Still he hurtled onwards, arms braced as straight as ramrods, every muscle tensed. “He wouldn’t fucking dare!”
There was a screech of rending metal and breaking glass as the car slammed into the gate. The air bag blew out, hitting Julian in the face. He sat dazed for a moment, trying to catch his breath, before clambering out of the car. The front wheels were off the ground, resting on the gate, which had buckled, collapsing a section of the fence. The sound of barking reached him from somewhere near the house, faint, but getting louder. He quickly retrieved the mantrap and pulled its teeth apart. He tore the bandage off his ankle and carefully placed it on the pressure pad. Then he got back into the car and ducked down. After a minute or so the dog appeared. The instant it put its nose to the bandage, the steel jaws snapped together, biting into its flanks. The dog jumped about five feet into the air, letting out a high pitched yelp. It staggered around briefly before collapsing. Julian took out his knife and warily approached it. It was obvious at once that it was fatally wounded. Its muzzle was flecked with froth and its breathing was laboured. Blood oozed out from around the steel teeth buried in its flesh. It rolled its eyes at Julian as if begging to be put out of its misery. There was no time for hesitation. He stabbed it several times, shuddering as the blade grated between its ribs. When he was sure it was dead, grimacing with each footfall, he ran towards the house.
Julian wasn’t surprised to see his dad’s car beside the Merc, but even so his heart constricted with anxiety. There was a metal bin with smoke rising from it outside the house. He slowed to an abrupt stop. A deep blackness seemed to emanate from the house’s windows. He felt it almost like a physical force holding him back. Sweat wormed its way down his face as, step by faltering step, like a child learning to walk, he pushed through the invisible barrier. Glancing in the bin, he saw the burning remnants of some white sheets — most likely, the blood-stained sheets, although it was impossible to tell for sure. The knife held in front of him, he reached for the front door. It wasn’t locked. He half expected to find himself faced by the chauffeur — his arrival could hardly have gone unnoticed — but the hallway was empty.
There was a door to the right and left of the stairs. Moving quickly now, Julian opened the right-hand door. It led into a living-room — sofa, armchairs, television, coffee-table, deep-pile rug. Everything as you might expect from a living-room, except the furniture looked new and unused, giving it a curiously sterile, unlived in feel, like a shop window display. The door to the left led to a dining-room — six chairs around a dining-table set as if for an elaborate meal. A fine sheen of dust lay over the table, plates and cutlery. Julian would hardly have been surprised to see mannequins occupying the chairs in poses of eating, drinking and talking. “All of it a fucking lie,” he muttered.
Suddenly, the muffled sound of voices yelling came from upstairs. For maybe ten seconds, Julian stood tense and motionless, vainly trying to make out what was being said, until an agonised shriek impelled him to action. As he sprinted upstairs, there was the sound of breaking glass, followed by a thud. Then silence descended over the house.
The first thing Julian saw when he reached the room was the chauffeur. He was on the floor, facedown, his head through the two-way mirror, which lay in jagged shards all around him. A thick, dark stream of blood flowed from his throat to form a slick around the toppled video-camera. His eyes bulged like marbles and his mouth gaped as mutely as ever, saliva foaming at its corners. His huge hands clawed spasmodically at the carpet. The next thing he saw was Mr X, knelt with his back to him, clutching a large triangular splinter of glass in both hands. Mr X’s breath came in rapid, hoarse clicks as he plunged the splinter downwards again and again. Finally, Julian saw his dad. He was laid on his back, arms flung wide, shirt torn open from neck to waist, chest tarred with blood, like some kind of sacrificial offering. With each plunge of the splinter, his head gave a little jerk.
“No!” cried Julian, charging across the room, white-faced and white-knuckled with intent.
Mr X jerked his head around, the same leering grin twisting his face out of shape. The grin disappeared as Julian buried the knife halfway to the hilt in his back. With a piercing scream, he toppled forward across Julian’s dad. Julian dragged him aside. He squirmed like a skewered worm, scream after scream curdling the air as he groped at the knife’s hilt. The horrific noise barely registered on Julian’s mind. His attention was focused on his dad. Blood welled from gashes like obscenely yawning mouths in his chest and stomach, pooling in the hollows of his body. His eyes were closed. He didn’t appear to be breathing. Frantically, Julian felt for a pulse. He couldn’t find one. He tried to give mouth-to-mouth, not sure if he was doing it right, but not knowing what else to do. A hot, metallic taste filled his mouth. It was blood. He doubled up, retching. Tears blurring his vision, he pressed his hands against the wounds, trying to staunch the bleeding, but it was like trying to hold back a burst dam. “Open your eyes, Dad. Live!” he cried, as if he could summon him back from the dead by the force of his will. But he didn’t possess his Grandma Alice’s power. His voice broke. He hung his head.
Gradually, Julian became aware of a grotesque gurgling. Mr X lay motionless on his belly, head twisted awkwardly towards him. His eyes were dull and glassy, his face pale as chalk. Blood ran from his lips, which he’d chewed to a pulp in his agony. His mouth worked slowly, forming barely audible words. Julian leant in close to hear what he was saying.