He heard her again. She was shouting something, a warning. It sounded like, ‘Royyyyy! Get away, run! They’re going to kill you!’
He realized that he had never, in the years he had been with Cleo, heard her scream before — apart from one time when she’d found a huge spider in the shower tray. The scream had definitely come from above.
Roy sprinted the short distance along the corridor to the tower steps and climbed them as fast as he could, hauling himself by the handrail. In the beam of his torch, as he passed the fuse box, he noticed the trip handle was up.
Hadn’t it been down when he’d come up here earlier? The lightning must have tripped it, which would explain the darkness, he thought, as he continued climbing, giddily, round and round. At last, breathless, his lungs feeling like they were on fire, he reached the tiny landing at the top. The closed oak door of their room was in front of him.
He tried the handle, but it was locked. He pounded on the door, yelling, ‘Cleo? Cleo?’
‘Roy?’ The voice from the other side sounded scared. Really scared.
‘Can you open the door, darling?’ he shouted.
‘We’re locked in,’ she called back.
‘Who’s with you?’
‘Bruno, Noah and Kaitlynn.’ She sounded calm, despite the fear in her voice.
He tried again, frantically, to open the door, kicking hard at the lock, a door’s weak point, with all his strength. But it did not budge. Without the key it was going to need a bosher or a sledge-hammer. All the same, he kicked again, with no success, desperately wishing he had heavy boots on, instead of his trainers.
‘Roy!’ Cleo called, louder now. ‘Don’t worry about us, get away! Run! Get the police!’
Jesus. ‘What the hell’s happening?’ he shouted.
‘Roy, darling, get out of here, get away, it’s you they want!’
‘What do you mean?’ he shouted back.
‘They’re crazy, Roy, be careful, be careful. It’s you they want.’
‘Me? What do you mean, Cleo? What do they want from me? Who do you mean?’
What madhouse had they come to?
‘I don’t know; I don’t know who the hell they are. They’re crazy.’
He heard Noah crying.
Was this a bad dream?
If only.
What the hell to do? Somehow get out of here and go for help. His brain raced, spinning, trying to get a grip. Thinking fast. There were windows downstairs and patio doors leading out to a terrace at the rear. If he went down, he would be invisible in the darkness. Make a dash for the patio doors, smash through them and run?
Run how far? He tried to remember the last town they had driven through — it must have been a good ten miles or more away. If he could get to the road, perhaps he could flag down a passing car? Even though he’d only seen one vehicle in the half-hour or so he’d been there before, there must be others using that road. Perhaps holidaymakers like themselves? It seemed at this moment to be his best shot.
Just 9 per cent left on his phone battery.
‘I’ll be back as quickly as I can, darling!’ he shouted.
‘Please be careful! Just get away from here!’ she urged. ‘You must get away!’
‘I love you,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back with help.’
With his heart in his mouth, he made his way back down the spiral staircase, silently, stealthily, guided by the beam of the phone torch. He stopped when he reached the landing beneath the fuse box. Stared at the handle. It was a big, old-fashioned handle, like a lever. Like the one in his parents’ house. Could a lightning strike have tripped it? No. A strike might have taken the power out by causing a short. But it wouldn’t have lifted this heavy handle.
Someone, he realized with a chill, had done that deliberately.
He studied it for some moments, looking at the thick cable that ran down from it into the floor, and the other two thinner cables hanging loose. For a moment he was tempted to reach up and pull the handle down, which might bring the lights back on.
But then what? Back in England he could have called for back-up. He would have had a dozen officers, including an Armed Response Unit, on the scene in minutes. But not here, in deep countryside in a foreign land. In the middle of sodding nowhere.
Right now he was safer under the cover of darkness. Stealth. The element of surprise on his side. He checked his pockets for loose change, or anything else that might clink or jangle and give him away. Removing a handful of coins, he laid them on the step. He thought about taking off his shoes to prevent any squeak from his rubber soles — then decided that running barefoot along the road wasn’t a clever idea. He switched off the torch and, on tiptoe, carried on down the steps until he felt the landing.
Still on tiptoe, and fearful of a creaking floorboard giving him away, he moved along, feeling the wall to his left and then the first door — to Kaitlynn’s room. Then the door to Bruno’s room. He carried on, slowly, slowly, slowly. Silently. Until he felt the head of the stag. He edged around it and felt the banister post at the top of the staircase. Holding his breath, he began to descend into the pitch darkness. One slow, delicate step at a time. Until he reached the bottom.
He paused, remembering something he had been taught many years ago, and opened his mouth. You could hear better with your mouth open.
He listened. Silence. Trying to locate himself. He knew that over to his left would be the front door, some distance across the hallway. To his right, the patio doors and windows either side. He could see them in the faint glow through the windows from the moonlight outside.
Breathing as quietly as he could, he quickened his pace, tiptoeing towards them. Closer and closer. As he neared, he could see the glass doors even more clearly.
He was unaware that he was being watched, in sharp detail, through the green of night-vision goggles.
Suddenly, yellow eyes peered at him out of the darkness. A cat. Ignoring it, Roy reached the patio doors, ready to try the handles and, if they were locked, to dive head first through them.
As he peered out into the moonlit darkness, a stag’s head, brightly lit from beneath, reared up and darted at the glass, its antlers rattling the panes, startling the hell out of him.
An instant later there was a brilliant flash of light behind him, followed by a loud bang. Then another. Another.
BANG BANG BANG.
He spun round in shock. Smelled gunpowder. And saw a firecracker jumping around the floor.
BANG BANG BANG.
For an instant he froze.
The firecracker fizzled out into silence.
A hooded head, with tiny eye slits, lit from below like the stag’s head, appeared in the window. Pointing a shotgun straight at him.
It was joined by a voice. Nasty, sinister, mocking. A Scouse accent, booming in the echoing silence. ‘Hello, Roy! So nice to see you again! Are you enjoying your cosy little family holiday? I do hope so! Remember me?’
He knew that voice. From somewhere.
‘Thought you were meant to be a sharp detective. But you didn’t recognize me in the wheelchair, did you? Nor did you recognize Monica who greeted you when you arrived.’
Monica? Who the hell was Monica?
‘She’s changed a bit, my old pal, in the past fifteen years, with the help of a wig, make-up and glasses. But hey, haven’t we all? Fooled you so easily — you must be slipping in your old age! But here’s the thing, Detective Superintendent — my, how you’ve been promoted in the years since we met — you were just a humble Detective Sergeant, then. You and I have a score to settle. All those years in the big house. You thought that was the end of me and Monica, didn’t you? Did you count on us being out so soon for good behaviour? I don’t think so.’