‘Tell me about it,’ said Ash. She still couldn’t get the poor little blonde girl out of her mind. She was so young and so vulnerable. But Nick’s words made sense. Right now there was nothing else they could do to help her.
Ash went over to the front window and pulled back the curtain to check that the window was locked. As she did so she was unable to resist looking out into the night. The Land Rover sat sadly in the driveway, and once again Ash wondered who’d tampered with it, and why they’d gone to so much trouble to find the girl.
Something moved at the edge of the treeline. It looked like a person. Ash squinted, pushing her face against the glass, but the figure was gone.
‘Is everything all right out there?’ asked Tracy uncertainly.
Ash replaced the curtain, trying to decide whether or not to tell Tracy what she’d just seen. Or thought she’d seen anyway. She decided not to. Tracy had had enough scares for one day, and there was no point setting her off again. ‘It’s fine. Dark, that’s all.’
‘I’m glad we’re in here.’
‘So am I,’ said Ash, but her heart was beating faster, and she could feel the slow, cold fingers of fear beginning to creep up her spine. If someone was out there watching them, what were they planning on doing?
Tracy stood up. ‘I need a glass of wine. Do you want one?’
Ash was checking the lock on the other window. She saw nothing else outside, and walked back over. ‘Sounds good to me,’ she said as casually as possible.
‘Listen, I’m sorry, Ash. This whole thing’s been a bit of a shock, that’s all.’
Ash smiled, appreciating the other woman’s efforts to make up. ‘Yeah, I know. I’m sorry too.’
Tracy gave a small nod and disappeared into the kitchen, returning a minute later with two big glasses of white wine, followed by Nick, who was holding a bottle of Becks. ‘It’s all locked up at the back,’ he said, looking more relaxed. ‘We should be safe and sound now.’
‘Thank God for that,’ said Tracy, clicking glasses with Ash and taking a huge gulp of her wine.
Nick put an arm round Ash’s waist, pulling her close. ‘You’re OK, aren’t you, babe?’
She smiled. ‘Course I am. I’m tougher than you think.’
‘You’re tougher than all of us.’ He kissed her forehead, and in that moment she realised how much she loved him. Nine years together, and he was still the centre of her universe. That was some achievement.
‘What’s Guy doing?’ said Tracy, her glass already less than half full. She went over to the bottom of the stairs and looked up. ‘Guy, what the hell are you doing up there?’ she bellowed.
There was no answer.
‘Guy?’ she called again, louder this time. ‘What are you doing?’
But again her words were met only with silence.
5
Suddenly the room felt small, the air heavy.
Tracy’s face fell. ‘He’s not the sort to play practical jokes,’ she said fearfully. ‘Is he, Nick?’
Nick shook his head, joining her at the bottom of the staircase. ‘Guy, it’s Nick. If you’re up there, come down right now please.’ His voice was loud and confident, but Ash had been with him long enough to detect a faint hint of nerves in it.
Silence.
‘I’m scared,’ said Tracy. ‘I think something might have happened to him.’
Ash was scared too. Really scared. This whole thing felt unreal, like stepping into a nightmare. Except it wasn’t a nightmare. It was actually happening, right now. She turned to Nick. ‘I thought I saw someone outside. A few minutes ago.’
‘Why didn’t you say?’
‘I thought it might be my imagination.’
Tracy called up to her husband again, her voice sounding a bit hysterical for the first time. ‘What are we going to do?’ she asked the other two.
‘Stay here,’ said Nick, striding past them into the kitchen. He came back out a few moments later holding two large kitchen knives. He handed one to Ash. ‘We’re going to go up.’
Ash stared at the weapon in her hand. The thought of stabbing someone made her feel sick. ‘Are you sure we should be doing this?’
‘Yes,’ he said firmly. ‘We don’t know who we’re dealing with here, so we’ve got to cover every angle. I’ll go up first. Ash, you follow behind me. Trace, I haven’t got a weapon you can use, so you stay here.’
Tracy shook her head. ‘No way. He’s my husband. I’m coming up too.’
‘Well, stay behind me. Both of you.’
Ash and Tracy exchanged looks as they started up the stairs behind Nick. Tracy looked just how Ash felt — terrified.
The upstairs landing was long and narrow with a door at either end, and two more doors running along the middle. All of them were closed. The main light was on but nothing moved.
The silence was immense. Ash could hear her husband’s steady breathing.
‘Guy,’ he said, ‘if this is a joke, I promise you, without a word of a lie, I will never, repeat never, speak to you again.’ He waited, hoping that his friend would jump out of his hiding place and provide them with the only explanation that could make sense.
But he didn’t. Nothing happened.
Nick lifted the knife and, as Ash and Tracy crowded on to the landing behind him, he slowly nudged open one of the doors. It was the bathroom. He switched on the light, but stayed outside. It was empty, and far too small for anyone to hide in. There wasn’t even a shower curtain.
Nick breathed an audible sigh of relief, and Ash noticed that the knife was shaking in his hand. She also noticed that she was gripping her own weapon so tightly that her knuckles had turned white.
Moving along the landing, Nick nudged open the next door, which Ash knew was the spare bedroom. Again staying outside, he switched on the light.
‘He’s probably in our bedroom,’ said Tracy as they looked inside the empty room, with its untouched bed. ‘Maybe he’s just gone to sleep.’
‘Maybe,’ said Nick.
‘Maybe we’re just being stupid,’ continued Tracy with a laugh so false it hurt to hear it. Her voice was cracking. ‘We’re going to giggle about this in the morning.’
‘What’s that on the bed covers?’ Ash pointed to a couple of spots of red on the far side of the bed that stood out on the white duvet cover.
A faint gurgling sound came from somewhere in the room, out of sight. Almost a choke but not quite. A human sound.
No one moved. No one said a word. Because they all knew that it came from Guy.
The knife flew out from behind the door, like a snake striking, attached to a gloved hand. It buried itself in Nick’s gut.
Tracy screamed. Ash simply watched, caught in slow motion as her husband made a sound like a hiccup, his eyes widening.
The knife was suddenly withdrawn and a figure in black filled up the doorway. He drove the blade into Nick a second time, then shoved him backwards, like he was some kind of annoying shop dummy, sending him crashing over the banister and down the wooden steps.
For a long, terrible second Ash was frozen to the spot, just like she had been during the mugging. The shocking nature of what was happening was too much to take in. Her husband, the man she’d spent almost a third of her life with, her soulmate, her whole life for God’s sake, had just been murdered in front of her. He was gone. Just like that.
And she was next.
The killer was big and powerful-looking, with a black hood covering his features. And he was fast. Very fast. He swung round to face her, ready to deal her a blow with the bloodied knife.
It was at this point that Ash finally realised she had to move fast. In one movement she turned and ran, but careered straight into Tracy, who hadn’t yet got out of the way, and who was still screaming.
Ash stumbled, losing her balance, and fell forward, letting go of the knife in the process. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Tracy, who was still on her feet, dash for the stairs. Then Ash was rolling round to face her husband’s killer, at the same time scrabbling about for the knife.
A drop of Nick’s blood fell from the killer’s knife blade, splashing her face with a disgusting warmth as he loomed over her. He grabbed Ash by one wrist and yanked her roughly to her feet.