‘Why can’t we turn the lights on?’ Zain asks.
‘We don’t want to be seen from outside,’ Warren replies, shining his torch at a console table. ‘The key should be over there by the telephone.’
Jenny approaches it first, looking under old newspapers and a Yellow Pages business directory. ‘I can’t find it,’ she says.
‘Look again,’ Warren barks. ‘Check the drawer.’
It’s the same outcome: there is no key inside. Warren pushes her to one side and checks it himself, and when he realises she’s right, his temper flares. He curses as he yanks the table hard, sending it toppling to the floor.
‘Are you sure Eddie said the keys were in there?’ Zain asks, brow furrowed.
‘I’m not a fucking idiot.’
‘So what happens if we can’t get into the safe?’ asks Jenny.
If she’s anything like me, she’s hoping we’ll give up and get the hell out of here.
Instead, Warren flashes his light around the room until he spots a framed cricket bat hanging from the wall. He pulls it down to the floor and its glass shatters. He grabs the bat, lifts it above his head and starts pounding it against the metal safe. It’s a hopeless cause. Safes were built to withstand more than a man armed with a piece of wood.
‘Mate, you’re wasting your time,’ says Zain.
Warren doesn’t answer, and instead goes on hitting it repeatedly.
‘Give up,’ Zain says. ‘Let’s go, man.’
‘No!’ yells Warren, striking it another half-dozen times before hurling the bat at the wall. ‘I can’t fail Eddie. It’s my only—’
Our lives as we know it change with the flicking on of a light switch, and the appearance of a man in a doorway. He’s glaring wild-eyed at us and holding a bedside lamp above his head. He looks furious.
Chapter 49
2000
Anna
I wake up to find my brother’s hand across my mouth and he’s whispering in my ear.
‘Get up,’ he hisses.
Before he gives me the chance to ask why, he’s yanking me by my arm and dragging me out of bed. He’s eight years older than me and a lot stronger. He leads me across the room, into the bathroom I share with Mum and Dad, then into their bedroom. Through light coming from a crack in the curtains, I can just make out Dad standing by a closed second door leading into the lounge. Behind us, Mum is in the corner of the room, holding something close to her chest.
‘Under the bed,’ Dad whispers and my brother pulls me to the floor. ‘Keep your sister safe.’
I’m only six but even I know something is very, very wrong. Not just because of what’s happening, but because my brother doesn’t argue. And he never does anything Dad tells him to do.
Suddenly from beneath the door, glimmers of moving lights catch our eyes. The next thing I see are Dad’s bare feet approaching the door, it opening, a light being switched on, the door closing again, followed by a deafening bang that rings throughout the flat.
Chapter 50
2000
Margot
The sound of the gunshot is deafening. My ears ring as I cower, and when I dare to look up, Warren is towering over the man, now slumped on the floor, much of his right cheek and an eye missing. Behind him, blood trickles down the wall like syrup. I look to Jenny and Zain, frozen in time. Even Warren remains sealed in a stunned, numb silence, watching the last flicker of movement in the man’s remaining eyelid.
But Warren is the first to regain his senses.
‘Why did he close the door?’ he asks slowly.
