There’s a shed in Moody’s back garden and they head for it wordlessly, all three of them having the same animalistic survival idea at the same time. The security light blanches; it’ll give them away.
A search has begun in earnest. ‘Police!’ blares out in Texan accents.
The lack of houses and the still weather mean Simone can hear everything from the dingy shed they’re hiding in. Lucy eases herself down on to the floor, sitting against a wheelbarrow, and Simone wonders if Lucy is somehow more relaxed in captivity than they are, or less so. She watches her daughter’s legs shake, knees knocking like a cartoon, and decides the latter.
Some muffled shouts. Outside, the security light goes off.
Simone’s eyes adjust to the dimness of the shed. Hanging spades and trowels, a power tool, a workbench. Vintage necklaces of cobwebs hang above them.
‘Open up!’ a police officer shouts. ‘We have intelligence that you’re here.’
But there’s something … She inclines her head to listen.
A muffled line from the police, then more than one set of footsteps, coming round the back of the house. Simone’s stomach clenches painfully, and she wonders if she might be sick, thinking of the last near miss on the coach, when her body betrayed her …
Oh God, their things are everywhere in that house.
An officer begins to circle. Intelligence. Do they actually know they’re here? If so, how?
How much of their stuff is out on display? Is there anything identifiable?
Two footsteps arrive audibly, much nearer to them. They’re a slow prowl, the movements of somebody scanning a space carefully. Another, this time closer. Simone holds her breath.
Three more slow steps. The security light pings on again, and light touches the shed, brightening a rectangular gap that runs all the way round the door. Simone stares at it, illuminating her family in Picasso shapes. If anybody looked in here, they would be obvious. Three living, breathing bodies.
The light goes off.
She finds the courage to shift forwards, silent on her feet. She puts her hands either side of the slit in the door and peers out.
And that’s what she couldn’t put her finger on: their voices were further away than she thought.
Her heart sinks in relief; they’re not in this garden. They’re headed behind their house, to Moody’s house, just beyond theirs.
In the dimness, Damien catches her gaze. His eyes are grey/white in the gloaming, much of him in shadow. He inclines his head to the door, throwing her perhaps a questioning look, perhaps a panicked one. Perhaps a pained one. If the police are going to Moody’s, then surely it means he has handed them over. Their only ally.Intelligence.
And then the footsteps retreat, and, two minutes later, the police are gone.
CHAPTER 61
‘I’m not taking a photo,’ Lucy says flatly.
‘We need to leave, as soon as possible,’ Simone says. It’s not even half an hour after the police ceased their search, and nobody has yet come back for them. ‘Someone knows we’re here. We have to get out of here.’ As she says it, Damien is gathering up their things. Socks, books, glasses, shoes. He’s carrying them around nonsensically in the way people do when they want to feel busy.
‘Just take the photograph,’ Damien adds.
Lucy’s face pales.
‘But Moody said …?’
‘Moody’s house is being searched,’ Damien says shortly. ‘That doesn’t look great for him.’
‘I don’t know,’ Simone argues. But, resigned, she begins to pick up their things, too.
‘Hewasright about Max,’ Lucy argues. ‘I googled him. Therefore isn’t he straight? And if he has handed us in, why has no one come?’
‘This is not the time to take chances. Whether or not they know we are here, or just that we’re in Terlingua, we have to go as soon as possible.’
Lucy looks at Simone, the way she used to when she was a toddler who would play one parent off against the other, and Simone nods sadly. Really, it’s foolish to stay here another minute, but the police not returning has reassured her enoughto stay until they can leave prepared. Besides, where else can they go right now?
