We hear Ace and King coming down from the attic. They’ve been up there for two hours, and the time has dragged past at the pace of a lame snail. I’m sitting on the bed with Mum, curled up underneath the blanket with her. Mum’s eyes keep fluttering shut but she won’t allow herself to sleep. Queenie and Jack are yawning occasionally too. On the other hand, I’m wide, wide awake, despite the time, and feel like I won’t be able to close my eyes and go to sleep ever again. My whole body’s on high alert as I listen out for the ring of the doorbell that will mean one of my notes has been found and the police are now surrounding the house.
I try not to think about the fact that it’s unlikely anyone will even see the notes, let alone read them, because it’s the middle of a dark, freezing winter’s night.
Ace and King appear in the open doorway. I can’t see their faces, but the way their bodies are slumped and sagging tells me they’re exhausted.
‘Did you manage to reach the target?’ Jack asks cryptically. I listen carefully for clues.
Ace shakes her head. ‘It was too many,’ she says. ‘We’re almost fifty units down. It’s going to be a tough call to get everything finished. After all . . .’
‘After all, we didn’t know we were going to spend valuable time babysitting,’ Queenie fills in.
‘And how is that our fault?’ I lash out. ‘We didn’t know you were going to break into our house and take us prisoner!’ Mum slips her hand into mine and squeezes it warningly.
‘Cool it, Anni,’ Ace says quietly. Then, to the others, ‘Let’s talk.’ Queenie and Jack join the other two in the corridor, and they start whispering to each other. I can’t hear what they’re saying because of the TV.
‘Try not to annoy them, Anni,’ Mum murmurs, stroking my hair. ‘It won’t help the situation.’
‘I know.’ I manage a faint smile. ‘It’s not at all like any of the stories we’ve read, is it?’
‘Real life can be much more scary,’ Mum replies, her face troubled.
After five minutes of talking, Jack and Queenie leave and I hear them trudging up the stairs to the attic. Ace and King come in, and King crashes out on the sofa and yawns so wide I can see all his teeth (no fillings: something for my notes). For the first time, even though he’s so big, he seems no more menacing than a pet dog. Looking back, I realize that he’s done nothing, really, to make us think he might injure or harm us.
Yet.
Ace yawns too, sits down next to King and rubs her eyes with her fists. Her hand moves to the neck of her balaclava and I’m electrified, sitting up in anticipation because I think she’s about to remove it without thinking. Ace checks herself at the last minute, but still I’m secretly triumphant. If Ace, the leader, is so stressed she’s on the edge of making silly mistakes, then my time is coming.
‘You know what I’m going to do first thing when I get home tomorrow?’ King says, settling his head against the back of the sofa.
‘What?’ Ace asks wearily.
‘Have a hot shower and a few beers, then chill for a couple of days,’ King replies.
Ace smiles. ‘I thought you had a lot of work to do?’
‘I’ll sort it out somehow,’ King replies with a shrug. ‘If we pull this off, I’ll deserve a break.’
I frown, trying to get my head around this. It’s clear they’re not planning to go on the run. They must be totally confident of never getting caught. How can that be? Surely they must know that every police officer in the land will be looking for them?
Ace stands up, stretches as if her back’s aching. She gathers up the mugs from earlier. ‘Do you want tea?’ she asks King, who nods.
‘It might help to keep me awake,’ he replies with a giant yawn. ‘I’ve hardly slept for the last few weeks, thinking about tomorrow—’ He stops himself.
‘Me neither,’ Ace agrees.
‘Shall I give you a hand?’ I’m still desperate to find out what they’re up to; perhaps Ace will let something slip if I can talk to her. ‘I want to make toast for Mum and me. I know it’s late, but I’m really hungry.’ Strangely, it wasn’t a complete lie. I’m a prisoner, but I still need to eat, drink and go to the bathroom. Life’s most basic routines carry on.
‘No food for me, sweetheart,’ Mum says, still fighting sleep. ‘Just tea.’
In the kitchen, Ace makes the drinks and I put together cheese on toast. We move around the kitchen comfortably, easily, stepping aside to allow each other to get to the fridge and the grill and the kettle. Surprisingly, we work well together.
‘How did you get into the house?’ I ask suddenly, a question that’s been niggling at the back of my mind for the last few hours.
Ace doesn’t reply for a moment. I guess she’s working out whether what she’s going to say will be incriminating or not. ‘We found some loose planks in the garden fence to squeeze through. Then we removed the board nailed to the bottom of the back door and crawled inside that way. We put it all back so no one would notice.’
She’s right, I didn’t notice. I don’t say anything, but I silently file the information away for my notes. They might have taken off their gloves to remove the planks and the board. There might be fingerprints.
The kettle boils.
‘You all seem to be working hard up in the attic,’ I say casually, grating cheese. ‘Do you think you might finish what you’re doing early and leave before daylight?’
Ace shakes her head.
Then this mystery has to be connected with the Prime Minister’s visit. ‘So you’ll be here till ten o’clock, whatever happens?’ I push.
Ace ignores me. I think about asking outright what they’re planning, but it’s pointless. She won’t answer, and anyway, I promised Mum I wouldn’t.
‘I guess you must be looking forward to getting back to your normal, everyday life,’ I say, trying not to sound like I’m probing for details, which, of course, I am.
Ace turns the kettle off as it pours out a cloud of steam. ‘Are you?’ she asks unexpectedly.
I’m thrown off-balance and don’t know what to say for a moment. ‘Well, of course I am,’ I say, irritated. ‘Being a prisoner isn’t any fun, if you didn’t know.’
‘Isn’t that what you are, every day?’ Ace leans against the worktop and stares directly at me. Her eyes are a pure and liquid black, burningly intense. ‘Some kind of prisoner?’
‘No, of course not!’ I won’t allow her to turn the spotlight on me, instead of herself. I made the very same mistake with Jack. ‘I love my mum. It’s not her fault she has problems. Anyway, I was asking you—’
‘Of course it isn’t your mum’s fault.’ I can feel Ace is still looking at me, even though I won’t meet her gaze. ‘And you’re a very mature and resourceful kid. But you shouldn’t have to cope with all this on your own.’ Emotion wells up in me, and now I want to cry. I’m furious with myself. ‘Jack told me what you talked about earlier.’ I stare at her in disbelief. They’ve been talking? About me? ‘It’s very worrying,’ Ace goes on. ‘Do Social Services know your situation?’
‘No, and it’s not your problem!’
‘It shouldn’t be yours, either, Anni,’ she replies. ‘Or at least, you should be sharing it with other people. You need help. Don’t you have any relatives at all? It’s still kind of unusual for an Indian girl not to have some extended family, even in the UK. I—’ She breaks off abruptly, and then I know I was right. Ace is from a British Indian family, just like me. Another tiny detail added to the big picture.
‘There’s no one,’ I say. ‘Mum’s told me over and over. I know it’s hard to believe, but it’s true.’
‘How about your doctor? Can’t they help?’
I shrug. ‘I don’t suppose so. I don’t even know who he or she is.’
Ace seems completely aback. ‘You’ve never seen your doctor? Doesn’t anyone ever visit here to check up on your mum? Haven’t you ever been ill yourself and needed antibiotics or something?’
‘Mum says I had all my jabs when I was a baby,’ I reply defensively. ‘And I haven’t needed a doctor since. I’m never ill.’
Ace starts pacing up and down, and that makes me nervous.
‘Mum doesn’t like doctors,’ I blurt out. ‘I’ve got the local surgery number in my phone, though, so I can call them if I need to. And the Fortescue Hospital is close by, if it’s an emergency.’ The hospital the Prime Minister is visiting tomorrow morning, I think, but I don’t say these words aloud.
‘So if anything happened to your mum, you’d be all alone?’
I am silent, uncomfortably so. Ace already knows the answer to that question. She’s shining a bright, probing light into the darkest corners of my life, and it’s far too unsettling.
‘You said before that Social Services know nothing about you,’ Ace goes on, even though I’m eyeing her sulkily now, making my feelings blindingly obvious. ‘Does that mean you don’t claim any benefits?’
‘Of course not,’ I mumble.
‘So how do you survive?’
I don’t really know. ‘Mum tells me how much money to take out and she gives me her cards and I go to the bank and get it from the cash machine,’ I reply curtly. Then I turn away and begin to make tea. I’m sending a clear message to Ace: I don’t want to talk about this stuff any more.
‘So your mum must have savings,’ Ace guesses.
‘Yes, sometimes she gives me her savings card so I can transfer money to her current account to pay all the bills,’ I snap, not wanting to make these involved explanations, but feeling somehow compelled to explain myself and my life, to defend Mum from Ace’s prying and snooping, to show her that we can manage.
I know Ace is regarding me intently. I can feel her eyes locked onto the back of my head, even though I refuse to look at her. ‘What happens when those savings run out?’
I don’t answer, just lift the tea tray and walk out of the kitchen. For the first time in my life, I’m beginning to wonder about these things that I’ve always accepted as truth, the questions I’ve never asked. What if one of us was seriously ill? Would Mum let me call the doctor? How long will Mum’s savings last? What will we do if we run out of money? But I won’t allow Ace to get inside my head and mess with my mind. Nothing matters except that Mum and I get out of this house safely and away from them.