By the time Caitlin had forced them off the grass and onto a small dark path through the woodland, dimly lit by Graeme’s torch, Meredith had changed her mind; acceptance had evaporated and was replaced by a nugget of something small and determined. Her bare feet were studded with small stones, her thighs scratched by brambles, whippy twigs snatched at her face, and it felt as if the universe was telling her to get a grip. She didn’t want to die. And there was no fucking way these two psychos were going to hurt Pete any more than they already had.
‘Down the next hill, head for the far side of that field,’ Meredith heard Graeme mutter to Caitlin.
Right, she thought. By her reckoning the far boundary of the Minstead Estate was at least another five minutes’ walk. Graeme had obviously done his homework. Meredith felt her newfound survival instinct wobble. It couldn’t be more remote. If Caitlin shot them, cleared the pool house of their clothes and left their bodies by the fence down there, it could be weeks before they were found.
But that’s not going to happen, she thought, gritting her teeth, welcoming the pain in her toe as a sharp stone pierced it. There’d be nothing to fear anymore, because if she survived, it would mean that Caitlin and Graeme would either be dead – Meredith’s preferred option – or back in prison.
She, Meredith, would finally be free.
If – when – she survived this, everything would change. No more paranoid hiding away, pretending to be someone else, moaning to herself about being lonely. She’d travel. Cambodia, Vietnam, Australia – she hadn’t even been on a plane since the days of touring with the band. Maybe even try and meet someone, have a relationship finally…
As she limped along, she felt the hard moulded plastic of the knife’s handle in her armpit, reminding her that she had to seize her moment, and soon.
How to do it? Think, Meredith.
Caitlin. She had to go for Caitlin, get the gun off her, before Graeme had time to react and pile in. It would be two against one, because Pete wouldn’t be able to help.
Pete was staggering along next to her like a zombie, worryingly glassy-eyed and silent, just the rasp of his laboured breath and the fact that he was still just about upright convincing her that he was still with them. His arm hung at a weird angle away from his body.
‘Stay with me, Pete,’ she muttered.
‘Shut it,’ snapped Caitlin.
The moon suddenly came out from behind a cloud, illuminating them in a chiaroscuro of shadow-dappled branches. Meredith had a flash of an image – a pencil drawing of two naked children, a boy and a girl, hand in hand, walking into woods that welcomed them and whispered encouragements in the breeze lifting the leaves. Minstead was embracing all the ghosts of everyone who’d ever loved the place like she did.
Graeme and Caitlin were still behind them, the torch illuminating their own feet but not Meredith and Pete’s – but this was good. It meant that Meredith could discreetly pluck the penknife tool out of her armpit and flip it open. She turned to try and catch Pete’s eye, and to her astonishment, he flashed a stare back, first at her and then down at the knife, his focus sharpened for the first time since she’d seen him curled up on the pool’s tiled floor.
His eyebrows shot up and in the moonlight she was sure he gave her a tiny complicit wink and a nod of his head – nothing that anybody else would ever have caught, but magnified by their twin telepathy. At that moment he was the spitting image of their father, how Meredith remembered him on the sidelines of her numerous races at sports day, smiling a smile just for her, not jumping up and down and almost aggressively urging her towards the finish line like the other dads did, but a calm, encouraging presence that gave her that final burst of strength – that helped her to give it her all; to not quit, to stay focussed on the goal.
And now Pete was giving her that signal.
This was it.
She was about to turn and run at Caitlin and Graeme, yelling, hoping that the element of surprise would give her that split-second advantage, but before she did, Pete suddenly groaned, stopped walking and collapsed on the roots of the pine tree they’d been passing beneath, lying motionless. Everything in Meredith instinctively wanted to run to him – but then she remembered the wink. He’d done it on purpose as a distraction.
Graeme was slightly behind Caitlin, holding the torch. Caitlin’s arm – the one holding the gun – dropped very slightly as she exclaimed with surprise.
‘Oh, for—’ she began irritably as Meredith spun a hundred and eighty degrees on her heel and charged her, holding up the curved tool like a claw, screaming a banshee-like howl and launching herself at her, stabbing blindly with the claw until she saw the gun slip out of Caitlin’s hand. Caitlin too sank to the ground, growling with pain and fury.
Meredith and Graeme simultaneously lunged for the gun, but luck was on Meredith’s side – it had dropped very slightly closer to her than to Graeme. She was able to grab it and aim it right in Graeme’s face, stopping the confused, angry man in his tracks.
Graeme and Caitlin must have both assumed that they would meet no resistance from the twins, Meredith thought; that she would be just as fearful as she’d been the time before in the van. A moment of triumphant adrenaline surging through her as she backed away towards Pete’s prone body, to get out of reach of Caitlin’s arms, where the woman lay flailing like an upended turtle.
In the moment before Graeme switched off the torch, Meredith saw that Caitlin was covered in blood: face, chest, head. For a moment she couldn’t believe that she had done this; she didn’t remember being that frenzied, but the preceding moments had been a blur of rage and self-preservation. She’d floored her, and it felt good.
Then they were plunged into darkness, and Meredith’s bravado faltered. The woods were silent, a briefly complicit enemy, the stillness only broken by Caitlin’s bubbling breaths and Graeme’s furious curses. For a moment they were caught in a tableau of hunters and prey, although it wasn’t clear who was which. Meredith forced her frozen hands to grip the gun, finger on trigger; the cold iron centre of her world, determiner of who lived and who died.
She heard a rustle, footsteps stealthily approaching in the darkness, the same footsteps that had creaked up her staircase all those years ago and kicked a hole in her door, in her psyche, in her future.
Not this time.
‘FUCK YOU!’ she screamed hoarsely, and fired in the direction of the footsteps. The noise sent sleeping birds flapping skywards in panic, and in the split-second flash from the gun Meredith saw Graeme’s body jerk up as if it wanted to join the birds, before hearing it crash to the leafy floor.
‘Pete,’ Meredith croaked, and heard his whispered, ‘Here,’ in reply.
At that moment, the almost-full moon came out from behind a cloud and cast the scene in shocking, ice-blue light, both Graeme and Caitlin lying motionless, Caitlin’s neck glinting with the blade of the gardening tool still sticking out of it.
‘Jesus,’ Meredith said, dropping to her knees and crawling over to Pete, wrapping her shaking arms around his cold, naked body. ‘I killed them both. Fuck, Pete, I killed them.’
‘You saved us,’ he whispered. ‘You saved us, Mez.’
From somewhere up near the house, they heard a faint shouting – a woman’s voice, drifting on the night air: ‘Meredith! Pete! Meredith! Pete!’
‘Thank God. I think that’s Gemma,’ Meredith mumbled. ‘She must have heard the shot. I can’t shout back. I’m too tired.’ She held on to Pete’s back, wrapping her arms gently around him, not knowing where or what – or how bad – his injuries were.
Another sound superseded the shouting; the whump, whump of helicopter blades, shortly followed by the sweep of a searchlight beam. ‘You won’t need to,’ said Pete, with effort. His voice was becoming fainter. ‘Not sure how much longer…’
‘Don’t say it,’ Meredith said fiercely. ‘You have to hang on. I’m not going through all this to lose you now. Don’t even fucking think about it. Promise me, Pete. They’re coming for us.’