They came for us in a car. When I heard the sound of the engine, the sound of wheels against the gravel, the sound of shouting, I should have tried to run, I should have tried to hide and get the old woman to come with me.
I had no idea what was happening though, and she was asleep. Asleep on the chair, her cheek resting on a jumper she’d found. She twitched as she slept – I’d watched her for a while before I’d fallen asleep too.
It must have been four or five, early morning, when they came. A little bit of light outside, but only just starting to come through the windows. I remember the sound of car doors slamming almost at the same time. I watched her eyes open wide. My eyes were already like that. The whites of our eyes shone at each other.
There were four of them at first. I didn’t have time to jump down from the bunk bed. Their bodies seemed to bang into all of the walls at the same time. They had guns or bats in their hands. Both. Whatever it was, they were dark, and by the time they left, all of the glass was broken.
She was the one they went for. They crowded round her. Then I saw what they were doing through a gap between two bodies and I saw them hold her face back by her hair and cut her throat. Sideways, but lengthways too, so in the middle, where an Adam’s apple would be there was a cross.
No one saw me at first. No one had seen me. I tried to pull my body far back in the bunk and deep down into the mattress, so deep I’d disappear.
It was another man, a man who walked in on his own, who spotted me.
‘Jesus,’ I heard him say, when he saw her neck. He stumbled backwards closer to where I was. He was shorter than the other men. He had a crowbar in his hand.
As he got closer, I prayed he wouldn’t turn around. I tried not to breathe. Then, as I turned to put my head sideways, even more out of sight, our eyes caught in the mirror.
He spun around. I was seeing everything out of the corner of my eye. It looked like his arm was long, but it was just a metal bar he was raising into the air.
It was as the bar was coming down – I watched it coming, it was going to break any part of me it landed on – that I recognised him. It took me a moment to understand.
Liam. It was Liam.
He had a beard now, but I was sure it was him. It was Liam. All of this flooded together at once. His arm froze, and just in time, just before it hit me, the angle of his swing changed. It hit the wood of the bunk bed instead.
‘Oi, what was that?’ one of the men called through an eggshell-thin wall.
‘Fuck all,’ Liam shouted back. ‘Just rooting round for supplies.’
His eyes were locked on me the whole time. I could hardly move, but I tried to nod. He hadn’t seen me for years. I wanted him to be sure it was me. His finger went to his lips. ‘Don’t say a word,’ he mouthed.
I could hear the sound of feet scuffling in the next room. One spat. ‘Done now,’ the other man said, ‘we’re headin’ out, Lee,’ and he slammed the door so hard on his way out it bounced back open. Liam looked through into the other room to make sure they’d all gone.
‘Chance,’ he said. And then the way he held his body changed completely. His face softened. He stepped onto the bottom bunk so he could see me properly. ‘Fucking hell, Chance…’
I started to say something. He covered my mouth.
‘No, if they hear you, if they see you – fuck.’
‘Why did they do that?’ I said. My throat wasn’t working.
‘Because she was stealing from us,’ he said. ‘I think. I don’t know. I don’t even know any more. Your mum,’ he said. ‘How’s your mum?’
I shook my head.
‘You have to get away from here. As fast as you can, as far as you can. Get away from them, okay? Are you listening to me?’
I nodded.
‘Lee!’ one of the men shouted from outside.
‘Take this,’ Liam said. He put his crowbar down next to me on the bed. ‘I’m going to get them away.’ He looked out of the window again then turned back to the bunk. ‘You don’t move till they’ve gone, do you understand? You stay still as a fucking plank. You have to look after yourself, Chance.’
He walked away from me. He opened the door of the caravan.
‘Fucking took your time,’ one of the others shouted at him. ‘Something good in there or what?’
‘Fucking nothing. Empty-handed, aren’t I?’
‘Left your iron in there, mate,’ the guy said. ‘I’ll go get it.’
‘Don’t,’ Liam said. But he’d said it too quickly.
I tried to watch through the windows. The second man was taller, wider. He moved to go past Liam.
‘Just don’t, I said,’ Liam said again.
‘Are you touching me?’
‘Yeah, I’m touching you. It fucking snapped clean in two, din’t it?’ Liam said. ‘Useless now.’
There was a silence.
‘You’ve done enough in there,’ I heard Liam say. ‘So now let’s all fuck off, shall we?’
I shut my eyes. I expected to hear the sound of the door opening.
Instead, I heard the doors slamming at slightly different times again. The sound of their engine. Wheels against the gravel. Skids. Shouts getting smaller as they sped away.