Donovan pressed his gloved hand over my mouth before I could get any noise out. My split lip squeaked against my teeth. He clamped down harder and the back of my skull dashed off the brickwork behind me.
I mewled with pain.
I tried screaming but it was hopeless. I couldn’t inhale or exhale. All I could taste was the leather of his glove.
The seconds crawled on.
He watched me dispassionately.
My eyes were wild with terror and panic.
I was horrified by what might be happening to Sam, desperate to shout for help.
Donovan checked quickly behind him.
The women who had walked past us hadn’t heard anything. They were still hurrying on.
Using his free hand, he quickly worked Sam’s keys in the lock, pushed the door open, then tugged the keys out, guided me forwards and shoved me inside, kicking the door closed behind him.
The snap lock engaged.
—click.
I gasped air. My skin had turned clammy.
I raised one hand to my chest and took a slow and crackling inhalation as the lights in the hallway seemed to grow brighter above me.
Everything felt strange.
What had previously been comforting and welcoming about our home now struck me as somehow staged and insincere.
I could smell the scent of the lilies I had arranged in the vase on the coffee table but their aroma seemed sickly, fake.
Only the threat of Donovan was real. It was as immediate and tangible as the ache in my lungs.
His phone was ringing.
He’d dialled out again as soon as he’d closed the door, got no connection, then immediately tried again.
Now he was staring at me with a kind of rueful anger, cupping his phone beneath his mouth.
My mind flooded with thoughts of Sam. Donovan had told his accomplice to move in if Donovan didn’t give them the all-clear before they lost signal.
I hated to think what he’d meant by that. He’d told me Sam wasn’t safe.
I had visions of a killer closing in on Sam in a packed Tube train, armed with a blade or a poisoned umbrella or a hundred other things I didn’t want to be imagining at all.
The call connected.
A swirling, strained hush.
‘This is South Kensington. Change here for the Piccadilly—’
‘We’re inside the house,’ Donovan said, watching me keenly. ‘Give me your status.’
Silence.
A crackle.
An electronic shushing.
I needed to breathe but I didn’t.
Then a voice, sparse and digitally altered. Neither male nor female. Not young or old.
‘There were too many people. I couldn’t get next to him but I’m closer now. Tell me what you want me to do.’
Donovan held my gaze, nothing at all in his face.
The moment lengthened and stretched.
‘Stand down,’ he said.
He cut the call and stared at me for a beat longer.
‘OK,’ he told me. ‘Now we talk.’