Carly
Then
It was morning. The girls had been imprisoned for an entire night. Through the window Carly watched as dawn brushed its pink-and-orange fingers over the sky. The world was so beautiful, she had never realized. She wondered whether she would ever get to enjoy it again. Tears leaked from behind her eyes. She didn’t wipe them away, not wanting to disturb the twins, who were still sleeping. Her heart hurt as she gazed at their pale faces. Their small hands, dark purple bruises staining their skin. Carly’s own hands throbbed from banging them against the door. Her head pounded, gums ached where she’d dislodged a tooth. Her knees were sore, the cut on her cheek raw. Every single muscle in her body was as hard as one of Bruno’s bones. The twins had taken up most of the room on the mattress and all night Carly had balanced on the edge, fearful of toppling onto the hard, dirty floor. The blanket wasn’t quite large enough to stretch over them all. Carly had tucked it around the shoulders of the twins and lay shivering, not only with cold but with terror.
What were they going to do?
Think.
The sun rose higher, pushing through the bars and creating stripes on the drab floor as it burst thought the pastel colours, painting the sky a cornflower blue. The clown on the back of the door grinned.
‘I fucking hate clowns,’ Carly muttered.
‘You said the “F” word,’ Leah whispered.
‘I fucking hate him too,’ Marie said.
‘I didn’t know you were both awake.’ Carly was mortified. She already thought she’d be blamed for getting them into this mess. If the twins started swearing at eight years old she’d be in even more trouble. She rose to her feet. Stalked around the room again and again. Ten paces long, turn. Six paces wide, turn.
Think.
Panic clutched at Carly as she inhaled the stifling air. They couldn’t stay in here another day. Another night.
Ten paces, turn. Six paces, turn.
Let-us-out. Let-us-out. Let-us-out.
The words were inside Carly’s head, inside her mouth, inside the room.
‘Let us out. Let us out. Let us out,’ she yelled as she pelted towards the door. All three sisters began thumping to be free again. Screaming. Fists pounding against the clown’s face. His nose. His mouth. His eyes.
It didn’t take long before they tired. Weak from lack of food. From the surges of adrenaline that rushed through their veins before ebbing away.
‘My tummy hurts.’ Leah slunk back to the mattress.
‘Mine too,’ Marie joined her twin.
‘It’s because we’re hungry.’ Carly dully made her way over to the box. Snaps and Coke for breakfast. They were running low on food. Surely the men would come back today. The thought was terrifying and reassuring in equal measure. She was sure they’d find out why they had been snatched but did she really want to know? There was a cruelty to Moustache she could sense. He was like Stephen at school who bullied the younger kids, stealing their lunch and their branded sports kit. Punching them in the stomach for fun. Stephen’s friends hung around him because they were intimidated. Was that why Doc was with Moustache? She thought he had a gentle side. The softness of the blanket, the teddy bear with his fluffy coat and rounded tummy, which made him ‘totally cuddleable’, according to Leah.
If Doc came on his own they might have a chance. She could, perhaps, talk him into letting them go. Carly had watched her mum persuade Dad to do things he didn’t want to do with the right words, a smile. You twist me round your little finger, he would say. Could she do that to Doc?
If he comes without Moustache.
If.
If.
If.
In the meantime, Carly scanned the room again; they were stuck. Trapped. Again, panic swooped low, clutching Carly around the throat. There wasn’t enough air in the room. She had to get them out. Her feet tingled as she clumped around the room. Examining every single millimetre of the wall for the umpteenth time. Running her hands over the cold, slimy surface, feeling for something under the graffiti. A hidden exit. A loose brick.
Something.
There was nothing. Carly stared up at the ceiling until her neck ached. Why wasn’t there a hatch, an air vent?
Anything.
‘I need to wee, Carly,’ Leah said in a small voice.
Carly jerked her head towards the corner, averting her eyes, unfairly cross with Leah. The stench in the room was already unbearable.
She couldn’t breathe.
Ten paces, turn. Six paces, turn. A lion in a cage.
Waiting.
Waiting.
Waiting.
Time ticked past painfully slowly. Intermittently, Carly had doled out sweets. They had hardly any food left, and only one can of Coke that they were sharing.
‘Small sips only,’ Carly had warned. Although hunger pangs cramped her stomach, she knew they could survive days without food. Not without any liquid, though. It was only the second time that day she had needed to wee and her urine stank – she was becoming dehydrated.
Carly pulled up her pants and turned around to see the tell-tale bulge of a blackcurrant liquorice sweet in Marie’s cheek. ‘For God’s sake. I told you not to have any more.’
‘I’m starving,’ Marie said.
‘We’re all starving. Did you steal a sweet too, Leah?’ Carly spat out the word steal like it was the worst thing you could do and she thought perhaps stealing was. Not sweets though, but children.
Leah shook her head. Carly believed her, she was always the one who followed rules. Horrified when she had caught Carly forging Mum’s signature on notes so she could get out of doing PE.
Carly gave Leah a sweet, it was only fair. She hesitated before she took the last one for herself, untwisting the purple wrapper, placing the hard shell of blackcurrant that would soften into liquid on her tongue. ‘God, I’m so sick of these. I’d kill for a Big Mac.’
‘Ooh, Carly. You have to broaden your palate.’ Marie perfectly imitated her father. Carly clutched at the chance of a moment of lightness.
‘Remember when Dad ordered scallops for me in the Maldives and I thought it was some sort of berry on top but it was caviar?’ She pulled a face.
‘Fish eggs!’ Marie squealed. ‘You ate the actual eggs of an actual fish!’
‘You can’t talk. What about the frogs’ legs you had in Cannes?’
‘I liked them.’ Marie rubbed her tummy. ‘They tasted just like chicken. Don’t you wish you’d tried them, Carly?’
Since her mum had married her stepdad, holidays in damp, rented caravans and chicken nuggets for tea had been replaced with trips to Monaco and roasted game. Carly was grateful her mum was happy and her new dad was so generous – she’d never even met her biological dad, but though her stepdad treated Carly exactly the same as his biological daughters, sometimes she missed the old days. She’d only been small but she remembers she and Mum eating dinner with their fingers in front of The Simpsons, just the two of them. Her mum had never said as much but Carly thought she missed those days too. Sometimes when her stepdad was out and the twins were in bed she would wink at Carly and dig out a bag of chicken nuggets and chips she had hidden at the bottom of the freezer. She would shake them onto a baking tray and while they were cooking Carly would retrieve the bottle of ketchup hidden at the back of the fridge and squirt it into bowls. They would snuggle up on the sofa, their hands dipping chips into the red sauce and Carly thought sometimes that was when she was happiest. It wasn’t that she didn’t love her sisters, because she did, but the ritual was something that was just hers and Mum’s. TV and junk food in their pyjamas. She preferred it more than dressing up and eating the miniature meals she had tried at Michelin-starred restaurants. The twins loved all the fancy food but then they’d been brought up on it. Even at their tender age the twins could sit without fidgeting through a five-course meal, always using the right cutlery.
‘Carly!’ Marie nudged her and Carly realized she hadn’t replied. ‘I said, do you wish you’d tried frogs’ legs? They tasted like chicken.’
‘I’ll tell you what tastes like chicken,’ Carly said.
‘What?’
‘You! Carly pounced on her sister and raised Marie’s arm to her mouth, pretending to chew on it like Bruno would a squeaky toy. Leah squealed and dived on Carly, tugging at her until Carly turned her attention to Leah, tickling her until she screeched with laughter that bounced off the walls and returned to their ears loud and shrill.
‘You taste like poo,’ Marie said to Carly, a wicked glint in her eye. She sprang to her feet and Carly played along, chasing her around the room, dividing her attention between the twins, swiping at both, but purposefully catching neither.
‘Stop!’ Carly held up her hand. Marie launched herself at Carly’s legs, still in the game.
‘Shhh.’ Carly was deadly serious. ‘Do you hear something?’
An engine.
A door slamming.
Footsteps.
Someone was coming.
Oh God. Someone was coming.
Was it help or was it them?
Fruitlessly Carly looked around for somewhere to hide the girls. Why had they been talking about bloody food when they could have been building a barricade from the rubbish and mattress. Something to shield them from immediate view. In her mind she imagined Moustache stalking around one side of their hiding place while they crawled out from the other end, ran through the open door…
‘Carly, I’m scare—’
‘Shhh.’
From outside a voice, barely decipherable.
Fear pin-pricked Carly’s skin.
The pound-pound-pound of boots on concrete.
A muttered, ‘I’ll take care of it.’
Them. It was them.
Terror rose in Carly’s throat as she listened to them growing closer and closer.
And then…
The sound of three bolts sliding open.