Читать книгу The Hunt: ‘A great thriller...breathless all the way’ – LEE CHILD - T.J. Lebbon - Страница 12

Gemma had no idea why they hadn’t blindfolded her as well. Maybe they needed a witness to what was happening, needed one of them to see just how serious this woman was. Or perhaps they just assumed she’d be no trouble.

Right then, they were correct. She was so scared, she seriously doubted she could even stand.

‘Please,’ Megs said.

‘Will you shut her up?’ the woman muttered. She’d said the same thing a dozen times, tone of voice hardly changing, but Gemma felt the air charging. Danger hung heavy. Violence simmered.

‘Megs, you need to keep quiet,’ their mother said.

Gemma’s heart hammered, vision blurred. She had never been so terrified, and she wished she could hold her little sister and make her feel better. The comfort would go both ways. But Megs was tied in a kneeling position next to their mum’s right leg, and Gemma herself was also tied, next to her mother’s left leg and with thin, strong ropes holding her against the van’s wooden seat. Her mother was on the seat, the two of them on the floor, all so close but with little comfort to be had.

‘Please,’ Megs said. She must have said it a hundred times, so many that the word had lost meaning.

‘Come on, Megs,’ Gemma said again. ‘It’ll all be fine, it’s just a game or something, a reality TV show. We’ll be famous!’ It was difficult sounding so positive and in control when she was so scared, but Gemma had always been protective of her little sister.

The windows in the van’s rear doors were covered with plywood boards, and a small, naked bulb provided the only light inside. It swung on a loose wire, light and shadows dancing around the vehicle’s interior. The space revealed was battered and well-used, the walls scabbed with rust, floor dirty, scratches and dents scarring the exposed metal bodywork.

‘If you just untie her, she’ll calm down a bit,’ Gemma said.

‘Really?’ the woman asked, raising an eyebrow. While they were being taken from the house, Gemma had heard her called Vey. The strange name only added to Gemma’s fear. Who called anyone Vey?

Were they going to be killed?

‘Where’s my dad?’ That he wasn’t here with them terrified Gemma. He’d always said that she had a vivid imagination, and she imagined him arriving home from his run and finding the house empty, meeting someone left behind to kill him. Her dad, in his sweaty, tight running kit that she often took the mickey out of, opening the door and being met with a fist or a gun.

The unreality of things hit her. That helped.

‘You just keep still and quiet. Be a good little girl.’

Gemma couldn’t remember the last time she’d been called a little girl. She was fifteen in six weeks, and already almost as tall as her mum. She hadn’t been a little girl for a while. Vey doesn’t know how to talk to kids so doesn’t have any, she thought, and she filed that in her memory bank. She called it ‘the box’, and imagined it as a concertina file like the one Mum and Dad used to store their household bills and other stuff. She closed her eyes briefly to open it and slip in this new piece of information. She didn’t bother with alphabetical order, just filed it in one of the cardboard folds.

The van bumped gently over a series of sleeping policemen. We’re still in the town, Gemma thought. She’d seen a film once where someone had been kidnapped, thrown into a car boot, and then tracked where they were being taken by listening to noises from outside, counting turns, making a mental map of the route they were taking. It was ridiculous, and she’d lost her way after the first couple of turns. But the box was still mostly empty. Every scrap of stuff she put in there might help her.

And concentrating on that might distract her from the terror that threatened to smother her.

She had just stepped into the shower when they came. A shout from downstairs, a scream from Megs, and then the door to the bathroom had swung open and the tall man entered. ‘Get dressed,’ he’d said, not even glancing her up and down.

Through her shock, Gemma had plucked a bowl of pot pourri from the small shelf beside the bath and flung it at the man. He’d caught it casually and thrown it back at her, dried flowers and bulbs showering the bathroom. The bowl had smashed on the tiled wall, and one heavy shard sliced across her shoulder. One foot had tangled in the curtain and she’d tripped from the shower, reaching out for balance but failing, tearing the curtain from its rings, falling to the floor with a heavy thud that vented the air from her lungs and winded her.

And something had happened. Her panic had dispersed, drawn back by the feel of warm blood cooling on her skin as her shoulder wound bled. There were smears across the shower tiles. Dad’ll see that, she’d thought, already starting to think ahead.

‘Please let us go,’ she said, knowing they would not.

‘Please,’ Megs said.

Vey pressed her lips tightly together and sighed. She still held the gun. She’d shown it to the phone earlier, the screen too far away to see clearly. Gemma thought Vey had been talking to her dad, although what she’d said was confusing. Something about one 9 away, and twenty-three minutes.

She flexed her right shoulder a few times. Her school shirt had stuck to the dried blood, and rolling her shoulder opened the wound again.

And then Gemma saw a long nail on the van’s bare metal floor. It had rolled into a joint between segments, and was now covered with a scattering of dirty sawdust.

She looked away quickly, down at her feet curled under her. Her legs were going numb. Looking anywhere but at the nail, she flexed her muscles, trying to keep numbness at bay. The time might soon come when she’d have to move quickly.