panic button in the house, and I pressed that before I got in the bench. It’s connected to Carmouth Police Station and makes them come if I need them.
I was in the bench when they came in through the front door. There were two of them and they used a key. I’m sure of that. The one with the scar was in charge, but he didn’t have his hair in a ponytail this time. He wore it long so I couldn’t see the scar. He called the other man Lonny. They wore leather jackets and jeans, and Lonny was wearing a baseball cap. He was overweight and looked like a boxer. I’d never seen Lonny before. I’d say they were both in their thirties, but they could have been older.
They looked around the rooms downstairs for a while, but they didn’t touch anything and they had gloves on.
Then the one with the scar said, ‘Lonny, watch the fucking road while I go upstairs. The kid’s behind that bookcase where he was before. Greta told me how it works.’
Lonny came and stood really close to where I was, but I couldn’t see him because he was to the side of me, and the man with the scar went upstairs. It was really hard not moving and I tried to hold my breath. That made it worse, and I thought Lonny would hear my heart beating. It sounded so loud to me.
About a minute later the man with the scar was back and I could hear anger in his voice, like he was getting ready to do something really bad. He wasn’t shouting though; it was almost as if he was talking through his teeth. And I can’t remember the exact words he used. All I can do is give the gist of them.
‘Fucking kid’s in here somewhere,’ he said. ‘Look, he was halfway through eating when we got here. He can’t have gone far.’
‘Want me to turn the gaff over, do you, Rosie? I’ll find him for you.’
I could hear the eagerness in Lonny’s voice, like he really wanted to break something.
‘No, I fucking don’t. I don’t want you to touch anything, you moron. Just keep a fucking watch and leave it to me. And don’t call me that again.’
The fat man went to stand by the front door. It was half open.
‘Lonny the loser,’ said the man with the scar. ‘He’s a fucking loser, isn’t he, Thomas?’
I couldn’t see him but he wasn’t far, and I almost answered because he said my name so suddenly and naturally, but I bit my tongue instead.
‘I’m sorry about your mother, Thomas. Really I am. And I promise you that you’ll be fine. Scout’s honour, Tom. Scout’s honour. All we want is to take you on a little holiday. That’s all. Until this trial is over and done with. Somewhere nice and sunny with plenty of foreign girls. Topless beaches. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Tom? So why don’t you be a good boy and come out and we can get to know each other.’
I could hear him moving about opening doors and cupboards all the time he was talking in this mock-friendly voice he’d put on, but now there was a pause. When he spoke again, the hard edge was back in his voice.
‘Too scared to come out, are you, boy? Too fucking scared. Want to play fucking games with me, do you, you little runt?’
He stopped suddenly, his voice cut off by the sound of the siren, and a second later they ran out of the front door. They must have waited in the lane until I buzzed the police in through the front gate and then driven away without anyone seeing them.
I would recognize both these men again, and I would also recognize the voice of the man with the scar. It was soft and he said the bad words slowly, like he enjoyed saying them over and over again. I think he would have killed me if he’d found me. I really think he would.
Like I said before, I have tried my best to give the gist of what the men said when they were in the house, but I can’t remember all their exact words. However, I am sure about the names they called each other and I know that the man with the scar said about the hiding place that ‘Greta told me how it works.’
When I went upstairs with the police officer afterwards, the door in the book case was standing half open.
I confirm that I am still willing to attend court and give evidence for the prosecution in the trial of my stepmother, Greta Robinson.
Signed: Thomas Robinson
Dated: 6th July, 2000.
CHAPTER 2
In a tall nineteenth-century house on a fashionable street in Chelsea, Greta Robinson was getting dressed. She kept very still, with her head slightly to one side as she considered herself in a full-length Victorian mahogany mirror positioned in the middle of the master bedroom. She was wearing a sleeveless black Chanel dress cut just above her knee, a pearl necklace and a thin gold watch on her left wrist. She stood five feet seven inches high in her stockinged feet.
Greta’s short black hair matched her dress. It was swept back above her small ears and so exposed the full width of her cheekbones. There was something faintly Asiatic about her face, and her cool, green eyes accentuated an aura of detachment. However, this was contradicted by her full, red lips, untarnished by lipstick and always slightly parted as if she was about to tell you something that would change your life for ever. Contradiction was the secret of her attraction. The boyishness of her face was in opposition to the fullness of her figure. With an easy motion she stepped out of the dress and looked at her nakedness for a moment with a half-smile. Her full breasts needed no support, and there was no trace of fat around her hips or waist. There had been no child to change her contours.
Turning, she picked up a Christian Dior dress from where it lay draped across the back of a nearby Chippendale chair and put it on. It was black like the other, but it had sleeves, the hemline was longer and the neck was cut higher. Greta’s eyes hardly blinked as they concentrated on the reflected image of their owner. There was much for her to admire, but it was not narcissism that motivated her scrutiny today. Appearance was vital. Her barrister, that wily old fox Miles Lambert, had told her that. She was about to go on stage. The men and women who would be gazing at her from the jury box day after day as she sat in the dock or gave evidence must learn to love her. Her fate would be in their hands.
Their lives were not glamorous. They had no titles, no designer dresses, no fashionable home to go back to after the day in court was over. Nobody noticed what happened to them. She must not repel them. She had been, after all, just like them once upon a time.
She took off the necklace and replaced the gold watch with a simple one on a black leather band that matched her dress. Narrowing her eyes, she bestowed a half-smile of approval upon her reflection.
‘Showtime,’ she whispered to herself softly before she turned and padded over to the bed, where her husband lay sleeping. Looking at her at that moment, you’d have had to say that she was just like a cat. A sleek, well-cared-for white cat with a pair of glittering green eyes.
He looked good for his age, she thought. A full head of black hair with not too many silver flecks, a strong and wiry body; its outlines were clear and firm where he had wound himself up in his sheet during the long hot night. He had been sleeping badly for some time now, and she had often woken at three or four to see him standing by the open window gazing out into the night as if he could find some answer to his difficulties in the empty street below.
There had always been an inflexibility about the man, even before he was overtaken by disaster. He gave the impression of holding his features firm by an effort of will. It was apparent in
