Chapter 63
Meg shuddered at the crack of Hugh’s skull connecting with the unforgiving concrete, but she didn’t stop. She needed to find Georgie while Spencer and Hugh were distracted. Her heart hammered as she raced towards the open door.
Once she got inside, she looked around, trying to catch her breath. It appeared to be a staff room.
‘Georgie?’ she called.
Nothing.
‘Georgie!’ Louder this time.
There was a soft whimpering. Meg tried to slow her breathing, unable to hear properly over her panting and the pounding of her heart. She walked towards the kitchen, listening carefully.
‘Georgie? It’s Meg. It’s okay, I’m here.’
She opened the doors of a tall pantry cupboard. Nothing.
‘Georgie?’
She heard whimpering coming from a cupboard under the sink. Hot tears flooded her eyes as she opened the doors and saw her cousin, folded up around the s-bend of the sink pipes.
Georgie’s eyes were obscured by the sink, but Meg could see her mouth. Her bottom lip was bulging and bloody.
‘Are they gone?’ Georgie whispered.
‘Not yet, but it’s okay. They won’t hurt you now,’ Meg said, the sound of Hugh’s head hitting the concrete replaying in her ears. ‘You can come out.’
Georgie didn’t move, her eyes full of fear.
‘It’s okay, Georgie. I promise.’
As her cousin shifted out of the cavity, Meg gasped at the sight of her face. Red capillaries filled the white of her left eye and a dark, mulberry bruise had formed under her lower lashes.
‘Oh my God, George—’
Georgie put a finger up to her bloody lip and looked towards the door.
Meg held her breath. At first she couldn’t hear it, but then, there it was. The faint but unmistakable sound of a siren.
‘Thank God,’ Meg whispered.
Georgie slumped onto the ground, sobbing, as though everything she’d held inside was flowing out of her. Meg crouched beside her, holding her, as the sirens grew louder.
‘Noooooooooo!’ Spencer’s desperate voice reverberated off the courtyard walls.
Georgie looked towards the door.
‘Come on. The cops are nearly here.’ Meg pulled Georgie up, linking their arms, and walked her towards the door.
They stopped in the doorway, looking at the scene in front of them. Hugh lay motionless, his head resting in a pool of dark blood. Spencer leaned over him, shaking him by the shoulders.
The piercing sirens were louder still. Red and blue lights bounced off the walls before the police car came into view, stopping with a screech of tyres. Two officers got out as an ambulance pulled in behind it. Meg exhaled with relief. It was over.
She and Georgie sat side by side on the bench seat, dazed, watching the activity around them.
Within minutes, Spencer was handcuffed in the back of the police car. His usually confident posture was gone as he sat, forlorn, staring out the window, watching the paramedics load Hugh onto a stretcher. Meg almost felt sorry for him. Almost.
The younger cop came over. ‘Another ambulance is on the way to get you checked out, Georgie. We’ll need to take statements from you both. I know it’s the last thing you’ll want to do right now, but …’
Georgie nodded.
‘It’s fine,’ Meg said.
He gave them a nod and walked back to the car to talk to his partner.
There was a gentle touch on Meg’s back. She looked up to see Pete slip onto the seat by her side.
‘You did it,’ he whispered. ‘You got them. It was incredible.’
He put his arms around her. They sat like that for a long time.