Chapter 10
Twenty-Two Years Ago
Blythe was so excited. She’d spent all morning getting ready. A full two hours in the bath, she’d even shaved her legs – which she’d never usually bother doing unless the sun was splitting the rocks. She’d spent the best part of an hour getting herself together.
‘It’s only a jobs fair,’ Chloe kept telling her. Still, she’d been kind enough to lend Blythe her lovely new leather jacket.
‘Yes, but I’m going with Marcus.’ Blythe had no interest in the actual fair.
When she graduated, she planned to go back to Pin Hill, and work in the Hope Square Hotel with her grandfather.
Her parents kept dropping hints about travel and getting a job on the mainland, just for a few years, before settling for island life, but Blythe was set on what she wanted to do and where she wanted to do it.
She was just applying her mascara when she heard a crash coming from the kitchen at the back of the flat.
‘Chloe?’ She wondered for a moment if her flatmate had returned. But the silence that followed her calling out, convinced her that no. There was no way Chloe had come back. She was already running late.
‘Chloe?’ she tried again, her voice barely audible.
Oh, no, she’d left the kitchen window open.
Could it be that stray cat that was always hanging around the narrow alley at the back of the flats?
It could be. She wouldn’t put it past him to jump up on the shed roof opposite and then make his way along the border wall.
‘If that’s you,’ she began to give out. She’d have to catch him and give him his marching orders.
He was feral, so far as she could tell. She fed him, of course, but there was no way he was coming inside.
A cat like that, even if she had a litter tray, he’d probably relieve himself on beds and in laundry baskets, anywhere he could burrow.
Then, the sound of a foot on the door saddle sent a shiver of fear along her spine.
Blythe’s heart froze.
That was no cat.
Shit.
She looked at the door of her bedroom. Should she lock herself in, hope that Marcus called for her earlier than they’d arranged?
Her phone was still charging out in the sitting room.
She tiptoed towards the bedroom door. Hardly daring to breathe, sweat breaking loose beneath her blouse now, undoing all that lovely pampering of earlier.
She was at the door.
Then she remembered there was no lock.
There had been a key here, when she moved in first, a big old black thing.
It looked like something out of Harry Potter.
Hers was the only original door in the flat.
The others all had silver yale locks. Now, as her hand hovered over the door handle, she remembered, Chloe had asked if she could borrow it to use as part of a costume she was wearing to a fancy dress party.
Had she returned it? Blythe’s mind ran a blank.
She couldn’t think. In the room opposite, she could hear voices, two at least. Irish?
Or maybe foreign. Two male voices. Or was there three?
It was impossible to make out, because the blood was pounding through her veins at such a rate, she could hardly hear herself think.
She slipped behind the bedroom door. If she moved it even slightly, it would creak.
It had been like that since they moved in.
Usually, it didn’t bother her, although, it had woken her flatmates a few times if she came in late.
It would definitely alert the two men opposite that she was here if she moved it so much as an inch.
She peered round the door again. They were going through Chloe’s room, pulling out the drawers, flinging clothes across the room.
The bed, she could see had already been turned over.
The place was a mess. They were moving fast, she could see hands, arms, bodies – practised at pulling a place apart to find what they wanted.
‘Goran, look.’ One of the men called to the other.
Blythe assumed he had come across the rent money that Chloe was meant to drop in to their landlord the following Monday.
Oh, God, her whole body had begun to shake.
She couldn’t stop shivering, it felt as if she was so cold and yet, sweat drained down her neck, along her spine, her palms were wet and sticky.
She felt like getting sick, right here, except, she wasn’t sure she could even do that, such was the paralysing fear within her.
‘Ha, students, I told you they would be a good bet.’ The other man laughed then. He sounded foreign. They both did, definitely not Irish. Blythe closed her eyes, prayed they would leave, become distracted by something, anything.
‘Sergei, look,’ this voice was different again.
Were there more than two? Oh, God. She felt weak, as if she could faint at any moment, and there was no way out of here.
Her bedroom window looked down on a sheer two-storey drop.
There was no wall, or garden shed outside here, just a hard, concrete busy road beneath.
Blythe felt as if she hadn’t breathed in hours.
She badly wanted to inhale deeply, but she was trying to breathe as gently as a rabbit, it was making her lightheaded.
‘Hah, so, this is what you heard, Goran.’ One of the men had walked into her bedroom. He was huge. Filling up the doorway. As broad as he was long, her grandfather would say, and Blythe found herself thinking of Pappy now.
‘So, student girl, I suppose you think you are very clever, on a big adventure, hiding here and listening to us.’
‘I told you we should have worn our masks.’ The other man had joined him now, he was smaller, beady-eyed, he stared at Blythe like a falcon eyeing up his prey. ‘Now look…’
‘Oh, Goran. This one’s not going to be telling anyone, anything.’
‘We’re meant to be stealing, not…’
‘She’s seen us now. What else do you know? You’ve heard our names probably,’ the bigger one was in her face now. She could smell food: chips, fried, something else on his breath. Weed?
‘I… I… I’m not going to tell anyone. If you let me go, I won’t come back here.
I’ll tell you where everything of value is, I’ll even take you to my bank and withdraw all my money for you, but please, don’t hurt me.
’ She was crying now. Sobbing, like a pathetic child.
She could smell her own sweat – how could that be – she’d spent the whole morning cleaning and pampering herself and now, she reeked of heavy, unwashed sweat.
‘That sounds like an offer we can’t refuse,’ the smaller of the two men said.
‘Give me the bank card. And your wallet and any other money,’ the larger one said then. ‘Quick. This isn’t window shopping, hurry.’
Blythe went to the other side of the room.
Picked up her bag. In it was almost every penny she had.
She took out her wallet, handed it to them.
Her mother had given her a hundred-euro note two years earlier.
It was for emergencies. Blythe had tucked it into the lining of her bag.
She ripped the lining now, pulled out the hundred-euro note.
‘Here. It’s everything.’ She handed it all to the smaller one; waited a beat, while his accomplice snatched it from his hands.
‘Bank card number?’ he smiled through yellow crooked teeth, tucked the cash into his jeans pocket. ‘Now.’ He shouted, almost making her jump.
‘It’s two five, two five,’ she said and immediately regretted it. That was her only bargaining tool. They could kill her now. She’d be another statistic. Just a robbery gone wrong.
Ding dong. The front door bell. It took the two men by surprise.
‘Marcus. Marcus. I’m in here. Call the police.
There are two men, they won’t let me go.
’ She was hysterical. Screaming. Jumping up and down.
She could see the two men opposite her look at each other, unspoken words passing between them.
Then, the smaller one turned away and he was gone, out through the door, towards the back of the flat.
The larger one stood there, eyeing her for a second.
She was still screaming. Calling out to Marcus.
Praying he heard her through the door. ‘There’s a spare key.
It’s in the…’ The man opposite her turned.
She was certain he was going to follow his accomplice to the kitchen, out through the low window, and out onto the back alleyway.
She was almost ready to breathe. Almost. Perhaps they would not kill her after all.
Then, in the most violent pivot she’d ever seen, he turned, bounded across the bed and had his hands around her neck.
‘Listen to me, if you say one word, just one word to the police, so help me, I’ll come back here some night and when you’re sleeping soundly, I’ll wrap my hands around your neck, just like this…
tighter, tighter. So tight you won’t be able to call for help, do you understand?
’ He was whispering into her ear. She couldn’t breathe.
She couldn’t answer. ‘Do you understand me?’ he said again.
‘I won’t tell. I swear,’ she whispered then, because even getting the words out was a torture. She could hardly breathe, could hardly stand. She just needed to get away from him.
‘Good. I’m glad we understand each other,’ he said then and moved away from her, but as he raced out the bedroom door, his jacket caught on the handle and she spotted a thin, long gleam. He was carrying a knife, sharp and deadly-looking tucked into the back of his trousers.
Dear God.
She began to cry now. Not the soft sobbing of earlier. This time, it was gulping wails. Deep and loud, so she could hardly catch her breath. She wondered if Marcus was still outside. Had he heard her at all?
And then, she saw the door move ever so slightly and there he was, and honestly, she’d never been so happy to see anyone in her whole life. She wanted to throw herself into his arms, but she couldn’t stand. She couldn’t breathe. He looked at her, ran to her side.