Page 79 of The Tapes
‘I don’t think we have another choice. I’m obviously not saying there’s a positive to this but I do believe it should make people appreciate others in their lives. How much we should be looking out for them. I think there will be a time we all need to stand up and say we’re not going to accept this any longer. This person has taken so much – but that doesn’t mean we’re defined by this evil. I firmly believe that, one day, you, I, or someone in our town will have a moment to stand up and say we’ve had enough.’
THIRTY-EIGHT
From nowhere, swirling, spinning blue light floods the space. I’m blinking through the dark, getting my bearings, suddenly able to see that we’re in a shed with a rail bolted across the width. Nicola is standing over me, the crushed remnants of Mum’s cassette at her feet. She looks to her father, eyes wide – though he is only watching me.
‘Dad…?’
I guess, in the final seconds, it’s clear who’s in charge. There’s fear in Nicola’s faltering voice – but Kieron’s expression doesn’t change. He peers down at me and there’s a merest hint of a nod that’s caught in the whirling spirals of blue.
‘Dad…?’
Nicola speaks with half a gasp and, when another second passes without response, she turns and bolts. A wooden door flies open, giving the merest hint of something green, before it clangs closed again. Somewhere in the distance I hear heavy bootsteps, and a bang.
Kieron glances behind him – but it’s only us. There’s a knife on the ground, though I’m not sure if Nicola dropped it, or if it was always there. Kieron glances towards it and, for a second, itfeels as if he’s about to pick it up. Instead, he lowers himself to the ground, until we’re sitting a pace apart.
‘I sometimes wondered who it would be,’ he says.
‘How’d you mean?’
There’s a smile but the wickedness from the storage locker has been replaced by exhaustion. He doesn’t reply – and perhaps it’s because there’s no time – but maybe it’s because he doesn’t need to.
The door sounds again and there are new silhouettes. Someone shouts ‘Down’ and then ‘Show me your hands’. Kieron never breaks eye contact with me as he stretches his arms backwards, before lying on the floor. A man asks if I’m OK but it’s hard to hear, let alone reply, with the thunder of heavy boots.
Then, from nowhere, there’s hush. I realise my eyes have been closed and, when I open them, Detective Sergeant Cox is standing in front of me. She also asks if I’m OK, and I’m fairly sure I say yes. The door is wedged open and the spinning blue lights have been replaced by a slice of daylight.
‘This might hurt a little,’ she adds, showing me what looks like a pair of garden clippers. I tense as she stretches behind me but then my wrists are loose. She holds up a pair of clipped cable ties.
‘Can you stand?’ she asks.
‘I think so.’
She squats and lets me use her shoulder to help pull myself up. ‘Where am I?’ I ask.
‘A shed at the back of your friend’s house.’
I know the place. This is at the edge of Nicola’s property, close to where the gun was found a few days before. This is where she said she stumbled across her father with Pamela Mallory.
My head’s cloudy and I take a step towards the wall, using it to hold myself up as I realise I’m standing on a reel of broken tape.
‘You can take as long as you need,’ Cox says. ‘You’re safe now.’
There’s a sound of shuffling, more footsteps, softer this time – and then a new figure appears in the doorway.
‘Gosh,’ Vivian says – which is quite the understatement.
Sergeant Cox looks between us. ‘You have a guardian angel,’ she says, talking to me.
‘It wasn’t my idea to set up Find My Friends,’ Vivian replies. She’s right but not completely. When she said that Faith might have liked the idea of someone watching out for her – ofher motherwatching out, I realised that I’d like someone to be watching out for me. Especially considering what we both found out about Kieron.
‘She insisted we come here,’ Cox says. ‘We probably wouldn’t have listened, except it’s hard to argue with a person who literally wrote the book on a subject.’
Vivian is quiet at that. Quite soon, it will be confirmed that she’s standing in the place where her daughter died.
‘He’s got a storage locker,’ I say.
‘We’ll get to it.’
‘Did you find my phone?’
