Hidden Among Us (10 page)

Just every other idiotic selfish thing she’d done.
Dad, who’s Elena?
Holding up that birthday card. With an oh-so-innocent look on her face, but really she knew. Oh, yeah, she knew.

Lissy reached for the car door, her hand pale as china. Every other redhead I know is covered in freckles. Not Lissy.

I let her get out, leaving the door hanging open, raindrops patterning the passenger seat. She walked into the house alone, nearly having to duck so she didn’t hit her head. Fourteen years old and almost six feet tall.

Your sister should be a model
, Becks Dawlish said to me at her party before Easter.
My agent’s looking for new girls. Lissy’s got the looks and she’s definitely got the height
.

Mum would never let that happen, never allow her to be seen by so many people.

I should have told Lissy then, in the car. I know that now.
You were stolen
… She would have believed me. Surely she’d guessed. But it was too late now.

I leaned back in the seat and swore to myself, flinching every time I heard a car pass in the lane. I lost the grey Alfa Romeo last night after four hours of twisting and turning down endless lanes till I nearly ran out of diesel, but it wouldn’t take them long to find me. Would it?

Who were they? The police? Or something else?

And where was Miles? He hadn’t shown his face once since we all arrived. Dad hated him, but I’d found photos of them together in the stuff Dad left when he moved out: two little kids Connie’s age beside a chocolate birthday cake, a pair of lanky awkward twelve-year-olds in the rugby team. Later, standing beside the old pick-up truck Dad used to drive, smiling into the camera; sprawling on a chintzy sofa at a party surrounded by girls with big hair (one of them was Mum).

So what happened?
I had asked Mum.
Why don’t they see each other any more, Dad and Miles?

Mum had paused. I knew she was choosing her words carefully.
It just happens, doesn’t it? I think your father came to realize they didn’t have that much in common any more, even though they’d been friends such a long time
. She laughed, looking tired.
Well, nothing in common except me. They started drifting apart when Miles was expelled in his final year of school
.

She was lying. It was part of the great unmentionable secret: Lissy disappeared. Then she came back. Anyone would think it had never happened.

Miles was Mum’s stepbrother. Neither had any other living family. Both their parents were dead, killed in a car crash when they’d only been married a year. Miles and Mum were nineteen. Dad and Miles drifting apart as friends might mean awkward moments at Christmas or weddings if the conversation ever strayed towards the past. Drifting apart was not an explanation for Dad refusing to allow Miles into our house. Ever.

Which was what he’d done.

And why had I never seen Miles Conway, the closest thing I had to an uncle, since I was five years old?

The missing child in the journal, Philippa de Conway. She had to be an ancestor. Because it was
here
: she’d disappeared from Hopesay Reach three hundred years ago, a kid no older than Connie, and oh, God, Connie. It was bad. Anyone could tell that from the way the paramedics had rushed hard-faced through the house, up the stairs, but I couldn’t think about that now because those people were hunting me. They were coming, and if I went then that wasn’t going to help Connie.

Miles
knew
something about all this.

I had to find him.

19

Trudging back down the wet rainy lane, I tried to ring Dad but he didn’t answer. There was a kid at school who’d died of meningitis, this guy in the sixth form. And now me and Dad were stuck in the middle of some other family’s nightmare. I hoped Connie was going to be OK but what could I do?

It started to rain again, great gobbets of water from a boiling grey sky. Wet leaves torn from branches splattered on to the road. One stuck to my knackered waterproof, which was starting to leak. My shoulders were getting wet. I let myself in through the front gate. Rafe’s car was quietly ticking on the drive as the engine cooled down. Rain hissed off the bonnet. Bastard, hitting her like that. I could see him still sitting in the driver’s seat, leaning back, a dark shape. Waiting for something? The passenger seat was empty. What had happened to Lissy? Had they argued on the way back, had she forced him to stop the car and let her out? She didn’t seem like the kind of girl who’d put up with being hit in the face.

The front door was open. Lissy must’ve left it like that. It creaked as I pushed past. The hall was quiet and dark. A cloud of dust motes hung in the air, lit up by a stream of rainy grey light coming in through a grimy window. Standing in the sitting room, all I could hear was rain drumming against the glass. The fire flickered lazily in the grate. I checked my phone again. Nothing from Dad, no messages. No reception now anyway. I had the weirdest feeling of being watched. I went into the kitchen and stopped dead. All the drawers were open: every single one.

Who would’ve done that? Miles?

I went upstairs, pausing when I heard the sound of a girl crying. Lissy in her room.

I would hate it if anyone saw me in a state like that. Unlike our parents, we didn’t even know each other. At least she wasn’t unconscious. Or dead.

I didn’t go in.

The door next to Lissy’s was open just a crack. Rafe’s room. We were all on the same floor: me, Lissy and him. I waited outside a second. All I could hear was Lissy crying quietly. If I shut my eyes, I could still hear the sharp crack as Rafe’s hand connected with her face in the church.

What was his problem?

I reached out and pushed the door wide open.

Rafe’s room was bigger than mine but given the choice I’d not taken it. Gloomy wooden panelling covered the walls from floor to ceiling. It was like being inside a box. The door swung shut behind me. Grey rainy light filtered in through the two small windows. There was a bed pushed up against the far wall, white duvet piled up. A pillow on the floor. An empty rucksack, clothes chucked all over the room. It wasn’t the normal kind of mess someone would make unpacking, looking for a pair of socks or whatever. Rafe’s stuff was everywhere. Books, clothes, the lot.

Like his room had been
searched
—

I was about to get out when I heard footsteps: someone moving about on the floor above. Cold fear washed through me.
Don’t be stupid
, I told myself sternly.
It’s probably just Miles
. I listened again. If Miles was up there, he had a friend with him. There were
two
sets of footsteps. Rafe? But I’d passed him, still sitting in his car. No way could he be up in the attics already.

Treading softly, I walked over to the window and looked down into the cobbled courtyard out the back of the kitchen where I’d found Connie and the white-haired girl the day before. An unfamiliar grey car was parked there now.

We had visitors. Visitors who obviously felt at home enough to let themselves in.

Probably just a friend of Miles. Up in the attics with him
.

I was already going for the door. I listened for a second outside Lissy’s room. All quiet now. Maybe she’d fallen asleep. I crept down the stairs and into the silent hallway. I waited outside the sitting room door but heard nothing. Even the fire had died down to a pile of glowing embers. I moved on into the kitchen, trying not to look at all the open drawers. There was something a bit mad about the way they’d all been tugged open and just
left
.

I heard the lean-to door shut, more footfalls, then a giant metallic
snap
and a ragged wild cry of pain.

The heavy thud of a human body hitting the floor.

“Jesus Christ.
Miles!
”

Rafe. I was sure of it.

Fear gripped my whole body, my gut clenched up like a fist; I was ready to run at any moment.

Someone had set one of Miles’s traps. I knew it before I’d even run down the kitchen corridor and opened the lean-to door.

Rafe lay on the floor, the jaws of a gin trap biting hard into the leg of his jeans. He was just swearing to himself, very quietly. It had to be agony, surely. I couldn’t see any blood, so the trap was one without serrated jaws. But still, they would have snapped shut with enough force to break his ankle.

Rafe had gone completely white. “Where’s Lissy?” His voice sounded thick, croaky.

I knelt down at his side, trying not to look at the steel jaw of the trap biting into his jeans, forcing myself not to think about the ruined skin, muscle and bone beneath the fabric. I found the pin and pulled, hard. It was rusty. Stuck. Rafe hissed and swore. I pulled the pin again and the jaw jerked open, catching his jeans in the hinge. A patch of dark blood instantly soaked through.

Rafe lay back on the dirty concrete floor, swearing again. He shut his eyes, shaking like mad. “How did you know how to do that?” he said at last.

“My grandad used to be a gamekeeper. He’s got a load of gin traps like that in his shed. He collects them. They’re illegal now, I think.”

“Jesus.” Rafe sat up. He pulled up his trouser leg a bit and I nearly threw up. His leg was a mess. The trap had smashed through the skin, even without serrated jaws. Thick blood seeped from the wound. “It’s broken. My ankle’s broken.” He swore again, in a furious whisper. “Is Lissy on her own?”

I wanted to ask if it was normal to hit girls where he came from, but thought better of it. Instead I said, “There’s someone in the house. Upstairs in the attics. I heard them moving about.”

Rafe’s eyes met mine for a second, searching and ruthless.

“I saw a new car in the yard out the back,” I said.

I expected Rafe to tell me not to be an idiot, that Miles had the right to visitors in his own house.

The right to leave a man-trap waiting by the back door?

Instead, he asked me what kind of car it was, what colour.

“A grey Alfa Romeo. Very smart,” I added, sarcastically.

Rafe swore again, quietly. Again. “Look Joe,” he said, “this is going to sound – strange, but I need you to listen. I think someone followed me here yesterday from London. From what you say, it sounds like they’re here. In the house. This is nothing to do with you or Lissy. You and her need to get out of here. Now. Do you have anywhere to go?”

“My Dad’s at the hospital—”

Rafe shook his head. “No. Not there.”

“My mam—”

“Good. You and Lissy need to get to your mother’s house. Walk into the village and catch the first train north. Get a bus if you have to. Don’t talk to anyone, don’t let her argue about it, just go.” He tugged a narrow dark object from his pocket. What was he involved in? Drugs? Crime? “Cut it. I can’t reach.” Rafe gave me a knife with a leather handle and a dark, nasty-looking blade. I sawed through his jeans; the blade was surprisingly sharp. He didn’t thank me, just got slowly to his feet. He tried to put weight on the bad one, swore again and had to lean on the wall.

Neither of us spoke but we’d come to a silent agreement: whoever might be upstairs was potentially more dangerous than either of us. We were on the same side. For now.

Rafe grabbed a plastic broom from the floor and leaned on it like a crutch. He was still dead white, but I was impressed at his stamina, not that I would’ve told him. He was arrogant enough already. Still. It must’ve hurt like something else.

“We need to find my sister and get both of you out of here. This place isn’t safe.” Rafe hesitated, leaning on the broom handle. His breathing sounded shallow, uneven.

Don’t pass out
, I thought.
Just don’t pass out
. We had to get his leg dealt with. That basic first aid course in Year Seven hadn’t covered medieval-looking wounds caused by rusting gin traps. People often think I’m older than fourteen, but Rafe was bigger than me and he looked heavy.

I remembered that black SUV splashing me on the lane earlier. Darkened windows, like the tour bus for a small-time band. A pale palm pressed just for a second against the back window. A human hand. My belly lurched.

Who did that hand belong to? We hadn’t seen Miles all morning.

“Who did all this? Who’s been following you?” I was trying not to sound scared.

“I don’t know,” said Rafe, leaning against the door frame again, drawing in another long ragged breath. “I thought I’d lost them, but obviously not. Jesus Christ, this hurts. We need to be quiet. Don’t make a sound till we’ve got Lissy and we’re outside, OK?”

Don’t let her sleep,
the shopkeeper had said.
They will come for her as she sleeps
.

Rafe hauled himself up the stairs, mud from his boots hitting me in the face, rain shaking from his jacket.

Lissy’s bedroom door was still closed. Rafe reached for the handle, twisted it.

Locked.

“Lissy!” he hissed, shoving the door, twisting the handle. His face was completely colourless now: he looked like a corpse. Droplets of sweat slid down his forehead, shining like bubbles. He took the knife from his pocket, unsheathed. Breathing heavily, he leaned on the wall, poking about in the door frame with the blade. I heard the snick of metal on metal. Rafe took the door handle and turned it.

He’d broken in. Was there nothing he couldn’t do? He was like bloody James Bond. It felt like a hundred years till he pushed the door open.

There was nobody in the room. Just Lissy’s bag, still unpacked: a purple girls’ rucksack covered in stickers and black biro hearts. Her iPod lay on the bedside table. The bedclothes were rumpled.

“No,” Rafe said. “No.”

Where Lissy had lain, there was nothing but a drift of brown winter leaves.

She was gone.

Rafe sank to the floor. His shoulders slumped. He was beaten. I wished I’d not been there to see that.

It’s fine,
I told myself.
Maybe she’s just gone out for a walk
.

Leaving her room locked from the inside. All right. OK.

What could I do? “I’ll call the police.”