Osama (18 page)

He opened the door and slipped inside.

He was about to call Caitlin’s name, but something stopped him. The chill darkness of the hallway, perhaps. Or the silence, broken only by the ticking of the grandfather clock that Joe had wound that morning.

The kitchen: empty and dark, the remnants of their lunch still unwashed by the sink. The sitting room on the other side of the hallway: ditto. Joe headed silently up the stairs. The steps were nearly two metres wide, with a winding, burnished-wood banister. Joe walked lightly along the left-hand edge of the treads, to minimize the creaking. The staircase turned back on itself. The banister continued horizontally for two metres along the landing, overlooking the staircase.

At the top of the steps, he stopped and listened.

Silence.

He was on the verge of calling Caitlin’s name again. And again, something stopped him.

The landing was ten metres long and covered with a musty grey carpet. To his left, there was a closed door that led back to the annexe, with its spiral staircase down to the ground floor. At one end of the landing was a door leading to the bathroom. This too was shut. The room Conor slept in was at the far end on the right. His door was fully open but no light was on inside. Opposite this was the room he shared with Caitlin. The door was a couple of inches ajar, and from it emerged a faint, flickering glow.

A glow he hadn’t seen from the window that looked out onto the front.

He approached with care, treading lightly, the tip of his shoe checking for any looseness in the floor that might make a noise before the heel went down. It took him twenty seconds to approach like this. When he was just inches from the doorway, he stopped and breathed deeply.

Then he kicked the door open.

The flickering glow, he saw instantly, came from a single tea light burning on the chest of drawers by the door. Against the left wall was a wardrobe with two long mirrors on the double doors. Opposite it, just to the right of the window, where the curtains were closed, was an old four-poster bed without any drapes.

And on the bed was Caitlin.

‘Jesus!’ She had sat up suddenly when Joe kicked the door in. ‘Joe, what’s the . . . ’

Caitlin closed her eyes, inhaled deeply, then forced a smile to her face. She wasn’t wearing much. A satin vest that did nothing to hide the curve of her breasts; skimpy underwear.

Joe stood stupidly in the doorway. Caitlin approached him, took his hand and led him over to the bed.

‘I’ve missed you,’ she whispered as he sat on the edge of the bed. She clambered up behind him and started massaging his shoulders. ‘Baby, you’re so tense. Take your shirt off.’

Joe removed his shirt; behind him, he could sense Caitlin taking off her vest. When she started massaging again, he could feel her breasts brushing against his back.

‘Lie down,’ she whispered.

He obeyed.

Conor placed his knife and fork together on his empty plate, the way his mum had told him. He didn’t really like fish fingers, but he’d eaten them anyway, as well as the potato waffles, both smeared with ketchup.

‘Looks like blood, doesn’t it?’ Charlie had said as he squirted his own plate. Conor had kept his eyes fixed on his food. Charlie’s dad, who was passing through the kitchen on the way to the fridge, had said, ‘Too thick for blood, sunshine,’ before his mum had asked them to change the subject. After that they’d eaten in silence. They weren’t really getting on, and Conor didn’t want to be there.

‘Half an hour’s telly before bed, boys,’ Charlie’s mum said as she gathered up their plates. They walked through into the front room, where his dad was sitting with a can of beer in his hand reading his magazine. He gave Conor the creeps, and he sat as far away as he could, at the other end of the sofa.

They watched
Doctor Who
on DVD. Conor found it scary, but Charlie was rapt and he didn’t want to look like a wimp. He was glad when Charlie’s mum came in and said, ‘Seven-thirty, boys. Time for bed.’

Conor slept on a blow-up mattress on Charlie’s floor. Or rather, he didn’t sleep. He lay there in the darkness, listening to Charlie’s slow breathing and the sound of the TV downstairs. Thinking of his mum, and how she put on a brave face when it was just the two of them, even though he knew how much she hated it when Dad was away. And thinking about Dad too. How he had been sitting in the bath with the water pouring over him. How he had ripped his Xbox away from the screen when he’d been playing
Call of Duty
– something he was only doing because he thought playing a game like that might make his dad think more of him.

Thinking how Dad was just different this time.

He didn’t know how late it was when he started crying. All he knew was that once he started, he couldn’t stop.

Joe and Caitlin lay together, naked. Spent.

‘What’s that?’ Joe breathed.

‘It’s nothing, baby. Just the old house creaking.’

The curtains were open now, and their bodies were lit more by the moonlight that flooded in through the window than by the tea light. Caitlin had her head on his chest and one hand on his stomach, which she stroked reassuringly. She was warm, and there was something about her touch that made Joe feel more relaxed than he had for months. She was right. No need to be scared of things going bump in the night.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said after a long pause. ‘This wasn’t the homecoming I had in my head. I’ve been—’

‘Shhh . . .’ Caitlin soothed him. ‘I do understand, baby. I know the old Joe’s in there somewhere. I wish I could just make it better.’

‘I’ll make it up to you. And to Conor. I promise.’ I’ll be a dad, he thought to himself. I’ve had enough of being a soldier.

‘You don’t have to promise anything, baby.’ Her voice cracked slightly. ‘It’s enough that you’re back with us.’

Silence. He stared at the ceiling, listening to the soft sound of her breathing. Neither of them felt the need to speak. Joe pretended to himself that he was not keeping an ear out for another creak from elsewhere in the house.

A minute passed. Something caught Joe’s eye.

It was almost nothing. A dot of light, reflecting from the wardrobe mirrors and zigzagging like a firefly across the ceiling before vanishing. Joe sat up immediately, bringing Caitlin with him.

‘Joe, what is it?’

‘Quiet!’ he hissed. ‘Lie down . . .’

‘Joe,
please
. . .’ She was sitting on the edge of the bed, naked, her arms crossed over her breasts as though she was trying to protect herself from something.

‘Lie down.’

But Joe was looking out through the edge of the dirty window, casting around for movement. Clouds were scudding across the sky; the long grass out front was rippling in a light breeze. But apart from that, nothing.

Joe quickly pulled on his jeans, blocking out the sound of Caitlin’s voice, which was tearful once more. ‘Joe . . . it’s all in your head . . .’

But it wasn’t in his head. He’d seen something.

He looked around for anything that would serve as a weapon. Finding nothing, he removed his sturdy leather belt from his jeans and held each end tightly. At least you could strangle someone with it – just.

‘Stay there,’ he said.

The tea light was guttering. Joe snuffed it with his thumb and forefinger before stepping back out into the hallway. He remembered that JJ kept his shotgun and cartridges in a locked cabinet in the basement. If he could get there . . .

He edged down the landing. But he’d only gone a couple of metres when he stopped and stood very still. There was no doubt about it. He could feel a breeze in his face. He peered into the darkness. The door leading to the spiral staircase and the annexe was open.

‘
Caitlin!
’ he roared. ‘
Caitlin, get dressed!
’

Many things happened at once. Two figures appeared, one at the end of the corridor, emerging from the open door, a second from Conor’s bedroom two metres away at Joe’s eight o’clock. But it wasn’t the presence of these figures that momentarily paralysed him with terror. It was what they were wearing: white, all-in-one outfits.

A dazzling light. The man at the end of the corridor was holding a pencil-thin torch. He switched it on, shining the bright halogen beam in Joe’s face. Half-blinded, Joe turned to attack the man who had emerged from Conor’s bedroom. He had a torch too, and so did a third man behind him. Joe hurled himself at them, and they crumpled down onto the floor. Joe only had to touch the guy’s clothing to realize what these men – he assumed they were men – were wearing: reinforced-paper SOCO suits. They covered everything: shoes, bodies, heads. They wore tight yellow rubber gloves, sealed to the SOCO suits with layers of packing tape. Their faces were covered with what felt, as he clawed his hand into the assailant’s face, like tinted cellophane.

A scream. It was Caitlin. ‘He’s got a gun!
Joe!
He’s got a gun!
’

Rage surged through him. He didn’t bother with the belt, but brought his fist down on the nearest man’s face. He could instantly feel the wetness of his blood slipping around between the cellophane and the man’s nose. He rolled off the intruder, ready to jump to his feet and strangle the cunt that was threatening Caitlin. But now the one he’d seen coming in from the annexe door was standing right over him, shining the torch in his face. Joe started to push it away.

But then he saw that the intruder was carrying something else: a Taser rod, about forty centimetres long. A high-voltage strike from that would put him down immediately. He tried to parry it. But too late.

Joe’s whole body juddered for about three seconds as the electricity surged through him. When it stopped, he felt as though the blood in his veins was made of lead, and the room was spinning. All he could do was concentrate on staying conscious. Not easy. He had palpitations in his neck. Nausea . . .

And something else was happening.

One of the intruders – he couldn’t tell which – had pulled down his jeans and taken hold of his penis. Joe felt the sharp pain of a needle being inserted into the urethra, followed by a dreadful sensation that felt as though molten lead was seeping into his abdomen. Still dazzled by the halogen light, he couldn’t see what was happening, but he knew he’d been injected. He tried to push himself up again, but his muscles would barely obey the commands his brain was giving them. The molten-lead sensation spread down his limbs. He dropped the leather belt and collapsed, his body limp, the back of his head motionless against the floor.

He couldn’t move.
Jesus, he couldn’t move
. . .

Caitlin wasn’t screaming any more, but whimpering. Fast, terrified sobs. All three intruders had moved into the room now, and Joe heard them say something, though he couldn’t make out what. Caitlin said ‘No,’ but then there was a scuffling sound. Joe tried to call out, but all that came was a dry, dusty gasp. His eyes rolled as he desperately tried to move his head at least. Nothing doing. Whatever they’d injected had caused muscle failure. Suxamethonium chloride, was Joe’s guess. Very difficult to trace in the bloodstream, especially when injected in that part of his anatomy. The panic inside him was like a bullet ricocheting in a small room. What were they doing? Why hadn’t they just killed him?

What was about to happen?

Movement on the edge of his vision. He managed to roll his eyes forward sufficiently to see Caitlin, still naked, being dragged from the room by two of the intruders. Were they going to rape her? He didn’t think so. The SOCO suits were on for a reason. It wasn’t a comforting thought.

With a cry, Caitlin broke away from them and threw herself at Joe, sobbing uncontrollably. But she only managed to hold on to his immobile body for two or three brief seconds, before the intruders pulled her up again and bundled her into the bathroom. They switched on the light, which cast a confusion of shadows onto the grey hallway carpet, but Joe could not see inside.

He wanted to roar with anger and frustration. More than that, he wanted to move. He couldn’t. He couldn’t even twitch. He could only lie there, a prisoner in his own body. Listening. Caitlin was screaming again. ‘
What are you doing? Oh God, what’re you doing?
’ There was a clattering sound. Some kind of movement in the bathroom that Joe couldn’t work out.

A thump. Caitlin’s screams grew louder. More desperate, if that were possible.

And then two of the intruders were standing above him. They had dropped their torches, and the cellophane in front of their faces was misted from their heavy breathing. They bent over, each grabbing one of his arms and, with obvious effort, pulled the deadweight of his body up from the ground, before dragging him into the bathroom.

What he saw in there horrified him.

The intruders had ripped the shower curtain from its rail and used it to wrap around the naked Caitlin, who was now lying in the bath, her feet at the tap end. She was shaking violently and trying to speak, but the only sound that came from her mouth was of retching. She vomited. It smeared over the front of the shower curtain, lumpy and yellow. One of the intruders was standing over her, but the moment the other two dropped Joe onto his knees, so that his top half drooped over the edge of the bath, this man disappeared.