See How They Run

by Tom Bale

Genres: Crime Fiction; Psychological Thrillers; Suspense

Synopsis

How far would you go to save your family?

In the dead of night, new parents Alice and Harry French are plunged into their worst nightmare when they wake to find masked men in their bedroom. Men ruthless enough to threaten their baby daughter, Evie.

This is no burglary gone wrong.

The intruders know who they’re looking for – a man called Edward Renshaw.

And they are prepared to kill to get to him.

When the men leave empty handed, little do Alice and Harry realise that their nightmare is just beginning. Is it a case of mistaken identity? Who is Renshaw? And what is he hiding?

One thing is clear – they already know too much.

As Alice and Harry are separated in the run for their lives, there is no time to breathe in their fight to be reunited. And with their attackers closing in, there is only one choice:

STAY ALIVE. OR DON’T.

Terrifying, unputdownable and full of twists and turns, this stunning thriller will have you on the edge of your seat right to the very last page.

 

Release date: May 6, 2016

Publisher: Bookouture

Print pages: 452

Sample

Any noise in the night could wake him now. Eight weeks since the birth of his daughter and Harry barely remembered how it felt to sleep for seven hours straight and wake naturally, refreshed and ready for a new day. All the warnings from their friends about the misery of sleep deprivation had turned out to be spot on.

The sound had come and gone by the time he registered he was awake, eyes glued shut, heart beating fast. Not the baby, he was sure of that. It must have been something outside, perhaps in the alley along the back where urban foxes prowled.

Harry waited, trying to recreate the feeling he’d had, the sense of a dream interrupted by a … a thud, a scrape: a surreptitious noise, as though something – someone – was trying to go unheard.

Or maybe it had just been part of the dream itself. Either way, now he was awake he ought to take a look out of the window; check on Evie and see how much time there was before her next feed …

Harry knew he should do these things but he couldn’t. He was frozen in place, eyes tightly shut, not even daring to breathe.

There was an intruder in their home.

It wasn’t a rowdy neighbourhood by any means, their tidy terraced street. Although modest in size, the houses were highly valued for their proximity to the railway station, to good schools and friendly corner shops and vibrant pubs, to all the pleasures that Brighton had to offer. Not quite in the heart of the city but close to one of its main arteries, the Port Hall district between Dyke Road and Stanford Road was arty, upmarket and conservatively bohemian – so letterboxes bore stickers refusing junk mail on environmental grounds, even while the parking bays were choked with 4x4s.

A lot of young families lived here, Harry and Alice’s being one of the youngest. There weren’t too many people coming home in the early hours, although a woman over the road worked shifts at the hospital. In the city beyond there was always the drone of traffic: sirens, car horns, slamming doors and screeching tyres, and sometimes the distant, deep rumble of trains leaving Brighton station. Depending on the season, there was birdsong to a greater or lesser degree, most of it charming and rarely disruptive, the exception being the caustic screech of the seagulls – or the bloody seagulls, as they were known round here.

All these things contributed to the soundtrack of Harry’s sleeping hours; all were familiar and expected and unthreatening. What he’d just heard was of a different nature altogether.

But no one could have broken into the house without waking him, could they? Even if they had, they’d be satisfied with stealing what was on offer in the living room: the Blu-ray player and the PS4. Some cash, maybe a phone or an iPad. Harry couldn’t recall precisely what was lying around, but he was sure of one thing: thieves were opportunists. There was no way they’d risk climbing the stairs or waking the occupants of the house.

So why, then, did Harry feel there was somebody right here, in their room?

Slowly, very slowly, he let out the breath that had caught in his lungs. He opened his eyes, remembering how next door’s cat had given him a few scares in the past: that kettle drum boom when it leapt on to the dustbin; and its plaintive wail, like the cry of a tortured child. Harry willed it to make a noise now, to break the illusion of danger.

Nothing.

Because it wasn’t an illusion.

His focus switched to the space around him. Alice was sleeping heavily and so, for once, was the baby. When the time was right they planned to move Evie to the nursery next door. For now she slept in a Moses basket on a fold-out stand, positioned close enough to Alice’s side of the bed that she could reach out and soothe her back to sleep at the first hint of a restless murmur.

Evie had her own breathing pattern, a rate so rapid it brought to mind someone panting to complete a race, and a distinctive snore that managed to sound enchanting even on the nights when Harry was so tired he wanted to claw out his eyes and fill the sockets with concrete.

There was always a smell of milk in the room, Evie’s signature fragrance, but now Harry realised it was competing with something else: a sour top note of male sweat and stale clothing that had no place in here.

And other breathing. Was he imagining that?

He locked up every muscle, devoted his full attention to listening, listening …

And then the voice of a stranger spoke from the shadows.

‘Wake up, sleepyhead.’

Alice reacted with an urgent flailing of limbs. She probably thought she’d overslept and missed a feed. Harry tried to speak, wanting to find a way to keep her silent and still, because it had occurred to him that Alice’s best hope of safety – of survival – was if the intruder believed Harry was alone in the room. But the words wouldn’t come, and his rational mind knew it was a ludicrous idea. The street light filtering through the curtains was more than sufficient to see how many people were present.

Three.

And that thought – the knowledge that his baby daughter was here too – made him sit up in a panic, his mind racing. The bed trembled and Alice groaned and stretched, turning towards the Moses basket.

‘Harry …’

‘Ssshh.’

He rubbed his eyes, trying to make sense of a shadow, a shape, just to the right of the door. It took a step towards the bed as Alice, twisting in his direction, said, ‘She’s sound asleep. Why—?’

‘Look.’ Harry lifted his arm to point, wondering vaguely if he was hallucinating from sleep deprivation. Oh yes, please: to hear Alice laugh and say there’s no one here but us.

But Alice didn’t laugh. She sucked in a breath as if to scream, then choked it off, probably acting on the same instinct that had driven Harry’s response: to keep Evie asleep, to protect her, no matter what else happened.

And still the figure waited at the end of the bed. It was a man, tall and broad, but there were no features apparent, nothing visible in the silhouette.

‘Get out of here.’ Harry barely recognised his own voice. He was ashamed of the tremor in it, as if such a weak command could send a burglar packing.

In response the man turned slightly, checking over his shoulder. There was another trickle of laughter. That was when Harry knew this wasn’t a burglary at all.

It was something much, much worse.

In what seemed like an act of dark sorcery, the bedroom door swung open. The overhead light snapped on, a cold dose of reality on a bleak November morning. Both of them jumped at the shock, and Alice just managed to stifle a shriek.

A second man entered the room. He was shorter and thinner than the first, but otherwise looked the same. They were dressed in black overalls, along with thin leather gloves, and latex masks – a clown face on the first man, and Freddy Krueger on the second.

Their footwear was covered with plastic bags, secured around the ankles with rubber bands. When he saw that, Harry’s terror jumped to a whole new level. The fact that they’d covered not just their hands and faces but their shoes, their entire bodies wrapped up to avoid leaving traces of DNA: these men weren’t amateurs. They knew exactly what they were doing.

Maybe Alice had picked up on that; maybe she was choosing to ignore it. ‘J-jewellery box,’ she stuttered. ‘On the dressing table. T-take it, and go.’

The second man snorted, the noise muffled by the mask into a weak impression of Darth Vader. In her crib Evie gave a snuffle, and slowly the man turned his head in her direction.

Harry tensed, ready to throw himself across the bed if either of the intruders took a step towards his daughter.

The first man said, ‘Where is he?’

Silence.

Harry cleared his throat. ‘What?’

‘Renshaw. Where is he?’

Alice shook her head, perplexed. ‘Who?’

‘Renshaw. Edward Renshaw.’

The tone was impatient, but not particularly nervous. And quite well-spoken, rather than the gruff Estuary accent that Harry had instinctively expected.

He and Alice stared at the two men, then exchanged a baffled glance. It flashed through Harry’s mind that years from now this event might form the basis of a humorous anecdote. They’d make new friends on holiday, and in the course of a boozy evening Alice would say, ‘Tell them about the time those thugs invaded our house in the middle of the night, and it turned out they’d got the wrong address!’

Surfing a wave of relief, he said, ‘We don’t know anyone of that name,’ and Alice overlapped with: ‘Never heard of him.’

The first man looked at each of them in turn. His eyes were barely visible behind the mask but the intensity of his gaze was unmistakable.

‘Edward Renshaw. Early sixties, Middle Eastern. Dark skin, dark hair.’

‘And he’s a fat fucker.’ The second man’s voice was coarser than his partner’s. He held his hand up at shoulder height. ‘About this tall.’

‘He uses other names. Grainger. Miller. And he might call himself Doctor, not Mister.’

‘We don’t know him.’ Harry felt sick with the desire to be believed. ‘This is a mistake.’

‘How long’ve you lived here?’ the second man demanded.

‘Two years, next February.’ Alice sounded so confident that it gave Harry extra strength.

He added: ‘Before us, it was a woman in her eighties. She had to go into a home. Mrs …’

‘Stevens,’ Alice finished for him. ‘Beryl Stevens.’

Harry nodded vigorously. He felt sure they were coming across as honest, genuine people, doing their utmost to be co-operative in extremely stressful circumstances.

Alice was saying, ‘Beryl was a spinster. She lived alone—’

The first man cut her off: ‘You had a parcel.’

Harry felt Alice flinch at the interruption, her knee jerking against his leg. He glanced at her, worried that in desperation she’d invent a lot of nonsense to send them away. She was staring rigidly at the man in the Freddy Krueger mask, who had taken something from the pocket of his overalls.

A knife.

‘Some time this week,’ the first man said. ‘The parcel was addressed to Mr E Grainger.’

Evie was stirring, kicking at her blankets. The bright light and the noise must have woken her. In any case, she was due a feed pretty soon: according to the bedside clock, it was a little after three a.m.

‘Why would we get a parcel for this Grainger, or Renshaw?’ Harry tried to sound defiant rather than angry. ‘He doesn’t live here. We have no idea who he is.’

‘It came to this address. 34 Lavinia Street.’

Alice raised her hand, as if in a classroom. ‘You realise there’s also a Lavinia Drive in Brighton? And a Lavinia Crescent. The post can get mixed up. We’ve had junk mail for 34 Lavinia Crescent before now.’

The first man sighed, as though she and Harry were testing his patience. ‘I don’t think you appreciate how serious this is.’

His partner nodded. ‘They need a lesson.’

For a moment Harry didn’t understand: in the shock, his brain had seized up. It wasn’t until the second man took a step towards the Moses basket that he got it.

Hurting Evie: that was the lesson.

‘Don’t you touch her!’ Harry yelled. He flung himself forward, colliding with Alice as she made the same attempt to protect the baby. The man jabbed the knife in her direction, warning her off.

‘Relax,’ the first man drawled. ‘He’s good with kids.’

He chuckled at his own joke, sounding absurdly relaxed. Harry looked round and saw that he now held a gun, a small black pistol.

‘Back where you were,’ he told Harry. ‘And lie still. A dead hero is no use to anyone.’

Harry had little choice but to comply, but the sense of his own impotence was like a fist clenched around his heart. Alice was ordered to lie alongside him and she obeyed, both of them shaking so hard they could feel the vibrations through the mattress. From Evie came a mewling cry of protest: I didn’t wake you. Why have you woken me?

The man with the knife grabbed her blanket and whipped it out of the crib, like a magician unveiling a glorious surprise. And now Evie lay exposed, so tiny and vulnerable in her pink floral sleepsuit that the terror Harry felt – the terror of losing her – was almost more than he could bear.

Alice reached for his hand, squeezing it as intensely as she’d done in the closing stages of a long and difficult labour. Harry felt even more useless to her now than he had then.

‘A lesson,’ the knife man said, and in one swift movement he clutched the front of Evie’s sleepsuit and hoisted her into the air, as though their precious daughter was a tatty old ragdoll, something to be tossed aside and forgotten.

Harry felt Alice slump against him. After a second or two when she must have been struck dumb with shock, Evie let out a wail that seemed to split the air like a klaxon. But despite the effect it had on her parents, it wasn’t the first time she’d cried out in the night, and Harry knew it wouldn’t be enough to alert their neighbours to what was happening here.

The cry galvanised Alice into action. She made a lunge for her daughter, ignoring the man with the gun, but his partner dodged back and dangled Evie out of reach, her sleepsuit stretching like a bungee rope. He lifted both hands to chest height, bringing baby and blade within touching distance.

‘No sudden moves or I’ll slit her throat. Kid this size, there ain’t much blood to spare. You wanna see it draining out on your carpet?’

Alice whimpered, helplessly. Harry thought he did as well: the image too horrifying to contemplate.

‘Be a waste, though,’ the knife man went on. ‘What d’ya reckon, on the open market?’

The question was directed at the gunman, who gave a curt shake of his head. He moved to Harry’s side of the bed. Point blank range.

‘My friend here – let’s call him “Freddy” – is a psychopath. He could skin your baby like a rabbit and whistle while he did it. But he won’t need to, because you’re going to co-operate. Aren’t you?’

Harry couldn’t speak. His mind had snagged helplessly on the idea of Evie being killed or disfigured because her parents had failed to protect her. It was only when Alice let out a sob that he managed to nod. Yes, we’ll co-operate.

‘Let’s relax, shall we?’ The gunman signalled to ‘Freddy’, who dragged the Moses basket a safe distance from the bed and dropped Evie into it. Her sharp scream was followed by frantic uneven gasps, as if she had forgotten how to breathe.

‘Please,’ Alice cried. ‘She’s only eight weeks old. Let me take her.’

‘Can’t do that,’ Freddy said.

‘I’m begging you. She doesn’t deserve this.’

‘You’re right,’ the gunman said. ‘Your loyalty to Renshaw isn’t worth the life of your daughter.’

Harry opened his hands, the sort of gesture you make to appeal for reason. Deep down he knew it was futile, but it was ingrained in him to be sensible, and polite, and it was equally ingrained to hope others would treat him in the same way.

‘We can’t tell you anything about this man Renshaw because we have no idea who he is. No idea at all. So it’s impossible to give you what you want. Don’t you see that?’

The silence that followed had a different quality to it. Harry wondered if these men had been expecting such a deadlock; hoping for it, even. This felt like silence as a cue to action.

He was right. The gunman darted forward and shoved the muzzle of the gun against Harry’s chest. His other hand came down hard on Harry’s face, forcing his head back on the pillow. Alice tried to scream but Freddy used the baby’s blanket as a gag, shoving a fistful of it into her mouth. Startled by the movement, Evie began to sob again.

Then he pulled the duvet off their bed and flung it in the corner. He turned back, a hungry gleam in his eyes as he studied Alice’s body in her silk pyjamas.

‘Undress.’

The order was emphasised with a casual swipe of the blade, which pierced the skin on Alice’s neck, drawing a few bright beads of blood. Harry writhed in fury but the gunman held him firm, pinning his head to the side to make sure he had a clear view of his wife.

Her face rigid with fear, Alice had started to unbutton the pyjama top when Freddy lost patience and ripped it open. She was wearing a nursing bra, which he cut with savage haste. At the sight of her exposed breasts he made a noise in his throat, an involuntary purring that turned Harry’s stomach.

‘I’ll give you another chance to tell us,’ the gunman said. ‘But not until my friend here has had a taste.’

Freddy sniggered. ‘Taste. Got that right.’

Alice was shivering, arms flat at her side; too scared to try and cover herself. The man crouched by the bed, and Harry saw his wife’s legs twitch, her instinct urging her to move. Fight or flight – but neither was possible.

Harry had to resist the impulse to shut his eyes. Hiding from this would be even more shameful than watching it happen. Freddy was leaning over, his head a few inches from Alice’s stomach. He seemed to be inspecting the effects of childbirth: the loose folds of skin, the silvery stretch marks that were – as Harry kept assuring her – fading a little more each day.

Freddy nudged the mask up over his chin. Harry caught a glimpse of jowly stubble and wet lips; a fat pink tongue lolling over the bottom lip as his mouth opened, then clamped down on one of Alice’s milk-heavy breasts. She cried out again, but it was muffled by the blanket. The sound of the man sucking greedily – feeding on her – was far louder, and it was revolting.

Harry bucked and fought, pushing the other man’s hand away to free his head, not caring in that moment if he was shot. Death seemed a better option than this, to lie helpless while they—

Except that Alice’s gaze was locked on to his, pleading with him not to fight, not to die. Then the gunman rammed a fist into Harry’s stomach and for a second the pain was everything. He groaned and coughed, tasted bile and swallowed it down and finally lay still in shame and surrender.

Freddy pulled his mouth away from Alice’s breast with a loud smacking noise, milk dribbling over his lips as he stood up and put the mask back in place. ‘Weird taste.’

‘You wouldn’t want it in your tea?’ the gunman asked.

‘Nah. But I’d still do her.’ Freddy sniffed, indicating Harry. ‘Tie him up and we can both have a go.’

‘No!’ Harry cried. ‘You’ve got the wrong house. The wrong people. For the sake of my wife and daughter I’ll tell you anything. Anything at all. But it won’t be the truth. Because the truth is that we don’t know the man you’re looking for, and I think you realise that.’

The speech rolled out of him like the last desperate plea of a condemned man. It was accompanied by visions of a funeral procession. Three black hearses, three coffins, one of them so tiny that it looked like a toy …

Harry waited. It was the longest, most agonising wait of his life. He had no idea what their response would be. Perhaps no words at all. Perhaps just a gunshot or the slash of a blade. And all the time Evie was crying, needing to be comforted, and there was nothing he or Alice could do to help her.

Finally the gunman walked round to where his partner was standing, spotted something on the floor and bent to pick it up. As he did, he began to speak.

‘These are the rules. You don’t go to the police. If you do, we’ll know. However you go about it, we’ll find out.’

He was holding a pack of wet wipes. He fumbled with the package, hampered by his gloves, then pulled out several wipes in a thick clump.

‘You won’t see us, but we’ll be watching. You report this, and your baby will die. The police won’t protect you. No matter what they claim, they can’t. Not twenty-four hours a day. Not week in, week out, month after month. Do you understand?’

Harry nodded. Alice didn’t. She seemed too traumatised to move.

The gunman turned to her and first tugged the makeshift gag out of her mouth, then used the wipes to clean her breast. Removing DNA.

‘When we find Renshaw – which we will – he’ll be questioned. If it turns out you knew him, or helped him in any way, the same thing applies. We’ll take your daughter when you least expect it. Then we’ll come for your wife. Then you. Am I clear?’

Harry nodded again.

‘Say it.’

‘Yes. I get you.’

The gun was aimed at Alice. ‘You?’

‘Yes.’ The gun didn’t move, so she said it again. ‘Yes. I understand.’

A snort from Freddy, but Harry had the impression that he wasn’t completely in agreement. Unlike his partner, Freddy was in no hurry to leave.

Harry realised he’d been too quickly seduced by the prospect of release. This man, this psychopath, could so easily reach out and cut Evie, by way of a parting shot, and there would be nothing they could do to stop it happening.

Then the gunman said, ‘Give it back to them,’ and Freddy scooped Evie up with one hand, provoking a fresh howl of anguish from the baby. He dumped her down on Alice, who immediately wrapped her daughter in a protective embrace, pulling the duvet up and turning away from the two men.

‘Stay exactly where you are for ten minutes. And no police.’

‘Yeah, and don’t wake up tomorrow and remember this any different from how it was,’ Freddy snarled. ‘Right now you’re both shitting yourselves at the thought of what we could do to you. Keep that in mind, all right?’

They backed up to the door, the gun still raised, and then they slipped out.

Harry and Alice could barely have moved if they’d wanted to. They listened to the intruders descending the stairs, the rattle of a bolt being drawn back. The front door opened and then shut, firmly, and the men were gone.

It was over.

It was only just beginning.

Harry took a deep breath and rolled out of bed, prompting a cry from Alice. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Ssh.’ Crouching, he hurried out of the bedroom. His legs felt rubbery, unreliable, but they just about got him into the nursery, where a small window offered a better view of the street.

With the room in darkness, he didn’t think they’d notice him peering through the blind. He could see a van waiting in the road outside, without its lights on. A Renault, possibly. The two men clambered aboard, sliding the side door shut as the van pulled away.

He risked a better look, his face pressed against the slats in the blind. The van reached the end of the street, too far away for him to read the number plate. Brake lights flashed. A left turn into Port Hall Road would take it towards Dyke Road, which offered the quickest way out of the city, but the van went right, perhaps intending on a more complicated route over the railway lines and down to Preston Park.

Or maybe it wasn’t going anywhere. Maybe it was just circling the block.

What had the gunman said? We will be watching you.

As Harry moved away from the window he heard Alice coughing and retching. He ran into their bedroom and found her sitting with her head tipped forward, awkwardly holding Evie clear of the vomit which covered the duvet.

‘Are you okay?’ He shook his head: stupid question. ‘Here, let me take—’

‘No!’ The venom in her response made him recoil. Only then did her expression soften. ‘She’s feeding. She’s calm.’

Harry fetched a couple of flannels and a towel, then stripped the bed and put on a new sheet and duvet while Alice stood for a minute, wiping her face as Evie continued to feed.

‘How’s your neck, where he cut you?’

She dabbed the flannel against the wound, then inspected it for blood. ‘Just a scratch. It’s fine.’

Harry grunted, but said nothing. The reluctance to discuss it was like a wall of sandbags piled up between them.

Dumping the dirty bedding in the bath, there was a moment when he had to grip the side of the tub while jagged lights and colours tore at his vision. He realised he had a pounding headache, hardly surprising given the lump coming up where he’d been hit with the gun. Briefly, he fantasised about swallowing half a box of paracetamol and then lying down somewhere dark.

Except that the van might be circling the block.

He checked on Alice again, and only just stopped himself from repeating that dumbest of questions: Are you all right?

Never better, thanks. You?

Instead, he said to her, ‘I need to go downstairs.’

‘Be careful.’

He shrugged off her concern, but at the top of the stairs he hesitated. Double switches controlled the lights on the landing and in the hall. He turned both of them on and hurtled down the stairs, his bare feet sliding over the carpeted treads. At the bottom he came to a sudden halt, perhaps hoping to trick another intruder into revealing himself.

But there was no one to trick. They’d been and gone.

The front door was shut. Harry slid the top bolt back in place and added the security chain. He opened the cupboard under the stairs, where his meagre collection of tools was kept. He might have been a reluctant DIY-er at best, but every home needed a claw hammer, didn’t it?

Right now it seemed like the wisest purchase he’d ever made. Not much use against a gun, but he wouldn’t dwell on that. It felt good and hefty in his grip, and he allowed himself a brief fantasy where he used it to smash the skulls of his tormentors.

Then he checked the downstairs rooms: the modest kitchen and long, narrow lounge-diner. Nothing was broken or ransacked, but he had the impression that some items had been moved since last night, as if during a cursory search. Had the intruders been looking for the parcel? Or for evidence that the mysterious Renshaw lived here?

In the dining room he discovered that the patio doors had been forced. There was no visible damage to the timber frame, and the doors could still be closed, but the latch wouldn’t hold them in place. As a short-term measure he wound some parcel string round the handles, binding the doors together. That wasn’t robust enough, he decided, so he wedged a dining chair under them as well.

The kitchen window was another concern: too easy to break and climb through. His answer was to shut the internal door and stand the ironing board against it: a crude but effective early warning device. Anyone opening the door would tip the ironing board over, and the resulting clatter was bound to wake him.

Huh. As if he’d ever sleep again, after this.

He carried the claw hammer upstairs, unsure whether it represented a show of strength or an admission of weakness.

Alice was lying on her back, eyes shut, so she didn’t see him slip the hammer under his pillow. Evie was nestled against her, awake but sated. The aura of calm struck Harry as absurd. Surely it was better to acknowledge that something fundamental had occurred? Confront the turmoil that lay just beneath the surface?

Easier said than done. The only saving grace was that Evie, at least, would carry no memory of this into her future. He and Alice, on the other hand, were indelibly marked by it. He knew that by the way she opened her eyes, regarded him for a moment then quickly looked down. An image popped into his head – of the man in the Freddy Krueger mask sucking on her breast. He forced it away.

‘Have they gone?’ she asked.

He nodded. ‘Drove off in a van – maybe a Renault. I couldn’t get the number.’

He decided not to mention which way it had turned. Instead he told her about the patio doors, and how he had made them secure. While he was talking Evie began to wriggle, her eyes fluttering.

‘This light’s too bright,’ Alice said.

Harry put his bedside lamp on, then switched off the overhead light. He climbed into bed and lay on his side, gently stroking tufts of Evie’s light brown hair.

‘Is she definitely all right? The way he was holding her …’

‘I checked. I think there’s a bruise on her stomach—’ She choked up. Harry reached over Evie and rested his hand on her shoulder.

‘We’ll be okay,’ he said. But when he heard the tone of his voice he wasn’t completely sure that he believed it.

Alice said nothing, and Harry had no idea what she was thinking. He lay beside her and fretted, afraid that anything he said would make it worse. Then a tiny snore caught his attention; Evie was sound asleep.

‘Shall I put her in the crib?’ he whispered.

‘Not yet.’

Alice’s voice didn’t sound quite right; Harry sat up and saw there were tears streaming down her cheeks. She looked like someone in the grip of an uncontrollable grief, and yet she wasn’t making a sound.

‘Alice—’

‘Ssh! Please, I’m not ready …’ She sniffed. ‘I’ll be fine. This is how I’m dealing with it.’

Harry had no choice but to give her that space, if it was what she thought was best. But it worried him all the more. He wanted to be actively supporting her; not lying here like a mannequin.

Besides, there was one thing they had to talk about – and it had to be now.

‘We haven’t called the police.’

It felt safer, somehow, to phrase it as an observation. Harry was aware that he didn’t want to influence Alice’s opinion in any way. He needed to know what she thought, because he had no idea what to think himself.

She’d stopped crying, and her voice sounded more like normal, though the tone was flat. ‘You heard what they said. We can’t.’

‘I don’t see how they’d know.’

‘They’re going to be watching.’

Still debating whether to tell her which way the van went, Harry said, ‘Do you reckon that’s likely??