only option. She hunkered down inside it and lowered the lid. It was dark as a coffin and as silent. She was aware of her chest rising and falling, her moist breath, her heart doing somersaults as she swiped her phone. Still no answer. It was the same on her father’s phone. Sweat oozed under her arms and along her spine.
She tried Kelly’s number then remembered that her friend always left her phone off at night because of cyber bullying. Ringing 999 was something adults did in an emergency. She hesitated, afraid whoever answered would think she was a kid making a hoax call then hit the numbers.
The woman who answered was called Louise. She said she could hear Isobel clearly, even though she was whispering. Louise didn’t sound frightened when Isobel told her about the gun. Instead, she asked questions in her calm voice but Isobel was breathing too fast to answer properly. She would suffocate if she didn’t open the lid. She pushed it just a little and, after taking a long, deep breath, she was able to whisper that she was hiding in the trunk. Sweat was slick on her palm as the weight of the lid bore down on her and banged closed.
‘Speak to me, Isobel,’ said Louise. ‘Tell me where you live. Can you give me your address?’
Light flooded into the trunk as Victor lifted the lid. He shook his head, like she’d done something deliberately to displease him and took her phone from her. He put it on the ground and stamped on it so hard it broke into pieces.
‘Please, stand up, Isobel,’ he said. He sounded polite, the way he used to do when he stayed for dinner. Somehow, that made her even more frightened. He waited until she was standing in front of him before asking her who she had been phoning.
She had to lick her lips before she could answer him. ‘My Mum.’
‘Ah, sweet Sophia. Will she be here soon?’
‘She’s not coming back here. She said she was staying at the hospital with my dad.’
‘You’re a bad liar, Isobel,’ he said. ‘Unfortunately, it’s a problem that runs in your family and needs to be eradicated.’ His hands were shaking. It couldn’t be from fear, no one with a gun could feel fear, so it had to be fury that charged his voice as he ordered her to move before him down the stairs.
‘Where’s your sister?’ he demanded.
‘In bed.’
He didn’t speak until they reached the bottom step.
‘Open the bedroom door,’ he said.
The room was still dark but there was enough light when he twitched the curtains for him to see Cordelia’s blonde head on the pillow, the long fringe hiding her eyes.
He nodded and closed the door quietly behind them. ‘Go to your play room,’ he said and nudged the gun into her back. The thought of Julie crouched in the closet steadied her nerve as they entered the den.
It was brighter outside and the bushes her father had planted in the courtyard glistened. Spiders had spun their webs between the stems and the early morning dewdrops trembled on the delicate spirals. Fairy dust falling over a new day. A different day to any other.
Chapter Forty-Two
Sophy
As soon as Sophy opened the front door and switched on the light she knew. Fear had a taste, as tangy as blood. Her senses quivering, she moved forward into the hall. Dawn filtered through the fanlight window on the front door as she searched for signs of his presence. The faint, woody scent of his aftershave was barely detectable yet she drew it into her nostrils and recognised it. Somewhere in the house, he was waiting for her. This knowledge was instinctive, stomach-clenching. She wanted to believe he had come and gone, a thief in the night, but the glass door of the gun cabinet was slightly ajar. The gap was barely noticeable yet it drew her gaze to the vacant space behind the glass and forced her to a standstill.
She had passed the cabinet so many times without ever really noticing it. Like the paintings that had hung from the walls of Hyland Hall or the grandfather clock with its sturdy pendulums, the gun cabinet was just something ornamental, easily ignored. She imagined the gun with all its deadly power in his hands as she moved silently down the hall and into the girls’ bedroom. Julie’s bed was empty. She must have stayed in Isobel’s bed but a quick glance at the smooth skin with