Wish You Were Dead

20

Freeing himself from Cleo’s arms, Roy turned his head away. The light was coming from Bruno.

‘Wow, those are so cool, Papa!’

‘Bruno!’ Cleo said sternly. ‘Not at his face.’

Roy looked back and saw Bruno pointing his phone torch at the floor.

‘They took our phones,’ Cleo said.

‘But not mine, Papa,’ Bruno boasted. ‘I hid it in my shoe!’

‘Well done, good thinking!’ Roy replied.

‘I read it in an Alex Rider book!’ he said proudly. ‘He did that!’

‘Darling, you’re bleeding — your arm,’ Cleo said.

‘It’s OK, it’s nothing — I just caught it on something.’

‘It’s bleeding badly!’ she insisted.

‘We’ll deal with it later. We need to find Jack.’

Roy told a reluctant Kaitlynn and Bruno to stay with Noah, and told them to lock themselves in, for their safety, just in case there was someone else here. He stood with Cleo on the landing, telling her they would walk down very slowly and he would warn her when they came to an obstacle. The door behind them opened and he saw the bright beam of Bruno’s torch.

‘I’m coming, too!’ the boy announced firmly, as the door closed and was locked behind him.

Roy thought for a moment. Should he insist he stay up here with the nanny and Noah? He didn’t want him to see the horror of the two bodies. On the other hand, his torch would be helpful to guide Cleo down these dangerous steps. ‘OK,’ he said, reluctantly.

He led Cleo and Bruno very slowly back down the stairs, passing the fuse box and the blackened wires around the rail. The bright beam of Bruno’s phone torch briefly dazzled him as it shone on Curtis Esmonde’s legs.

‘Who’s that?’ Bruno asked.

Trying to block the boy’s view, to shield him from the horror of the corpse, Roy ushered him on down. ‘Oh, he’s just my old mate, Curtis,’ he said, matter-of-factly. ‘He thought it would be nice to drop in and see us. Thought it would be a bundle of laughs.’

But Bruno, very firmly, stopped and shone the beam towards Esmonde’s face. Just in time, Roy gripped the boy’s shoulders and turned him away.

‘Is that the man who made us go up the tower and took Mama and Kaitlynn’s phones?’ Bruno asked. ‘There was a horrible woman, too. They said they would kill us all if we did not obey.’

Cleo took Bruno’s phone and knelt beside the body. She’d seen enough corpses in her career to know instantly when someone was dead. She turned to Roy. ‘What happened?’ she asked, shocked.

Roy looked at his wife, and even in the ghostly green glow saw the kindness in her face. That kindness was one of the many things that he had fallen in love with. But fury about what Curtis Esmonde and Monica Stokes had planned for him and Cleo — and the rest of his family — still raged like a furnace inside him.

‘I’ll tell you later.’

‘What’s happened to him, Roy?’ she asked again, insistently, her voice trembling. ‘He’s got burn marks.’ She frowned.

‘Is he drunk, Papa?’ Bruno called out.

‘Yes, Bruno. He’s very drunk.’

Before either could ask any more questions, Roy ushered them on down, along the landing and then down again into the hall. Cleo briefly lit up the dead woman’s face with the torch beam.

‘That’s her,’ she said, moving the beam swiftly away. ‘Roy, what happened?’ she asked again.

Ignoring the question, Roy led the way into the dining room, entered the kitchen, walked through a huge cold room at the far end and saw a closed door. Opening it, warning Cleo and Bruno to stay back, he went down a steep staircase into a vast wine cellar. To his left he saw a thick oak door. He tried the handle and, sure enough, it was locked. He pulled the second large, ancient key from his pocket, inserted it and twisted. Nothing happened. He tried again. Then again.