Close Your Eyes: A gripping psychological thriller with a killer twist!

‘Exactly. Now can you tell me anything that happens in that book that’s a bit like this?’

I watched as Tom’s fear was replaced with a curiosity as he looked around the room, recalling from his favourite book.

‘There’s a bit where Torak is hiding in a cave?’

‘Yes. Good, that’s really good. Can you remember what the cave looked like?’

‘It was cold.’

‘Yes, anything else?’

‘It was dark too. I remember a bit where he could hardly see.’

‘You could say it was a bit like here, couldn’t you’?’

Tom looked around the room, and after a few seconds his little face lit up with the idea of an adventure. ‘Mummy, is this our cave?’

‘Yes, darling, yes it is,’ I said as relief washed over me. This idea might just work. It might just keep him oblivious to it all. ‘Now, Tom, I need you to listen.’ He stopped looking around the room and turned back to me. His eyes were bloodshot, the drugs still heavy in his system. It broke my heart and I had to swallow to stop myself showing it.

‘This is really important. This is really important for our book.’

‘What is, Mummy?’ he asked, his little body shivering. I sat beside him and pulled him close to me again, my arm wrapped around him, rubbing it to warm him up.

‘Someone might come in here, someone who is a baddy in our story.’

‘A baddy?’ I thought about the sheer size of the man who had pushed us into this space. ‘A bear. Like the one Torak had to face?’

‘The Bear is scary, Mummy.’

I turned to face him, our eyes coming together, and I could see fear in his, so I pulled the blanket over his head to make a hood as I spoke. I hoped this would take the intense edge off what I was saying. Hoped it would numb his fear and numb my own.

‘Yeah, The Bear is scary. But remember, it’s all a part of the story.’

‘Okay, Mummy.’

‘And if The Bear comes in, I want you to hide for me. Under the bed.’

‘All right, Mummy.’

‘And you must be really quiet so The Bear doesn’t hear you.’ I could see fear begin to creep back into my little boy. His face so small under the mound of old blankets. ‘Tom, remember darling, this is all a part of the story.’

‘Why?’

‘Because’ …’ I paused, looking around the room, it’s corners sharp and cold in the low light. ‘Because in later chapters, you hiding is really important to us escaping from The Bear, like Torak did. Now, tell me. What do you do if The Bear comes?’

‘Hide.’

‘Where, Tom, where do you hide?’

‘Under the bed. If The Bear comes I hide under the bed.’

‘Say it again.’

‘If The Bear comes, I hide under the bed.’

‘Why?’

‘Because it’s really important to the end of the book?’

‘Yes, exactly. Well done. Good boy, you’re such a good boy.’

I leant in and kissed Tom on the head, his arms wrapping around me tightly.

‘Now, darling, lay down, time to get some sleep. Tomorrow we start a brand-new chapter.’

‘I’m still scared, Mummy.’

‘It’s okay, darling, close your eyes and count to ten, and it will all go away.’

‘Can you sing, Mummy?’

He closed his eyes and I watched him for a moment, trying to think of something I could sing to him. Then it came to me. ‘Everything’s all right’ from Jesus Christ Superstar. The same song I sang when he was a tiny baby, crying as his nappy was being changed. The same song I sang when he had a fever, ear ache and chickenpox. And now, the song that I would sing when we were kidnapped. As the words came out, the melody was scratchy, but it seemed to do the trick.

I could feel my eyes begin to fill with tears, and looking at my baby I could see him drift into a worry-free sleep. We had been taken, I didn’t know why, I didn’t know who by, and I didn’t know if I could keep my baby safe from them. I didn’t know if Sean was okay or if Daniel knew what had happened to us. But I couldn’t focus on them now. Now I needed to focus on keeping Tom from harm and how I would get us out of here.

Chapter 11 (#ulink_60506c25-a875-539e-8233-5613ce1dbc37)

Daniel

Barnack

2

January 2018, 1.42 a.m.

I had sat paralysed for over an hour trying to work out what I had taken all those years ago. I thought about me being mixed up in something bad and couldn’t see it. Was I a bad person? Had I been involved in scraps as a kid? Surely everyone has at some point, especially adolescent boys, but something like this? Something that created an unimaginable backlash? Something that meant two of the most important people in my world were now in danger? I couldn’t get there and because I couldn’t, I struggled processing the reality of what was happening. I fought with my memories, only seeing outlines of shadows as they hid from me, mocking me when I couldn’t find them. I could almost hear them laughing. Taunting in their tones, ‘You’ll never know what you did.’ It felt impossible to move. I wrestled with the grey spaces in my head, trying to pull something clear from it. But my past was like a bait ball, circling quickly, and changing direction before I could grab hold, confusing me. Yes, I’d managed to grab small moments in the past year, lots coming in the last week, but there was nothing to suggest my past was caught up in something that was worth kidnapping for.

Something worth killing for.

The image of Sean’s mutilated body was there with each alternate blink. Every other being Rachael and Thomas in the van. Blink, a dead friend. Blink, my child and his mother, her fear etched on her face. I tried not to close my eyes until I had no choice. My vision blurred out of focus, eyes stinging through forcing myself to blink as little as I could. My mind, empty. The shock setting in. Then, from a dark corner of it, I heard a voice, quiet and disrupted as it echoed from the deepest, darkest parts of me. It told me to start the car. Get moving. He sounded like a soldier in one of the war movies I loved. Another moment of confabulation. But it was right. Sitting and waiting for something to happen was not going to help anyone. There was nothing I could do for Sean, he was dead. But Rachael and Thomas needed me. Katie too. I wanted to call her, but her number, along with every other I had, was on my phone which was now broken. Foolishly, I had done as I was instructed without making a note of her number. So, going onto the Safari app, I logged in to Facebook and sent her a direct message. I told her to send me her number when she could. I told her to not leave the hospital, under any circumstances. After I hit ‘send’ I felt more in control somehow and I knew the first thing I needed to do was get rid of my car. The police would eventually discover Sean and when they did, they would see the struggle also, telling them Rachael and Thomas were gone, and then, they would want to talk to me. My registration plate would be the first thing they would look for after they had banged on my door and discovered I’d taken flight. That part would be easy to do. It almost felt natural to hide. Driving from the layby, I looked for somewhere discreet to leave it. Ideally, somewhere close to my mum’s house. Then, I needed to speak to her, ask her questions about before 2003. I had to ask her about Michael.

Up ahead I saw an entrance to a lane which led to one of the many fields on the outside of Stamford, near Barnack. I veered off the road and drove for about a mile, looking for a gap in the wall that surrounded the Burghley estate where I could dump my car. It didn’t take long to find one. Pulling onto the verge I turned off the headlights and carefully drove behind a line of trees.

I got out of the car and went to the edge of the road and looked back. The rear of it could still be seen, so releasing the handbrake, I pushed it further behind. I checked again, this time satisfied. From there I figured it was about a mile, as the crow flies, to my mother’s, and at this hour, moving across the grounds of Burghley House, I was unlikely to bump into anyone. So, lowering my head I began running across the lifeless, frozen dirt, the cold air making it impossible to control my breathing.

My slippers made it impossible to run properly so I took them off and carried them. Within moments my bare feet completely numbed, like two slabs of raw meat on the end of my ankles, But at least I could move quicker. After about ten minutes of running and stumbling, I stopped and doubled over to catch my breath, wishing I had looked after myself better in recent years. But I didn’t let myself stop for long. Instead I ran onwards across the uneven, frozen ground until I tripped on a stone and hit the unforgiving earth face first. Dirt broke off from the frozen soil smearing across my face, my teeth knocking together. I could feel blood form and drip from my lip. But that didn’t matter. I got up and started to run again harder and faster until my lungs screamed, and the uneven soil was replaced by tarmac.

In the street light I could see blood on my jumper. I wiped my mouth, and more blood came. Feeling my bottom lip with my finger and thumb I could feel the tear where I had bitten clean through it, but I ignored it, it wasn’t my priority right now. Trying to move as quickly and discreetly as I could back down into the high street I heard a car coming towards me and had to duck into The George pub’s ancient archway that led patrons to the heavy oak front door. My brain immediately jumped to the conclusion that it was the police. But it wasn’t, just some kids in a small Ford Fiesta, vape smoke, or possibly the smoke of a joint bellowing out of one of the windows. I watched as they passed, talking and laughing, two girls in the back dancing to the loud music that seemed to power the small motor up the hill.