Jack and Emily’s mouths were covered with brown parcel tape.
The image registered, but Kate’s mind refused to make sense of it. There was a sound from behind her. She turned.
Lucy stood in the doorway. Her head was tilted up by the blade of the long kitchen knife held to her throat. Ellis stood close behind her. The hand not holding the knife was gripping Lucy’s bare arm, fingers digging into the flesh above the elbow.
“I’m sorry Lucy’s voice was a whisper. Her face was puny and tear-streaked. Her eyes, as she looked at Kate, were terrified. “I’m sorry.” No one moved. The moment stretched out, suspended, then burst with a silent pop of pressure.
Kate stepped backwards. Ellis herded Lucy further into the room. He didn’t take his eyes from Kate. They were bright and feverish, purple smears discolouring the pale flesh underneath. His face was gaunt, and his hair stuck up in matted tufts. There was a straggly growth of beard on his cheeks. He looked like someone Kate had never known.
Lucy’s chest was heaving. “I’m sorry,” she whispered again, and now Kate took in her stained clothes and unwashed hair. She looked thinner. “He threatened the children Kate! He said if we didn’t do what he wanted, he’d — he’d — ” Her gaze flicked to Emily and Angus, agonised. “He’d got a knife. We didn’t have any choice. We tried, Jack — “
“Shut up!”
Lucy fell silent. Her mouth was trembling. Her chin was still held high away from the knife, giving her a model’s self-conscious posture. There was a muffled noise from Jack. Kate glanced at him and saw now that his hands and feet were also bound. There was a yellowing bruise on one temple, and the look he gave Ellis was full of violence. Kate saw him straining against the tape, but it was wrapped around him too many times.
Beside him, Emily was similarly fastened. Tears were rolling down the little girl’s face, and the sight of them filled Kate with outrage.
“They kn-know you,” he said. His mouth twisted. “They’re your friends!”
He stressed “your”. His hand tightened on Lucy’s arm, and she lifted her chin away from the pressure of the knife.
Kate forced herself to stare back at him. She pointed at Emily. “She’s a little girl, for God’s sake!”
She strode over to the settee. “Hold tight,” she said, trying to smile as she took hold of the tape covering the girl’s mouth.
“D-don’t!” Ellis said, as Kate pulled it off. The tape came free with a tearing sound, leaving the skin red underneath. Emily began to cry.
“Happy now?” Kate demanded, glaring at Ellis. He looked confused, almost defensive. She went over to the playpen where Angus was also crying.
“L-leave him!”
She took no notice. Augus’s feet were taped together so that he couldn’t climb out of the pen. She bent to pick him up.
“I said f-fucking leave him!”
Kate froze. Ellis’s eyes were wild, his knuckles white knobs of bone on the knife handle. Its point made a taut depression in Lucy’s skin. Lucy had closed her eyes.
Kate straightened, slowly. “All right. I’m sorry.”
“G-get away from them!”
She moved back into the centre of the lounge. “Look, I know you’re angry with me, but don’t take it out on them. They haven’t hurt you.”
“Shut up!”
“At least let the kids go.”
“I s-said shut up!”
“Look at them, they’re scared to death! They’re only children, for God’s sake! How can you do this to them?”
“Because my child’s dead.”
Kate flinched back from the shout. Ellis’s face was contorted. But he didn’t do anything else. She waited for her breathing to steady.
“I lied to you,” she said, as calmly as she could. “I didn’t have an abortion. I only said it because — “
“You’re lying n-now!”
“No — “
“Fucking liar!” “Listen to me! I haven’t had an abortion — “
“Liar! Lying bbitch!”
His face was twisted. Kate recoiled, silenced by the hate in it.
“He won’t believe you.” Lucy’s voice was quavering.
“Shut up,” Ellis said, flatly.
Tears rolled down Lucy’s cheeks as she stared across at Kate. “I said — I told him you hadn’t, but he wouldn’t believe — “
“Don’t talk about me as if I’m not here!” Ellis screamed, and Kate saw his arm tense. No! she thought as he pulled back the knife, but the blade was unbloodied as he shoved Lucy towards her.
Lucy stumbled forward and almost fell. Kate went to help her, but stopped when Ellis pointed with the kitchen knife, looking at Kate.
“Sit over there,” Ellis told her. “In the chair.”
Lucy did as he said. He turned to Kate.
“Get the t-tape.” He gestured to a roll of parcel tape on the coffee table.
“Listen to me — “
“Get the fucking t-tape!”
She went and picked it up.
“Wrap it round her ankles first, then her wrists.”
“Please, you can’t — “
“Do it.”
Kate looked at where Jack was sitting bound on the settee. His eyes stared at her over the brown strip, trying to communicate some message, but Kate didn’t know what. Beside him, Emily’s bottom lip was quivering. Only Angus was making a noise as he sobbed. Standing this close, Kate could smell the sour, unwashed odour of their bodies. On the floor around them were opened and empty tins of food, some furred with several days’ worth of mould. Wadded up pieces of parcel tape lay among them, too many to count. Kate tasted bile in the back of her throat as she grasped the significance of what she was seeing. How long has he been here.
“Ankles first,” Ellis said.
Kate knelt down in front of Lucy. It wasn’t her moving. She was watching this happen to someone else. She pulled the end of the tape free with numb fingers, but stopped as Jack gave a muffled grunt. She looked up at him. He was staring at her with a desperate intensity. He shook his head, violently.
“Now!”
shouted Ellis, and took a step towards where Angus was snivelling in the playpen. She saw him shift his grip on the knife. With a last glance at Jack, Kate wrapped the tape once around Lucy’s ankles. The red marks from earlier strips formed bands on her flesh.
“Do it again. T-tight.”
She hesitated, then did as he said. The roll of tape dangled, still attached.
Kate felt a weak hope. “I’ve nothing to cut it with.”
“B-bite it.”
The hope went out. She tore the tape with her teeth.
“Now her wrists.”
She could feel the tremor in Lucy’s hands as she bound them. There was no accusation in Lucy’s eyes when they looked at each other, only fear.
“Put a strip over her m-mouth.”
“What good — ?”
“Just do it!”
Lucy shut her eyes, compressing her lips as Kate stuck a piece of tape across them. Kate straightened and threw the tape down.
“Feel safe now, do you?”
Ellis stared at her, then pointed to a corner of the room.
“P-pick that up.”
Kate looked to where he was pointing, and felt as though she had been punched on the heart. Against the wall were materials for Jack’s desktop publishing, a sprawling pile of cardboard boxes and containers. On top was a stack of posters. Seeing them, Kate felt events nudge into a final focus. She wondered, almost absently, whether Ellis had gone there with the intention already in mind, remembering all the conversations he’d had with Jack about printing and publishing. Or if the idea for the posters had only come later, with Lucy and Jack bound and impotent under the threat of his knife, and all the equipment he needed lying idle in the cellar.