No. Fuck it.

He turned around and went to the door. Again he rang the bell.

‘Don’t answer that,’ said Frank Pargeter, holding out the knife threateningly toward Angel. He was a couple of steps away from her, glaring into her eyes, mesmerizing as a snake.

Angel gulped down a breath. She felt light-headed, almost faint, as if this was just another horrible dream, not real. But it was real. He was going to damage her and her aunts and if she let whoever was at the front door go, their only hope of salvation was shot.

The doorbell rang again, insistently. Whoever was there, they wanted an answer.

‘Don’t,’ repeated Frank, waving the knife in Angel’s face. ‘Or I’ll cut that pretty mush of yours to ribbons.’

‘They won’t go away,’ said Angel. ‘Whoever it is, they’ll come round the back. Like you did.’

‘Careless, that,’ said Frank. ‘Leaving your back door unlocked.’

June never locked the back door. Her answer, when questioned about this lax security, was always: ‘They’d have to bring something in first to find anything worth fucking robbing out of this place, wouldn’t they.’

Frank stared into Angel’s eyes. She stood her ground, tried not to shudder. She could feel the malevolence seeping off him like poison gas.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘You answer the door. And you get rid of them, straight away. Whatever they want, we ain’t buying. Get shot of them and then come back in here. Don’t think about running away while you’re there. That would be a very foolish thing to do. If you do that, I promise you – these two are going to get cut up real bad.’

‘I won’t,’ said Angel. She glanced at her aunts – her family, God damn it, and hadn’t she always spat on the idea of family, just like her mother had? Hadn’t she learned all about how fickle, how spiteful and selfish families could be, from Dora? Yes. She had. But now she looked at them there on the floor, beaten and terrified, helpless before this monster and that ape he’d brought with him. She couldn’t run out of the front door and leave them. She had to think of something. Do something.

But what?

152

Farmer had been about to cross the tiny front garden and go down the side of the house to look in the back, when the front door opened and there she was. Angel.

‘Miss O’Brien,’ he said. ‘I need a word with you. I need to . . .’ His voice tailed away and his attention sharpened. She looked very pale, her whole face tense. She was mouthing something at him.

Help me.

Then she made a go-on gesture with her hand. Keep talking. Then another gesture, like she was writing. Paper? Pen?

‘I understand that you were upset earlier,’ said Farmer, dredging words up while he scrabbled for a notebook and pencil. She snatched both off him and wrote something down with a shaking hand. ‘But this is a serious matter, Miss O’Brien, so I would appreciate a few more minutes of your time.’