Jack aimed the torch’s beam into the depths of the barn. Hay bales were stacked up in there. Favourite playground for the rats. But this wasn’t how Trix normally reacted to rats. Usually she’d be off in there, chasing them, getting her arse chewed – or her ears – and running up more sky-high bills for him to pay.

‘Someone in here?’ he called out.

He moved the torch’s beam and yes – there was someone. Movement.

‘What the fuck?’ he said.

Lightning flared, and he saw what had moved.

There was a woman, lying beside the bales.

She was covered in blood.

When she heard his voice, she tried to get up. Tried to get to her knees. She looked at him blearily. Her face . . .

‘Jesus bloody Christ,’ said Jack.

‘Help,’ said Belle weakly. It came out as a wet croak. Then she fell back, unconscious.

111

Belle came to because someone was moving her. She was being carried. Everything hurt and she started to protest, but she didn’t have the strength. A door was kicked open and then lights blared and she was being laid out on something hard as rock. Her eyes rolling in her head, she tried to focus. Oak beams above her. Wooden cupboards all around. A kitchen. Warmer in here.

Oh Jesus it hurt.

It all hurt so much.

Her hand fastened on the edge of what she was lying on. A big table. Something wet and hot touched her hand and she was catapulted back to that black-water pond and the caimans biting at her, tearing her to bits. She moaned, full consciousness coming back hard and terror with it. She swivelled her head to see what was happening, panicking all over again. Agony.

It was the dog. It was licking her hand.

And there was a bearded dark-haired man, moving toward a phone on an old oak dresser.

‘No,’ she tried to say. It came out weird. Her mouth felt odd. Nothing seemed to be coming out of it the way it should.

He didn’t hear her or couldn’t understand her. He was picking up the phone and starting to dial.

Nine . . .

‘No!’ she tried again but was ignored.

Nine . . .

‘Don’t,’ said Belle, and with a lurch she threw herself off the table. She hit the floor and it hurt. She screamed, it hurt so much.

‘Christ alive,’ he said, and stopped dialling. He dropped the phone and rushed back across the kitchen to kneel beside her.

Belle grabbed his arm and tried to shake him. She couldn’t. She was too weak.

‘Don’t phone for an ambulance,’ she said, and it all came out wrong. She gasped, swallowed, tried to make her voice come out better. ‘They’re looking for me. They’ll check the hospitals. Don’t do it.’

‘You’re saying . . . ?’ He was staring at her face, trying to make sense of her words.