She sank onto the mattress, too emotional to carry on. ‘I’m out of breath. You girls take over.’

Marie and Leah exchanged a look before breaking out their best Madonna. Carly had heard them sing ‘True Blue’ a million times before, sometimes with lips coated in Mum’s red lipstick, a beauty spot drawn below their left nostril with an eyebrow pencil, and usually it irritated her but here it sounded sweet and pure, the twins placing their hands dramatically over their hearts as they declared true love. Would they live through this to find their soulmates one day? Carly thought of Dean, she might never see him again. The twins slipped seamlessly between the songs they’d choreographed in their bedroom. Marie’s fingers sought out the cross around her neck, lifting it as she sang ‘Like a Prayer’. Leah’s hand felt around her own throat. ‘My cross! It’s gone!’

‘It must be here somewhere.’ Carly remembered the gold glinting in the light as Leah was carried in.

‘We’ll find it,’ Marie dropped to her knees.

‘Be careful of the broken glass,’ Carly joined in the search but it was fruitless. ‘I’m sorry, Leah. We’ll get you another one.’

Leah nodded. Carly could see she was upset but she didn’t complain. ‘Do you want to sing something else?’

Leah shook her head. ‘I’m hungry now.’

Carly was surprised to find that she was too.

‘Let’s have some Snaps while we wait for Doc and Moustache to bring us some proper dinner.’ There wasn’t nearly enough food in the box to keep all three of them going for more than a few hours and this gave Carly hope that the men would be back soon.

The sisters licked spicy tomato crumbs from their fingers and fizzed open cans of cherry Coke.

And waited.

They waited for dinner. They waited for a light.

But nobody came.

They all felt it, the creeping claustrophobia that built as dusk fell. Gloom casting shadows into the corners of the room, across the ceiling.

‘I want to go home, I want to go home.’ Leah’s voice dripped with hysteria. ‘I want to go home!’

She raced over to the door and began beating against it, screaming, ‘Let us out. Help us.’

Carly and Marie rushed over to Leah’s side but rather than trying to calm her they too began thumping the door.

‘Let us out. Please. Somebody help us.’

The clown laughed and laughed at their panic. The whites of his eyes, his teeth, the last visible thing as darkness swallowed the girls, feeding on their fear.

It was pitch black.

Still they screamed.

Still nobody came.

Chapter Fourteen

Leah

Now

There is somebody in our garden.

I peer anxiously out of the window into the gloom, my fingertips resting on the glass, eyes searching for shadows. Blood whooshes through my ears and rising above that, the steady thump of George’s footfall on the stairs.

‘Archie fell asleep halfway through The Stick Man. I put on my best voices too. I think… Leah? Are you okay?’