‘No. I’m… I’m sorry, Carly.’

Carly dropped her hand. If Marie did have a temperature there was no medicine to give her. ‘It’s not your fault.’

‘It’s all so awful. I…’ Marie closed her eyes.

‘You can’t help it.’

‘Carly, I…’ Marie trailed off as she began to throw up again. Her face was green.

‘Shhh.’ Carly didn’t know what to say to make her feel better. Carly had vomit over her fingers, her own mouth flooding with saliva at the smell. She looked hopelessly around the room for anything that might help her but there was nothing.

She had never felt more helpless.

‘Help!’ she screamed. ‘We need help!’ She needed a grown-up. She needed her mum. Her stepdad.

Marie stopped vomiting.

Stopped crying.

Talking.

Her stillness, her silence was even more terrifying.

The girls huddled together. Help, Carly called again but it was only in her head. Nobody was coming.

Nobody.

All she had was the clown and a wall of scrawled words.

You’re going to die.

Panic shook her hard.

They were all going to die.

A noise?

Again the sound of sliding bolts. This time Carly didn’t stand. There seemed little point. Her energy had gone, her fight too.

‘I’ve brought something that will help you,’ Doc said as soon as he stepped into the room.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Leah

Now

The photocopier repair man… it’s him.

Panic slams into me. My chest so tight I cannot cry.

I am so, so scared.

Calm yourself.

Three things but there’s nothing to see in this toilet cubicle.

My breath comes too quickly. I don’t want to touch anything but dizziness forces me to stretch out my hands and steady myself against the walls.

Calm yourself.

The flush handle.

Cistern.

The PLEASE WASH YOUR HANDS poster on the back of the door Calm.

But calm is a million miles away. I’m trapped here in this small space with him outside the door.

Again.

The contents of my stomach rise, splattering the bowl of the loo. The smell takes me back until I am kneeling in the filth of that dirty room, terrified my twin was going to die. Terror pulses deep in my gut. I’ve touched the toilet seat with my gloved fingers, my sleeves. My skirt has brushed the tile floor. I want to rip off my clothes and burn them. Scrub my skin until it’s pink and raw.

The door swings open. I press my hands over my mouth to suppress my scream before I remember where my hands were resting just seconds before. Revulsion strokes me with its filthy fingers.

I whimper.

‘Leah?’

I can’t answer. I’m frozen.

‘Leah? Please, what’s going on? Jesus, have you chucked up? Christ, the smell is making me gag.’ I hear Tash retch.

Slowly I stand, brushing the germs from my knees, invisible insects from my skin.

Scuttling. Scuttling.

The floor of the cubicle sharply shifts. I stumble.

‘You’d better let me in before I kick this door down and don’t think that I can’t. It’s me or Jim the rep and he needs a new hip.’