They’d stopped the car, steered it off the road and into a little stretch of woodland where it couldn’t be seen from the lane. Everyone piled out. The night air smelled brackish and damp. Layla shivered.
‘Too risky taking the car any further,’ said Max. ‘Better on foot from here on in.’
Alberto and Sandor were unloading things from the back of the car. To Layla, it looked like military gear. She nearly lost it when they started handing around sets of gloves and black goggles.
‘What are those?’ she asked.
‘Night sights.’ Max, Steve, Alberto and Sandor were putting them on.
‘Don’t I get a pair?’
‘No, honey, you don’t. You stick close to Steve. Wherever he goes, you go. Steve – you watch her. Layla – you stay with Steve. And when he tells you to do something, do it. OK?’
Suddenly their goggles were glowing red. It was surreal. Then Alberto started handing round guns.
‘Jesus,’ she said.
‘Watch it. I can hear an engine,’ said Alberto. They could see headlights coming along the lane. As one they moved back, away into the woods. Max pushed Layla down on to her knees beside him.
The car shot past their hiding-place and carried on along the lane.
‘Come on,’ said Max. ‘Let’s get up there.’
Annie didn’t know how many whiskies she’d drunk. She’d lost count after seven. She only knew that she was drunk. She felt an almost detached interest in this unfamiliar phenomenon. Her head seemed to float above her body like a helium-filled balloon. Her limbs had become loose, disjointed. There seemed to be no coordination between her brain and her arms and legs any more.
And now he was forcing yet more whisky into her.
‘That’s the way, Mrs Carter, get it down the little red road,’ he said.
It burned her, choked her, her stomach churned and rebelled. But he held her head back. Rivers of it ran out the sides of her mouth, spilled over her clothes, on to the cold flagged floor beneath her feet. But most of it, she swallowed. She had to. She thought that if she didn’t, he would find some other way of getting it down her. Maybe a rubber tube straight into her stomach. She didn’t want that. This was bad, but that would be a damned sight worse.
God, I’m going to be so sick in the morning, she thought. If I live that long. Which I won’t.
That thought brought both pain and rage with it. Never to see Layla again. Or Max. If she wasn’t sitting in a chair, she would be falling over. She felt so hot, so dizzy, disconnected from reality. Maybe dying wouldn’t be so bad. In fact Orla could tell her about it. Maybe Orla was going to come staggering through that door, fresh from the sea, dripping and dead, crustacea hanging off her tattered flesh, starfish in what remained of her hair…