‘No, no, no, no, no …’

He reached the glass of the door and started to press his body against it, flattening his mass of fat so that he grew wider and wider. And now he pressed his face as well, squashing his nose and lips and smearing pus and snot and saliva over the window. And still he kept pressing, flattening, widening.

At last Olivia could stand it no more. She turned away and looked over the edge of the balcony. It was such a long way down. Immediately she felt dizzy and sick. The ground appeared to come nearer in a rush then speed away again, as if she was bouncing on a bungee cord.

There was a crack. She spun round. The glass had broken – jagged lines ran across it – and still the man pushed and pushed. He seemed to cover the entire window. His face expressionless. Squashed out of shape. One eye right against the glass. Staring at her. He was something disgusting and slimy in a tank at an aquarium.

The glass cracked again.

Olivia climbed up onto the brick wall that ran along the edge of the balcony. She stood there swaying, her head fizzing, tears hanging from her chin and then dropping away, down, down into the darkness. Falling had always been her biggest fear. She hated going on aeroplanes, she hated cliff tops and tower blocks and bridges.

She couldn’t believe they had just left her. Run off like that. It was so unfair. She couldn’t do anything by herself. She couldn’t fight. They knew that. She drew in a series of racking sobs that jerked her small body as if someone was kicking her chest.

‘No, no, no, no, no …’

Another crack. Then another. The whole window was bowing out. Any moment now it would give way and he would be there, outside, with her. Just the two of them. And he would do to her what he had done to those other children downstairs. The ones in the kitchen she had thought were waving at her. How long had they taken to die? Surely falling would be quicker? But it would still be long. The garden was so far away. And all the way down she would be alive, and waiting for the thud as she hit the ground.

Would it hurt? Or would she be unconscious before …

She mustn’t think about that. She closed her eyes. Tried to put herself back home. Yes. It was bedtime. She was going to kiss her dad goodnight and go upstairs. She would be brave and go up by herself tonight. Listen to a story tape. The tapes were very old and worn. Most of them had belonged to her cousin who was much older than her. Paul had had them first. She’d listened to them through the thin wall and couldn’t wait for them to be hers.

She loved those stories.

Dad was watching television with his new girlfriend.

No!

It was before then. Mum was still there. Even though Olivia couldn’t really remember her. But she was still there. Yes, that was better. Mum and Dad together on the sofa watching TV. They were so close. On the other side of the door. All she had to do was open the door and there they’d be. She turned the handle. Kept her eyes tight shut. Didn’t want to spoil the surprise.

The door was open. She sucked in a deep breath and then took a small step …

She wasn’t falling – she was floating – and there were Dad and Mum. They were reaching out their hands to her and everything was all right.

They would catch her. They would make sure she was all right. That’s what grown-ups did.

They looked after you.

They –

21

‘I promised her. I said I wouldn’t leave her. She was counting on me.’

‘She was counting on all of us, DogNut,’ said Courtney. ‘It’s not your fault. We all forgot about her. It was crazy up there.’

‘I can’t just leave her.’ DogNut started to walk off.

Felix looked alarmed. ‘You’re not going back, DogNut!’ he shouted, running after him. ‘You can’t go in there again. He’d kill you.’

‘That’s not the point.’ DogNut angrily shrugged Felix’s hand off his shoulder. ‘The point is I promised I wouldn’t let her down and now –’

‘And now she’s dead,’ said Felix bluntly. ‘Face it. So what would be the point in going back?’

‘Exactly,’ said Marco, coming over to the two of them. ‘We can’t change what happened. We’re lucky any of us got out, and it was thanks to you that we did.’

‘I was supposed to look after her. I can’t let it end like this.’

‘It ain’t over, dude,’ said Marco. ‘It ain’t over by a long way yet. It’s dark and we’re still on the streets. What we got to do now is make sure that the rest of us don’t wind up –’

‘Dead!’ shouted DogNut. ‘She’s dead and it’s my fault.’

‘It’s been a hell of a day,’ said Marco. ‘We’re lucky any of us are still alive. We’ve been through it and then some. The boat sank, the gym bunnies nearly got us, David tried to trap us in the palace, and then a humongous sicko nearly added us to his collection of dead bodies. But the thing is, DogNut, we’re still here, us five. Out of the eight of us that set off this morning we’ve only lost one.’

DogNut laughed bitterly. ‘Oh, so that makes it all right, does it?’

‘Yes,’ said Finn quietly. ‘It does.’

He turned and started walking on. When Finn made up his mind to do something, there was no arguing. The others looked at him, and then followed, all except DogNut who stubbornly stayed behind.

‘Come on,’ said Courtney, returning to where he stood in the middle of the road. ‘You got to try and forget, Doggo.’ She gently took his arm. ‘Move on. And I don’t mean in a huggy-kissy, teen-advice-column way. I mean we really do have to literally move on, because it ain’t safe to stay here.’

It was no good, though. DogNut wrenched his arm away and stomped off a few paces in the opposite direction. He was crying.

‘DogNut!’ Courtney yelled at him. ‘You’re putting the rest of us in danger now!’

‘Then leave me alone. I’ll go by myself.’

‘No, you won’t.’ Finn had come back to see what was happening. He spun DogNut round and looked into his face.

‘What’s done is done,’ he said. ‘You’re not going back in there.’

‘I’ll do what I bloody like,’ said DogNut, his voice rising in pitch as he became more and more hysterical. ‘That poor little girl is all alone in that house with a monster. And I can’t leave her. I can’t. I’ve got to go back and I’ve got to see for myself. Perhaps she ain’t dead, perhaps I can help her, perhaps I could save her, rescue her, perhaps …’

Finn slapped DogNut hard in the face, stunning him into silence. Then, before he could do anything, Finn scooped him up with his good arm and put him over his shoulder as easily as if he’d been a bag of rubbish that Finn was taking out to the bins.

Finn walked on. DogNut’s skinny body bouncing up and down. He struggled for a few paces before the fight went out of him. Despite everything that had happened, Courtney smiled, almost laughed. She had always known that Finn was strong, but to do what he’d done, with one arm, was beyond awesome.

‘You’re a good bloke, DogNut,’ Finn said. ‘You did enough. You got us out of there. We’re not heroes. We’re just kids.’

‘But I won’t be able to live with it,’ said DogNut miserably.

‘Yes, you will.’

‘Yeah? And how would you know that?’

‘After my mum and dad died,’ said Finn, ‘I tried to look after my three younger brothers. And I couldn’t do it. I messed up. They all got killed. I try not to think about it. That was my old life. This is my new life.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said DogNut. ‘I didn’t know.’

‘I don’t talk about it. Now shut up and stop wriggling.’

‘But, Finn –’

‘I said shut up. How do you think I’ve felt all day, being like this? My arm out of action? Not being able to do anything to help? I’ve felt useless. But there was nothing I could do about it. Just as there’s nothing you can do about Olivia now. What happened to her, we’ll all share it. OK? It’s all our fault.’

‘OK,’ said DogNut. ‘You can put me down now.’