Chapter 29

I shut the door and stayed with my back to them waiting for him to denounce me. Then realised I needed to face the music and headed towards the bed to hear what he was going to say. Abby loosened the gag and finally removed it. He didn't try to scream or shout.
“Thank you, girls. I'm a bit....angry at the moment.” I could almost hear him swallowing the curse words that were on the tip of his tongue. “If my face or words reflect that, it's not directed at you, OK.”
“OK.” We both chorused. “So, what's your story?” Abby asked.
“I'm a …. finder, I suppose you would call me.” I think finder was kinder description than contract killer. “I have been tasked with finding someone and Marcus thought he had found that someone. In fact,” he looked at me “you are supposed to be him.”
Abby snorted. “Sophie is a boy?”
“Well, obviously not. They have the same colour eyes, same height and stuff. If you ignore the nose, the face looks pretty similar. We have been putting the feelers out. Marcus told us he had found him and was waiting for him to return from holiday. I came here to pay him a finders fee. One look at you and we knew he had got it wrong. I know a girl when I see one.”
He didn't recognise me. I felt like I could breath again. He didn't recognise me.
“How did you end up like this?” Abby asked.
“They offered me a girl, she was fucking eleven! Fucking perverts!”
“Shhh, please shhhh.”
“Sorry. I have a daughter. I feel pretty …... strongly.” More swear words swallowed.
“So if we release you, will you help us?”
“Sort of. Look, I will be honest. If you release me, I'm gonna kill every motherfucking pervert in this house. It's best if you pretend you didn't see me, get the girls out and run away. I'll find you one of their phones. Give me a couple of hours then phone who you like. The police may not be the best option. Places like this sometimes have insiders. Phone someone you trust.”
“Aren't you going to need a bit of help. We think there are at least 2 more loose. Marcus is all tied up, but there are the Neanderthals.”
“Help would be great, but I don't want you involved. I don't want you to see what I do.”
“How about we lead you to the doors, give you the key, but don't go in or anything. We could really do with the alarm code.”
“Yeah, that could work. Marcus will know the code, I'll get it out of him. A knife would help.”
“No problem. We have the keys to the kitchen. You are going to have to be quiet, their rooms are next to each other.”
He snorted. “You trying to teach Grandma to suck eggs. Get me free, give me a knife and show me the right doors. Leave the rest to me.”
We got him out of his restraints. As he moved around, I could see he was already a bit battered, probably from the initial fight. He tried to pretend he was alright, but there was a bit of a limp. We sent Abby off to get the knives, she was the most experienced moving around the house. She came back with a few. He wiped them all down and chose two, one he kept in his hand and one he put in his back pocket. We then moved back down to the ground floor, down a corridor in the opposite direction to Marcus' room and to the two rooms that were occupied.

Our ally called himself John Smith. Obviously, he didn't want us to know his real name. He took the keys from us, wiped them down and carefully opened the door and rushed in. As we had promised, we stayed outside. I waited in front of the other door, just in case he made enough noise to wake up his neighbour. There was a muffled sound or two. Standing outside a different door they did not sound that loud. Just as Mr Smith was exiting his door, the door in front of me started to open. I geared myself for a fight. Mr Smith shoved me aside and slammed into the door. From the sound of it, the door hit the man on the other side. Then Mr Smith was in. I didn't leave until he came back out again. We had to be sure that we were safe. This time, when he came out, he was covered in blood. We didn't ask and he didn't say anything. We led him to Marcus' door.

Mr Smith turned to us. “I don't want you anywhere near this door. Ignore any sounds you might hear. Gather by the front door, I will get you the code and a phone. Don't forget, give me a couple of hours after you leave. I need to tidy up.”
“Could we first get a few shirts from Marcus' room, for the girls to cover up?”
He carefully opened the door and looked in. He started laughing. Motioned to us to stay there, came out a few minutes later with a few shirts. He was still smiling. “You weren't kidding about being all tied up. Now scoot.”

We had got all the way to Sasha's room before we realised we didn't have the keys. We headed back towards Marcus' room. When we were getting close, we heard some sounds that were going to be hard to forget. Both of us stopped. “Do you still have your bobby pin?”
“Yeah. I'll just pick the locks.” We retreated rapidly back to Sasha's room. We went to Sasha first because she was expecting a visit anyway.