No Way Out Read Online Free PDF Page B

mate further.’
    Roy laughed drily. ‘Marcus, if things are that serious, then it’s a job for the police. I strongly suggest you get your friend to call them.’
    ‘Thanks, Roy, I’ll tell him.’ Marcus’s shoulders dropped. He was about to end the call, but needed to know more. ‘Would the police go to his house?’
    ‘Without a doubt,’ Roy replied. ‘They’ll need to gather as much information as possible.’ Roy went on to ask if Lisa and Ellie were definitely OK, but Marcus wasn’t listening properly.
    ‘Yeah, yeah, they’re fine. Lisa’s taking a bath and Ellie’s … doing homework.’ As soon as he hung up, another text came in.
    Too late
, it read.
    Marcus felt sick again, and his heart thumped out an uneven beat. He strode about the library, shaking his head, not knowing what to do. He couldn’t stand the thought of anyone hurting Ellie any more. He jabbed out a text.
    Wait! I’ll do it
.
    He chucked back the remaining wine in his glass and poured another, downing that one just as fast. He grabbed the bottle and went into the kitchen. As he was getting the cleaver out of the knife block, his phone buzzed again.
    One more minute
, came the reply.
    With his hands shaking, he pulled several clean tea towels from the drawer. He grabbed a bottle of disinfectant spray from under the sink and doused the worktop with it, as well as the knife and his left hand. Marcus was already crying – guttural sobs vomiting out of him uncontrollably, hammering home the pain of what he had to do; what he had already done.
    If he called an ambulance straight after, they’d alert the police to such a bizarre scene, and then they’d be crawling all over everything. This was so unexpected; there’d been no time to clear it all up. He had seconds to go now, wasting several more by getting his phone ready to take a picture.
    Finally, he laid out his left hand on the counter, spreading his fingers, and turning away. He took a deep breath, bit his teeth hard together, and swiftly brought down the cleaver with a hefty swing.
    His left hand shot back as he screamed out, but one finger was still trapped under the metal edge – tendons stretching, bone cracking. It wasn’t quite severed. He raised the knife again and chopped a second time, this time hacking right through the four fingers.
    They were off. Discarded. Moving the stump of his palm away from them looked surreal, like a trick with mirrors. His thumb stuck up in front of his face as he stared at the damage, as if he was signalling, ridiculously, that everything was OK.
    He stared, disbelieving, as the pain lashed up his wrist, his arm, into his brain, burning behind his eyes. But then, as he was photographing the bloody mess, it gradually numbed into a woozy, drunken feeling. Endorphins mixed up with the wine.
    Shaking uncontrollably, freezing cold and feeling as if he was going to pass out, he sent the picture to Tom’s number.
    A few moments later, a message came back:
Too late
.
    *
    Tom tosses the flap of my ear from one hand to the other. ‘Not the best job, if I’m honest,’ he says, looking at it.
    Trying to suppress my sobs, pressing a rag to the side of my head, squashing the pain and the blood back inside, I’m already wondering if they’ll be able to sew it back on.
    ‘You didn’t really get it all off properly, did you?’ He screws up his nose.
    I shake my head in agreement, anything not to anger him. Ellie is curled up on the sofa, facing away from me, rocking, her hands covering her head. She can’t bear to look at what he forced me to do, but at least I know she’ll be safe now.
    ‘Hubby will be a bit pissed that he needn’t have bothered,’ Tom says with a nasty grin. He flashes his phone screen at me, and I see your amputated fingers lying on our kitchen counter like leftover sausages. Your wedding ring has dropped off the end of one of them. He laughs, tapping out another text to you.
    I imagine you writhing in pain, your anger