Andy McNab - Dark winter

As I passed the solid wood lounge door, my heartbeat quickened. I couldn't help myself; I had to stop and face that fucking door. I even started reaching for the handle, but then my hand dropped away. I knew I couldn't do it. And this wasn't the only door here that made me feel like that.

I'd come back more than once to oversee removal men and cleaners, but I'd never made it further than the kitchen. In the end I'd had to leave that side of things to Josh. I'd never told him why, never told him about the doors I just couldn't bring myself to open. Smartarse that he was, he probably knew anyway.

I just stood there, staring at the handle, my forehead against the closed door. My hands went into my bomber pockets. My fingers closed around Homer's head and the keys, clenching them until they gave me pain.

Sunlight had cascaded through the lounge door that day in April 1997, but I hadn't bothered looking in. I'd been too intent on making a beeline for the soft rock music in the kitchen. Something must have snagged in my peripheral vision, though, because after a couple of steps I froze in my tracks. My brain must have taken in the information, but for a split second refused to process it.

I gripped Homer hard, while a wave of nausea washed through me. My internal video had begun to play back what I'd seen, in full technicolour. Hard to believe it had been six years ago, even harder to believe it could still be stored so close to the surface.

Shit, I thought I'd got this under control.

Too late. It was running.

Kev was lying on his side on the floor, his head battered to fuck by a baseball bat. It was the one he'd shown off to me, a nice light 'aluminum' job. He'd raised his eyebrows and laughed as he told me the local rednecks called them Alabama lie-detectors.

Then I was checking his body, just in case he was breathing. No chance. His brains were hanging out, his face pulped. Blood all over the settee and chairs. Some even splattered on the patio windows.

What about Marsha and the kids? Was the killer still in the house?

I'd needed one of his pistols, the very fucking things that had been supposed to be there to protect them. He'd once shown me all the places they were concealed, always above child level, always loaded and made ready, a magazine on the weapon and a round in the chamber. I'd soon got my hands round a Heckler and Koch USP 9mm, a semi-automatic pistol. This one even had a laser sight under the barrel; where the beam hit, so did the round.

My eyes welled as the song from the radio came back to me, some Aerosmith thing, one of Marsha's favourites. I stayed leaning into the door, waiting for my heartrate to slow, then pivoted my head to the right, towards the closed kitchen door. That had been the room I'd checked first for Marsha and the kids. It had been the nearest, the one with music.

I pushed away from the door, my Cats echoing as I walked across the bare hall, Aerosmith providing the soundtrack to the video in my head.

Pistol out in front of me, ready to fire as soon as I saw a target, I had given the door a push, and moved back from the frame. The radio had become louder, and the washing-machine was on – turning, stopping, turning.

I'd moved forward and pushed the door fully open. Nothing. Just a small dot of brilliant red light where the laser splashed on the opposite wall.

Today, no radio, no washing-machine, no nothing. But even then it had been like stepping aboard the Marie Celeste. There'd been food on the side, in the midst of preparation. Kev had said Marsha was going to cook something special. There were vegetables and opened packs of meat. The table was half laid.

I had moved slowly to the other end of the room and locked the door to the garage. I hadn't wanted to clear the bottom of the house only to have the boys come in behind me.

I suddenly realized I was still throttling Homer, and released my grip. As blood rushed back into my hand, I leant against the sink and stared at the garage door. That was the one I should be going through, but I couldn't help myself, I needed to go upstairs.

I went out into the hallway again and put my foot on the uncarpeted bottom step. The bare wood creaked unnaturally loudly.

The girls' old room was waiting for me at the top of the stairs. Six years ago, it had been the world's biggest shrine to Pocahontas – T-shirts and posters, bed-linen and even a doll who sang something about colours when you pressed her back. The door was closed, but that door wasn't the problem.

The next room down on the left had been Kev and Marsha's. The door was slightly ajar.

My heart sparked up again, my mouth went dry.

Why the fuck have you come up here? You promised yourself you never would again.

I couldn't help it. I edged nearer, as if the door was a dangerous animal, and smelt that faint, metallic tang again, as strongly as if it was really there – and then the stench of shit.

Fuck this. I headed back towards the stairs, but stopped and turned back, lying to myself that I had a reason to stay.

Get a grip! You're here to find Kelly.

The video was running. I wasn't able to stop it. Sinking down on to the bare floorboards of the landing, I just stared at the part-open door, my head replaying every last fucking detail.

It had only been when I'd inched round the frame that I'd got my first glimpse of Marsha.

She'd been kneeling by the bed, arms spreadeagled on it, the bedspread covered with blood.

I'd gone in, forcing myself to ignore her. The room was clear. The en-suite was next, and what I'd seen there had made me lose it, totally fucking lose it.

Bang, I'd smacked back against the wall and slumped on to the floor. Blood everywhere. I'd got it all over my shirt and hands; I'd sat in a pool of it; it had soaked the seat of my trousers.

Stop this – fucking stop it! Cut and run…

Too late. Much too late. Aida had been lying on the floor between the bath and the toilet, her five-year-old head nearly severed from her shoulders. Just three inches of flesh left intact, the vertebrae scarcely attached.

Then I'd really seen Marsha. Her dress had been hanging normally but her tights had been torn, her knickers pulled down, and she had shit herself, probably at the point of death.

All I had seen in that moment was somebody I really cared for, even loved, on her knees, her blood splattered all over the bed. And she'd had the same done to her as Aida had.

Not even Homer could divert me now. I was taking deep breaths and wiping my eyes, just as I had done then. Feeling the same shock and disbelief, the same devastating feeling of failure.

What if you'd got here earlier? Could you have stopped this fucking nightmare?

I wiped my face.

I had to cut away, or I'd go crazy. It had taken me years to learn how to keep the zoo gates closed, and I'd done myself no favours by giving them the chance to open.

I gripped the banisters and pulled myself up, and then went downstairs to see her.

Kev had shown me the 'hidey-hole', as he called it, the same day he showed me where all the weapons were concealed, just in case shit happened. It was built from the boxes the kitchen appliances had come in, under an open staircase in the garage that led up to a little makeshift loft where he used to stack his ladders and stuff. The kids knew they had to run straight there if Kev or Marsha ever shouted the word 'Disneyland!' They were to keep very quiet, and they weren't to come out until Daddy or Mommy came and got them.

Back down in the kitchen, I took a deep breath and got myself together, then went through into the garage.

In the old days they could easily have fitted three extra vehicles beside the company car Kev always used to keep there, a navy Caprice Classic bristling with aerials. 'Fucking thing,' he would always complain. 'All the mod cons of the nineties, in a motor that looks like a nineteen-sixties fridge.'