Andy McNab - Dark winter

The kids' bikes had used to hang from frames on the breeze-block wall. They'd been disposed of with all the other clutter that families accumulate. All that was left was a collection of unused removal boxes that we'd stacked under the staircase. Kelly had made herself a new Disneyland.

I moved towards them, calling out gently. 'Kelly? It's Nick. Are you there?'

When Kev had made his cardboard cave he'd provisioned it with a few dolls, bottles of water and chocolate bars. Last time I'd approached it on my hands and knees, the pistol down my waistband. I hadn't wanted Kelly to see a weapon, hadn't wanted her to know there was a major drama going on.

I'd tried to coax her out as I moved Kev's boxes aside, inching towards the back wall.

And that was where I'd finally found her, eyes wide with terror, sitting curled up, rocking backwards and forwards, holding her hands over her ears, her eyes red, wet and swollen. It was only much later that I discovered she'd seen and heard the lot.

This time I only had to move one of the packing cases. She was sitting against the wall.

'Hello.'

She was wearing a green T-shirt with some kind of sports logo, red and white trainers, and a pair of low-cut jeans that exposed her hip bones. It wasn't terror in her eyes this time, they were just kind of sad and tired, and a bit puzzled, as if she was trying to work out why mine looked red as well.

'Found you at last.' I grinned. 'You play a mean game of hide-and-seek.'

She didn't return my smile. Her blotchy, tear-stained face stared at me as I crawled towards her.

It didn't matter what state she was in, she was as pretty as ever. She'd inherited the best of both her parents: her mother's mouth and her father's eyes. 'Biggest smile this side of Julia Roberts,' Kev used to say. His mother came from southern Spain and he looked like a local: jet-black hair, but with the world's bluest eyes. Marsha reckoned he was a dead ringer for Mel Gibson.

'Come on, let's get you out of here. I need some fresh air.'

She stared at me for what felt like for ever, as if she'd been travelling to some far-off place and just come back, and was trying to work out how everything had changed. Finally, she gave me the briefest and bleakest of smiles. 'Sorry.'

I shifted a box to make it easier for her to get out. 'About what?'

She glazed over again, as if she still wasn't quite connecting. 'Today.' She shrugged. 'Everything.'

'It's OK, don't worry. Hey, you still like playing on swings?'

I closed down my cell as we walked into the back garden and put my arm round her. I'd told Josh she was fine, we just needed a bit of time. He said he'd go down to the stores and grab a coffee. Call him whenever.

Last time I'd found her in the hidey-hole I'd taken her hand and guided her gently out. Then I'd picked her up in my arms and held her tight as I carried her into the kitchen. She was trembling so much I couldn't tell if her head was nodding or shaking. When we drove away from the house a bit later, she was almost rigid with shock.

Dr Hughes had told me some things early on in her treatment, which felt like it had happened a lifetime ago. 'Kelly has been forced to learn early lessons about loss and death, Mr Stone. How does a seven-year-old, as she was then, understand murder? A child who witnesses violence has been shown that the world is a dangerous and unpredictable place. She has told me that she doesn't think she'll ever again feel safe going outside. It's nobody's fault, but her experience has made her think that the adults in her life are unable to protect her. She believes she must take the responsibility herself – a prospect that causes her great anxiety.'

We walked over to the swing and she wiggled about to get comfortable on the rubber tyre seat as I lay on the grass beside her.

'Push me, Nick?'

I got up and stood behind her. She sat there passively at first, not helping me with the momentum, then it seemed to come back to her.

'What have you done to your finger?' She had a plaster on the knuckle of her right index finger, and the skin below it looked red and sore.

'I did something a bit silly in science. It'll be fine.'

I pushed her in silence for a while. I liked it. It made me think of the great times I'd had in this backyard too.

'First thing Dad used to do when he came home from work,' she said. 'He'd go and give Mom a kiss, then come out and play with us. It was good. Not all dads do that.'

'Not all dads love their kids as much as he did.'

She liked that. 'Mom used to bring us out cookies and Kool-Aid. Sometimes we'd all stay out here right until supper-time.' She grinned. 'We used to love it when you came visit. Mom would tell us to say thank you if you gave us candy, but to give it to her. She was the candy police.' As she came back towards me her face went serious again and I slowed her to a stop, my head on her right shoulder as I listened. 'I used to feel safer when you were here with Dad. Don't you remember? Mom used to call you guys "my two strong men". I was always worried when it was just him on his own because I knew people were after him.'

'That was because he did his job so well.'

'Did you work together?'

'We were soldiers together in the army. When he married your mum he came here.'

She looked down at her trainers, then sharply up again, her blue eyes piercing mine. 'Why did Mom and Aida have to die, Nick?'

We'd never talked about it. I somehow assumed she just knew, maybe that her grandparents or Dr Hughes or Josh had told her. I felt like I hadn't explained the facts of life to her, and just hoped she'd pick them up on her own. Then again, maybe she did know and just wanted to hear me try to make sense of it one more time.

'Your dad was one of the good guys. But his boss got mixed up with drug people and your dad found out. His boss killed him – and then he killed everybody who might be a witness.'

'Mom and Aida?'

'Yes.'

'How come he didn't kill me, Nick? How come I'm the one who got to stay alive?'

'I don't have those answers, Kelly. Maybe if the people had come into the house five minutes earlier or later, they'd have got you too.'

'It would have saved everybody a lot of hassle.'

I lifted my head and walked round to face her. 'Hey, don't say things like that. Don't even think things like that.' Hunching down in front of her, I held both her hands.

'Sometimes I feel so shit, Nick. Just kind of disconnected. Do you know what I mean?'

'I spend most of my life feeling like that.' I hesitated, drawing her close to me. 'You know, I saw somebody die when I was eight.'

She sat up straight. 'You did?'

I described the disused old factory building near our estate. The windows and doors had been boarded up and covered with barbed-wire, but that wasn't going to keep us out. 'There was an old sheet of corrugated iron nailed over the frame of a small door down an alleyway, but it was loose. We got in, up on to the roof. I remember puffing out hard and watching my breath form into a cloud.' It had felt much colder thirty feet up than it had at ground level. 'I walked to the edge of the roof and looked down at the pools of light underneath the lamp-posts. The street was deserted, there was no one around to see us. It was so peaceful. I'd never known the streets round my way be so quiet. And then there was a sound, a really horrible sound.'

'What was it?' She was pressing into my side.

'Breaking glass. I turned and saw my three mates standing near one of the skylights. There should have been four.'

A split second later, there'd been a muffled thud from deep inside the building. 'I knew even before I looked through the hole that John would be dead. We all did. We ran back to the roof hatch and down the stairs. He was lying very still, and we just scarpered.'