Cass Green - No Good Deed - The gripping new psychological thriller from the bestselling author of In a Cottage in a Wood

‘How?’ Anger rises, hotly, inside. ‘How can you possibly know that?’

Angel gestures towards the kitchen surfaces. ‘One plate, one cup. Ready meals in the recycling bin. I think you have a kid, judging by all the …’ she waves her hand at the fridge, where various school letters and pieces of art work are pinned with magnets, ‘… but the kid isn’t here. Or the father. Are you divorced?’ She pauses. ‘Was that your new bloke?’ She says this last bit with genuine curiosity, as though we are two women having a chat.

‘None of your business,’ I reply. I pull out the chair and sit down again. ‘And no,’ I add, despite myself. ‘He was … no one.’

Angel makes a face. ‘Good,’ she says. ‘Because he was a tosser.’

A laugh almost slips out before I remind myself that this strange, probably unstable, young woman invading my house has threatened me with a gun . Having one aimed at me in my own kitchen doesn’t feel quite real. Yet it still manages to be horribly frightening.

‘Look,’ I say, going for calm and trustworthy. ‘What do you want from me? Do you want money? Is that it?’

Angel looks up from her phone, where her thumbs have been a blur of motion, and stares at me. She has extraordinary hazel eyes that are almost golden. Quite cat-like. But it is impossible to read what she’s thinking; her expression is as flat as a pool of still water again. She seems to slip in and out of this state. As though other conversations are buzzing in her head at the same time and she has to tune in to hear me.

‘Yeah,’ she says, ‘I think so. And a car.’

I let out an exasperated sound.

‘My car is in the garage,’ I say. ‘And I’ve got about a tenner in my purse.’

‘Oh fuck, really?’ Angel’s dismay is palpable. ‘That’s a pisser about the car.’

She drags a hand through the bird’s nest of her hair and then an old-fashioned bell ringtone comes from her mobile. She snatches it up and holds it to her ear. Getting to her feet, she says, ‘I’m coming.’

Hope spasms in my chest as I hurry after her down the hallway. Maybe someone is here to pick her up. I can just shove her outside and lock the door.

But before I have time to do anything, Angel is pulling another stranger, a man, through the front door and into my home.

He is slightly built, shorter than Angel, with wet, black curls plastered to his face and dark eyes sunk in shadowed sockets. He’s enveloped in a long tweed coat that’s reminiscent of the sort me and my friends bought from charity shops in the eighties. He smells of wet dog, with another, staler smell underneath it. The coat seems to hang on his frame oddly, as though he is fat and thin all at the same time. He bulges around the middle, but his thin neck and narrow, white wrists protrude. It’s like a tall child wearing a grown-up’s clothes.

Angel touches his cheek, tenderly, and he visibly shivers.

‘Come on through,’ she says in a practical sort of tone. ‘You look freezing.’ She bolts the door then lifts the keys from the bowl on the hall table before locking the door and pocketing them.

I don’t even know where to start with this.

Angel almost drags the man by the sleeve down the hall towards the kitchen. I find myself following, mutely, torn between trying to escape and the dangers of leaving these two strangers here.

In the kitchen, Angel mutters something to the man, who is trembling so violently now that he looks as though he might collapse. He listens with his eyes closed as though receiving instruction. They stand over by the sink. I hover by the doorway, trying to work out what I can do.

I catch him say, ‘The blood. There was all this blood,’ which makes my stomach clamp like a clamshell, but then Angel shushes him and I don’t catch the rest.

‘Who are you?’ I say finally, in my boldest voice. ‘What do you want?’

The boy – man – I should say, drops his head, avoiding my gaze. Angel turns to me and I almost take a step back at the ferocity in her expression.

‘This is Lucas. He’s my little brother and he needs a bloody minute.’

Little brother.

Lucas looks only a few years younger than Angel, maybe early twenties. His face is much finer-boned than his sister’s, his shoulders hunched and narrow. He’s slightly built but looks like he has a wiry strength. His eyes are what frighten me the most though; they’re wide and staring as though he is watching something playing out in his mind and doesn’t like what he sees.

Lucas murmurs something then and that’s when I become aware of another sound, coming from somewhere about his person. It’s a sort of creaky puttering noise; familiar but so out of context I can’t place it. I move a few steps closer, drawn to its source, and that’s when I see what is causing that odd bulge in the coat.

‘Oh Jesus!’ I cry out.

Tufty, reddish hair pokes up from a head the size of a grapefruit.

The baby stretches its neck backwards, revealing a scrunched face. It’s so small; surely only a few weeks old; possibly new-born. The little twist of a mouth puckers and forms a square and the unhappy creaks turn into an ear-splitting wail.

All instinct, I cross the room and reach for it, hands outstretched.

‘Get back!’ Lucas yells and flails his arms and I stumble back. Lucas’s eyes are wide and a little unfocused. Is he on something? He lifts his hands up and says, in a strangled voice, ‘Just give me space! Don’t crowd me. I just need space, that’s all!’

‘Get away from him,’ shouts Angel. ‘Can’t you see what a state he’s in?’

She has the gun in her hand again now and is waving it around wildly, horribly close to the baby’s tiny head. Barely breathing, I peel my gaze back to Lucas and the shrieking bundle in his coat.

He wipes his face with a hand that’s battered and cut, the knuckles raw. I can see what looks like dried blood on his fingers and the backs of his hands. His nails are rimed black. When he places a filthy hand on the baby’s tiny head, I experience an internal mushroom cloud of pure horror.

The blood. The gun. The baby squirming visibly at the opening in his coat. Any combination of these things is wrong.

‘Lu babe,’ says Angel over the wailing. ‘Are you hurt?’

‘What’s wrong with you?’ I shout then. ‘Don’t you care more about that baby?’

‘The kid looks fine to me,’ says Angel sharply.

‘Oh, you know that, do you?’ I say. ‘Because I don’t think that’s a given right now.’

Angel stares at me and, for a second, she looks unsure.

She gives her brother a slight smile. ‘It is OK , isn’t it ? Lucas? Can I just …?’

Lucas is breathing heavily, almost panting, as she approaches him, her movements slow and careful. When she reaches out he whimpers and steps back. But with shushing, comforting sounds she begins to open his coat. The baby is straining hard against the makeshift sling, which appears to be made from a man’s shirt. The sleeves are tied around Lucas’s back, the back of the shirt bagged into an unsatisfactory pouch. One of the baby’s legs, encased in a white sleepsuit, protrudes and dangles awkwardly.

Lucas closes his eyes as Angel reaches behind him and tries to unknot the sleeves. The baby screams on, jolting downwards with every tug of Angel’s arms. It is unbearable to watch. I bite back helpless tears and wrap my arms around myself. I can’t stop shaking.

‘Please,’ I whisper, ‘be careful .’

Somehow, I know this baby does not belong to either Angel or Lucas. So where is its mother?

Angel now has the baby, who is puce-faced, drawing knees to chest. She looks like she is carrying a bag of sugar rather than a squirming child and she places it on the table, not exactly roughly, but with little care. Then she peels off Lucas’s coat, speaking in a quiet, fussy tone all the while, before dropping it onto the floor.