ONE DAY TO GO

Jazmine had left her dodgy Dagenham roots behind many years ago, and worked bloody hard to do so. The only reminder was her accent. As such, it was easy to look at her delicate frame and forget her origins. But the fact was, Jazmine would never forget her childhood. She had learned hard but valuable lessons watching her family of criminals run the estate they lived on: who to trust and who not to when your life depends on it.

She had always had a soft spot for Benjamin. Beneath his cocky talk was a good man, with sound business sense. He pushed her to take chances; she kept his feet on the ground. They were close.

But she had a bad feeling. The instincts honed on the estate – which her family still controlled with patriarchal efficiency that sometimes required a spot of punishment – were screaming at her. Benjamin was hiding something.

He was twitchy and sweaty. He was getting brasher and cockier, and when men like that hid further and further behind bravado, it generally meant something catastrophic was on its way. Something they were terrified of.

And, of course, rather than acknowledge it, they went into total denial. Burying themselves further into the mire.

Problem was, if Benjamin went down he might take the business down with it. She wasn’t going to let that happen.

Which was how she found herself in Benjamin’s home, uninvited, at four a.m. on Christmas Eve. She didn’t like that she had been reduced to breaking and entering, but if that was the only way to get to the truth, then so be it.

Benjamin’s move into this house was what had really made her suspicious of her partner. Their business was doing well, yes, but the lifestyle he led was noticeably more opulent than her own. The watches, the car, now the house. Individually they could all be written off, but together they added up to a big fat pile of suspicion.

Benjamin was doing something dodgy.

For the past few months she had been trying to find proof to back up her instinct. She had checked his office, gone through everything with a fine-tooth comb. The more she had dug, the less she had discovered – which just went to prove that Benjamin was covering his tracks. Missing files, their own business accounts suspiciously unavailable for her to look at. She had started to dig deeper, and a fortnight ago she had finally discovered some discrepancies. Benjamin claiming money from HMRC on behalf of clients, but no evidence of it being passed on. The evidence dating back years – skilfully hidden but there nonetheless, if you knew what to look for and how Benjamin operated.

He was stealing. If he was doing that to the taxman, what was he doing to her?

She had a computer expert looking for files which had mysteriously ‘disappeared’. Jaz was convinced Benjamin was up to his neck in do-do, and she was going to get covered in his stink. She had only asked Benjamin about the files that day to see if he had the cheek to lie to her face. He had.

Thanks to her dodgy past, Jaz knew a bit about breaking and entering. It had been a hobby her dad had encouraged until, aged twelve, she realised she wanted more to her life than being the next in line to a ‘family business’. From that moment, she had trodden only on the side of the law, but now she was crossing a line by breaking into Benjamin’s house. She had been ready to pick the locks, if necessary, but had discovered the latch on the downstairs loo’s window was still broken – she had noticed it when she had come over back in July, and unsurprisingly, Benjamin still hadn’t got round to having it fixed.

She crept through the house, to his study. No one stirred as she looked through paperwork, peered into drawers.

Finally, she found a crumpled piece of paper shoved into the back of the bottom drawer, hidden behind a bottle of expensive brandy. She smoothed out the letter and read it in the light of her torch.

Then crumpled it back up, nostrils flaring in anger

She was going to kill him. She was going to fucking kill him.

Jazmine realised she had taken a step towards the stairs, as if to confront him right there and then. He had completely screwed her over.

Now was not the time for confrontation, though. She needed to box clever.

As she slithered back through the window, she couldn’t help thinking that her dad knew some exceptionally dodgy people; she could get someone else to kill Benjamin for a couple of grand, and her hands would be clean. No one would ever know.

Now that was a tempting thought.

---

The duvet felt heavy and clammy on top of Ruby. The bedsheet beneath her was rumpled and damp. Shame flooded her as she wondered if she had wet herself. But the whole of her body was soaked, even the roots of her hair.

Sweat.

It was six a.m., and she knew she wouldn’t get back to sleep. Fear stalked her constantly, but especially in dreams. There, she was naked of her mask of bravado and disdain, and terror’s barbs cut all the deeper into her soul. Her nightmares were vivid, as though she had been flung into an alternative reality, or, even scarier, a future she had yet to live through, where her tormentors carried out their threats.

She needed Harry. Without him, the texts and bullying piled on top of her, suffocating her. The dreams overwhelmed her. She had to be with him, he was her lifeline.

But her parents had snatched him away from her, leaving her to sink.

She would make them pay for that.

She picked up her diary and wrote down everything she and Harry had spoken of the previous day. Putting the plan down in black and white made it feel more real.

Could she really go through with it? Scanning the notes gave her goosebumps. She did hate her family, she really did, but… But killing them was another matter. If they died in, like, a car crash or got run over or something, she wouldn’t cry, she told herself. She wouldn’t shed a single tear. She wiped at her face, removing the contrary evidence. No, if her parents just died it would be like fate stepping in to save her. But for her to actually murder them, and do the things she and Harry had discussed was a whole different level.

What about Mouse? She was so young. She hadn’t meant to get Ruby into trouble. But there were more complicated things at stake with her. If Ruby were to end her little sister’s life, hate would not be the driving force. In fact, out of everyone in her family, her baby sister was the one person she was most likely to murder.

If her courage held. She looked at the drawing of a lion Mouse had left under her doormat the other day. His slightly wonky, very sad face stared back at her. She kissed her fingers then touched them to his cheek.

Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind, she told herself.

The sooner she and Harry went through with the plan, the sooner she would be free of fear and indecision at last.

Unable to resist, she picked up her phone and checked for alerts.

---

The mattress moving beneath her woke Dominique. She opened her eyes just in time to see Benjamin disappearing into the bathroom.

He had four scratches across one shoulder. Clear as day even from across the bedroom.

The bastard was rubbing her nose in it now. She wanted to scratch his eyes out for what he’d done to his family. She could kill him.

Only for the sake of her children did she bite her tongue. All she had to do was get through Christmas, then she’d tell Benjamin exactly what she thought of him.

Exhaustion was making her feel crazy, though. Her eyeballs itched, and red threads draped themselves over the whites. There were so many things to worry about: Ruby’s attitude, Benjamin’s affair, his strange behaviour, and her own fears about what insane thing she might do next once the sandman took possession of her body. Sleep was hard to come by, not least because she was so afraid of it. When it did come, it wasn’t restful.

Dominique pulled herself up until she sat on the edge of the bed. Her leg jiggled up and down, creating a judder reminiscent of a diesel engine ticking over.