The Visitors(83)

Chapter Sixty-Eight





Holly





On the way into work the next day, Holly stopped at David’s kiosk.

‘I need to speak to you tonight,’ she said urgently. ‘Can you come around to the house?’

He tore his eyes away from the top of the car park. ‘Yes, of course. I…’

‘Are you listening to me?’ She stood in front of him to make him look at her.

‘Yes, it’s just that…’ He did a double-take. ‘Are you feeling all right, Holly? You look so pale, and your eyes are bloodshot.’

‘If you must know, I feel terrible.’

David stood up and shrugged on his high-vis jacket with urgency. ‘I’m so sorry, Holly. I have to deal with this. Give me a second.’ He pushed open the kiosk door and shouted, ‘Excuse me, can I have a word?’

The man who’d just got out of a silver BMW looked back at them.

‘Just a word, sir.’ David spat the word out as if it offended him to say it.

Holly watched as the driver checked his watch, openly sighed and then walked slowly towards them.

She felt woozy, like her centre of balance was off.

‘Are you aware, sir, that this is a private car park?’ David said pompously, pushing his shoulders back as he consulted his clipboard. ‘My records show that in the last two weeks, you have parked here illegally on a number of occasions…’

Holly gripped the side of the kiosk to stay standing. She tried to gulp in air, but her chest was burning. David’s voice faded out until there was nothing but a furious rushing noise in her head.

She stared at the driver and he stared back.

David’s mouth stopped moving. His head flipped from Holly to the driver and back again.

‘Markus,’ she whispered before she fainted.





Chapter Sixty-Nine





David





The driver springs forward to help, and together we manage to get Holly inside the foyer, laying her down on the visitor seats.

While he stays with her, I rush to the kiosk and summon Cath, the nominated first-aider, from her office.

Within minutes, Cath and Josh are attending to Holly, helping her inside the shop and the driver and I step back outside.

‘I’m Markus,’ he introduces himself. ‘I’m sorry that I’ve taken liberties with the parking here. I didn’t know… I mean, it was such a shock to see Holly standing there.’

‘You two know each other… how?’

For a few seconds he looks dazed, stands there like he’s altogether forgotten what day it is. I think about inviting him to sit in my chair for a moment but I can’t bring myself to do it. Not with how he’s blatantly flouted the rules here.

‘We went to school together and then we met up by accident…’ the driver says vaguely.

‘Holly called you Markus, is that your name?’

He nods and it occurs to me that this man could be a useful source of information. I’ve long suspected there’s more to Holly’s than she’s been letting on.

‘Come and sit inside for a moment, you look as if you’ve had a shock.’

I steer him into the foyer and he willingly sits down on one of the comfy chairs that Holly had been laid on only minutes earlier.

I get him a beaker of water from the cooler.

‘Thank you,’ he says.

‘You were saying that you met up with Holly again by accident,’ I prompted.

‘Yes, a year after leaving school. I told her about my life in Manchester and she jumped at the chance to…’ He shakes his head and looks at the floor. ‘She was in a bad time in her life. I wasn’t such a good friend.’

‘Why’s that?’

He shrugs. ‘My boss, Brendan, he’d been looking for a young woman suitable to be a companion to his wife. I knew there was something not quite right about it, with all the weird questions he got me to ask the girls, but I didn’t know exactly what. Then, when I got talking to Holly, I realised she’d be perfect.’ He bites his lip. ‘I swear I would never have taken Holly to him if I’d known what he had planned…’ His words trail off.

‘What happened?’ I shake my head. ‘Holly has been scared of something, of someone. She thinks perhaps somebody is following her… watching her, even. What happened to her that was so bad?’

And then Markus tells me Holly’s story.

He tells me everything.





Chapter Seventy





Holly





‘Come in,’ a raspy voice called when Holly held her breath and tapped on Mr Kellington’s door.

David opened the door for her.

‘Good luck,’ he whispered, before returning downstairs.

Inside, both Mr Kellington and Josh waited with concerned faces. Mr Kellington sat bolt upright behind his desk, and Josh had perched stiffly on the edge of one of the visitor seats.

‘Thanks for coming up, Holly. I understand from David that you’ve had a bit of a shock.’ Josh patted the chair next to him. ‘Come and take a seat.’

Her hands shook and so she tucked them under her thighs.