Human Remains

panic.
    ‘Don’t be scared,’ I said. ‘I’m here. I’ll protect you.’
    On the divan lay the flat-handled screwdriver. Had he seen it? I leaned Audrey against the wall and put the vase on the floor, then ran to get the tool.
    ‘What have you done?’
    From the top of the stairs, the sound of Colin’s voice, so calm, so unexpected, made me freeze where I was. I hid the screwdriver in my hand, palming the handle up inside my cardigan. Maybe he hadn’t seen it.
    ‘What have
I
done?’ I replied, surprising myself. ‘What have
you
done? You were keeping her prisoner!’
    ‘Where is she?’ he said, and to my surprise he sounded so sad, so distraught that I realised he hadn’t seen her. But she gave herself away, reaching for the vase, knocking it over on to the stone floor with clumsy fingers and crying out as the water spread out around her.
    ‘Audrey!’ He came down the stairs two at a time and went to her, as though he was going to hold her, embrace her, and then stopped short as she shrank away from him. He seemed to recover himself then and he stood upright, turning to me.
    ‘Yes, well… she’s been through a lot. She needs time.’
    ‘Without food or water? You were waiting for her to die?’
    ‘I wouldn’t hurt a fly, Annabel. You know that.’
    He took a step towards me, then, and I stepped back and my calves hit the edge of the divan. I looked up the stairs and wondered if I could make it quicker than he could.
    ‘Let us go,’ I said, trying to summon up a tone of voice that suggested confidence and authority.
    ‘You’ve tried to make a fool of me.’ He sounded angry now, frustrated. He took another step forward.
    ‘Don’t come any closer!’ I said.
    He laughed, he actually laughed then. ‘What, you think I’m scared of you, Annabel? Why should I be? All I’ve done is try to help. That’s all I’ve ever done.’ He was close enough now to touch me, and he put his hands on my upper arms as though he was going to shake me, or embrace me, or push me over. His touch was firm, his hands warm through my cardigan which was still slightly damp from the rain.
    ‘Don’t touch me,’ I said, but quietly.
    ‘You need to take some deep breaths, Annabel,’ he said. ‘Calm yourself down.’
    Behind him, Audrey was trying to pull herself up to a standing position. He glanced round at her, and laughed then at her efforts as she fell to one side, grunting with the strain of it. In her hand, gripped at tight as she could manage, was the ceramic vase.
    ‘You planning to hit me with that, are you?’ he jeered. ‘Poor Maggie. That might be her favourite vase.’
    I forgot about the screwdriver and when I moved it fell out of my sleeve and on to the floor. Something took over. I twisted out of his grip and leaned back and brought my fist up and round and hit him as hard as I could on the side of his head. With it came a roar of rage and indignation, fuelled by terror at what he might do next if I gave him long enough to think about it.
    He let out a noise of surprise, almost a yelp, as he spun backwards and lost his footing, falling to his hands and knees, then holding his cheek with one hand. ‘Ow!’ he said. ‘What did you do that for?’
    I clearly hadn’t managed to knock him unconscious.
    Audrey held up the vase. She was sobbing, her arm over her head and flailing as though the vase weighed ten times what it did. Colin was looking up at me reproachfully and she let her arm fall. The vase hit him across the temple and in the same moment I was thinking
She hasn’t got the strength, what’s she going to do, tickle him with it?
– he went down like a stone. Flat on his back, head to one side.
    Audrey gasped, then laughed breathlessly. She sounded hysterical.
    ‘Christ,’ I said. ‘I didn’t think you’d hit him that hard.’
    She was sobbing now, slumped back on her heels, and I stepped over Colin and went over to her and put a hand on her shoulder to provide some comfort. Then I sat down next to her and we held each other, both of us crying.
    ‘We need to get out,’ I said. ‘Can you walk, do you think?’ I tried to get her to her feet, her legs wobbling underneath her.
    Using the wall for support, I half-dragged her up the steps and into the daylight outside the pantry. There was a man outside the back door, a member of a search team by the look of the uniform. When he caught sight of us his eyes widened and he shouted something I didn’t catch, and then more people came