LEWIS’ CALLS FOR HELP had subsided as he heard his partner ascend the stairs, but he reached out to snatch the door wide the moment it was unbolted and began to swing open. He was relieved to see that Crash had managed to keep Alice from escaping – he had a fertile imagination, but he didn’t need it to realise that something unpleasant would have happened to him had the girl succeeded in escaping the house and making it to the road.
The relief he felt, which he was sure must have been visible on his face, was short-lived.
“What the hell happened, you bloody i***t?” Crash snarled as he pushed Alice into the room ahead of him. “If she’d been a little quieter, I wouldn’t have woken, and she’d have gotten away.” With an unnecessarily hard shove, he sent the schoolgirl sprawling; she landed f
