by Ann Troup
She stretched out her arms, searching for the chair that should be in front of her. ‘Where are we?’ she asked. She could smell damp and dirt and rot and for a moment thought he was playing some kind of trick and had led her to the kitchen of Number 17, except that due to her ministrations the aroma of damp and rot there had been overlaid with a fog of bleach and disinfectant.
‘You’ll see in a minute, keep your eyes shut, the chair is right in front of you.’
She groped around, felt the back of the chair and felt down for the seat; keeping her eyes tightly closed, she manoeuvred herself onto the hard seat. ‘Sam, can I open my eyes now? This is getting silly.’
He took his hands away and she felt a sudden chill on her skin where the warmth of his fingers had been. ‘Two more seconds.’
She sensed him move away and heard something that sounded like a drawer being opened, then a click. ‘Right, you can open them now. Surprise.’
She opened her eyes as the last word arrived in her mind, its dull, snide delivery only making sense to her when she saw what Sam was holding.
She had looked down the barrel of a gun once before, a stupid incident when she and Simon had been staying with friends of the hunting, shooting, fishing variety (his friends of course, and odious people to Edie’s mind). Simon had thought it funny to point a shotgun at her and make her kneel before him just because he could. He’d fired it at a tree behind her head, shattering the bark and sending shards of it flying. A piece of it had hit her and in her panic, for the merest fraction of a moment she thought he’d shot her. There were longer moments afterwards when she’d wished he had.
She should have known that Sam was of that ilk and that the affinity she’d felt for him wasn’t attraction, but familiarity in the guise of some warped, domestic Stockholm syndrome.
‘Where are they Edie? I know you found them, Sophie told me.’
Her first thought was of Sophie, her second the bloody diamonds. ‘Where is she?’
‘Safe. For now.’ he said.
Edie’s mind reeled, her thoughts tumbling over themselves vying for traction. If she told him that what he wanted lay in an evidence room there was a good chance she and Sophie were both done for. A man with a gun in her face had to be desperate. There was no coming back from this – the outcome seemed inevitable and all she could bargain for was time.
‘Well?’
She had thought him a handsome man before, but in the half-light of the stinking house his features were not attractive – chiselled by more than a handful of the deadly sins. ‘I’ll show you if you prove to me that Sophie is OK.’ God knows where this bravado had sprung from, Edie considered herself to have a streak of yellow so wide it could be mistaken for a river in China.
Sam laughed. ‘You’re in no position to bargain Edie, just give me what I want.’
‘I can’t, I don’t have them.’ She should have lied, told him that she didn’t know what he was talking about. Retrospect was a less than wonderful thing when it felt like you were dancing with the Devil. Her mind scrabbled for something, anything, feasible to tell him. If she told him the truth she was done for, if she didn’t give him what he wanted she was done for, and even if she could give it, she was still done for. This wasn’t a bastard husband’s stupid power play; this was a desperate man with a means to end her. Something utterly ridiculous occurred to her, so stupid, so ill thought out, but all she had. The only thing left to consider was whether she had the backbone to pull it off. ‘I panicked when I realised what they were, I wasn’t sure what to do and didn’t want to leave them in the house. So I posted them, to home.’
Sam rolled his head back in a gesture of disbelief and dismay. ‘You stupid moronic fucking bitch. You put them in the post?’
‘I didn’t know what else to do, I knew they couldn’t be legal.’ The words were coming out in a desperate babble and she wasn’t faking it. ‘You can get them, they’ll be at my house, there’s no one else there, the keys are in my pocket. Here.’ She fumbled in the pocket of her jeans, seizing on the house key that she no longer knew why she carried – the house was empty, sold to the highest bidder and waiting for its new owners. ‘It’ll take you an hour and a half to drive there, it’s Oxford, not that far.’
He looked at her as if she was insane, then his eyes narrowed. ‘Tell me where.’
She gave him her address, then obeyed with shaking hands as he gave her a long cable tie and told her to make a large loop and put her hands through it. Once done, the gun still in his hand, he pulled the loop tight so that it bit into the flesh of her wrists. He made her stand and marched her towards the door that led to the cellar, forcing her to unlock and open it with her hampered hands. Once through the door she was literally in the dark and he pushed her, sending her down the stone steps like a sack of potatoes, unable to break her fall. The world disappeared in a tumbling, painful blackness for a few moments. Edie had learned well – though the gun was a relatively unfamiliar threat, being thrown down stairs was not. It had been a favourite of Simon’s and she could deal with it like a pro, falling loose like a stuntman to minimise the possibility of injury. She knew it was going to hurt, unlike a stunt there would be no cushion at the bottom, but if she kept her limbs in and rolled she’d be able to get away with only a few bruises.
The door at the top clicked shut just as she hit the floor at the bottom, breathless, terrified and mercifully unbroken, though she knew that she was going to hurt later – if there was a later. The bound hands were a pain, both literally and metaphorically, making it hard for her to get to her feet and suss out her surroundings. The cellar stank of old dirt, rot and the tang of ammonia lingered on the stale air, as if it had been used as a urinal. Light was at a minimum, only the tiniest amount filtering through a blocked grating and barely enough for her to even see the edges of the room. Something was there; she could hear small movements and laboured breathing. There was only one logical conclusion. ‘Sophie?’
A stifled grunt came back across the room and she could just about make out a shape lying on the floor in the heavy shade. ‘Jesus!’ she hissed, shuffling across the floor tentatively lest some object trip her up and render both of them completely helpless.
Sophie lay against the wall, her hands bound behind her back, her feet tied together. The smell of ammonia was intense here and with a feeling of mounting dismay Edie realised that Sophie had been left to lie in her own urine. There was still too much fear and panic to allow for anger, but she knew it would come. Whatever Sam had in store for them – and she knew it wasn’t going to involve letting them walk away – Edie determined that she wasn’t going down without a fight. Whatever was to come she knew that first she needed to get them free. ‘Sophie, can you speak?’ She wondered if he had gagged the girl and felt for her face with her joined hands. Her attention elicited a moan of pain, it felt as if Sophie’s nose had slipped to the side of her face and if what she felt was what she thought it was, the girl’s face was covered in dried, crusted blood. ‘Give me a minute, I’m going to try to cut you free.’
Hooking the keys to Number 17 out of her pocket was no easy task with her own hands bound in front her and her muscles getting sore from the tumble down the steps – but it would have been impossible if Sam had bound them behind her back. As she stretched and grimaced at the effort she wondered whether Sam had been distracted and desperate or just plain stupid in not checking her pockets. If he had he would have found the keys, and the tiny pair of nail clippers that were attached to them as a key ring. The clippers were the kind of thing that came in a Christmas cracker, the kind of thing that Dolly the magpie would have liked, and to Edie’s fortune had kept. All Edie could hope now was that they were strong enough to nibble through the thick plastic that bound their limbs.
By the time she had retrieved the keys her already restricted hands were shaking, and to add urgency to her task Sophie had started to sob and tremble. ‘Not long now love, I’m on it.’ Edie said, feeling down Sophie’s legs
to where the cable tie was biting into her flesh. Picking at the plastic with a miniature implement designed more for novelty than practicality, and with hands that felt as though they had the all the substance of jellyfish, Edie felt like she would never manage it. Her head was wedged against the wet stone wall and everything she did was by imprecise touch and instinct. By the time Sophie’s feet were free she was exhausted, her arms shaking from the effort of struggling in an awkward position. Now she had to do it all again with Sophie’s hands. ‘I know it’s hard Soph, but you’re going to have to help me. Now that your feet are free, can you shuffle round and let me get to your hands?’
With a muffled, pained sob Sophie tried, pushing against the wall with her feet, and crying out as her fettered arms grated on the rough floor. Edie tried to help by pushing her onto her front, which proved impossible with the girl’s battered face. In the end she straddled the prone girl and with extreme effort forced her joined hands and numb fingers to do what she had to, nipping at the cable tie in a manner that felt like a bird pecking at a crumb. It seemed to take forever, but finally the plastic gave and Sophie’s tense body sagged accompanied by a moan of relief combined with agony as her limbs relaxed and began to reawaken. Edie estimated that the whole thing had taken the best part of an hour, she wore a watch but couldn’t see it in the half-light.
‘Sophie, you’re going to have to try and cut this one.’ Edie said, noting that Sophie had barely moved from her curled up, foetal position. God knows how long she’d been tied like that, but even an hour would have been too much with muscle and sinew constantly protesting at the unnatural strain. Edie didn’t want to push her, but she couldn’t get free by herself, and there was no way either of them were getting out unless she had the use of her hands. ‘Soph, you have to try, please?’
It took a minute – which to Edie felt like an aeon – but eventually Sophie, still sobbing and groaning, hauled herself to her knees and with hands that felt like cold marble groped for Edie’s and the nail clippers. Sophie’s progress with the tiny, now blunt and almost ineffectual tool was even slower than Edie’s but she managed to weaken the bond enough for Edie to be able to stretch and snap the plastic. Once free she flung the tie away from her and reached out for the trembling girl who collapsed into her arms in a fretful, miserable heap. ‘We’ve got to try and get out Soph, he’s not going to let us get away – you understand, yeah?’
Sophie managed a weak, half-hearted nod. ‘He broke by dose and I weed byself.’ she croaked.
Edie squeezed her shoulders. ‘I know love, I know, when we get out of here we’re going to laugh about this. I promise.’ She doubted it, she doubted they would ever laugh about it, but she had to say something.
‘Wed we ged oud I’m gudda kill dab bastud!’
‘Do you know what Soph? I’m going to let you. Right, I’m going to go and have a look at the door, see if there’s anything we can do.’
She felt her way across the dim cellar – easier now with both hands free – and groped for the steps, using her hands to guide her up. It was darker on the steps, the blackness felt inky and suffocating but strip of dim light showed under the cellar door. Edie saw that as a good thing, it meant there was a gap, and if Sam was as desperate and thoughtless as she hoped he’d been, he would have left the key in the lock too. When she crouched on the step and peered through the keyhole she saw that he had, but the key wasn’t in line, a thin sliver of light showed through as a tiny triangle of hope mingled with despair. She would have to try and tilt the key back so that it was in line with the keyhole. First she took off her jacket, the fabric was fairly stiff and – with her hands still shaking from the adrenaline that felt as though it was being squelched through every fibre of her being – she tried to feed it under the door. It took three attempts before she could slip it through enough to catch the key – if she could niggle it into position and push it out, and if it fell on the fabric, and if she could then guide it along the edge of the door and towards the bigger gap on the hinged side. There were a lot of ifs and no other options. She had considered trying to release the grating, but even if she could have reached it, the thing was so old and rusty it would have taken her a week just to loosen it, let alone try and lift it. The door was their only option.
She needed something to try and guide the key, something thin and long. All she had were the keys for Number 17, too thick and too short for what she wanted. The tiny handle of the nail clippers was too short, too thick and too clumsy. Her mind cast about for something that she could use, and remembered the cable ties. Why the hell had she thrown them across the room? Her temper, disgust and downright fury at the situation had got in the way and now she was angry at herself. ‘Sophie, we have to find the cable ties, help me look.’
She heard Sophie begin to shuffle around below her. ‘I’ll come down, but we have to find them.’
The prospect of feeling around the filthy floor amongst the unidentifiable lumps and debris that could be God knows what was more than revolting. As she slid her hands through the filth she could hear Sophie’s stifled grunts of revulsion and the odd panicked retch.
‘Good one!’ Sophie croaked triumphantly.
Edie scooted over to where the voice had come from, she could barely see Sophie’s outline in the fading light, night was approaching fast and if they lost the last of the light she wouldn’t be able to see the key. Sophie groped for her hand and pressed the cable tie into it. As quickly as she could Edie found the step again and climbed. Once kneeling in front of the door, her back bent so that her eye was aligned with the keyhole, she slipped the thin end of the tie into the lock and tried to feed it behind the tilted key. It was a delicate and awkward process, made more difficult by her shaking hand and the decreasing light. There were several times when she was convinced that she’d got it, only to realise that the flimsy plastic had just caught on one of the wards. She pulled it out, sat back on her haunches and put it in her mouth, trying not to think about the fact that it had been in contact with the filthy floor. Once she had coated it in saliva (something that her panicked body had seen fit to produce in short supply) she took a breath and tried again. Hoping that the spit would lubricate its passage she slid the sliver of plastic in with the precision of a neurosurgeon. The intense focus seemed to have calmed her nerves and this time the cable tie slid behind and the key dropped back to its home position. She checked that the jacket was still under the door and that her shuffling and shifting hadn’t pulled it out, then she used one of the house keys to quickly push the cellar key out the other side. To her immense relief she heard it thud down, its fall broken by the fabric. Sam Campion was an arsehole – she had foiled him and she allowed herself a little smile of satisfaction before attempting to manoeuvre the fabric with its precious load. The light had almost completely gone and she was relying more on instinct and what she could see in her mind’s eye than reality. She almost willed the fabric to move and carry the key towards the gap. Finally, and hoping against hope that her gut was right she began to tug the fabric as gently as she could, the nerves were back and she felt like her heart had leapt into her throat when she sensed the key snag on the bottom of the door. She eased the jacket a quarter of an inch further but it had started to bunch against the doorframe and wouldn’t move any more, she had no choice but to pull and hope that the gap under the door was wide enough. To her inordinate relief it was and she seized the key with a gratitude that made her wish that she was religious, so that she could thank the deity responsible. ‘I’ve got it Soph!’ she called.
‘Dank gob for dat, cad we geb da fuck ouda here den?’ Sophie rasped through her dry mouth, unable to give clarity to her words, hampered as she was by a broken nose and swollen face.
Edie fumbled the key into the lock and turned, her heart leaping with relief at the sound of the tumblers releasing. Something terrifying was prodding at her senses, she had thought she could smell it before, the odd whiff clinging to the stale air of the cellar in thin ribbons.
The smell of petrol became a stench when she pushed the door open. A wall of fumes that hit her in the face like a balled up fist.
Sophie was behind her on the steps, holding on to the waistband of Edie’s jeans for guidance in the dark. Somewhere in the bowels of the house Edie could hear someone moving, their footsteps causing the old boards to creak and moan. Not only that, she could hear the glugging sound of a large vessel being emptied. A petrol can. Logic dictated that they make a bid for the back door, but the gigantic man-shaped shadow that fell across the window made that means of escape more frightening than the prospect of coming face to face with whoever was in the house. She turned to Sophie and put her fingers to her lips then pointed up, whispering ‘We have to go up, be quiet, take your shoes off and stick to the edges.’
Like a couple of naughty children they slipped through the door and made for the kitchen staircase, a narrow affair, which led up to the first landing. They paused there, hardly daring to breathe as the intruder made his presence known in the room below. The back door was wrenched open and voices floated up.
‘All done boss.’
‘Good. Torch it.’
The click of a lighter, the leap of flames, the smell of dirt and heat and the acrid taste of burning – and Sophie’s whisper as she clutched Edie’s arm. ‘Johddo, oh fuck…’
Chapter Nineteen
Sam knew the law as well as anyone, but since when had it applied to him? Besides, who gave a shit if someone used their mobile phone in a car – Sam knew what he was doing, even if Johnno was gritting his shit by being his usual idiot self.
‘Don’t fucking argue with me, and don’t ask questions – just fucking do it!’ he yelled. The traffic was intense, everyone seemed to be milling around all over the place, it seemed that there wasn’t much left that wouldn’t boil his piss today. With the phone wedged under his chin he swung the car into the right-hand lane, swiftly pulling past a battered van and ignoring the indignant sound of its horn. Johnno’s voice babbled at him over the airwaves. ‘Tell Stefan to go fuck himself, Pascoe will have his goods by midnight. Now go and do what I’ve told you to do, or it won’t be Pascoe you’re worried about, it will be me!’ Satisfied that he’d made himself clear, he threw the phone onto the passenger seat and put his foot down, blithely ignoring the battered van that had undertaken him on the left and was now attempting to pull out, its feeble indicator obscured by the duct tape that held it together. The graunch and grind of collapsing metal reached his ears just as the airbag exploded into his face.