Land of the Living

by Nicci French

  Nearly," I gasped. "A few minutes more and you'll be free. Ssssh, please."

  Done! I stood up and pulled the gag from her mouth and a terrible wailing sound escaped from her.

  "Jo?" I whispered. "Are you Jo?"

  "I'm Sarah. Sarah. Help me. Please help me. Oh God, oh God, oh God, godgodgodgod."

  I felt winded with disappointment, except there was no time for that now. No time for anything except flight.

  "Get up!" I said, grabbing her by the forearm.

  She half rose, falling against me in her weakness.

  "Listen! What's that?" I gasped.

  Someone was outside. There were footsteps in the yard. The clank of something metal in the distance.

  I shoved Sarah down on the bales. I stuffed the gag back in her mouth, stifling the gurgling sound that she was making. She started struggling, but feebly.

  "Sarah! Our only chance. Let me. Fucking let me. I'm here, Sarah. I'll save you. All right?"

  Her eyes flickered at me, terrified. I found the wire dangling above me like a giant spider's thread, and pulled it over her head, pulling it tighter. The footsteps were coming nearer. I wrapped the rope clumsily round her legs. The wrists. I had to find the rope. I bent down and swam my hands over the gritty floor until I picked it up. Now the footsteps were getting nearer. A wheezy cough. There was a scream burning in the back of my throat and I swallowed it back. Nausea. Blood hammering in my eardrums. I felt for the hood on the floor and then the bales beside the seated, shuddering figure, and when I found it, I jammed it back over her head roughly, feeling her neck jerk.

  "Wait," I hissed, and hurtled over to the other side of the room, behind a metal object that ripped my shin, my heart like a violent drum beat he would surely hear, my breath like sobs that he had to hear, as soon as he lifted the latch, opened the door, came inside.

  Twenty-eight

  I had retreated into a corner right at the back, away from the door. I was deep in the shadow, behind an incomprehensible, rusting machine, an assembly of wheels and cogs and bolts, connected to nothing. Even if he looked in my direction he probably wouldn't be able to see me. Probably. That was the difficult word. I shuffled back as far as I could. I felt the chill damp of the wall on my neck, on my scalp through my short hair. And now he was there. I had found him by accident. I felt a plunging, plummeting sensation of nausea as I fell back into my nightmare.

  And then, as I saw him, my first feeling was: there must be a mistake. When he had been a voice out of the darkness, I had thought of him as huge and powerful, a monster. He had been the foul god who was going to punish me and reward me and feed me and starve me and decide whether I lived or died.

  Now I saw flashes of him as he caught the light. Just a detail here and there, a rough coat, and straggled, greying hair, combed across his balding head. I could hardly see his face at all. It was largely covered by a flowery woman's scarf. To a stranger it might have looked like a protection against dust. But I knew what it was. It was to disguise his voice. He came in muttering to himself, carrying a galvanized bucket, which he tossed on the floor with a clatter. I couldn't connect my memories with this shambling, down-at-heel, insignificant man. He looked like the person you don't notice who has come to clean the windows or sweep the floor. He talked to Sarah as if she were a slightly troublesome pig that needed mucking out.

  "How are you doing?" he said, arranging things around her in ways I couldn't see. "Sorry I've been away a bit. Been busy. But I'll be here for a bit now. I've made time for you."

  He walked out and for a wild moment I considered flight. But almost at once, he returned with something that he placed on the ground with a clatter. It might have been a tool-box. He came and went, came and went, carrying and hauling in objects from the yard outside. Most of them were hidden in the gloom but I caught sight of an unlit lantern, a blow-torch and some empty vinyl bags, the sort that people carry their sports kit in. And all I could do was crouch in the darkness, trying not to move, not to breathe. The straw rustled against my foot when I shifted position. I gulped when I swallowed. Surely he could hear the thunder of my heart, the rush of my blood, the scream in my throat?

  During one of his brief absences I reached into my pocket and my fingers closed around Ben's mobile phone. Softly, oh, so slowly, I took it out and brought it close to my face. I wrapped my fingers around it and pressed a button to illuminate the tiny screen. There was the tiniest of beeps. It sounded like the ringing of a bell. Had he heard it? There was no chance of talking but could I send a text message or just dial 999? I looked at the screen. How could he not see that light in the darkness? Up the right-hand side of the screen there were three broken lines, which showed that the battery was almost full. On the left-hand side there should have been what looked like four flowers, or goblets, on top of each other to indicate the strength of reception. But there was one, indicating no reception at all. There was no chance. I couldn't make a call and I couldn't receive a call. I slipped the phone back into my pocket.

  I wanted to cry and curse and scratch my fingernails on the stone. As soon as I had seen Sarah, I should have got out and called for help. It would have been so simple. Instead, I had followed myself back into the trap. I was cursed and blighted. I looked across at him, silhouetted against the faint light from the space outside.

  I went over options in my mind. I could make a run for the door and try to escape and bring help. That was completely hopeless. He was by the door. Even with the advantage of surprise, I would have no chance. I could attack him, smash him over the head, knock him out. Could I get to him without him hearing? Could I take him by surprise? It didn't seem likely. No, my only chance was to wait and hope he would leave and I would have my chance.

  The thought of that, of having to stay silent in the shadows, made me want to lie on the cold floor and weep.-I felt so very tired. I wanted to sleep. Perhaps I didn't want to die, but I was close to wanting to be dead. At least the dead are cut off from pain and fear. What was the point of even fighting against it?

  And then, almost without realizing it, I started to feel different. Looking at him bustling casually around with that poor girl trussed up on the straw bales, I began to feel that I was looking at myself. I remembered those days when I had been the one with the wire around my neck and the hood over my face. I had been there, with my toes over the edge of the abyss, waiting to be slaughtered, and I remembered what I had felt. I had given up all hope of surviving. What I had prayed for was a chance to go for him, tear an eye out, scratch him, just do some sort of damage to him, before I died. Now I had been given that opportunity. I couldn't defeat him. That was too much to ask. But if he found me, at least I would do him some damage. I needed something. I felt a small whimper of regret. I would have given everything I had ever owned for a kitchen knife or an aerosol spray. Then I made myself not mind about that. I was here. I had nothing. Anything I could put in my hand would be something.

  I crouched and started to feel around me in the darkness, very delicately, praying that I wouldn't knock anything over. My right hand touched something cold. A tin, by its size a paint tin. I pushed at it experimentally. It was empty, useless to me. Next to it my fingers closed around a handle. This was more promising but it turned out to be a paint brush with stiff, clogged bristles. There was nothing. No chisel. No screwdriver. No steel pole. Nothing I could hold. I stood up again, feeling my knees creak. How could he not hear that? I just had to wait until he had gone. Then I could go outside and call the police. Release Sarah.

  The man was arranging things. I couldn't make out exactly what he was doing but I could hear him muttering lightly to himself. He reminded me of my father at the weekend, the only happy part of his life, when he would be repairing the fence in the garden, painting a window-frame, putting up a bookshelf.

  The man was unfastening the wire around Sarah's neck. Oh, yes, the bucket. The hooded figure was pulled forward, her trousers tugged down, she crouched over the bucket, his hands around
her neck. I heard the splashing in the bucket.

  "Well done, my beauty," he murmured, pulling her trousers back up.

  With the casualness of long practice, he refastened the wire around her neck until she was helpless once more, but there was a tenderness about it. He seemed to like her more than he had liked me. He had never called me his beauty. The language had always been hostile. He had always been breaking me down.

  "You've slimmed down," he said. "I think we're ready. You're lovely, Sarah. Lovely. Not like all of them."

  He stood back, in contemplation of her. I heard a metallic rasping sound and a flicker of light. He had lit the lantern. Light was splashed across the room and I shrank back behind the machinery. He examined Sarah with approving murmurs, feeling her naked arms, running his fingers along them, the way you might feel a horse to check if its fever had subsided. He laid the lantern on the floor. He lifted his arms, with his hands behind his head. He looked like someone who was newly awake, yawning and stretching and then I saw he was unfastening his scarf. It required some complicated tugging and fiddling with the tight knot and then he pulled the scarf away and there, for the first time, in the shifting orange light of the lantern, I saw his face.

  It meant nothing to me. I didn't recognize it. I didn't know him. And, suddenly and strangely, it was as if a small turn had been made to the dial and everything had come into focus. The edges were sharp and hard, even in that flickering lantern light. My fever had gone. Even my fear had gone. What I had wanted was to know, and now I knew. Even my thoughts were clear now, and hard-edged. I didn't remember. My memory had not been restored. The sight of his drab face provoked no shock of recognition. But I knew what I needed to know.

  I'd thought it was about me. There I had been in my fucked-up life, my stupid job and my disastrous relationship, and I had thought and fantasized and feared that he that man over there had recognized it in me. I had been heading for -disaster and I had brought it willingly on myself. He had recognized it in me and we had been made for each other, needed each other. I had wanted to be destroyed.

  Now I knew that this wasn't true. Maybe I had been careless, frantic, deranged, but I had blundered into his path. Not even that. I could never know for sure, but I guessed that it was Jo who had encountered him, eager, vulnerable, desperate, a perfect victim for him. I had been concerned for Jo and had followed in her footsteps and encountered him in turn. That pathetic loser over there had nothing to do with my life. He was the meteor that had fallen on me. He was the earthquake that had opened up under my feet. And that was the funny thing. There, cowering in the darkness and knowing I was trapped, I felt free of him.

  I couldn't remember what had happened. I would never be able to. But now I sort of knew what had happened those weeks ago. I'd been out there, in the land of the living, and then by mistake I had wandered into his territory, into his hobby. What do they say about a fight? I had read or heard or been told that the winner was the person who struck the first blow. I think I could guess what must have happened. I was looking for Jo. This man, this unmemorable man, was part of the background, part of the furniture. Suddenly he had leapt into the foreground. He'd pulled me out of my world into his world. It had nothing to do with my world except that I was going to die in it. I imagined myself being taken by surprise by this man I had hardly noticed and fighting back too late, my head banged against the wall, or clubbed.

  I made myself think: If he sees me, what will I do? I made myself remember what he had done to me. All the terrible memories that I had spent weeks trying to suppress I now dragged out to the forefront of my mind. They were like a terrible inflamed, rotting, infected tooth around which I pushed my tongue as hard as I could to remind myself of what pain could be like. And then I looked at that man, fussing around Sarah, as if she were a sheep being crammed into a stall, slapping at her, muttering endearments,

  setting out tools in preparation. He was both the patient, fussing lover and the busy, dispassionate slaughter man

  There was apparently some resistance from her because he cuffed her lightly.

  "What's that, my love?" he said. There must have been some sort of groan from inside the hood, but I couldn't hear it. "Am I hurting you? What? What is it? Hang on a moment, love."

  I heard his breathing, oh, yes, I remembered that hoarse breathing, as he struggled to release the gag.

  "What's this?" he said. "You been trying to get free."

  She coughed as she was released from the gag, coughed and heaved.

  "There, there, my darling, mind your neck now."

  "I was choking," she said. "I thought I was going to die."

  "Is that all?"

  "No, no."

  A suspicion started to spread in me like a stain. I knew what was going to happen now and I wasn't afraid. I had died already. It didn't matter.

  "So what is it?"

  "I don't want to die," she said. "I'll do anything to stay alive."

  "You stupid little bitch. I've told you. I don't want anything. They didn't pay the ransom. Did I tell you that? They didn't pay the ransom. You know why? "Cause I didn't ask for one. Hur hur hur." He laughed at his own joke.

  "If I told you something. Something really important. Would you let me live?"

  "Like what?"

  "But would you?"

  There was a few seconds' silence now. He was troubled.

  "Tell me first," he said in a softer tone.

  Sarah didn't speak. She just gave a sob.

  "Fucking tell me."

  "Do you promise? Do you promise to let me live?"

  "Tell me first," he said. "Then I'll let you go."

  A long pause. I could count Sarah's gasps as I waited for what I knew she was going to say.

  "There's someone here. Now let me go."

  "What the fuck?"

  He stood up and looked around at the very moment that I stepped forward towards him, out of the shadow. I had thought of flying at him but that would be no good. He was almost ten yards away. He had too much time. I looked beyond him at the doorway. It might as well have been on the moon. He narrowed his eyes with the effort of making me out in the shadow at the back, way away from the door.

  "You?" he said, his mouth open in bafflement. "Abbie. How the fuck did you .. . ?"

  I took a step towards him. I didn't look at Sarah. I looked him right in the eyes.

  "I found you," I said. "I wanted to find you. I couldn't stay away."

  "I've been fucking looking for you," he said. He looked around, obviously disconcerted. Was there anybody else here?

  "I'm on my own," I said. I held up my hands to him. "Look. I've got nothing."

  "What the fuck are you doing here?" he said. "I've got you now. You fucking got away. I've got you."

  I smiled. I felt so calm now. Nothing mattered. I thought again of those days in the dark. My tongue pushing at the rotting tooth. Remembering. Reliving.

  "What do you mean you've "got me"?" I said. "I've come back. I wanted to come back."

  "You'll regret this," he said. "You'll fucking regret this."

  I took another step forward. "What do you want with her?" I said. "I was listening to you both." I took another step forward. We were just a few feet apart now. "I heard you calling her your love. I felt that should have been me. Isn't that funny?"

  He looked wary again. "It's not funny," he said.

  I took another step forward. "I missed you," I said.

  "You fucking ran away," he said. &

  "I was scared," I said. "But afterwards I thought about it. You understood me. You dominated me. Nobody ever understood me the way you understood me. I want to understand you."

  He smiled. "You're mad, you are."

  "It doesn't matter," I said. "I'm here. I'm in your hands. There's just one thing." Another step forward. We were quite close now.

  "What's that?"

  "All that time, when we were together, you were just this voice in the dark, looking after me, feeding me. I used to
think about you all the time, wonder what you were like. Will you let me kiss you just once?" I moved my face closer to his. He smelt of something bad. Sweet and chemical. "Just once. It won't matter." Close up, it was such an ordinary face. Nothing frightening about it. Nothing special. "Look at me," I said, holding my hands out, open and empty. "I'm just here, in front of you. Just one touch." As I leant over I thought of him not as a man but as a sheep's head. That was important. I imagined a dead sheep's head that had been cut away from the body. "Just one kiss. We're both lonely. So lonely. Just one." I softly touched his lips with mine. Nearly now. Nearly. Slowly. "I've waited for that." Another kiss. I brought my hands up to his face, gently touching the side of his face with my palms. Wait. Wait. A dead sheep's head. Tongue on the rotten tooth. My face moved back. I looked at him wistfully and then I pushed my thumbs into his eyes. They were only the eyes in the skull of a dead sheep. A dead sheep who had kept me in the dark and tortured me. I knew that the nails on my thumbs were long. I gripped on the side of his head with my other fingers like claws and the thumbnails gouged into his eyes and I saw with interest that my thumbs, as they pushed into his head and scraped in the sockets, were now streaked with liquid, a watery liquid streaked with yellow, like pus.

  I thought he would grab me. I thought he would kill me. Tear me into pieces. He didn't even touch me. I was able to step back and pull my sludgy thumbs out. A strange scream came from deep inside him, a howl, and his hands went up to his face, and his body folded up and he lay wriggling on the floor, spluttering and whimpering.

  I took a step back, out of the reach of this grub-like creature, squirming and squeaking on the floor. I took a tissue from my

  2OQ

  pocket and wiped my thumbs. I took some deep breaths, filling my lungs. I felt like a drowning swimmer who had reached the surface and was breathing in the beautiful clean life-giving air.

  Twenty-nine

  There was the moon still, and there were the stars. Frost on the surface of everything, a glitter in the semi-darkness. A world of ice and snow and stillness. The cold cut into my face. I breathed in, quite steadily, and felt clean air in my mouth, and streaming down my throat. I breathed out again and watched how my breath hung in the air.