by Stuart Keane
Not today she wouldn’t.
She hadn’t a mirror to hand, but she imagined she looked atrocious.
Her suit had gone, well most of it had. The jacket and her trouser legs up to the middle thigh had been removed. The trousers had lost their belt, and her shoes and socks had been removed too. The white tee shirt remained, but the bra had been taken, the thought of someone removing it made her feel nauseous and violated.
Her jewellery was gone, as were her hairpins, and her make-up had been washed off. She couldn’t feel the foundation on her skin or the eyeliner on her eyelashes. She touched her lips and felt the chapped skin. Heather didn’t wear lipstick, but having a chap stick right now would be a godsend. Her blonde hair was hanging down in strands, randomly, in total disarray.
Removal of the hairpins had destroyed her hairstyle. Her hands smoothed it back over her head in a vain attempt to make it look better. She knew it didn’t matter. Slipping a hand inside her trousers she checked that her underwear was still there and breathed a sigh of relief when she found it was. However, the waistline was saggy. Someone had removed the elastic from the panties. A rag of the underwear stuck out where someone had snipped the material with a pair of scissors. A wave of sickness came over her again. Heather assumed that the underwear-snipper was the same person who had removed everything else, denying her any tools or weapons in the process. A clever person.
Whoever put her here didn’t want things to be easy for her.
Heather looked up, and for a second was bemused.
The confusion had arisen when she saw the room before her. At first it looked like a meaningless silver room, its walls made of steel, its floor marble tile and all its furniture made of steel too. The centre of the floor had a circular piece of metal in it, with holes punched through. The only steel furniture she saw was a table positioned neatly in the corner beneath a mirror. A tray sat on top of the table and a syringe sat beside it, with a neat manila folder placed in a plastic holder on the wall. The holder held a name saying WILLIS. The name didn’t ring a bell with Heather, but she stepped nearer and took a look at the items closely. There was nothing of interest. The room was very chilly, and when she looked up she noticed an air duct.
Air conditioning, she thought, great. I’m fucking freezing.
The realisation hit Heather like a bullet, making her gasp and her eyes widen. Moving over to the table, she saw a second door in the wall beside her. It was reflected in the mirror above the table. The mirror was nearly as big as the wall, the size of an average house window. Heather peered closely.
Then she ducked beneath the mirror and leaned against the steel wall. Her rump was cold against the marble tiling beneath her. Her preferred environment was an office or her home, but she knew a two-way mirror when she saw one: she was aware that police used them all the time.
Someone was watching her.
***
The third man finished his JD and put the tumbler down on the desk. Reaching to his left, he pulled open his desk drawer and paused before taking the fifth bottle of JD from the selection he had there. He unscrewed the cap, enjoying the click of the new sealed lid breaking for the first time. Removing the cap, he sniffed the bottle’s contents and sighed. He poured some into his used glass and shook the half melted ice around in the mixture. He placed the bottle back in the drawer and closed it. He sipped.
A smile crept across his lips once again.
The woman was starting to bore him, something he’d expected. She was simple, cautious, not daring enough to do anything rash or adventurous. He knew this to be the case. It was the reason he outbid everyone for her, the reason he intentionally made it his duty to make sure that he got her no matter what. After all, what was a few hundred thousand pounds between friends?
He had picked her for a reason. It was because she was so simple and methodical. She thought things through, a thinker. There were other reasons too, but he kept those to himself.
Thinkers can be misled. Manipulated, led astray, decoyed, their mind set could be distorted. Paranoia plays a huge part in their final decisions. If pushed right, people can do anything on a whim. Thinkers were a rare breed, the sort psychics seek out and prey on. Total control, you just have to know where to push. So far, he had been right on the button. He stared at the monitor as he sipped his beverage.
His first room, he had the choice to have a window, or no window, or just four walls solidly built with few items within the room. He had paid extra for a two-way mirror. Of course, there was no two-way, the other side of the mirror faced the interior of a disused warehouse, no one could see in, or out. But she had taken the bait perfectly, seen the mirror and thought that she was being watched.
She was right, of course, the four hidden cameras in the room were testimony to that.
A shame she would never know.
The man watched, his interest piqued once again.
SEVEN
Francisco De Goya paused and placed his hands on his knees.
Sweat poured down his face, he could feel it stinging his eyes and collecting in his eyebrows. He spat on the floor. He remembered footballers doing that every now and then and had thought at the time how disgusting the habit was. Now he realised why they did. They were good people, you couldn’t blame them. The only difference was, Francisco didn’t have any way of replacing his fluids. And by God he needed a drink.
The street he emerged on didn’t look familiar to him in any way. He was completely oblivious to his surroundings. The feeling of isolation started to overtake him, so he moved onwards. Following the road left was always a good idea, he reasoned. Roads lead somewhere, eventually he would find a destination. He had eluded his kidnappers for now, but they could come after him at a moment’s notice. Preparation was everything if he was to stay alive. One chance isn’t very good odds. Francisco intended to make the most of it.
Looking around, he realised that he was on an industrial estate. The familiar huge plots of land with vast emptiness stretched out on both sides of the road. They died away in the distance to pitch black. The entire estate was dark, no lights were on anywhere in the various buildings, the only illumination was courtesy of the street lights that were sparsely scattered along the pavement. Three or four of those were in need of new bulbs, one was flickering on and off intermittently. The road was unmarked with no lanes, so Francisco assumed it was a loading-only road, which would explain the darkness: no business operated after eight, a common rule in the UK. A burnt out shell of a car was to his right, the wheels removed, and its interior now a mere, blackened memory. The moonlight cast an eerie hue on the skeletal vehicle. De Goya looked at the sky in vain, trying to figure out the moon’s position.
What was the time, anyway?
Francisco realised he didn’t have a watch on. He also realised that someone had taken it, along with his belongings and various items of his clothing and his jewellery. Wearing only a black tank top and a pair of three-quarter cut denim jeans, he carried on down the road. He shoved his hands in his pockets to keep warm.
A car engine broke the formidable silence around him.
A couple of revs and that was all - but it was there.
Distant, not close, maybe a few streets away.
The first sign of life he had stumbled across in an hour. It filled him with a little hope, yet it made him cringe at the same time.
Was it help or a threat?
He could either hope it was help or run towards it blindly, possibly getting himself killed. Maybe he was about to be helped, he thought, who knows? Society isn’t so bad these days.
On the other hand, it could be a threat and he was a dead man anyway.
Francisco realised he couldn’t take the risk. If he wanted to die, he would have stayed in the cell back over yonder and waited like a chickenshit.
He was free, no way was he going to jeopardise that.
Not for anyone apart from his family - and only when he knew they were safe.
Sticking
to the shadows, De Goya reached a T junction in the street and had two choices. Left headed off around a corner he could not see for shadow and the fact that the road turned pretty much back on itself. The other direction led to a well-lit housing estate in the distance. An estate filled with electricity, with power, heat, food and a phone to call for help and to contact home.
That was obviously the better option. He started walking up the road.
Ten feet on, markings appeared on the road and it became two official lanes. A proper pedestrian highway. Knowing that a housing estate was at the end of this road made him feel better about his journey. The dark of the night shrouded his surroundings, and the odd street light was all that De Goya had to guide him, but he preferred it that way. With shadow like this, ducking off the road to hide would be simple. Should his captors decide to come and find him, he was prepared.
Just the way he liked it.
The path started to incline up a moderately steep hill, past some office buildings which were shut down for the evening. The street was still silent, no cars passed, no engines broke the night’s silence. And no people were around, or sitting around, or standing on the street.
He thought he saw a man lighting a cigarette under a street light, but he was mistaken. No machines whirred, no trains passed in the distance, no buses or vehicles moved. No aeroplanes flew overhead either. The only noise that greeted De Goya’s ears was his footsteps which were becoming more laboured because of the hill’s suddenly increased incline. De Goya turned and surveyed the area behind him, from where he’d come. Even the street was clean of litter and debris.
He was completely alone and where he was standing seemed to be totally isolated.
Which he found a little odd.
The street turned left at the peak of the hill and led De Goya into a medium-sized housing estate. The road was small, with four houses either side. Each home had its own small garden at the front, with a driveway and a street light illuminating each property, as if the people wanted to advertise their prosperity. The houses were fronted by grass and asphalt, the kind of homes that most folk would need a thirty-year mortgage to buy.
The exterior lights were on, in full glare, not flickering or ill maintained. The street was immaculate down to the last detail. Houses seemed to shimmer in the bright glare, the grass seemed to be cut perfectly, the driveways and pavement looked newly laid, the windows reflecting all manners of colours, the bricks in the homes were probably measured before being put into the walls. De Goya imagined reject bricks being sent back to the factory because they were an inch too small. The cars in the driveways were all new models, none more than six months old. De Goya checked the registration plates on the cars and sighed, thinking: such luxury. A BMW, a Mercedes, a Rolls, an Audi, the makers’ names advertising their upmarket credentials. De Goya was no car freak, but he recognised class when he saw it.
There was probably about seven hundred thousand pounds’ worth of automobile there, he thought, reflecting that some people had too much money.
Once Francisco had surveyed the area, he looked further up the street and saw a wood-panelled fence with a hole in it. Trees backed onto this, shrouding the fence in shadow. De Goya briskly walked up the street, not wanting to wake anyone, and reached the fence in about a minute. Hopping through the hole, his feet landed on an incline covered with loose soil and leaves. The trees’ branches were almost bare, reminding De Goya that it was autumn; the chill in the air confirmed it.
Trees surrounded him, but light filtered through them from a downward angle. Realising he had to head down the incline to reach a bushy, lit-up area he paced slowly, keeping to the wooded parts, not wanting to trip or catch his foot. He navigated slowly and within three minutes was looking out from the bushes. De Goya was aware that he still heard no noise, no birds or crickets or animals. It seemed odd.
But then, what wasn’t odd about your last few hours? He thought. This experience is hardly normal for you.
De Goya looked out from his hiding place. His eyes adjusted to the light of the street in front of him. This road was larger, vaster, with twenty or so houses randomly positioned along the street, on corners, attached, semi-detached, some backing onto one another. Small lawns and driveways fronted each house. In the centre of the street was a circular section, with metal apparatus scattered around.
A children’s playground.
De Goya imagined the homes looking identical to the previous street. He could imagine people coming out of these houses, getting into their cars and attending their nine-to-five jobs, then coming home for dinner and family time and paying the bills and going to bed to read a book, or make love, or try to connect in some other way with their partner; perhaps those who had lengthy marriages might have a life devoid of such intimacy. De Goya could imagine the people going to work, anticipating the added spice of an affair with their secretary, then their dalliance being discovered months later, and then filing for a divorce that their measly salary could not afford. Within a year, he could see the lives of the people in that street imploding.
Chaos theory 101, it was a testament to the human way of life. It happened all over the world, and it definitely happened in this street.
De Goya knew this for a fact.
He had lived here for five years.
***
Finally, his Choice had made it through phase one.
He was home.
The final man had absolute control. He was winning, way ahead of anyone else, and he knew it. Right now, his selection was worth an estimated thirty million pounds because of the stakes he had bet at. He liked to play high stakes, he could afford to. It made the thrill a lot better, and the payoff almost total ecstasy. It made him almost want to smile.
However, he thought, let’s not get carried away here.
One step at a time.
Phase two was going to be a lot of fun.
Phase two was hard core.
Shit was about to hit the fan.
He tapped a button on the keyboard.
Ten minutes.
EIGHT
There was no threat in the tunnel beyond Kathryn’s cell.
None at all. The tunnel, for all its darkness and isolation, seemed empty.
Determining if it actually was or not was something else entirely. Kathryn was under the illusion that if she couldn’t see anyone, then no one could see her. Simple physics really. Tit for tat. Besides, since emerging from her boiling cell, against all her instincts, she had stood still for about five minutes. Doing nothing, breathing low, not moving. If there was a threat nearby, then it wasn’t aware of her existence. Satisfied she was alone, Kathryn breathed out. However, she remained still.
You could never be too careful.
I mean, she thought, it’s not every day you wake up in a cell and have no idea why.
Kathryn inched forward slowly, trying to get a feel for how much noise her movements would make, and also to gauge her surroundings. In the pitch darkness, her hands and her feet became her eyes. Taking a huge step could be a fatal mistake.
Her right hand slid along the wall beside her, its coolness making her fingers feel numb. Her body was hot from adrenaline and her heart pumped violently. She could feel her chest throbbing from the blood flow. Keeping the breathing under control was going to be difficult, but thanks to her hours spent in the gym she had a good breathing rhythm. She knew she would be fine.
Following the cool wall was not very difficult, it was straight and smooth. It wasn’t slimy or sharp or ragged like some walls are, and Kathryn was thankful for that. She was unsettled enough without her hands trailing over something unknown, or worse, something alive.
Stopping for a second at the thought, she continued her tedious journey.
A wall blocked her path. At first she didn’t notice it, her hand had temporarily moved to her forehead to wipe the perspiration from it. Reaching the wall abruptly, her arm had been shoved back against her face and pushed her back an inch. For a mome
nt her arm had been crushed between her body and the cool, clammy wall ahead of her. Kathryn reached out and touched the obstruction. It was the same wall that she had been following for, she guessed, about three minutes. Same material, same texture and same temperature.
Shit!
I’m trapped in here, she thought.
Kathryn composed herself, and in seconds realised what a ridiculous statement she had just made to herself.
Trapped in here?
How can I be trapped? she thought. After all, I had to get in here in the first place. It’s not like I fell down a stupid well, someone human physically moved me into here and left me to die. So that means there has to be a way out of here.
Don’t let the darkness quite literally darken your senses, you stupid cow.
Keep feeling around. Keep looking!
On closer inspection, Kathryn found that the wall felt clammy, something she had noticed before, but not taken notice of. Physics at school hadn’t been her strongest subject, but she wasn’t so dumb that she didn’t realise that the clamminess she felt was caused by warm moist air meeting some cold surface. Like condensation on a window or glass, warm air meeting a cold surface. The wall was clammy for a reason.
Maybe it’s the hot moist air from the cell getting out and making the wall feel like that, she reasoned.
Maybe your mind is playing tricks with you, on the other hand?
Or maybe the cold wall had something behind it that was making it feel clammy?
A warm room for example?
Which suggested that there must be a door of some kind.
Kathryn guessed from her fingertip examination of the wall that the room’s shape was a thin long rectangle, judging by the way it changed direction back to the parallel wall on her left. Her hand moved around frantically on the wall itself to find any indentation or nook. Hell, she thought. Maybe there’d be a doorknob blatantly sticking out to taunt her! Yet she found nothing. Not one thing: no cracks, no door frames, the material of the wall was uniform all over.