by Sam Nash
“Just let me go. You could have no possible use for me. I’m not worth your trouble.” Her muscles had stiffened from her struggles and from holding an unnatural position for too long. The bindings had scuffed her wrists beyond the pale epithelial layer, biting into the raw meat beneath. The pain would surface later, when the chemicals of fear no longer masked the injury.
“Dear me, Mary. You have no idea of your value,” a hint of perplexity waivered on his face, as though he could not quite believe her naivety.
“What do you want from me?” Her voice rasped and her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth.
He paused, weighing her words for their authenticity; analysing her features for a veil of pretence. “You are going to help me to reshape the world.” Still he did not move. He was the granite boulder barring exit - the Immovable Object.
“That’s absurd. I’m just a technician. I don’t even understand what the research fellows are doing most of the time. I fetch and carry chemicals. That’s my job.” Mary saw her truculence chip away at his patience. A glimmer of menace flickered across his expression. She changed tack. “You have kidnapped the wrong person. Please, let me go.” The taut wrinkles in her forehead dissolved. She tried to mellow the timbre of her plea, an imploring cherub at his mercy.
“No, Mary. You and I are going to make history together.”
“You talk in riddles.”
He smiled at her. “The rules of your incarceration are simple. Comply with my requests and you will be rewarded.” He was analysing his fingernails, a message of superiority that Mary failed to notice. Kidnapping was a minor, every day event in his life. The situation hardly needed further evidence of his control.
“You’ll let me go?”
He chuckled. It was a sinister kind of snort, one filled with a gnarled self-assurance. “The quicker you grow used to this arrangement, the happier you will be. Your old life is gone. Although it is refreshing to see you finally crawl out from beneath your husband’s shadow and find your voice.”
What is this mad man talking about? Of course my life hasn’t gone. I just need to get back to the people who love me. Play along until the Police, or Special Forces or whatever, are able to find me.
“I’ll eat, drink, I’ll do as you say. Please take these cuffs off.” She tried to adopt the tone of a broken woman, submissive. “What do I call you?”
“I am Lars Visser. You can call me Lars.” He leaned forward on the chair, his thin green stare fixed on hers.
“What do others call you, crazy?” She rebuked herself for unleashing her belligerence.
“No, Sir, mostly.” He raised an index finger at the camera, as though calling for a waiter in a restaurant. The bolted door opened and the little man in scrubs reappeared. He detached the intravenous feed and removed the cannula from inside her vein. Releasing her arms from the restraints, he handed her a tray of warmed pain au chocolate, croissants and a mug of tea.
“I thought you might like something a little more appetising.” Visser watched her grab the mug and swallow the hot liquid down. “You’d like some more?”
She nodded, emptying the cup in just a few gulps.
“Alexi will take care of you. You must tell him what foods you would like to eat, although his English is quite poor. You could teach him while you are here, Mary.”
She glared at Visser, then lowered her eyes. Alexi ducked out of the open door with her empty mug. She took a croissant from the plate and stretched her legs to the floor. Her ankles cracked as they bore her weight. Mary made a show of extending her limbs and walking around the room, all the while trying to gauge the likelihood of escape. Ripping the pastry into smaller pieces she fortified her strength, munching quickly and peering through the doorway at a long empty corridor as indifferently as she could feign. “I will eat and drink, and try to stay well, but I will not be working for you.”
“I think you will change your mind. Remember, child, the more you cooperate the more rewards you will have. We are not barbarians. We can get you nice foods, books to read, perhaps a television.”
“Can I have a telephone?”
He shook his head, grinning. “Neither can you have access to the internet, before you ask.”
Mary looked at Visser, sitting calmly with his legs crossed and his arms resting in his lap. His scent blended with the molten chocolate in her throat. She forced herself to swallow. Returning her attention to wandering around, she kicked out, stretching her legs and rotating her feet mid-air. She drew level with the open door once more. The way was still clear. Although weak from days without food, she gauged the likelihood of escape against the probability of encountering a second opportunity to flee. She dropped the pastry and bolted through the door. Slipping on her socks down the linoleum, she ricocheted off the walls with her unsteady gait.
A massive guard, dressed in camouflage army fatigues, stepped from his station on the other side of the door and hurried after her. His giant strides caught up with her in fewer than ten steps. He grasped at her clothes, bunching her top into a fistful of cloth mingled with her hair and tugged her to a standstill. Her head snapped back. She squealed in pain, arching her spine to relieve the pressure. The guard seized her arm, letting her hair go and spinning her around, dragging her body as though it was weightless, back towards the room.
Visser was in the doorway, watching her reaction. The sight of him standing there all smug and superior woke a long dormant feeling inside her. The more he smirked, the greater the feeling. It was like the torrent of revulsion bathed her brain in a hatred so concentrated, it dissolved a wall of compliance that had secured her temper for nine long years.
The guard’s fingertips dug into the flesh of her arm. As she struggled to free it, the guard’s hand slipped. He countered by clutching both upper arms with greater force. He was so enormous; her head barely reached the height of his chest. Mary kicked at his shins, but with no shoes to protect her toes, they crumpled ineffectually against his legs. He was laughing at her.
Anger rose from the pit of her stomach. With clenched teeth, she mustered her strength and forced her leg skyward, connecting the top of her foot with his unprotected genitals. She felt them crush against her bones. He screamed, a surprised high pitched yelp.
The discomfort he endured, was not sufficient to lessen his grip. With a few angry words in Russian, spat out in her direction, he released one of her arms and smacked her across the face with the back of his knuckles.
“Cyka!” The guard yelled at her. “Bitch!”
Her face exploded in pain, her nose pouring with blood, she collapsed to the floor. Visser stepped over the threshold and walked towards the guard. He leaned across and removed a pistol from the man’s military holster, aimed it at the guard’s forehead and pulled the trigger. Blood, mashed brain and skull fragments splattered the wall behind him in a biological collage worthy of Damien Hurst. The hulking mass of guard, crumpled to the ground moments later.
“See, child. There are consequences to your petulance.” He waved the gun barrel at the bloody mess streaking down the whitewashed walls.
“Fine by me. Kill all your henchmen for all I care.” She gently fingered the bridge of her nose to ascertain if it was broken.
“Cooperate, Mary, or you will find your husband decorating walls in a similar way.”
Mary looked at the dead man with dispassion. He mattered less than an animal. It was not her first experience of seeing mangled flesh, but the thought of Parth being in Visser’s line of fire stopped her from further retaliation. She swallowed hard, her life for his. That is the bargain. To save her best friend, her confidant and protector, the love of her life from this stone hearted sociopath. She imagined Parth pleading for his life, Visser standing over him, aiming that pistol between her husband’s eyes. Nausea clawed at her throat.
Visser held the gun against his thigh, waiting for some confirmation of her obedience, his stare tunnelling into her head. An odour of butcher’s waste tinged with afte
rshave made her balk, the association forever embedded in her memory. The guard’s blood was travelling along the tile grout channels and threatened to join the splashes of red on her clothes where she sat. She watched it trickle and ooze towards her, resisting the urge to move. She would cooperate up to a point. Finding that threshold would be a tightrope of considerable risk, but one she must take to secure her freedom. Alexi broke the stalemate. He scurried down the corridor and pulled Mary up, handing her a wodge of tissue for her bloodied nose and leading her back to her room. “Ice? I get ice?” He fussed about her, moving matted hair from her eyes and patting her shoulder.
Sealed back in her room, Mary took time to steady herself. To her relief, Visser had remained on the opposite side of the door. Alexi scurried around the room, pleased that she seemed receptive to his care. He bustled about making and remaking the bed and issuing commands to the guards to fetch items to make her more comfortable. “Eat? Wash? Clothes?” Each question punctuated with hand signals to items left on her bunk. Mary nodded. It was not Alexi who threatened her or Parth’s life. For all she knew Alexi and perhaps his family, were living with the same sword dangling over their heads. And he was quite possibly her best potential ally to aid in her escape.
Alone once more, she ate the remaining pastries, sank the cool tea that had grown a taupe film on the surface and went into the bathroom to shower. She could not find a speck of daylight anywhere. Mary pulled the cord that controlled both the light and extractor fan. No method for estimating the time of day, or which day it was even. How many days had she already been there, drugged into a state of unconsciousness? The air in the bathroom was stale. Mould spores left a rank black crust in the damp corners.
Scanning the room for any sign of covert cameras, she stripped off her filthy clothes and left them in a heap on the floor. A lukewarm shower washed away the congealing blood and sweat. Acutely aware that any of her captors could walk in at any moment and find her naked and vulnerable, she scrubbed herself clean and dressed in haste.
The jogging bottoms and T-shirt Alexi had left for her soaked up whatever moisture she had failed to dry. She found a new tooth brush and paste in the washbag and set about removing the woolly feeling in her mouth.
The only time she could ever remember her teeth feeling that caked with detritus was following the operation on her wisdom teeth, when it had been far too painful to brush. A salt water rinse kept bacteria in check back then. Now the pain was from the bruising that deepened following the guard’s assault. The mirror showed her a gaunt and harrowed woman, aged overnight, with purple welts of receding blood beneath the skin.
Mary looked at her room afresh. As prison cells went, hers was not uncomfortable, but the lack of privacy disturbed her. She sat on the bed and watched the little red light flashing on the side of the CCTV camera. It stared back at her, goading her, sneering in the same self-satisfied way that the guard had done. They would be watching her now, sitting in a room nearby, pointing at their screens and judging her. Would they be giving her marks out of ten for her appearance, for her courage and strength, for her figure? Would they be making bets over her actions, or worst still, her fate? They must know what Visser had in store for her. She was at their mercy. The trembling started again. Knowing that their critical eyes focused on every movement she made was unbearable.
Visser had left his plastic chair in the room. She got up from the bed, grabbed the chair, positioned it directly beneath the mounted camera, and sat down. Above her head, she could hear a tiny motor whirring frenetically while the guards tried to reposition the sight lines of the lens - a moment of peace.
Alexi returned with more tea for her. He looked at her balancing her head in her hands, elbows resting on her knees. “I bring you more food?” He tilted his head towards her in pity.
“No, thank you, Alexi.” He turned to leave. “Could I… please could I have something to read?”
His expression was one of puzzlement. She placed her hands together as if in prayer, then opened them wide to symbolise a book. “Book? Reading?” She peered into her outstretched hands, miming the action of reading. A spark of recognition formed in his eyes.
“Da! I bring.”
Sipping her tea, she waited. It tasted of long life milk. She could always tell the difference. Ultra-heat treated milk had a mild bitterness to it. Did they have cupboards full of long life supplies to keep her there indefinitely? The thought was chilling. Alexi returned, waving a rolled up newspaper. “Book, Da? You book?”
Mary thanked him and took it, momentarily diverted by his noun confusion. She didn’t correct him. Unrolling the pages, she glanced at the date of publication. A full week had passed since her abduction.
“Alexi, is this today?” She pointed at the date. “Today?”
“Before today…um… it is when? Before today?” His face pinched in confusion.
“Yesterday?”
“Da. Yesterday.” He left the room muttering, yesterday, mastering its pronunciation. The bolt slammed across and down.
The headline was standard for local papers; Council tax rise furies followed by photographs of the mayor looking regal in his flamboyant garb and chain. Page two documented the contested plans for a new traveller community on the outskirts of a market town in the south of the county and the threats of another cottage hospital closure. There, on page three was a more shocking headline. University Technician Named as Crash Victim. Her heart stopped for a moment, like a bubble of trapped air inside the chambers had worked its way out of the plumbing and popped in her chest. She read on.
“The victim of a recent fatal accident on London Road has been identified as local University Technician, Mary Arora, aged thirty. The crash happened last week on a section of the A6 close to Victoria Park. Witnesses state that the gravel lorry was travelling at speed and appeared to clip the Kerb and lose control, careening into Mrs Arora’s bicycle, as she was riding to work.
Other witnesses took to social media, claiming that the driver was using his mobile phone just prior to the accident, who was himself severely injured in the crash. Police have charged the driver, whose name is being withheld, of causing death by dangerous driving. When questioned regarding the length of time taken to release the identity of the victim, a police spokesperson said; “Unfortunately, the accident caused such irrevocable damage that conventional methods of identification have not been possible.” Funeral arrangements are delayed until the body is no longer needed in the ongoing investigation.”
Mary felt her chest constricting. She couldn’t breathe. A searing flush of fear and grief welled up inside her, burning her neck and face. That tiny thread of hope that she had fostered since her capture frayed and snapped. A single line of spider’s silk dangling down into her personal abyss of dread had gone. Parth would not be moving mountains to find her. No cavalry would be hammering down the doors of her prison.
Parth will frequent a personal form of confinement, a pit of sorrow, lamenting her loss. She had little doubt that Visser would do more than threaten to kill her husband if she failed to please his every whim, whatever that may entail.
The newspaper embodied reality and it was all Mary had to cling to, a small token of the outside world. She folded it, with a degree of care and reverence and tucked it beneath the pillow. Her dash for freedom had expended more energy than she realised. She felt emotionally and physically drained. Lying back on the bed, she closed her eyes and tried to sleep.
The overhead lights were stark and glowed pink through her eyelids, highlighting the images playing in her mind. She pulled the covers over her head, but the air became humid and uncomfortable. Rolling out of the side of the bed, she examined the walls for a light switch, but found none. Standing in front of the camera, she pointed to the ceiling and then covered her eyes. She then mouthed the word, please. They took pity on her and the lights dimmed, not fully, a half-light allowing the guards to continue their watch.
Horizontal once more, she thought only of P
arth. Were they following him, ready to shoot him at any time Visser gave the command? Was he alone in his grief or had her Grandfather travelled up from Brighton to mourn with him? Was Parth busy arranging a traditional funeral or was he carrying out her wish for cremation, as she had once expressed to him on their journey through his homeland in India?
Mary allowed her thoughts to wander back eight years to their days of travel; a few moments of indulgent escapism. It was during the trip to visit his family that Parth had found the courage to propose to her. She recalled the joy of people on the streets revelling in the first rains of the monsoon, overdue and eagerly awaited. Puddles splashed against leather sandals and the dust pitted with heavy raindrops. Children danced in the natural shower and the water flattened their hair against smiling faces.
She remembered the steam rising from corrugated metal sheeting protecting shacks and houses from the elements. The smells of rotting excrement washed down gullies and into drains, cleaning the streets anew. Street vendors erected beach umbrellas over their vats of spiced offerings, broadcasting their wares in raised regional dialects.
The Arora family home was beyond the markets and taverns, far from the ghettos and poor districts of Mumbai. Theirs was a former Victorian building, situated in the tree lined suburbs of Colaba, overlooking the yachts in the bay and a mere stone’s throw from the golf course. Mary overcame the intimidating meeting with his parents, who were a little perturbed by Parth’s refusal to marry a local lady from a well-respected and wealthy family.
They had welcomed Mary as their esteemed guest, dressing her in fine silks, dining out in style and indulging in beauty treatments and henna tattoo sessions with his female relatives. None but the eldest of two sisters had treated her with anything less than kindness. She had sensed in him a partiality for Mary that transcended duty. She knew that he had set his sights on marrying this British girl who had lost all but one member of her family just months before their travels.