‘Ebony, you have to answer questions. If you get them wrong then I tighten the noose around Danielle’s neck.’ He took his mother’s scarf from his pocket and tied it around Danielle’s neck, looping it twice around and taking up the slack in his fist. She twisted and thrashed against his grip as the scarf tightened around her throat.
‘Here’s the question… ready?’
‘Leave her alone,’ Ebony shouted out.
‘What is your worst nightmare? What do you fear most?’
‘Pain. I fear pain most.’ She couldn’t bear to see Danielle struggling to breathe.
‘Liar.’ He squeezed the scarf and twisted it around his fist.
‘Being alone.’
Yan shook his head, tutting, and gathered more of the scarf in his fist. Danielle started to lose consciousness.
‘Stop… stop… Okay – my worst nightmare is something I don’t understand. It’s dark. I hear my mother. I’m being touched… I feel violated, vulnerable…’
He released the scarf and Danielle slumped forward and her shoulders rose and fell as she snatched the air back into her lungs. The gag was sucked into her mouth at each breath.
‘Good.’ He waited a few minutes for Danielle to recover. He turned to look at Ebony.
‘It’s all black and white with you. Did no one tell you the world is grey?’ He pulled the scarf tight around Danielle’s neck again. Her legs began to shake. Her chest rose and collapsed. Then he released the tourniquet.
‘Second question: have you ever betrayed anyone?’
‘No.’
‘Liar. I looked you up. I found you. Wilson equals Willis. Ebony Willis – right age, right mixed-race kid from children’s homes and a fuck-up mum. I looked you up and I thought, you know what? We have a lot in common but still you were sent to trick me and you accepted the challenge willingly.’
‘I didn’t know it was you. Please stop. No. I don’t know what you want from me. I have never betrayed anyone.’
‘What about your own mother? You arrested your own mother.’
‘I had no choice. It was my job. She killed someone. Please. Please… let Danielle go. We can talk… yes, you’re right, we have a lot in common. My mum was sick. She did things.’ Ebony was fighting to think straight. She didn’t know what she could say to save Danielle. She would give anything to do that – even her life.
‘You betrayed her. You couldn’t wait. You hated her.’
‘Maybe.’ Ebony looked at Danielle and saw the urine run down her legs. ‘I am telling the truth.’
He released the tension on the scarf and he took off Danielle’s gag so she could breathe better. She gasped and her lungs squealed and sobs erupted from her raw throat. ‘Please. Please, I’ve had enough; let me die,’ Danielle begged.
‘Not till I’m ready.’ He turned to Ebony. ‘Do you wish your mother were dead, Ebony?’
‘No.’
‘Yes you do.’ He snatched up the slack from the scarf.
Danielle twisted in the air and her feet beat against the floor as she tried to get oxygen and failed.
‘Yes. Yes… you’re right. I hate her. Please… please… Danielle doesn’t deserve it, kill me not her. Yes my mother doesn’t love me… is that what you want me to say? My mother doesn’t love me. Never did and never will.’
Danielle’s legs stopped twitching and her body slumped. He pulled the scarf away and she stayed the way she was. Ebony watched helplessly. She was here to save Danielle and she had failed.
Yan was angry with himself. ‘You did this – you made me lose concentration. You made me rush.’
He reached down and pulled Ebony to her feet and threw her over his shoulder again. Ebony started to retch. She was sick over the floor as he walked. She looked up as they were leaving the room; Danielle was stirring, coming round. Ebony felt the hope in her return. It wasn’t too late. Yan carried on walking, almost jogging along the corridor. Ebony felt the cold air rush as she stared at the floor beneath her. Her stomach heaved. She counted the doors, she knew the direction. She was back where she started. He opened a door and the mustiness, the heat in the room hit her. He laid her back in the box and left her for what could have been days. She had no idea how long.
She closed her eyes inside the coffin and tried to rest. She was thinking of Micky when she heard Yan return. She heard the three locks on the coffin being undone. As her eyes adjusted she saw him standing over her, something moving in his hands. Her eyes focused and she saw he was holding a rat; it was trying to bite him through his gloves. He held the rat one-handed as he reached into the box and pulled her up to a sitting position by her wrists. Then he dropped the rat in the box with her.
Ebony struggled to breathe through the panic as she felt its warm body and its sharp claws scratch her as it scuttled nervously around the box. He reached in and lifted it out by the tail. He dangled it in front of her face. It squealed as Yan pulled and twisted – dislocated its back legs. Then he dropped it back in. She watched it drag its mutilated body around the box.
Yan left her and walked to the corner of the room; she couldn’t see what he was doing but she heard the slide of a heavy glass lid being opened and the musty smell in the room intensified. He moved slowly back towards her carrying a huge snake coiled around his arms. Its girth was as thick as a man’s leg. He carried it looped over his shoulders and across his arms, walking slowly with the weight of it. Its head rose in the air as it smelt the room with its tongue.
‘Now this is my interpretation of a well-known classic: three blind mice. But this is one crippled rat and it isn’t the farmer’s wife coming after him, it’s my lovely Miranda.’
Ebony breathed hard as the snake’s head appeared over the side of the box. It was watching both her and the rat.
‘Stay still – I would – because she gets very jumpy when she’s hungry. She’ll strike at anything, even me. She has scores of sharp-as-needles teeth. The wound on my hand that you thought was made by a staple gun was actually Miranda’s teeth.’
Ebony stayed still, slowed her breathing and watched. She felt the snake’s body against her own as it dropped into the coffin with her and she sensed its tongue against her legs as it slithered its way slowly along. The rat didn’t seem to know what was about to happen to it. It edged closer to the snake as if curious. Miranda moved across Ebony’s legs, slowly inching its way towards the rat until their faces were almost touching and then she made her strike. She bit into the neck of the squealing rat and wrapped her coils around it as it fought to escape. Yan didn’t move – he was watching Ebony. She could feel it – she had to play his game now if she had any chance of surviving this and helping Danielle. She turned her head away, disgusted, and refused to look at the rat whose feet paddled in the air at the crack of its spine.
‘Please let me go, Yan. I can help you. I’ll tell them you were kind to me – please don’t kill me this way.’ Yan smiled. He was pleased to see Ebony so upset.
‘Take a good look, Ebony. Every time the rat exhales she constricts tighter; imagine her squeezing the life out of you.’ Ebony shuddered.
‘Please, Yan. Please stop this.’
She watched as Miranda opened her mouth wide and began taking the rat inside.