I looked around the room, and saw that it was lit only by slivers of light coming from four windows, two above the doors and the others in the walls on either side. All of them had been boarded up.
‘This is how it will happen.’ Sebastian had become formal. ‘One by one. The McGowan family first, I think.’ He stepped behind Adrienne’s chair, untied her and helped her to her feet. It was the first time I’d ever seen her looking her age, but still her eyes blazed above her gag as she glared at him. ‘If you’d come with us, Mother,’ said Loman.
Willie handed the gun to his partner, then manhandled me across to the empty chair, and shoved me down on to it. He ripped off my jacket and tried to use it as a gag, but it was too big, and so he took my shirt instead. That served the purpose; it felt clammy as he jammed it across my mouth, parting my teeth and hurting me as he tightened it. I heard a sound from beside me, and realised that it was Frank, trying to say something that escaped only as a snarl. Willie ignored him as he tied me tightly to the chair with the cloth bindings he had taken from my aunt.
Sebastian nodded towards the door. Willie opened it, stuck his head outside to check for intruders, then signalled the all-clear with an upraised thumb. As they took her out, Adrienne looked back at Frank; I could see real fear in her eyes, until the door closed again, we were in the virtual darkness and they were gone.
I shifted my chair round so that I could see more of my cousin. His left cheek and the side of his nose were red and swollen, and he was slumped in his chair. I wondered if they’d given him a going-over once they’d got him secure. I tried to work the gag out of my mouth, but Willie had done too good a job. I looked at the chairs, and wondered if we could move them together and untie each other but, again, our bonds had been very efficiently fastened.
Frank’s gag was their only slip-up. As I watched, I saw him work away at it, until finally, although he hadn’t rid himself of it entirely, he had moved it enough to be able to speak, after a fashion.
‘You shouldn’t have come,’ he mumbled. ‘Prim, I’m so sorry it’s come to this. My mess, but it’s caught you too.’ He was looking me in the eye. ‘Shouldn’t say sorry, though, should I?’ I’ll swear he was trying to smile.
And then the pair came back.
‘Time’s up, Frank,’ said Willie, dispassionately.
He didn’t bother to untie him; he simply cut him loose, with Frank’s own wee knife, I noticed, taken from his rucksack, and hauled him towards the doorway.
I lost it then: I went crazy, filled with fury. I’m sure that if I’d been loose and they’d been unarmed I’d have destroyed the pair of them, but I was tied up tight and all I could do was shuffle my chair towards them, screaming obscenities through my gag, as they took my little cousin out of my sight for the last time.
I made one final lurch towards Sebastian, as he stood facing me, framed in the doorway. And that’s when the bastard shot me with my own taser.
Thirty-one
I tell you now, those damn weapons do exactly what it says on the tin, as the wood-preservative ads insist. I saw those probes coming at me, and when they hit, and the fifty thousand volts followed, I was completely helpless. I was pitched backwards, overturning the chair, my limbs convulsing and twitching within their restraints. I was barely aware of it, though: along with loss of physical control there was a feeling of total confusion. As we say in Scotland, I was completely wandered. I had no idea where I was, or what I was supposed to be doing there. If I had been asked what my name was, and I’d been able to speak, I’d have replied, ‘Uh?’
I have no idea how long I was out of it, but gradually my bewilderment began to dissipate; I returned, slowly, to my senses, and felt the paralysis wearing off too. Of course, that didn’t mean I could move: I was still tethered to that very solid chair, on my back and, as all of it came back to me, acutely aware that at any moment I could expect a return visit from Sebastian and Willie. If there really is a Shit Creek, I was well and truly up it. Yet as I turned my head to look around I caught a glimpse of something that might just be a paddle.
Frank’s clever little Swiss Army knife lay only a few feet away, where Willie had discarded it after cutting him loose, and the razor-sharp blade was open. If I could get to it. .
I thought about rolling over, but realised that even if I could manage it once, I’d never have the leverage to do it a second time, as I’d need to if I was going to reach it. So, rather than try that, I began to shuffle sideways, using my hips to generate the movement, and my palms to help. My hands weren’t tied together behind my back; instead, my arms were lashed to the sides of the chair, giving me a little flexibility.
It took me more time than I believed I had to get to it, but I managed to pull myself the few feet that I needed. I felt sideways, blindly, for the knife, until my fingertips touched its plastic casing, and I was able to grip it, and manoeuvre it in my hand until I reckoned I knew where the blade was in relation to everything else. Something told me that I might only have one shot at what I was going to attempt. The same prescience told me that there was a fair chance I’d slice my wrist open in the process and maybe bleed to death. I closed my eyes and thrust the blade upwards. . straight into my binding, cutting through it far enough for me to rip my arm free.
The rest took seconds, that was all, and then I was out of the chair and on unsteady legs, unfastening the gag that had once been a serviceable shirt. My eyes had grown accustomed to the light, or lack of it. I could see two small red dots on my belly where the darts had hit. My arms were filthy from the dust on the floor, and my jeans felt damp. I hoped it was only sweat, and that I hadn’t wet myself under the grip of the non-lethal but, by Jesus, bloody powerful current. I sniffed, and was reassured.
As I stood there, I heard a noise and saw movement in the handle of one of the double doors, the one on my right. I went cold inside, knowing what I had to do. There was no time for subtlety. Sebastian or Willie, whoever would draw the short straw and come first into that room, was getting the blade in the throat, and then, broken toe or not, the other one was getting the benefit of everything I’d ever learned in those tae kwon do classes, until he wasn’t moving, or breathing either, if I could manage that. I took a couple of steps to my left and waited as the handle turned fully, and as the door creaked open.
‘Primavera?’ The voice was anxious, but it was strong.
I only realised that I had been holding my breath when it escaped from me in a great gasp of relief. ‘Gerard,’ I yelled, and then my sense of danger kicked back in. ‘Be careful. They’re out there.’ I reached out to pull him inside, but he held my wrist.
‘There’s nobody out here,’ he said gently, drawing me into the daylight. He had changed out of his priest suit into a grey shirt and camouflage shorts, the sort of gear he often wears when he’s not ministering. He stood there, built like a good-sized brick outhouse, and I felt safe. I felt even safer when I looked around. The Land Rover was gone.
‘I followed you as soon as the service was over,’ he told me. ‘It took longer than I thought, as some more worshippers came in from the beach.’ He smiled. ‘That can happen when it’s really hot. I’ve come to regard it as one of God’s mysterious ways. Now tell me, what’s happened, and where are your aunt and your cousin?’
Suddenly my legs felt weak again. A couple of metres away, I saw the remnants of a small stone wall. I tottered across and sat on it. ‘They’re gone,’ I told him. ‘Sebastian and Willie, the men who were holding them, took them away, one by one, to be killed. I thought I was going to be next; they tied me to a chair and shot me with a stun gun. When you opened the door, Father Gerard, I thought you were them. If you’d stepped inside. .’ I was still holding the knife. I smiled at him weakly. ‘Going to give me absolution?’ I asked, and then I burst into tears.