I had shouted at him before. I'd said I'd kill him. That was the only thing I could remember having said to him, except I'd said, "Thank you," when he gave me water. I hated the fact I'd said thank you. But when I'd shouted, I'd made him angry. What were his words? "You kill me? That's a good one." Something like that. That's not promising. "You kill me?" That might seem good to him because in fact he's going to kill me.
I tried to seize some other kind of comfort. It might just seem funny to him because I was so much in his power that the idea of me getting back at him was completely ludicrous. I was taking a risk being rude to him. I'd made him angry. He could have tortured me or hit me or anything. But he hadn't done anything. That might be useful to know. He had kidnapped me, he had me tied down and I'd threatened him. It could be that if I stand up to him he feels weakened and unable to do anything to me. If I don't give in to him, that may be the best way of playing him along. He might have kidnapped a woman because he's frightened of women and this is the only way to control at least one woman. He might expect me just to be begging pathetically for my life and that would give him the control he wants. But if I don't yield, then it's not going according to his plan.
Or it might be the opposite. It might have shown nothing more than that he's in control. It doesn't matter to him what I say. He just finds it funny and is proceeding with his plan, whatever that is. Surely the point is to be as much of a flesh-and-blood person for him as possible so that he finds it harder to do anything to me. But if that is threatening to him, then it might make him angrier. I couldn't do anything. I couldn't fight, I couldn't escape. All I could do was slow him up.
What was the best way of doing that? Making him angry? Happy? Scared? I lay on the floor and stared into the stifling darkness of my hood.
There was a change of texture in the blackness around me. There was a sound and a smell. Once again there was that hoarse, croaking whisper. "I'm going to take your gag out. If you shout I'll bleed you like an animal. If you've heard and understood what I've said, nod your head."
I nodded frantically. The hands large, warm hands fiddled behind my neck. The knot was untied, the cloth pulled roughly from my mouth. As soon as I was free I coughed and coughed. A hand held my head down and I felt the straw pushed into my mouth. I sucked the water until a bubbling sound told me it was gone.
"There," he said. "There's a bucket here. Do you want to use it?"
"What do you mean?" Get him talking.
"You know. Toilet."
He was embarrassed. Was that a good sign?
"I want to go to a proper one."
"It's the bucket or you can lie in your own piss, sweetheart."
"All right."
"I'll put you by the bucket. You can feel it with your feet. I'll stand back. You try anything funny I'll cut you up. All right?"
"Yes."
There was the sound of him going down some steps, and then I felt his arms under my armpits, then as I slithered towards him, around me. Hard, strong hands. I was pressed against him. An animal smell, sweat, something else. One arm under my thighs. Nausea in my throat. Swung across and put down lightly on a rough floor, gritty. I raised myself up straight. My legs and back felt terribly sore. My hair was seized by a hand and I felt something hard against my neck.
"You know what this is?"
"No."
"It's a blade. I'm going to untie the wire holding your hands together. Try anything and I'll use it."
"I won't. I want you to leave me alone."
"It's dark. I'll step back."
I felt pressure as he freed a knot behind my back. He stepped away. For just a second I thought of trying something until I saw the absurdity of it. Partially tied up, hooded, in a dark room with a man carrying a knife.
"Go ahead," he said.
I hadn't really meant it. I just wanted to be moved. I felt my clothes. T-shirt, slacks. I couldn't do this.
"You'll have the bucket again tomorrow morning."
Tomorrow morning. Good. Some information. All right, all right. He said it was dark. I unfastened my trousers, pulled them and my knickers down and sat on the bucket. Nothing but a dribble. I stood up again, pulled the trousers up.
"Can I say something?"
"What?"
"I don't know what this is about. But you mustn't do this. You won't get away with it. You may not realize what'll happen when they find me. But you can let me go. Drive me somewhere. Turn me loose. That'll be it. I'll have been reported missing, they'll be looking for me. I know you can do what you like to me and it probably won't do me any good but you'll be caught. If you let me go, we can just go back to our lives. Otherwise, you'll be caught."
"That's what they all say. When they say anything."
"What?"
"Stand still."
"All?"
The sensation of knots being refastened. The sensation of being lifted up high, set down like a small child being put up on a high shelf. Like a doll. A dead animal.
"Stay there," he said. "Right there."
I sat there, thinking he would go away now.
"Open your mouth."
He was beside me. The rag was pushed in, another cloth tied hard around my face. I heard footsteps then felt a new pressure around my neck. Tight. I was pulled back. I could feel the wall behind my back.
"Listen," the voice said. "This is a wire looped around your neck. It goes through a loop behind you and fastens on a bolt in the wall. Understand? Nod your head."
I nodded.
"You're on a platform. Understand?"
I nodded.
"If you move, you'll slip off the ledge, the wire will throttle you and you'll die. Understand?"
I nodded.
"Good."
And there was silence. Just silence. And my heart, pounding like the sea. The wire burned my neck. I breathed, in and out, in and out.
I was standing on a wooden jetty and the lake around me was still as a mirror. Not a ripple of wind. I could see smooth pebbles far beneath me, pink and brown and grey. I bent my knees slightly and brought up my arms to dive into the cool, quiet water, and then suddenly something caught me round the neck, and I was falling with a sickening lurch but being held back at the same time, and the water disappeared, became inky darkness instead. The noose was digging into my neck. I sat up straight. For a moment I was a blank, then fear rushed in, filling all the spaces in my body. My heart was pounding and my mouth dry. Sweat ran down my forehead, under the hood, and I could feel wisps of hair sticking to my cheeks. I was clammy with fear, itchy and sticky and sour. My fear was so real now it was something I could smell.
I had fallen asleep. How could that be? How could I sleep when I was trussed up like a chicken waiting for its neck to be snapped? I'd always wondered how prisoners could sleep before the day of execution, but I'd slept. How long for? I had no idea perhaps a few minutes, nodding off on this ledge before the noose woke me; or perhaps several hours, longer. I didn't know if it was night still or morning. Time had stopped.
Except that time hadn't stopped. It was marching on. It was running out. Silence roared around my ears. Something was going to happen, and I didn't know what and I didn't know when, but I knew something was going to happen. It could be now, as soon as I stopped this thought, or it could be ages away, through the sludge of days. His words came back to me, and with them came a burning sensation in my stomach. It was as if there was an animal inside me, a scabby rodent with sharp yellow teeth eating away at me. "That's what all the others said." What did that mean? I knew what it meant. It meant that there had been others before me. They were dead and I was the next here on a ledge with a noose round my neck, and then after me after me .. .