“YOU… THINK… YOU… ARE… SO… FUCK… ING… CLEV… ER!”
I crumple on the floor, trying to crawl away, but he grabs my leg and pulls me across the concrete. I can feel the skin being torn from my knees and elbows.
A forearm snakes around my neck. He pulls me back into his chest and wraps his fist in my hair.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
“What are you sorry for?”
“Please don’t hurt me.”
“Tell me-what are you sorry for?”
“I don’t know.”
The blade of the knife is pressed under my left eye, digging into the skin.
“Do you remember how I cut her? Do you want that to happen to you?”
I shake my head.
“When are you going to learn?”
“I will.”
“I’m trying to save you,” he says, almost pleading with me now, still tightening his arm across my neck. “I’m trying to save you from yourself.”
I try to nod, but I can’t move my head.
“You smell!” he says, pushing me away. “Don’t you ever wash?”
“I’m sorry.”
“You keep saying that. You think I’m stupid?”
“No.”
“You think you’re clever helping her escape. She’s not coming back. She’s dead. You killed her. It’s your fault.”
I don’t believe him. He’s lying.
I’m lying on the floor. He kicks me before I can curl into a ball. I do it anyway, trying to protect myself, covering my head.
I hear him moving, but I don’t look up. I can hear water echoing against the metal sides of a bucket. He stands over me, pouring the water slowly over my head and my arms and legs. The cold takes my breath away. He fills the bucket again. I don’t move.
Here it comes again. He kicks me.
“On your back! Open your legs!”
I turn over. He pours the water on my groin and tosses me a scrubbing brush with hard bristles.
“Wash yourself.”
I don’t understand.
He kicks me again. “I said, wash yourself.”
I use the brush, rubbing it along my arms.
“Not there! There!”
He points. I put the brush between my thighs.
“Scrub!”
I hesitate.
“You do it, or I’ll do it for you. That’s it. Harder! Harder!”
I can’t see through the tears. I can barely hear him.
When he’s satisfied, he takes the brush away from me. Then he collects the remaining food in a plastic bag, my last can of beans. He carries it up the ladder and turns off the light.
“When you’re really sorry, we’ll talk again. Maybe then I’ll turn the lights on.”
The trapdoor shuts. The darkness comes to life, breathing into my ears, whispering, sighing.
On my hands and knees I crawl across the room to the sink. The vomit that comes out of me is bitter water. My clothes are soaked. The bunks. The bedding. I still have gas in the cooker.
I make myself a cup of tea, feeling my way around the basement. Then I sit with my head over the bedpan, wanting to be sick again. I’m not scared of the dark any more. I’m used to it now. The darkness used to be like death, now it’s like the womb.
He told me nobody wanted me. He told me they stopped looking because nobody cared. He said Tash was dead. I’m not going to believe his lies.
I shake the ladder. I shout at the trapdoor. “I need a dry blanket.”
Nobody comes.
“I need a dry blanket.”
Still nothing.
“I’m sorry.”
17
It’s still early when I arrive at Ruiz’s house in Fulham. Mist hangs over the Thames, blurring naked trees on the distant bank. Rowers appear from the shroud, pulling into view with choreographed strokes like a ballet on water.
Ruiz answers the door in a short bathrobe, bare legs and Ugg boots.
I look at his feet. “You’re wearing dead sheep.”
“How observant of you. No wonder you’re a psychologist. They were a gift from Miranda. They’re so ugly I’ve grown fond of them.” He wiggles his toes. “I’m thinking of giving them names: Lambchop and Shaun.”
His arms fold around me in a proper hug. Not many British men can hug, but Ruiz makes it feel as easy as a handshake. I follow him down the hallway to the kitchen.
“Do you want to put some trousers on?”
“No.”
“Charlie?”
“Still asleep.”
“Did she say anything?”
“She puked her little heart out about 3:00 a.m. I gave her an aspirin and put her back to bed.”
Ruiz fills a teapot and covers it with a knitted cozy. Sits opposite. Pours. Milk. Sugar. Even dressed in a bathrobe he can look intimidating, yet there is a gentle stillness about him that I’ve always admired, a quiet dignity. He doesn’t offer unsolicited advice. His two children are grown up. One of them is married. Guidance might be reassuring, but it’s rarely helpful.
“So how are you doing?”
“Good.”
“Seeing anyone?”
“No.”
“How’s Julianne?”
“She’s being reasonable and polite. I wish she’d get angry.”
“Not everyone is like you.”
“You think I’m angry?”
“I think you’re furious. I think you wake up in the morning and if you’re not angry you hold a mirror over your mouth to see if you’re still breathing.”
Not rising to the bait, I try to change the subject. I don’t want to talk about Julianne. Instead, I start telling him about Oxford and the Bingham Girls.
He remembers the case. That’s one of the remarkable things about Ruiz-his memory. For him there has never been such a thing as forgetting. Nothing grows hazy or vague over time, fraying at the edges. Some people think photographically or chronologically, but Ruiz connects details like a spider weaving a web, threading one strand to the next. That’s why he can reach back and pluck details out of the air from criminal cases that are five, ten, fifteen years old.
“Natasha McBain’s body was found four days ago in a frozen lake.”
“How long had it been there?”
“Thirty-six hours.”
Ruiz whistles through his teeth. “So she’s been alive all this time. Any idea where?”
“No.”
“How did you get involved?”
“They want me to review the original investigation.”
“And you said no.”
“Correct.”
“But you’re doing it anyway?”
“Yes.”
“Why you?”
“I’m an outsider.”
“Which would normally count against you.”
“The chief constable is concerned about the fall-out. He wants to avoid allegations of a cover-up. It’s not a witch hunt.”
“Not yet,” says Ruiz, swallowing half a mug of tea and pouring himself another. “I remember they suspected a school caretaker and they also looked at Natasha’s old man. Isaac McBain served five years for armed robbery. He got mixed up with a couple of gangster-wannabes called the Connolly brothers who knocked over a payroll in London. When it all went pear-shaped, McBain copped a plea and grassed up the Connolly brothers for a lesser sentence. After the girls went missing, the police thought the brothers might have orchestrated the kidnapping as payback.”
“What happened?”
“They were interviewed; denied everything. Then the abduction theory ran out of steam.”
“What changed?”
“There was a third girl,” he says. “Emily Martinez.”
“The best friend.”
“She told police that Natasha and Piper were planning to run away. I guess everyone expected the girls to turn up once they’d run out of money or had a falling out, but it never happened.”
“And the investigation?”
“The Hadley family kept up the pressure. You must have seen the mother on TV. She can’t pass a camera without making a speech. She’s a good-looking woman, if you’re into hard-bodied, gym rat chic.”
“Not your sort of thing?”
“I like a woman with something to hold on to.”
“Handles?”
“Curves.”
Ruiz clamps his hands on the edge of the table and presses down hard, rising to his feet. He puts two slices of bread in the toaster.