“I thought you were going to say no,” I say, tracing my fingers over her breasts.
“I have no self-control.”
“Maybe I should apologize.”
“It’s a bit late now.” She kisses the tips of my fingers. “It was certainly different.”
“In a good way?”
“Definitely worth repeating.” She rolls out of bed. “Not tonight, sadly, I have an early start.”
“So you’re loving me and leaving?”
She’s in the bathroom, getting dressed. “It’s not like that.”
“What is it like?”
“Complicated.”
“You’re seeing someone else?”
“This was probably a mistake.”
“Don’t turn it into a tragedy. Nobody got hurt.”
She’s studying herself in the mirror, adjusting her hair. There is something very sensual about a woman preparing herself.
“Are you married?” I ask.
“No.”
“What is it then?”
“Nothing.”
She pulls on her overcoat and kisses my cheek. There is a note on the floor, pushed under the door. She picks it up and reads the name, her forehead buckling.
It’s a handwritten message from DCI Drury.
Blackout over: the storm breaks.
I haven’t heard him coming.
He is sitting in the shadows with just his hands and knees in the light. My heart stops and I take a juddering breath, scrambling to the end of the bunk.
He leans forward, his face now visible.
“Good morning, Princess.”
The skin wrinkles around his eyes.
When there were two of us he would never come down the ladder. He’s more confident now that I’m alone. I haven’t had a chance to study him up close for a long time-not for years. He’s a forgettable man; one you wouldn’t notice twice. Once even.
“You must be hungry. Are you ready to come upstairs?”
I shake my head.
“I have a warm bath waiting. Hot food.”
He’s smiling with a mixture of compassion and dry humor.
“Where’s Tash?”
“Don’t worry about her.”
“Is she all right?”
George glances at the window. “You were very foolish helping her escape like that. I know what you did. I know how you did it.”
My bladder is full. I have to use the toilet.
He walks around the basement, stopping at the sink and examining the empty cans as though frightened he might catch something.
He points to the ladder. “I’m going up now. You know what’s going to happen if you don’t come to me? Remember the hose?”
He grips the ladder and climbs easily, balancing on the uppermost rung before swinging through the open hatch like a gymnast. He peers back through the hole.
“Come on now, Piper. You know you want to.”
“Are you going to hurt me?”
“Why would I do that?”
“You hurt Tash.”
“She didn’t do as she was told.”
I scan the room, looking for something-a weapon or a way out.
“Don’t make me wait, Piper.”
I don’t want to go up the ladder, but it’s been three years living in a hole. I want to see different walls.
“I have hot food,” he says again. “A warm bath.”
I climb. One hand follows the other. Higher. I hold my arms above my head. He reaches down and grabs me by the wrists, lifting me easily. Hoisting me to the edge of the trapdoor and then higher onto my feet.
He lets me go. The room is dark. I’m standing under a set of iron stairs. George walks through a door into a second room, motioning me to follow. He’s wearing a jacket and corduroy trousers-the sort of clothes my father would wear.
We’re in some sort of workshop or factory, with high ceilings and narrow windows running along the top of the walls. The plaster is crumbling, the roof panels are broken. I notice a chest freezer with a blinking red light; a table, two plastic chairs, boxes, metal drums. Then I smell the food. Barbecued chicken. Still warm.
He tears open the bag. I think I might faint from hunger. The bag is from the Chicken Cottage in Abingdon. I know that shop because the man who runs it has one of those mail-order brides from the Philippines who looks like she’s about seventeen.
“Maybe you should wash first,” says George.
I shake my head.
He offers me a chair. My hands are shaking. Stomach cramping. I can see the greasy warm flesh, the golden brown skin, the fat drumsticks…
He sits down opposite and watches me eat. I keep cramming chicken into my mouth because I’m scared he might take it away.
“Something to drink?”
He opens a can of lemonade.
“You’ll make yourself sick. Maybe you should slow down.”
But I keep eating. I can’t chew quickly enough. I swallow and almost choke.
He takes the corner of the greaseproof bag and pulls it away from me. My eyes and hands follow the food, but he smacks at my wrists, telling me to slow down.
I can’t answer. A wodge of food is caught in my throat. I can’t breathe. He stands and puts his arms around me, tightening his grip, forcing air out of my lungs. I cough up a ball of masticated chicken.
He sets me down on the chair.
“Do as you’re told next time.”
That’s when I puke. He steps back but not in time to save his shoes. He calls me something. I don’t catch the words. My whole insides are coming out. I feel as though they’re going to finish up on the floor with the regurgitated chicken and lemonade.
I wipe my mouth and nose with my sleeve.
“Where is Tash?”
“I caught her.”
“Where is she?”
“I killed her.”
“I don’t believe you.”
He laughs. “She’s in another room-just like this one.”
“Can I see her?”
“No, I’m punishing her.”
“Punish me instead.”
He doesn’t answer.
“Please, let me see her.”
“No.”
“Why are you doing this?”
Again, he doesn’t answer.
“I want to go home. Please let us go. We won’t tell anyone.”
“I thought you had outgrown all this,” he says, sounding disappointed.
“Let me see Tash.”
His hand shoots out and grabs my face so hard that my jaw feels like it might collapse. He lifts me up. My toes are barely touching the ground.
“Shut up! Understand? Stop whining.”
He says it in a tiny whisper that echoes in my skull.
“Do you hear me?”
He forces my face up and down. Then he lets me go. I don’t know how I stay upright. He sniffs at his fingers and wrinkles his nose.
“Time to get you cleaned up.”
He leads me away from the table to a bed and a big old-fashioned bath on clawed feet. A wood-fired boiler is warming the room and heating the water. The bath is already half full. He turns on the tap. Steam billows. Bubbles froth. A large trunk at the bottom of the bed is open. There are shampoos, soaps, body washes, lotions, conditioners, moisturizers, perfume, bubble bath-it’s like he’s raided every hotel in the country, taking all those little complimentary bottles.
Adding more bubble bath into the running water, he watches it froth and foam. Then he opens a second trunk and takes out a big fluffy towel.
“You haven’t undressed.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Why not?”
“Not in front of you.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“Please,” I ask, in a squeaky voice.
I look at the bath and then the open trunk. It has a mirror fixed to the inside of the lid. I catch a glimpse of my reflection. My hair is matted into rat’s tails. My eyes are red.
The bath is ready. He dips his fingers into the water.
“You have nothing I haven’t seen before.”
But that isn’t true. He hasn’t seen me naked before. Not up close. Not like this.
He takes hold of my face again, forcing me to look into his eyes, which peer deep inside my head. His fingers tighten. Tears fall on the back of his hand.
“Don’t disobey me, Piper. You know what I can do.”
I take off my clothes. He holds them between his finger and thumb, dropping them into a plastic rubbish bag. I cover my breasts with my forearm.