Dead Like You

‘Yes,’ she said. Then, trying to sound bright, she added, ‘I like shoes. Do you?’

‘Oh, very much. I like the ones with high heels. Ones that women can use like a dildo.’

‘Like a dildo? You mean use on themselves?’

‘That’s what I mean.’

‘Is that what you’d like to do?’

‘I’ll tell you what you’re going to do when I’m ready,’ he snapped suddenly, anger flaring from nowhere. Then he pulled the knife away from her cheek and began to cut free the duct tape binding her knees together.

‘I’m going to give you one word of warning, Jessie,’ he said, his tone all friendly again. ‘I don’t want anything to spoil our fun, yeah? Our little session that we’re going to have, OK?’

She pursed her lips and nodded her agreement, giving him all she could manage of a smile.

Then he raised the knife blade so that it was right in front of her nose. ‘If you try anything, if you try to hurt me or escape, then what I’m going to do is tie you up again, but without any tracksuit bottoms or panties, yeah? Then I’m going to circumcise you. Just think about that when you’re on your honeymoon with Benedict. And every time your husband makes love to you, for the rest of your life. Just think what you’ll be missing. Do we understand each other?’

‘Yes,’ she mouthed.

But she was thinking.

He wasn’t big. He was a bully.

She had been bullied at school. Bullied for her hooked nose, bullied for being the rich kid whose parents collected her in flash cars. But she’d learned how to deal with them. Bullies expected to get their own way. They weren’t prepared for people to stand up to them. She once whacked her school’s biggest bully, Karen Waldergrave, on the knee with a hockey stick during a game. Hit her so hard she’d shattered the bone, and she had to have an artificial kneecap made. Of course, it was an accident. One of those unfortunate things that happen in sport – at least, that was how it seemed to the teachers. No one ever bullied her again.

The instant she had her chance, this man wasn’t going to bully her again either.

He cut free the tape securing her ankles. As she gratefully began moving her legs, to get the circulation back, he went to the sink and ran a tap. ‘Get it nice and warm for you!’ He turned back and looked hard at her. ‘I’m going to free your hands now, so you can wash and shave for me. Remember what I’ve told you?’

She nodded.

‘Say it out aloud.’

‘I remember what you’ve told me.’

He cut the bonds joining her wrists, then told her to remove the duct tape.

She shook her hands for some seconds to get them working again, then picked at the strands of tape, getting purchase and ripping them free. He held the knife up, all the time, stroking the flat of the blade with his opaque, gloved finger.

‘The floor is fine,’ he said, as he noticed her wondering what to do with the curled strips.

Then he reached down, picked up the leather shoe from the floor and handed it to Jessie. ‘Smell it!’ he said.

She frowned.

‘Hold it to your nose. Savour the smell!’

She sniffed the strong smell of fresh leather.

‘Good, isn’t it?’

His eyes, for an instant, were on the shoe and not her. She saw a glint in them. He was distracted. The shoe was at this moment the focus of his attention, not her. She held it up beneath her nose again, pretending to savour it, and surreptitiously changed her grip on it, so she was holding it by the toe. At the same time, on the pretext of working circulation back into her legs, she began to bend her knees.

‘Are you the one they talked about in the papers, with the little winkie?’ she asked suddenly.

He jerked towards her at the insult. As he did so, she arched her back and straightened her knees, springing both her legs up as hard as she could, striking him beneath the chin with the toes of her trainers, physically lifting him up, and slamming his head into the ceiling of the camper van. He fell, dazed, to the floor, the knife clattering away from him.

Before he had a chance to recover his wits, she was up on her feet, tearing the hood from his head. He looked almost pathetic without it, like a little startled mole. Then she slammed the shoe, stiletto heel first, as hard as she could into his right eye.

He screamed. A terrible howl of pain and shock and fury. Blood sprayed from his face. Then, grabbing the knife from the floor, she jerked open the sliding door and stumbled out, almost tumbling head first into pitch darkness. Behind her she heard the terrible howl of pain of a maddened, wounded beast.

She ran and crashed into something solid and unyielding. Then streaks of bright light darted around her.

Shit, shit, shit.

How could she have been so stupid? She should have taken the bloody torch!

In the beam, she momentarily saw the disused goods carriage on the dusted-over tracks. A gantry. Part of the steel walkway halfway up the walls. What looked like massive suspended turbines.

Where was the door?

She heard a shuffle. He was screaming out, in pain and fury. ‘YOU THINK YOU’RE GOING TO GET AWAY – YOU ARE NOT, YOU BITCH.’

She gripped the knife. The beam shone straight in her face, dazzling her. She turned. Saw huge double doors, over the railway tracks. For the carriages to come in and out through. She sprinted towards them, the beam guiding her all the way there.

All the way to the padlocked chain between them.

110

Sunday 18 January

Jessie turned and stared straight into the beam, her brain racing. He didn’t have a gun, she was pretty sure of that, otherwise he’d have pulled that on her, not the knife. He was wounded. He was not big. She had the knife. She knew some self-defence. But he still frightened her.

There must be another exit.

Then the torch went off.

She blinked at the darkness, as if that might make it go away, or somehow lighten it. She was shaking. She could hear herself panting. She struggled to quieten her breathing down.

Now they were equal, but he had an advantage. He presumably knew the layout in here.

Was he creeping up on her now?

In the torch beam, she’d seen to her left a vast space with what looked like some kind of silo at the end of it. She took a few steps and almost instantly stumbled. There was a loud metal pingggggg as something rolled away from under her feet and fell with a swoosh, splashing into water below seconds later.

Shit.

She stood still. Then she remembered her phone!

If she could get back to the van, she could call for help. Then with panic rising, she thought again, Call who? Where was she? Trapped inside some fucking great disused factory building somewhere. How great would that sound if she told the 999 operator?

He was already back at the camper van. His face was throbbing in agony and he couldn’t see out of his right eye, but he didn’t care, not at this moment. He did not care about anything except getting that bitch. She’d seen his face.

He had to find her. Had to stop her getting away.

Had to, because she could bring him down.

And he knew how.

He did not want to reveal his position by switching on the torch, so he moved as slowly as he could, feeling his way around the interior of the van until he found what he was looking for. His night-vision binoculars.

It took him only seconds to spot her. A green figure through the night-vision lens, moving slowly, inching her way left, walking like someone in slow motion.

Think you are so smart, don’t you?

He looked around for an implement. Something heavy and solid that would bring her down. He opened the cupboard beneath the sink, but it was too dark to see in, even with his night-vision. So he briefly switched on the torch. The night-vision flared, shooting searing light into his right eye, startling him so much he dropped the torch and stumbled back, falling over.