Absent Light (27 page)

“You can,” Helen insisted. “You're going to think of the lovely time you had. Think of the fun. Was it wet or sunny?”

“Sunny, I think. I don't remember.”

“Doesn't matter,” Helen persisted. “Think of sunshine and music and love. Whatever happens, you hold onto that. Do you understand?”

“I think so,” the girl said apprehensively.

“Good. You leave that bastard upstairs to me, let me make the running, let me do the talking.”

“You don't know what he's like.”

“Yes, Siena, I think I do.” He's just like Jacks, she thought.

The noise of metal bolts scraping back sent a chill through her bones. Suddenly she didn't feel so brave. “Remember what I said,” Helen hissed. “Do it for your mum, your gran. Do it for all of us.”

He was like a malevolent presence. Even with the stench, the fear, the terror of what might come, the focus was on him. And he knew it. So far she'd tried compliance. She'd tried reason. She'd got nowhere. It was risky, but she needed to try something different.

“What do you want this time?” Helen said, steel in her voice.

She thought she heard a low laugh but she couldn't be sure. Was this the game he wanted to play? Did he enjoy confrontation?

“Stinks down here,” Helen complained bitterly. “Can't you get rid of the smell?”

“Thought you'd be used to it.”

There was a curdling sensation in her stomach. What did he mean? Did he know about her and what she used to do? Was he aware of her weak spot? She wondered if it all went back to Jacks again. Maybe her captor
knew
about Rose Buchanan.

“But the girl isn't.”

“Shit happens,
darlin
'.”

It sounded as if he were drinking, she thought, ears pricking. There it was again, the sloosh of liquid against glass. It would account for the beery breath. Perhaps it wasn't such a good idea to push it. Alcohol usually fuelled violence. Even mild-mannered individuals could become raving psychos with enough booze inside them. But what choice do I have, she thought? She had to get through to him, to find out what he wanted, discover his own weak spot.

“That the best you can come up with?” Helen said, scathing.

“Fuck you.”

“The girl's done nothing wrong. Let her go.”

An ugly silence.

“She's no threat to you.”

“You thick or somethin'?”

“What do you want from me?”

“All in good time.”

“So you do want something?”

“Doesn' everyone?”

Christ, this was pointless, she thought. “Can't you get us something to eat, something proper, something hot? We're both freezing to death down here.”

“I don't do room service, slapper.”

“Then what do you do?” Helen snapped.

The blow across her face made her teeth and brain rattle. Her blinded eyes filled with tears. She could taste salt where her lip split. Blood trickled warm and soft down her chin.

“
That's
what I do.”

Absent light. No point. No focus. No hope. It felt as if she'd spent the last four years of her life in the dark. This was a further, cruel extension.

She wondered what people concentrated on in captivity. The obvious thought was people, but Helen had already discounted them because she couldn't bear to. If anything was going to send her round the bend, it was thinking of those she cared about.

Instead, she thought of simple pleasures: a hot bath with masses of exotic bath-oil, thick, fluffy towels, Egyptian cotton sheets, white and unsullied, the smell of wet leaves and roses after dark. She thought of music, of favourite songs, books she'd read and enjoyed. She didn't think of a kiss in the rain, an arm around her shoulder or a look of love.

She tried very hard not to consider death. The problem was that most people tended to think in terms of narrow boundaries: disease, old age, at a push, accidents. Conditioned to think about the obvious, we don't entertain the strange, the unusual, the terrifying. That's stuff for other people to worry about. We don't consider the substrata, fear and despair, the incomprehension.

And how the hell do you measure death's close cousin, sorrow, she thought? How do you rate the daily terrors we're beset with, the universal violence, the pain of hunger, the incurable disease, homelessness, loneliness, grief? There wasn't a place in the world free of suffering. There was always some home or city where someone's heart was breaking. Theirs was just another small corner.

She tried to rein in her tortured mind, to contain the demons. Maybe she should concentrate on something she wanted to achieve, she thought, or somewhere special she wanted to visit, focus on the kinds of things people put off for a lifetime because the opportunity doesn't present itself, or there's not enough money, or not enough will. We often find excuses, even for things we really want to do, she thought. In her case, it was simpler than that. She didn't want the experience to be a disappointment. She didn't want it to fail. She couldn't visit that again.

She'd read somewhere about a guy taken hostage. He'd created a garden, worked it all out in his mind. It sustained him through all the crushing hours of boredom, the tense minutes of fear and excitement. When released, he'd stuck by his vision, gone ahead, and then planted the whole thing to rapturous acclaim. It was a lovely story, she thought. She wanted to believe in it, to dream of the day they, too, would be released.

But she couldn't.

* * *

“I need a lavatory.” Her mouth just about worked. Her voice and tongue felt thick, as if she'd had extended and painful treatment with an inept dentist.

“You can piss yourself, shit in your pants, don't give a fuck.”

“Please.”

She had no idea why he relented. It could be unpredictability. It could be another means to degrade her. Neither boded well.

“You try anythin'” he warned, “I'll give the girl a seeing-to.”

Siena whimpered. It echoed eerily through the cellar. Fighting the urge to be sick, Helen called to her softly, told her it would be all right then pledged to him that she'd be good, she'd behave, she'd do as he said. What other choice did she have? She was still blindfolded, still anchored to him, still under his control. She never doubted he'd carry out his threat if he felt like it. The self-defence course she'd attended didn't teach you about stuff like this. Didn't tell you that someone else's life might be on the line as well as your own.

He ordered her to stand. She got up, feeling extremely dizzy. He warned her not to move a muscle then released the rope from the pole, shortened the length and dragged her behind him. It felt strange to have the freedom. Her legs weren't used to it. They felt weak and wobbly like she'd spent a fortnight in bed with flu. Part of her was reluctant to move. She didn't want to trust him, to be under his guidance, to be this subservient. Maybe it would have been easier to wet herself again.

“There's six steps,” he said gruffly. She bumped into the first one, the stone catching painfully against her shin. She soon worked out that the steps were quite deep and she had to be careful to lift her leg high enough to stop herself from tripping up. Every time she hesitated, he'd tug on the rope. They went up the steps in a peculiar stop-start motion. It was like struggling to move a heavy set of drawers – except she was the furniture.

At last they were at the top. The air was fresher, less tainted. She took a lungful. The floor felt different beneath her feet. A bit sticky. Lino, she guessed, like the flooring at Albion Place. He was pulling her to the right. She heard a door creak open. He pushed her into a small compartment.

“I need my hands free,” she said.

He clicked his tongue but undid the rope binding her wrists. She almost let out a manic laugh of hysteria.

“Don't get fuckin' clever,” he warned again, giving the rope around her waist an extra pull to make crystal clear she knew who was in charge.

She pushed the door closed as far as she could, giddy with the luxury of being able to use her hands, and have the strain relieved from her shoulders. As she felt her way to the lavatory, she wondered if there was anything close by she could make into a weapon. In her mind, she ran through a few moves. Maybe she could rush him, take him unawares.

“Hurry up,” he shouted to her, snatching at the rope.

“All right,” she snapped back, desperately feeling around, touching a cold brick-built wall, feeling a piece of wire netting higher up, indicating a window, but she couldn't even locate a toilet roll holder let alone a makeshift weapon. Dejected, she rolled down her trousers, sat down, and touched her stinging wrists, feeling the broken skin, flinching with pain. Then she remembered the tiny torch inside her jacket, felt for it, pulled it out and slipped it into her jeans pocket.

When she was finished, she flushed the lavatory and returned to her captor. “Hands,” he said.

She extended them in front of her, gritting her teeth as he lashed them together. A small improvement, she supposed. Better than having them bound behind her.

“Why are you doing this?” she said, as he began to push her back the way she'd come.

He didn't answer.

“Is this connected to Karen Lake?”

He let out a short laugh.

“You knew her,” she insisted. “I'm right. You blackmailed my mother. You used Karen. It was your idea. You're behind it all.”

She heard him come towards her, heard, too late, the fist ball and clench, the swing of his arm. The ferocity of the blow to her stomach caused her to crumple and fall. Pain shot through her abdomen in sickening waves. “Cunt, I'm the person who saved you,” he roared.

She couldn't speak. Her mouth was filled with bile. Her insides felt as if they were on fire.

“You'd have drowned if I let you,” he sneered, standing over her sprawled form, poking her head with the toe of his boot. “Couldn't have that, could we? Seeing as you're family.”

The smell was a constant, appalling distraction. She pretended to be normal. She didn't mention the nausea, the racking pain, his unpredictability, his brutality, the morbid thoughts colliding in her brain. For once she was glad they were blindfolded. The girl had no idea of the pallor of her skin, the strain in her face, the fear in her heart.

“Tell me about your mum,” Helen said quietly. She couldn't think straight. All she had were fragments like shrapnel in her brain. Karen Lake was in there somewhere. Blackmail, too. And that last remark. She didn't know what he meant or if he meant anything. Could be some throwaway line.
You're family
. What did he mean? Only Lee fitted that description. But Lee was dead. That's what she was told. Surely…

The girl was speaking. “Her name was Malak. I've always called her that. It's Arabic for angel. That's what she was, my mum,” the girl said proudly. “A really good person, kind and peaceful. She believed in Karma. What goes around comes around. That everything has a purpose.”

Helen sat silently. She thought it sounded a bit too folksy for her liking. She'd seen a lot of death and she was damned if she knew what the purpose was.

“She thought I'd stay in the commune. It's where my home is, but the others said it would be difficult.”

“I suppose they had a point,” though Helen couldn't think what it might be.

“Before she died, the most amazing thing happened,” the girl said, her voice suddenly gathering strength. “It was October and quite warm. She was very weak. We had this kind of bed made up for her outside. Sometimes I'd go and read to her or just sit with her and watch the animals and trees or the sun shining. She loved the colours. Anyway, it was early evening and, quite suddenly, a barn owl appeared. Just came out of nowhere. It seemed to watch us, or rather Malak. She said that the owl signified her death. She wasn't frightened or anything. She just knew that her time had come. She was very peaceful about it. That night she died,” the girl finished softly.

“Someone once told me,” Helen said, thinking it was one of the old gardeners who used to work at Keepers, “that the barn owl signified the fulfilment of a dream or hope.”

“I like that better,” the girl said simply.

So did she.

He brought them food.

The girl let out a horrified cry. “I can't eat it.”

“What do you mean, you little bitch?”

“I don't eat meat,” the girl quailed.

“Fuck you,” he sneered. “Had it too good, haven't we? Spoilt little cow. You know what you need,” he threatened menacingly. The girl let out a terrified squeal.

“Try,” Helen yelled. Anything to stop the violence. Besides, this was no time to be precious. They both needed to eat, to keep up their strength, to help them think, to stay alive.

She cringed as the girl gagged and choked. “For Chrissakes, can't you give her some bread and cheese, or something?”

“Fuck it. You can have hers.”

“If she's not eating, neither am I.”

She heard the plate shatter as it was thrown against the wall. She heard the door slam shut.

The girl was distraught.

“Don't cry,” Helen said. “It doesn't matter. I wasn't hungry.” She closed her eyes and lay down. She felt dizzy with hunger and exhaustion and thinking. She was getting colder by the second. If he didn't kill them soon, she thought they'd die of hypothermia. For the life of her, she couldn't think why he was keeping them alive.

“Try and get some sleep,” she said to the girl.

Footsteps again. The scraping sound. Door opening and closing. More footsteps. She felt as though she were in a time-loop. Must be dreaming, she thought, or dying, or both.

She woke up to find him shortening the rope so that she was more securely attached to the strut. Then he untied her hands and shook her to grab her attention. She was again aware of a change in the darkness. She couldn't see but some of the light seemed to penetrate the cloth around her head. He handed her something hot to the touch. She flinched at the sudden heat, suspecting a trick then discovered that what she was holding was made of something thick, like pottery, that it had a handle.