‘Bloody hell,’ he said, taking his keys from his pocket. A couple of beeps and the boot began to rise.
The space was empty except for a heavy jacket and a small toolbox.
‘Happy now?’
The taller police officer looked to her.
She shrugged. ‘Sorry, guys, my mistake. But thanks for your prompt attendance.’
The two officers headed back to the squad car. The shorter one was calling the result into the station.
‘You did this deliberately,’ Stamoran said accusingly.
‘Hey, we all make mistakes, but now I’ve got you, we can either talk out here, in there or down at the station, but one way or another we are going to have a conversation.’
THIRTY
I don’t know how long has passed since I last woke up but my muscles still don’t seem to want to follow my commands. The fatigue is working its way into my bones.
A memory is forcing its way into my mind. I don’t know if it was a dream.
This is not my first time of waking. There was a drink; food – a sandwich. My mind rebelled even when my body could not.
The memory is trying to come clearer. I woke and I was dry. My clothes had been changed. I had been washed. No, that must have been a dream. That couldn’t have happened without my knowledge.
I squirmed around. There was no dampness on my clothes; there was no smell of fouling. How had I become that dependent, that pliable? How had I become no more of a challenge than a newborn baby?
I remember more. My hands, although still handcuffed, had been placed at the front of me. A piece of hard plastic rested against my fingers. I summoned my energy and felt all around it. It was a triangle. It was food. I put it back down. I would not eat their offerings. I would not help them keep me alive for whatever they had planned. I would not allow them to control me. It took more than a few seconds to realise that if I’d been given the chance to eat that could mean only one thing: the gag was out of my mouth. A fact that had so far escaped me.
‘Help,’ I called out.
In my mind it was a scream. In my mind it was a roar that could have brought walls tumbling down. In truth it was a whisper that barely travelled a foot away from me.
‘Help,’ I called again.
The effort of the task did not match the outcome. My head had swum with the exertion.
‘No. No. No,’ I cried, trying to fight the fatigue away. I needed to try again, to muster every ounce of strength and focus it into one almighty cry.
I had known what I needed to do even as the lids of my eyes fell and blackened my world.
That was earlier and now I’ve woken with a hunger so fierce I would consider eating my own left leg. I remember the sandwich. My heart pumps with excitement. It dies quickly. The gag is back in my mouth and the sandwich is gone.
Inexplicably I feel hot tears sting my eyes. I blink them back. Am I crying for a sandwich or am I crying because I now understand the game? I have no control. My captors have everything. They will decide when I eat, not me. And if I don’t eat when they tell me to, the food will be taken away.
The grumbling in my stomach is louder than my cry for help.
When the fatigue comes again to claim me, I make no effort, this time, to fight it away.
THIRTY-ONE
Lorraine’s glare had followed Kim around the building, only to soften every time she glanced at Charles Stamoran, who appeared not to notice the severe schoolgirl crush that the woman was doing little to hide. It was almost as though she’d taken it personally that the barricades had been breached. As though she hadn’t kept him safe enough.
‘Okay, Inspector, you have my attention. What was so important?’
The inside of the property was little warmer than the outside. Stamoran’s office was for business and not for counselling. She wasn’t sure where that took place.
‘So, you un-gay people here?’ she asked, looking around.