Absent Light (25 page)

They'd stopped travelling. He seemed more relaxed, she thought with relief, as he let her out this time, more sure of his territory, more in control. The temperature was much, much colder. The wind seemed to blow straight from the Antarctic, nothing to break its strength, to temper its hostility. He was close to her. She could smell him: citrus and tobacco. She could smell her surroundings: vegetation, maybe gorse or bracken. She felt him loosening the gag, untying it. Right-handed, she thought, croaking a thank-you. He'd given her something back, she thought. Her voice. Words. The ability to communicate. Maybe he wanted to talk to her. Maybe, that way, things would be all right. Then she felt something surprisingly soft brush her skin, caress her face, clamp over her nose and mouth. She tried to cry out but she was smothered by and enveloped in it. As much as she struggled, resisted the urge to breathe, she could not evade the poisonous fumes rushing through and invading her airways. Almost at once, she felt her body stiffen then painfully jerk, uncontrollably, as if she were having a fit. Terror shot through her like an electric current. He held her fast with the same determination with which a cowboy rides a bucking bronco. It seemed to go on forever. Limbs convulsing. Pain. Mind detaching. Her last conscious thought was this was it. This was death.

Hers.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

T
HE SMELL WAS SWEET
, fetid, ripe and personal. The damp air choked with it. Already, she could feel it on her hair and skin, on her clothes. She identified it immediately. The odour of death was unmistakable.

She felt groggy, as if she had a rip-roaring hangover. She was lying sprawled on some kind of cushion or mattress. Even with the stench surrounding her, it smelt horrible, as if dozens of bodies had sweated, had sex, farted and pissed on it. And worse. With dismay she noticed there was wetness between her legs. Fear of being dead was swiftly replaced by fear of being alive.

In spite of her thick winter clothing, she was miserably cold. She could hardly feel her arms, and her hands felt as if they'd been cut off at the wrists. Her ankles were no longer bound together but there was little sensation in her feet and toes. Apart from the near-freezing temperature of her prison, she reckoned she was suffering from shock. Her insides were heaving. She felt dizzy with exhaustion, stupefied. She had a powerful thirst. She felt nauseous. She wondered how long it would be before her assailant returned. Dare she ask for a sip of water? Would he laugh, spit in her face, have pity? And who the hell was this individual who had delivered such chaos to her life? She thought of his many faces: the bloke in the bar, the one at the funeral, her abductor. And when he'd smiled at her was it bluff, or gamesmanship? She suspected the latter.

Still blindfolded, with hands tied together, she rolled and struggled to sit up then stand. She took a number of steps forward but something kept tugging on her, holding her back. She slowed her impulses, tried fractional changes of stance and movement, and discovered there was another rope around her waist, tethering her to some kind of wooden pole or strut. She was like a bear waiting to be baited, she thought.

Trying to decipher the extent of her small world, she took several paces forward, and found that she could step off her tiny island onto what felt like another chunk of solid earth. She crouched down, sniffed it. Soil and damp, she thought, mind bracing. A cellar. A dungeon. A tomb. She tried not to think of the implications.

She strained her ears for sound. No hiss of passing traffic, no human noise, no creak of floorboard, no gurgle of pipes. The silence felt thick and crushing. It pressed down on her. She called a tentative
hello
to try and shift its weight, to lighten the load, but it wouldn't budge.

The vulnerability of her position was obvious. Nothing she'd learnt from self-defence was going to help. She could do nothing unless allowed by
him
. She was at his mercy. Completely. No longer gagged, she could scream her lungs out, but there was no point. Nobody, other than her captor, would hear. It might make him angry. It might provoke severe punishment. It wasn't worth even trying. The only way to change her circumstances was to work out what he wanted from her and give it to him. Anything. Staying alive was all that mattered. Must focus on that, she thought. Think about it constantly, she kept repeating to herself in desperation.

Should she be passive and compliant, or difficult and spirited? One might turn him on and that was dangerous. The other might encourage him to bash her brains out. Unless both were part of the game plan, she froze inside. He'd killed before. That was obvious to her. Once that particular taboo is broken, further killings come more easily.

She sniffed the air. Crazy fantasies about the person whose corpse was lying putrefying somewhere nearby crowded her fractured mind. She wondered if it was a woman, what had happened to her, how she'd died, what weapon he'd used. Gun? Quite possibly. A knife, or hammer, ligature, all three? She wondered if the victim had resisted, if there'd been pain. Her kneecaps began to tremble. She didn't like to consider her own pain-threshold. Mental toughness was not the same as caring whether you had scalding water poured over you or a knife slicing through your flesh.

Got to escape, she thought, wondering if, by some form of contortion, she could telescope her body and force her rear through her looped hands, then slide them down behind her legs towards her feet and over her toes so that her hands were in front of her rather than behind. That way, she'd stand both a better chance of freeing and defending herself. She sat back down, made a vain attempt. Although slim, her clothing was too bulky. She couldn't even begin to push her rear through the gap between her arms. It had nothing to do with physical fitness and determination, but everything to do with flexibility, and she wasn't that bendy. Never had been.

Got to keep strong, she told herself. Must not give in to panic. Must not let the mind roam free. Women died when they lost all sense of reason.

She thought she knew what it was to be solitary, the outsider, reclusive, but now that she was really alone, she realised her mistake. Before, she'd been playing a role, a part she'd chosen and one that suited her, a kind of martyrdom. Now she longed to rejoin the human race, to embrace it, to talk to her dad, to be touched by Joe, to hug Aunt Lily, to share the laughter of good friends like Jen and Ed, Ray and Jewel. Her heart wrenched inside just thinking about them. It was too much, she thought, a sob escaping from her throat, too hard to bear. All the missing and what might have been. Can't remember those I love, she gasped inside. If I do, I'll come undone.

Something was moving. She flinched, let out a small cry of surprise. Whatever it was had a light tread, a scampering motion, mice or, more likely, rats. The smell from the corpse would attract them, she reasoned. The air temperature was pretty cold, making decomposition slower, but it wouldn't essentially stop the laws of nature. Flies were often the first on the scene, laying their eggs in any available bodily orifice, followed by insects doing the same. Some were attracted to leaking body fluids, others to forming body-mould. Small, carnivorous creatures, also attracted by the smell, would come to devour. Judging by the rotting odour, she gauged the body as being several days old. Six, tops? She sighed. What did she understand about anything any more? She had no sense of chronology. She didn't even know whether it was still night, or if day had broken. Without light, how was she going to count the hours? How was she going to measure the time, the time she had left?

She heard another movement. The noise was closer. Could be rats again. Instinctively, she stepped back, set her head and shoulders against the post just to feel something solid against her body. Would they attack living beings? she trembled with fear. Were they like carrion crow that pecked out the eyes of ailing lambs? Would these vile, predatory, scurrying creatures also sense her tethered presence, her weakness, and seize the chance? She shook her head from side to side, trying to kill the idea. But she couldn't. A host of horrible anecdotes whizzed through her brain, tales where rodents nibbled the fingers of neglected babies and children. It was the sort of tale Jen would come out with. Dear Jen, she thought, stifling another sob, what would she make of this? Helen imagined her friend reading about it in some tabloid newspaper, distressed but also rapt, glued with fascination. Oh, how she'd give anything to tell Jen all about it. She wouldn't mind. She could have it all in lurid detail, glorious Technicolour, every last bit. Just to be given the opportunity to tell her. Just the chance to live.

She had a creeping sensation; she was not alone. She must have dozed off because she was slumped on the mattress. Her shoulders hurt from being pinned back. Her bones ached with cold.

By rolling on to her knees, she was able to push herself up into a standing position. She wondered if he were watching her, captivated by her struggle, getting off on it. It occurred to her that she was like a small animal caged for the purpose of scientific experiment. She had no strong views on vivisection. She did now. She felt fury.

She wanted to spit in his eye, hit him, claw at his face, inflict pain,
kill
him. She'd enjoy it, she thought, rage bursting through her body like an erupting volcano. Every connection in her brain fizzed and juddered with energy. She felt molten with anger. How dare this creature take away her rights. How dare he subject her to such indignity. Without warning, she snapped, lost it. Springing forwards, she ripped against the rope around her waist, twisting at it, bucking and tearing at her restraints, yanking on the support, making it creak and groan. Then she whipped round and kicked at it, first one foot then the next, screaming and roaring like a cornered, wounded lioness. She felt no pain at all. If she could have seriously injured herself, she would have done. Like the self-harmer, nothing else mattered except that choice, that freedom. She let everything that had gone wrong in her life boil to the surface. Every disappointment, every grief spumed out of her. She was fearless, reckless, without thought or feeling, and it was glorious. It was intoxicating. It was liberation. Release. Then quite suddenly, the madness passed as soon as it had come. It didn't fizzle away. It just abandoned her. Bruised, exhausted and broken, she sank to her knees. Every part of her shook. She felt finished, done, hollowed out.

This was her lowest point.

She had to be whatever he wanted her to be, she thought miserably, to do what he said. If, by studying her, it turned him on, so be it. If he wanted to defile her, there was nothing she could do. She was hopelessly alone. Just him and her. Locked together.

After a while, she sat up again. Her throat ached. Her muscles felt ripped. Her wrists burnt and throbbed with pain. The skin felt sticky. The rope stuck to it.

“Hello.” Her voice was a croak. “Is there someone there?”

Again the scuffling sound. “Look, there's not much point going to all this trouble to get me here if we can't talk.”

No response.

“All right,” she said wearily. “My name's Helen Powers. I'm thirty-three. I'm a photographer. I take portraits. I guess you know all this already,” she sighed. “I don't understand why I'm here, or what you want. Perhaps you could enlighten me, let me in on the secret. I think we almost met. You remember The Pitcher and Piano, the funeral? Are you the person who pushed me into the canal, almost ran me down?”

No answer.

“Who are you?” she said, her voice cracking with distress.

Still nothing.

“Why are you doing this?” she sobbed.

Silence.

She sat back, slowed her breathing, desperate to regain her composure.

“Come to think of it,” she said, straining her ears, “it's probably not a good idea to answer.” Too incriminating, she thought. “Could I have a drink, a sip of water? Please,” she said, trying to stop her voice from sounding too needy. “It's been a long time. And I'd really appreciate it if you could free up my hands. I'm not going anywhere,” she attempted to joke. “Where am I, by the way? Scotland or Land's End?”

She could definitely hear something. Breathing, she was sure of it. Not that far away. Somewhere in the darkness, to her left. She got to her feet, took a few shaky paces. Listened. Yes, there it was again. Why didn't the sick bastard say something? Maybe it was a clever plan designed to drive her insane. She wondered what button she needed to press to turn the tables.

“Do you want money, is that what this is all about? I can get you money. You don't have to go to all this fuss. Name your price, and I'll sort it, no problem. And, on my life,” she said hastily, “I won't tell anyone what's happened. Why would I? You know I can't identify you. Smart move the blindfold. You could be black, white or Chinese. Frankly, I don't give a shit,” she let out a tired laugh. “I just want this to stop for both of us.”

She stopped, listened. The breathing sound was quicker, more shallow. Either it indicated excitement or distress. Perhaps she was pressing a nerve, after all, she thought.

“You know something? I bet you're as frightened as I am. Maybe more so, and you know what? Frightened people make mistakes. I understand that. Really, I do. So this is your mistake. A big one, I grant you, but it can be fixed. You're damn lucky. Not everyone gets the chance to make good. And believe me, you don't want be stuck with something so big you can't put it right. Not ever. I know, you see. I'm there, pal, and I can assure you it's pure torment. Blights your life. It's a bastard, isn't it? Your parents give you advice on all kinds of stuff, friends, too, but no one teaches you how to live with mistakes…” her voice lost impetus.

“I can hardly breathe, for Chrissakes. There's a real stink. Can't you smell it, too? Must do. God knows what it is, don't even want to know, blocked drains or something.”

“No, not drains,” a small voice said.

Helen gasped, moved her face towards the voice in astonishment. It sounded as if it belonged to a girl, a teenager, at a guess. “You're not him,” she said, bewildered. Christ, what was going on? Was he holding a kid too, she thought? And why? It didn't make any kind of sense. “How long have you been here? Who are you?”

“I don't know,” the girl replied, her voice a dull monotone. She had a definite accent, one Helen had identified before, rural, West Country. Yes, that's what it was, she thought, making the link. He had it, too.

“What's your name?”

“I don't remember,” the girl whispered.