to be a paint brush with stiff, clogged bristles. There was nothing. No chisel. No screwdriver. No steel pole. Nothing I could hold. I stood up again, feeling my knees creak. How could he not hear that? I just had to wait until he had gone. Then I could go outside and call the police. Release Sarah.
The man was arranging things. I couldn't make out exactly what he was doing but I could hear him muttering lightly to himself. He reminded me of my father at the weekend, the only happy part of his life, when he would be repairing the fence in the garden, painting a window-frame, putting up a bookshelf.
The man was unfastening the wire around Sarah's neck. Oh, yes, the bucket. The hooded figure was pulled forward, her trousers tugged down, she crouched over the bucket, his hands around her neck. I heard the splashing in the bucket.
'Well done, my beauty,' he murmured, pulling her trousers back up.
With the casualness of long practice, he refastened the wire around her neck until she was helpless once more, but there was a tenderness about it. He seemed to like her more than he had liked me. He had never called me his beauty. The language had always been hostile. He had always been breaking me down.
'You've slimmed down,' he said. 'I think we're ready. You're lovely, Sarah. Lovely. Not like all of them.'
He stood back, in contemplation of her. I heard a metallic rasping sound and a flicker of light. He had lit the lantern. Light was splashed across the room and I shrank back behind the machinery. He examined Sarah with approving murmurs, feeling her naked arms, running his fingers along them, the way you might feel a horse to check if its fever had subsided. He laid the lantern on the floor. He lifted his arms, with his hands behind his head. He looked like someone who was newly awake, yawning and stretching and then I saw he was unfastening his scarf. It required some complicated tugging and fiddling with the tight knot and then he pulled the scarf away and there, for the first time, in the shifting orange light of the lantern, I saw his face.
It meant nothing to me. I didn't recognize it. I didn't know him. And, suddenly and strangely, it was as if a small turn had been made to the dial and everything had come into focus. The edges were sharp and hard, even in that flickering lantern light. My fever had gone. Even my fear had gone. What I had wanted was to know, and now I knew. Even my thoughts were clear now, and hard-edged. I didn't remember. My memory had not been restored. The sight of his drab face provoked no shock of recognition. But I knew what I needed to know.
I'd thought it was about me. There I had been in my fucked-up life, my stupid job and my disastrous relationship, and I had thought and fantasized and feared that he that man over there had recognized it in me. I had been heading for -disaster and I had brought it willingly on myself. He had recognized it in me and we had been made for each other, needed each other. I had wanted to be destroyed.
Now I knew that this wasn't true. Maybe I had been careless, frantic, deranged, but I had blundered into his path. Not even that. I could never know for sure, but I guessed that it was Jo who had encountered him, eager, vulnerable, desperate, a perfect victim for him. I had been concerned for Jo and had followed in her footsteps and encountered him in turn. That pathetic loser over there had nothing to do with my life. He was the meteor that had fallen on me. He was the earthquake that had opened up under my feet. And that was the funny thing. There, cowering in the darkness and knowing I was trapped, I felt free of him.
I couldn't remember what had happened. I would never be able to. But now I sort of knew what had happened those weeks ago. I'd been out there, in the land of the living, and then by mistake I had wandered into his territory, into his hobby. What do they say about a fight? I had read or heard or been told that the winner was the person who struck the first blow. I think I could guess what must have happened. I was looking for Jo. This man, this unmemorable man, was part of the background, part of the furniture. Suddenly he had leapt into the foreground. He'd pulled me out of my world into his world. It had nothing to do with my world except that I was going to die in it. I imagined myself being taken by surprise by this man I had hardly noticed and fighting back too late, my head banged against the wall, or clubbed.
I made myself think: If he sees me, what will I do? I made myself remember what he had done to me. All the terrible memories that I had spent weeks trying to suppress I now dragged out to the forefront of my mind. They were like a terrible inflamed, rotting, infected tooth around which I pushed my tongue as hard as I could to remind myself of what pain could be like. And then I looked at that man, fussing around Sarah, as if she were a sheep being crammed into a stall, slapping at her, muttering endearments,
setting out tools in preparation. He was both the patient, fussing lover and the busy, dispassionate slaughter man
There was apparently some resistance from her because he cuffed her lightly.
'What's that, my love?' he said. There must have been some sort of groan from inside the hood, but I couldn't hear it. 'Am I hurting you? What? What is it? Hang on a moment, love.'
I heard his breathing, oh, yes, I remembered that hoarse breathing, as he struggled to release the gag.
'What's this?' he said. 'You been trying to get free.'
She coughed as she was released from the gag, coughed and heaved.
'There, there, my darling, mind your neck now.'
'I was choking,' she said. 'I thought I was going to die.'
'Is that all?'
'No, no.'
A suspicion started to spread in me like a stain. I knew what was going to happen now and I wasn't afraid. I had died already. It didn't matter.
'So what is it?'
'I don't want to die,' she said. 'I'll do anything to stay alive.'
'You stupid little bitch. I've told you. I don't want anything. They didn't pay the ransom. Did I tell you that? They didn't pay the ransom. You know why? 'Cause I didn't ask for one. Hur hur hur.' He laughed at his own joke.
'If I told you something. Something really important. Would you let me live?'
'Like what?'
'But would you?'
There was a few seconds' silence now. He was troubled.
'Tell me first,' he said in a softer tone.
Sarah didn't speak. She just gave a sob.
'Fucking tell me.'
'Do you promise? Do you promise to let me live?'
'Tell me first,' he said. 'Then I'll let you go.'
A long pause. I could count Sarah's gasps as I waited for what I knew she was going to say.
'There's someone here. Now let me go.'
'What the fuck?'
He stood up and looked around at the very moment that I stepped forward towards him, out of the shadow. I had thought of flying at him but that would be no good. He was almost ten yards away. He had too much time. I looked beyond him at the doorway. It might as well have been on the moon. He narrowed his eyes with the effort of making me out in the shadow at the back, way away from the door.
'You?' he said, his mouth open in bafflement. 'Abbie. How the fuck did you .. . ?'
I took a step towards him. I didn't look at Sarah. I looked him right in the eyes.
'I found you,' I said. 'I wanted to find you. I couldn't stay away.'
'I've been fucking looking for you,' he said. He looked around, obviously disconcerted. Was there anybody else here?
'I'm on my own,' I said. I held up my hands to him. 'Look. I've got nothing.'
'What the fuck are you doing here?' he said. 'I've got you now. You fucking got away. I've got you.'
I smiled. I felt so calm now. Nothing mattered. I thought again of those days in the dark. My tongue pushing at the rotting tooth. Remembering. Reliving.
'What do you mean you've 'got me'?' I said. 'I've come back. I wanted to come back.'
'You'll regret this,' he said. 'You'll fucking regret this.'
I took another step forward. 'What do you want with her?' I said. 'I was listening to you both.' I took another step forward. We were just a few feet apart now. 'I heard you calling her your love. I felt that should have been me. Isn't that funny?'
He looked wary again. 'It's not funny,' he said.
