'Do you miss my talk?' My voice seemed to come from a long way off.
'You're fading.'
'No. Not fading. Just a bit sleepy at the moment. Tired. You know how it is. Very tired. Echoes in my head.' I tried to concentrate on what I was saying, but words didn't seem to fit together properly any more. 'Can you cope with that?' I said, meaninglessly.
'You don't know what I can cope with. You don't know anything about me.'
'There are things I know. Things I don't know, of course, more things. Most. I know you've grabbed me. But why me? I'd like to know why me. I don't know that. Soon they'll catch you. They will. I listen for footsteps. They'll rescue me.'
There was his wheezy laughter beside me. I shivered. Oh, I was cold all over. Cold, dirty, aching, scared.
'It's not a joke,' I said, with an effort. 'They'll save me. Someone. Terry. I have a boyfriend, you know. Terence Wilmott. He'll come. I have a job. I work at Jay and Joiner's. I tell people what to do. They won't let me go.' That was a mistake, to tell him things like that. I tried to force the words in a different direction. My tongue was thick and my mouth dry. 'Or the police. They'll find me. You should let me go before they find me. I won't tell. I won't tell and I have nothing to tell. There is nothing to tell, after all'
'You talk too much.'
'Then you talk. Talk to me now.' All I knew was that he mustn't stuff my mouth with a rag and tie a wire round my throat. 'What are you thinking?'
'You'd no way understand what I'm thinking, even if I told you.'
'Try me. Talk to me. We could talk. Find a way out. Find a way for me to go.' No, I shouldn't be saying that. Keep thoughts silent. Concentrate.
A long silence in the darkness. I thought of him sitting out there, a foul, wheezing thing.
'You want me to talk to you?'
'Yes. Can't you tell me your name? No, no, not your real name. Another name something I can call you.'
'I know what you're trying to do. Do you know what you're trying to do?'
'I want to talk to you.'
'No, you don't, sweetheart. You're trying to be clever. You're trying to be a clever girl. You're trying to be, like, all psychological.'
'No. No.'
'You reckon that you can become my friend.' He chuckled. 'You're tied up and you know you can't escape. You know you can't get at me. I'm in control. The only reason you're alive at this moment is because I want you to be. So you wonder what you can do. You reckon that maybe I'm a sad, lonely man and I'm scared of girls. And if only you can be all friendly with me that I'll let you go. You see, you don't understand at all.'
'I just want to talk. Too much silence.'
'You see, some of them just snivel. They're just like an animal that's been half run over and it's flapping around on the road and it's just waiting to be put out of its misery, to be stamped on. And others tried to bargain with me. Like Fran. She said she'd do anything I wanted if I let her go. As if she had anything to bargain with. What do you think of that?'
I felt sick.
'I don't know.'
'Gail used to pray. I heard her when I took the gag off. Didn't do her any good.'
'How do you know?'
'What do you mean?'
'How do you know it didn't do her any good? You don't know.'
'I know, I promise you. Funny, isn't it? Some whined, some tried to be all seductive. You did a bit of that. Some prayed. Lauren, she fought and fought and never let up. Had to do her in quick. It all amounts to the same thing in the end.'
I wanted to cry. I wanted to sob and sob and be held and comforted and I knew that was the one thing I must never do. Then I would be the flapping wounded animal and he would stamp on me.
'Is this real?' I said.
'What?'
'These women.'
That coughing laugh.
'You'll be with them in a few days. Ask them yourself.'
He went away but things seemed different. He was back again in a few minutes as if he couldn't stay away. He had thought of something else. He had inserted the gag and now he removed it again. I felt his lips near my ear, wet wool and sweet meaty oniony breath.
'One day soon,' he said, 'and you won't know in advance, I'll come in here and I'll give you a piece of paper and a pen and you can write a letter. A goodbye letter. You can write to anybody you want. I'll post it. You can say anything you want, unless I don't like it. I don't want any moaning. It can be like a will if you want. You can leave your favourite teddy bear to somebody or whatever. And then when you've written the letter, I'll do the deed. Did you hear what I said? Yes or no.'
'Yes.'
'Good.'
He pushed the gag into my mouth. He was gone.
I wondered what Gail had prayed for. Did I love life as much as those other women? Kelly, who cried for her lost life. Fran, who desperately offered herself. Lauren who fought. Gail who prayed. For what? Maybe just for peace. For release. I doubted that I was as good as Gail. If I prayed, it wouldn't be for peace. I would pray for a gun and my hands untied. Or a knife. Or a stone. Or a nail. Anything to do damage.
A last letter. No last meal but a last letter. Who would I write to? Terry? What would I say? If you find someone else, be better to them than you were to me. Not exactly. To my parents? I imagined writing a noble letter full of wise thoughts about life that would make everybody feel better. When somebody dies it's important for the people who knew them to find ways of comforting themselves. She didn't suffer. Or, she did suffer, but at least it's over and she is at rest. Or, she showed her spirit to the end. That might make people feel better. Good old Abbie, she managed to crack a few jokes even when she was about to be murdered. What a lesson to us all. What a fucking lesson to us all in how to deal with the problem of being murdered. Pay attention, children. If ever you're captured by a psychopath and he's about to kill you, here's this letter by Abigail Devereaux. That's exactly the spirit in which to be murdered. Brave and forgiving and at the same time not taking herself too seriously.
But I'm not wise and I'm not forgiving and I'm not brave and I just want it all to go away. People talk about what you would have for your last meal as if it were some little game like your desert island discs. Well, if there were a last meal I wouldn't be able to swallow it. And if there's a last letter a brilliant bit of writing to sum up my life -I won't be able to write it. I can't write a howl in the darkness.
When I was first here, all that time ago, I was tormented by the thought of ordinary people a few hundred yards or a mile away. People in a hurry somewhere, wondering what they were going to watch on TV tonight, feeling for their change, deciding what bar of chocolate to buy. Now it all seems far away. I don't belong to that world any more. I live in a cave deep down in the earth where light has never penetrated.
When I was first here I had a dream about being buried alive. It was the most frightening thing I could think of. I was shut in a dark box. I was pushing at the lid of the box but the lid couldn't be opened because above the lid was thick, heavy earth and above the earth was a stone slab. It seemed the most frightening thing that my brain could think of. Now I think of it and it doesn't seem the most frightening thing at all, because I'm already in that grave. My heart is beating, my lungs are breathing, but it doesn't really matter. I'm dead. I'm in my grave.
'Did I fight back?'
'What are you on about?'
'I don't remember. I want you to tell me. Did I come peacefully? Did you have to force me? I was banged on the head. I don't remember.'
The laugh.
'Still trying that on? It's so too late for that. But if you want to play that game, all right, yeah, you did fight
