fill her lungs. She squirmed, moaned, twisted on to her side, then on to her back, sniffing, sniffing, sniffing, fighting for air, close to blacking out. Then, after a few moments of lying on her back, the blockage freed a little and more air came in. Her panic subsided a little. She took several long, deep breaths, calming a fraction, then tried to call out again. But the sounds stayed trapped in her mouth and gullet.
Bright lights lit up the darkness for an instant and she could see above her the roof of the vehicle. Then darkness again.
Another bright light and she saw a hunched figure in the driver’s seat, just shoulders and the back of a baseball cap. The light passed and was instantly replaced by another. Headlights of oncoming cars, she realized.
Suddenly there were bright lights to her right, as a vehicle overtook them. For a fleeting instant she saw part of his face reflected in the interior mirror. She froze in terror. It was still masked by the black hood.
His eyes were on her.
‘Just lie back and enjoy the ride!’ he said in a bland, small voice.
She tried to speak again, struggling once more to move her arms. They were behind her back, her wrists clamped together. There was no slack, nothing to get a purchase on. She tried to move her legs, but they felt as if they had been welded together at the ankles and knees.
What time was it? How long had she been here? How long since…
She should be at the dinner dance. Benedict was going to meet her parents. He was coming round to pick her up. What was he thinking now? Doing now? Was he standing outside her flat ringing the bell? Phoning her? As headlights again brightened the interior, she looked around. Saw what seemed to be a small kitchen unit; one cupboard door was swinging, banging but not closing. Now they were slowing down. She heard him change gear, heard an indicator click-clicking.
Her fear deepened even more. Where were they going?
Then she heard a siren wailing, faintly at first, then louder. It was behind them. Now louder still! And suddenly her spirits soared. Yes! Benedict had come round to collect her and called the police when he realized she wasn’t there. They were coming! She was safe. Oh, thank God! Thank God!
Shards of blue light, as if from a shattered chandelier, flooded the interior of the van and the air filled with the scream of the siren. Then, in an instant, the blue lights were gone. Jessie heard the siren recede into the distance.
No, you idiots, no, no no no, no. Please. Come back! Please come back!
She slithered across the floor to her left, as the van made a sharp right. Two hard, jarring jolts and it pulled up. She heard the ratchet of the handbrake. Please come back! Then a torch beam flashed into her eyes, momentarily dazzling her.
‘Nearly there!’ he said.
All she could see when he moved the beam away from her face were his eyes through the slits in the hood. She tried to speak to him. ‘Please, who are you? What do you want? Where have you taken me?’ But all that came out was the reverberating moan, like a muffled foghorn.
She heard the driver’s door open. The engine ticked over with a steady clatter. Then she heard metal clanking – it sounded like a chain. It was followed by the creaking sound of rusty hinges. A gate being opened?
Then she heard a familiar sound. A soft, rasping buzzing. Hope suddenly sprang up inside her. It was her mobile phone! She’d switched it to silent, vibrate, for her kick-boxing class. It sounded as if it was coming from somewhere up front. Was it on the passenger seat?
Oh, God, who was it? Benedict? Wondering where she was? It stopped after four rings, going automatically to voicemail.
Moments later he jumped back in, drove forward a short distance, then jumped out again, once more leaving the engine ticking over. She heard the same creaking sound, then the same metal clanking of a chain again. Wherever they were, they were now on the far side of locked gates, she realized, her terror deepening even more. Somewhere private. Somewhere that police patrols would not drive by. Her mouth was dry and she felt as if she was going to throw up, bile rising in her throat, sharp and bitter. She swallowed it.
The van lurched, then lurched again – speed humps, she thought – dipped down an incline, sending her sliding forward, her shoulder bashing painfully into something, then rose up, so that she slid back again, helplessly. Then they were driving along a smooth surface, with a steady bump-bump every few moments, like joins in concrete. It was pitch dark in here and he seemed to be driving without lights on.
For an instant her terror turned to anger, then to wild, feral fury. Let me out! Let me out! Untie me! You have no fucking right to do this! She struggled against her bonds, pulling her wrists, her arms, with all her strength, shaking, thrashing. But whatever was binding them did not budge.
She lay limp and sniffing air, her eyes filled with tears. She should be at the dinner dance tonight. In her beautiful dress and her new shoes, holding Benedict’s arm as he chatted wittily to her parents, winning them over, as she was sure he would. Benedict had been nervous as hell. She had tried to reassure him that they would be charmed by him. Her mother would adore him and her father, well, he seemed a tough guy when you first met him, but underneath he was a big softie. They would adore him, she had promised him.
Yeah, right, until they find out I’m not Jewish.
The van continued its journey. They were turning left now. The headlights came on for a brief second and she saw what looked like the wall of a tall, derelict, slab-like structure with panes of broken glass. The sight sent a vortex of icy air corkscrewing through her. It was like one of the buildings the film Hostel was set in. The building where innocent people who had been captured were taken and tortured by wealthy sadists who paid for the privilege.
Her imagination was in freefall. She’d always been a horror movie fan. Now she was thinking about all the deranged killers in movies she had seen, who kidnapped their victims, then tortured and killed them at their leisure. Like in Silence of the Lambs, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Hills Have Eyes.
Her brain was shorting out in terror. She was breathing in short, sharp, panicky bursts, her chest thudding, thudding, thudding, and she was so angry inside.
The van stopped. He got out again. She heard the rumbling of a metal door, then a terrible grinding of metal against some other hard surface. He climbed back in, slammed his door shut and drove forward, putting his lights on again.
Have to talk to him, somehow.
Now she could see through the windscreen that they were inside some vast, disused industrial building, the height of an aircraft hangar, or several aircraft hangars. The headlights briefly showed a railed steel walkway going around the walls high up and a network of what looked like giant, dusty Apollo rocket fuel cylinders stretching into the distance, supported by massive steel and concrete cradles. As they turned, she saw rail tracks disappearing into dust and rubble, and a rusted open goods carriage, covered in graffiti, which did not look like it had moved in decades.
The van halted.
She was shaking so much in terror she could not think straight.
The man got out and switched the engine off. She heard him walking away, then the groaning noise of metal, a loud, echoing clang, following by the clanking of what sounded like a chain. She heard him walking back towards the camper.
Moments later she heard the door slide open and now he was inside the rear with her. He shone the torch down at her, first at her face, then at her body. She stared up at his hooded face, shaking in terror.
She could kick him, she thought wildly. Although her legs were strapped together, she could bend her knees, then lash out at him, but unless she could free her arms, what good would that achieve? Other than to anger him.
She needed to speak to him. She was remembering tips from all she had read in newspapers about hostages who had survived capture. You needed to try to bond with your captors. It was harder for them to harm you if you established a rapport. Somehow she had to get him to free her mouth so she could talk to him. Reason with him. Find out what he wanted.
‘You shouldn’t have kicked me,’ he said suddenly. ‘I bought you nice new shoes, the same as the ones you were going to wear tonight to take Benedict to meet your parents. You’re all the same, you women. You think yourselves so powerful. You put on all these sexy things to snare your man, then ten years later, you’re all fat and horrible, with cellulite and a slack belly. Somebody has to teach you a lesson, even if I have to do it with only one shoe.’
