I walked from my quarters on the third floor down to the kitchen.
There on the side in the kitchen was the smartphone I had been allocated. D was monitoring me from another phone, so I couldn’t use it to text or message anyone, as he would be able to see. He had clearly demonstrated how this worked when we arrived.
I no longer felt sadness or anger, just numb from a fight I knew I had lost.
I no longer had any choice. So I set up the smartphone on its tripod, set the phone to timer, snapped on a pair of pink Marigolds, picked up a mop and bucket and started cleaning.
43
Now
I tried to slow my breathing the way I was taught but my mind was awash with thoughts, questions I couldn’t answer, pieces of a puzzle I was rapidly trying to slot into place. Was this Mrs Clean or was this lucybest65? Who was the crazed man downstairs scaring the life out of this girl and why did she look like she was about to keel over? Most importantly, I needed to make a plan. I was stuck under a table in a house where several hundred kilos of cocaine was sat in a pristine fridge in a gleaming clean kitchen.
He was coming up the stairs and I was hiding under a table with no way out.
I needed to control my breathing. I thought back to my cognitive-behavioural-therapy classes and began to think outside of myself to distract from the fear and panic. The ‘5-4-3-2-1’ technique. Right, let’s do this. Okay, five things I can see: A chair leg; a table leg; a length of brown-and-orange tablecloth, matted and greasy at the corner; a dent in the wooden floor, where something heavy had been dropped; a small handmade wooden bear the size of my hand, wearing a hessian jacket. I looked at this object the longest. Clearly a child’s toy, but in a house with no children.
Four things I can touch. Stay calm, stay calm. The hard floor beneath my knees, sweat on my forehead, a sticky patch next to my knee where someone dropped some jam or something similar, a cut on my right leg that I must have got when I fell down the steps and ripped my jeans.
Three things I can hear: a clock ticking, a fan oven cooling… footsteps. I hear footsteps. He’s coming closer. He will be here any moment.
Two things I smell: the putrid stench of vomit mixed with a cleaning product.
One thing I can taste: There is blood in my mouth. I can taste blood.
44
Now
I heard the door crash open and a man’s voice. The same man from downstairs?
‘Oh my God, what the fuck? It’s disgusting in here. What the hell are you doing?’
I heard the girl let out a small wail as though she had been grabbed. From beneath the tablecloth I could just about see a pair of black boots, and the bottom of a pair of blue jeans.
‘Clean the fuck up. You’re a disgrace.’
And he turned to walk away. Then he stopped and walked back over to the window.
‘I thought I told you to keep these curtains closed at all times? Are you mad, woman? We had a deal. I don’t think you are sticking to your side of the bargain, are you?’
‘You haven’t stuck to your side of the bargain for nearly six months,’ came her voice, weak and hollow.
‘Don’t backchat me, woman.’ His loud voice was accompanied by a sharp slap that reverberated around the room. The girl let out a wail and I heard the door slam.
I counted to ten and then slowly I began to shuffle my way out from between the boxes, and I pulled myself to standing. The girl was slouched on the sofa, her hand across her face. I knew I was on borrowed time now.
‘What’s going on?’ I finally found the strength to speak, but I whispered the words. She shook her head.
‘You need to go, I don’t know who you are or why you’re here, but it’s not safe. Please go.’
‘I can help you,’ I said. ‘I just need to charge my phone. Do you have somewhere I can charge my phone? Or if you give me your phone, I can call someone to help us.’
‘You don’t understand, do you?’ She let out a pathetic laugh. ‘If it was that easy, I would have done that a long time ago.’ She sounded as though she was speaking with a lisp and when I looked a little closer, I could see she was missing a tooth.
‘Is that?’ I pointed to her face. ‘Did he do that?’
She touched her lip. ‘Yesterday.’
I looked urgently around the room and walked over to the window to see if I could find a way out, even though I knew from looking at the window from the rooftop cinema, it was just a window with a sheer drop underneath. I pushed my hands through my hair.
‘Help me help us. What can I do? Where is your phone?’
‘I don’t have a bloody phone. He takes it. I’m only allowed to use it for work. It stays downstairs. I only have a tablet.’
‘When you say work, do you mean… Instagram? Are you…?’
But she couldn’t answer me because the door swung open again and a man came storming into the room with his head bent.
‘I don’t suppose you’ll close the bloody curtains, so I’ll have to—’ He stopped just before me. ‘What the fuck is this? Who are you?’ I looked into the face of a man with a shaved head, tight white T-shirt and bronzed, strong arms.
‘I said’ – he took another step closer to me – ‘Who. The. Fuck. Are. You?’ He spat his words at me. Sweat glistened on his scalp.
‘I, I, I’m here to help. Your wife – she’s ill.’
He looked over at the girl with pure disgust. ‘She isn’t my
