“Calm down,” came the muffled voice from behind the hood.
These words had the opposite effect, and she felt herself breathing in quick and shallow gasps, and her eyes welled up with tears.
The figure reached forward with one of his huge hands, and although she shrunk away from him, he grasped a hold of one of her narrow shoulders and actually squeezed it gently.
“Take it easy now girl. Get your breath, and try to stay calm.” As if to try to reassure her further he added, “I’m not going to hurt you.”
During the terrifying journey in the back of the van, locked inside the oblong metal box with its small LED light showing through her blindfold, feeling the sleeping bag beneath her, Nina was convinced she was going to die. She was only twelve years old, but she was much more streetwise than people gave her credit for, and she knew how the world worked. She was well aware that there were lots of bad people out there, men who abducted children in order to do all kinds of horrible things to them, before later killing them and dumping their bodies in a ditch somewhere. The TV was full of documentaries and movies of such things, real-life abductions of kids or young women taken off the street or snatched from their bedrooms, never to be seen alive again. And so Nina was sure this was going to be her fate. Taken from her home, from her parents, who would spend the rest of their lives wondering what had happened to their daughter.
Her parents! Lying squashed into the metal box, she’d felt the fear swell up inside her, her concern for herself momentarily superseded by the worry she now felt for her mother and father. Had something bad happened to them? Surely it had, she had heard the screaming and commotion downstairs, the violent fighting that had sent her scurrying to her bedroom in terror. Her parents would never allow her to be just taken like this. They would both do everything in their power to stop this man from snatching her and driving away. They must have been hurt… or worse.
Nina had peed, unable to prevent herself, and she had cried quietly as the van rocked her back and forth, the sound of the engine reverberating around inside the confined space of her tiny prison.
After what seemed like an age, the van had slowed down. She could tell from the volume of the engine, but also with the motion and juddering, and then they had turned slowly about, the wheels bumping over something in the road, before coming to a halt. The engine gave one final splutter and then fell quiet.
She had waited, her whole body quivering, and she had tried to stifle her sobs, thinking crazily that if she remained quiet the driver might somehow forget about her, which was stupid and childish she knew, but Nina was desperately afraid and panic was seizing her, making wild thoughts flit through her imagination.
She heard the driver’s door slam shut, then the crunching of footsteps on gravel, followed by the loud scrape of the van’s rear door being yanked open. Laboured breathing, then the snap of what must be a padlock right beside her ear, hinges squeaking loudly. Finally, strong hands grabbing her, shoving the gag further into her mouth to silence her scream, and before she could think straight she was being manhandled out of the box and carried away. Freezing cold air brushed against her face and she caught the faint whiff of something familiar, which she was sure was the smell of the sea. Yes, she could hear waves breaking on a shore close by, could recognize the salty tang blowing in the air.
Then they must have been inside somewhere, the man carrying her huffing and puffing as he lugged her along, the chill making her bare arms go all goosebumpy. Nina had felt herself lowered to the floor, and the simple command of: “Stand.”
A key turning in a lock and the recognizable noise of a heavy door opening, then she was scooped off her feet again, the door banging shut. Down some steps and finally she was placed gently onto a soft mattress and the gag removed from her mouth, the blindfold from her eyes.
Now the man telling her he wasn’t going to harm or hurt her.
“That’s not why you are here,” his gruff voice coming from behind the leather hood. “I’m not like that.”
Nina turned her gaze away from him and surveyed her surroundings.
She was in a large room, laying on a small bed pushed into the corner, which had clean sheets and blankets. There was a wardrobe and a set of drawers which also acted as a nightstand, with a lamp on top. On the wall above the bed were a couple of posters showing pop stars, although they were quite old with the corners curling inwards and she didn’t recognize who they were. Beyond this small sleeping area, the rest of the room opened out into a large space containing a couch and a small TV, a tiny square table with two wooden chairs, a rug on the bare stone floor. A bookcase contained a mixture of books and magazines, plus what looked like a selection of DVDs. Over in the far wall was another open doorway, and through there Nina glimpsed a shower cubicle together with a sink and toilet. In the corner of the main room was a wooden staircase that led up to a big, rusty door. It was slightly ajar, and through the gap was the bluish glow of a flickering fluorescent light.
Nina stared hard at the opening, a feeling of desperate hope temporarily flashing through her mind, but when her eyes moved on, a tiny shudder passed through her, for what she saw next crushed that fleetingly brief notion of escape. For beneath the staircase was a tiny metal cage. Just a few feet square, with
