The thought of Tobias coming down to see her didn’t seem so bad anymore.
Anything was preferable to the silence and the loneliness.
The hours stretched on and on. Down here there was no real way of knowing the time, but over the last few days the daily routine of waking, eating her meals, reading, watching a DVD, had at least given some kind of structure to her days, and this allowed her to judge the approximate time of day, or at least work out if it was day or night. But trapped in the cage, with no distractions or break in the monotony, she soon became lost in her own thoughts. And when she had eventually drifted off to sleep towards the end of the second day, and then awoken later feeling refreshed and with a clear mind, she knew it was the following morning and Tobias had still not returned, he had not been down to see her or to bring her food and something to drink as he always did, then it had dawned on her that her worst fears were realized. Tobias had indeed left her for good.
Nina had never felt so low. Even when she had first been snatched from home and bundled into the oblong metal box in the back of the van, driven away through the night and then carried down here, she had never felt such hopelessness as she did now.
The thought of spending her final days in this cage, growing weaker and weaker as she slowly died, wondering if anybody would ever find her body and know of her fate… it was enough to break her completely and Nina had wept openly, crying out for her parents who she knew were dead also. These feelings of utter wretchedness pressed down on her and crushed any last lingering shred of hope.
But later, much later, having cried herself to the point of exhaustion, a sound reached her. Very faint at first, so quiet that she wondered if her frightened mind had imagined it.
Then it grew louder, a steady drone that increased in volume, coming closer.
Something in the yard outside.
Sitting up, Nina listened carefully, and after another minute she recognized the sound.
A motorcycle. Yes, that’s what it was. Somebody was outside on a motorcycle.
The engine cut out and she held her breath, straining her hearing.
She heard a door opening. Footsteps across the room above her.
◆◆◆
Lotte stood in the parlour and looked around at the dust and old furniture, the mouldy, musty smell making her nose wrinkle.
So this was the place? she thought to herself. Tobias Vinke’s home, and where he’d brought the girl. Miles from anywhere, way off the beaten track, a spot where nobody would think to look. Just as he’d told her. At least his part in the plot had mostly gone according to plan, until the final few days when he’d started to get cold feet. But her Uncle Johan had taken care of that.
And now here they were, come to babysit the kid she thought in annoyance.
Not quite how things should have turned out.
But no matter. It wouldn’t be for long.
She heard her uncle enter the room behind her and watched as he dumped the carryall containing the sniper rifle onto an old armchair. From the back of his waist belt he removed his small handgun.
“I’m going outside to check on our security. Then we’ll take another look at that arm of yours.”
“Look in on the girl first. She should be down in the basement.”
“If you say so.”
He pushed open the door into the kitchen.
“It’s a fucking mess in here!”
Lotte ignored him. She was still perturbed by her mixed-up emotions, triggered by the earlier crossing of paths with Pieter Van Dijk, brief though it had been.
The distraction was becoming a hindrance, coming at a time when clear heads and calm restraint were required. But pushing thoughts of him to the back of her mind was proving difficult, which irritated her even more. And now that the immediate danger had passed, and they had made it out of the city more or less in one piece and reached the temporary safety of Tobias’ hideout, she found herself struggling to let these feelings go.
Try as she might to ignore this unwanted intrusion, Pieter was dead-centre in her thoughts. And for the first time in many months, she felt her resolve weaken.
Lotte paced back and forth across the old, threadbare carpet, her gaze no longer looking at her surroundings but instead with her thoughts turned inwards.
Damn it! Why was this happening now?
Yes, the two of them had a bond, but built on a lie. The friendship, which became very intense, was really nothing more than a sham. She had drawn him into her intricate web over many months, helped by her mother Famke, who likewise had befriended Pieter’s father, the old drunk on the houseboat. But inevitably their relationship, both platonic and later sexual, was bound to have left behind some residual emotions for both of them.
She stopped beside the window and briefly lifted the curtain to peer out at the night, but all she could see was her own pale reflection staring back.
She was human, she concluded. Not as strong as people presumed.
But she needed to put this to bed quickly.
Lotte was in her astral form once more, moving through the night, with the city far below her.
She travelled with ease, and some inner sense alerted her to her destination, the house she was looking for, and she swooped down and glided smoothly through the outer walls and into the bedroom.
Floating above the bed, invisible in the real realm, she looked
