No Way Out

the dressing table. Realizing that the erroneous delivery would have to wait she turned and went back into the room. But before the door closed behind her, there was a flurry of movement from the branching corridor and Martine found herself hurled into the room and thrown onto the bed.

When she spun round, in preparation to spring back to her feet and fight, she saw the door shutting behind Louis Manning who stood there with a menacing smile on his face.

Wednesday, 2 September 2009 — 18:50

Claymore was stuck in the log jam in Washington Street. Something had happened just ahead at the intersection with Embarcadero, but he didn’t know what. He wished he had gone the other way, via Broadway. But it was too late now. He would have liked to turn back and go that way even now. But with the traffic clogged up all the way up his tail, there was no possibility of that. He was stuck here until something gave — and he didn’t know how long that would be.

In his mind he kept thing about Andi. He couldn’t get the thought of her out of his mind. He wasn’t worried about Gene. She was too strong to worry about. Whatever weakness she had shown in court had been short-lived. She had the kind of inner strength that enabled her to come bouncing back.

But not Andi. Andi was too fragile for that. He had seen that over the two and half weeks of the trial. And after Gene had told him, he knew how thoroughly he was responsible for that fragility.

Nietzsche had said: “That which does not kill me makes me stronger.” But this wasn’t true of everyone. It’s like bullying in childhood. It toughens up the first son, but turns his younger brother into a wimp. And Andi may have put on a dazzling display in the courtroom, but every time she did that, it was followed by an internal collapse. He had seen that after the voir dire, when she came back looking crushed after Alex had spoken to her. He had seen how she cried after she’d taken Bethel Newton apart on the witness stand. He had even caught a glimpse of it after she had finished cross-examining Albert Carter. And he had no doubt that she was feeling guilty beyond belief at what she had done to her lover on the witness stand.

But it was actually Gene’s words that were haunting him right now.

“She sat next to you the whole trial and she didn’t even remember that twenty five years ago you were the one who raped her,” Gene had said.

She had been bottling it all up, just as Gene had. But Gene had now opened the bottle. Had she opened it for both of them?

He had to know… because he was responsible. But right now he was powerless as he sat here, snarled in traffic that wasn’t going anywhere.

He whipped out his cell phone and tried to call the number that had sent him the text message in the hope of reasoning with the person at the other end.

But there was no answer.

Wednesday, 2 September 2009 — 18:55

Alex was calling Gene. She answered almost immediately.

“Hi Gene it’s Alex. Listen. I’ve tried calling Martine several times but she’s not answering.”

“You think we should call the cops?”

“And tell them what. That we think Louis Manning might try and attack her but we’re not sure and we’re not even sure where she is.”

“We can tell ‘em that we can’t contact her and that we’re worried about her.”

“And you think they’ll do anything?”

“So what are we gonna do?”

There was no question in Gene’s mind that Alex would want to do something.

“Well I’ll keep trying to call her, but I think I’ll have to go there myself.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m in my office… in San Francisco… the Embarcadero Center.”

“And is she in San Francisco?”

“No, she’s in Oakland. She’s staying at the Waterfront Hotel.”

“That means you’re gonna have to drive across the Bay Bridge… like… now.”

It was commuter time: the worst time to be traveling and the worst time to be crossing the Bay Bridge. The fact that the Giants were playing the Dodgers made it even worse.

“I’ve got no alternative.”

“I’m also in San Fran. But I’m right by the Bridge. And I can ride a motorbike. That makes me a bit more mobile than you.”

“Have you got a motorbike?”

“Not yet. But I can get one.”

“You can’t buy one at such short notice.”

“Who said anything about buying.”

“No wait listen! Don’t do anything illeg-”

The line went dead. He knew that he was going to have to go there himself — even though there was no doubt in his mind that Gene would get there first.

Wednesday, 2 September 2009 — 19:00

The fear Martine had felt when Manning tried to rape her in the multi-storey parking structure was nothing compared to the terror she felt now secured her to the bed using the handcuffs he had taken from the cop. For this was the terror of uncertainty. Then she was in a public place and his options were limited. Here they were away from public view and he had scope for a far greater range of actions and much more available time.

The phone had rung a couple of times since Manning had forced his way into the room, and she suspected that it might be Alex. But she wasn’t sure. And anyway, he had no way of knowing that anything was up. She might be out, or in the shower. In fact before when she was in the shower, she had thought at one point that the phone was ringing.

For a brief moment she had considered putting up some resistance. It had after all been her courage in the parking structure that had saved her from being raped and helped the police to catch him. But this time it had been a whole different ball game. For a start, she no longer had the element of surprise. He was alert to any sudden show of resistance that might come from her. Secondly, even if she managed to make a break, she would still have had to open the door and get out of the room. That would have cost her precious extra seconds. But the third and most important factor, was that this time Manning had a gun.

That last one was the clincher. She knew that this time, she didn’t dare resist. And he knew it too. But just to make sure, he was quick to handcuff her wrists together in front, after ordering her to remove the bathrobe, before he forced her to lay face down on the bed. This, she realized, gave some indication of what he planned to do next.

Words could hardly describe how vulnerable she felt. And yet in some way, once she accepted the reality, it was strangely liberating. She knew that her only chance — if indeed it was a chance — was to reason with him, to open up the lines of communication.

“There’s something I don’t understand.”

“Did I tell you to talk bitch!”

For a second she was filled with an even deeper terror and thought that perhaps she had misjudged the situation and misread Manning. But then she realized that he too was not completely free of fear and that