Was she still in the farmhouse? She remembered the needle, the surprise of the sharp injection. The same man who brought her food. Surely someone would come and save her? Wouldn’t they?
“Who’s there?” No one answered, although she could feel them close. The air was greasy with the smell of aftershave and cigarettes. What do you want?“
The door opened. Footsteps. Shelagh felt the change in atmosphere. An instinct for self-preservation kicked in and she struggled wildly for a moment to get free. The rope only tightened, putting more pressure on her shoulders, making them ache.
The door shut with an ominous, heavy thud.
She fell still. For a moment, there was silence, then the sound of someone walking towards her, closer and closer. Shelagh shrank back in her chair. He stopped right in front of her. She felt her entire body contract, as if there were thousands of tiny wires pulling at her skin. Like an animal circling his prey, he walked round the chair a couple of times, and then dropped his hands on her shoulders.
“Who are you? Please, take this blindfold off at least.”
“We need to have another talk, Dr O’Donnell.”
A voice she knew, cold and precise, cut through her like a knife. She realised it was him she had been expecting. Him she feared.
He suddenly jerked the chair back.
Shelagh screamed, plummeting backwards, powerless to stop herself falling. She never hit the ground. He stopped her, inches above the floor, so she was lying almost flat, her head tipped back and her feet suspended in the air.
“You’re not in a position to ask for anything, Dr O’Donnell.”
He held her in that position for what seemed like hours. Then, without warning, he suddenly righted the chair. Shelagh’s neck snapped forward with the force of it. She was becoming disorientated, like a child in a game of blind man’s bluff.
“Who are you working for, O’Donnell?”
“I can’t breathe,” she whispered.
He ignored her. She heard him click his fingers and the sound of a second chair being placed in front of her. He sat down and pulled her towards him so his knees were pressing against her thighs.
“Let’s take it back to Monday afternoon. Why did you let your friend go to that part of the site?”
“Alice has got nothing to do with this,” she cried. “I didn’t let her work there, she just went of her own accord. I didn’t even know. It was just a mistake. She doesn’t know anything.”
“So tell me what you know, Shelagh.” Her name in his mouth sounded like a threat.
“I don’t know anything,” she cried. “I told you everything I knew on; Monday, I swear it.”
The blow came out of nowhere, striking her right cheek and slamming her head back. Shelagh could taste blood in her mouth, sliding over her tongue and down the back of her throat.
“Did your friend take the ring?” he said in a level voice.
“No, no, I swear she didn’t.”
He squeezed harder. “Then who? You? You were on your own with the skeletons for long enough. Dr Tanner told me that.”
“Why would I take it? It’s worth nothing to me.”
“Why are you so sure Dr Tanner didn’t take it?”
“She wouldn’t. She just wouldn’t,” she cried. “Lots of other people went in. Any of them could have taken it. Dr Brayling, the police-”. Shelagh abruptly stopped.
“As you say, the police,” he said. She held her breath. “Any one of them could have taken the ring. Yves Biau, for example.”
Shelagh froze. She could hear the rise and fall of his breathing, calm and unhurried. He knew.
“The ring wasn’t there.”
He sighed. “Did Biau give the ring to you? To give to your friend?”
“I don’t know what you mean.” she managed to say.
He hit her again, this time with his fist, not the flat of his hand. Blood spurted from her nose and poured down her chin.
“What I don’t understand,” he was saying, as if nothing had happened, “is why he didn’t give you the book as well, Dr O’Donnell.”
“He gave me nothing,” she choked.
“Dr Brayling says you left the site house on Monday night carrying a bag.”
“He’s lying.”
“Who are you working for?” he said softly, gently. “This will stop. If your friend isn’t involved, there’s no reason for her to be harmed.”
“She’s not,” she whimpered. “Alice doesn’t know…”
Shelagh flinched as he placed his hand on her throat, stroking her at first in a parody of affection. Then he started to squeeze, harder and harder, until it felt like an iron collar tightening around her neck. She thrashed from side to side, trying to get some air, but he was too strong.
“Were you and Biau both working for her?” he said.
Just as she could feel herself starting to lose consciousness, he released her. She felt him fumbling with the buttons on her shirt, undoing them one by one.
What are you doing?“ she whispered, then flinched at his cold, clinical touch on her skin.
“No one’s looking for you.” There was a click, then Shelagh smelled lighter fuel. “No one’s going to come.”
“Please don’t hurt me…”
You and Biau were working together?“
She nodded.
“For Madame de l’Oradore?”
She nodded again. “Her son,” she managed to say. “Francois-Baptiste. I only talked to him…”
She could feel the flame close to her skin.
“And what about the book?”
“I couldn’t find it. Yves neither.”
She sensed him react, then he pulled his hand back.
“So why did Biau go to Foix? You know he went to Dr Tanner’s hotel?”
Shelagh tried to shake her head, but it sent a new wave of pain shuddering through her body.
“He passed something to her.”
“It wasn’t the book,” she managed to say.
Before she could choke out the rest of the sentence, the door opened and she heard muffled voices in the corridor, then the combination of the smell of aftershave and sweat.
“How were you supposed to get the book to Madame de l’Oradore?”
“Francois-Baptiste.” It hurt to speak. “Meet him at the Pic de – I had a number to ring.” She recoiled at the touch of his hand on her breast.
“Please don’t-”
“You see how much easier it is when you cooperate? Now, in a moment, you’re going to make that call for me.”
Shelagh tried to shake her head in terror. “If they find out I’ve told you, they’ll kill me.”
“And I will kill you and Mademoiselle Tanner if you don’t,” he said calmly. “It’s your choice.”
Shelagh had no way of knowing if he had Alice. If she was safe or here too.
“He is expecting you to call when you have the book, yes?”
She no longer had the courage to lie. She nodded. They are more concerned with a small disc, the size of the ring, than the ring itself.“
With horror, Shelagh realised she’d told him the one thing he hadn’t known.
“What’s the disc for?” he demanded.
“I don’t know.”
Shelagh heard herself screaming as the flame licked her skin.
“What – is – it – for?” he said. There was no emotion in his voice. She was freezing cold. There was a dreadful smell of burning flesh, sweet and sickly.
She could no longer distinguish one word from another as the pain started to carry her away. She was drifting, falling. She felt her neck giving way.
“We’re losing her. Get the hood off.”
The material was dragged off, catching on the cuts and split skin.
“Fits inside the ring…”
Her voice sounded as if it was coming from underwater. “Like a key. To the labyrinth…”
“Who else knows about this?” he was shouting at her, but she knew he couldn’t reach her now. Her chin dropped down on to her chest. He jerked her head back. One of her eyes was swollen shut, but the other flickered open. All she could see was a mass of blurred faces, moving in and out of her line of vision. “She doesn’t realise…”