The gold smudges of sunlight moved across the walls. Pauline watched with exhausted eyes as the day rolled around. No-one found her and though there would be families and couples on the beach they were a lifetime away.
When he came, he came quietly and suddenly. An alteration in the atmosphere told her that she was no longer alone. For a breathless moment she hoped for salvation but in the event it was the return of horror.
He had brought a torch this time and she was blind as the beam flashed onto her face.
“Still here then?” He gave a short grunt of a laugh as he clambered up beside her.
There was no answer for her to make and so she gave none. She had glanced at him once but now turned her face away.
“Well, Pauline.” He sat in the damp with his legs swinging out into nothingness. Tiny scraps of rock and shutters of sand cascaded into the water of a slack tide. She stored the information away: he had come now and so even when the tide was high there was a way onto the promontory. He leaned towards her and murmured as to a friend in the cinema. A private tête à tête in the darkness.
“I popped back to the house. I haven’t found my bag yet. You hid it well; I’ll give you that. Then I got to thinking. Ah yes, I thought, I know what she’s done, my friend Pauline. She’s stashed it away from here.”
She shook her head once.
“Anyway, no matter. I’ve been to see my clients again. Now to say that they are not happy doesn’t even begin to cover it. They are very, very cross. Uh-huh.” His head bounced up and down, a comedy routine, bizarre and terrifying. “Trouble is you see, they are cross with you. Well I’m cross with you as well, aren’t I? The bigger problem though Pauline is that they are not happy with me and that is not what we want. When these people are disturbed it can end badly and one thing I can tell you is that I’m not going to let that happen to me.
“So, what are we going to do?”
Her hopeless monologue murmured through the darkening cave. “I haven’t got anything. I truly haven’t. Don’t you think that if I did I would tell you by now? I don’t know what you are talking about. I found you by the side of the road, I tried to help you. I didn’t take anything. I lied about who I was because I didn’t want my husband to find me.”
“Well now that really does give us a problem doesn’t it? Somebody has my stuff. Now who was there? Oh yes, there was you and… ah you see: there was just you.” He twisted towards her and grabbed her face and she yelped in surprise and pain. “I will give you one last chance. You tell me where the stuff is hidden or you will never get out of this cave. Do you understand?” She nodded mutely, tears streamed down her face.
“Oh yes and in case you were hoping for your landlady to come and look for you I have sent a nice little text telling her how you have just met a friend and won’t be back tonight. So you don’t need to have any concerns about them worrying. Thoughtful sort of chap aren’t I?”
She didn’t see his hand rise but as he swiped backhanded across her face the world turned red and she thought that now it was over. Yet in truth it was simply another beginning.
Chapter 23
He wasn’t beating her because he thought it would elicit information. He must know by now that it wouldn’t work. As he slapped at her face she knew he was beating her because, like George, it was his way to deal with frustration and fear.
Then the words popped out of her mouth almost before she thought them. “I buried it.” Time held for a long moment. His head tipped to one side, his hand stilled in mid-air.
“What? What did you say?”
“I buried it. Your bag, I took it and buried it. I didn’t know how to get rid of the stuff so I buried it until I had worked it out.”
He turned away from her, confusion creased his brow. “Why, would you do this? Why would you let me bring you here? What, are you stupid or what? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I don’t know.”
“You better be telling me the truth. Are you lying to me?”
She simply shook her head and casting her eyes downwards, she sighed.
“Where did you bury them?”
“Under a rock on the cliff walk.”
“Where? Which rock?”
“I… I don’t know how to describe it. It’s about half an hour in… there are some fallen rocks. It’s overlooking a bay. I picked a rock that I thought I’d remember and I dug a hole under it.”
Her mind was racing now. She tamped down the thrill of hope that flickered in her gut. She must keep calm.
“You’ll have to take me. You’d better not be lying.” He paced to the cavern entrance. It was too much to hope that he would take her onto the beach while people still played but it was early evening now. Maybe soon he would risk it. Take her while there was still light in the day. She had to bend this tiny straw of possibility her way.
“I don’t think I’ll be able to find it in the dark. I’ll show you tomorrow.”
“What? What did you say? Who the hell do you think you are to start dictating terms? You’ll show me when I say you will! You’ll show me today.”
He climbed back to sit beside her and dragged a bottle of water from his pocket. He lifted it to his lips and drank deeply. She held her breath; surely he would give her a drink. He must know how she needed one. Her desperate eyes watched as the water glugged and bubbled and his throat worked swallowing the cool liquid. Without a glance at her he finished the contents and then dropped the empty plastic bottle into the swirling depths. She felt hate then; more than she had ever felt in her life. More than for George and his brutality and more than even for this man up until now. It lit a fire deep inside that she feared would consume her and tip her over the edge into insanity. She clenched her fist and felt the pain in her fingers as she held back the fury.
Pauline was exhausted. Every bone and muscle ached with a deep throbbing relentlessness. Her eyes were sore, her throat was dry, she wasn’t able to reach her pools and her head pounded. The brute sat beside her silent and calm.
“Who are you?”
“What?”
“Your name, what’s your name?”
“What the hell has that got to do with you?”
“Nothing, sorry nothing. I just thought that… I don’t know your name.”
“You don’t need to know my name. You don’t need to know anything about me. All you need to be thinking about now is where that bloody rock is and what I might do to you if you’re lying to me. So shut up.”
She felt his tension, “Have you got any water?”
“No, No I haven’t got any bloody water, you just saw me finish the water. Now – shut up.”
How far could she safely go? She needed to needle him to the extent that he would act but not so much that he would lash out again. She couldn’t take any more pain.
“Can I sip from that little hollow? That’s what I was doing.”
“Oh bloody hell. Can’t you shut up?” He clambered to his feet. She held her breath as he scrambled to the entrance. “Please, please, please.” Silently pleading she was tight with tension.
“Right, come on. Now listen to me. I can put the gag back in or you can promise me that you won’t shout or scream. Your choice but I’ll tell you this, you try and draw attention to us and you will think that what has happened up to now has been a church picnic. I can think of ways to hurt you that you can’t even begin to imagine. Do you understand?”
She nodded.