The towns flicked by. Winchester, then Farnborough, before eventually Aldershot loomed into view. Another quick check of the mirrors, then into the city centre. Parking her bike at the Parkway NCP, Helen sidestepped a group of drunken squaddies and hurried off, hugging the shadows as she went. Nobody knew her here, but even so she couldn’t take any chances.
She walked past the train station and before long she was in Cole Avenue, in the heart of Aldershot’s suburbia. She wasn’t sure she was doing the right thing, yet she’d felt compelled to return. Settling herself down amidst the undergrowth that flanked one side of the street, she took up her usual vantage point.
Time crawled by. Helen’s stomach growled and she realized that she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Stupid really, she was getting thinner by the day. What was she trying to prove to herself? There were better ways of atoning than by starving yourself to death.
Suddenly there was movement. A shouted ‘bye’ and then the door of number 14 slammed shut. Helen crouched down. Her eyes remained glued to the young man who was now hurrying down the street, tapping numbers into his mobile phone. He walked within ten feet of Helen, never once detecting her presence, before disappearing round the corner. Helen counted to fifteen, then left her hiding place and set off in pursuit.
The man – a boyish 25-year-old – was handsome with thick dark hair and a full face. Casually dressed with his jeans hanging around his bum he looked like so many young men, desperate to appear cool and uninterested. It made Helen smile a little, such was the studied casualness of it all.
A knot of rowdy lads loomed into view, stationed outside the Railway Tavern. £2 a pint, 50p a shot and free pool, it was a mecca for the young, the skint and the shady. The elderly owner was happy to serve anyone who’d hit puberty, so it was always packed, the crowds spilling out onto the street. Helen was glad of the cover, slipping in among the bodies to observe undetected. The gaggle of lads greeted the young man with a cheer as he waved a twenty-pound note at them. They entered and Helen followed. Waiting patiently in the queue for the bar, she was invisible to them – anyone over the age of thirty didn’t exist in their world.
After a couple of drinks, the gang drifted away from the prying eyes of the pub towards a kids’ playground on the outskirts of town. The tatty urban park was deserted and Helen had to tail the boys cautiously. Any woman wandering alone at night through a park is likely to draw attention to herself, so Helen hung back. She found an aged oak tree, grievously wounded with scores of lovers’ carvings, and stationed herself in its shadow. From here, she could watch unmolested, as the gang smoked dope, happy and carefree in spite of the cold.
Helen spent her whole life being watched, but here she was invisible. In the aftermath of Marianne’s death, her life had been picked apart, opened up for public consumption. As a result people thought they knew her inside and out.
But there was one thing they didn’t know. One secret that she had kept to herself.
And he was standing not fifty feet away from her now, utterly oblivious to her presence.
3
His eyes blinked open, but he couldn’t see.
Liquid oozed down his cheeks, as his eyeballs swivelled uselessly in their sockets. Sound was horribly muted, as if his ears were stuffed with cotton wool. Scrambling back to consciousness, the man felt a savage pain ripping through his throat and nostrils. An intense burning sensation, like a flame held steady to his larynx. He wanted to sneeze, to retch, to spit out whatever it was that was tormenting him. But he was gagged, his mouth bound tight with duct tape, so he had to swallow down his agony.
Eventually the stream of tears abated and his protesting eyes began to take in their surroundings. He was still in the derelict house, only now he was in the front bedroom, lying prostrate on the filthy bed. His nerves were jangling and he struggled wildly – he had to get away – but his arms and legs were bound tight to the iron bedstead. He yanked, pulled and twisted, but the nylon cords held firm.
Only now did he realize he was naked. A terrible thought pulsed through him – were they going to leave him here like this? To freeze to death? His skin had already raised its defences – goose bumps erect with cold and terror – and he realized how perishingly cold it was.
He bellowed for all he was worth – but all he produced was a dull, buzzing moan. If he could just talk to them, reason with them… he could get them more money, and they would let him go. They couldn’t leave him here like this. Humiliation seeped into his fear now, as he looked down at his bloated, middle-aged body stretched out on the stained eiderdown.
He strained to hear, hoping against hope that he was not alone. But there was nothing. They had abandoned him. How long would they leave him here? Until they had emptied all his accounts? Until they had got away? The man shuddered, already dreading the prospect of bargaining for his liberty with some junkie or whore. What would he do when he was liberated? What would he say to his family? To the police? He cursed himself bitterly for being so bloody stup-
A creaking floorboard. So he wasn’t alone. Hope flared through him – perhaps now he could find out what they wanted. He craned round to try and engage his attacker, but they were approaching from behind and remained out of view. It suddenly struck him that the bed he was tied to had been pushed out into the middle of the room, as if centre stage at a show. No one could possibly want to sleep with it like that, so why…?
A falling shadow. Before he could react something was passing over his eyes, his nose, his mouth. Some sort of hood. He could feel the soft fabric on his face, the drawstring being pulled taut. Already the man was struggling to breathe, the thick velvet resting over his protesting nostrils. He shook his head furiously this way and that, fighting to create some tiny pocket of breathing space. Any moment he expected the string to be pulled still tighter, but to his surprise nothing happened.
What now? All was silent again, apart from the man’s laboured breathing. It was getting hot inside the hood. Could oxygen get in here? He forced himself to breathe slowly. If he panicked now, he would hyperventilate and then…
Suddenly he flinched, his nerves pulsing wildly. Something cold had come to rest on his thigh. Something hard. Something metal? A knife? Now it was drifting up his leg, towards… The man bucked furiously, tearing his muscles as he wrenched at the cords that held him. He knew now that this was a fight to the death.
He shrieked for all he was worth. But the tape held firm. His bonds wouldn’t yield. And there was no one to hear his screams.
4
‘Business or pleasure?’
Helen spun round, her heart thumping. Climbing the darkened stairwell to her flat, she had assumed she was alone. Irritation at being surprised mingled with a brief burst of anxiety… but it was only James, framed in the doorway of his flat. He had moved into the flat below her three months ago and being a senior nurse at South Hants Hospital kept unsociable hours.
‘Business,’ Helen lied. ‘You?’
‘Business that I thought was going to become pleasure. But… she just left in a cab.’
‘Pity.’
James shrugged and smiled his crooked smile. He was late thirties, handsome in his scruffy way with a lazy charm that usually worked on junior nurses.
‘No accounting for taste,’ he continued. ‘I thought she liked me but I’ve always been crap at reading signals.’
‘Is that right?’ Helen responded, not believing a word.
‘Anyway, do you fancy company? I’ve got a bottle of wine that’s… tea, I’ve got tea…’ he said, correcting himself.