Nina writhed against her bonds; they were much too tight. She could feel blood pulsating in her wrists; it was agony... Hell, how long was he planning to keep her here? She stared at the floor, willing herself to stay calm. Naomi, baby, don’t worry, it’s going to be okay. But was it?
Paul was watching her, his expression mocking. ‘You had it all, you know. Your mam got you out, you had a good life. A proper home – a baby. And I know you might need a little persuasion to stay here and help me with this, so I’m going to fetch your baby,’ he said, his new high-pitched voice echoing round the bare kitchen. ‘Little Naomi, she’s always been able to wrap you round her little finger, hasn’t she? First I’ll go to the police and tell them we were both abducted but I managed to escape. You, unfortunately, weren’t so clever, and how would I know where they’ve taken you?’
Nina struggled to keep panic at bay. He mustn’t, he must not bring Naomi here. She moaned into the gag. What could she do now, what could she do to stop him?
Paul smiled, and Nina had to look away because oh, it was like something in a horror movie. His eyes were shining and his face didn’t belong to the man she had met just a few days ago.
‘First the police and then the hospital. The abductor had a knife, you see. A little realism’ll make sure they believe me. I need hospital treatment and that’s when I’ll go off by myself leaving them all looking for you on the Luton bypass, because that’s where we were heading when I managed to escape, isn’t it? And then I’ll go and comfort my poor little cousin Naomi, she must be so frightened without Mummy. You can stay here together. Searching for you will keep all those policemen so busy they won’t worry about what I’m doing, looking up those last two scumbags.’
He took a kitchen knife from a drawer and held it up to the light, watching it glint before stabbing it twice, viciously, into his lower arm. Nina gasped, the shock and the gag combined almost preventing her from breathing. Paul was mad. He would do anything. And shit, fuck…
Blackness swirled in front of Nina’s eyes. He was going to bring Naomi back here and she couldn’t stop him. So no way could she leave this house even if she did manage to get free. She’d have to wait in this awful place for Naomi… Dear God, what would this do to her little girl?
Paul wound a towel round his bloody arm. ‘You know, after what happened to me when I was a kid, nothing much hurts anymore.’ He bent over her and jerked the bonds on her wrists tighter still. White hot pain seared up Nina’s arms, and tears ran down both cheeks and soaked into the gag.
The front door slammed behind Paul, and she heard a key in the lock.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The car engine spluttered into life, then roared as Paul drove off. Nina slumped in her chair, but straightened immediately as the movement caused the rope to dig even more cruelly into her ribcage. Silence fell heavily in the dimness of the kitchen, and Nina closed her eyes, fighting dizziness.
Sweat broke out on her brow as she thought about Naomi. Her little girl was in danger. It was imperative to think carefully, plan what to do. But what could she do, tied to a kitchen chair in a house ‘somewhere near Bedford’? The horror of the situation threatened to overcome her, and she forced herself to breathe normally. Passing out here would help no one.
Come on, Nina. For a second she heard Claire’s voice in her ear, and it calmed her. And she needed to be calm, because nobody was going to come to this house to look for her. She would have to get free herself and phone David. Her mobile was still in her bag in Paul’s car, the first car, but even a house as squalid as this one might have a landline.
But supposing it didn’t?
Panic gained upper hand again, and for a few minutes Nina fought against the rope binding her to the chair, swearing frantically in her head as her efforts caused nothing but pain. The binds were unmoving and eventually she gave up and sat panting into the foul-tasting gag. Dear God – she could choke and die on her own saliva here. Why, why had she followed Paul so blindly when he’d yelled that a bomb was hidden in the house – idiot that she was, she had put her life and Naomi’s into the hands of a madman.
Right. It had happened and she had to do something; she couldn’t sit here till Paul came back with Naomi. She had to get out, get help, get away. If she didn’t she could lose everything, including Naomi, for God knows what Paul was capable of. Think, Nina.
The police would believe Paul when he went to them with his story. To them, he was a victim, not a violent psychopath. Unless – of course! The sudden hope was almost painful in its intensity, and Nina gasped aloud. John Moore’s landline was bugged. Paul’s call to lure Sabine to the phone would be traceable, so the police would know that he was mixed up in this even if Sabine was unable to tell them.
The moment of relief was short-lived as she realised that someone who was capable of successfully finding and blackmailing paedophiles would have thought of this and used an anonymous, prepaid phone. Nina gave way to the storm of sobs that shook her bruised body against the binds and the hard kitchen chair. Please God Cassie wouldn’t leave Naomi alone with Paul. Please God he wouldn’t hurt her girl.
The storm abated, and Nina gathered her strength for a new bid for freedom. She could not stay here on this chair in near darkness. Grubby windows only made the dimness more apparent, and Paul had switched the light off when he left. The yellow glow from a streetlight in the lane behind the house was only illuminating the area of kitchen nearest to the window.
If she could find the knife that Paul stabbed himself with and somehow jam it in somewhere, she could maybe rub the bonds on her arms against the blade. It was worth a try, anyway.
By jerking one side of her body she was able to move the chair a few millimetres. The friction of the rope on her wrists was agonizing after a mere handful of jerks, but there was no other way.
Frustration filled Nina’s mind as the chair turned oh, so slowly until she was facing the sink and the drawer where Paul had found the knife. She would have to cross three metres of disgusting floor to reach it. Time after time she jerked her body forward, and gradually the chair moved. The tiles were old, old lino, and some were loose, which didn’t make her journey any easier. After every five jerks she awarded herself two quiet, steady breaths. The little routine helped her carry on. It was five lashes of the whip, followed by two recovery strokes, again, and again, and again.
Tears of desperation and pain were trickling down Nina’s face long before she got to her destination. Blood from her wrists ran down her hands, warm and sticky, and the mixture of tears and saliva soaking into the foul-tasting gag made it more obnoxious by the second.
One last jerk brought her to the drawer. She could see the glint of metal; there would be a knife in there.
There was. Several painful moments of pushing and shoving with her right arm opened the drawer enough to reveal an unsavoury collection of cutlery, including a couple of sharp knives. The problem was she couldn’t get at them. There was no way she could lift anything out with her elbow, and she wasn’t able to bend her head far enough to get into the drawer with her nose and chin. For long, demoralising minutes she tried, thinking, shit, this has to work, I’ve come all the way from the table and it was so bloody painful, I deserve it to work. But it was hopeless. In a fit of rage, she pushed against the sink unit with all the strength in her right arm.
The chair creaked and moved, then the backrest parted company with the seat and Nina fell. Her head hit something cold and hard, and briefly she saw stars.