With knives? With crowbars? Branding irons?
Or whips?
Rape?
Chang An Lo, my love, give me strength.
The fabric was sliding. Suddenly the weight of it took over and she could feel it slipping smoothly over the tip of her finger. And then it was gone. Nothing changed. No light. No greyness. No hint of a world out there. Disappointment crashed down on her and she burst into tears.
No. Not that. Not tears. No waste of precious fluid. No self-pity.
She made herself stop, but her shoulders kept heaving. It frightened her that a few miserable air holes mattered so much to her. They were trivial. What about the big things yet to come? The bad things. Really bad. To survive she had to get herself under control. She pushed her face into the corner with the air holes and breathed deeply. The air was fresher. Not much.
She licked the metal around the holes. It tasted foul but it was damp with condensation. Moisture. No more than a few smears of it, yet it set her brain functioning again. For the first time it occurred to her to think about rescue. What a fool. Of course she’d be missed when she didn’t return home from school. Well, not immediately maybe, because they’d assume she’d gone over to Polly’s house when she didn’t show up, but eventually. By nightfall.
It might be the middle of the night already for all she knew. It certainly felt as though she’d been inside Box for a very long time because her body ached all over from the cramped positions her limbs were squashed into. So they could be searching. Right now. Out there with dogs and torches. For a moment she stopped shivering and lifted her head. Opened her eyes. No amount of listening or staring into blackness altered anything, but she felt she needed to be ready. For when they came.
Mama. Don’t be casual about this. This is important. It’s my life, Mama. Do something.
Do something.
Valentina’s hand slammed onto Chang An Lo’s cheek. ‘You dirty yellow piece of pig shit. Where is she?’
Theo stepped forward to intervene, but she slapped the young face again and again. Punctuated by demands.
‘What have you done with her?’
Slap.
‘Where have your stinking friends taken her?’
Slap.
‘Speak, you goddamned money-grubbing kidnapper. If she’s hurt I swear I’ll…’
She raised her hand to strike once more, but Theo seized her wrist and yanked her away from where Chang was standing in the middle of the room. ‘Enough, Mrs Parker. This is not helping.’
She swore ferociously in Russian and Theo expected a slap himself, but she shook herself free and glared at all three men in the room as if she would bite their balls off.
‘Find her,’ she shouted. She dragged her hands through her dishevelled hair in a gesture of despair, her face flushed with rage. ‘Communist, listen to me. You get out there and bring her back. Because if you don’t, I will turn the police on you and you’ll be hanged, so…’
‘Let him speak,’ Theo said curtly. ‘Alfred, for Christ’s sake, man, shut her up. The bloody woman is insane. Chang An Lo didn’t kidnap her. He hasn’t left this house and anyway, look at him.’ The Chinese was swaying on his feet. His face was grey except for the crimson imprint of Valentina’s hand on his cheek. ‘He’s about to drop.’
‘No,’ Chang insisted. ‘Mrs Parker is correct.’
‘What?’
‘I mean the search must start right now.’ His voice wasn’t quite steady, and Theo wasn’t sure if it was the fever and the shock of the attack by Valentina or because Lydia was missing. Either way, he looked bad.
‘Call the police,’ Alfred said firmly. He’d been standing by the door, silent up to now. ‘They’ll know how to handle it. They’re used to kidnappings. They’ll trace her and hunt down the culprits. If there are any, that is. Let’s not panic yet, my dear. She may just have wandered off on some pet project of her own without telling you. You know what she’s like.’
‘Gospodi! Don’t talk like an imbecile.’ She swung back to Chang. ‘Tell me, Communist, what has happened?’
‘I know nothing. But I suspect.’
‘Suspect what?’
‘That the Black Snakes have her.’
‘What the hell are they?’
‘It’s a secret tong,’ Theo explained. ‘But why would they want Lydia, Chang?’
Chang did not waste effort on a reply. He was pulling on his boots. ‘You are right, Mrs Parker. I will get out there.’
‘Steady, old fellow,’ Theo said quickly. ‘You’re in no fit state to go roaming the streets.’
Chang snatched his padded coat from the back of the door and spoke fiercely. ‘And what about the state Lydia is in?’
‘The police…,’ Alfred started.
‘If you call in police,’ Chang said, looking only at Valentina, ‘they will be slow and heavy tongued. They might get her killed. You will have to tell them I was here and the schoolmaster will go to prison. It is against your law to help a fugitive.’
Alfred stepped in. ‘Look, young man, that is not…’
Valentina sliced a dismissive hand through the air. ‘Mr Willoughby can rot in jail for the whole of eternity for all I care, as long as I get my daughter back. Find her, Communist.’
Theo did not take offence. Love was never rational. If it were, he wouldn’t be with Li Mei. And out on the street, Chang’s search methods would be more effective than those of the police, as long as he could stay on his feet.
‘But first the police will want to question him,’ Alfred pointed out quietly, ‘to learn what…’
‘You’re wasting time, Alfred.’ Theo rested an arm on his friend’s shoulder.
Chang opened the door.
‘Godspeed,’ Alfred murmured.
But Theo put more faith in the knife up Chang’s sleeve.
55
Lydia waited. In the dark. Hunched inside her senses. She knew they’d come for her eventually, when they were sure she was weak and helpless, and then they’d start their amusement – that’s the word Chang An Lo had used for it. The thought turned her bones to water.
The only defence she had was inside her head, and she started working on it. Preparing. For questions. For pain. For how far she could go.
The nakedness. The cold. Even the absolute darkness inside Box. They had all seemed so important only hours ago, so crippling, but now she put them aside into a separate compartment in her head. She had gone beyond that.
It was a matter of focus.
She went over scenes. Inch by inch. Good scenes. Scenes with her mother when she was young. Bright shiny scenes of laughter. Of Russian tales at bedtime or of proudly playing the left hand of Dance of the Cygnets on the piano while her mother played the right. Swimming in the river on a hot summer’s day and diving for fish skeletons to take home. Snowball fights in the schoolyard with Polly.
Why had Polly betrayed her? Lydia had begged her not to, had pleaded for her silence. And even if Polly believed she was helping Lydia by telling her father, what good was that to Lydia now? What use were good intentions inside a metal Box?
She forced Polly’s name away. Good memories were what she needed now. Lizard Creek. The touch of Chang An Lo’s warm skin. The smell of his hair. His penis firm in her hand. Inside her. Good memories to build up good strength.
She could survive this.
She could.
She would.
The noise cracked like a gunshot. Her ears, so used to silence, misinterpreted the sound. It took an effort of mind to realise it was an iron bolt being drawn back. A door being unlocked. Shuffling footsteps on wood. Stairs? Someone descending toward her. She had prepared for this, run it already a thousand times in her head and taught herself to control the panic. Focus. Breathe.
But her heart rate exploded. Terror swamped her.
‘Hello?’ she called out.
A guttural stream of Chinese came in response and a thump on the side of Box, the sound of a palm hitting metal. She shut up. The best thing was the light. She focused on the tawny little trickles of twilight that filtered through the six holes and steadied herself by it. It was only faint. A candle? An oil lamp? But it was light. Life. She could make out her own knees, see a bruise on her leg, see her hand. Her eyes squinted after the utter darkness they had grown accustomed to but they wanted more. More light. More life.