Chapter Four
When Mountjoy returned from a visit to the supermarket, Samantha Trott was motionless under the tartan blanket.
Dead?
Only a few red curls were visible, ominously still against the pillow. He stood in the doorway facing the possibility that she had suffocated. To gag her he’d used a strip of linen torn from the bedsheet instead of an adhesive strip. If it had worked its way up against her nostrils, she’d have been unable to pull it down, because her arms were tied.
He was on the point of flinging back the blanket and ripping off the gag when she stirred.
No panic after all.
Back off then, he told himself in a sharp reversal of tactics. Leave her asleep. After the supermarket, his nerves were frayed. He needed more time to himself before submitting to another bout of conversation.
He removed his shoes prior to creeping away, for the floor was like a drumskin. Gently he set down the carrier bag he had brought back. It was a long time since he had eaten, but he would wait. Waiting was one of his specialties now, the chief accomplishment he’d mastered in Albany.
As it happened, this was not unlike a cell with its foldaway furniture. In fact it was smaller. On the side opposite the bed there was a narrow bench that let down from the wall. He released the catch and drew it down, careful to avoid making the seat creak as it took his weight.
Bliss.
He sat stiffly in the silence, knowing he was safe. The shopping had been a challenge and only now did he realize how tense it had made him. He’d tried to appear as self-absorbed as everyone else in the supermarket, turning his face to take an interest in the stacks each time anyone approached. At least it had been safer than going to a corner shop. The only major risk had been the checkout. He’d looked along the cashpoints, none of which was busy, and selected a young woman chatting to a friend on the adjacent till as she was passing the goods across the sensor. He’d got through without exchanging a word. His face hadn’t registered anything with the cashier, he was certain. And he’d returned to the caravan park by a devious route that involved pushing the motorbike across a field; tiring work, but necessary.
A funny kind of freedom, this. He kept coming back to the idea that he’d exchanged one cell for another. The only difference was that he shared this one with a woman. So what’s wrong with that, you lucky bleeder, most of Albany would be saying if only they knew. What are you, a woofter? No, I am not. But sex isn’t included in my plan. Believe it or not, you libidinous old lags, there is something more important at stake, something that requires me to respect Samantha Tott. I’m fighting for justice, and the other can wait.
The place was cold, colder than Albany, which was why he’d given her the blanket. Maybe they’d both feel warmer with some food inside them. He’d been tempted to buy vodka or whiskey, which would have been ridiculous, using up all the money. He’d gone out with a little over twenty pounds. Five hard-earned in Albany and fifteen from the back pocket of Samantha’s jeans; after all, he was feeding her. For the next two days they would have to subsist on corned beef, bread, powdered soup, bananas, chocolate and tea. He’d also bought milk and sugar and there was a packet of ginger biscuits, long past their sell-by date, left in the kitchen cupboard. The place was equipped with a kettle and a saucepan and there was gas left in the cylinder, thank God, and he knew where to get water. As an old lag had once told him, we’d all go bananas without a brew, a bed and a bog.
Yes, this was not a bad bolt-hole for a few days so long as he remained alert. He’d remembered the site from years back, when the farm had sold strawberries on a pick-your-own arrangement. The caravans, none of them occupied, had been lined up in the field beside the rows of fruit. The owners paid the farmer a fee to park them there. In the time Mountjoy had spent in Albany the field might have been put to some other use, so he’d driven out to check that it was still there before snatching Samantha.
Snatching Samantha. What a high-risk operation that had been, patrolling Stall Street, one of the busiest in Bath, staking out the buskers who played violins in quartets, trios, duets and sometimes solo with a recorded orchestra as backing. The city was overstocked with classical musicians. They took two-hour turns in the most favored pitches along the pedestrian walkway. On the first morning he’d heard enough Vivaldi to last him a lifetime. He’d practically given up hope after her ladyship didn’t appear for the first two days. On the Saturday afternoon he’d spotted her. No mistake: she was just like her picture in the Express. Pale, soulful face that lit into a smile whenever someone dropped a coin into her violin case. Way-out hair-literally way-out, a great frizzy mop that he hadn’t realized was flaming red, but then the picture in the paper had been black and white. He’d listened many times over to the stuff she played on her fiddle, judging the best moment to approach her, just as she was about to pack up. He’d done it with conviction, told her he owned a new restaurant in Batheaston and was willing to pay twelve pounds an hour if she’d agree to play there. It might not be as much as she earned busking on a good day (he judged it finely) but in October it would be warmer indoors and more civilized, and she might get tips from the clientele if she played requests. He’d given his mythical bistro a French-sounding name and said that the waitresses were all students and invited her to come and see it straightaway. Taken in by his polished spiel, she’d walked with him to the Orange Grove, climbed on the back of his bike and been driven away to her prison.
Now she moved again, turning her head on the pillow and freeing a mass of auburn curls from under the blanket. Her eyes opened, large, blue-green eyes, dark-shadowed not with mascara, but anxiety and exhaustion.
“Yes, I’m back,” Mountjoy said. “I’ll make tea.” And when she responded with a moan that was clearly asking to have the gag removed, he responded, “Presently.”
He took a couple of items to the kitchen, or galley, or whatever they called the tiny section where the kettle and cups were. “This is fresh milk,” he informed her. “It should taste better than that stuff from the tin. If you want a sandwich, I can now offer you bread and corned beef.”
It wasn’t malice or sadism that made him delay removing the gag; it was his conditioning. He wasn’t used to people talking to him. Samantha was probably no more loquacious than any other young woman of her age. He just found it difficult to think when someone was talking.
When the tea was in the pot he went to her and untied the gag, staying at arm’s distance, avoiding any more physical contact than was strictly necessary. This he had pledged himself to observe. After almost five years’ celibacy there was a clear risk of some unlooked-for incident undermining his plan. To give way at this stage would be madness.
Samantha rubbed her face against her shoulder. There was a band of pink where the gag had been. “Aren’t you going to untie my hands?”
“Turn over, then.”
“I don’t know why you had to gag me,” she said when she was facedown against the pillow. “There can’t be anybody near enough to hear me scream. Who’s going to be living in a caravan park in October?”
It was a try-on, probing for information, and he didn’t answer. She was constantly testing him out, trying to discover where they were. She seemed to have got over the fear and anger that was her understandable first reaction to being kidnapped and now she addressed him in almost friendly terms. That was another reason why he found conversation such a strain. He’d have coped better if she’d treated him with steady hostility. But she was clever, disarming him with a stream of apparently spontaneous remarks.