Back when I was at university in Brighton, there had been a series of muggings on the campus, mainly targeting women. As a result, my friends and I had signed up to self-defense classes run by a wiry little woman called Kashvi.
She’d looked at us all in turn, her hands planted on her narrowhips, feet bare on the crash mat. “On average, one woman is killed every three days by a man. If you can’t run, defend yourself. Surprise him.”
Desperate, I reach for the carrier bag as the sliding bolt at the top of the door is drawn back. My hand settles on the bar of soap and I grab it, tearing off the wrapping with my teeth. The handle of the door turns with a shrill, metallic squeal. An oily sheen of sweat is building on my brow as I toss the packaging to one side and curl my fingers round the soap, small and pebble-shaped. I tell myself that it’s not much but it’s something, and something just might be enough to distract Andrew so that I can make a run for it.
The irritating whistling gets louder as the door at the top of the stairs swings open. I tuck the soap behind my back. Held breath scorching my lungs. I feel a strange mix of exhilaration and a savage, raw fear. I imagine it’s like the moment you realize the edge of the cliff you’re standing on is sliding away beneath your feet, that pause just before thedrop. The whistling suddenly changes pitch as if Andrew has caught his breath, then resumes its grating little song. The stairs creak as he slowly descends. I can hear Kashvi’s voice saying,Surprise him, and then he is right there in front of me.
“I’m not staying.” His voice is strained, eyes ringed with black hollows. He looks as if he has been up all night. “I’ve errands to run. Just dropping these off because I know what you women are like.”
He drops the large black holdall he is carrying on the floor and tips me a sly, knowing wink as if there is some joke we are in on together. There’s something awful about that gesture. It’s as if he’s saying,What about this crazy situation we find ourselves in, eh?I swallow dryly as he steps toward me. Andrew smells musty, like his clothes have been put away damp. Underneath that, a deeper odor of old sweat and something salty and metallic. Sweat. Blood. Semen.
“You can’t keep me here.” I’m trying to sound strong but my voice wavers, betraying me. “People will be out looking for me. They’ll track my phone. They’ll be here soon.”
“Is that right?”
“Uh-huh.” My fingernails bite crescents into the soap.
“Do you have any idea how big these woods are, Hazel? Over a hundred and fifty miles, all uncultivated. There’re no footpaths, no signposts. No phone signal for at least forty miles. This house ain’t on a map and only a handful of people could find it and most of them are old, not good for walking the distance no more. The electricity runs off a generator and the water comes from the well out back.” I’m unsettled by his eyes. They are sunk deep into his skull and appear to have no reflection. They are lightless. “The fashionable term for this place isoff-grid, but the Bray Farm was off-grid before the grid was even invented, heh.”
Andrew hacks out a laugh. It is a flat, unhealthy sound, like a brick thrown into mud. He slides the holdall across the floor to me. I don’t pick it up. I don’t even look at it.
“There’re your things. Anything I’ve missed you’ll have to say goodbye to. I ain’t going back to that house again. Fuckin’ cats set off my allergies.”
“You’ve been to the house? You went through mystuff?”
I stare at him with growing horror. I can’t quite work out why the thought of Andrew going through my belongings bothers me so much, especially considering everything else that has happened in the last twenty-four hours. Perhaps because it feels so intimate and intrusive. Perhaps it’s because it reveals his intentions more clearly to me, and none of them are good. I feel like screaming in fear and frustration.
“You can’t keep me here!”
“So you’ve said.” He lifts his chin toward me. “But you mind what I told you. If you really do try to escape, you’ll be in more trouble out there than in here. These woods aren’t the wilderness, but it don’t mean they’re safe. It gets brutal cold out there at night, and darker than the devil. There’s peat bogs which’ll sink you up to your waist in cold, filthy water and floating lights which have no place on this earth. You won’t get far, and then I’ll catch up with you, because I know these woods better than anyone.” His voice drops lower, becomes a quiet threat. “You won’t like what happens after that.”
“What do you want from me?”
“Well—for a start, a thank-you would be nice. I had to go all the way across town in my lunch break to get that stuff. You know that neighbor of yours is a real prig.”
“Mr. Jenner.” My heart is galloping hoofbeats, tearing up turf. My palms are turning slippery, the soap threatening to slip right out of them.
“Well, Mr. Jenner wants to be careful, sticking his nose into other people’s business. I’d take great pleasure in cutting it off.” Andrew mimes a scissor action with his two fingers.
I’m squeezing the soap so hard my fingernails are digging trenches into it. I force myself to relax my grip. I only have one shot, so I have to get it right.
“What is it you want, then? Sex? Money? My family have money, they’ll pay. Whatever you want, they’ll pay it.”
He sneers. “I know they will. I’ve seen where they live. But it’s not about money.” He fixes me with those deadened eyes. “You’re a good woman, Hazel, but you’re sick. I could tell it, first time I met you. It’s in your eyes, it’s all over you. You’ve got a black aura.”
“Kidnapping me won’t bring your sister back, Andrew.”
He is going to lunge at me. I actually see the thought cross his face like a ripple moving over water, a constriction of his features that mimics a flinch. His fists curl and uncurl and I wonder if I’ve left it too late, if he will simply give in to his impulse to pummel me into the dirt. He drags his hand across his lips hard enough to draw a little blood. I know that if I don’t do something, I will end up dying down here in this miserable little hole.
“You—” he begins, and I launch the bar of soap at him, quick and immediate with a hard overarm throw. It hits him on the cheekbone and he cries out in surprise, but by then I’m already moving past, feeling the shift in the air as he swings for me but I’m too quick, feet already clattering up the stairs. I hear him scrambling behind me but now I’m at the top and I really think I’m going to make it, even as I pull and pull fruitlessly at the handle, door stuck fast in the frame, hauling at it so hard my arms hurt. Even after all that, there isstilla childish, hopeful part of me that believes I’m going to get out of here. When no hand falls on my shoulder, I risk a panicked glance behind. Andrew is standing midway up the stairs, his face tilted to look up at me. There is a bright red mark where the soap hit him, but I don’t think it will even bruise. He seems completely unaware of it, and he’s not trying to chase me, not even to pull me away from the door. I stare at him. I hiss like a cornered cat.
He is holding something bunched up in his hands. His voice is quiet, and soft as spring rain. “You didn’t think I’d leave it unlocked, did you, Hazel?”
He takes a step toward me and shows me the pillowcase he is holding, the one with the pastel stripes.
“Put it on,” he says.
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