Читать книгу Inspector Bliss Mysteries 8-Book Bundle - James Hawkins - Страница 27

Is this a dream? This is a dream: Is a dream this?

Trudy, chasing the words in her mind, fingered the rough sheets of the bed beneath her, Roger’s bed, and was gashed by the sharp edge of reality.

“It’s not a dream. It’s not a dream. It’s a FUCKING NIGHTMARE.”

Stop screaming—you’re screaming again. Stop screaming.

Why ?

You’re wasting breath. No one hears you.

Roger might.

You want him to hear?

“No … yes … maybe … I dunno …” she bawled.

Now look at the mess you’ve made of your face.

How … how can I look? It’s pitch black in here and I can’t move.

“I CAN’T MOVE!”

You’re screaming again.

You’d scream if you couldn’t move.

Am I dead?

Can you smell that stink?

It’s awful. What is it?

You.

Me? Yuk … I stink that bad. I must be dead.

YOU’RE NOT DEAD.

I need to pee.

Get off the bed then—get to the bucket.

“I CAN’T”

Stop screaming. You can get up if you try … Oh … Now you’re wet again.

Told you.

You might as well go back to sleep.

She woke with a mouthful of cotton wool, minutes, hours, days, later—gulping mouthfuls of air until her chest rose and fell with reasonable rhythm.

“Where am I… I can’t breathe.”

The smell from the old plastic bucket in the corner suddenly caught up to her, made her retch, and put her mind in place. Tears trickled down her cheeks as they had so often in the past week; she would have wiped them away if only her hand would co-operate.

“You can do it,” the voice told her. Whose voice she wondered—God?

Finally taking control, her mind forced her hand into motion, but the pain of movement turned a whimper to a scream. “Keep trying,” said the voice, and her right hand swam slowly into view through the mistiness of tears.

What’s the time? she wondered, in sudden panic. What’s the day, or week? She twisted her wrist for her watch but its smashed face brought back too many memories, too much anguish, too many nightmares, and she started crying again. Misery dissolved to fear. “Oh God,” she cried, “I don’t want to be here when he gets back.”

She scanned the darkened room, her eyes seeking the glow of the computer. It was still there, her only hope, but useless without his password. I must try some more, she thought, willing herself off the bed to crawl toward the luminant screen in the corner of the room.

Her hands, arms, and shoulders hurt most, but her whole body ached in one way or another. Each movement brought new pain as the sharp ridges of the rough flagstone floor sliced into her hands and knees. Reaching the computer she collapsed on the floor, breathless, and lay panting like a dog after a good run. Turning to lay face up she bit at the putrid air, forcing it into her lungs, never seeming to get enough. The exertion of the crawl, just two strides for a fit man, had drained her resources and left a snail-trail of blood and urine. I wish I’d used the bucket, she cried in disgust, as the wet denim skirt clung coldly to her backside. Even with Roger in the room, watching out of the corner of his eye, she had still managed to get to the bucket to pee—desperation overcoming modesty.

“Air,” she gasped, “I need air.” And awareness came like a lump in the breast as her dazed brain battled against accepting the obvious: She couldn’t breathe because there was nothing in the air that was breathable. Most of the oxygen had already been sucked out of it and the effort of breathing itself sapped the dregs, making her light headed.

I must get fresh air, she thought, pulling her mind together. But how? She turned to the computer, somehow expecting it to help, and dragged the keyboard onto the floor so she could type without having to get up.

“ROGER. PLEASE COME BACK AND LET ME OUT,” she typed, then erased the line and started again.

“DON’T COME BACK ROGER. PLEASE DON’T COME BACK. JUST TELL MY MUM WHERE I AM. PLEASE, PLEASE, TELL MY MUM. SHE’LL BE EVER SO WORRIED.”

She stopped, overcome by the exertion of typing and thinking, and waited a full minute, breathing slowly, consciously, listening to the grating of exhausted air rushing in and out of her lungs. Her energy regained, she started again, being careful not to overtax herself, beginning at the top of the screen, aborting her plea to Roger.

“DEAR MUM,” she typed, paused, considered, and deleted the “Dear.”

“Too formal,” she mused, and tears welled as she realised she’d never written to her mother before.

“MUM,” she continued. “I’VE BEEN KIDNAPPED BY ROGER.”

The phrase absorbed her for several minutes as she mulled over its ramifications and, although concluding it wasn’t strictly true, could think of no better way to adequately express what had happened.

“Marg,” she had said, excitedly, a couple of weeks earlier, “Roger wants to meet me—what do you reckon?” They had bumped into each other in Quickmart on their way to school. Trudy, buying lunch—a couple packets of crisps and a can of coke; Margery—conscious of her waist—choosing twenty Benson & Hedges.

“Dunno,” answered Margery, with mock disinterest. “You still ain’t shown me his photo.”

“Came this morning,” lied Trudy, who had been sleeping on it for nearly two weeks.

“Let me see,” said Margery, delving uninvited into Trudy’s schoolbag.

“Get out,” she cried snatching it away.

“One pound eighty, Miss,” demanded the storekeeper tetchily, wise to the possibility that the squabble over the bag might be cover for the half dozen teenagers loitering near the candy display.

“Blimey, you should get done for overcharging mate. I’m only a kid,” And they giggled as they slipped out of the store.

“Come on Trude, let’s see it,” nagged Margery, pinning her against a bus shelter.

“I left it home,” she said nonchalantly, clutching the bag to her chest in case Margery should see it stuck into her Math book. “I’ll fetch it at lunchtime.”

“When are you going to meet him?”

“I dunno. He wants to take me for a ride in his Jag. Reckons if I get the train up to his place he’ll bring me back in it.”

“Yeah, as long as he gets inside your pants,” Margery laughed, “otherwise he’ll leave you stranded. I’ve met blokes like him before.”

“You don’t know nothing about him. He ain’t nothing like that. In fact, he doesn’t agree with sex before marriage.”

Margery threw her head back, “Humph—say’s who?” But didn’t expect a reply.

The photograph smouldered in Trudy’s bag all morning. Not that she wasn’t dying to flourish it in Margery’s face. But what would Margery say? “What’s a hunk like him see in a girl like you?”

Finally, too hot to hold on to, she flipped the picture under Margery’s nose in the photocopy room at lunchtime.

“Streuth,” the girl exclaimed enviously. “ What a looker.”

“Yeah—he’s pretty gorgeous.”

Grabbing the photograph on the pretext of holding it up to the light, Margery slipped it into the copier and pushed 10 before Trudy could stop her.

“Here I don’t want everyone after him,” screeched Trudy, whipping it from under the lid as the machine spat out the first print.

Margery caught the single copy and tried to run. Trudy slammed the door and stood guard. “Give it back.”

“It ain’t yours. It’s a photocopy.”

“Marg,” she implored, “Please don’t show it to no one.”

“What’s it worth?” she teased, holding it high, out of reach.

“I won’t tell your mum about the condoms I saw in your purse.”

“Silly cow. Me mum gave ’em to me. Hasn’t your mum given you any?”

“Please, please don’t show it Marg,” Trudy begged, but her concern waned as her mind shifted to other thoughts. How come Mum never gave me condoms? How come she never told me about sex?

“O.K.,” said Margery, giving in as if it were of no consequence, “I won’t show no one.” But she kept the photocopy.

Trudy dragged herself back to the present and re-read the phrase, “Mum. Roger kidnapped me.” It’s not right, she thought, it’s not fair, and the little curser scooted back across the screen at the touch of her finger as she deleted “kidnapped” one painful letter at a time. The effort required her total concentration and, as she considered what to type in its place, her mind wandered back to her meeting with Roger.

It was a Friday, the same day Margery left for France with her parents. Trudy saw them off. “Looks like you’re goin’ on safari,” she laughed as Margery packed herself into the hired campervan next to the kitchen sink, under a box of emergency rations: Kellog’s Cornflakes—cost a bomb in France; All Bran—gotta keep everyone regular, says her mother; a hunk of Cheddar cheese—can’t stand that stinky French muck, says her father, complaining simultaneously about the French, the language, the toilets, the prices, the beer, gnat’s piss; and the Germans?— “Bloody jerries think they own the beaches.”

“Shut up and drive,” says her mother, sliding into the navigator’s seat, her hair rollers turning her headscarf into a porcupine. “But wait ’til we get to Paris and I show them poncy boulevardiers a proper hair-do.”

Trudy waved goodbye with a tinge of jealousy, although Margery had confided in her the previous day that it would be disastrous. “D’ye think my dad’ll let me get within a mile of any decent French bloke?” she’d scoffed. “Not likely.” Anyway, Trudy had her own plans. She had a date with Roger.

School officially finished at 4:30 p.m. but she left an hour early, telling the office secretary she’d “come on” unexpectedly. Dressed in her new denim skirt, with a white cotton top, she checked herself in the mirror. “I should have had the ciggies,” she mused, pummelling a few surplus inches into her bra.

The note for her mother was simple, and truthful, as far as she knew. “Going out with a friend. Back late. Got my key. Love Trude.”

She arrived in Watford early, very early, but decided she might as well wait in the railway refreshment room where they had agreed to meet at seven. For nearly an hour her eyes were glued to the door, terrified she might not recognize him, and every few minutes she refreshed her memory from his photograph even though she knew each feature by heart: Mediterranean tan, chestnut eyes, toothpaste advertisement grin, stylishly short hair, and the unmistakable dimple in the left cheek.

Time clicked by in unison with a huge clock—a curio salvaged from the platform of an abandoned railway station—a tick so intrusive that everything else appeared to be keeping time with its measured pace, including the dumpy waitress whose far-from-sensible stiletto heels tapped in perfect rhythm as she plodded back and forth on the wooden floor. Diners chewed in time to the beat and the timer on the microwave “beeped” synchronously, signifying the successful “zapping” of a limp pasty or sausage roll.

Awareness of someone behind her started as a feeling of unease which she put down to nervousness as she waited for … what? Excitement, pleasure, romance. Love? There’s no one there, she told herself, scratching the back of her neck, unwilling to take her eyes off the door lest Roger should arrive. There’s no one there, she insisted to herself when the feeling intensified, and found herself fighting the desire to turn around.

As the minute hand on the railway clock clunked to 6:55 p.m. she made up her mind and turned suddenly, giving no warning, catching a man at the table behind her. “What are you staring at weirdo?” she spat, nastily.

His head dropped, and concentration puckered his features as he fidgeted with some crumbs on the tablecloth, then he pinched them between thumb and forefinger and arranged them on the rim of his plate.

Trudy, turning the tables, stared at him until his cheeks were as livid as port-wine birth marks, then backed off, thinking: Loser! It was his hair mainly— spiky translucent threads sticking straight out of his scalp without concept of direction or fashion. By the time he looked up Trudy was carefully examining the clock: 6:58 turned into 6:59 with a clunk as she peered anxiously at the door, beginning to wonder if there were perhaps two railway stations in Watford.

“Excuse me,” a voice was saying in her ear. “Are you Trudy?”

Her head shot round and she found herself peering straight into the eyes of the strange-looking man. Her face was twisting into a mask of horror as the door opened and her head whipped back praying it to be Roger. Four people came in, three smartly dressed women in business suits and an older man in a blazer, none of them remotely resembling the five-foot ten, twenty-seven year old she was expecting.

“Who are you?” she enquired, careful not to look.

“Um … Um … I’m Matt. Um … short for Matthew,” he explained slowly, adding nervously, “I’m Roger’s friend.”

“Oh,” was all she managed, thinking there was no diplomatic way of saying, “Sorry about your face.”

“He … um … Roger asked me to meet you ’cos he’s going to be late,” he continued, warming to his story and moving around so he was now almost opposite her.

“Where is he?”

“Um … At work. He’s got an important job to do. He’ll be home soon and he said I should take you straight to his house.”

Trudy woke with a start and realized she had drowsed off in front of the computer. Damn, she thought, I must concentrate or no one will ever know what happened to me, then she re-read the start of the letter to her mother.

“MUM. ROGER …ME.”

I know, she thought, and painstakingly inserted the words “lied to.”

“There,” she said contentedly, “that’s right.”

Now the little screen read, “MUM. ROGER LIED TO ME,” and she wrote the rest in a frenzy.

“ROGER LIED. I DON’T KNOW WHY I BELIEVED HIM. YOU SAID MEN WERE LIARS. DAD LIED. HE SAID HE WOULDNT LEAVE ME. WHY DID HE LEAVE? I DIDNT WANT HIM TO GO. IT WERENT MY FAULT MUM, HONEST, IT WERENT MY FAULT. PLEASE DONT BE CROSS WITH ME. PLEASE DONT LEAVE ME AS WELL, DONT LEAVE ME HERE.”

Gasping, breathless again, she fought desperately for air. Confused and disorientated by the lack of oxygen in her brain, she willed her fingers to keep in touch with her mother, almost believing her mother was linked to her by the Internet. And a hazy reflection of her own face in the computer screen momentarily deceived her, “MUM—I CAN SEE YOU,” she typed furiously, then stared intently, shaping her mother’s features out of nothing, with the certainty of a believer chancing on an image of the Virgin Mary or Mother Theresa in a dusty window.

“MUM,” she typed, “I DONT WANT TO DIE,” THEN PAUSED, TAKING SIX OR SEVEN SHARP BREATHS, before adding. “I MUST GET AIR. WHERE IS ROGER?”

Roger was about thirty miles from the nearest land, alone and dejected. Although now mid-afternoon, fourteen hours after his disappearance, no search had commenced and he was still not officially missing; nevertheless his situation appeared to be brightening. Globs of black cloud still hung out of the sky, but the rain was infrequent, and the wind no longer tore the tops off the waves. The waterlogged clothing next to his skin had picked up some body heat and was acting as a wetsuit, insulating him against the cold seawater. He sat up from time to time, gazing around the horizon for signs of rescue, but had seen no ships all day. Some he missed while asleep, some were concealed by the steep waves and most were simply too distant.

Trudy was still uppermost in his mind and he kept thinking to himself: Why did I do it? But he knew why. Deep down he knew the simple inescapable truth, knew he loved her, would have done anything for her. Yet everything had gone wrong the day he met her. The railway station refreshment room had been almost empty when he arrived at five o’clock. He knew he was two hours early but, after four months of dreaming, what was a couple of hours? He had no photograph, only her description and his own imagination and, when Trudy arrived a little after six, he dismissed her as too early, too short, and not slim enough to fit the verbal portrait she had painted of herself.

By ten minutes to seven his nervous anxiety was at fever pitch. He could actually feel the blood pumping through his veins and hear his heart beating, fast and hard. The blood vessels in his cheeks were on fire and his whole body tingled with anticipation. He looked again at the neat little head of the girl in front of him almost wishing she were Trudy.

As seven o’clock approached, with no sign of Trudy, anxiety finally overcame reticence and he decided to approach the girl, but then she turned with disgust on her face and venom in her voice and his world crashed—it is Trudy!

As Roger’s front door loomed, a small voice warned her that something was amiss, but the lure of the real Roger drew her on until she found herself pinioned against the faded yellow woodwork by his huge belly. Reaching over, Roger’s pudgy hand inserted the key, and his bulk propelled her forward into the dismal hallway.

The light faded as the door slammed behind them and the nightmare began. “I’m Roger,” he pronounced, without explanation, apology, or opportunity for her to get used to the idea.

She screamed.

“Stop,” he cried in panic.

She screamed louder.

“Please stop,” he implored, at a loss.

She kept screaming.

“Stop,” he ordered.

She didn’t stop; one high pitched, hair-raising scream after another. He clasped his hand over her mouth—she bit deeply. He cried out in pain and the screaming started again. He clasped his hand tighter. Screaming through his fingers, biting and kicking, she jerked her head free and smashed a fist into his podgy face. But he held on, squeezing harder and harder—and she was still screaming. A fistful of fat fingers wound tightly around her throat and she let go. Sagging to her knees she went limp, fooled him into loosening his grip, then turned, slamming a knee into his groin, and started screaming again. He grabbed her, more roughly now, forcing her face against his huge belly, holding tightly, his puffy palms covering her ears. She couldn’t breathe; couldn’t hear. Suffocating in a soft pillow of flesh, she lost consciousness.

“Oh my God! She’s dead,” he breathed, his voice echoing hollowly in the empty hallway, and he buried his face in his hands and burst into tears. Everything he had ever loved—dead. His pet rabbit had died, only a few weeks old. His favourite uncle had died—even the pallbearer carrying him had dropped dead with a heart attack. Mrs. Merryweather’s Alsatian had died, and he was only teasing it. And now Trudy. Sliding apart his fingers he peeked at the crumpled figure in disbelief, willing the clock to turn back just two minutes, hoping the dishevelled pile of laundry would simply rise up and walk back out of the door.

Anguish, distress, grief, and utter misery coalesced into a single emotion and was replaced within seconds by sheer terror. What would his mother do if she found out? He couldn’t let her find out. She didn’t know about Trudy or the house, and certainly didn’t know about the secret room: his room; his secret.

His tears dripped onto Trudy’s limp body as he bore her to his secret room, then he tenderly placed her on his bed and knelt on the floor, praying by her side as she slowly came to, hearing him saying, “Please God help me. I didn’t mean to …” then he stopped, transfixed. “You’re alive,” he breathed, and she coughed and spluttered as her asphyxiated windpipe fought to recover.

“I love you Trudy,” he wept, squeezing her hand and stroking her face. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, honestly.”

A laser beam of sunlight, the first and only that day, sought out the life raft and startled Roger from his daydream. It flashed on and off as quickly as a lightning streak as it skipped over his face and, by the time he had opened his eyes, it was gone. The laceration in the cloud had patched itself and Roger had no idea what had disturbed him. Struggling to heave his body higher in the raft, he quickly explored the horizon, but couldn’t keep his stinging eyes focussed, so he slid back down and re-lived happier times—the discovery of his house and the secret room of which he was so proud.

It was early one Friday evening. The spring sunshine had heated the interior of his car, which he had left all day in Junction Road to save fighting for a space in the station car park. He was just opening the window to let out the baked-plastic smell when someone tapped.

“Excuse me mate,” said the young man, more a boy really, his spotty fresh face peering down into the car, “do you live here?”

“No,” he replied. “But can I help?”

“Well,” continued the youth, “I need someone to …” His words faded as he re-evaluated his idea. “No. It’s O.K. mate.” But then he started again. “I just thought … if you lived here …” He stopped, another sentence unfinished.

Roger eased his bulk back out of the car, grateful for an opportunity to talk to someone—anyone. “What do you need?” he offered helpfully.

“It’s just that I have to put up this sign and I want someone to hold the ladder.”

“Sure, no problem. What’s the sign?”

Flipping around an estate agent’s “For Sale” sign, he quoted, “For sale,” quite unnecessarily, and continued confidentially. “It’s my first one. I only started this week,” then fished in his pocket. “Here’s my card.”

“Jefferson & Partners, Estate Agents,” the card announced, “Michael Watson. Associate Salesperson.”

“How much?” enquired Roger, scanning the scruffy terraced house. “Forty, two thou—” Michael hesitated, failing to finish yet another sentence. “I’m supposed to tell you about it first, before I give you the price. That’s what they taught me at Jefferson’s.”

“That’s O.K.,” responded Roger, “I can see what it looks like. How much did you say?”

“Forty two thousand … but I might be able to get them down a bit.”

“Don’t bother,” said Roger, “I’ll take it.”

Michael’s laugh turned into a nervous giggle. “Are you having me on?” he enquired, hardly able to conceal his delight—Wait ’til I tell my mum.

“No,” said Roger, retrieving a chequebook from under the mat in the front of his car. “Who do I make it out to?” he asked, never having bought a house before.

“I … I … I don’t know,” stammered Michael, never having sold one. “But if you’re serious, maybe we should go back to the office.”

“O.K.,” Roger replied, “but I don’t want to be long. My mum will have supper ready and I don’t want her to know yet … It’s a surprise,” he added quickly, noticing the renewed cynicism on Michael’s face.

Two weeks later, the first Saturday in May, he unlocked the front door and carted in his sparse possessions: his computer, and a rickety wooden table from a High Street junk shop to stand it on. The brand new bed—the one on which Trudy was lying—with pocket-coiled interior springs and brass bedstead, was delivered that afternoon. The shiny brass bedstead was the most expensive in the store, but the cost hadn’t bothered him. His offshore account, overseen by the company’s financial adviser, was as healthy as a rock star’s bar bill, and a trickle of cash dripped into his local bank— the one his mother kept her eye on. His chequebook from an international bank, the one he bought the

house and bed with, was another of his secrets. The concealed room was his biggest secret of all.

It was a stray electricity cable, which led him to the secret room. He hadn’t been searching—he had no need. Everything he required was in the front room and, at last, he was able to enjoy the freedom of communicating with Trudy without his mother poking her nose in. But George’s continual prying ate into his privacy and forced him into the back room, where the antiquated power socket wouldn’t work.

The electrical supply panel, in the cupboard under the stairs, was part of a mysterious parallel world not usually inhabited by Roger. However, a cursory inspection revealed an old cable, insulated with frayed brown fabric, disappearing through a hole in the cupboard’s floorboards. It must be the one, he thought, for no good reason, and pulled until it snapped, the loose end hurtling out of the hole and attacking him like a spiteful snake. Leaping away, he slammed the cupboard door and stood, sweat-soaked, in the dingy hallway, trying to catch his breath.

Armed with a screwdriver from his car’s toolkit, he returned to the fray and, in the murky light filtering through a filthy transom window above the door, he tried to prise a floorboard to get at the broken cable. The screwdriver slid easily between two boards but, when he exerted pressure, the entire floor lifted. Releasing the tension he tried again, this time prising the board at the other end until he could catch his. fingers underneath. The floor was a trap door and, as it swung upwards, he noticed a hook on the angled ceiling underneath the stairs, and was surprised when the hook grasped and held the door in place. Then he looked down and was startled to find a pitch-black shaft festooned with spider webs.

Dark and dank, the rectangular adit was the size of a small grave, although its depth was lost in the murk. Someone with imagination might have concocted an intriguing tale to explain its presence—may even have written a book: The Rat, the Goblin and the Cupboard Under the Stairs,” perhaps. But Roger shut the door and would have forgotten about it had his neighbour not persisted in peeping.

It was three days before he plucked up the courage to descend into the pit. Driven by George’s constantly twitching curtains, he lifted the trap door, checked that nothing had altered, then felt his way down the robust wooden ladder. The dirt floor met him out of the blue and he gingerly tested it with his weight, fearing it might be a ledge—but it held. With his feet solidly planted he fished a flashlight from his pocket, spun to search for the broken cable, and came face to face with a solid wooden door. His nervous system went into overdrive, quivering his muscles and sucking the saliva from his mouth, and the flashlight fell from his hand with a thud that made him leap.

“Who’s there?” he shouted in panic, scrabbling for his lamp, and he froze, certain he’d heard a reply. Then the doorknob started turning and he wasn’t altogether sure whether it was him or some unseen hand on the other side. As the door swung open the vacant room made a mockery of his anxiety.

“MUM, I’VE FOUND A WAY TO GET SOME AIR,” typed Trudy, the only inhabitant of Roger’s secret room in more than half a century. “I WANT TO TELL YOU WHAT HAPPENED.”

Trudy sat almost motionless on the stone floor, only her damaged hand moving as it painstakingly picked out each key from memory.

“IT WERENT ALL MY FAULT MUM, HONESTLY. ROGER TOOK ME TO HIS HOUSE, HE TOLD ME HIS NAME WAS MATTHEW.”

She stopped, thought, decided.

“MUM I HAVE TO GO. BACK IN A MINUTE.”

Trudy rolled her body sideways, twisted into a crawling position, and dragged herself slowly across the room toward the door. It was only ten feet, no more than the width of her bedroom back home in Leyton, but the crawl took her weakened body nearly two minutes. Five minutes later she was back at the keyboard.

“MUM, IM STILL HERE. I SUCK AIR THREW THE KEYHOLE, BUT ITS A LONG WAY. MY HANDS AND KNEES HURT.”

Her stinging hands, especially the right one with a blister turning septic, were so painful she used her wrists and forearms to pull herself from the computer to the tiny air hole in the door. Two minutes there, two minutes back, and a minute to breathe in between.

“IF I SUCK REALLY HARD IM ALRIGHT FOR A WHILE,” she added, wanting to explain everything.

The keyhole, her lifeline, had also been her focus of hope for the past week. She had stared at it a thousand times a day, waiting for the grate of Roger’s heavy iron key in the lock each morning before he went to work, and then each evening as he came home.

“IM IN A ROOM UNDER ROGERS HOUSE,” she painstakingly typed. “ITS IN WATFORD, BUT I DONT KNOW THE ADDRESS. HE TOLD ME HE HAD A BIG HOUSE—BUT ITS LITTLE.” She paused, exhausted, and panting for breath, then slowly eased herself onto her stomach and started another journey toward her lifeline.

“ITS ME,” she announced five minutes later, unthinkingly writing the expression she had always used to announce her arrival from school. Her routine had rarely varied. Pushing her key into the lock she would throw open the door, drop her school bag on the floor, sling her coat optimistically toward the hall cupboard and shout, “It’s me,” as if she had been away for a month. Before her father had left she could expect her mother’s answering, “Hello Trudy, I’m in the kitchen,” but afterwards, she rarely received a response.

“ROGERS GONE AWAY,” she continued, “HE SAID HE WOULD COME BACK BUT I WASNT VERY NICE. I BIT HIM AND KICKED HIM WHERE IT HURTS, AND I SCREAMED A LOT. THEN HE SUFFOCATED ME.”

Writing “suffocated” reminded her it was almost time to go back to the door. The journey itself consumed most of the energy acquired, so by the time she returned to the computer she was already craving more air.

“HE LEFT ME BISCUITS AND BOTTLES OF WATER,” she continued, as if she had not been away. “BUT NO PROPER FOOD. THERES NO TOILET-JUST A STINKY BUCKET.” She paused, breathless, and considered starting another round-trip to the door, but decided she could manage another line.

“THIS ROOM WAS DUG BY SOME PEOPLE IN THE WAR. I FOUND A DIARY AND SOME THINGS IN A TIN.”

The square metal Oxo tin had a picture of a bull on the top and an insignia printed in red, “1,000 Oxo cubes, halfpenny each or 6 for two pence.” It had caught her eye as soon as she regained consciousness. The dust covered rusty tin had been abandoned in a corner and she lay on the bed, staring at it in the pale glow of the computer screen. After Roger left the first night, she gingerly opened the hinged lid to examine the contents; hopeful it might contain a spare key for the room, though would have been surprised if it had.

“It’s just a school exercise book,” she muttered, taking out the old fashioned book with green marbled cover. “G. A. Blenkinsop. Diary of War,” had been penned in the spaces for name and subject and, with great curiosity, she opened the wrinkled yellowed pages.

August 25th, 1940

If you are reading this our plan failed. Yesterday, the Willards, next door, were killed by a bomb. One of Churchill’s. Part of his campaign of terror against his own people to incite them to fight against the International Fascist Party. We will not be defeated.

August 26th, 1940.

Started work on underground shelter today. Made trap door under stairs. Children must not tell anyone— sworn to secrecy.

August 27th, 1940.

Air raid last night. Worked all night. No problem with noise—big raid. Children helping nicely.

August 28th-September 2nd, 1940.

Too busy to write everyday. Working overtime at the office for the war effort. Then dig most of the night. Martha digs in the day as well.

She skipped forward a few entries, each much the same. Digging, digging, and more digging. On many days there were no comments at all.

September 10th, 1940.

Everybody working hard. 2 big air raids on 6th and 9th. Hid in our new shelter, felt safe. Throwing dirt onto bombsite next door. Warning of invasion given on the 7th. Operation Sea Lion is under way. Liberation is coming.

September 18th, 1940.

Digging finished. Using bricks from bombsite next door to make walls. Will take a long time. Battle of Britain officially over on 15th. Churchill lied—he didn’t win. The Fuehrer is re-grouping to liberate us.

September 29th, 1940.

Walls almost done. Stones for floor very heavy. Still no word on advancing army. Air raids stopped.

October 15th, 1940.

Room finished. Door seals well. Going to Hampshire for a few days rest.

Trudy idly flicked pages but there was nothing more. Just five pages explaining why her prison had been constructed. Reading and re-reading the neatly written notes, she wondered what had happened to the family— What plan? How had it failed? Her muddled brain couldn’t work it out and she was just putting the book back when something glinting in the bottom of the tin caught her attention. In the gloomy light she hadn’t at first noticed the five silver swastikas encrusted with diamonds, but now she carefully examined them; turning them over in her hands, wondering at their intricate beauty. Then, worrying Roger might catch her and take them away, she shoved everything back and squirreled the tin under the bed.

“MUM, ARE YOU STILL THERE?” enquired Trudy, kidding herself that the typewritten words were somehow breaking out of the computer and surging through the Internet; inwardly knowing that without Roger’s password, they could not. “I HAD TO GET MORE AIR,” she continued, almost apologetically.

“I TRIED TO GET OUT AT FIRST, I DIDNT KNOW I WAS UNDERGROUND. ROGER SAID HE WOULD LOOK AFTER ME. I SAID I WANTED TO GO HOME. HE CRIED AND SAID HE WANTED ME TO GO HOME TO. I PROMISED NOT TO SAY WHAT HAPPENED IF HE LET ME GO. HE SAID HE WOULD THINK ABOUT IT.”

She closed her eyes for a second, as if considering whether or not she should tell her mother anything else; then her sore fingers started again. “HE KEPT SAYING HE LOVED ME AND I SAID, IF YOU LOVE ME LET ME GO, BUT HE DIDNT. WHEN I SCREAMED HE PUT HORRIBLE TAPE ON MY MOUTH—AND HE TIED ME UP SOMETIMES, WHEN I KICKED.”

Suddenly finding herself short of breath she hurriedly added, “GOTTA GO,” and started another excursion to the tiny vent in the door.

“MUM, ARE YOU STILL THERE?” she continued, returning ten minutes later, her delusional mind unable or unwilling to accept that her message was going nowhere. “IVE BEEN GONE A LONG TIME COS I NEEDED MORE AIR. IVE BEEN SUCKING FOR AGES AND AGES AND I THINK I CAN STAY WITH YOU LONGER BEFORE I GET DIZZY AGAIN.”

“MUM,” she started again, pounding the keyboard fiercely, insisting her mother should listen, “WHEN I GET DIZZY ITS LIKE WHEN YOU BEND DOWN AND STAND UP TOO QUICKLY. KNOW WHAT I MEAN?” Without awaiting a response, though none was forthcoming, she changed topics and typed. “I DONT THINK HE RAPED ME. PAULINE ADAMS WAS RAPED BY HER BOYFRIEND AND SHE SAID IT HURT BAD. I COULDNT FEEL ANYTHING WHEN I WOKE UP SO I GUESS I’M O.K. BUT IT HURT WHEN HE TIED ME TO THE BED.” She closed her eyes thinking of the time she was sure she had escaped—the second day of her captivity, when he’d caught her—then continued typing.

“He tied me up because I nearly got out. I’d hid under the bed and kept very still.”

Roger, paying his usual morning visit before catching his train to the city, had unlatched the trap door in the cupboard under the stairs, scrambled down the ladder, and slipped his key in the lock with the anticipation of a birthday-boy. But the gift box was empty.

“HE DIDN’T SEE ME UNDER THE BED,” she carried on, caught up in the excitement of her tale, “SO HE WENT BACK UPSTAIRS. I CREPT OUT AND GOT RIGHT TO THE TOP OF THE LADDER, BUT HE SAW ME. HE WAS AT THE BACK DOOR AND HE SAW ME IN THE HALLWAY. I RAN TO THE FRONT DOOR AND GOT IT OPEN, THEN HE CAUGHT ME. I KICKED AND SCREAMED AGAIN BUT HE WAS TOO STRONG. THEN HE TIED ME TO THE BED AND LEFT ME FOR AGES.”

She hesitated, her fingers hovering over the keys, deliberating whether or not she had the strength to tell her mother what else had occurred. Eventually, she made up her mind. “MUM. HE LOOKED AT ME. YOU KNOW—DOWN THERE,” she wrote finally, after erasing vagina and fanny, twice. “MY FEET WERE TIED TO THE BED AND HE PULLED MY KNICKERS DOWN AND JUST LOOKED AND LOOKED. THEN HE SAID SORRY AND PULLED THEM BACK UP. THEN HE STARTED CRYING AND IT MADE ME CRY AS WELL.”

Trudy suddenly found herself sinking and pumped herself up with a few sharp breaths. “MUM. ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME?” she typed, with a fervour that smacked of shouting. “I’LL HAVE TO GO AGAIN IN A MINUTE, BUT I WANT TO TELL YOU THAT I LOVE YOU EVER SO MUCH. I REALLY MISS YOU. PLEASE COME AND GET ME SOON. GET ME BEFORE ROGER COMES BACK. I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU.”

She stopped, and slumped gracelessly onto the hard floor, landing heavily on her left arm. The damaged and tender shoulder muscles registered no pain, the nerves too starved of oxygen to care. Totally exhausted, she momentarily slipped into unconsciousness, but, just a few seconds later, an explosive bout of coughing wrenched her from oblivion and forced her to start another journey across the room. She had woken from a dream to a nightmare.

“ITS ME AGAIN,” she wrote nearly an hour later, thinking she’d taken only a few minutes. “SORRY I TOOK SO LONG.”

Her crawl to the door had been interrupted by several bouts of torpor; when her mind had refused stubbornly to register anything other than the whooshing of useless air as she hyperventilated on a fetid atmosphere almost devoid of oxygen.

“IM GOING TO TAKE A BREAK MUM. DO YOU MIND? IM SO TIRED,” she typed

laboriously as her mind and body continued to slow, while her biological clock sped up, racing toward midnight.

A moment later she jerked back to consciousness; something important nagging her brain. “MUM— WAKE ME IF IM ASLEEP WHEN YOU GET HERE,” she typed, then movement stopped, time was suspended. No more letters jumped onto the screen for more than a minute as her fingers, drifting aimlessly above the keys, awaited further instructions. To her befuddled brain, the minute seemed less than a second before she questioned, “MUM, IF I FALL ASLEEP WILL I BE ABLE TO BREATHE?” And another momentary pause was followed by a short burst of movement as her fingers howled, “HELP ME MUM.”