Unaware of how much time had passed, Adina finally gave up trying to escape. At first, she had concentrated on trying to untie the rope from around her ankles and wrists. But there was nothing in the cellar that she could use to help her. The room was empty apart from a small plastic bowl that held a few inches of water and a solid wooden workbench. There was nothing sharp, just concrete floors and immoveable stone walls.
Adina had tried to stand up but with her arms bound behind her back, she kept losing her balance. She succeeded once only to fall as soon as she tried to hop towards the staircase. Without being able to use her arms to brace her, she had fallen flat on her face, her head colliding with the concrete floor. The pain had caused her to vomit, adding to the foul aroma of the cellar.
There were nasty red welts around her wrists and ankles from the bites of the rope. A small amount of blood was trickling into her shoe. But she couldn’t feel the pain. The cellar was freezing cold and had numbed her entire body. The cold had seeped into her bones and her body wouldn’t stop trembling. Each breath she took was complemented by a searing pain from the ribs she was sure he had broken.
Adina had tried to talk to the man on the floor. But he wouldn’t speak to her. He stared through blank eyes but she didn’t think he was actually seeing her. She was irritated at him for ignoring her but then she had caught sight of the bloody welts on his legs. One of them appeared to be yellow and green inside. The man looked like he was inches from death and that terrified her the most. How long would she be kept here? Was she looking at her future? Would she become a broken husk of a human like this man?
‘Please. Talk to me. If we work together, we could escape!’
Adina pleaded with him to talk to her. But he just continued to look at her with his unseeing eyes. He could have been handsome, but the dirt, blood and grime obscured his features. His black hair was greasy, sticking up in all directions. His face was gaunt, pale and his blue eyes had no life in them. No spark of emotion, like doll’s eyes, glassy and expressionless. She couldn’t understand how he had got into this situation. He looked like a strapping young man. He couldn’t have been more than thirty years old and looked like he could easily overpower their captor. Jack was what, fifty? Sixty?
With great difficulty, Adina gritted her teeth and slowly crawled over to the man. It took a monumental effort to ignore the protest of her muscles as she pulled her bum forwards by locking her legs together. She was panting from the effort until she finally got close to the man. She felt herself sliding in faeces. Her nose wrinkled and she wanted to be sick again. But she forced herself to keep moving.
‘Please. Talk to me. Help me!’
She shouted in his face. But she may as well have spoken to the walls. She turned her back on him and tried to clutch at the rope binding his legs together. Maybe if she could get him free, he would wake up from whatever trance he was in. Adina couldn’t loosen the rope. It was tied in a complex knot and she gave up after several minutes. The pain of having her hands tied behind her back was starting to become all-consuming. She returned to her position on the other side of the cellar, as far away from Dan as she could, unable to cope with the smell around him.
For the first time, she let herself think about what had happened. Jack Danvers had invited her to quote him for a cleaning job. She pictured him, slightly greying hair, genial brown eyes twinkling at her. He looked so normal. Until she had followed him down the stairs she had no idea that it was all a mask. How had this happened to her?
Her thoughts turned to Poppy. Oh God, Poppy! She was probably waiting outside the school for her. Wondering where she was. In her entire life, Adina had always been there on time to pick up Poppy. Always there to greet her with a big smile and a cuddle. Her heart ached as she pictured Poppy’s anxious face. What would happen to her? Presumably, the school would ring her sister when they couldn’t get hold of her. Adina wasn’t lucky to have a choice in who she listed as an emergency contact.
Would her sister call the police? Surely she would call them, she’d be worried – right? They had never had a good relationship, but Adina prayed that their bond as sisters would be strong enough for Scarlett to raise the alarm. She just had to stay alive long enough for the police to find her. Thinking this way helped calm her down. The police could track her phone, couldn’t they? Although it was a crappy ten-pound phone off eBay. It wasn’t a smartphone; did phones that old even have GPS? Goddammit, why did she have to be so poor? If she wasn’t desperate for money this would never have happened to her. The door opened to the cellar once more and Adina prepared herself. She would fight him. She would not let him kill her. Poppy needed her. She would get back to her daughter.