When I regained consciousness, I was in a cell with no windows. A big black rat was in the corner eating a dead one. Behind the cell door was a crate. A length of timber, nails and a small hammer lay next to it. It had already been shored off with another piece. Another, gnawed through and matted with black hair and blood, stood next to it. Rats’ hair. There were rats in the crate, trying to gnaw their way out.
He had put a live one in to feed on a dead one, to let me know what would happen if the others ate their way through. I’d be all they’d have to feed on.
‘Hello, Lucille.’
It was him. He had been spying on me through a hole in the door. It opened, he said, ‘May I?’ and stepped into the threshold, filled it: he was enormous. I felt nauseated just looking at him.
‘Would you care to see where I work?’
I was too terrified to even move, let alone answer him.
A dog snarled. Then others started barking.
‘Follow me. Come on, no need to be concerned.’
No need to be concerned? He had murdered my best friend and now he was talking to me as casually as if we were sitting in a bar over a quiet drink.
The dog – ‘Stay there, Shirley,’ he said to her – a big, wire-haired mongrel, was squatting at the bottom of a flight of stairs as I went out behind him, into a corridor with four cells, including mine. The last one contained the rest of the dogs. Five. All as big as the one guarding the exit. He opened their door.
‘Stay close to me, Lucille. They’re only Shirley’s pups.’
Oh, God. There were bones inside on the floor. And they were human. Two dogs were chewing on a ribcage, growling at each other, fighting over it.
The mother came in behind us snarling. Then she stood silent, watching the others sniffing and licking my legs.
‘They get excited at times like this. In anticipation.’
They made my skin crawl. But it was the look in the mother’s eyes that terrified me the most – she was staring at me, drooling. If it’s possible to see in a dog’s eyes that she is biding her time, then that was what I saw in hers. I was never as glad to get out of a place in all my life.
He led me through an internal door and down some wooden steps into a lower cellar.
‘In here.’ We went into a room. ‘This is where I work.’ He took me straight back out again and into another room. ‘And this is my gallery.’
Then he questioned me. I realised what he was doing. The rats and the dogs had been enough to make me tell him anything he wanted to know. But he had quickly shown me his studio and gallery to instil as much extra fear as possible. He wanted quick answers.
‘Did you alert the Top Towers’ receptionist last evening?’
‘Yes.’
‘How?’
‘I saw you. On camera.’
‘On camera?’
‘Yes.’
I told him all that had happened. He flew into a rage then just as quickly came back out of it. The composure of the man was unbelievable.
‘And where is this laptop?’
‘In my car.’
‘Thank you, Lucille. You are very kind. I’m afraid I have to apologise. I cannot now continue this guided tour. Please make yourself at home down here. I shall see you anon.’
He was gone.
So was I. I’d been telling myself: ‘Now don’t act the meek and mild female, Lucille. Think about how to get yourself out of here. Crying won’t get you anywhere. You need your wits.’
But after all that I’d been through, having found my mother, all that I’d hoped for us, I’d never see her again. And what he’d done to Gemma … I couldn’t stop myself. I just crumpled on the floor and wept.