I woke up and something was different. It wasn’t anything to do with the room. That was so dark that it was probably night outside. The change was in my mind. My head was still sore, though not as bad as it had been, but my mind had started to work again. It was my trade, after all, finding answers to questions, looking for facts then drawing conclusions from them. So, I started with what I knew, which was this room. If I couldn’t remember what had happened, I’d work back from when I’d first woken up here. Never mind how many days ago that was, just think. Even after I’d woken up, I’d kept my eyes closed, probably for a long time, because of the throbbing in my head. The pallet was lumpy under me, and when my hand slid off it I felt bare boards against my knuckles. Grittiness, too, as if somebody had sprinkled the boards with coarse sand. I was on the floor, then. I’d opened my eyes, then closed them again, but after a while I’d managed to open them long enough to look around me. At first, the darkness had seemed total, but gradually it had given way enough for me to make out a gleam of something white, by far the brightest thing in the room. It had taken me some time to realize that it was a chamber pot and my bladder was almost bursting. I’d managed to roll myself out of bed, crying at the effort, and crawl across the floor to it. As I’d crawled, I’d been aware that I was in my underthings – chemise and stays, petticoat and stockings. In the strange way that things take you, I’d registered that they were one of my best pairs of stockings and they’d never be the same again. The garters had slipped down to below my knees. When I’d used the chamber pot I’d tried to stand upright, but the whole room seemed to be rocking from side to side, so I’d got down on my hands and knees again and crawled back to the pallet. The rocking seemed to go on a long time and I’d slept again. Sometime after that – days or hours, I didn’t know – Minerva and the poet had come in and made me write the letter. Before I’d started writing, I’d complained I was thirsty. Minerva had nodded to the poet, and he’d gone out and returned with a willow-pattern cup, coarse stuff of the kind you get on market stalls. The water had tasted bitter, I’d thought, probably from the lingering taste of blood in my mouth, but I’d drained it.
Laudanum. I’m sure they put it in the water, or else why should I sleep so much? At least, I think I’m sleeping so much, or perhaps that’s an illusion. Perhaps I’m only sleeping for a few minutes at a time and not the hours I imagine. It’s even worse to lose track of time than of place, but I don’t know how to find my way back. I’ve only ever had laudanum once before in my life, and that was when I was fifteen or so, not able to sleep from toothache. It had been, I’m sure, greatly diluted, but even so, my father had been angry when he’d heard about it. I can remember my father. He’s dead. I don’t think about that – I concentrate on where I am. A strangely shaped house, specially rented probably. At least two people in it, possibly more. It’s certainly somewhere quiet, because I have no memory of hearing voices or vehicles from outside, except once, in a half dream, some distant shouts. Thinking about them, they had not been alarmed shouts, more like men working together – carters or builders. Possibly near a building site, in a place that might be London but might equally be anywhere else in the country. It was not much to go on, and my mind refuses to be pushed any further for now. The room seems to be rocking again, not a good sign.
Later and now, not memory. They’ve decided to feed me and there must be at least one other person in the house, or maybe half a person because he’s so small. Minerva came in carrying a china bowl giving off a meaty smell and a spoon, and stood over the pallet. Not wasting words, she signed with a jerk of her chin that I should get up and sit at the table. As I moved stiffly, I was aware of another person behind her, probably barefoot or I’d have heard him. He was no more than a boy, perhaps ten or eleven years old, and so desperately thin his pale face looked almost transparent, wispy fair hair straggling down to his jaw. His eyes were large and scared. He carried the willow-pattern cup in one hand and a candle in a holder in the other. His hands looked almost as fleshless as anatomical drawings. At another nod from her, he set candle and cup on the table. I sipped and tasted the bitterness again, but I was too thirsty not to drink. The contents of the bowl were a kind of beef stew, stringy and salty. I could only manage a few spoonfuls. Minerva left the room, leaving the boy with me. His eyes were fixed on the bowl.
‘Do you want some?’ I said. It was a relief to hear my own voice, though it felt as if it were coming from somebody else. His eyes looked like an obedient dog’s, desiring the biscuit but not daring to go against his master’s command. I handed the bowl and spoon to him and, after one more disbelieving stare, he ate the remains of the stew as quickly as a pike taking a minnow. He finished as we heard Minerva’s steps outside the door, panic on his face. I took the spoon and bowl from him so that I seemed to be eating the last morsel as she came in.
She nodded at the boy, then towards the chamber pot. He picked it up and carried it out with some difficulty as it was nearly full – surely that means I’ve been here several days – then returned with it empty. She stood beside me, almost touching.
‘Aren’t you going to finish your water?’
I wondered whether to tell her that I prefer it without laudanum, but decided against it and just shook my head. She picked up the candle, waited for the boy to gather up the bowl, cup and spoon, then they both left.
The laudanum’s left me muzzy-headed, but it’s not so bad as it would have been if I’d drunk it all, so I think about the kidnap. A dinner table and a woman’s voice: ‘They’ve even managed to cut off the pipeline to our well, so we’re having water brought in.’ That wasn’t long ago; it was so close I could almost stretch out my hand to the crystal glass. A glass of red wine was beside it but now I’d prefer the water. Then a maid brought in the message. My left wrist is the one aching, so if the person who grabbed me were right-handed, he’d be facing me. I can’t remember a face, but perhaps a blackness where there should have been a face. A mask? There must have been more than one of them attacking me, because something came across my mouth from behind. An arm, I think, and a jacket of some rough material. A smell came from it but, curiously, not a bad smell. It’s nagging at my memory as a smell associated with some pleasure or even excitement, a long way back, perhaps even in childhood. They didn’t say anything, not a word, then there’s nothing but blackness until I woke up here, wherever it is. When they made me write the letter to Robert, they didn’t ask what address to send it to, so they know where I live. I’ve made enemies, of course. If you work as an investigator, you can reckon on at least one new enemy with every case. But the fact was there’d been few new cases in the past two or three years and no enemy I can think of so bitter as to go to all this trouble. It’s getting dark now; what little light there is seeping away. There’s a round window in the ceiling above me but I think it must be covered from outside as there’s so little difference between day and night. In summer it won’t be completely dark outside until well after ten o’clock. How do I know it’s summer? Most of the time, I’m not cold. Now it’s probably night there’s enough chill in the room to make me wrap myself in this rough blanket. It’s very rough, too. It smells of tar and has raised patches on it that might be tar itself, or gouts of my dried blood, or anything. Also, these are my summer petticoats. If, in my underthings, I’m not cold in what passes for day, then summer it probably is.
I must have slept again because, the next thing I knew, light was filtering in. Sometime afterwards, Minerva and the boy arrived with what was probably breakfast, the same bowl but this time with gritty porridge in it, and the same willow-pattern cup of water. I drank half of it because I had to from thirst. While I was eating, the boy picked up the chamber pot and left. She stayed, her back to the door. I spooned some of the porridge up, making a show of eating but not taking much. Thirst left me with very little appetite. I put a hand to my stomach and groaned.
‘It hurts.’
‘You shouldn’t have eaten so quickly.’
I went over to the pallet and flopped down. She came and stood over me.
‘We’re not fetching you a doctor, if that’s what you’re thinking.’
The boy came back with the empty chamber pot. As he was putting it down, I caught his eye and looked towards the table with the bowl on it. He was there in a second, eating with his eyes fixed on Minerva’s back. I did some writhing so that her eyes stayed on me.
‘You’re not convincing me.’
‘Perhaps if you let me walk around outside …’ I only got a laugh at that. Besides, how could I, in stockinged feet and petticoat? ‘Water, then.’
The boy had finished and was standing by the table, empty bowl in hand, as if he’d only gone there to pick it up. It suited her that I should drink the laudanum-laced water, so she brought it to me. I managed to spill a fair bit of it but still had to drink some. It tasted more bitter than ever. She took the cup from me and left, followed by the boy. He looked at me from the door with curiosity rather than gratitude in his eyes. So he wasn’t stupid and knew I was giving him an opportunity to eat but didn’t know why. I took a chance and mimed drinking a cup of water. He blinked and left hastily. Minerva must have been waiting in the corridor to lock the padlock because it banged back against the door. I stayed on the pallet and gave in to the dreamlike feeling the laudanum produced, but with just the smallest feeling of satisfaction at having done something to fight back. I didn’t have much to give in the way of bribes, but I’d used what there was and would have to wait for the result.
Much later, in the afternoon, I think, when I was half asleep, the boy came back, so quietly that he was in the room before I knew it. He carried the willow-pattern cup but the water in it, blessedly, tasted of nothing but water. I drank it to the last drop and mimed my thanks. He looked terrified, grabbed the empty cup and left. That night, Minerva left the room after the bowl of fibrous meat had been delivered, so it was easy to give the whole of it to the boy. I’d never seen anybody eat so fast. They must have been starving him. I sipped the water but there was the bitter taste again, so, under his eyes, I emptied it into the chamber pot. I’d be thirsty by morning but it might be worth it to feel clear-headed. As it happened, I slept fitfully, perhaps missing the drug. When I slept or half slept, pictures of Robert, Helena and Harry came that were as vivid as if they were standing there, quite unlike the things I couldn’t remember at all.
It’s beginning to get light, just a little of it creeping past the ill-fitting cover over the round window. I can hear somebody moving, from the sound just on the other side of the wall, but higher up. Then the murmur of a voice – Minerva’s, I think – presumably talking to the man, though I can’t make out what she’s saying. This room I’m in is a long rectangle, the shorter side dividing it from what must be Minerva’s and the poet’s living quarters. I’ve run my hands over all the walls and they feel like planking rather than bricks or stone. I try to take my mind off the thirst by standing up and taking a few steps. I seem as unsteady as ever, if not worse, and the room is rocking more. Curious. I sit down at the table and think about something I remember all too clearly – that letter to Robert. Should I have refused to write it? Possibly, yes, because if the people holding me wanted it, then it must be for some bad purpose. But surely, above all, Robert would want to know that I was alive. You will be contacted by people who will tell you what to do. Did that mean money? If so, I knew he’d pay it somehow and I wasn’t sorry. It’s all very fine to say, when you’re free and healthy, that it’s wrong to pay ransoms to kidnappers. I’d said so myself, once when I was employed on a case. It’s alarming how easily your opinions change when you’re helpless and in the near dark. And yet, deep down, I didn’t think it was about a ransom.
I hear Minerva’s brisk steps, and the soft padding of the boy’s. I go as quickly as I can over to the pallet and roll myself up in the blanket. If she expects me to be drugged, that’s one small advantage I have over them. She has the porridge bowl, he the cup. As Minerva advances the few steps from the door, something happens. She loses her balance for a moment and some of the porridge slops on to the floor. For a second, the boy looks unsteady too, but manages better. Minerva rights herself, slams down the bowl on the table. Then she picks up the chamber pot and carries it out, moving cautiously. I push myself upright, feeling the floor unsteady under my feet still, but this time having to hide my triumph because they are unsteady too and the room really is rocking. I am on a boat. I think about it as I’m watching the boy eating the porridge, waiting for Minerva to come back. The water is drugged again. I sip a little and pour the rest of it away in a corner, nudging some of the grit on the floor with my toes to soak it up, and sign to the boy as urgently as I can to bring me some proper water later.
When they’ve gone, I run my hand down the wall again and, sure enough, it curves slightly inwards. If I’d noticed that before, I’d have put it down to being drugged, but now it’s obvious. With no sense of moving forward, the boat’s moored or, more probably from the movement, at anchor. The rocking must come from the tides or perhaps other boats passing, which might account for the shouts I’d heard. The triumph of finding out something doesn’t last for long, though. For one thing, I’m no nearer knowing where in the world I’ve been taken. I sense, and I can’t say how, that we’re still somewhere in the kingdom. Perhaps there’s some familiarity in the smells or the light, however limited, that tells me we haven’t crossed the Channel. But apart from that, we could be anywhere in the country that has a sea coast. A boat, running before the wind, can travel as fast or faster than a coach. We might be anchored in the Firth of Forth, the Solway, Dublin Bay, anywhere. For another thing, escaping from a boat will be even harder than from a house. That stops my thoughts in their tracks, because it’s the first time I’d even thought of escaping. So far, I’ve been as passive as a baby, waiting for things to be done to me, but seeing Minerva stumble has woken just the slightest feeling of independence. Yes, it’s harder to escape from a boat, but a boat limits the number of people against me because they can’t easily call in reinforcements. Two-and-a-half people. Are there others? They’d need more to sail a boat, but if it’s at anchor the two and a half might be all there are. That note to Robert would have had to be sent ashore. Had a rowing boat come for it or are we tied up to a jetty after all? I sit there, trying to answer the question, noting every movement of the boat. Now that I am aware of it, I can feel it shifting and rocking all the time, mostly quite gently but now and then the movement is stronger – probably the wake of other boats passing, though not very close. There’s nothing in the way of heavy waves, though, so we are in a sheltered place. Which almost makes me smile, because I’ve seldom felt less sheltered than now.