W eenie’s day was a long and painful lesson in powerlessness and misery. The rod that pinned his legs and waist and back together scraped his ribs and bruised his spine and he couldn’t get it from under him. His legs were numb with the immobility and screamed for movement. He feared that the blood supply to his hands had been cut off completely. They seemed to be hotter than was comfortable – not that any part of him was anywhere near comfortable – and he couldn’t feel his individual fingers any more. He had peed himself in the night when the woman had refused to take him to the toilet. He was hot, numb, damp and aching and trapped in the dusty silence of the caravan. And he smelled of urine.
He occupied his mind with thoughts of what he would do to the woman once he was free. It was fantasy — he recognised that — but it was a fantasy in which she suffered every indignity she had thrust upon him and much, much more. Weenie did not consider himself a violent man but she would beg for death before he was done with her.
Dreams of violent revenge only fed his boredom and irritation for so long. They tended to be repetitive and merely served to remind him of the pain and discomfort of his own position. He had to work on his escape. He could neither break nor shift the pole that held him flat. He wasn’t as young or as fit as he’d once been and the angles were all wrong anyway. The tape that covered his mouth wasn’t going anywhere, either. The bitch had put extra layers on it and he couldn’t produce any lip or jaw movement that made any difference. He could flail around as much as he wished with his bound hands but he was stuck in his position on the banquette seating.
He picked up one of the soft toys next to him between the Punch and Judy taped to his hands, and hurled it down the caravan. It bounced off the kitchen counter and knocked a glass over. It was a sound, but it wasn’t enough to draw attention from outside. He’d not been lying to the bitch when he said that most of the caravans around here were empty. It might be the middle of the summer season but Daryl Putten was only just installing the new caravans he’d ordered months ago and wasn’t going to irritate holidaymakers by putting them near the workmen and the crane.
Making enough noise to draw in rescuers wasn’t going to be easy. Weenie rolled and shuffled and shoved his hand behind the drawn curtain above his head and banged the glass as hard as he could. It barely made a sound. He could bang all day and still not be heard. He waved his hands in the gap between window and curtain, hoping someone might at least see.