21

BEFORE I COULD regain my balance, the European pressed his pistol hard into the back of my neck.

‘Stop!’ he said.

I froze, and the front door swung open as if he’d willed it to.

‘Open screen,’ he said.

I opened the security screen and crossed the threshold into a small hallway, with the pistol still pressed to my neck. The doors closed quietly behind me. A single downlight covered with dark-blue cellophane glowed dimly in the ceiling, above a corridor of polished floorboards that stretched off into a dark interior. The walls were white, and bare of any decoration.

‘Kneel,’ he said, prodding me with the weapon.

The floorboards were hard on my knees, but the discomfort didn’t last long.

‘On your stomach. And face door.’

I got down onto the floor and lay with my cheek against the polished boards. A stream of cold air from under the door played against my face.

‘Hands behind back.’

He slipped a plastic tie over my hands and pulled it tight. Wide tape went over my eyes and mouth. Then a second person walked briskly down the corridor. From the sound that the heels made, rapping sharply on the boards, it was a woman. Her hands fussed around my wrists as she checked the tie, and tightened it a notch.

The European pressed his weapon hard into my temple as his partner looped ties around my knees and ankles. She pulled them extra tight as well. Then she put a coarse rope through the ties and pulled it so that my feet rose behind me till they met my hands. I’d seen pictures of people who’d been hogtied. Within no time, I found out why they’d always been grimacing — the tension in the rope made the ties cut into my wrists and ankles. The only relief came from arching my back, but I couldn’t sustain that position for long. I alternated between pain and extreme discomfort, cursing myself for the bad decisions that had turned my world to shit.

They searched my pockets, under my arms, and in my groin before they removed my gun and holster and put them into something hollow and plastic. It sounded like a bucket. My phone, cuffs, notebook, wallet, keys, torch, and pocketknife went into the bucket as well. The woman then walked, rat-tat rat-tat, back down the corridor. The European followed her almost noiselessly. I strained at the ties, but they cut into my wrists, so I lay still, saving my energy — a trussed turkey, waiting for their next move.

The European and his mate were talking in low tones somewhere at the back of the house. I held my breath, but couldn’t hear a word they were saying. Then I remembered Jean. What had they done with her?

They came back down the corridor, and the European gripped my jacket at the shoulders and grunted as he dragged me forward. I slid easily, if painfully, over the floorboards. He stopped after a few metres, adjusted his grip, and then pulled me further. A door opened next to my head, releasing a peculiar amalgam of smells — musty odours mixed with petroleum products. It had to be the garage. He pulled me through the doorway and across a cold, abrasive surface that was probably bare concrete. His partner rat-tatted past us and opened the door of a vehicle. They were taking me for a ride.

The European put his hands under my shoulders and extended his fingers into my armpits. His accomplice looped her hands under my calves. Then they lifted me up and manoeuvred my torso onto a spongy surface, which I took to be the back seat of the vehicle. The woman cradled my legs while the European went around and opened the other door. Then he pulled me across the seat. When I was fully inside the vehicle, they threw some sort of plastic covering over me, and the doors slammed shut. Then someone started whimpering in the back of the vehicle. It had to be Jean. I made the only noise I could with my mouth taped up — a high-pitched bellow through my nose. Jean replied with a mournful wail, which stopped abruptly when the front doors of the vehicle opened and our captors got in.

‘Shut the fuck up back there,’ said the European.

They buckled up, a roller door was activated, and they moved slowly out of the garage. They turned left onto Beagle, and left again at the end of the street. They drove without urgency, the vehicle moving smoothly through each turn. Fifty metres on, they turned right, probably onto Mugga Way, heading north. As we veered through a roundabout, it occurred to me that if they stayed on this road, we’d end up on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin.

Not the lake! Images of Wright and Proctor, dead-eyed and slack-jawed, cascaded through my brain. The idea that we’d soon end up like them brought on a panic, and I struggled against the ties, which really cut me this time. I shook my head and bit my lip. Get it together, you idiot! But to do what? What?

The vehicle slowed and turned left, so maybe we weren’t going to the lake. At least not yet. We continued straight for a stretch, then we slowed and turned left again. After ten minutes, the vehicle slowed and stopped. Another roller door clanked, scraped, and was silent, and the vehicle inched forward and came to a halt.

The roller door descended, and the European got out and opened the back of the vehicle. Jean let out a high-pitched squeal through her nose as the vehicle dipped and rose on its suspension.

‘Quiet or I throw you on floor,’ said the European.

He grunted as he carried her from the garage. There was an echoing sound as metal slid on metal in the near distance. Then came a clicking noise, like a light being switched off and on a few times. A sliding sound of metal on metal again. And another sliding sound that ended with a loud clang.

‘Look here, is bad for you,’ said the European, his threat laced with contempt. ‘Stay at wall!’

I was wondering about this wall business, and who he was talking to, when metal slid on metal again and clanged into place. Seconds later, the door next to my head opened, and hands gripped my jacket and pulled me forward. Then other hands looped around my knees and I was dragged out of the vehicle and quickly lowered onto cold concrete. They pulled me across the floor, through a doorway that banged my knees, and then down a passageway.

Metal slid on metal again. The light switch clicked a few times. The European yelled, ‘Face wall!’ And then he let me go. Metal clanged, a door opened, and my senses were momentarily overwhelmed by the smell of a blocked toilet. The European dragged me through another doorway and across a carpeted floor. Then he released me and moved away. There were a few popping sounds, and, with each one, Jean grunted.

‘No move,’ said the European, presumably to Jean. It was more a threat than an order.

He crouched beside me and pressed his pistol into my cheek while he cut the rope between my wrists and ankles. When my feet thumped into the carpet, he cut the ties on my hands and legs.

‘You count to ten, then you move,’ he said, his pistol gouging my cheek. ‘Rolfe knows rules. You disobey, you die.’

When I got to three, the door slammed shut. I continued counting as the bolt slid into place. Then I heard someone running towards me. I ripped the tape from my eyes as I rolled over, my arms up, ready to defend myself.

It was Rolfe. He dropped down next to Jean, put a protective arm around her shoulders, and helped ease the tape away from her eyes and mouth. Then he looked at me and shook his head, a tentative smile on his lips.

‘So Joe got you, too,’ he said, seeming far too upbeat for a man in his position.

‘Joe?’ I said, eyeing Jean, who looked completely stunned. ‘Is that his name?’

‘That’s what he calls himself,’ said Rolfe. ‘Anyway, we don’t have to worry about him now, do we? I assume your people are right behind you and that they’ll be bursting through that door any minute. Right?’

‘I’m afraid not,’ I said, taking in the blue-grey carpet that covered both the floor and the walls. ‘I’m on my own.’

‘You’re what?’ said Jean, open-mouthed with shock at this revelation.

A roller door rumbled and clanged somewhere outside. It was a muted sound, but unmistakeable. I jumped up and raced over to the carpeted wall, and pushed my ear into it. A vehicle fired up on the other side of the wall, the rumbling stopped, and the vehicle moved off. Then the rumbling door came down again.

Were both Joe and the woman going, or only one of them? If it was both — say, if one was dropping the other back at Beagle Street — it gave me about twenty minutes to scope this place. I ran over to the metal door and banged on it as hard as I could, and screamed at the top of my lungs. Then I put my ear to the door and waited.

‘You mean …?’ said Rolfe.

‘Shhh,’ I said, batting him away. ‘You’ve both got to be quiet now.’

Thirty seconds passed, and no one came. The door had a horizontal viewing-slot set into the middle of it, about a metre-and-a-half off the ground. I pressed my thumbs against the slot and pushed it this way and that, desperately trying to move it, but it was shut tight. The door itself was made of sheet metal. It was hinged from the outside. I pushed and prodded at every corner of it, but it was immoveable, too.

Jean and Rolfe stood together at the back of the room, both eyeing me with a mixture of fear and bewilderment. After only a day in this place, Rolfe’s black suit was covered in blue carpet fluff. I figured there was probably cat fur all over him as well. The source of the fluff was obvious. The floor was populated with little drifts of it, and it massed in the corners of the room.

‘They’ll be back soon,’ I said, trying to sound calm but commanding. ‘So, please, some quiet now. It’s most important.’

I knew I had to take charge, and what I had to do, because I knew exactly where we were and what being there meant for us. I also knew we had no time to lose, so I immediately began taking an inventory of all the elements of the room. The place was the size of a single-car garage, and the metal door looked to be the only way out. Four thin mattresses were piled up against one of the side walls. There was an empty soda-water bottle next to the mattresses. And in a corner near the door were two rolls of toilet paper sitting next to a red plastic bucket. The bucket was the source of the stink in the place.

I walked to the closest wall and banged on it a few times with the side of my clenched fist. Every blow met solid brick. I took some of the wall carpet between my thumb and forefinger, but it was secured to the brickwork by lines of self-tappers, and it barely moved. Someone had done a thorough job here — so thorough that Joe and his friend were confident they could leave us alone in this room and that it would hold us, unsupervised, for at least a little while.

There were power points set into the skirting board on either side of the room, and two rows of recessed lights shone down on us from the ceiling. Two air vents sat side-by-side between the rows of lights. Each vent had a cover made up of four little louvre-like shutters, and the covers were each secured to the ceiling by four screws.

Then it occurred to me. Why two vents? Maybe one heated the room and the other cooled it. The vent furthest from the door looked slightly discoloured. I stretched up and tried to touch it, but it was well out of reach. I’d get to it later. First, I had to see if Jean or Rolfe had anything on them that we could turn into a tool or a weapon.

‘Okay, questions later,’ I said, as I joined them on the mattresses. ‘First, let’s pool our resources and see what we’ve got.’

They both looked shell-shocked, and they had good reason to be. Jean would only just be realising what had happened to her. And Rolfe would still be grieving for the cavalry that had turned into a one-man band. I knelt on the edge of the mattresses, facing the two of them with my back to the door.

The only thing I had that might prove useful was my ballpoint pen. It had been in the breast pocket of my shirt, and I’d been lying on it when Joe had given me the once-over. It was basically a tapered metal cylinder, half of which was coated with rubber for ease of grip. I dropped the pen into the space between our knees.

‘First things first,’ I said, trying to sound confident, like a man with a plan. ‘Have either of you got anything metal on you? Anything at all?’

‘These buckles are metal,’ said Rolfe, pulling his shoes off and handing them to me. ‘And the heels have metal discs. Stops them wearing out so quickly.’

I removed the solid-metal buckles from the shoes and dropped them, and the shoes, onto the mattress next to my pen.

‘My beautiful Alicantes,’ said Rolfe, running his fingers over the shoes. ‘An indulgence, to be sure, but you can wreck them if you like, and anything else I own. Just get us out of here.’

‘Anything in your pockets?’ I said, ignoring him. ‘And I’ll need your glasses.’

‘My glasses?’ said Rolfe. ‘And how am I supposed to see?’

‘If we don’t get out of here soon,’ I said, ‘your ability to see will be the least of your worries.’

Rolfe removed his glasses and placed them on the mattress next to the pen, the shoes, and the buckles.

‘And Jean?’ I said. ‘Anything?’

‘My studs?’ she said, fingering her ears. ‘And my watch? Are they any good?’

‘Umm, no. You keep them for now. So, Rolfe, these rules Joe talked about. What are they?’

‘He really only has one rule. When he wants to come in here, he switches the lights off and on a couple of times, and I have to move to the back of the room and face the wall. Then he opens the door and does what he wants. When he’s finished, he locks up and flicks the lights again. Then I’m allowed to move. And he’s warned me that if I peek while he’s in here, I’ll cop it. And I get the sense that he wouldn’t hold back.’

‘So how often has he been in?’

‘Twice. He brought some cheese and dry biscuits a few hours after he put me in here. And the water. And this morning he emptied the, um, the toilet. Oh yes, and I should say that, other than when he flicks them off and on, the lights stay on all the time. So get used to it.’

I was studying the downlights when it occurred to me that if Joe was intending to gas us like he’d done with Wright and Proctor, why was he bothering to hide his identity? Maybe it was easier for him not to lock eyes with his victims.

‘Have you spoken to this Joe in any meaningful way?’ I said.

‘Not really,’ said Rolfe. ‘I mean, an hour after they put me in here, he opened the slit in the door and gave me his rule. And then this morning when he came for the toilet, I asked for some blankets and he didn’t answer. So I asked again, and he told me to shut up or I’d regret it.’

‘Did you ask him why he took you?’

‘Oh, I didn’t need to do that,’ said Rolfe, suddenly looking shamefaced. ‘I know how I got here, and I’ve got no one but myself to blame. And it’s probably my fault that you two are in here, too.’