Matt Evans fell back into himself, jerking into consciousness from the oblivion he had been drowning in. His heart was pounding as his lungs clawed for air. He blinked, trying to focus in the gloom, panic and confusion wrestling for supremacy in his mind as he sifted desperately through the jagged shards of his memory.
What had happened last night? And where was he?
He swallowed, took another deep breath, the smell of stale urine mingling with something nauseatingly sweet that burnt his nostrils. He forced himself to think.
Smell. Something about the smell. Something . . .
His breath stopped, the gloom crowding in on him as the memory formed in his mind, panic arcing through him like electric current. He let out a sniffling whimper as his eyes filled with tears. The smell. The smell of leather and polish. He remembered.
He had come off air at the usual time, skipping out of the post-show production meeting, eager to be free of Gina and her scorn, wanting nothing more than to get home, check the tapes one more time. He had started walking, scrolling through his phone, felt a slight irritation that there were no messages waiting for him. No Want to see you or How about I come over? Not a problem tonight, he needed time alone. He pushed the thought aside, started looking for the number of a taxi company he used. Paused at the junction where the industrial estate ended, laughed when he saw a taxi crawl towards him, its light on.
He covered the distance to the cab slowly, wanting to make the driver wait, establish who was in charge. Reached the car, opened the door and slid inside.
The interior smelt of leather and polish, a typical private-hire taxi. ‘Evening, sir, where to?’ the driver asked, without turning round.
‘Wellgreen Lane,’ he said, slumping into the seat, his mind already turning to the bottle of white that, along with a block of cheese, made up the contents of his fridge. It would go nicely with the coke he had left. And tonight he would enjoy it alone. No company or conversation, just him and something to watch. Solitary pleasures.
‘No problem,’ the driver said, indicating then pulling out. Evans heard the soft click of the doors locking as the car accelerated.
He watched as the streets slid by, clutches of students heading home after nights out, people huddled in front of takeaways or at taxi ranks, the streetlamps staining everything a sepia hue. He closed his eyes, thought of climbing the stairs to his flat, the first kiss of chilled wine on his lips.
‘What’s the flat number?’ the driver asked, his voice as dull and monotonous as the sound of the tyres hissing over tarmac.
‘Anywhere here is fine, pal,’ he said.
The car pulled in, Evans contorting himself in the seat to get his wallet. He glanced up reflexively, looking for the meter so he could get the cash he needed.
There wasn’t one. ‘Hey, pal, what’s the . . .’
The words died in his throat as the gun slid between the front seats, glinting like a blade as it caught the streetlights.
‘Don’t worry about it, Matt,’ the voice said, in a tone that made Evans’s bladder give way, hot urine flooding unnoticed into his lap. ‘This one’s on the house . . .’
Tears slid down his cheek. The gun. That barrel. He couldn’t take his eyes off it. He was babbling, heard his own pitiful mewling as he promised money and anything, anything at all, just as long as you leave me alone and let me go, just please . . .
The flash of the muzzle was blinding in the darkness, the sound strangely muted. There was a moment of pain, and he looked down, saw the dart embedded in his leg even as the world began to swim. Then nothing. Only static, like a radio tuned to a dead channel.
And now he was here. In some darkened, unfamiliar room, lying on a mattress stained with his own piss. Through the drug-induced fog of whatever he had been shot with, he vaguely remembered waking during the night, wailing for his captor to come and free him, straining against the chain that had been clamped to his ankle and attached to a steel support girder close to where the mattress had been thrown.
The tears began slowly at first, then dissolved into hitching sobs that filled the gloom and seemed to taunt him as they echoed around the room. Panic seized his mind, sweeping away rational thought with images of pain and suffering. He thrashed around, the chain clanging almost musically off the girder, the soundtrack to his suffering.
He had known this was a possibility as soon as he had started this. But sitting in a warm flat, the afterglow of orgasm heightened by coke and smoothed by wine, it had seemed an abstract idea, a vague possibility. Something that happened to other people. Not him.
Now, as the door squealed open, a dagger of light stabbing into the gloom from the room beyond, he understood it wasn’t a remote risk but an absolute reality. He had found his get-out-of-jail-free card, played it, and lost.
He shrank away as the figure stepped into the room. Even as reason dissolved into terror, he knew what would come next. Questions and pain.
And after that he would die.
Badly.