Banging and clattering from somewhere down below woke Ana from her alcohol and drug-fuelled sleep. She winced in pain and held a hand up to her throbbing head, squeezed her eyes shut, hoping the pain would subside.
It did, at least enough for her to keep her eyes open for more than two seconds, though as she focused on the room in front of her, she wished she was still asleep. At least when she was asleep, passed out, unconscious, whichever, she was some place other than here.
She reached across the armchair to the side table that was crammed with empty vodka bottles and plastic cups. She picked up one of the cups then groaned as she got to her feet and plodded barefoot across the sticky carpet to the ‘bar’ – a corner of the bachelor pad room that Victor had set up and which comprised of a shoddily built wooden bar, mirrors and stools, and a wall filled with bottles and optics; though the usual course of events for a party was that the bottles all ended up being passed around the room and tossed aside when empty, like they had last night.
Ana’s welcome home party, so Victor had called it. The party, for his and his friends’ exclusive benefit, had consisted of Ana and three young women she’d never met before plus Victor and ten other seedy men. Plus enough alcohol and cocaine to… to what?
Just thinking about that made her groin and her insides ache.
Ana filled her glass with water. Downed it. Did the same thing twice more then turned back to the room. It was a mess. The space – about thirty feet by thirty feet – wasn’t only used by Victor as a party centre, but as some sort of office for the warehouse below. There was no bed here. Anybody who stayed long enough to need sleep crashed out – or passed out – on the carpet or whatever item of furniture they fancied. This sleazy and sordid room was, in Victor’s mind, an impressive introduction to the new women he added to his roster.
That was the other reason they had stayed here last night. There were new women arriving soon, he’d told Ana.
She gulped at the thought of that and felt another knot in her stomach that she knew from past experience would rarely leave her as long as she stayed under Victor’s watch.
Another crash from down below. Shouting now. And dogs barking.
That was odd.
Ana moved across the room and grabbed a silk robe to cover her semi-naked and cold-to-the-touch skin. There was no one else in the room with her. She wracked her mind but could remember little of the night before. Just how Victor liked it. Though she could remember his gurning face on top of her, the smell of his alcohol breath as he thrust back and forth.
Ana rushed over to the sink and threw up the meagre contents of her stomach, then dry heaved a few times as she tried to erase the memories.
No, those memories would never fade.
A scream from below now. A man’s scream.
What the hell was going on down there?
Ana walked over to the door. Tried it. Unlocked. Likely because Victor was still here, downstairs somewhere. He wouldn’t have left her unattended and unsecured if he’d gone out. The bathroom and kitchen to what had perhaps originally been nothing but a regular office space above a bog-standard commercial property, were both along the corridor here, and Ana was given relatively free access to them while Victor or his men were around – even if they would question her movements if they saw her hanging about outside the office.
She peered out. No one else in sight along the corridor. She carried on out, hunched down, moving slow, her feet soft and quiet on the cheap laminate wood floor. She moved over to the closed door to a small storage room. This door, too, was unlocked. She opened it, as quietly as she could, and glanced up and down the corridor again before she stepped into the dark space, leaving the door ajar, to listen for sounds from outside.
Ana crept into the corner and crouched down by the metal shelving unit, then carefully pulled away the dusty boxes underneath that sat on top of a large MDF board and contained who knew what. She pulled the board aside, too, to reveal a gouge in the suspended floor that had a one-inch hole driven right through the plasterboard ceiling below, and gave a glimpse into the smaller of the warehouse areas on the ground floor.
After all this time Ana still had no idea how this hole had first come about. She imagined perhaps at one point in time there’d been a light fitting suspended there, and when it was removed the warehouse owner – whoever it had been at that time – simply hadn’t bothered to patch the ceiling over.
Ana liked to think that the story was a little more rebellious than that. That at some point in the past, one of the women had snuck in here and deliberately made that hole for the very purpose of spying. After all, Ana had been shown this place by Iulia, so it was something of a little secret among the oppressed.
What on earth had happened to Iulia?
Ana moved closer to the floor and supported her torso on her forearm as she pushed her face and her eye closer to the hole. She squirmed around a little to spy around the space below.
There he was. Victor. On his feet. Arms folded. Eyes pinched. He was staring across the room to…
Ana moved a little more, pushing her head right up against the dirty wall in the far corner so she could see the other side of the room below.
Ana held back a gasp. A man on a chair. A man Ana didn’t recognise. At least not from this angle. That was no surprise. Victor had so many people under his control. The man was naked. His hands were tied behind his back with rope. The skin on his neck and shoulders glistened red from blood.
‘Get him off the chair,’ Victor snarled.
Three men came forward from behind Victor. The bound man moaned and pleaded as the oafs untied him and rough-handled him onto the mottled concrete. Ana watched, aghast. The man’s hands remained bound together, and one of Victor’s men took those while the others grabbed a leg each. They twisted to pull his legs open and prevent resistance, though despite the man’s pleading and begging, he was barely struggling, Ana thought. Had they already beaten the fight out of him, or was he drugged?
‘Last chance,’ Victor said. ‘Tell me.’
‘I don’t know!’ the man shouted.
‘OK, do it,’ Victor said.
Another man came forward now. Where did Victor find these brutes? Why did they all follow his word so absolutely, like he was some sort of deity?
Ah yes, of course. Ana knew the answer. Money.
The man who came forward had a curious-looking jar in his hand. What was that? Food?
He crouched down to the captive and there was a pop as the lid was unscrewed.
At the sound, the barking of dogs became more amplified and expectant. Ana shuffled a little and could just make out one of the animals – a terrier of some kind – its teeth bared, yanking on its chain as it tried in vain to rush forwards.
‘Beef paste,’ Victor said, moving forward to the man now, his voice calm and considered. ‘A little treat for those two. Though nothing beats the taste of real meat.’
The goon spread the paste all around the bound man’s groin. The captive writhed pathetically, his cries now little more than a murmur.
‘Do you know, I first saw this in my village? It was how the men claimed justice. We had no police. No courts with lawyers. The village, the people, we upheld the law. That man’s name was… shit… Who gives a damn? But I was only twelve years old. I remember it so well. This man, he’d raped a teenage girl. Raped her over and over. She was so damaged no man wanted her after that. The villagers beat him, they dragged him naked through the streets, while everyone else looked on and hurled abuse and spat. Then they smeared pig’s blood over his… you know what. That pathetic little sprout you have there. Now, blood isn’t as effective as paste, I’ll tell you that from experience, but we were so poor… Then they set the dog on him. Just one dog.’
Ana was quivering with fear now, she realised. Though still she couldn’t take her eyes off the ghastly sight.
What the hell should she do?
‘Twelve years old,’ Victor said. ‘I’ll admit, I was physically sick.’ Victor put his hand on his heart. ‘There was nothing pleasant about watching that, about seeing that man’s flesh being torn open, sinews pulled and stretched and snapped like if you or I were chewing chicken from a bone.’
There was a tiny scraping sound behind Ana and her heart lurched as she whipped her head around.
She held her breath.
There was no one there.
She looked across to her feet and realised her toes had caught the edge of the flap of a cardboard box. She slowly exhaled, then put her eye back to the hole. Though why was she even watching this?
‘Do you know what happened to that man?’ Victor asked.
There was no answer. The man continued to plead.
‘He survived. Can you believe it? As a boy I thought there was no way a human could live after something like that. He had a hole between his legs the size of a football. But a doctor stitched him up. Gave him a tube and a bag for the piss and the shit to fall into. The man survived. But what kind of life do you expect he had after that?’
Again the man didn’t respond – at least not with any coherence. He was barely even moving now. Paralysed by fear?
‘That’s going to be you,’ Victor said. ‘Unless you tell me what you know.’
No, he wasn’t paralysed. As Victor straightened up, the man found a sudden strength and was writhing around and bucking as he screamed and called and shouted and begged with everything he had.
A tear escaped Ana’s eye. She was petrified, mortified, horrified.
‘Release the dogs,’ Victor said as he turned away.
But then a split second later, ‘No! No! I’ll tell you! Please!’
A dog rushed forward, mouth open, teeth bared, saliva flying. Victor held up his hand and the dog was all of a yard from its meal when it was yanked back again by the chain still around its neck.
When Victor turned back to face the prisoner, he had a wicked smile on his face. He opened his mouth to say something but then his second-in-command, Alex, came rushing over, phone pressed to his ear.
‘Vic, you need to look at this,’ he said, his growly voice hushed but still audible from a distance, such was his style. ‘It’s Stef.’
He pushed the phone towards Victor who glared daggers at his friend. He snatched the phone away and stared at the screen.
‘Police?’ Victor said, disgusted. ‘OK. Let’s go.’
He slammed the phone into Alex’s hand and looked down at the meat-paste-covered man.
‘I’ll deal with you later,’ Victor said, showing true anger for the first time. Anger because his plans had been abruptly halted? ‘You’re coming with me,’ he said to Alex.
Then he stormed off…
Not in the direction of the exit. But in the direction of the stairs.
Shit.
Ana jumped up. Grimaced in pain when her head smacked off the metal racking right above her. She saw stars and fought to get her focus back. She couldn’t lose consciousness now. If Victor found her in here… she imagined herself tied up, covered in meat paste, the dogs barking and salivating with predatory greed as they raced towards her.
No. No. No.
She fought through it. Shook her head. Slid the MDF back into place. Heaved the boxes across. Was up on her feet as, out in the corridor, she heard the clunk-clunking as Victor and Alex strode up the metal stairs.
Ana smoothed her robe down, straightened her hair to remove the dust, then stepped out into the corridor. With shaking hands she pulled the door closed, then rushed on wobbly legs the few steps to the bathroom door; spinning on her heel when she reached it, she saw the boot of Victor emerging from the top of the stairs.
‘Hey,’ he said.
Ana stopped and turned back to face him, trying her best to appear calm as she – apparently – exited the bathroom.
‘You’re up,’ Victor said, his face not hiding his suspicion.
Ana forced a smile and nodded.
‘What were you doing?’ Alex said, moving past Victor and up to the bathroom door. He stared inside the empty space.
‘What do you think?’ Ana said, surprised at how snarky she sounded. Better than fearful. ‘I went to the toilet.’
‘I didn’t hear it flush.’
‘You walk through life listening for toilets flushing?’
He scowled and glared. ‘You didn’t wash your hands.’
‘Wanna smell to make sure?’
She lifted her hand towards his face but Victor stepped forward and grabbed her wrist and squeezed hard enough to make her wince.
‘Enough,’ he said. ‘Back inside. Now.’
Victor released her wrist and spun her around by the shoulders.
‘Party time already?’ Ana said, as she started to walk back.
‘No,’ Victor said.
And that was all that he said to her before they were back inside the unkempt space.
‘You didn’t call her back?’ Victor said to Alex as he rummaged about the place. Wallet. Keys. Coat.
‘She didn’t answer,’ Alex said. ‘Maybe they’re still there.’
‘Why the fuck are the police talking to Brigitta?’
‘About Nic. But not just about Nic, apparently.’
Victor scoffed.
‘Right, let’s move.’ Victor looked over to Ana. ‘Tidy this place up. It looks like a dump.’
Ana said nothing.
Victor and Alex moved for the door. Alex headed out first. Victor turned back to Ana as he grabbed the handle to pull it closed.
‘This time you’ll stay put,’ he said with that usual smile-cum-sneer. He lifted up the key in his hand to show her, then slammed the door shut. Ana rushed forward as the lock clicked into place. She heard them padding away. Rattled the handle. No. It was locked tight. And now she was trapped.
Victor and Alex’s footsteps faded away.
Downstairs was strangely subdued now too.
What had happened to the man? To the dogs?
Still, at least those animals hadn’t had their feed of fresh meat. Yet.
At the thought, Ana’s insides stirred uneasily and she had to hold back the urge to dry heave again.
There was a clunk and a bang somewhere in the distance below. Victor and Alex heading out?
After that everything was quiet, except for Ana’s uneven breaths, and the constant throb of her jittery heart.