LITMIR.BIZ

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her skin crawl.

      ‘I’ll have to put the tray through the hatch,’ he told her. ‘It’s better that way, until you understand more. You know what I mean, don’t you, Sam? You always understood what I meant, even when nobody else did. That’s why we’re supposed to be together.’

      He took a small key from his tracksuit pocket and unlocked the padlock securing the bolt to the cage’s hatch. Louise watched his every move, wary of his hand suddenly stretching out for her through the hatch, but he merely pushed the tray in and held it, waiting for her to take it. ‘Take the tray,’ he told her. ‘It’s all for you. I’ll come back for it later, when you’ve had enough.’ Louise shuffled forward slowly, tentatively, her eyes never leaving his as she took the tray, which she immediately placed on the ground before shuffling back into the furthest corner of her prison.

      ‘Try some,’ he encouraged. ‘Drink first though, the chloroform can leave you a bit dehydrated.’

      She picked up the plastic mug and looked at it suspiciously, trying to detect any scent that didn’t belong in an innocent drink of water. Finally she sipped it, a sense of relief soon overtaken by the clean, cold taste of fresh water. Suddenly aware how thirsty she was, she gulped it down quickly.

      ‘Good, eh?’ he said. ‘Don’t drink too much too quickly though, it might make you feel sick.’

      Louise stopped drinking and began to dab some of the water around her lips and face, pausing as she remembered the woman locked in the other cage. Was she strong enough to speak to him yet? She decided she needed to try, do something to establish a relationship. She’d seen a programme about a kidnapped woman who’d built a bond with her captor that ultimately saved her life when he could no longer bring himself to kill her as he’d planned. ‘What about her?’ she managed to ask, barely recognizing her own weak, scratchy voice.

      ‘Who?’ he asked, his smile twitching now, blinking on and off.

      Louise looked towards the other animal cage then back to him. ‘Her. Karen. She said her name was Karen.’

      He stared coldly into Louise’s face, his smile nothing more than a memory now. ‘You mustn’t talk to her. She’s a liar and a whore. She made me think she was you, but she isn’t.’

      Louise watched his face contorting with hatred, his lips pulled back over his teeth like a hyena laughing, the veins in his neck swollen and blue with anger. Sensing that she had put Karen in real and immediate danger, she hurried to undo her mistake. ‘No,’ she told him. ‘She hasn’t said anything, I promise. I made her tell me her name. It wasn’t her fault. Please, there’s too much water here for me. You can give her the rest of this. Please.’

      Her desperate attempts to calm his anger towards the woman cowering and whimpering in her cage on the other side of the room seemed to go unheard. He was stalking across the floor, his eyes fixed on Karen.

      ‘The whore gets nothing!’ he shouted, his voice echoing hollowly in the brick tomb. ‘The whore gets nothing, except what all whores really want.’

      Louise covered her ears with her hands, instinctively curling herself into a tight ball pressed against the wire mesh, watching in horror as he drew closer to the only person in the world who shared her nightmare.

      ‘It wasn’t her fault,’ she forced herself to call out, somehow certain his anger would not be turned on her. ‘Leave her alone, please. She’s done nothing wrong.’ Tears slid down her cheeks, salty through dehydration. Strands of dry, sticky saliva stretched across her mouth like a spider’s web as she silently pleaded with him to stop.

      He fumbled in his trouser pocket, trying to remove an object that was bulkier than the keys he had produced earlier. Whatever it was caught on the fabric of his pocket and he tugged violently to free it, his eyes never leaving Karen Green’s cage. ‘I’ll give you what you fucking want, whore.’

      Louise tried to close her eyes, tried to look away as Karen desperately pushed herself into the wire at the back of her cage, trying to find a way to escape the approaching madness. She could see what he was holding now. It was the strange box he’d touched her with when she’d first opened the door to him – the thing that had left her paralysed and helpless.

      Almost dropping the key in his fury and excitement, he struggled to unlock Karen’s cage, his words slurred and incoherent. Finally he opened the hatch and leaned into the cage. Karen’s scream pierced through the hands that covered Louise’s ears and penetrated into every millimetre of her body.

      Karen was pressed hard against the wire, the skin on her face patterned with the squares of the wire cage, blood running down her chin from the split lip that opened raw and painful as she tried to push her body through the tiny holes, all the time imploring him to stop in her faint, defeated voice. ‘Stop. Please stop.’ But he didn’t. Instead he kept getting closer to her, inch by inch. Moving cautiously, as if she was a wild animal that might turn on him, he stabbed out at her with the stun-gun. He repeated the action several times, missing his target and then backing away, extending her misery and dread, until finally he struck her at the base of her spine.

      For a split second Karen’s body went rigid and as hard as mahogany, then she collapsed in a jerking, convulsing wreck. Still he maintained his distance, watching her agony with a slight smile spreading across his lips until her convulsions began to subside. Then he moved in, rolling her on to her back and pulling her legs straight. Louise again tried to look away, but couldn’t, any more than she could have looked away from a crystal ball showing her own future. She watched as he tugged and wrenched at his tracksuit pants, exposing his white buttocks, then his long fingers reached for Karen, pulling her filthy knickers down to her knees and shuffling forward as he lay on top of her. Louise heard him moan as he entered Karen, his buttocks moving rhythmically, slowly at first then quickly, brutally, guttural animalistic noises filling the room. Karen, who had stopped convulsing, was lying under him motionless, sobbing, her eyes wide and staring at Louise, accusing her.

      Less than a minute later, screams of joy and pleasure signified his climax. His cries faded away to silence. No one spoke and no one moved for what felt like hours, then he tugged at his trousers until they covered his buttocks and still swollen genitals. He backed out of the cage without a word, replacing the lock and bolt, coughing to clear his throat before speaking. He was calm now, but appeared embarrassed, his eyes avoiding Louise’s.

      ‘I’m sorry,’ he told her. ‘I’m sorry you had to see that, but that’s what she does. She tricks me. She makes me do it. She knows I don’t want to. She knows I don’t like being with her. She makes me feel dirty. I won’t let her trick me again. Not now you’re here, Sam. I promise,’ he told her. ‘I have to leave you for a while. I’ll come back later for the tray. Try to eat something.’

      He turned off the light and moved to the staircase, head bowed as if ashamed. She listened to the slow, soft footsteps as they climbed the unseen staircase and then the clank of metal as the unseen door was unlocked. Again there was a flood of daylight that stung her already sore, red eyes. Then gloom once more as the door gently closed.

      Louise peered through the gloom towards the figure lying motionless on the concrete floor of her cage making no attempt to cover herself with the little clothing she had. She whispered into the darkness: ‘Karen. Karen. Are you all right? Please, Karen. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’

      But there was no reply. Instead Karen curled into a tight ball, hugging herself, and began to sing a barely audible song. Louise struggled to make out the words. When she did, she realized it wasn’t a song Karen was singing, it was a nursery rhyme.

      Sally and Sean pulled up outside 22 Oakfield Road, the home of Louise and John Russell, early on Wednesday evening. Sally saw an ugly but practical modern townhouse. Sean saw much more – a concealed front door providing privacy from neighbours and passers-by, state-of-the-art double-glazed windows that were virtually impossible to break in through, a street full of near-identical houses inhabited by neighbours who never spoke to one another, a street where only men who lingered too long and youths clad in hooded tracksuits would draw attention.

      ‘Why’s

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