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  She looked again from silhouette to silhouette, squinting, becoming aware of her heartbeat – so loud, she couldn’t believe that she hadn’t heard it earlier.

  – Good’s not really the issue, the man replied pleasantly. What you’re wanting to ask is: What bad would it do if I don’t? And, conversely, that’s just not the sort of question you’d want us to answer… Mac! he added.

  The other man took a couple of steps forward, produced a long thin knife from beneath his jacket and slit the ribbon neatly, letting the two ends flutter away to the ground. He then pressed a hand against the Yale lock, and stood back to watch the door swing open. In a moment, a shaved head, a heavy jaw and close-set eyes found their way onto Sonia’s retina.

  She stood with difficulty. Her brain felt like tripe. She teetered as she looked towards the men’s averted faces, lights in the air around her. Then she felt herself being pushed backwards.

  – Okay, said a voice. You can wake the fuck up now.

  Sonia remembered herself suddenly and tried to open her eyes, and tried again. She couldn’t. She tried to move her arms, but she couldn’t move them either. Claustrophobia poured over her. Images of jaws, bulbous and close-set eyes flickered around her brain. Bruises ached the whole way down her spine.

  – Aggh! she exclaimed.

  Her mouth worked.

  – Aaaggh! she exclaimed again.

  The sound was small and strangled. It faded back into dripping water in the sink, the huskiness of her own breathing, a pair of heavy feet, passing through newspapers, bottles, ashtrays, treading more evenly on the linoleum in the kitchen.

  – You will probably have noticed by now, said the voice, that you can do nothing but breathe. Oh, and make that moaning noise. Now. Assuming that you wish to continue your life doing anything more than that, or for that matter even doing that, you will answer the following questions… One:

  – Where the fuck have they gone? said Mac, from the kitchen.

  His voice had been deeper – resonant – taking its cue like something from a fucked-up drama.

  – How…? managed Sonia. She was whimpering now. How the… I mean, I just came round here to see Nick. He wasn’t here. I got grabbed by the pigs and they were all going on about some fucking thing in the attic, and everyone keeps fucking thinking I know everything, and I don’t even know what the fuck was in there in the first place! I don’t! I swear! I don’t fucking know anything!

  – Well, said the man behind her. We now know what you told the police. Perhaps you used fewer expletives the first time round, huh? But, you see, we’re not the police. We believe that you can do better than that. So, let’s start again… One:

  – Where the fuck have they gone?

  Again the question reverberated in the kitchen, so deep now that Sonia thought she could feel it through the chair.

  – Please! Her voice was rising into a wail. All I know is I came back here, and the ambulance was gone, and everyone was fucking gone… and that’s it!

  – Well, said the man behind her, pleased, we appear to be getting somewhere already. In your eagerness to cooperate, however, you have bypassed what we asked you and answered instead question number two…

  – How the fuck did they go there? interjected Mac, who seemed to be rifling through a heap of cutlery.

  – …which we hadn’t yet got to. Still, we do not hold that against you. You were telling us about the mode of transport. An ambulance, you say? Tell us about this ambulance.

  – It’s, it’s white! said Sonia. White, with like marks where the stickers used to be, and, er, I don’t know, maybe it’s fifteen years old or something. I think it’s a Ford. It just sat in the back of the yard, there! I mean, I never even knew the bloody thing worked!

  Sweat was clamming beneath the rag, or T-shirt, or whatever it was that was tied around Sonia’s eyes. It ran from her hairline, from her temples, from her eyebrows. The man’s head was very close behind her. She could picture its eyes – bulbous, watery even in the half-dark – its thin face, scarring of some sort emerging from the shirt collar. He was starting to make sniffing noises.

  – You smell of fish, he said finally. Haddock. It’s horrible. Now, listen to me a minute. Yeah?

  – Yeah, said Sonia. It came out as a sob.

  – I don’t think you are fully appreciating the gravity of this situation… Do you feel this?

  Something small, cold and hard pressed against her shoulder blade.

  – Yeah, said Sonia, in a squeak.

  – This is a gun, the man observed. If we have to kill you, we will definitely kill you; but we’ll probably just make sure you never walk again or something first. Running, skipping, jumping. Do you like running, skipping, jumping?

  – Yeah, squeaked Sonia.

  – Okay! said the man. Running, skipping, jumping… What we need now is truth, okay? There are two persons: one Italian Jew named Paolo Alkalai, and a friend of his named Nick, whom I take to be the person that you came here to visit. They have fucked us over and attempted to set us up, which was not to be advised… Now. We don’t – of course – want to hurt anyone. He chuckled lightly. The point is this: if you and everyone else does just as they’re told, everything will be roses. Running, skipping, jumping. Okay?

  Sonia nodded silently, her eyes screwed up beneath their blindfold.

  – Where the fuck have they gone?! growled Mac.

  His voice was just to her left now, thick with menace. She started to shake uncontrollably.

  – Please, she moaned. I just don’t know. I just came round and… that’s it!

  Behind Sonia’s head came a crinkling noise like that of a carrier bag; then a hand struck her hard across the face. Warmth flooded from Sonia’s crotch, slowing and beginning to cool as it spread around her thighs.

  – That, said the voice behind her – steelier now – was, as you probably guessed, your final chance to avoid something very, very horrible happening to you. You can talk now.

  Sonia was so choked up with panic that nothing issued from her throat but strangled gargling noises: partly sobs and partly insensible wails.

  Behind her the plastic crinkled meditatively to itself for ten or fifteen seconds, then in a rush her head was covered, the plastic handles tight around her throat, the tiny bit of air thick with the taste of bag.

  – Ngggh! she screamed, muffled, her head thrashing against unmoving arms. Nnngggh!

  Her eyelids were turning a rich, bloody red, the sound of her voice growing faint against the pounding of the pulse in her ears. Washes of vagueness were coming and going. Her lungs seemed too big for themselves. Tears were soaking into her blindfold, saliva smearing over her jaw, her lips, her cheeks. Her body convulsed. Suddenly she could only think of her mother, big and sturdy-looking, her hair long and golden, like it hadn’t been in fifteen years.

  When, in a moment, the saliva and the pumping of Sonia’s chest chanced to make a vacuum against the plastic and a balloon came back into her mouth, her teeth gripping it instinctively and tearing it open. In a backwards scream she filled herself with air.

  Sonia vomited for about a minute, trying to breathe, choking, fluids going inside the carrier bag, some making it through the hole and spreading themselves across her lap, her legs, the floor and the general filth.

  Somewhere above her – distantly – Sonia was aware of voices. She seemed to be horizontal, but she was so detached and floaty-feeling that she really wasn’t sure. They were, she thought, the same voices from earlier, but she couldn’t understand what they were talking about, and their tone was different too.

  They were urgent now, nervous even.

  – Look, one was saying. This is the shit, yeah? They know about the connection! They’ll screw them for a deal!

  There was something sharp pressing against the side of Sonia’s head. It seemed strange to her, in conflict with the floatiness. She tried to move to get away from it, but somehow her muscles weren’t working properly.

  –
So we find them. Find them. Grease them. Bury them. Fuck them! Fuck the acid! Don’t take any chances… What’s the problem, Steve?

  Redness was shivering behind the blindfold. Sonia seemed to be coming back to herself; she was starting to taste the vomit in her mouth, feel the pain in her head and her back and the terror in her stomach.

  – Alright, said Steve. Wake her up. We’ll give her two minutes then we get nasty.

  A big hand was slapping Sonia sharply. It took her a few seconds to realise what it was, and when she did she was already coughing, struggling against the ropes, shivering the length of her body.

  – Where the fuck are they?! roared someone. You fucking repulsive little bitch!

  – Ang’s, Sonia whispered through the vomit and the tatters of the carrier bag. They went to Ang’s…

  – O-kay, said Steve, suddenly calm again and pleased-sounding. Once more, we appear to be getting somewhere. Now then, what is Angs?

  Sonia felt herself being hoist upright, the joints of the chair squeaking, the carrier bag being pulled off her head.

  – Ang’s, Sonia stammered. Ang is Angus. Angus Persey. He… He used to live here… Now, he lives in… Wales, near the Black Mountains. There was just this note for me on the door, saying they’d gone to Ang’s and not to tell anyone.

  – Good, said Steve approvingly. So, let’s have a little specificity, shall we? We have a possibly D-reg Ford ambulance containing… how many altogether?

  – Six, breathed Sonia.

  – Six people, said Steve. Which is currently heading for the Black Mountains in Wales, where they are planning to hole up with some fucker called Angus Persey, who lives in the village-or-town of…?

  – I, er, I don’t know, said Sonia weakly. I really, really, really don’t!

  There was a long pause. Somewhere to her left the wheel spun on a lighter. She smelt cigarette smoke. The draught creeping round the doors and windows was beginning to make her go numb at the extremities.

  – Now, it strikes me, Steve’s voice had hardened again. It strikes me that we already heard that line earlier, and that it wasn’t really the whole story.

  A metallic click came from her right, and the same hard coldness pressed against her, this time on the wet denim that covered her right knee.

  – Do you think we’re fucking around here? he asked.

  – No, whispered Sonia.

  – Do you suppose that I won’t blow your kneecap into this filthy disgusting fucking floor if I have to?

  – No, said Sonia, quieter still.

  – Then you suppose right, said Steve.

  – Stop! said Sonia. Please! Look, all I know is he lives in a cottage, on his own. It’s got no road to it. No electricity. Nothing like that. It’s in the Black Mountains, near a place called Hay-on-Wye. It’s, er… I don’t know. The kind of village or parish or whatever it’s in, it’s a Welsh word. Someone did say it one time. Two syllables. Please don’t shoot me! Please! I – I am trying to remember! I… think the first syllable was, was Liss. Liss, or something. Liss-something! Liss-pen, or Liss-way, or something. I swear to God I don’t know what. If you showed me a map…?

  – Liss-something, repeated Steve, rolling the word in his mouth. There was a tension in his voice, underneath the smoothness, you could hear it sometimes. Liss-something. Right. If what you have said is not true, you should speak now. It will be very much for the best, I do assure you… Okay, then. In our car, we have a map. If we find on that map a place called Liss-something somewhere in the Hay-on-Wye locality, we are going to waste no further time and we are going to go there. If we don’t, we will come back in here and we will continue from exactly where we left off, except without the charitable approach. Do you understand?

  Shivering and coated with vomit, Sonia nodded dumbly, images of the two men’s silhouettes hovering in her eyelids – the huge and the thin – their movements charged now with malevolence. From nowhere, she felt hands clasp beneath her, pulling her crotch away from the chair, two other hands delving in her pockets: one removing her wallet, the other her keys and various urine-soaked bits of paper and tissue.

  – 12 Fernhill Road, said Steve slowly. Is this where you live?

  – Uhh, Sonia affirmed feebly.

  – If you’ve lied to us, he continued, we will come back, and we will kill you. Do you have anything else you want to say?

  Heavily, Sonia shook her head.

  – No, she mouthed, and felt the handle of some sort of implement being pressed into her hand.

  – Good, said Steve, his voice sounding equable again. Now, you are holding a knife that Mac has generously removed from the kitchen for you. If we have not returned in the time it takes you to count – aloud – to, let’s say, one thousand and six, you may start using that to try and get away from the chair… Then you may do some running, skipping, jumping. As much as you like, in fact. Okay? There. That wasn’t such an ordeal, was it?

  l: o darlin’

  – So, said Fay a little dubiously, you’ve never had insurance or tax or anything, on anything, ever?

  Pete puckered his lips, thinking.

  – Er… yeah, he admitted. I suppose I’ve not.

  – And no-one’s ever done you for it? I mean, you’ve been driving for nine years or something?

  – Mmm, eight or nine. Something like that. He took a cigarette from the packet on the seat beside him and tapped its filter a few times against the steering-wheel. Well, it’s luck, isn’t it? It’s like not paying on parking meters. You just need a bit of a streak, then you’ve saved enough to compensate any fines or whatever.

  Pete lit the cigarette, steering with a corner in the road. Fay was smiling; there were shadows beneath her cheekbones.

  – So, you saved up the money you would have spent?

  – Oh no, said Pete. It’s just a principle. Like, obviously, the actual money goes on women and cocaine and islands and that.

  Fay’s relief on leaving London had hit her like a wave. For the best part of an hour, she’d stared at trees and the occasional passing house in a state of near-bewilderment. A pressure had fallen from the sides of her head, like the walls had fallen from the verges as they rolled out of London. She felt fresh, unconstrained. For the first time in years, she wasn’t yearning for anything.

  – Fi-fi! mumbled Paolo on the seat between her and Pete. Oh… bella Fifi!

  Fay stretched her arms above her head, arching herself between the floor and the seat-back.

  – Okay, she said, sitting back down. Who’s Fifi?

  – Not me, said Pete.

  Paolo was snoring erratically, his head lolling back over the seat, jerking upwards as he breathed.

  – Fammi un bocchino! he groaned.

  – I think he might like her, said Fay, taking a tape from the glove compartment and replacing the old one in the stereo.

  – Paolo! said Pete. Hey, Paolo! Who’s Fifi?

  Paolo opened his eyes painfully, wincing at the bruising on the side of his face. He frowned at the hedges pressing in on either side of them, then at Fay, and finally at Pete.

  – What? he managed. What did you call me?

  – Who’s Fifi? said Pete.

  – What’s Fifi to you?

  – Paolo, you were rolling around moaning Fifi! Bella Fifi! I think we ought to know who she is.

  – Oh, that Fifi! said Paolo, apparently reassured. Bella Fifi! My God! Now, she was a woman! You know, she had this thong…

  – Not that bloody model! said Fay. She was never called Fifi!

  – What’s wrong with Fifi?!

  – Oh, come on! said Fay. The whole thing’s cheesy enough without her being called Fifi as well.

  – Excuse me! said Paolo. Fifi is a very respectable name. Infatti, I even have a sister called Fifi.

  – Do you? said Pete. And you dream about her?

  – Okay, okay, said Paolo. I’m going back to sleep now.

  In the back, the air was awash with smoke. The never-repeating b
reakbeats drifted between the curtains, easy among the debris and the sprawling bodies. On a side-wall, a mad-eyed heavily made-up woman stared down from a poster, snakes in place of her hair. An enormous Indian drape coated the ceiling overhead, falling into folds at the bottom of the opposite wall.

  – Are… Are we here? asked an Australian over the music. Are we unique?

  Tim sat insensibly a couple of feet from the rear doors, his back against the drape and his eyes turned up to the little windows – awestruck – like they were icons, or glimpses of sky from a prison cell. Now and then he cupped his hands into a makeshift bong – an enormous joint was pressed between two of his left-hand fingers – and smoked. His gaze was unwandering.

  To Tim’s right, Nick was splayed face-down across the discomposed bedclothes, his head straying onto a corner of Belle’s cushion pile. His hat had fallen off and his hooded top was hunched like a carapace some way up the back of his neck. Belle’s legs were arched over him – floaty-trousered – her toes touching and her eyes steady on the burning tip of Tim’s joint.

  Fay watched the passing hedgerows and thought about Dartmoor, where she’d lived before her parents moved to Bristol. They’d had a farm at the head of a valley, a square of buildings with a yard in the middle. When you drove up the track from the nearest road you could hardly see the house at all; just the barns with their thick stone walls, slitted in the haylofts, impenetrable-looking as a castle.

  Fay would go out on the moor at night, climb the tor behind the house and follow a path till the hill levelled off and the lights from the house disappeared. There was a rock up there: a huge, glacial thing with a niche in its side that she’d always fitted in perfectly. She’d sit there for two hours sometimes, wrapped in an enormous coat, buffeted by the wind or rain or snow, insensible to anything else.

  – When did you get this ambulance, then? she said, turning to Pete.

  – Oh… said Pete. Five, six years ago, maybe? I don’t know. I’d been on this bender. I think I was at the Electrick Temple or Return to the Source or somewhere like that – to begin with anyway. It was when them places were still kind of new. Do you know what I mean? Basically, I woke up one day naked on the floor of some flat I’d never seen before, and I’d got this bloody sun tattooed on my stomach!