The Prisoner(3)

“Let me out! Please!”

Don’t. Stay in control. You can’t afford to let fear win.

Ned fills my mind. His voice last night, the things he said. Is the room in the basement where he’s being held under this one, can he hear my panic? Tears rise from deep inside me. I rest my forehead against the wood of the door, put the palms of my hands flat against its surface. I can feel the rivets of panels and think of Carolyn. Of her apartment in London, with its wood-paneled doors. Of the home she made for me. I take another breath. I can’t give up, I need to make everything right.

“Move, Amelie,” I whisper. “Find the light switch. There has to be one.”

I turn to face the wall and begin sidestepping along it to the left, moving my palms up as high as I can reach, then down toward the floor. I had expected to find a switch close to the door, but I reach a corner without finding one. I move along the next wall and after a few steps, my fingers find a socket close to the floor. I straighten up, place my hands flat on the wall to continue my search, and my left hand bumps against something jutting out. I run my hands over it; it’s a wooden board with a window behind it, I can feel its frame. I claw along the sides of the panel, trying to get enough purchase to pull it off, and feel the heads of small metal nails buried deep into the wood, too deep to get any traction under them. But the knowledge that there’s a window gives me hope.

I move past the boarded-up window and immediately, my hands find something else, something material, hard. I feel along it; it’s a mattress, propped in a corner. I sniff it tentatively; it smells new. I lay my head against it for a moment, the adrenaline draining away. But I can’t rest, I need to find a light switch.

There’s nothing on the wall behind the mattress so I move around it and sidestep along the next wall. After four small steps, I find a door. For a moment I think I must have lost my bearings in the darkness and have gone back the way I came. But no, this must be another door.

“Hello?” I call.

There’s only silence.

I feel for the handle, turn it. And without any resistance, the door pulls open.

My heart jumps, I take a quick step back. There’s no sound. No movement. I edge inside, both arms outstretched and almost immediately my knee whacks against something. Pitched forward, my hands slam into a wall, and with a cry, I crumple onto the floor. What did I hit? I twist around and my hands find it, cold enamel, a toilet.

I push myself up from the floor, turn, find the door, then feel for a light switch. There doesn’t seem to be one, it must be on the outside wall. I move carefully back to the main room, close the door, search the wall. Nothing. I shiver at the thought of being in such a confined space without light. If I want to use the toilet, I’ll have to leave the door open.

My whole body is trembling now, my teeth tapping against each other as I move past the bathroom door and continue sidestepping along the wall. I reach a corner, turn left along the next wall, in my mind it’s parallel to the wall with the boarded-up window. Still no light switch, only a socket near the floor. Then another left turn until I’m back at the main door.

I pause a moment to regroup; this wall has the main door, the next wall has a boarded-up window. The third wall, parallel to this one, has the toilet. The fourth wall is blank. There are two sockets but no light switch. I’m going to be kept in the dark.

A new terror fills me. Fighting for breath, I drop to my knees, close my eyes, remind myself of all I have already been through. I can get through this, I have to.

I push to my feet, put my back to the door, and walk carefully across the wooden floor in a straight line, my hands outstretched, counting as I go. After seven small steps, my fingers touch something wooden. Another three small steps, I’m flush against it. I reach down, find a handle. It’s as I thought: the bathroom door is directly opposite the main door. Satisfied, I drop to my knees and begin a painstaking crawl back and forth along the floor, checking that there isn’t anything else in the room. Apart from the mattress, there isn’t.

My energy drains from me. I crawl to the mattress, pull it to the floor, sit down. After a moment, I look toward the door; I can’t see it, but I know where it is. I think about the mattress, about where it’s positioned, and then I think about the door. When I had stood facing it, the handle was on the left, which means that the door opens—from the outside—to the left. For the first time, something makes sense: they’ve placed the mattress on the right-hand side of the room so that when they open the door, I am there, like waiting prey.

Standing, I take hold of the mattress and drag it past the door to the toilet, to the corner on the opposite side of the room, and lie it along the wall. Now, anyone coming in will have to walk around the open door and across the room to get to me.

I sit down, wrap my arms around my knees, and do the only thing I can do. Wait.





CHAPTER FIVE


PAST

I slowly sipped my coffee, hoping it would take the hunger pains away. I’d been in the café for an hour already and it was so cold outside that I couldn’t face leaving. But there were only so many free refills I could have before they’d ask me to buy a new drink, or leave. So far, nobody had come to disturb me.

I’d been in London for seven months now, and everything had been going well until a few weeks ago. I’d found a job in a restaurant and at first, I’d stayed in youth hostels. But because of the two-week stay limit, I’d had to move to a new one every couple of weeks, and moving from hostel to hostel had also meant moving farther and farther away from where I worked. My transportation costs had become so expensive that one of the waitresses at the restaurant, who’d been struggling to pay her rent, said I could sleep on her floor for ten pounds a night. It meant that I’d finally been able to start saving money for my college fund.