Tania Carver - Choked

He didn’t have to say any more.

They turned and went.

With its pitched roof, bland colour and rows and rows of tiny, barely opening windows, the hotel looked like a prison. All it needed was brick walls and razor-wire-topped fences surrounding it.

The female voice of the sat nav, calm, clear and unruffled, announced that Marina had reached her destination. She pulled the car into the car park, turned off the ignition. Waited.

While she was driving, she had started to entertain the hope that her journey would lead to something different. An end. Being reunited with her daughter. Going home once more. She knew this hope was forlorn, that there was no real chance of it happening. Whoever was doing this wouldn’t let it happen yet. But once the idea had started to form, the rational part of her mind hadn’t been able to stop it. It had grown and grown until, following instructions, she had pulled off the A120 into the car park of the anonymous chain hotel. And then realised that she wasn’t going to be reunited with her daughter. Not now.

Not ever.

That thought struck her almost physically. Razor-sharp knives plunged right through her flesh, scraping bone. No. She couldn’t think that. Wouldn’t allow herself to think that. If she did …

No. Don’t.

And then there was Phil, lying unconscious in a hospital bed. She yearned to be near him. To hold him, hear his voice. Something else she might never do again.

She thought of phoning the hospital, finding out how he was. Her fingers even made it to the keypad. But she stopped herself. They might trace the call. And she would never see her daughter again. They might still be watching. And she would never see her daughter again. So she didn’t do it.

She checked the sat nav. Hoped — that word again — that she had entered the postcode wrongly. Taken a wrong turn, made a mistake. No mistake. This was where she was supposed to be.

The hotel had been well chosen. At the intersection between the A120 linking Essex to Hertfordshire and the Braintree turnoff, it sat by itself, the surrounding area undeveloped. A beacon of blandness in a desert of nothing.

But, from the road above, easy to spy on. Easy to watch.

She looked out of the window, scanned the car park for anyone suspicious, anyone she could claim as her nemesis, her reason for her being there. It was virtually empty. The hotel was mainly used by business travellers stopping over. Tourists would never venture there. Especially not on a Good Friday evening.

Sodium lamps were coming on, giving the car park a hazy, crepuscular feel. The cars were dark, shiny blobs against the encroaching darkness, insects gathered together to sleep.

She sighed. Thought of her husband. Her daughter. Felt like her insides had been scooped out, burned hollow by acid.

Love Will Tear Us Apart .

She quickly grabbed the phone. ‘Yes?’

‘You got here all right? Traffic was good?’

In such a short space of time she had come to hate that voice. Mocking. Laughing. Toying with her. Her hand began to shake as she gripped the phone. ‘Where is she? Where’s my daughter?’

‘She’s safe. For now. As long as you do what I … ’ An intake of breath. A pause. ‘ … what we tell you to.’

Anger rose once more in Marina. Impotent. Hot. ‘What? What d’you want me to do? Tell me. I’ll do it.’

‘Get a good night’s sleep first. You’ve got a big day tomorrow.’

‘ What? ’

The voice sighed. Like it was explaining something really simple to someone even simpler. ‘Rest. Sleep. We want you all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for tomorrow.’

‘How can I sleep? With all this going on, with what you’ve … you and my daughter … ’

The fire went out of her. She felt suddenly tired. So tired, it was an effort to even hold the phone to her ear.

‘Finished? Good. Go into the hotel, get a room. There’ll be plenty free, it’s Easter. People will be at home with their families, asking why everything has to close early and the telly’s such shit just because Jesus found himself on the business end of a bit of botched DIY. And wait for the call.’

She said nothing.

‘You still there?’

‘I’m still here,’ said Marina.

‘That’s the spirit. We’ll all get on so much quicker if you toe the line.’

Marina felt as though lead weights were holding her down.

‘Have dinner. Sleep. Breakfast. And a shower. I’d recommend a shower. Then tomorrow the work starts in earnest.’

Marina sighed. She could feel bars all round her. Everything was a cage.

‘And Marina … don’t think about escaping. Or phoning your cop friends for help. Or telling anyone in the hotel what’s going on. We’re watching you. All the time.’

The line went dead.

She threw the handset down on to the passenger seat. Not in anger, just resignation. Then picked it up again, put it in her bag.

She got out of the car, crossed to the hotel.

Ready for a sleepless night.

The gym was one of a dying breed. The men inside it too.

Its doorway was down an old, decaying street in Bethnal Green, east London. The surrounding streets had fallen to creeping gentrification, as moneyed next-generation trustafarian bohos and City workers alike made like urban explorers and bought up property. This street had staved off those advances, but crumbling brickwork and increasing rental costs meant that it too would soon be gone. And the gym, its bare brick walls running with condensation, its stripped wooden floors suffused with decades of sweat, would be gone too. An ad agency, perhaps. A marketing company. A coffee shop.

The boxing ring was still in use. Two lean-framed teenagers danced round each other in vests and shorts, heads and hands padded, concentration fixed. Their trainer shouting instructions from the sidelines. Along the side of the room, the free weights were being used, the bags being hit. Boys and men, their skins all shades from pasty white to rich dark brown, worked the room. No trouble. Just the camaraderie of contained aggression.

But not in the basement. The regulars, the punters, never got to go down there. Never had need to. Because there was a different kind of aggression going on below. Not contained, no rules. A room for hire. Soundproofed. Where payments could be made and scores settled. For a price.

Mike Dillman knew all about that. He’d known Lisa was a handful when he met her. That was why he had married her. She was fiery, loud. Quick to anger and ready to fight. He loved that about her. Because it also made her a fantastic fuck. But there was a down side. She got hugely jealous. He just had to look at another woman for her to kick off. And Mike had done more than just look. Often. Now, sitting on a chair in the centre of this room, he wished he’d kept his eyes and hands to himself.

He felt dead. His arms tied behind his back, his legs tied to the legs of the chair. His shirt open. He felt blood running down his face, pain all over, like his body had been wired into the mains.

And there was Lisa, standing in front of him, sweating hard. Bloodied heavy metal glistening on her fists. Chest heaving, eyes shining with a primal light. She looked beautiful. He would give her that.

Behind her, a bored man in a suit sitting on a chair with a porn magazine open on his lap looked at his watch.

‘That it, then?’ he said. ‘You done?’

Lisa shook her head, checked the clock on the wall. ‘Got another quarter of an hour yet. Paid for it. Got to use it.’

The bored man shrugged. ‘Suit yourself.’ Went back to studying his magazine.

Lisa looked down at Mike. The hatred in her eyes, the rage. Beautiful. When she got like this, the sex afterwards was always brilliant. He still wanted her, even after what she’d done to him.