Alex Palmer - The Labyrinth of Drowning

Once he slipped sideways and grazed his arm badly against the hinges. Later, he slid down to a crouch, to give relief to his back. His legs began to ache instead. As he stood up, he felt the wires around his right wrist begin to loosen. He pulled the bonds apart but the wire hadn’t quite given way. He went back to it and kept going, losing track of time. Then, at last, the wire slipped away from his right hand altogether.

Blood flowed painfully back into his hand and he had to wait until he could use it. Then he slid to the dirt floor and pulled the blindfold from his eyes. It was a black mask. Being able to see felt like liberation in itself, even if he was still in a dark place. Turning his head to the side, he saw thin cracks of daylight marking the outline of the closed door, the thickest band of light being at the foot. Otherwise there was no source of light in this place at all.

The door was old and battered and, while there was a lock, there was no handle on the inside. As he’d thought, it had been chained on the outside; there was no way he could open it. He peered out through a crack at the fading daylight. They had picked him up mid-afternoon and he’d heard them driving away. He had spent a lot of time freeing his hand. They couldn’t have taken him far. Judging by what he could see, he was in some kind of hut in the national park, with a bare space between the door and the surrounding trees.

He looked at his left hand, bringing it close to his face. The wire was knotted too tightly for him to unpick it with his right hand. He went back to rubbing the wire against the door lip, this time facing the door. I look like I’m jerking myself off, he thought. Strangely, freeing this hand seemed just as uncomfortable, almost harder than when both hands had been behind his back. Between rubbing it and pulling at it, the wire finally gave way and he pulled the last of it off. It had cut deeply into both his wrists, bruising them and making him bleed. He had cut himself further while sawing through the wire, and his arm was raw where he’d torn his skin away against the hinges earlier. But his hands were free and he could use them. Again he waited while his left hand stung itself back into life.

He looked around, his eyes adjusting to the shadows. The light from the doorway was too weak to give him anything other than an indistinct view of the hut he was locked in. It was circular and seemed to have been built on the slope of a hill. A few feet away he saw a lumpy mattress, stinking of rot. He checked himself. His belt was gone as well as his shoes. His watch and wallet too. He had been left with nothing except the clothes he stood up in.

He checked the rope that hobbled him. It had been threaded through a loop around his knees and then tied at his feet. With his back against the wall and his knees pulled up as close to his chest as possible, he could still barely reach the knot. He sat on his side, with his feet side on against the door, and reached for it that way. It was probably the best stretching exercise he’d had all year. He worked at it, took breaks, and finally pulled the rope away. By the time he had got himself free, it was so dark he was working by feel.

Despite the blackness, he began to explore by touch the small cell he was locked in. The roof was low, barely more than a few inches above his head. Lifting up his hands, he could reach it easily. It seemed to be made of cement. He followed the wall around; like the roof, it was made of cement. Then his foot knocked against something lying on the floor near the mattress, in line with where his head had been. It skidded against the wall. He searched and picked it up. It was a book, a hardback. He moved closer to the door where there was a little more light. Even here, it was too dark to see what it was but he was fairly certain it was a copy of his own book, Justice Under the Law. What would be the point of leaving any other book here? He tried to see if the title page had been signed but it was too dark. He put the book back on the floor, there being nowhere else for it.

He had left the rope near the door and went back to it. Could he use it for anything? Fix it so that whoever was coming to get him could be tripped when they opened the door? As far as he could tell in the dark, there was nothing to which he could tie the rope to make it work as a tripwire. He did have one advantage. They would be expecting him to be lying on the mattress like a chicken waiting to be slaughtered. He would be waiting for them instead. As best he could in the dark, he moved the cut wires and the rope to where they couldn’t be seen if the door was opened in any kind of a light. Make it appear there was no one in here just to throw them as much as possible. Then he sat down on the mattress to think.

Time lost definition when you waited in the dark. He was hungry and thirsty but put those things to the side. Feeling he had arrived at nowhere, he leaned against the wall and worked through the possibilities. Killing him could not have been part of his captors’ brief or he would already be in the afterlife, assuming it existed. Someone else must be on their way here to do that. Someone had left a copy of his book here to be part of the action. It was a logic all their own.

He thought about Grace. Whatever reason he was here, she was working. She would have her backup; they’d better be doing their job and protecting her. He thought of his daughter and his son. Toby was old enough to take care of his own life, but either himself or Grace had to come out of this alive for Ellie’s sake.

He was so deep in these thoughts that when the sound of a car coming to a stop outside broke the night silence, he was startled. Whoever it was, they hadn’t had their headlights on. Someone got out of the vehicle, and shut the door quietly but audibly behind them. Quickly, Harrigan got to his feet and stood to the side of the door. If anyone opened it, he could get them with a blow to the side of the head.

He listened. In the night silence, he heard soft footsteps approaching the door.

‘Are you in there?’

Harrigan drew in a breath. The last thing he’d expected to hear was a woman’s voice.

‘You must be awake by now,’ she went on. ‘You just wait. There are other people coming. Grace is one of them. We’re going to have fun tonight. Grace is going to watch you burn. Then she’s going to burn herself. You just sit there and think about that.’ She laughed.

Is that right? Harrigan thought. Well, fuck you, whoever you are. He had never hit a woman in his life. His father had sometimes hit his mother when he was drunk, until Harrigan had been big enough to stop him. Watching his father do this, and then, maudlin, beg for forgiveness in the morning, had left Harrigan with a contempt for anyone who did the same. But this wasn’t a woman. This was a murderer who happened to be female.

‘Are you going to talk to me? You can talk. I know you can.’

There was an odd hint of hysteria in the woman’s voice. She was building up her excitement. There was some other edge too. Tears. Why tears?

‘I thought someone was following me tonight. But I got rid of them. No one’s coming to save you. You might as well talk to me. You’re not dying alone. Grace will be with you. And if we can, we’ll get your daughter too. We’ve got something that’ll turn her head to pulp.’

Keep talking, whoever you are. I’m waiting for you. Everything you say makes it easier .

‘Are you going to answer me? Open your fucking mouth. You can still talk.’ Hysteria again, this time wound up to a greater intensity. Strange anger, resentment. ‘Go on. Cry. That’s what you’ll do in the end. Everybody does. They cry and they shit themselves. They all say please when it’s too fucking late. When we open the door, you’ll come crawling out saying please. When you do, she’ll be watching you and it’ll be too fucking late. Then she’ll crawl in the dirt too. Everyone does.’