Swimming in the Shadows

by Diane Janes

  ‘Thick as a brick,’ he said of a quiz show contestant, and ‘absolute crap’ in response to something else.

  I stayed silent, making no attempt to reply, all the time trying to suppress my increasing fear of what might be about to happen. I tried to think coherently, to formulate some kind of plan, but I couldn’t think straight at all. Why, why, a thousand times why hadn’t I left word at the cottage of where I was going? No one knew where I was. No one could possibly be expected to come to my rescue.

  At one point I remembered that Alan had not asked me whether I had told anyone where I was going. Maybe the possibility that someone might come looking for me had not occurred to him. For a while, I toyed with the idea of pretending that someone was expecting me to rendezvous and would know where to come if I failed to return safely, but in the end I decided that initiating a pretence of this nature might do more harm than good, perhaps suggesting to Alan that there was imminent danger if we stayed where we were. After all, I thought, so long as we’re here on the boat there is surely nothing much he can do to me. For the moment, my best plan – indeed my only plan – seemed to be to wait it out and see what he did next.

  At dusk he drew the curtains and switched on the cabin lights, finally clearing the remnants of food from the table and washing up the cups and plates. It was some time since I had heard any approaching boats. Neatishead isn’t one of the really popular stopping places. Once dusk fell I knew that no one else would be moving on the water.

  We watched the nine o’clock news – he with apparent dispassionate interest, me with a kind of fascinated horror, still tinged with disbelief. ‘Why?’ I whispered, when the bulletin finally moved on to something else.

  For a moment I thought he hadn’t heard me, but then he fixed me with a stare that turned my heart to ice. ‘Why? Why are there endless TV series about murders, cops, detectives, serial killers? Why do you think people watch them? Everyone has an appetite for murder, Jenny. I didn’t watch, I took part. That’s the difference between all the little plastic people sitting at home and a handful of real ones. Some people apply to go on game shows. I had a game show all of my own.’

  He’s mad, I thought. I couldn’t bear to keep on looking at him, but when I lowered my eyes he took hold of my chin, jerking my head up so that I was forced to face him.

  ‘Not all of them were willing to play by my rules.’ He was watching me, enjoying the effect of his words. ‘Some of them broke the rules and had to be punished. You should be punished, Jenny. You broke the rules of the game by running off. The trouble is …’ he glanced around speculatively, before turning his eyes on me again, ‘… there’s so little space in here and I don’t have the right equipment. What a pity we can’t pop down to the cellar for an hour or so. I do like to follow the proper procedures – it’s deviation from the script that gets you into trouble in the end.’

  It was dark outside now. The birds had stopped singing.

  Alan released me and abruptly reached across to silence the television. It was suddenly so quiet in the cabin that I could hear myself breathing. He stood up and opened the tall cupboard opposite the toilet cubicle. For a minute or two I could hear him rummaging about, hidden behind the cupboard door. Then he shut the door and I saw that he had a knife in his hand.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  The Alan who emerged from behind the cupboard door was like a different person. He’d already frightened me, but this was something more. A dark energy emanated from his body: a compelling force which froze resistance in its path. In a voice as taut as a wire, he said, ‘We’re leaving now and if you make a sound I’ll cut your throat.’

  He raised me up from the bench, gripping my left shoulder while holding the knife an inch or so in front of me, and pushed me towards the cabin steps. Silenced words of protest blocked my throat, bubbles of dissent which exploded in my air ways, forcing my breath out in gulps. I offered no resistance whatever. You don’t antagonize a man who has a blade inches from your neck.

  ‘Keep your hands by your sides,’ he hissed as I fumbled for the handrails.

  I complied as best I could, managing to clamber awkwardly up the steps into the cockpit, with Alan all the time attached at my shoulder, our bodies bumping awkwardly against one another. The deck tilted unnervingly as he moved me towards the stern of the boat, where there was a gap in the awning. After the light of the cabin my eyes were almost blind, but Alan seemed to know exactly where to put his feet. As we emerged into the open air I considered deliberately tumbling into the water, hoping that he would instinctively release his hold as we fell, but I was too slow and the moment had passed before I had time to think it through. He forced me to sidestep along the edge of the boat, then said quietly, ‘Step forward on to the bank.’

  When I hesitated, tentative in the darkness, he dug his nails viciously into my neck. ‘Step on to the bank.’

  I stepped blindly and felt relief of a kind as my feet encountered solid ground rather than thin air. He was right behind me. A momentary pause and then I was frogmarched along the path.

  Lights glowed through cruiser curtains on the other side of the dyke and muffled laughter came from inside the boat, but there wasn’t a soul out on deck or barbequing on the bank, and I knew that the single scream I would have time for guaranteed no help. My best hope must be that someone would come walking back to their boat from the inn.

  We met no one.

  At the car – my car – he held me close against the passenger side while he fumbled with the keys. Then in an apparent change of plan, he walked me round to the rear and opened the boot.

  ‘Get in.’

  ‘Oh no, please …’ I glanced desperately up and down the lane, but it was utterly deserted.

  He placed the cold blade against my throat and I was immediately still, scarcely breathing.

  ‘Do you want to die?’

  ‘No.’ I whispered it.

  ‘Are you going to get in the boot?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He withdrew the knife by a few inches and I climbed in as slowly as I dared, desperately hoping for a dog walker or someone en-route to the pub to appear, but no one came.

  ‘Lie down.’ The silvery blade was jabbed in my direction.

  I tried to fold myself into the available space but it was like trying to play a deadly game of Twister, with some part of me always extruding beyond the confines of the boot, so that the rear hatch would not close. It occurred to me that while appearing to be cooperative, I could drag this process out indefinitely. It must have occurred to Alan too because he seemed to hesitate, then ordered me to get out again.

  He slammed the rear hatch so hard that the bang echoed and re-echoed round my head. ‘Get into the back.’ He flung open the driver’s door as he spoke, and stood aside for me to work the lever which moved the front seat.

  My eyes had grown more accustomed to the dark by now, but in any case I knew just where to find it. Resistance was ruled out by the proximity of the knife, but just as I moved the seat forward I heard the sound of voices from the direction of the river. Someone was coming. I took a breath and attempted a scream, but Alan’s free hand was across my mouth, stifling the cry before it was half out.

  I tried to hang on to the doorframe, but he was much stronger than me and I was shoved head first into the back, ending up half on, half off the seat, my kneecaps taking the brunt of his shove, and my shoulders and arms wrenched painfully where I had attempted to cling on to the car.

  At least my mouth was free again. ‘Help me!’ I yelled. ‘Help me!’

  Alan shoved the seat back into place, careless of the bits of me still in the way, leapt into the car and slammed the door behind him before I had time to gather enough breath to shout again. ‘Keep quiet.’ I could tell he was rattled. I heard him fumbling for the ignition as I drew in enough oxygen to scream again. It had a deafening impact within the car, but how far did it carry outside?

  Had they heard me? Quickened their pace? It took barely half
a minute to get from the boats to the parking area if only they got a move on. I knelt up in the seat, desperately peering into the dark for any signs of approach, hurrying figures or a moving torch beam. In the meantime, Alan had found the slot for the key and gunned the engine into life. We set off in a series of jerks which flung me to and fro across the seat while I screamed and screamed again, the sound reverberating round the interior of the car.

  ‘Lie down,’ he roared, but I ignored him. He couldn’t attack me while he was driving. I stopped yelling but continued to gaze out of the rear window as we headed off through the village, ready to pound on the window and scream my head off again as soon as anyone came into view, but we did not see so much as a cat.

  I needed to come up with another idea – and soon – but the only thing I could think of was to grab Alan round the throat, and I did not see how that would do any good. If he lost control of the car we could end up in a ditch, and if he was able to stop the car safely he might decide to silence me there and then. I swivelled into a sitting position so that I could see where we were going, but I soon lost any sense of direction because once out of the village Alan took a series of unlit lanes, driving at speed and grinding the gears. We had been travelling for some minutes when he unexpectedly turned off the road and drew up next to a large wooden building, which looked black in the beam of the car headlights.

  He took the keys from the ignition, retrieved his knife from where it had been lying in the foot well on the passenger side, unfolded himself from behind the wheel and finally located the lever which jerked the driver’s seat forward. ‘Don’t make a noise. Get out and do exactly as I tell you.’ I noticed that although he had exhorted me to silence he wasn’t bothering to keep his voice down. Wherever we were then, there was no help to be had within shouting distance.

  In my mind I held on to Alan’s question. ‘Do you want to die?’ he had asked me. This implied a choice, offered hope. It must mean that he wasn’t going to kill me. It meant that he intended to set me free. He was going to release me at some out of the way place so that he could make his getaway. He wasn’t going to kill me as he had killed the others. He still had feelings for me, still cared about me – at least a little. The same loyalty or decency, or whatever it was that had brought me hundreds of miles to help him was now compelling him to let me go. After all, if he had wanted to hurt me he had let plenty of opportunities go by already. He’s going to let me live, I told myself. Oh, please God. Let me live.

  It was not that I deliberately resisted Alan’s instruction to get out of the car, but my body would not obey quickly enough and he was unwilling to wait. Holding the knife in his right hand, he used his left to drag me out. The car headlights were illuminating a section of the big building in front of us, but I sensed that there was a wide open space in the darkness to our rear. My legs were giving way but Alan did not require me to walk far.

  ‘Up against the car,’ he instructed, shoving me face first against the rear window, so that I felt the harsh cold of the night time metal through my clothes. There was a momentary pause – a faint chink like one stone moving against another – and then he grabbed my hands, pulling them behind me. I instinctively held them as far apart as possible while he tied my wrists.

  He must have brought some sort of cord in the pocket of his trousers, and too late I realized that he must have put the knife down, because he could not have tied my hands while he was holding it. Again I cursed my slowness – another possible missed chance. But what could I have done against him with my legs so wobbly that I could hardly stand up? And anyway he was going to let me go. Hadn’t he as good as said so?

  I was aware suddenly, sickeningly, that he was lingering over the hand tying. When he was done he pressed hard against me, pinning me against the car with my hands forced against his crotch, his mouth obsequiously close to my ear.

  ‘We could have had such fun together, poppet. I could have given you the full treatment, just like the others, but I’m afraid we just don’t have the time.’

  In that moment, I understood the fear and horror of all those other girls, because it was mine. In that moment, it was no longer possible to deceive myself any longer. I understood that he had no intention of letting me go.

  He stepped back, retrieving the knife from the ground in a single movement and giving me a shove to indicate that I was to move around the vehicle.

  ‘Get in.’

  He opened the passenger door to its full extent and held it while I slid inside awkwardly. Then he leaned across me and fastened the seat belt, which seemed an extraordinary gesture under the circumstances. After that he bent down and put the knife on the ground again while he tied my ankles with another thin piece of rope. The interlude gave me time to contemplate my fate. Would I feel it when the knife went it? How quickly would it all be over?

  I knew it was futile to attempt a head-on struggle with him. Instead, keeping my legs as still as I could, I began to covertly manoeuvre my hands behind me. In my first year at senior school there had been a craze for playing a game which involved Houdini-like escapes from hands bound by knotted school ties. The trick was to position the bonds against the slimmest part of one wrist, splaying out that hand while flattening the thumb of the other hand as much as possible and gradually wriggling free. It was many years since I had attempted anything of the kind and although the ropes around my wrists were not particularly tight, the task was unquestionably more difficult when restrained in the front seat of a car, sweating and terrified.

  Having bound my feet, Alan stood up and leaned over me. I could hear him breathing hard and for a few seconds I entertained the strange thought that he was going to kiss me, but instead he gave an abrupt, unnatural laugh. Then he took something else from his pocket – not a rope, but something which I initially mistook for a piece of rag. He leaned inside the car again and in the split second before it engulfed my head I realized it was a bag.

  I tried to scream, but the bag instantly crowded into my mouth. It was made from some kind of cloth, which meant that I ought to be able to breathe, but I was convinced that it would choke me. Every breath I took came up short against the fabric and each time I exhaled clouds of hot air got trapped against my face. I was aware that Alan had slammed the door, walked around the car and climbed back in alongside me. He started the engine again and I was jerked back into my seat as he put the car in reverse, then forward as we changed direction.

  I had never realized how much we rely on sight to keep our balance in a moving vehicle. As we sped onward my body was subjected to the vagaries of every twist and turn in the road. The seat belt kept me in place, but with my hands and feet bound and no way of knowing what physical adjustments to make, I was completely disorientated. The bag was made of sufficiently thick material that even the glow of the headlights was eliminated. Trapped in this stifling blackness, I gulped frantically, desperate to find air, convinced that I would surely be suffocated.

  On and on we went, Alan taking the snaking roads at speed with every change of direction thrusting me one way and another, thudding my left shoulder against the side of the car or crushing my hands into the small of my back, each involuntary movement emphasizing my helplessness. Dreadful though this was, I tried to stem my increasing panic. I told myself that there must be enough air to breathe; otherwise I would have already lost consciousness. A dead person’s shoulder could not possibly hurt so much when it met the side panel of a Ford Fiesta. Against all the odds, I gradually managed to regain a measure of self-control. I tried to brace myself against the worst excesses of Alan’s driving, but holding myself rigid was difficult and the motion of the car had already tossed me about so much that I had to fight off waves of nausea. If I was sick inside the bag I might choke on my own vomit.

  In the loathsome blackness I lost all sense of time, had no idea how long or how far we had travelled. One of my knees was throbbing from some earlier encounter with a hard object. Motion sickness threatened to overwhelm me. It was
becoming an act of physical concentration to keep myself from retching. My ears buzzed with the engine’s intermittent groans and roars and my thoughts descended into a mere mantra. Please stop the car, please let me out.

  Eventually I was aware of us slowing, then making a left-hand turn on to what must have been a rough track, for the car began jolting me abruptly from side to side, tumbling my head one way and another, until we finally came to a standstill. Alan turned off the engine and silence descended. Surely, this was in every sense the end of the road?

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  ‘Well, here we are at journey’s end.’ His voice startled me – low and conspiratorial, suggesting close proximity, his mouth perhaps no more than a couple of inches from my ear. It was the first time he had spoken since putting the bag over my head. Words normally associated with cheerful arrival now invoked terror.

  ‘Please, Alan … I’ll do anything …’ My pleading was muffled by the thick cloth, and my voice so tremulous that I doubt he was able to make out the actual words.

  ‘Do you know what, Jenny? This is all your fault – and do you know why? Trying to be too clever. That was your problem. I liked you so much better when you were stupid.’

  I made some more desperate warbling noises, but he continued relentlessly.

  ‘I would never have hurt you. I could have done, you know. Any time I wanted to. I could have taken you down to the cellar and dealt with you, the way I dealt with the rest of them …’

  I began to whimper frantically, like a whipped dog. I did not want to know what he would have done to me. My mind had flown back to the time when I thought I heard a cat in the cellar. The thought that those sounds had been made by some terrified girl, probably bound and hooded as I was now, someone who had already suffered at Alan’s hands and was very soon going to die, made me shake and retch. I remembered as if it were only yesterday his teasing suggestion that he ought to make me go down there and see for myself …