‘Life is full of opportunities,’ he said in a calm voice. She could feel his hot breath on her face, and there was a sour smell of garlic and wine. He reached forward and felt around in the right-hand pocket of her trousers and then the left, allowing his hands to linger on her thigh and between her legs. ‘Ah, here we are.’ He took out the packet of co-codamol painkillers, removed the foil sheet of pills and started to pop the tablets out into his cupped hand. ‘Six. Is that too many? Too few?’ he said. ‘No, one more for luck,’ he said, popping out another tablet. He leant closer and Erika tried to shrink away. With one hand he clamped his fingers on her jaw and squeezed her mouth open. He shoved the pills into her mouth. He then put his hand over her lips and nose. She tried to fight, but he tilted her head back, the pills slid over her tongue, and as a reflex she swallowed. The pills stuck in her throat, and he tilted her head back and squeezed harder, making her swallow the rest.
‘Now, let’s have a look at your phone,’ he said. He held the screen up to her face, and she saw her reflection in the phone camera; bloodshot eyes, a swollen lip and a bloody, bruised nose.
‘I’m going to put you in prison,’ she tried to say, but her voice was thick and distorted. He ignored her. The facial recognition camera registered her face and her phone unlocked. Colin stood up and started to scroll through her phone.
‘Who did you tell you were coming here? Is Crane a colleague?’ he asked, holding up the phone. Erika could feel the room spinning, it was like she couldn’t grip hold of the floor, and it was hard to focus on the screen. ‘It doesn’t matter. Even if you did tell everyone you were coming here, they are going to think you left here by yourself.’
Colin finished writing a text message and pressed send. Erika must have blacked out, because when she came to Colin had changed into casual clothes, and he was wiping down her phone on his shirt, removing his fingerprints. He slipped it back in her pocket, pressing his fingers between her legs again.
He sat back and regarded her for a moment, and checked his watch. ‘How are those painkillers working out for you?’ He placed his shoe on top of her injured foot and pressed down. Erika felt a dull, far-off ache. In the back of her mind she knew that it should be hurting like hell, and she should be fighting what he was doing, but she felt like she was floating and it was all very far away, like looking at things through the wrong end of a telescope.
Colin came close and reached out to her. He hooked his arms under hers, then everything turned upside down. The room swivelled and the floor and ceiling switched places. He’d picked her up and thrown her over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift.
The wooden floor in the office bobbed and swayed, and then she was in the hallway, and there was a tinny thud as he moved down the stairs carrying her, swaying. The motion lulled her and she felt her grip on consciousness loosening.
And then they were at the bottom of the stairs, and there lying in a crumpled heap was Cilla. One of those sparkly green shoes lay in the corner of the hallway, and one was still on her other foot. Her head was bent back at an angle, and she lay still.
‘Poor Cilla, I always warned her about those silly shoes on the stairs,’ said Colin.
Erika tried to focus on Cilla’s body, willing herself to do something, but everything faded away for a moment.
She didn’t know how much time had passed, but she was in the driver’s seat of her car. They were underneath the car port. She was angled forward, leaning half out of the seat with her chest pressed against the steering wheel and her face close to the windscreen. Colin was leaning into the door and he was tucking her feet under the seat so she was kneeling. Her feet and ankles were bent back. She tried to move, but she couldn’t. Her limbs were heavy and wouldn’t move. Colin closed the driver’s door and she watched as he walked around the car, and opened the door to the passenger side. He leaned in and took off the handbrake. She could see he was now wearing leather gloves and a baseball cap. She watched as he stepped away and closed the door and walked out of the driveway to check the road, looking up and down.
He came back and opened the driver’s door. She felt the steering wheel shift and move under her chest as he turned it. Gripping the steering wheel in one hand and the outside of the door, he pushed the car off and rolled it out of the driveway. The steering wheel moved under her to the left as he turned onto the road. He pulled up the handbrake and the car stopped with a jerk.
Erika could now see the steep hill through the windscreen. It was a dead straight hill, almost like a steep drop, all the way down to the main road far away at the bottom. She tried to lift her arms and move her legs, but they were trapped under the seat by her heavy shoes.