10
I stiffen at the sound of the door unlocking, trying to slow my frantic breathing inside the hood. I keep my hands held low behind the chair, as if they’re still bound. I can’t leave without Mia. By the time I’ve raised the alarm and police have arrived, Dominic would be long gone, taking her with him.
The big internal door swings open on rusty hinges, closes again. The sound of a bunch of keys dropped on the table. Something heavier put down beside them with a metallic thud. The gun? A rustle of plastic bags. The tearing of a cardboard seal. A soft rustling.
Then silence.
The cut in the sole of my left foot throbs with pain. Have I left blood on the floor? I curl my feet under the chair to hide the injury, my tights torn and sticky with blood. With a jolt of fear I think of the broken glass on the tiled kitchen floor. If Dominic goes in there, he’ll know straight away that—
Mia cries out. Once, twice, little squeals of protest.
I sit up straighter, mustering all my restraint not to rise up out of the chair.
‘What are you doing to her?’ I say, a surge of panic tightening my stomach. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Shut up,’ he grunts.
Mia cries out again, a high-pitched yowl that feels like a knife to my heart.
He swears under his breath.
I plant my feet, get ready to tear off the hood and launch myself across the room at him.
‘Leave her alone!’ I shout.
Mia’s fallen silent.
I flinch as he pulls the hood from my head, blinking as my eyes adjust to the strip lights again.
‘Calm the hell down.’
‘What did you do to her?’ I try to lean around him to see the baby. ‘What did you do, you bastard?’
He stares at me for a moment, his bloodshot eyes on mine, grime caked into lines of tiredness around his eyes. Then he moves away, pulling out a chair from the conference table and collapsing back into it.
‘She’s fine.’
Mia is still there on the sofa cushions, blinking up at the ceiling, little legs kicking contentedly as she sucks on the corner of her muslin cloth. No obvious signs of injury.
I feel my limbs relax slightly.
Dominic takes a remote from the table and turns on the big flat screen TV on the wall, flicking channels until he finds the BBC News. Footage of a cricket match. He took my watch when we first arrived but this must be the end of the national bulletin, so it’s coming up to 6.30 p.m. He mutes the sound, pops open a can of Red Bull and takes a long drink, watching the silent images on the screen for a minute before turning back to face me.
‘I still don’t get it,’ he says. ‘I don’t getyou.’
‘What’s not to get?’
‘Where you fit into all of this. If you were police, the place would be surrounded by now.’
I shake my head.
‘I’m not police.’
He thinks about that for a moment, glancing back to the TV again.
‘So whoareyou?’
‘I’m no one. I met a woman on a train and she asked me to hold her baby for a couple of minutes while she answered her phone.’
