On his feet, Aleksey Primakov wasn’t so easy to hurt. Every time she came at him, he kicked at the stick, catching the swings on his ankle and legs, but she was tiring and crying and telling him over and over it was all his fault. Finally, she sank to the ground, cradling the stick in her arms. He was panting so hard, trying to breathe through the blood and pain, he didn’t try to speak to her. He didn’t dare sink to the floor again, so he just squatted slowly and hung his head, concentrating on not passing out.
Eventually, he heard her stir, and straightened, rising painfully to his feet, a wave of nausea and dizziness making him stagger.
She looked up at him towering above her, a figure of skin and blood. “Not so talkative now, are you?”
“No.”
“Do you want these sandwiches, or not? I can’t just wait on you hand and foot, you know.” She slowly rose to her feet as well, considered the blood-covered hockey stick in her hands, and then very precisely replaced it on the shelf. “I have to go now. When I come back, we’ll have some coffee together, yes? Like you wanted.”
He didn’t reply. She nodded anyway then rolled the thermos over to him. He watched it settle at his bleeding feet, and then she was gone.
Very carefully, he eased himself to sitting. Adrenalin had worn off, and he was shivering very badly. He examined his legs. He was fairly sure one anklebone was chipped, and the joint was swollen already to almost twice its size. He was unable to run fast now so needed to factor that into his escape plans. He heard a bitter, choked laugh and realised it was his. What plans? So far, he’d only managed to piss the psychotic bitch off enough for her to beat him up. It would’ve been funny if it hadn’t been so painful. He began to wonder if his extensive experience of torture was, in fact, utterly useless. His victims hadn’t been tortured by apsychopath. As he’d once told Ben, he was the sanest person he knew. He’d tortured people because they required torturing. He hadn’t particularly enjoyed it (although some of it had its perks). He was completely sane; she was not.
He’d clearly gone about this all wrong.
When his nose stopped bleeding, he tried to eat the sandwiches, but he couldn’t bend over without feeling as if his brains were going to explode out of his nose, which was unnerving enough to endure the hunger. He was fairly sure she’d cracked his cheekbone as well because he couldn’t see out of his right eye. It left him unnervingly blindsided. But he found that interesting, as he appeared to be slightly short sighted in his left eye. He’d never noticed before. He played with that for a while, testing his vision on the things in the shed until the thrill wore off. He felt sick again. At least vomiting relieved the monotony of the pain and the cold. Clearly another severe blow to his head hadn’t helped his earlier concussion.
Eventually, he thought about the thermos. He’d dismissed it at first, being so handicapped with his hands behind his back, but by getting it secure in the folds of the blankets, he was able to grasp it quite easily. He even managed to screw the top off and set it back down. Then came the puzzle, how to actually drink the contents. He was desperate enough to knock it over and lick the coffee off the floor, despite the other spills surrounding him, but he wanted to leave that for a last option. Finally, he settled on grasping the thermos with his knees and then slowly rolling back until…scalding coffee poured all over him. He cursed and dropped the thermos, and that was when he had his first real glimmer of a plan. He picked it up between his feet and slammed it into the concrete floor. Pain shot through his damaged ankle, but the thermos didn’t break. He twisted around and got hold of it with his hands and then repeatedly smashed it, again and again. Who knew thermoses were so strong? But he didn’t have much else to do, so he continued. Unfortunately, the strain on his wrists where they were held tight in the shackles began to make them swell. He could feel the metal digging in, the skin rubbed raw and bleeding, but he continued to bash the thermos. Eventually, he reversed it and hit the open rim, and then it cracked. It was hardly dramatic, but he felt it. He increased the pressure, and finally it broke apart. He had a weapon and, more importantly, something he could use to rip the blankets. Now, though, his shoulders ached so much he could hardly move his arms, and his wrists were so swollen he couldn’t feel his hands, so it was very hard to get a blanket and a piece of glass and try to tear strips.
He couldn’t do it.
All he succeeded in doing was slashing his fingers with the glass until they became so slippery he couldn’t hold it. He had to stop. What was the point anyway? He saw now there was no chance he’d be able to fashion a rope and lasso a tool. And what would he do with one of the butchery tools anyway? He needed to remove the shackles, and he couldn’t see a hacksaw or use one if he could. He lay back on the filthy blanket and catalogued his new injuries.
It wasn’t looking good.
§ § §
Ben didn’t sleep that night. He replayed the interview at the police station. He wasn’t wallowing now in self-pity about their accusations. He knew who he was. He’d remembered what he was to Nikolas. He’d found himself again. Somehow, in the act of shaving his head, he’d rediscovered the person who’d first attracted Nikolas, who’d held that complex, enigmatic man captive all these years, held him orbiting his young lover like a moon around a planet of greater gravity. He was the centre of Nikolas’s life. He only replayed the interview to make his own list of people he’d met on Aeroe. It was more extensive than he’d thought.
There was Ingrid, of course. There was Alan Lund and his family. Alan had three sons, Jacob, Tomas and Otto. Jacob was married to Brigit. He’d met Hans the caretaker, and Ben mentally put a star alongside his name, because Hans also knew Nikolas, had, in fact, been working for the Mikkelsens before Nik was born,andHans knew Ingrid. There was the library, Gabby, Amy, and the other librarians. He’d met the vet when he’d taken Radulf to check a sprain, but he couldn’t remember her name. He’d shopped extensively at the market and knew the stallholders by sight but not by name. He’d had a drink with the girl in the tourist information office once when she’d been in Alan Lund’s and recognised him. He knew the men who read Ingrid’s meter and fixed her boiler, but he’d only met them once, hardly likely to create the kind of psychosis that would lead to this. He couldn’t think of anyone else. There was the agent who’d rented them the lodge—but he’d only stood alongside Nikolas while the arrangement had been made. He couldn’t remember evenspeaking. They’d seen a couple of builders about the renovations…He mentally reviewed his list. Over twenty people. He tried to narrow it down and deleted people if he couldn’t remember their names or if he’d only met them once. Eleven people left. Had Nikolas met anyone he hadn’t? He’d been to his villa without Ben, met other builders possibly? There was Anna, the mystery girl in the restaurant, but Ben was fairly sure this had just been a joke. Perhaps all the women he’d met on Aeroe had known very well why he hadn’t taken up their offers of comfort. Maybe seeing him with Nikolas that night had only confirmed what they’d gossiped about together. It was not something he was comfortable considering. He didn’t like admitting to his best friend Squeezy that he was gay, let alone women he flirted with.
He fell into an uneasy sleep that wasn’t really sleep at all. He hadn’t eaten or slept normally since the day Nikolas had gone. All he did was dream. Fortunately, before he fell into one of his frightening, disturbing dreams, he felt someone shaking his arm and stirred, groggy and confused. “Mum?” His mother was standing over him. She was smiling and clasping her hands with delight. “I’ve found him for you, Benji. He’s safe.” Ben rose quickly from the bed and went out by the stream where it divided the garden from the moors. He felt disorientated, peering back up at the house looming above him, but then he remembered he was only four so of course the house would be bigger. Nikolas was standing looking up at the tor, idly dipping his toe into the pond they’d built. He turned when he heard Ben, crouched down and opened his arms. Ben sank into them and it was all warmth and security. Nikolas was rocking him and humming a song which was his mother’s favourite and which she’d sing to him every night before he went to sleep. Ben knew he should pull away, knew he should tell Nikolas he wasn’t a baby any more, that he didn’t need to be held so tightly—
Suddenly a knee jammed into his ribs, and he sat up with a cry.
Squeezy grunted and mumbled, “You wanking, Diesel? Shit,” and turned over.
Ben lay back very carefully. His heart was pounding. It’d been so real. He’d found Nikolas. Hismotherhad found him. He swallowed deeply, biting his lip. You didn’t cry when you were sharing a bed with another man.
§ § §
In the morning, before the others arrived, he asked Ingrid, “Can I cross you off my list of possible suspects?”
“I think so, dear. I can’t even imagine what Aleksey would be like if you held him against his will. He’s bad enough when he’s being petted and spoiled by everyone. I suspect he’s rather cross by now.” She chuckled. “Oh, yes, whoever took him didn’t know him very well at all. Actually, if I was going into the kidnap business, I think I’d take you.” She patted his knee. “Well, after Radulf, of course.”
“So, you think he’s still al—I mean…”
“We can’t say, Ben. That’s for God to decide now.”
“He doesn’t believe in God.”
“Well, it’s a cliché, but let’s hope God believes in him. Now, I’m going to make you some breakfast, and you’re going to eat it. And didn’t we both think I’d never have to say those words? Is your oddly named friend up yet?”
Ben nodded. “He took Radulf out for a run about an hour ago. He said they had secret operational business to conduct.”
“Are you going back to the lake today?”
“What else can I do? I know it’s a complete waste of time, but if I don’t do it, I feel like he’d have been in just the next place if only we’d kept going.”
