Sue for Mercy - Veronica Heley Page 0,31

hedge in the dark, I was enfolded, arms and all, in the stifling harshness of a rug. I dropped my bag to fight it, but strong arms held me immobile. I kicked and heard someone wheeze and curse, but whoever it was didn’t release me. Then something hit me on the head, and I felt myself daze and go limp. I woke half lying, half reclining on the muddy ground. My right arm was being pulled upwards. I fell on my back in the mud. Something hard and round was pressed into my chest. I tried to push it away but something round my wrists tugged them forward.

I focused my eyes in the beam of a powerful torch... the rug was on the ground beside me, and I was clasping a big shopping basket to my chest. My wrists had been bound round it and to its handles; the rope then went round my upper arms and was secured in the small of my back. Someone... a big, bold-featured man with dark, receding hair, was fiddling with my skirts. He bound a leather strap around my legs, just above the knees.

I opened my mouth to scream, even though the alleyway was deserted and the long gardens on either side would insulate the sound from anyone in the houses around. A wedge of cotton wool was thrust into my open mouth while someone got a grip on my hair from behind and jerked my head back. My eyes watered. I choked. I couldn’t free my tongue. A scarf was tied tightly round my head, wedging my jaws open and the cotton wool well back over my tongue. A balaclava helmet was pulled over my head, leaving only my eyes visible. I was hauled to my feet. I nearly overbalanced, but the dark man steadied me.

Sobbing as if distraught, a strange woman picked up the rug, draped it round my shoulders and secured it in place with a safety pin. It fell nearly to the ground around me, hiding my bonds.

Still wheezing, the man began to push me down the alley away from the house. The woman picked up my handbag and ran ahead, delving into it. I tottered and fell, making animal noises, trying to thresh myself free. He didn’t speak. He cuffed me over the head twice, deliberately, and then urged me forward with a boot at the back of my bound knees. I was crying myself when I stumbled, the very picture of a decrepit old lady, out on to the road which lay parallel to the one in which I lived. My own Mini was waiting for us, with the strange woman in the driving seat. My handbag was under the dashboard. The man pulled forward the passenger seat and pushed me into the back of my car, and as he did so, Julian and Bianca Brenner drove up behind us. The dark man gave them the thumbs-up sign, and we drove off in convoy.

I remembered Charles saying, “It’s only a very slight risk!”

The Brenners’ house was large and well kept. Both cars were driven into a cavernous garage. I was hauled out, my legs were unstrapped, and I was propelled through a covered way into a well-designed kitchen and from there into a big living-room. By that time I was in a bad way. Bianca looked amused as she stripped off the balaclava helmet and scarf, and teased cotton wool from my mouth. Julian went straight to an enormous old French armoire in one corner of the room, and began pouring out drinks. Behind me a grandfather clock ticked, and chimed eight; the clock Charles had told me about, that he had heard chiming when he was being tortured in this very room. A wide oak staircase stretched up in front of me to a minstrel’s gallery which gave access to the master bedroom and the guest wing. Architect-designed, the living-room was the focal point of the house. From floor to ceiling was nearer fifty feet than forty, and the illusion of height had been enhanced by the glitter of a chandelier suspended on chains from the oak-beams of the roof far above. A pair of giant settees flanked the fireplace, upholstered in chintz, a colour television set lurked in one corner, and the floor was smothered from wall to wall with a heavy white carpet.

“Robert here!” The dark man was at the telephone. He was wheezing still, and feeling in his pocket for an inhaler. “We’ve