Home Before Dark (16 page)

m: glad you good make it,
FREND
mrjest in time four the show … all live, all action
m: stay tuned, and taste the realty …

'Who are you?’ I tried typing back, but there was no space
available for a reply. It was a one-way conversation.

27

In the mirror above the wash-basin, darkly entwined, they
looked like one person. Ward stood with his feet planted apart,
shoulders braced against the top bunk to counter the swaying
motion of the train. Sam couldn’t move unless he did. Almost
a foot taller, he held her tightly between his thighs with one
arm around her neck and the other wrapped around her
chest, pinning her arms to her sides. When he spoke (in that
hoarse cadenced whisper she heard first in Florence), she
felt the rise and fall of his diaphragm against her upper back.
They faced the open bathroom door, Ward talking into the
mic and following his utterances as they appeared after a
brief delay on the screen of his laptop.
He seemed totally engrossed, not taking any notice of her.
In her terror, barely able to think, Sam knew she had to
find some way to attract attention. The steward had removed
her and Linda’s passports so they wouldn’t be disturbed in
the middle of the night – he wasn’t coming back, but if she
could just reach the bell he’d said to use in case they needed
anything.
She tried to recall its exact position on the wall above the
bed; it was by the light switch. But she needed to be sure.
She remembered groping for the door-handle, the silky folds
of the robe she’d given Jimmy getting in the way … oh
God, no.
A stifled sob of despair brought a flux of vomit up into
her mouth. It had just struck her: Ward must have killed him
too. The spew swilled against the back of her teeth and met
the duct-tape barrier. Afraid of choking, she swallowed,
siphoning air through her nose in panicky little snorts.
She felt Ward’s hold on her neck relax, then tighten again.
Her breathing returned to normal, or near enough. She
wanted to cry but then her nose would run and block her
sinuses. Jimmy wouldn’t have stood a chance. He only thought
the best of people. Fighting back tears, knowing she should
never have involved him, Sam felt a surge of anger. She was
damned if she’d let this sick fuck do the same to her. She
was going to get out of here, beat the odds, survive.
The train would be arriving at Linz any moment now. She
just had to hang on a little longer.
'Open quote I want you to imagine comma close quote,’ Ward
said into the mic in a flat emotionless monotone, 'open quote that your hands are my hands comma as I undress her comma unhooking her bra and new line releasing those big playful
puppies comma new line sliding her panties over her hips dot
dot dot damn comma but she’s hot exclamation mark close
quote.’
He paused and sucked his teeth.
Dislodged in the struggle, Sam’s glasses were still hanging
from one ear; if she tilted her head, she found she could read
the text on the screen of Ward’s laptop. She realised he was
using voice recognition software – with limited success judging
from the mangled phrases that scudded across the page but
she had no idea why, or for whose benefit he was recording
this garbage, or where it was heading.
He cleared his throat and continued in the same dull tone,
'Open quote lower my mouth to her tits comma teasing
the nipples new line mmmmm yes comma kneeling before
her comma new line pressing my face into her wet kitty new
line breathing in that musky scent new line oh god dot dot
dot I don’t know how long I can hold it new paragraph open
quote!
'Capitalise hard yet comma good buddy question mark close
quote!
What if this were a prelude to rape, Sam thought? It would
at least buy her some time. But as she listened and watched,
waiting for the ordeal to begin, she realised it wasn’t going
to happen. The lewd descriptions her attacker was dictating
to his laptop didn’t match what he was doing. Ward wasn’t
touching her in any sexual way. He wasn’t aroused. It was
just talk.
She didn’t know whether to allow herself to hope, or prepare
for the worst.
'Stop UsteningP he said.
When he spoke again close to her ear, addressing her for
the first time, the words did not appear on the screen.
'You wouldn’t listen, Sam,’ he said softly. 'I can appreciate
your wanting to help Sophie, see justice done. But this isn’t
what it seems. I warned you not to go stirring up the past.
You just wouldn’t listen.’
Sam made a gagging sound, rolling her eyes and jerking
her head sideways towards the bunk where her Toshiba lay
in the shopping bag.
He was watching her in the mirror.
'I know, honey,’ he said, 'I know what you’re trying to say.
We’ve become close these last few days, haven’t we? Friends
almost. Believe me, I’d love to just take the damned thing
and leave, but we’re too far down the road now for turning
back.’
He lifted the end of the sentence into a question.
Sam shook her head violently, made incoherent pleading
noises for him to remove the gag and let her speak. He didn’t
react. She felt the vibration of her cell phone again against
her hip and wondered if Ward had felt it too through her
bones.
'Sam, I’ll let you in on a little secret … I truly loved her.
Does that surprise you? You have any idea what it’s like to
love someone? Her daddy can take some credit for bringing
us together. But, you know, I do believe we were always
intended.’
As the train leaned into a curve, the driver braked suddenly
and then accelerated, throwing them off balance. Ward reached
out to steady himself and for a second let go her arms. Long
enough for Sam to tug her cell from her belt and press Talk.
She barely got the phone up to her taped mouth before
he caught her wrist and prised it from her fingers, sending
her last link to the world spinning to the floor.
She screamed. Inside her head it sounded more like a high
pitched moan. Please God, she prayed, let someone hear me.
He crashed a latex-gloved fist into her face.
Sam fell sideways onto her bunk. Her glasses came off and
a gush of hot blood flooded her nose. Ward grabbed a handful
of her thick hair and dragged her spluttering back up onto
her feet.
She fought him, trying to get a knee to his groin, stamping
down on his foot with a kitten heel, scrabbling at his hands
as they closed around her throat. He didn’t flinch, but steadily
pushed his thumbs deeper into the soft hollow of her trachea.
She looked up at Ward’s face, her frantic eyes beseeching
him now, but saw only the twin blue squares reflected in his
glasses. The tiny cursors blinking.
He was back in front of his laptop screen.
'Listen to me . . I

I came and went from my desk, unable to stay still, my heart
thumping in my chest. I was getting an intermittent signal
from Sam’s number, but no answer. The only hope was that
she’d gone back to the restaurant car, or maybe the bar for
a nightcap, and left her mobile in the sleeper compartment.
All the while I kept a watchful eye on the white house.
The reception I’d been invited to attend hadn’t materialised.
Not that I knew what to expect. There was nothing 'live’
about the webcast. I was aware of Ward as a controlling presence
at the other end of the terminal, but all the signs pointed
to the show having been pre-recorded. By now I was too
worried about Sam to care.
The misspelled obscenities read like dispatches from an
adult chat room and barely held my attention. But the familiar,
insinuating way Ward spoke to us (I assumed there were other
viewers), the 'my hands are your hands’ business, gave me
an unpleasant feeling.
It never crossed my mind that he was speaking to a
computer, or I might have guessed sooner what was really
going on. I just thought the clumsy mistakes were deliberate,
as if he wanted to make the subtitles for the shadow-play in
the upstairs window sound authentic and urgent.
The silhouetted avatars were now engaged in lovemaking
explicit enough to give spectators the frisson of virtual
voyeurism. As the commentary turned into dialogue, I got
the inescapable feeling from the action onscreen that something
terrible was about to happen.

fc oh god, help me
fc i’m almost there
m: pushing back the hood and flicking the little pink pearl fast and hard so it
feels like … the rush of fluttering wings
k: oh my god
fc i’m almost
THERE
... starting to tighten
m: rolling you over so now I’m on top
fc please just… DO IT TO ME
m: fuckkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkinggg bitch i let go now and fuck you with all i’ve got
… pounding into you… biting your tits, neck, ear… wild as a fox
fcoh god just a little more
m: slip my hands around your neck
m;you … like ML, you little slut?
fc oh god … oh my god yes
m: she’s got the
GLOW
on her… eyes shut, rosy mouth hanging open, nostrils
flared… hasn’t a clue what’s coming next
m: feel my hands around your neck start to tighten…

I jumped up and walked away from the desk, my mobile
clamped to my ear – Sam’s number was ringing. I willed her
to answer, but while I concentrated on the sound, faint and
drowning in static, I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen.
I lost the connection and hit redial.
I came back, sat down heavily in my chair and lit a cigarette.
I tried to reassure myself that what I was watching was just
fantasy, a game of make-believe – that it wasn’t real. But the
dialogue had left the comparatively innocent actions of the
couple in the window far behind. I followed the subtitles onto
the screen with growing revulsion and then horror because
suddenly I knew that the words represented what was
happening now, live, right in front of my eyes.
It was as if to read was to become complicit in the act.
Sam’s number started ringing again.
Come on, pick up, I said aloud, you must pick up.

m: i want to see your face, look at me
m;you dare turn away… look at me, bitch
fc what are you doing… no, don’t… your hurting!
m: her sift white neck, mmmm, oh boy, lak a swans. . . I tell ya she is dee
licious.. .ya smeel the feer in her? you kin jest taste it…
m: pressing my thumbs into your throat… lok in my eyes
fc please stop … no, I can’t breathe
m;the gates of heaven… open… taste… words with an iron shape
fcNO,
PLEASE
... JESUS!
WHAT
ARE
YOU
DOING
... DON’T

Sam’s mobile answered.
Under the pounding and clatter of the express I heard the
elusive sounds of a struggle, punctuated by a muffled whinnying
squeal that sent shivers through me. I was too late.
There was a sharp thud, more scuffling, and then a dreadful
sucking gurgling noise like a dentist’s aspirator drawing off
saliva, after which everything went quiet.
He was strangling her, strangling her to death.
I started yelling into the phone … I don’t even know what
I said, or if anyone heard me. I felt as if something precious
was slipping from my grasp and nothing I could do was going
to stop it hitting the floor and smashing into a thousand pieces.
I was still yelling after we were cut off. I remember thinking
this is what it must have been like for Sophie.
The hotel phone rang. Morelli didn’t identify himself, he
just said the Austrian police would be boarding the train at
Linz in two minutes. I was almost certain of what they’d find,
but I couldn’t tell him.
I kept hoping they might get there in time.
Her vision became blurred before she started to black out.
Sam imagined she could feel the train slowing down. Saw
the street lights of a town flicker by behind the blind at lengthening
intervals, as if they were stopping, coming into a station.
Then realised it was only the darkness steadily gaining.
In the last moments of consciousness, she retrieved an
eidetic memory of childhood, a colour-saturated snapshot of
herself, Samantha, aged seven, standing between her parents
on the sunny veranda of their vacation home near Lake
Michigan .. . Mister Bluebird on her shoulder . . . everything
satisfactual.
Absolutely sure this is the freest moment.

I glanced at the screen and saw the woman give her lover a
tender kiss before withdrawing from the window. The man
lingered, leaning out over the sill and looking up at the night
sky, as if admiring the stars, then with a lifelike yawn he
closed the shutters. The party was over.
A few moments later the light in the bedroom went out.
Softly, the piano (having fallen silent earlier) struck up
again, this time playing the accompaniment to Brahms’
'Lullaby’, a female voice singing in the original German, 'Guten Abend, Gute Nacht . .
The front door of the darkened house swung open.
I moved my cursor into the entrance, double-clicked and
instantly found myself in the parlour with the two armchairs
in front of the cabinet TV that Sophie had drawn in her
sketchbook. Only here the little screen was live and, instead
of the love scene from Breakfast at Tiffany’s, showed the
interior of a sleeping car.
I watched in fascinated horror as the jumpy, grainy picture
drifted in and out of focus while the video camera panned
down from the top to the lower bunk. Then, as the second
half of the haunting lullaby filled the room, the cam pulled
slowly back to reveal Sam’s body sprawled on the floor of
the compartment.
She was fully clothed, just as Sophie had been, lying with
her head resting on her shoulder, one bare arm extended
towards the window. It looked as if she’d been trying to reach
her mobile, which lay under the ladder to the upper berth
only inches from her outstretched fingers.
'Morgen friih, wenn Gott will,Wirst du wieder geweckt.’
The grotesque irony of the lyric was no doubt intentional.
'Tomorrow morning, if God is willing, you will wake again
. . .’ The angelic voice dipped and’ soared while the cam
closed in on a glazed eye, the protruding tongue, then cut
to a dark stain on Sam’s dress. I turned away.
It was then I noticed that there was somebody in the parlour
watching TV.
The only light came from the flickering screen, but it was
enough to show that one of the chairs was occupied. All I
could see was the back of the viewer’s head and his hand
on the armrest. I realised with a dazed, sickened feeling that
the figure was meant to be me – sitting there, enjoying the
show.
I tried to move forward but the cursor wouldn’t let me.
Then, as if he’d seen enough, 'Ed Lister’ aimed the remote
at the cabinet and switched off the TV.
My laptop screen faded to black.