Hot Ice (27 page)

‘In a basement somewhere in London.’

‘Are we alone.’

‘Yes, always…at night.’

Sienna can’t stop crying. Chris stands up and topples. Perhaps it’s the darkness that makes her feel disorientated, or the remains of the injection. She crouches on her hands and knees and crawls towards her friend.

‘Everyone’s looking for you. It’s only a matter of time before they find you…us.’ Putting her arms around Sienna, she clutches her shivering body and rocks her to and fro. She’s lost a lot of weight. She feels so frail.

‘You’re skin and bone, Sienna. The sooner we get out of here the better.’

‘There’s no way out,’ Sienna says, sounding so desolate. ‘No windows. No locks or handles on the door, no air-conditioning vents big enough to crawl through. A rat couldn’t escape from here.’

‘We’ll find a way. Promise. Please stop crying. That doesn’t help at all.’

‘I’m crying because you’re here,’ Sienna says between her sobs. ‘You’re here because of me.’

‘No. That’s not true. We’ll talk about it in the morning. My head aches so badly.’

‘We’ll die here.’

‘None of your morbid fatalism, Sienna. Your father’s looking for you. So are the police. We have friends, too. I have a close friend in American intelligence. He’ll be looking for us. However long it takes us, weeks… months…we’re getting out.’

But that might be too long. They have to keep Sienna alive to force her father to buy their cheap diamonds. But there’s no such qualification for her. How long has she got? she wonders. Just as long as it takes them to find a way to dispose of her corpse.

Bright neon light floods the room bringing terror. Chris bounds to her feet, instantly alert, backing against the wall. She listens, but there are no footsteps. She blinks several times as her eyes adjust and she takes in her surroundings. Walls and ceiling are all white, the floor plain cement. There are no windows, but there is an inset steel door that appears to slide sideways along the wall outside their prison cell. She’s seen doors like this before. There’s a washbasin and tap set into one wall and at the top of this wall a small air-conditioning unit. No escape route here. Two mattresses lie on the floor, two buckets stand beside them. Nothing else. Chris looks around for a possible weapon, but there is none. Other than breaking down a wall, there’s no way of escape. The walls look thick and she has no weapon or tool…not even a penknife.

Across the room, Sienna is curled up foetal-style
on her mattress, facing the wall. Chris makes an effort to stop shaking and hide her fear. Sienna sits up and turns towards her. She is so thin, she’s almost unrecognisable. Her skin is sallow, her hair hangs dishevelled and unwashed over her cheap, outsize pyjamas, supplied by the kidnappers, Chris assumes. Deep brown shadows surround her sunken eyes and she looks defeated. Chris remembers Sienna as she once was…her eyes shining with joy and affection. It’s as if someone put the light out behind them. Dead eyes! But Sienna has been alone here for two and a half months, enduring total darkness every night. She looks dazed and pathetic and Chris’ heart goes out to her. No wonder she has lost hope. Sienna looks fearfully over her shoulder and pushes herself hard into the corner, burying her face in her hands.

‘It’s me, Chris, Sienna. Don’t you remember how we spoke in the night?’ Chris kneels beside her friend and puts her arms around her, hugging her tightly. ‘Everything’s going to be all right.’

‘Chris,’ Sienna mutters. ‘My best friend…I know I’m dreaming.’ She turns to the wall and sobs quietly to herself.

I’ve got to get her out of here…fast.
Somehow
. God knows how, but I’ll manage, just like I used to years ago. Chris can still hear the headmaster’s voice, authoritative, but slightly ironic, saying:
‘I’m making you responsible for Sienna. From now o
n,
you and she will share a dormitory…show her the ropes, and look after her.’

‘I thought you were dead,’ Sienna sobs. ‘Chris. I’m so sorry. I saw you were shot and I thought you had died. Is it really you? It’s my fault you’re here and there’s no way out. You followed me, didn’t you? You followed the van to find me. I knew you would if you could.’

But that was two and a half months ago. Sienna has lost track of time and no one could blame her?

‘I’ve been investigating these criminals…I had just about caught up with them, but they caught me first. They brought me here.’

Chris sits close beside Sienna and stares into space, but her mind is going over every possibility. Air comes in through a vent in the ceiling, but it’s far too small to use for an escape. There are no windows and she reckons they are underground. She has to know all that Sienna has learned about this place and she has to know it fast, but her friend seems to have lost her grip on reality. She’s fantasising. Sienna needs a crash course in facing up to reality.

‘Sit up and talk to me. I need to know everything you’ve learned about this place.’ Sienna shrinks into the corner and curls up in a ball. After a few moments of shocked incredulity, Chris grabs her and forces her to her feet, hating herself as she manhandles her friend.

‘We’re going to get fit. We have to be fit to
survive. Start walking up and down. Come on. We’ll do it together.’ She pulls the tottering girl across the floor and back again. Sienna pushes her away and throws herself on her mattress, so they start again…and again.

At ten a.m. the steel door slides open. A man stands there holding a large handgun which points directly at her, not Sienna, Chris notices. He says: ‘Bring your buckets and hurry up.’

They walk in single file down the smooth, white passage to a door at the end where a woman in floral overalls waits for them. She’s sweating, perhaps with fear, and Chris can smell her sweat. She looks sixty, but Chris reckons she might be forty-odd. Her face is deeply lined, with brown sun spots on her skin. She takes a cloth out of her pocket and wipes her forehead as she follows them into the washroom. The door swings shut and the three of them are alone. Chris looks around at the three showers, a row of six toilets, and a row of hand basins leading to a large sink.

‘Hurry up,’ the woman says in a strong Middle Eastern accent.

Sienna goes into the toilet.

‘Wash your bucket in the sink,’ the woman tells Chris.

‘Can I shower?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because they’ve turned off the water.’
They
, not
we
, Chris notices.

‘This is not a good job for you.’ Chris smiles at the woman, trying to reach out to her. ‘You will be blamed for what they are doing. Are you Turkish?’

A flash of anger shows in her eyes, but she doesn’t reply.

‘Yes, I can see that you are. You’re a long way from home. Why get mixed up with these evil people?’

‘I am Armenian,’ she says, pointing to her chest dramatically. ‘Turkish!’ She spits on the floor to make her point.

‘My name is Christine,’ Chris says. ‘My friend is Sienna. What is your name?’

Her eyes narrow suspiciously. ‘Marta,’ she replies. ‘No more talking. Hurry.’

Despite the steady hum of the air conditioning, which has a larger inlet vent here, the air smells dusty. So where are they? A crazy suspicion is becoming more believable every moment. She hugs it to herself as they are escorted back to their cell, where two plates of porridge and bread wait on the floor. The steel door closes silently.

‘Will they come back later?’

‘At four this afternoon. They’ll bring another meal. It’s always the same.’

The toilet fittings are old and shoddy. It’s possible that this is one of London’s many underground offices, created by the War Office to
protect top officials working in London throughout the blitz. Her suspicions are becoming stronger each moment. She nibbles at a piece of bread and leaves the rest.

It was David who had boasted about his three basement levels that were built as bank vaults and later converted into safe living quarters during the war. What else had he boasted about? His Spanish door and light fittings. They looked just like these. But she’d suspected this, hadn’t she…ever since Kelly described Visser and his fatal charm. There’s something else, too. Only Rowan knew she was returning on the British Airways flight from Gaborone. Rowan might have told David, if he called, but he wouldn’t tell anyone else.

But still, she can’t be sure. Her suspicions seem unreal…insane!

Their first day together ends with the flick of a switch. Stygian darkness falls upon them. Chris gets up and sits beside Sienna on her mattress. ‘I have a torch in my bag. They left it there, but they took my mobile…naturally. I’ll keep the torch for emergencies, except that I have to see what time it is.’

‘Seven p.m. Thank goodness they let me keep my watch. The lights come on at six. I’m stiff all over,’ Sienna complains.

‘You’ll soon get back to normal. Now start talking. I want to know everything.’ Sienna seems
to grow stronger as she talks. She even manages to poke fun at her guards. She is fed twice a day and taken to the washroom by Marta. Once a week she gets a shower. Then two armed thugs carry a chair in and take her photograph as she holds up a newspaper showing the date.

‘So to recap, Sienna, there appear to be no exits, other than the air-conditioning vent in the washroom, and that is too hazardous, although I might attempt it if we get desperate.’

‘Aren’t we desperate?’

‘Far from it. We are about to attack the weakest link in their chain, which is, of course, Marta, the Armenian woman. She’s frightened of them, and of us. She’s resentful. She hates her job and I guess she’s an illegal immigrant, so she’s underpaid and scared of being caught and sent home. She has no love for her employers. They’ve bullied her into doing this, probably because she’s dispensable and I’m sure she knows this. At least that’s how she seems to me. We must play upon her weaknesses.’

‘She has every reason to be scared, but you make it sound so easy. It won’t work. She’ll tell them.’

‘Be positive, Sienna. People are looking for us. My friend, Jim, is in intelligence. We must try to get a message to him, via Marta. Your father has a team of detectives looking for you. The police have been looking for you ever since you disappeared.’

‘They’ll never find us. We’ll be locked up here for
years.’ She starts to cry and it takes a long time to comfort her.

‘Sienna, listen to me. They will find us if we send them clues. Marta will be our messenger.’

‘But we don’t know where we are?’

‘I think I do, but I must be sure. It’s up to you, Sienna. I want you to relive your drive here, every second, from the moment when they threw you into the van on your wedding day until you arrived here. Will you do that?’

‘If you think it will help. There isn’t much to remember. Will it take long?’

‘Does it matter? We have until morning before the lights switch on.’

‘OK. Let’s go.’

As Sienna relives her terrible fear and her nausea, Chris tries to work out the probable route the kidnappers took when the van raced off with her friend locked inside. ‘Blank your mind. Meditate. Concentrate on your breathing. Relax, Sienna. Relax…’

Sienna’s breathing is becoming deeper…is she falling asleep?

‘It’s your wedding day, Sienna. You are driving to the Dorchester. Your car stops at the traffic lights…’

‘It was so damned hot and I was so thirsty.’

‘And then…?’

It is surprising how much Sienna remembers once she begins.

‘I fought…my poor dress…it was shredded.’

‘You fought well.’

‘I was reaching out to you…but then they shot you.’ She gives a short sharp cry. ‘You were spinning around…then they slammed the doors. They tried to hold a pad of ether over my face. I fought them off. I was screaming and shouting. The driver slammed on the brakes and we all fell on the ground. I pushed the pad into my dress.’

‘That was well done. What was the van doing?’

‘A U-turn.’

It took a long time, but they had all night. Slowly she coaxed Sienna into remembering.

She had heard a brass band and marching feet as they swung to the left.

‘Buckingham Palace, clearly…it must have been,’ Chris says.

‘So many twists and turns. I started to feel so sick.’ Sienna describes them all and her nausea which lead her to vomit over the floor.

Chris starts to get excited when Sienna describes someone shouting through a loudspeaker and people clapping, while the van stopped three times and curved to the right and then to the left.

‘It has to be Trafalgar Square. So you’re driving down towards Charing Cross,’ Chris says excitedly.

‘I didn’t think of where I was going. I was so sick. I think it was caused by the ether stuffed down the front of my dress, but I know I heard church bells ringing.’

‘St Martin’s in the Field! Now we’re getting somewhere.’

‘We’re driving down a slope. I was prone on the floor, lying in vomit. I slid forward, but then the van went up an incline and I slipped back. There were men shouting quite close beside the van. They seem to be unloading crates. I screamed. “Help me! Help me!” One of the goons kicked me hard.’

‘Smithfield market. I knew it. I knew it.’ Chris jumps up with excitement.

‘The van turned left…its brakes were squealing…down and round and down…a door clanked open and closed behind us. It was the most terrible sound I had ever heard.’

‘Underground parking! Everything points to the basement of Trans-Africa Diamonds, I’ve been here before. To think that I was just one floor above you and neither of us knew. You’re a star, Sienna. I know where we are. It’s just as I suspected.’

‘How will that help us?’

‘Thank God they only took my bag and mobile and never thought to look inside my anorak. There’s a special money pocket inside. We’ll send a message and this is how we’ll do it.

Chris shares her meal with Sienna. The following morning, when the goon escorts the Armenian woman to collect their plates, Sienna’s food lies untouched on the floor.

‘She has a fever,’ Chris tells Marta. ‘She didn’t eat
yesterday either, but I ate her food. She needs a doctor.’

‘No doctor. Not possible,’ the woman says in her deep voice.

She follows Chris to the lavatory, leaving the gunman guarding the passage outside their cell where Sienna lies prone.

‘I’m afraid, Marta. What if Sienna dies. Later, when the police find me, you could get life imprisonment for murder.’

‘This dirty business…what has it to do with me?’

‘You look after us. You’re responsible for us. The boss will say it was your fault.

‘We’re grateful to you for looking after us, Marta. You should have a better job. Here’s a hundred pounds. Please buy us aspirins and something for the flu and keep the change for your extra trouble.’

That is the first of many whispered messages, carefully worked out by the two girls at night.

‘I have no more cash. Please take my credit card, Marta. Here’s the number…cash one hundred pounds…Sienna needs some items from the chemist…I’ve made a list…don’t take more than this amount or the machine will keep the card…of course my salary will go in at the end of the month.’

Whatever she takes, Jim and the police will trace the cash withdrawals. They will know that she is being held somewhere in London. Marta might even cash the money nearby.

A few days later, Chris’ card is retained when Marta returns to the cash dispenser and attempts to obtain a large amount of cash, although she never admits to this.

‘Nevermind, I can give you a cheque…take it to my bank… A thousand pounds for you, because you are kind to us…’